Women Priests/Pastors

[messianist]

But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.

For Adam was first formed, then Eve.

And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.

 

[Strong in Him]

a judge isn't the leader of a church.
a prophet isn't the leader of a church.
Mary Magdalene wasn't the leader of a church.
Phoebe was a servant of the church, not it's leader.
Acts 18:26 states that both Aquilla and Priscilla took him aside and explained to him the ways of Christ, informally in a conversation. While this may be construed as teaching to some degree it isn't teaching in any sort of official capacity (i.e. - in a synagogue)
Paul does commend and work with many women but he makes it quite clear that he does not allow women to teach men. Just because he respects women of the faith and works with them doesn't mean he allows them to be heads of church.

But they are examples of women who were in authority, proclaimed God's word to men or taught.
If you are saying that 1 Timothy 2:12 states that God will never allow this to happen, or never meant these roles for women, why dd he allow them to do them?

I know that Acts 18 says that Priscilla and Aquila taught. Apart from the fact that Priscilla may have done some of the teaching on her own, we don't know; this implies that a woman MAY teach if she is with her husband. Which contradicts what you claim Paul says to Timothy.
Paul also taught the churches about the gifts of the Spirit, yet nowhere does he say that some of these gifts - teaching and Pastors - are only given to men, or that the gifts of the Holy Spirit are gender specific. He had plenty of opportunity to say this in 1 Corinthians 12, Romans 12, Ephesians 4:11, or in fact in any other of his letters. He did not teach it, nor even hint at it. Yet when, in one of the last letters he ever wrote, he used the phrase "I do not permit A woman to teach", people start saying "there you are; proof that Paul was against any women teaching or having authority"?

 

[Strong in Him]

I never stated that women cannot preach.

If you believe that 1 Timothy 2:12 forbids women from teaching, then how can we preach?

The Word of God is clear however that women cannot be pastors.

No it isn't.
Ephesians 4:11 does not say that the Holy Spirit does not give these gifts to women.
Jesus never taught that when he built his church he was going to exclude women from leading or being pastors.

Also , do you not find it interesting that all the apostles were men?

All the apostles were Jewish also - are you saying that Gentiles can't be pastors?

Also, do you not find it interesting that all the books of the Bible were written by men?

No.
Apart from the fact that no one knows who wrote Hebrews, and it COULD have been Priscilla, that is irrelevant to the discussion and is certainly not proof that women are not allowed to teach or be Pastors.

Also, do you not find it interesting that no one in this thread has provided any Scripture that remotely suggests a woman being a pastor?

People in this thread have said that they are called today to be Pastors, are doing the work of a Pastor right now or personally know women who have been called to this role and ordained. All they get told in response is, "that's invalid; you/they were NOT called by God".

Don't you find it interesting that some people are adamant that 1 Timothy 2:12 forbids women from being teachers or in leadership, yet no one has actually examined the verse or explained what it teaches?
Don't you find it interesting that people claim that Paul said that women cannot teach or have authority over men, yet when given Biblical examples of women who did just that - Deborah, Huldah, Mary Magdalene, Priscilla - they say, "ah but those women weren't Pastors"?

If there were no examples at all in Scripture of women teaching or preaching; if Jesus had treated women like the 2nd class citizens that they were in those days, and the early church had not allowed women to have any kind of role, there MAY be some justification for saying that when Paul said "I do not allow a woman to teach", that is what he meant.
There is still no verse, however, which says "and nor may any woman, at any time in the future, do this".

 

[Strong in Him]

That isn't how it works.
It either is all inspired or not at all.

1 Timothy 2:12 is inspired by God.
That doesn't mean that it is a command that is applicable to us today. Where does it say that it is? How do you know that it wasn't inspired by God as a solution to a particular problem that Paul was facing at the time? What gives us the right to assume that it applies to us too and is definitive teaching on the subject?

Were Paul's words in 1 Timothy 5:11-15 about not giving financial help to widows under 60, inspired?
Was he inspired when he called such widows gossips and busybodies? If so, then presumably his words apply to us today - if we follow your logic of applying ALL verses of Scripture to everybody. So any women in your church/community who have lost husbands in war, and been left as single parents, you can tell them that Scripture says they are gossiping busybodies and deserve no financial support from the church.
Was Paul inspired when he taught about treating our slaves well? If so, then presumably Wilberforce sinned when he abolished slavery and we should all have slaves, as they did in Bible times, so that we can follow Biblical teaching about how to treat them?
Was Moses inspired when he gave the law to the Israelites? We know that Jesus said that he had come to fulfil the law, but that law is still in the OT - the compilers of the Bible did not say "it's irrelevant, leave it out." Following your words that "it's either all inspired or not at all", should we be keeping the Jewish law that was never given to us anyway?

 

[Strong in Him]

But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.

For Adam was first formed, then Eve.

And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.

Repeating the questions asked in post 105, which you never answered.

My complaint is against you. You posted these verses - so?
Are you saying we have to take them literally? Are you saying they apply to the 21st century just as much as they applied to the first? Are you saying they are a command from God and cannot be changed or questioned?
That's why I said that I don't like it when people post verses, in isolation, with no explanation.

If you are saying these things, it raises many questions.

If we take the verse that you have posted literally;
"I suffer not .... "
Who is the "I" of the sentence? Paul. Paul is saying that he does not allow ..... Paul is dead.
"A woman to teach"
Note, a woman, singular; not all women everywhere, in any time or culture.
"nor to usurp authority over THE man"
Usurp means to snatch, or grab by force. How can a woman grab something by force when it is freely given, by both God and the church? What does it mean to "have authority over"?
"but to be in silence".
We are talking about a literal interpretation, remember; so Paul is saying that women cannot prophesy, (although he taught it in 1 Corinthians 11), Pray (ditto), sing, testify to God's goodness or read the Scriptures - even though he taught and allowed these things elsewhere? Silence meas silence. IF you are saying that we accept this verse literally, that is what it says - maybe you could explain then why it contradicts other Scriptures?
"For Adam was formed first, then Eve".
And dogs were formed before humans - are you saying that those that were created first have authority over everything that was created afterwards?
"And Adam was not deceived, but the woman, being deceived, was in transgression".
Adam wasn't deceived. He heard God's clear word for himself and disobeyed - he was wilfully disobedient. Paul is clear in Romans 5 that sin came into the world through Adam, not Eve. If you are trying to say that women can't be pastors because Eve was deceived, then logically, you should say that men can't be pastors because Adam wilfully disobeyed God. Who wants a Pastor/Minister who KNOWS what God wants but deliberately disobeys him?
Eve was deceived because she had not heard God's command for herself. Scripture does not say that after God formed Eve he repeated his command to her. That being the case, she most likely heard about it from Adam. But she obviously hadn't heard correctly because when she repeated it to the serpent, she got it wrong, Genesis 3:3, cf Genesis 2:16. Maybe she had been talking at the time, and didn't hear what Adam says. This fits completely with Paul's words in 1 Timothy 2:11 "A woman SHOULD learn in quietness". Women were not allowed to learn in that culture. Paul says they should, so that they are not deceived, but should learn in silence. Any woman who is heckling, calling out answers, asking questions or speaking over the man who is teaching, won't learn properly and is not being very respectful.

THIS is what I meant when I asked these questions in post 105. It's not good enough to post a verse, taken out of context, and then disappear without any explanation - what do you understand the verse you posted to mean?
If you mean that we should take it literally, how do you explain that it contradicts other Scriptures?
If you are saying that Paul did not allow women then to teach, and that applies to everyone today as well - where does it say that?
If you are saying this is a command from God, where does it say that - and why did Jesus never teach it?

 

[messianist]

But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.

For Adam was first formed, then Eve.

And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.

Repeating the questions asked in post 105, which you never answered.



If we take the verse that you have posted literally;
"I suffer not .... "
Who is the "I" of the sentence? Paul. Paul is saying that he does not allow ..... Paul is dead.
"A woman to teach"
Note, a woman, singular; not all women everywhere, in any time or culture.
"nor to usurp authority over THE man"
Usurp means to snatch, or grab by force. How can a woman grab something by force when it is freely given, by both God and the church? What does it mean to "have authority over"?
"but to be in silence".
We are talking about a literal interpretation, remember; so Paul is saying that women cannot prophesy, (although he taught it in 1 Corinthians 11), Pray (ditto), sing, testify to God's goodness or read the Scriptures - even though he taught and allowed these things elsewhere? Silence meas silence. IF you are saying that we accept this verse literally, that is what it says - maybe you could explain then why it contradicts other Scriptures?
"For Adam was formed first, then Eve".
And dogs were formed before humans - are you saying that those that were created first have authority over everything that was created afterwards?
"And Adam was not deceived, but the woman, being deceived, was in transgression".
Adam wasn't deceived. He heard God's clear word for himself and disobeyed - he was wilfully disobedient. Paul is clear in Romans 5 that sin came into the world through Adam, not Eve. If you are trying to say that women can't be pastors because Eve was deceived, then logically, you should say that men can't be pastors because Adam wilfully disobeyed God. Who wants a Pastor/Minister who KNOWS what God wants but deliberately disobeys him?
Eve was deceived because she had not heard God's command for herself. Scripture does not say that after God formed Eve he repeated his command to her. That being the case, she most likely heard about it from Adam. But she obviously hadn't heard correctly because when she repeated it to the serpent, she got it wrong, Genesis 3:3, cf Genesis 2:16. Maybe she had been talking at the time, and didn't hear what Adam says. This fits completely with Paul's words in 1 Timothy 2:11 "A woman SHOULD learn in quietness". Women were not allowed to learn in that culture. Paul says they should, so that they are not deceived, but should learn in silence. Any woman who is heckling, calling out answers, asking questions or speaking over the man who is teaching, won't learn properly and is not being very respectful.

THIS is what I meant when I asked these questions in post 105. It's not good enough to post a verse, taken out of context, and then disappear without any explanation - what do you understand the verse you posted to mean?
If you mean that we should take it literally, how do you explain that it contradicts other Scriptures?
If you are saying that Paul did not allow women then to teach, and that applies to everyone today as well - where does it say that?
If you are saying this is a command from God, where does it say that - and why did Jesus never teach it?

thanks for blessing me.

 

[Strong in Him]

thanks for blessing me.

You're welcome. Thanks for praying for me.

I really would like to know the answers/your views on that verse, however. It seems the key to all our teachings and beliefs is how we interpret Scripture.

 

[messianist]

Repeating the questions asked in post 105, which you never answered.



If we take the verse that you have posted literally;
"I suffer not .... "
Who is the "I" of the sentence? Paul. Paul is saying that he does not allow ..... Paul is dead.
"A woman to teach"
Note, a woman, singular; not all women everywhere, in any time or culture.
"nor to usurp authority over THE man"
Usurp means to snatch, or grab by force. How can a woman grab something by force when it is freely given, by both God and the church? What does it mean to "have authority over"?
"but to be in silence".
We are talking about a literal interpretation, remember; so Paul is saying that women cannot prophesy, (although he taught it in 1 Corinthians 11), Pray (ditto), sing, testify to God's goodness or read the Scriptures - even though he taught and allowed these things elsewhere? Silence meas silence. IF you are saying that we accept this verse literally, that is what it says - maybe you could explain then why it contradicts other Scriptures?
"For Adam was formed first, then Eve".
And dogs were formed before humans - are you saying that those that were created first have authority over everything that was created afterwards?
"And Adam was not deceived, but the woman, being deceived, was in transgression".
Adam wasn't deceived. He heard God's clear word for himself and disobeyed - he was wilfully disobedient. Paul is clear in Romans 5 that sin came into the world through Adam, not Eve. If you are trying to say that women can't be pastors because Eve was deceived, then logically, you should say that men can't be pastors because Adam wilfully disobeyed God. Who wants a Pastor/Minister who KNOWS what God wants but deliberately disobeys him?
Eve was deceived because she had not heard God's command for herself. Scripture does not say that after God formed Eve he repeated his command to her. That being the case, she most likely heard about it from Adam. But she obviously hadn't heard correctly because when she repeated it to the serpent, she got it wrong, Genesis 3:3, cf Genesis 2:16. Maybe she had been talking at the time, and didn't hear what Adam says. This fits completely with Paul's words in 1 Timothy 2:11 "A woman SHOULD learn in quietness". Women were not allowed to learn in that culture. Paul says they should, so that they are not deceived, but should learn in silence. Any woman who is heckling, calling out answers, asking questions or speaking over the man who is teaching, won't learn properly and is not being very respectful.

THIS is what I meant when I asked these questions in post 105. It's not good enough to post a verse, taken out of context, and then disappear without any explanation - what do you understand the verse you posted to mean?
If you mean that we should take it literally, how do you explain that it contradicts other Scriptures?
If you are saying that Paul did not allow women then to teach, and that applies to everyone today as well - where does it say that?
If you are saying this is a command from God, where does it say that - and why did Jesus never teach it?

Read the scripture posted and the answer is right in front of you, and stop accusing me of running off, lean not on your own understanding, if your led by the Holy Spirit you will gladly receive it and except it. Ps all q

You're welcome. Thanks for praying for me.

I really would like to know the answers/your views on that verse, however. It seems the key to all our teachings and beliefs is how we interpret Scripture.

your welcome the answer is there right for all to be seen.

 

[Vicomte13]

That is all well and good but the fact is Jesus chose many women to do many great things in His name but the fact remains that he chose 12 men to lead His church and those 12 men then chose other men as church Elder's and so on and so forth. Mary was chosen by God to birth the Christ and she did many great things in her Sons name but Jesus didn't pick her to lead the church even if she did evangelize and do good works over and over again.

So what? In the Middle East, where women who walk out alone TODAY are routinely attacked and raped and beaten and spat upon and treated like dirt, 2000 years ago amidst a population of Hellenised Jews, Arabs and Roman soldiers (for whom rape of conquered natives was a pastime) - did Jesus really want to send female lambs out to be devoured by the wicked men of that age. That's what happens TODAY when women walk alone over there, and that's with three monotheistic religions that all prohibit rape ruling the roost.

Just because Jesus did something or did not do something does not mean that one can point to what he did or didn't do and say "That is a commandment". Jesus did not shower every day. And he did not command his disciples to dig irrigation ditches sufficient to permit it. Therefore we shouldn't. Jesus chose to send men out among the ravening males of the Middle East in a brutal time, therefore Jesus INTENDED for all time that women should not be leaders?

One cannot logically draw this conclusion. Jesus never commanded anything like that.

Jesus also never sent a paraplegic apostle out - we can say it was for the obvious reason that they couldn't walk and therefore could not travel to evangelise. But then again we could also do what is being done with the women here: and assume that because Jesus chose no paraplegics, that therefore he chose only physically intact, uncrippled men for a reason. That would have fit the traditions in many place that men with a blemish could not be king.

For Jesus to have excluded women from leadership, teaching and ministry makes no sense, given his mission, given what he did say, such as "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you", just as it would make no sense to say that he intended to exclude cripples from ministry because he did that too.
In fact, it very seriously undermines a great deal of what Jesus SAID to assert that he did.

Nuns have always taught men, led men, been the heads of organisations. The Catholic Church excludes women from priestly duties, because of tradition. Now, the Church buys the argument that Jesus didn't choose men, and as long as that holds sway, there will be no female priests. The Latin Church also buys into priestly celibacy as a rule. We will see if that ultimately survives the endless rolling flood of pedophilia scandals.

Still, the notion that just because Jesus did x, that we are bound to do x, does not logically follow. If he taught to do x, then it follows that we who follow Jesus should listen to his teachings.

Jesus used his left hand to wipe his butt. He didn't use toilet paper. Therefore, we should not use toilet paper? It does not follow. At all. Men don't like to be ruled by women: that's an observable fact the world over, and women were, and still are, at terrible physical risk walking alone in the Middle East. That Jesus didn't send them out the way he sent out men does not mean that he prohibited them from any office. He never said a word in that regard, and certainly was willing to send St. Photini to her people, and to send his mother to many people once she was in spiritual form and could not be hurt. He sent Joan of Arc to lead France and she got burnt alive for it - on the charge that she "wore men's clothes".

Men are stubborn about what they want, and they use God to justify it. We're 13 pages into that demonstration here. Truth is, Jesus did not forbid women from anything, and did use women, and did not teach against their leadership. It's entirely reasonable to read his choosing apostles to go out alone was not rooted in a theology for the ages, but in a very pragmatic desire to not send female apostles out to be raped and enslaved, which they surely would have been then, and very likely would be today in that part of the world.

 

[Archivist]

First one He picked, or the first one who observed?

First one He picked.

 

[Archivist]

So? What does it have to do with being clergy?

The modern office of pastor didn’t exist in Biblical times. Scripture talks about overseers, apostles, elders, deacons. I don’t think the word pastor appears more than a handful if times, and the details of the office are never described. Shephard is used, but in most cases as a verb not a noun.

 

[Vicomte13]

You know, I was reflecting on this and other recent related conversations this morning with an old friend and sometimes-visitor to my parish, and it struck me that it might be worth saying something about the difficulty of these conversations.

A conversation like this is, for me, at the same time very remote and extremely close to the bone.

On the one hand, this is like a parallel universe. All of these claims that women cannot do xyz - preach, teach, lead faith communities, whatever - they bear no relation to my actual life. I had that conversation this morning standing outside church, after I'd preached and presided at the Eucharist twice; set up pastoral visits for the week to come, dealt with parish administrative matters, and looked ahead at liturgical planning with the director of music. All the rest. That's my daily and weekly round; I live that life of ministry in a social context where being a Christian is far more controversial than being a woman in leadership in any context. Most of the Christians I know in real life who don't accept women's ordination still seem to feel a sense of common cause and mutual respect with those of us who do. I truly don't really understand people who oppose women in ministry more than being grateful for women who are committed to the gospel and the mission of God; surely that's the more urgent and pressing need?

On the other hand... as noted, this is the fabric of my life. This is who I am, my identity, the purpose and vocation to which I have committed all that I am, the web of relationships that makes up most everything that matters to me. When people seek to invalidate it, it's not a theoretical or academic or abstract question. It goes to the heart of who I am as a human person, to my integrity before God, and it's difficult not to take that extremely personally. Not just for myself, but having in mind all my sisters with vocations, present and future, and their ability to give their all to Christ in whatever Christ calls them to do, and to be supported and encouraged and nurtured in that by the church, in the way that each Christian deserves as one part of the church's commitment to them in baptising them. I look at my daughter (who turned 7 yesterday) and hope that the church never tells her there's anything God disqualifies her from because of her genetics; and yet I know that, while she might hear it less than I have (because things have improved and I pray continue to improve) the chances that doors might open to her without sex ever being an issue are small. Few things make me want to fight as fiercely as my desire to give her, and every girl like her, a church which is what the church should be for them, and yet often I feel so helpless and overwhelmed in the face of what seems like an enduring wall of negation, dismissal, silencing and outright hostility and attack. It's a fearful thing to wonder how raising your child in the church will harm her, but I do.

The point of this post isn't to persuade anybody to change their mind; but maybe to think about what's at stake when we talk about these things, and whether the way we talk about them might be more important, sometimes, than the positions we hold.

Men don't like to be ruled by women. That's the root of all of it. Jesus didn't prohibit women from doing anything, and the Golden Rule SHOULD govern things. But men find a way in all things - home life, politics, business and religion - to justify making things the way THEY want them, and one thing that is pretty common to men the world over is that they do NOT like be ruled by women. It may be instinctive. It may be a reaction to the fact that for the first two decades of our lives we ARE ruled by women - our mothers at home and the school marms. And then we pass into the phase where our innate sex drives express themselves in a way that causes us to relentlessly want to attention and favor of women, but once again, it is women who have the final say so. We pass from the apron strings and gradeschool, where the women were a source of nurturing and education and authority (and, in our earliest childhood, food!), into a phase in which older women still provide all of that, but younger women are the subjects (and objects) of our most intense desires and wants, but in which those young women hold all the power and cut our hearts out. Young women are just as young and stupid as the young men, of course, but they have the power, and they must wield it because the boys come after them, and they wield it clumsily and wound a lot of boys. So we enter adulthood as two separate semi-species. The men don't WANT to be ruled by women anymore, so they form the boys clubs, the male bonding, the military ethos, all that. But then, one by one, they get picked off by women and leave the general male bonding to go and form a family, and then, within family, there is the give and take and cooperation and conflict between husband and wife. The man's inner relationship with God is very personal, perhaps the most personal of all relationships, for God knows ALL of our secrets. Men who will compromise on every other thing become rigid and actually go to the stake and the gallows refusing to bend the knee on religious matter. This is even true when it comes to those who will not pretend to be religious. When it comes to this particular subject, human beings are often quite rigid.

And here, in this religious respect, we see how that resistance to being led by women comes through. Men will make a negative inference from what Jesus didn't do, and then hang on an opinion of Paul, simply because they want something, they need SOMETHING, to let them resist being ruled by women in religion.

I'm sure I'm not telling you something you don't already know, at least instinctively. I cannot speak for any other church but my own, and I can't really speak FOR the Catholic Church either. I merely observe what I have observed to you in the past with regards to the Catholic ordination of women. Catholics are mostly Latin and Latinos, plus some Poles and Irish, and various form of Arabs. For men of those cultures in particular, Latin, macho cultures, the notion of confessing their sins to women is just a bridge too far. Sure, people can make up all sorts of religious mumbo jumbo to paper over the reasons with theology, but at root, the cultural resistance is too terrible. And really, that's what we are seeing in Paul's letter. But even attempting to talk about THAT honestly. Well, we're 14 pages into a thread here. These things only change with time. Moving from black slavery to black equality, to mixed-race marriages and children who no longer have the prejudices, that takes literally centuries.

Eventually there will be women priests in the Catholic Church, that is if the world doesn't end first, or the whole of Christendom die out in favor of secularism and Muslim immigration. It would be the crowning irony if the Last Stand of Christian Europe were the ardent insistence that, in the last congregation of 20 old women, where the last priest had died out, they could not continue because "no woman can be a priest". Never underestimate the power of human stubbornness.

 

[Archivist]

Men don't like to be ruled by women. That's the root of all of it. Jesus didn't prohibit women from doing anything, and the Golden Rule SHOULD govern things. But men find a way in all things - home life, politics, business and religion - to justify making things the way THEY want them, and one thing that is pretty common to men the world over is that they do NOT like be ruled by women. It may be instinctive. It may be a reaction to the fact that for the first two decades of our lives we ARE ruled by women - our mothers at home and the school marms. And then we pass into the phase where our innate sex drives express themselves in a way that causes us to relentlessly want to attention and favor of women, but once again, it is women who have the final say so. We pass from the apron strings and gradeschool, where the women were a source of nurturing and education and authority (and, in our earliest childhood, food!), into a phase in which older women still provide all of that, but younger women are the subjects (and objects) of our most intense desires and wants, but in which those young women hold all the power and cut our hearts out. Young women are just as young and stupid as the young men, of course, but they have the power, and they must wield it because the boys come after them, and they wield it clumsily and wound a lot of boys. So we enter adulthood as two separate semi-species. The men don't WANT to be ruled by women anymore, so they form the boys clubs, the male bonding, the military ethos, all that. But then, one by one, they get picked off by women and leave the general male bonding to go and form a family, and then, within family, there is the give and take and cooperation and conflict between husband and wife. The man's inner relationship with God is very personal, perhaps the most personal of all relationships, for God knows ALL of our secrets. Men who will compromise on every other thing become rigid and actually go to the stake and the gallows refusing to bend the knee on religious matter. This is even true when it comes to those who will not pretend to be religious. When it comes to this particular subject, human beings are often quite rigid.

And here, in this religious respect, we see how that resistance to being led by women comes through. Men will make a negative inference from what Jesus didn't do, and then hang on an opinion of Paul, simply because they want something, they need SOMETHING, to let them resist being ruled by women in religion.

I'm sure I'm not telling you something you don't already know, at least instinctively. I cannot speak for any other church but my own, and I can't really speak FOR the Catholic Church either. I merely observe what I have observed to you in the past with regards to the Catholic ordination of women. Catholics are mostly Latin and Latinos, plus some Poles and Irish, and various form of Arabs. For men of those cultures in particular, Latin, macho cultures, the notion of confessing their sins to women is just a bridge too far. Sure, people can make up all sorts of religious mumbo jumbo to paper over the reasons with theology, but at root, the cultural resistance is too terrible. And really, that's what we are seeing in Paul's letter. But even attempting to talk about THAT honestly. Well, we're 14 pages into a thread here. These things only change with time. Moving from black slavery to black equality, to mixed-race marriages and children who no longer have the prejudices, that takes literally centuries.

Eventually there will be women priests in the Catholic Church, that is if the world doesn't end first, or the whole of Christendom die out in favor of secularism and Muslim immigration. It would be the crowning irony if the Last Stand of Christian Europe were the ardent insistence that, in the last congregation of 20 old women, where the last priest had died out, they could not continue because "no woman can be a priest". Never underestimate the power of human stubbornness.

One of the best pastors my church ever had was a woman who served as pastor several years ago. None of the men in the congregation had problems with her. I was president of church council at the time so I’d there had been issues I would have heard about them.

 

[Strong in Him]

Read the scripture posted and the answer is right in front of you, and stop accusing me of running off,

I'm not accusing you of anything.
I'm asking for an answer to my questions - do you take this verse literally, and do you believe that it applies to us today?

If you DO take it literally, could you answer the points that I made in my previous post?

your welcome the answer is there right for all to be seen.

What - that Paul said "I do not permit A woman ....."?
Who was the woman that Paul did not permit to teach, and why does it matter now, since both are dead?

I'm guessing I won't get any answers to this.
It's ok to say if you don't know, but repeating "the answer is there in front of you", and then saying that I don't have spiritual understanding when I ask a question, is not helpful.

 

[messianist]

I'm not accusing you of anything.
I'm asking for an answer to my questions - do you take this verse literally, and do you believe that it applies to us today?

If you DO take it literally, could you answer the points that I made in my previous post?



What - that Paul said "I do not permit A woman ....."?
Who was the woman that Paul did not permit to teach, and why does it matter now, since both are dead?

I'm guessing I won't get any answers to this.
It's ok to say if you don't know, but repeating "the answer is there in front of you", and then saying that I don't have spiritual understanding when I ask a question, is not helpful.

It's not me that i don't know, if I didn't know I wouldn't have posted in the first place you cant except you don't have the spiritual understanding to see and receive the answer given and keep falsely accusing me of not answering them.

What's funny is it was the op I was addressing and you decided to get involved with something you don't know, you have been given the answers but you can not receive them or accept them, I'm not going around in circles with you have a nice day.

 

[Vicomte13]

One of the best pastors my church ever had was a woman who served as pastor several years ago. None of the men in the congregation had problems with her. I was president of church council at the time so I’d there had been issues I would have heard about them.

Lutherans can culturally pull it off. Catholics are just not there yet. It’s cultural.

 

[Strong in Him]

It's not me that i don't know, if I didn't know I wouldn't have posted in the first place you cant except you don't have the spiritual understanding to see and receive the answer given and keep falsely accusing me of not answering them.

What's funny is it was the op I was addressing and you decided to get involved with something you don't know, you have been given the answers but you can not receive them or accept them, I'm not going around in circles with you have a nice day.

As you clearly can't answer the simple question, "do you take the Bible literally?" never mind all the others I have asked, it's probably best we don't continue this.

Of course, I can't help concluding that your refusal to answer my questions means that you don't know the answers, but unless, or until, you put me straight on that one, there's nothing I can do about it.

 

[messianist]

As you clearly can't answer the simple question, "do you take the Bible literally?" never mind all the others I have asked, it's probably best we don't continue this.

Of course, I can't help concluding that your refusal to answer my questions means that you don't know the answers, but unless, or until, you put me straight on that one, there's nothing I can do about it.

ALL questions where answered

That seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them.

I'm putting you on ignore now.

 

[Strong in Him]

ALL questions where answered

That seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them.

I'm putting you on ignore now.

I asked YOU, do you take the Bible literally? Yes or no; simple question.
No answer received.

You've been ignoring me for some time; might as well make it official.

 

[Vicomte13]

I asked YOU, do you take the Bible literally? Yes or no; simple question.
No answer received.

You've been ignoring me for some time; might as well make it official.

I’ll answer for me. I read it a lot of different ways, literally (which requires some foreign language study, because some parts don’t say in Hebrew or Greek what they are made to say in English), metaphorically, allegorically, as law, as written tradition. Since I’m a Catholic, obviously I don’t think it’s the final authority on anything, or the final revelations of God. But there’s quite a bit in it that it is useful and good.