You are trying to use scripture to counter scripture.
I don't buy it at all.
No, I'm saying that if you take Scripture literally you'll find there are contradictions and unanswered questions. As Scripture cannot contradict itself we need to look at the whole, to try to find out what is happening and what the author meant.
Example; Paul said "
I do not allow a woman to teach". HE did not allow that - so why did he let Priscilla teach Apollos? "I do not allow a woman
to teach" - so why did he not make it clear, when teaching about the gifts of the Spirit, that some were/are only for males? If he did not allow women to have authority over men, what did he make of the prophetesses in the OT who told men what God's word and will was? And why is telling someone something they don't know, or explaining/proclaiming God's word "having authority over" anyway? Who gives authority?
The scripture says nothing about silence during singing, reading, or prayer.
It says for them to be silent while learning..." Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection.
Of course women should be silent while learning; they might miss something otherwise.
And if they don't hear/understand something because they are talking, they will not know, and are more likely to be deceived - as Eve was.
Paul says that if women want to ask anything they should ask their own husbands when they get home, 1 Corinthians 14:35. Clearly this wasn't happening, or he wouldn't have needed to mention it. Maybe women were asking questions of the nearest man. That would have been usurping their husbands' authority. Paul clearly saw it as the husband's role to answer his wife's questions - not some random stranger. And the place for him to do that was in their home, not in the middle of worship.
Asking questions in the middle of worship/a sermon, may well have usurped that preacher's authority; HE was the one preaching, not the women.
This does not say/mean and is not proof that a woman today who has been called by God, who has submitted that calling to men to be tested, who has been examined, and trained, by men and who is ordained/commissioned with men's blessing and the blessing and agreement of the church, and who is usually answerable to a male Bishop/Superintendent/Moderator - is
snatching authority away from men.
Your efforts to discredit Paul are not working.
I am not trying to discredit Paul - not at all.
I am asking you what you make of certain passages in view of your literal interpretation of Scripture.
Paul said..."I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully.
For some are already turned aside after Satan." (1 Tim 5:14-15)
Read the start of that passage where he says "do not put younger widows on such a list" (for financial assistance.) 1 Timothy 5:11.
Taken literally - as you seem to think ALL Scripture should be taken - that means that we cannot help widows under the age of 60 financially; Paul says so. I'm asking you if you take THIS passage literally too - and therefore ignore young widows with children who need financial help?
Do you have some aversion to literal scripture?
Yes - if the author never intended for us, or his readers, to take it literally.
Jesus said that if a hand causes us to sin we should cut it off. Some people go around cutting the hands off thieves, but I doubt that the average churchgoer takes that literally. Jesus said that he is the bread of life, the door, the light, the true vine - but I doubt anyone believes that he was literally a plant,a door or a cuddly lamb.
Also, it is impossible to take some of Paul's words, written in Scripture, literally - he is no longer alive and has no need of his cloak or scrolls, 2 Timothy 4:13.
Saying that everything Paul wrote has to be taken literally doesn't work and that is quite separate from the question "is this for us? How do WE, 2 millennia later, understand and carry out something that was written to different people from a different culture - if at all?"
