Female Pastors & Bible Teachers

Sri

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Several women in Old Testament times were looked upon as prophetesses, including Miriam (Exodus 15:20), Deborah (Judges 4:4), Huldah (2 Kings 22:14), and Isaiah’s wife (Isaiah 8:3). Anna is called a prophetess (Luke 1:36-38) and spoke publicly of Christ to all who looked for redemption in Jerusalem.
In Christ there is neither male nor female. Paul indicates in Galatians 3:28 that in Christ sex discrimination and racial and social distinctions are abolished. Manifestations of the Spirit and ministry gifts are bestowed upon all members of Christ’s body (Romans 12:1-8, 1 Corinthians 12:1-31; Ephesians 4:1-16) with no distinction as to sex. Likewise all believers, both men and women, are made priests unto God (1 peter 2:4-10; Revelation 1:6; 5:10; 20:4, 6) and as such have a ministry in service and the offering up of spiritual sacrifices to the entire household of faith (1 Peter 2:5; Hebrews 3:6). There is also Tabitha and Dorcas. Phoebe was diakonos meaning deaconess or minister.
 
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Balugon

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Several women in Old Testament times were looked upon as prophetesses, including Miriam (Exodus 15:20), Deborah (Judges 4:4), Huldah (2 Kings 22:14), and Isaiah’s wife (Isaiah 8:3). Anna is called a prophetess (Luke 1:36-38) and spoke publicly of Christ to all who looked for redemption in Jerusalem.
In Christ there is neither male nor female. Paul indicates in Galatians 3:28 that in Christ sex discrimination and racial and social distinctions are abolished. Manifestations of the Spirit and ministry gifts are bestowed upon all members of Christ’s body (Romans 12:1-8, 1 Corinthians 12:1-31; Ephesians 4:1-16) with no distinction as to sex. Likewise all believers, both men and women, are made priests unto God (1 peter 2:4-10; Revelation 1:6; 5:10; 20:4, 6) and as such have a ministry in service and the offering up of spiritual sacrifices to the entire household of faith (1 Peter 2:5; Hebrews 3:6). There is also Tabitha and Dorcas. Phoebe was diakonos meaning deaconess or minister.

If a person is using a strictly literal (non-contextual) interpretation of the Bible, then this verse, along with what Sri has already said, would ruin people's argument that Paul was saying women can't have authority over men:

"28 And God has placed in the church first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, of helping, of guidance, and of different kinds of tongues." 1 Corinthians 12:28

Why? Because there were many women who were prophetesses, and theoretically, according to this Scripture, prophetess > pastor. And the passage it is in is in the context of talking about the many believers being one body and having different gifts, with the prophetic being one of them.
 
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Tamara224

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17 “‘In the last days, God says,
I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
your young men will see visions,
your old men will dream dreams.
18 Even on my servants, both men and women,
I will pour out my Spirit in those days,
and they will prophesy.
(Acts 2, quoting Joel 2)
 
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Stravinsk

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I've always found it interesting that Peter quotes that verse as an explanation for what happened at Pentacost. "The last days" being around 2000 years ago - and is there a record of the sun being turned to darkness and the moon to blood?
 
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GQ Chris

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Not even remotely comparable. There is scriptural evidence (not only that, but scriptural instances) of women in leadership. The nature of Jonathan and David's relationship (sexual or otherwise) is pure speculation. You're basically just engaging in name-calling here.

What name did I call anyone?
 
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Tamara224

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"Hath God really said..."

Yes, He did.

He did? Show me where. Give me a Scripture reference where God Himself said that women can't be pastors.


As did Paul.

Good, I'm glad you make a distinction between God and Paul. So when you answer the first question, please keep that in mind and don't try to pass of a quote from Paul as if it's God Himself speaking.
 
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GQ Chris

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He did? Show me where. Give me a Scripture reference where God Himself said that women can't be pastors.

No, that would be a futile exercise because you reject 1 Timothy 2:12.


God is ultimately the author of the Bible, so don't place any of the responsibility on Men, but on God.
 
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Tamara224

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No, that would be a futile exercise because you reject 1 Timothy 2:12

Being diligent to rightly divide the word of God is never a futile exercise, Chris.

Be a Berean, search the Scriptures for yourself, see if what you've been told is really true.

To just accept someone else's word for it that God said something is dangerous. And the concept that we should never ask whether God truly said something is worse.

All you're doing is parroting sound-bites of things you've heard from Mark Driscoll.

And no, ftr, I don't accept 1 Timothy 2:12 as being a directive straight from the mouth of God. It begins with Paul saying "I do not permit..."

Read the Bible... whenever God is the one talking it says "thus says the Lord" or "the word of the Lord came to me and..."

If it were so important for God Himself to tell us that women can't teach or be in authority over men ever, then why didn't God Himself ever tell us that? Why wasn't it included in the many commandments given to Moses?
 
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GQ Chris

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This is just purely for the Lord's church. You wanna be a CEO, or heck even President of the USA, knock yourself out. But when it comes to the Bible, assuming that the Christian has a high view of scripture, the Lord has not granted the authority to women to be Elders or Pastors.
 
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GQ Chris

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lol. Actually Tamara, I disagree with a lot of what Mark Driscoll has to say. He isn't even really a Pastor that I hold in high regard, no offense to those that really like him though.

It is a futile exercise to argue with you because you already made up your mind. Stravinsk and Brad have already posted the scripture verses that you reject.
 
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Tamara224

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lol. Actually Tamara, I disagree with a lot of what Mark Driscoll has to say. He isn't even really a Pastor that I hold in high regard, no offense to those that really like him though.

You agree with him on this, though. And your talking points are the same as his.

It is a futile exercise to argue with you because you already made up your mind. Stravinsk and Brad have already posted the scripture verses that you reject.

I reject your interpretation of those verses. I do not reject the verses themselves.

Let's be honest, at least, Chris.

If you can't support your own claims from Scripture, then your claims are weak. The real reason you don't want to debate me, IMHO, is because it would require you to actually do some work.

Who was a female Levitical Priest Tamara? Can you name any?


Who was a Gentile Levitical Priest, Chris? Can you name any?

If the requirements for the OT priesthood are the same requirements for leadership in the Church, then none of the 12 Apostles were qualified.

They had to be Levites, direct descendants of Levi. They had to be male. They had to be healthy (no cripples allowed, no one with leprosy, no one with any physical defect or impurity). If they touched a dead body, they were disqualified from their priestly duties until ritual purification had been completed.

We are not under the Old Covenant. There is no temple or tabernacle. There are no sacrifices of animals, burnt offerings, etc. According to Scripture we are all priests in the New Covenant and we all offer spiritual sacrifices.

If you want to go back to the Old Covenant, go right ahead. But you should read Galatians before you do. Paul had some strong words to say about people who sought to impose the Law on Gentile believers.
 
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SneakerPimp53

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Well, this is a Catholic point of view: but St. Paul is clear on who can become a Bishop, and the personal requirements of that. As well as the assistants to the Bishop (priests), who became increasingly necessary as the Church grew. The female deaconate existed became baptism used to be done in the nude, after all you were nude when you were born. When there were large numbers of adult converts to baptize it was just practical to have female deacons baptize women and male deacons baptize men. As the number of adult converts shrank and mostly infants were baptized (as well as not doing it in the nude for adults anymore) the need for female deacons was gone. There is zero evidence that female deacons had any liturgical function whatsoever.
We also believe that the priest, or Bishop, is an icon of Christ. Christ as incarnate as a man, and just as it would be unacceptable to make an icon depicting Jesus as a woman, it would be unacceptable for a woman to be a priest.

All that said, the majority of protestants have abandoned the authority structure laid out in the New Testament and early Church that has been with Catholics and Orthodox Christians for 2,000 years. Since this seems to be mostly a debate between evangelical protestants: you don't have any Eucharistic function, nor liturgical worship. Scripture, nor tradition, has anything to say about "pastors" in the way they exist in your churches. It really comes down to who can deliver a sermon. There are a lot of examples of women teaching and giving addresses to individuals and groups. So I don't see any grounds to bar a woman from being a "pastor" in the evangelical protestant understanding of that office.
 
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welshman

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I'm not trying to be personal or attacking you as an individual because I respect a lot of what you have to say on this forum, but that statement is just ridiculous.

By your reasoning, does that mean our lives do not have to be transformed by God and we do not have to offer ourselves as a living sacrifice which is holy and acceptable unto God?

Because Paul (not God by what you say) said in Romans 12:1-2...

"I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God."

I'm sorry but there is so much twisting of scripture in this thread...

Another is the Galatians passage 3:28...It has nothing to do with any qualifications for a church office but talks about the fact that Christ sees us as equal as a body of believers in our salvation...whether you're young/old, male/female, black/white etc...If by some people's reasoning, this gives women the right to be a pastor then surely that gives children the right too? By their reasoning that has to be the case. No amount of side-stepping can get away from the fact.

As for the argument that it was not God's intention in creation for man to have authority over the woman...the fact of the matter is that it doesn't matter one bit what things were like before the fall. The fall has happened and Christ did not come to undo the curses of the fall, nor to restore things as they were before. He came to die and to save us from our sins. That doesn't mean people can turn around and say it means men and women are equal when it comes to church leadership. If people do argue this point, then they must think it is okay for us to walk around nude and not ashamed like Adam and Eve did. I bet they won't back that notion because all they are doing is cherry picking. If they really believe what they say then will they now live in the nude from now on? I doubt it!

Being diligent to rightly divide the word of God is never a futile exercise, Chris.

Be a Berean, search the Scriptures for yourself, see if what you've been told is really true.

To just accept someone else's word for it that God said something is dangerous. And the concept that we should never ask whether God truly said something is worse.

All you're doing is parroting sound-bites of things you've heard from Mark Driscoll.

And no, ftr, I don't accept 1 Timothy 2:12 as being a directive straight from the mouth of God. It begins with Paul saying "I do not permit..."

Read the Bible... whenever God is the one talking it says "thus says the Lord" or "the word of the Lord came to me and..."

If it were so important for God Himself to tell us that women can't teach or be in authority over men ever, then why didn't God Himself ever tell us that? Why wasn't it included in the many commandments given to Moses?
 
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Balugon

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God is ultimately the author of the Bible, so don't place any of the responsibility on Men, but on God.

Do you agree that some versions of the Bible have translational errors? And if so, why do they? Is any particular version of the Bible the divine, inerrant word of God as written in English?

And if you say that the Greek and Hebrew are the inerrant word of God, who decided what was cannon and went through the multitudes of different copies of possible letters/epistles and books in order to make up "The Bible"?

Here is an excerpt from this website (CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Canon of the New Testament) about some of the issues with choosing which works were going to be considered 'divine utterences' or not, and note how late the date is already:

"The period of discussion (A.D. 220-367)

In this stage of the historical development of the Canon of the New Testament we encounter for the first time a consciousness reflected in certain ecclesiastical writers, of the differences between the sacred collections in divers sections of Christendom. This variation is witnessed to, and the discussion stimulated by, two of the most learned men of Christian antiquity, Origen, and Eusebius of Cæsarea, the ecclesiastical historian. A glance at the Canon as exhibited in the authorities of the African, or Carthaginian, Church, will complete our brief survey of this period of diversity and discussion:

Origen and his school


Origen's travels gave him exception opportunities to know the traditions of widely separated portions of the Church and made him very conversant with the discrepant attitudes toward certain parts of the New Testament. He divided books with Biblical claims into three classes:
  • those universally received;
  • those whose Apostolicity was questions;
  • apocryphal works.
In the first class, the Homologoumena, stood the Gospels, the thirteen Pauline Epistles, Acts, Apocalypse, I Peter, and I John. The contested writings were Hebrews, II Peter, II and III John, James, Jude, Barnabas, the Shepherd of Hermas, the Didache, and probably the Gospel of the Hebrews. Personally, Origen accepted all of these as Divinely inspired, though viewing contrary opinions with toleration. Origen's authority seems to have given to Hebrews and the disputed Catholic Epistles a firm place in the Alexandrian Canon, their tenure there having been previously insecure, judging from the exegetical work of Clement, and the list in the Codex Claromontanus, which is assigned by competent scholars to an early Alexandrian origin."
 
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Tamara224

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I'm not trying to be personal or attacking you as an individual because I respect a lot of what you have to say on this forum, but that statement is just ridiculous.

Welshy, I appreciate you saying that you respect a lot of what I have to say. But I don't think you've actually given me a fair hearing. Your mind is closed off.

By your reasoning, does that mean our lives do not have to be transformed by God and we do not have to offer ourselves as a living sacrifice which is holy and acceptable unto God?

Because Paul (not God by what you say) said in Romans 12:1-2...

"I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God."

:doh: I think you're comparing apples and oranges. When Paul says "I beseech you" to do something that Jesus also taught us to do, he's not laying down a brand new law that was unheard of.

I've already discussed at length the multiple reasons why I think the text of 1 Tim 2:12-15 presents some serious problems.


I'm sorry but there is so much twisting of scripture in this thread...

:sigh: It's not twisting of Scripture, Welsh. The text is confusing all by itself. But instead of dealing with the issues that are present, you just keep insisting that it's "clear". No amount of ad hominem is going to change the fact.

Another is the Galatians passage 3:28...It has nothing to do with any qualifications for a church office but talks about the fact that Christ sees us as equal as a body of believers in our salvation...whether you're young/old, male/female, black/white etc...If by some people's reasoning, this gives women the right to be a pastor then surely that gives children the right too? By their reasoning that has to be the case. No amount of side-stepping can get away from the fact.

The passage doesn't address children. It doesn't say "there is neither adult nor child".

And this is, essentially, the crux of the matter. You appear to put women on the same level as children. But children are only unfit to lead for a time. They grow up and are no longer children and are then perfectly able to lead.

Comparing women to children is not only insulting but reduces your own argument to the absurd. Why are children not fit to lead? Well, because they're immature and inexperienced, unlearned. The same is not true for women.

And that's why the "women are equal but can't lead" theory is illogical. Because when it gets right down to it, you don't really think women are equal to men. You think women are inherently inferior to men.

As for the argument that it was not God's intention in creation for man to have authority over the woman...the fact of the matter is that it doesn't matter one bit what things were like before the fall.

Then why do complementarians appeal to the fact that Adam was created first as proof that men are fit to exercise authority and women aren't?

Unless God created women inferior to men, and intended it to be that way, then why must women never be in authority over men?

The fall has happened and Christ did not come to undo the curses of the fall, nor to restore things as they were before.

Eve was not cursed. There was no curse placed on Eve. There is no curse on women.

He came to die and to save us from our sins.

Yes, to save us and free us from sin. If we are free from sin, then we are no longer slaves to it.

Sin is what makes men rule over women. Not God.

That doesn't mean people can turn around and say it means men and women are equal when it comes to church leadership.

There is nothing in Genesis (before or after the Fall) that says that women are NOT equal to men when it comes to church leadership.

If people do argue this point, then they must think it is okay for us to walk around nude and not ashamed like Adam and Eve did. I bet they won't back that notion because all they are doing is cherry picking. If they really believe what they say then will they now live in the nude from now on? I doubt it!

:sigh:
 
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Stravinsk

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The bible says women should be silent in the church and not teach over a man. I don't see why people are even debating this.

Ultimately, I think it probably boils down to an issue with certain females who are either afraid of submission to a male, and/or are working from a *need to control* - a pride that stems from insecurity. Their need to *dominate* is actually a defense mechanism because submission is too scary. This becomes more obvious when you see their statements are pepppered with what they think is cute male bashing-put downs. It's simply easier to see men as opponants and adversaries.

Whether it be in a religious context or not, no self respecting male lets his woman "wear the pants" - and very few females actually respect males in that role.
 
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Sri

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886 verses in scripture are from women. Pricilla and Aquilla taught appollos. Luke 1:46-55 Mary taught. Majoredy of Missionaries are women.Teaching is also neccessary for being a prophet or prophetess and women can be deacons because Phoebe was one. women were first to claim the good news of the resurrection God can and does use women to minister. You should read "Why Not women" by cunningham. It is really insightful.
 
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