Can women be pastors?

[Blackhawk]

WhitBit,

Yeah. I am kind of a big softy but I would do it. Alot of prayer would go into it and it would be very hard but like you said it would have to be done. Not evryone will be happy but that is life. I think also that it would have to take a man searching for God's wisdom in the matter to handle it. It would have to be done with grace and mercy. But like you said it would have to be done no matter if I liked doing it or not.

Blackhaw6

 

[Didymus]

I would want a woman in the pulpit who was preaching the gospel and leading people to the Lord then a man ther who wasn t. I have personally known only three women ministers and they were terriable. I have a friend who is an Episocpal priest and she does ok.

 

[Redeemed1]

Originally posted by blackhaw6
Redeemed1,

I agree with you on the points before but I do not know if I can say to a woman pastor that she must give up her position even if it was my place to do it.

Blackhaw6

I agree. I couldn't do so either. God would have to. I guess I was speaking primarily about women who have taken over the spiritual leadership of their homes. And to get them to let go and give it over to their husbands requires the Church giving counsel, teaching, and encouragement to those individual homes. Speaking as a woman who has had to lead spiritually because my husband refused, it is a difficult position to be in. On one hand, you'd love to have your husband lead...on the other hand, you've done it for so long, you're fearful of letting go. Quite a quandry, but God is faithful!

 

[Blackhawk]

Redeemed1,

Yeah I know what you are speaking about. I know I am a man but I hear so many of my women Christian friends say the same thing you did or are in a position of spiritual leadership in the family because their husbands won't. It is a hard place for a woman to be in. I will pray today that God gives you wisdom.

Blackhaw6

 

[Redeemed1]

Thank you. I can tell you that God is at work in my situation. He addressed my fears by reminding me that it was not a matter of trusting my husband to lead our family rightly, but trusting God to lead my husband rightly. Makes a huge difference! While I may not be able to trust my husband in this area yet, I can certainly trust God.

 

[solo66 man]

blackhaw6,

You may or may not be the one to confront this situation. Besides praying about that, I would also ask God what He thinks about attending a different chuch and which one, especially if you do decide to approach the pastor about this situation and then she
blows you off.

 

[Blackhawk]

solo66 man,

Thanks for your concern. However It was really just a hypothetical situation. I am sorry I did not make it clear. My church is actually in betwen pastors right now. All can pray about that. I was just saying that if I did got to a church that had a woman pastor and I had the authority to change that I would have to be very wise in handling it.

blackhaw6

 

[Thunderchild]

That is perhaps the most compelling reason for allowing women to be pastors. All the debate about what Paul said, didn't say, meant, didn't mean, amounts to nothing when stacked up against the demonstrated fact that placing women in subservient roles just doesn't work. There are too many circumstances and conditions which, will she or won't she, a woman simply must take leading role or abandon God's place as first in her love.

 

[Redeemed1]

I'm sorry to disagree, but we can never discount the Word of God based on the behavior that man demonstrates. Our own experiences must be set aside if they contradict God's Word. While human nature dictates that women will not be in a subservient role, God's Word dictates that she is indeed underneath the man when it comes to the chain of authority God created. It does not mean she is less, or incapable. But I just don't see how we can get around the fact that God's Word is clear that women should not have spiritual authority over men, regardless of what experience or our human nature tells us.

 

[Thunderchild]

Can you prove that Paul's writings about a woman's role is God's word?
After all, Paul is the only author to relegate women to a secondary role, where there are references in the Bible to women being appointed by God to positions of authority.

Or in your opinion, is the Bible wrong when it says that every fact is established on the testimony of two or more reliable witnesses?

 

[Redeemed1]

My opinion is that the Bible is correct when it says that ALL scripture is God breathed. We cannot start picking and choosing which scriptures God really meant to be truth and which ones He didn't. Paul's instructions were for the order of the Church. While God used women in places of authority in the governing of the tribes of Israel, i.e. Deborah as judge, Paul is laying out God's instructions for His Church.

I do not believe that God is relegating women to a secondary place. We are co-heirs in Christ. And in actuality, the place God has established for women is really a protective place of covering. I am a woman, and I struggled for years with the need to be independent, and that whole issue of submission, etc. But God brought me to an understanding of the place He called me to. Everything God does is good, including His placing women under the authority of men.

 

[Mandy]

Redeemed1, I agree. If we throw out certain passages of the Bible, then we may as well throw it all out. I too believe the whole Bible to be the word of God and I would not dare take the attitude of "has God truly said?"

Gen 3:16 Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire [shall be] to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.

 

[Thunderchild]

You are quite correct - Paul's instructions are about maintaining order within the church. They are not part of the gospel. The systems needed to maintain order in one epoch may result in utter disorder in another.

If I should attempt to drive on the proper side of the road (according to the definition of "proper side" for the time and place that I live in) = that is, on the left in America - the result would be chaos.

If an American should attempt to drive on the right hand side of the road in Australia, the result would be chaos.

EVERY fact is established on the testimony of two or more witnesses. Time and again that statement is made in both testaments. Paul said it, Jesus said it - yet people insist that a statement which has only one witness is fact. If a person claims that attempting to decide which passages belong, accepting that all passages are scripture - that person is doing precisely what the same claims to not be doing.

How can the claim be made, that everything in the Bible is scripture? Two paragraphs in 1 Corinthians 7 state flatly, in plain black and white, that they are not inspired by God.

 

[Redeemed1]

So, you are saying that only the 4 Gospels can actually be believed as scripture? And I think the fact that Paul clarifies in Corinthians that a statement he is making is from him and not God, should show that the rest of his letters ARE of God's inspiration, otherwise why would he have to clarify it to them? And you are telling me that the instructions for the church then are not instruction for the church today. How do you come up with that? Where does it say that? What year was the cutoff date for those instructions? I apologize for seeming contentious, but what I am hearing from you is that you will pick and choose which scriptures you will believe to be from God, in order to justify your position. I think this subject has been debated enough. My position is clear, as is yours. I will not move from "should women be pastors" into "the Word of God isn't REALLY the Word of God".

 

[Thunderchild]

You are quite right. This belongs on a separate thread. Done.