JT,

Here’s what we believe: The Nicene Creed.

“I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds; God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God; begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made.

Who, for us men and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary, and was made man; and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; He suffered and was buried; and the third day He rose again, according to the Scriptures; and ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of the Father; and He shall come again, with glory, to judge the quick and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end.

And I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of Life; who proceeds from the Father and the Son; who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified; who spoke by the prophets.

And I believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church. I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins; and I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.”

Those are the “A” issues.

Here are what we consider to be “B” issues:

The age of the earth
The gender debate (egalitarian vs complementarian)
Mode of baptism
The Lord’s Supper/Communion (open vs closed)
Headcoverings

This is not an exhaustive list, but I hope it demonstrates how we distinguish “A” and “B” issues.

I find it mind boggling that Davis felt the need to write such a manifesto over a woman deacon. I didn’t even think that deacons truly had spiritual authority over the church; I thought they were merely service oriented positions within the church. Is this more unbiblical thinking?

So is the elevation of secondary issues becoming the norm for Southern Baptist churches? If so, then I am glad that I no longer attend an SBC church…

Very high testosterone, isn’t it?!!

Davis and his church need to figure out the biblical job description of deacon first. Then they can discuss who should fill the position.

Not a perfect article but a well researched thoughtful piece from Tim Keller of the PCA:
http://byfaithonline.com/page/in-the-church/the-case-for-commissioning-not-ordaining-deaconesses

Dee,

I agree with you that one needs to enter a relationship with a particular church eyes wide open. For example, I believe in infant baptism but currently attend a church that teaches believer’s baptism. I don’t make waves about this because I knew what I was getting into.

My point about a biblical job description has to do with Davis’ statement that “…and deacons in our church’s polity were treated as spiritual leaders with shepherding responsibility for the flock.” Was this particular church really investing this deaconess with spiritual authority? Or, were they acting in accordance with the Holy Spirit who was blessing the congregation with a particular woman who was expressing a spiritual gift? My sense is the congregation was just recognizing this woman’s giftedness and giving her a position in line with her gifts. I doubt the congregation was trying to cross some theological line and grant “spiritual authority”.

If he really thought there was a theological problem, there are LOTS of other ways to deal with it. You don’t go for the “call to corporate public repentance” and then act like the persecuted theological champion. You’re just a poor leader who could have handled the issue with a great deal more charity.

Just some thoughts. I don’t know the whole situation but even after it all went down…why write about it? Oh, right, so you look like a championing theological public figure and it helps you sell books. Whatever.

This comment is quite insightful. The Donner Party was the settlers who moved west who resorted to cannibalism to survive when they were trapped by the snows in the Sierra Nevadas. I hope I am reading your intent correctly but I do agree that it seems as if Christians are devouring one another in the name of “perfect” secondary doctrine. — Dee responding to Eagle

Or Stalinists having it out with Trotskyites over Party Ideology (Kirov having been assassinated early on in the fray) and devouring Russia in the process.

The whole Donner story is quite amazing. I have been to the museum up there as well. It is built where they bunkered down for the winter – under enormous amounts of snow. A packed lunch !!! In their case even knowledge and sound wisdom wouldn’t have helped in such an unpredictable environment – somewhat akin to many churches today that seem to be in the hunt for something other than the Good News of the gospel. Fame and fortune appear to be the name of the game for now in much of main stream church.

Evie,
The PCA is complementarian and its churches only have male elders. Within that framework, they have been having a very useful discussion about females serving as deacons. The conversations that I have heard coming out of this have been insightful and deal with many overlooked portions of Scripture.

Scott,

I prefer to the term hierarchalist over ‘complementarian.’ It seems nice and thoughtful that they are commissioning women as deaconesses.

Dee and Deb:

Great list on essentials. But I don’t think that the jousting with the commenter was necessary because you perceived that he had some other agenda. Even if he, she did, what does it matter?

We always benefit from being clear with one another, regardless of the motives of others.

Also, I think that you should include the nature of scripture as an “A” issue.

I really am shocked to think that someone would buy Bilzekian’s (sp?)weak argument that because the passages in the epistles say that the men qualified to be elder must manage their household’s well and their wives and children that those verses mean either (1) all elders must be married and have children or (2) the only other option is that those verses should not be used to support not making women elders because the verses are not universally applicable.

The church has been around for 2000 years. I suspect that this has come up before – like in 50 A.D., 150 A.D., 250 A.D, 350 A.D., 450 A.D., 550 A.D. … you get the picuture.

Do people like Bilzekian think they are clever and that they just stumbled upon something great that has been hidden from Christians for 2 millenia?

Interestingly, the people who have been most dogmatic and ugly about this issue in my experience and at our church have been people who believed in ordaining women.

They were not very gracious and refused to even attempt to understand the argument that was against their position, and they left the church when they were unable to mount a political style charge to get us to go in that direction.

I would have to say that in common discourse (books, the internet) I see more uncharitable things said about people who believe in the traditional view, the majority Christian position by far, than I do about people who take a more recent, late 20th century view, on this issue.

But that’s just my experience.

Surely we can agree that there are uncharitable people and extreme methods on both sides of this issue.

Eagle –

If you’re interested, Friendly Observer had a thoughtful response to you @432 over at SGM Survivor.

That should rattle a few cages.

“The church has been around for 2000 years. I suspect that this has come up before – like in 50 A.D., 150 A.D., 250 A.D, 350 A.D., 450 A.D., 550 A.D. … you get the picuture.”

The church also went through this thing called the Dark Ages where the light of civilization went out and things because very barbaric. Much of the real history of the church was lost.
One of the lights that went out during the Dark Ages was the idea of women in leadership. There are mosaics of such women being discovered, women apostles, pastors, and teachers.

Leadership and hierarchy became very ugly things in the Catholic Church during the Dark Ages, the Medieval, and even the Renaissance. Leadership was determined by corrupt men who bribed, cheated, and murdered their way to the top of the hierarchy of the church. Men such as these were not interested in sharing power with anyone, least of all women.

Your appeal to history doesn’t mean much to people who actually study the history of this sort of thing from more than one, biased angle.

Ah, but I know from you that it was read during the Jewish Passover long before that. 🙂

Sorry, I guess the reason I brought up those dark ages is because, even now, my son and I are watching the first season of a European produced, “The Borgia, fear and faith”. This took place during the Italian Renaissance rather than the Dark Ages. But, wow, they were not very concerned whether or not their punishments were cruel and unusual. Dang, they weren’t even much concerned about them being just, as it, the actual guilty one got punish rather than just finding some poor schmuck off the street to punish to appease the crowd and give a show of being just.

Deb, thanks for your answer.

Anonymous, thanks for your comment.

Dee, if you comment to Anonymous at 2:48 is meant to say that I posed as your husband and left comments on the blog all I can say is that I have never done that and would not do that. Obviously it is your choice to believe that or not.

Dee:

I would block him from posting. Yuk!

Mara, true. 🙂 But the actual nuts and bolts of the allegorical approach came to full development in the medieval period for Christians. The Bloch’s note that the work was considered a literary masterpiece of poetic Hebrew and may have had a number of typological readings presented in its favor to get it canonized whether or not the typological reading was entirely defensible from the text. So it is important to stress that the Song of Songs is considered extremely difficult to interpret because it’s literally one-of-a-kind. So it invites mystical readings in part because so many Hebrew terms are tricky and because people were shy about the vagueness about whether or not the two lovers were actually even married at any point in the song.

“Church practice for 2000 years should count for something”

Of course~! Wars, forced conversions, popes, reading scripture against the law unless a priest, burning at the stake, political conversions, drownings, infant baptism, sacraments as means of Grace, church state, magistates to arrest you if you don’t attend, etc, etc.

It is amazing there are any Christians left when we study the reality of church history. I believe there has always been a remnant of true believers outside the evil institutions they called churches throughout history. The victors always wrote the history.

Looking to church history is a huge mistake. Look to the best teacher, the Holy Spirit. Not the man made systems that got a ton of things wrong and hurt many people.

On deacons and Paul’s writing.

In the early ’80s, the Ohio SBC church in which I was a deacon assigned the deacons to study the question of whether a woman could be a deacon, because women were being nominated but not allowed to proceed to election because of the language in the church bylaws.

There were 25 of us, and we spent the better part of a year, identifying all of the potentially relevant scripture passages, sorting them into common themes or ideas, going back to earliest available language, debating each, etc. We came to the conclusion that (1) there were women who served as deacons and as elders in the first century church, and even as apostles (Junia, Mary Magdalene); (2) there was at least one (and likely several more) woman who was a teacher of a man (Priscilla teaching Apollos); (3) Paul was generally writing to a specific person or congregation about a specific situation (as the first century church consultant); (4) Paul also wrote a very strong statement )”In Christ, there is neither male nor female” suggesting that all distinctions between the genders in church service should disappear; and finally (5) if a congregation, in prayer and led by the Holy Spirit, elected a woman to be deacon (or pastor for that matter) it would clearly be the result of God’s will at that time and place.

Women will stand before God as to how they used their talents in service of God’s kingdom. I, for one, do not wish to be there with fingers pointing at me saying, “he did not allow me to use the gifts you gave to me to further your kingdom, but stood in the way over his misunderstanding of the scripture.” I would prefer to be dealing with my own burden, not the blunder of having denied someone else the place of service God prepared them to fulfill.

Good grief.

Church history is not nearly as black and white as some of you are claiming.

WTH, mad props to you! I appreciate the balance.

Muff – I have been confounded by Paul for many years and think he was brilliant but also somewhat obsessive. [ cue raised eyebrows ]

WTH – I think “seems to” is the operative phrase here. It’s just less wildly meandering than some of the others. 🙂

This isn’t facebook so I can’t hit the “like” button on your comment, Appalled. But if it were facebook, I’d hit “like”.

These are all interesting comments.

I like the reference to Chrysostom. There’s one reference, though addressing another passage in scripture.

We were discussing the interpretation of Paul’s espitles and the meaning of his qualifications for elders. Some appealed to a particular interpretation and the argument that Paul did not actually say that elders were to be male.

So, it was suggested that church history as a place to look to see how the church has interpreted and applied these verses. That seems reasonable to me.

The responses reveal feelings that go beyond hermeneutics, which is often the case on this issue and others when it comes to the Bible.

We first have agree on what the Bible is. If we don’t agree on that, there is no sense discussion what passages mean with any fervor because they are not controlling anyway.

Some responses question the truthfulness of scripture by suggesting that the canon is tainted. Others question the very nature of Paul’s writings and whether they should be followed.

I have found that these questions often lurk in the shadows of discussions regarding various passages. It’s glad to have them out in the open.

I would be more interested in the general question of whether the Bible is accurate/authoritative in the first place.

Is the Bible the word of God, or men who were trying to understand what God was doing and wanting them to do?

And even if the Bible is the word of God in some sense, aren’t there parts that are less than that? Should we take Paul’s instructions to the church on elders or deacons the same as the Sermon on the Mount?

Arce’s approach is the classic fundamentalist approach. The Bible (some passage) is true, so let’s figure out what it means to us. This is straightforward, though his belief that he will be pointed at in heaven and condemned because he did not let them do this or that seems super condemnatory. That is a by product of fundamentalism, I suspect.

Any thoughts?

Look, 1/2 or more of Paul’s writings are either quotes from some letter he received or his tongue in cheek or sarcastic statement of their false doctrine or practices. “Head” and “covering” are merely the easiest examples in which to see that. First, it is plum ridiculous to believe that a woman needs some male to oversee her — she has the Savior and the Holy Spirit as her guides — we do not need an earthly mediator. If you believe that, go joint the Catholic church where you can have plenty earthly mediators.

Second, the ancient use of the word translated as “head” is best understood as “source” not boss or overseer, as in the head of a stream. And Jesus is clearly the source of everything, as He was in the creation and all things were created by Him (Read John chapter 1).

While I am not a “Red Letter” Christian, I do believe we need to take the recorded words of Jesus very seriously, as well as his practices, and, if there is an apparent contradiction in Paul’s writing, we must resolve it by modifying our understanding of what Paul said, not what Jesus said!!! And Jesus was about the most egalitarian man around in first century Palestine!

“I really am shocked to think that someone would buy Bilzekian’s (sp?)weak argument that because the passages in the epistles say that the men qualified to be elder must manage their household’s well and their wives and children that those verses mean either (1) all elders must be married and have children or (2) the only other option is that those verses should not be used to support not making women elders because the verses are not universally applicable.”

Actually, I think there are some *very* conservative Churches of Christ that put forth that very argument.

Bridget2 – Junia.

“The above being said, the 12 apostles that Jesus chose were men. No women in this group. Were women among the wider circle of 70? (Maybe someone out in blogosphere knows.) Is there significance in these facts? The more you think about these issues – the more the questions continue”

Of the 12, there were no Gentiles. So, what do you make of that…should we be worried? Actually, the 12 map to the 12 tribes. Also, Judas was one of the 12….on purpose…to fulfill prophecy. Better to be MaryM than Judas. Do you not agree?

There are many characteristics of the original 12 that are very interesting. They were NOT the cream of the crop from a Jewish perspective of that time. In fact, they were somewhat uneducated by Rabinnical standards and would have very little standing with their own Jewish leaders. Only Paul was the cream of the rabinnical crop and he was sent to the Gentiles who were not impressed! The irony of how God works.

Knowing the scandal the women who followed Jesus around caused with Jewish leaders, can you imagine if one of the 12 was a woman?

But think of it. We KNOW that both Chloe and Lydia had churches in their homes. Take another look at Romans 16. Jesus did overturn things but he worked within that culture. He was not political. He did it in very profound ways such as appearing to Mary first….she became a “witness” which was not allowed in the 1st century. Women were not believed to be reliable witnesses. There are a ton of ways, Jesus upset the apple cart of Patriarchy if people open their eyes and stop proof texting and using bad interpretations as they do with “authenteo” in 1 Tim 3.

No, we affirm Junia as an apostle, on that Paul calls outstanding among the apostles.

Or even a Roman… (I’m hitting “post” too soon!)

Mara – yep!

Hit “post” by mistake – Numo? 🙂

Back to the questions. Are there more scriptures affirming women or disqualifying them from functioning? If there are more that affirm than disqualify, then why are the fewer taken more seriously than the many?

There is a reason it is called “proof-texting”. It is the search and selective use, usually with skewed interpretation, of scripture to sustain someone’s preconceived notion of what the scripture should say to back up their particular religious, cultural, political, economic, etc. philosophy, position, choice, etc.

Actually prophecy isn’t necessarily preaching at all. To be sure, it could include preaching but that’s not what the prophet’s actual job was or what the nature of prophecy entailed. Huldah didn’t do a whole lot of preaching, did she? Elijah ranted quite a bit but he didn’t write anything down. How many folks remember Gad the seer? Why did David pray that Ahithophel’s wisdom would be turned into foolishness? If the apostles had all sorts of amazing gifts of insight and spiritual authority why was it Agabus who predicted the famine? Was that a preaching role? A few things to keep in mind.

Arce:

Your approach is a fundamentalist approach, even though you would not call yourself a fundamentalist because you see yourself as more open and such. I get that. But the approach is that of a fundamentalist.

Several of you have addressed me as talking about the 12, the 70 etc. That was Bridget’s comment, not mine.

Someone suggested that Jesus chose 12 men because having a woman would have been too scandalous.

Really?

Jesus, afraid of scandal because he did not hang out with the right crowd?

I don’t remember that part in the Bible.

To me, Paul seems hopelessly contradicting on the subject of women.

He writes that in Christ there is no male, no female etc.

Then, in other places, often in the same book, he gives all these instructions about what men are to do, what women are to do. They are not the same instructions. He even says that the husband to wife is the same as Christ to the Church. He never says that in reverse.

And then he writes these instructions for elders, deacons etc. that even people on this post are not sure about what he said. Some even suggest that the translation may be bad.

So why get so caught up in what Paul said about any of this anyway? Why not just do our best today, and treat everyone equally. Why do we have to organize churches according to some confusing instructions from the first century? Is that what the Bible is for anyway?

Almost all English translations have a similar issue. When there are multiple possible meanings of a word or words, they default to the KJV choice. The KJV was intentionally slated toward hierarchy to preserve the divine right of kings (i.e., King James) and to avoid suggesting that a woman could be a queen except as a consort to the king. So hierarchy is built into the choices in almost all English translations and the slant is less steep in the original languages.

Wow, Arce– I hadn’t gotten the idea of your fundamentalist approach before. If anonymous (having trouble keeping the anonymi straight) is right about you in this, then call me a fundamentalist, as well.
My church recently published a position paper about deacons, and I brought up what I think one of the most egregious KJV translations, I Tim 3:13, where they have have 8 words, I believe, for “serve”. Then of course they don’t translate, but transliterate serve, I assume to make the “office” sound more official. Then lots of the modern versions repeat themselves “serve as deacons”.

Anonymous Dec 10 2011 4.43pm

ALl those contradictions in Paul disappear if you agree with a majority of modern textual critics that the pastoral epistles were not written by Paul and were early Catholic forgeries written to consolidate ecclesial power. 🙂 In this perspective Paul never wrote Titus, 1 & 2 Timothy, Ephesians, Colossians, 1 or 2 Thessalonians.

But,Wenatchee, that is exactly what prophesy meant in the first century!

“He even says that the husband to wife is the same as Christ to the Church. He never says that in reverse.”

Well it cannot be the same exactly because the husband is a human. Don’t take a metaphor too far. Take it in the context of 1st Century marriage. it helps to read the Talmud and even the Roman household codes to know what he meant in that culture. Marriages were arranged, women were rarely seen and were treated like a piece of property. They were there to have sons. (There are some exceptions to this of course of bold women like Lydia, Phoebe, etc who had means. Some Roman women did have means and their position was different because of that)

it really does help to get a picture of life for the average women in 1st Century Roman empire whether Jewish, Roman or Greek.

The other part is don’t leave out Eph 5:21. So many do. It applies to all of us. To submit for the 1st century wife was a step up the food chain ladder. Because the word for submit in the Greek is a voluntary submit. She was considered chattel legally.

paul is saying, she is worth dying for. She is worth sacrificing for. In the first century, you just got another wife. Girls were a dime a dozen. There was even a place where female babies were taken to die in many Roman cities if the father did not want her.

Wenatchee the Hatchet:

Good point. How many on here might be relieved of the strained contortions if they saw things as you do.

Dee:

Great point.

Dee:

You mentioned Tim Keller. He pastors in NYC, right?

What does his church do with regard to deacons, elders etc.?

You say that he thinks Junia is a female. This all started because of Paul’s instructions about elders. What does Keller say about that passage? Do you, or does anyone on here, know?

I’m not actually suggesting Paul didn’t write all the letters traditionally associated with him, in case anyone wondered about that. Furthermore, that assumption does nothing to make the canonical texts easier to interpret or apply.

People need to remember what remarkably ad hoc letters Paul wrote. Problems in Phillipi wouldn’t be the same as problems in Galatia. Paul displayed a very obvious habit of tailoring his theological concerns and agendas in each letter to addressing the problems in particular churches. He was not setting out to systematize a theology the way a lot of post-Reformation Christians have wanted him to.

And unless we’re going to just go full bore with the Marcionite approach we have to contend with the canon as it is. We also need to work as much as possible to deal with the texts within the contexts they were written for as best we can.

For instance, this is why on the issue of prophecy we need to not only consider Paul’s comments on prophecy but also look at that within a larger context of what prophecy was in the ancient near East not only in the Hellenistic milleu but also within Jewish thought and prophecy as described in the OT writings. Prophecy was not preaching, it was much closer to a kind of judicial advisory role to field cases that couldn’t be resolved to existing legal codes or in cases where military policy was not easily settled.

Once we keep in mind this understanding of prophecy as a role supplementing what would be known to be limitations in the comprehensive scope of divine revelation in a given context it establishes both the subsidiary role of prophecy to accepted law codes on the one hand and the necessity of treating legitimate prophecy (however that was defined) as of necessarily divine status on the other. That prophecy was considered necessary in the OT was a concession to the reality that the Torah was not comprehensive in dealing with all points of case law or policy. That there were prophets mentioned in the NT can be taken as an extension of this observation.

The apostles and particularly the Twelve may have had authority where passing on the teaching of Jesus was concerned but they were not the ones to necessarily perceive that a famine was coming that could wipe out Christians via starvation if someone didn’t prepare for the famine. An apparent contradiction between women not being permitted to teach or prophesy in public without a head covering doesn’t contradict seven daughters of Phillip the evangelist having the ability to prophesy if we jettison a preconception about what “prophecy” has to be and instead look at the overall conventions of prophetic function or of oracles within the Jewish and Hellenistic traditions.

In other words, people should go back and look at Deuteronomy 16-18 and Samuel-Kings to find out what prophets are described as actually doing before attempting to conflate “prophet” with “preacher”. That prophet=preacher nonsensse is something a bunch of pastors would like to be true but the Catholics and Orthodox have a more accurate understanding that the pastor/presbyter role is more of a priestly role. The job isn’t to present oracles or ideas on what we should do in the absence of a comprehensive address on topic X by a biblical text, it’s to preserve and pass on what has already been taught. Under normal circumstances the prophet is the LAST person you’d go to in Israel and that would be after the local chieftains or judges in the tribe couldn’t adjudicate a case; went to the priest to consult about a difficult matter; and the priest found the case difficult to adjudicate on behalf of someone in a tribe or for a judge or military leader. Judges or kings could field military situations but were not necessarily able to know which battles they ought to jump into.

I don’t think anything is gained by assuming Paul couldn’t have written the letters credited to him. It basically just turns into an exercise in a kind of Marcionism where today’s “real” Christians can magically discern what was “real” Christianity thousands of years ago. All that’s gained in that process is confirming the unbridled egotism of anti-Popes who claim to have more authority and insight into the past than even a Pope would claim.

Establishing what the early churches actually did invites questions about how far and how strict an application would be involved. For instance, certain people claim that a pastor must be married and have children. The first bishop of Ephesus, according to an early Christian tradition, was Timothy. We do not know that Timothy was married and whether he lived up to the checklist some people insist pastors/presbyters/bishops must live up to. If we take 1 & 2 Timothy to be authentically Pauline and take seriously the early Christian tradition that said Timothy was first bishop of Ephesus then we can surmise that the overall gist of the pastoral qualifications passage is about the character of the elder overall and not an obsessively literal bullet-pointed checklist.

In fact if we take Pauline authenticity for both epistles to Timothy it invites the question of why Timothy hadn’t managed to appoint any of those suitable teachers or bishops in Ephesus by that time. If Revelation sheds any light on Ephesus it may be that Timothy ended up being bishop (according to early tradition) because the married men in that area didn’t pass muster for the doctrinal or ethical criteria Paul laid out. If Timothy weren’t married would he be qualified to be an elder at Ephesus? Well, if Paul wrote two epistles charging Timothy with the task of appointing elders why would Timothy be qualified to appoint elders but not be qualified himself. People can miss the forest for the trees on that subject. You’d think two epistles from Paul would be enough to establish credibility for a pastoral role for Timothy. 🙂 Considering that Paul said it’s better for the unmarried to remain as he was (i.e. not married) there’s no reason to assume that a church leader had to be married but that if the church leader were married to have just one spouse. Polygamy was rarer at that time than others but it was still known to happen.

There is no simple answer to what the early church did. Anabaptists would like to claim the earliest church didn’t baptise infants but proving that involves trawling through a ton of patristics and obviously not everyone agrees that’s what trawling through patristic authors proves. Some people claim that if you go to the NT use see no institutions but that’s a tendentious assumption that ignores why deacons were appointed in the first place.

Technically speaking there were no boundaries on what diakonos or ministers/servants could do in the church. Remember Stephen and Phillip went on to become evangelists and prophetic preachers for the Lord.

The Greek word diakonos is an all inclusive word meaning serving in anything, whether physical or spiritual doesn’t matter. It was not originally an office (they did not think in terms of offices) but a description of ministering in the body of Christ. It was mostly used in reference to ministering spiritually in some manner. When we serve one another in the manner of a servant as Christ said we should do, we are performing a spiritual work. That spiritual work can and should include helping an older woman weed her yard, as much as it does mean visiting the sick and praying for them.

Matt. 20: 25 But Jesus called them to Himself and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them. 26 Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. 27 And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave— 28 just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”

“The point again is not about automobiles not being in the NT.

Someone (Bridget, I think) said that Jesus did not appoint a woman among the 12. (nor did the apostles when Judas was replaced).

Someone says that doesn’t mean anything because Jesus did not appoint any Gentiles.

My only point is that the entire book of Acts deals with that very point, among others.

There is not a similar narrative or doctrinal treatment with regard to women. You get there, obviously, by saying women are like automobiles. The church is free to do what it wants to reach the broadly stated goals of Christianity – that men and women are equal. I get that
”

Anonymous, I really do not get your point. We only hear about a few of the 12 in Acts. Most of them are never mentioned again. Again, I recommend reading the Household codes of 1st Century Roman Empire and the Talmud/Mishna to get a feel for why something like Romans 16 is so counter culture. You can google, right?

Way up there Anonymous said, partly in response to my having quoted Bilezikian,

“Interestingly, the people who have been most dogmatic and ugly about this issue in my experience and at our church have been people who believed in ordaining women.”

The reason for this is because the reason for excluding women from positions of leadership including teaching and preaching in the church is rooted in sin.

If Anonymous would like to take a friendly stance toward excluding women from ministry on the basis of gender alone (sexism), then he is taking a friendly stance toward the acceptance of sin.

The whole point of being a Christian is having a testimony which declares the freedom we have in Christ as a result of having been set free from sin.

The clear distinctive between someone who is in Christ and somneone who is in Adam is that we in Christ have been delivered from the power and the dominion of sin. Sin – shall not have dominion over us!

The Apostle Paul understood this clear distinctive. He knew what it was like to to live under the bondage of the law and of sin. He understood what freedom in Christ meant for every believer – slave or free, Jew or Gentile, man or woman.

I grant you that you are ignorant of your position, Anonymous, and that you are among those who are not living in the good of those born by the power of the Spirit.

I was bewitched by SGM for too long and do not suffer fools who promote a false gospel like they do, or who assume this issue of excluding women from ministry is some silly hobby horse. There’s nothing silly about sin. Unless you think of Jesus hanging on the cross as a silly thing. Many do.

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

At that time the son born in the ordinary way persecuted the son born by the power of the Spirit. It is the same now. But what does the Scripture say? “Get rid of the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with the free woman’s son.”

Eagle I love the way you use sarcasm to prove your point 🙂

Despite all evidence proving that men and women are equally responsible for sin, going all the way back to the garden, there are still those that choose to believe women are so different that they cannot be trusted with as much authority to rule and in same capacity as men.

That women must be kept “under” the spiritual authority of men.

And when I say that this is an issue of sin, I’m sure you know I don’t mean that women should usurp the man’s role because of his lousy track record. There are plenty of people who would use a ‘spirit of Ahab’ as a cause for female leadership, placing women who lead (or who desire to lead) in the same category as a wicked person (such as Jezebel). That the only reason women end up leading is because the men were too weak, etc.

What I mean is that it is SIN that leads to human lordship and hierarchy in the church, where Jesus expressly prohibited it. And it is SIN that leads to the exclusion of any child of God from full participation and the freedom to exercise their spiritual gifts, given without partiality.

As I’ve mentioned before it’s important to go back to Deuteronomy 16-18 as a judicial corpus and get an understanding from there what the judicial/political role of the prophet was in Israelite society. If Jesus, who was the ultimate prophet and who was perfect, had come and everything was all hunky dory in terms of “all truth” as a reference to all possible knowledge Paul wouldn’t even have needed to write 1 Corinthians 11-14 at all. It is necessary to consider that prophecy and prophet existed both within the OT and NT frame of reference because though divine revelation in scripture was considered comprehensive for proper worship it was not ocnsidered so all-encompassing or comprensive as to include every possible contingency. In Psalm 119 the scriptures are regarded as perfect. Yet that which was “perfect” did not preclude the emergence of a New Testament or the coming of Jesus, did it? Anyone who spends even a tiny amount of time looking at when prophets were consulted can establish that they were consulted because the Torah did not deal with case law or ecological problems or military situations in such a comprehensive way as to preclude having someone enquire of the Lord. The prophets were those who, from the judicial standpoint of Deuteronomy 16-18 enquired of the Lord and spoke for the Lord so that the priests would not resort to the practices of divination in neighboring regions. And yet Elisha, for instance, called for a musician when he was consulted about a pressing matter. Elisha also insisted that a ruler beat arrows on the ground as a symbolic way of establishing victory over enemies. Ezekiel wrote about all the strange symbolic acts he says God told him to do to get Israel’s attention. Huldah was a prophetess who advised the reform movement during Josiah’s reign. If women aren’t supposed to have major roles in God’s people or have authority Huldah presents a case study that certain complementarians have to explain away through epic revisionism. If it was so bad during Josiah’s reign that a woman was the most prominent prophetic voice was a woman why did Hilkiah consider her the authority on whether or not the book of the Law was legit? Seen in light of Deuteronomy 16-18 Huldah demonstrates that the advisory role in judicial/political/military settings is consistent with what Deuteronomy prescribed. Huldah isn’t even the only prophet shown in the OT to have such an advisory role. It was, arguably, prescriptive in Deuteronomy 16-18 and descriptive in the rest of the OT.

Deborah was judge and prophesied as part of her advising a military campaign. Nathan, famously, provided a critique of David’s ethics and policy and yet he was involved in the grand subterfuge of Bathsheba to ensure Solomon was installed on the throne. Amos declared that he was not a prophet or the son of a prophet, which tells us something about the kind of guild mentality that existed among prophets and seers at that time. It’s indicated via 1 Samuel that at least among the populace there was an assumption that a seer provided services that were worth paying for even though Samuel, as a judge/seer who was raised within the priestly class, probably already had at least some financial support through that.

While in Deuteronomy 18 prophets are said to speak with the authority of God it is not said that those prophets always spoke with such authority as to supercede prior writings. Jeremiah 8:8 makes this point when the prophet accuses the scribes of having falsified the Torah itself for their own ends. Jeremiah’s role was not to “preach” the Bible at that point but to point out that the scribes and the priestly class were deliberately distorting the Torah to push their own agendas.

Whatever prophecy and the role of the prophet played in the OT and NT it has become evident to me that neither charismatics nor cessationist partisans can be trusted to responsibly handle the texts that discuss these topics. They have too much at stake. This goes triple for contemporary hard complementarians.

Dana:

Thanks for the information about Keller. I guess he is a complimentarian of some stripe.

Evie:

I am not an SGM survivor etc., but understand those can be weird places.

I do not agree with the idea that all persons who believe that elders for churches, or other similar positions – depending on polity, are to be filled by men is a sinful position or the product of sin.

I believe that interpretation (men being elders/bishops/pastors), whether correct or not, has been around for millenia.

I, also, believe that interpreation, whether correct or not, can be held by men and women of good will.

If we get to a place where we cannot honor people of good will who are trying to seek Christ, that is not good.

That position was held by our Christian ancestors.

That position is held by the vast majority of the church around the world. If the Catholics change their minds, that would change, obviously.

The fact that people who believe that elder/bishop/pastor may also be held by women, despite their sincere conviction, does not allow them to be ugly and dogmatic.

I appreciate that you believe people that hold that view may simply be “deceived” rather than nefarious, for sure.

But to say that they participate in sin and support a sinful system seems extreme to me.

I don’t agree that people who believe that men only should be elder/bishop/pastor should be ugly.

And I don’t agree that people who believe that women and men should be elder/bishop/pastor should be ugly either.

Being right never gives us the right to be ugly.

Both groups may believe the other is in sin. But I think toning down the language and allowing both groups to pursue their agendas as they see God leading them is the best way to go.

And I basically see that’s alread how it is in the U.S. Anyone can start or join a church of their liking.

I gave up a long time ago trying to change anyone’s position on this issue. It’s like trying to change their skin color.

For me, this has become more about good thought and conversation and trying to do our best.

One thing that people seem to be forgetting in. re. the role of women is that once Constantine gave his approval to Christianity as an official – if not the preferred – religion of the Roman Empire, women were going to drop out of the picture.

the church and state merge; the Empire is run by men, down to the lowliest scribes and petty functionaries. There’s no precedent in Roman society for women to be employed in the government; ergo, they lose whatever status and power they might have had in the church as well. (If they had not done so already, which is likely the case by Constantine’s time… would need to check sources to verify.)

BTW, I drove the road from Death Valley up and over the Sierra Nevadas. It is amazing to me that they were able to accomplish this feat in the best of times. — Dee

Death Valley is a ways south of Donner Pass (or any pass over the High Sierras). You must have gone west from Death Valley, connected with the 395 at Lone Pine (great little town for getting-away-from-it-all), then went up the 395 past Bishop and Mammoth Mountain until you could find a pass.