Are you aware that women were sometimes prophets?
Your statements here sound as if you haven't really studied what Paul stated in the context in which he stated them in. Paul put women in high positions, but you seemed to have left that out...
I am aware that Philip's four daughters were prophetesses in scripture and that Paul included women often in his greeting lists at the end of the epistles, in addition to his recognition of Euodia and Syntyche as fellow servants. And yet what he says about the behaviour of women in church services stands. Doesn't it? I would imagine that the apparent resolution is that these women served in roles which did not involve leadership and speaking to the church. Or you can show me a resolution which involves both women serving in Paul's day, women being quiet in church in Paul's day, and women being vocal in church today.
First, you ought to look at the context in which you read.
This is precisely what my question is.
If we look to the cultural context of Scriptural times to resolve Scriptural issues, instead of the cultural context of modern times,
why is it wrong to look to the scientific-philosophical context of Scriptural times to resolve Scriptural issues, instead of the scientific-philosophical context of modern times?
Modern Christians believe very different things from Scriptural Christians. They believe in the immortal soul, in the secular-sacred divide, in a rapture that will come somewhere soon after 2000 AD instead of somewhere soon after 33 AD. They believe in atoms and relativity and electronics and quantum physics. These differences need to be recognized in order for Scripture to be understood.
Second, are Evangelical churches the authority of Church doctrine these days?
As far as I know, YECism is mainly coming out of American evangelicalism. Don't shoot yourself. On the other hand, we had people like St. Augustine telling us that the six days of Genesis were not necessarily literal-historical-chronological six days, but rather accommodations of the actual truth to human, temporal understanding.
Let's take one of the words you used here, everybody.
I meant everybody in modern times, not in Scriptural record. Sorry if my language was less than clear.
And this isn't done in all churches? You do have proof for your assertion that this isn't done anymore right?
What I meant was that a gesture which was exclusively used for ordination/infilling is now being used very casually for prayer.
Oh and btw, it is done in my church for every baptism. But I guess you failed to have a test sample before making an assertion using only Evangelical Churches as an example.
No, I have simply failed to communicate that example clearly.
Now, let's take something that is actually relevant, the holy kiss. This was the customary greeting of the day. Today it is a hug, handshake, etc, all depending where you live. But, you cannot compare a greeting with God's words stating His calling of creation into being. You are trying to compare apples and oranges and state, 'why aren't they the same or why can't we treat them the same'.
Now, this is extremely interesting. It seems that you are actually asserting two levels of divine inspiration:
1. Contextual inspiration. God had an idea that He communicated to people within the temporary social norms of the day, and if He wished to communicate that idea today, He would communicate it differently.
E.g. God through Paul (unless you discount verbal inspiration, in which case there is much less reason to believe in YECism) told believers to greet each other with a holy kiss. (Or was that in Hebrews?) If God were to tell us the same thing today, He would tell us to greet each other instead with a holy hug, or a holy hello, or a holy handshake.
2. Literal-indelible revelation. God had an idea that He simply communicated, and would have communicated regardless and independent of societal norms.
E.g. God through Moses told us that He created the world in six days by splitting and organizing the primeval chaos waters. If God were to tell us the same thing today, He would still say that He created the world in six days by splitting and organizing the primeval chaos waters, even though not even many Christians, let along non-Christians, have any cultural idea or concept of chaos waters.
I thought you YECs had an agreement that
all Scripture was verbally inspired?
It is fantastically ironic that this is the exact same "slippery slope" argument YECs always use against TEs. "Gee, if the Creation account is a myth (i.e. a big dastardly horrendous deception!) then what stops the Resurrection account from being another myth?" I can turn it around and say:
If the holy kiss should be interpreted in the light of contemporaneous culture,
why shouldn't the Creation accounts be interpreted in the light of contemporaneous science?
You should be comparing God's commandments with God's commandments or what God says with what God says.
Firstly, this is a vacuous argument. For you to say this indirectly contradicts your own principles of complete inerrant verbal inspiration. After all, isn't what God told the church through Paul just as holy and sacred and inspired as what God told the Jews through Moses? If it wasn't, it wouldn't have been in the Bible! It is the same God who authored it! How can Scripture interpret Scripture if different passages of Scripture have different levels of authority? How can you be fair to say:
"Alright, what God told the church through Paul, He didn't mean for me. He meant to say something else to me through what He said to Paul and I am free to interpret it in today's social context as an eavesdropper on Paul's conversations with the church..."
and then say
"Alright, what God said to Moses was the exact same thing He intended to say to me, nothing else, and I am not free to interpret it by my social context but must act like I am a prescientific Hebrew listening at the foot of Sinai when I read this passage."
This is nothing less than saying Paul, because he never quoted direct speech from God (but He did!) is less inspired than Moses, even though they are in the same Bible.
But let's take your argument as if it is fine. Then what about Job? After all, God Himself said that He had storehouses of hailstone and snow, stored up for war. Does He really expect us to believe that? Why is it that we can take Job's storehouses of snow as figurative and prescientific expression, and Moses' six days six thousand years ago as a scientifically and historically authoritative criterion? And even if one promotes the argument that Job is poetic while Genesis 1 is "historical" (which it does not honestly appear so to many), what about the underlying motivations and messages? Why is it that we can take Job's idea of God's direct, proximate causation of the weather as a prescientific perspective on His power ... and then lock ourselves to Moses' similar idea of God's direct, proximate causation of creation as if it automatically disqualifies naturalistic explanation, even if we have not done so with Job?
You see, in Genesis 2 we have God giving His first commandment to man. Genesis 3 we are told how sin came into the world and why death is now part of life. Yet, you call these myths, maybe partly true, but probably mostly not. Instead, TEs claim, they are to teach that God is the Creator and Sovereign, nothing more. TEs discount the first revelation and replace it with naturalism, materialism, and reason only to try and support their belief by stating they believe that God is the Creator, He just didn't create how He said He did.
That, in effect, calls God a liar. This blasphemes God by judging Him as a sinner or possible sinner(if TEs are wrong in their belief).
What you hear when you listen to Scripture is obviously not what we hear when we listen to Scripture.
Check your ideas of verbal inspiration. They seem to be becoming inconsistent. If I were a non-believer, looking at how you compared the holy kiss which is culturally irrelevant with the six day creation which you believe is culturally relevant, I would feel inclined to cynically say that everything you don't have a problem believing is culturally relevant and everything you do have a problem practicing is culturally irrelevant. I pray that you will not open yourself to this avenue of disproof from non-believers. I do not believe that it is as simple or as unscrupulous as that for you, knowing how hard it is to make godly decisions in this time and age, but a non-believer may not identify with you so.