Women Priests/Pastors

[Simplistik]

Nobody, male or female, has a right to be ordained.

explain, cuz i'm pretty sure the Bible says otherwise

 

[Simplistik]

“It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”

"helper" is actually a very weak transliteration of the word in question there. according to Robert Alter (the foremost Hebrew language expert in the world) it is better translated as "sustainer beside him." He says "The Hebrew 'ezer kenegdo' (KJV 'help meet') is notoriously difficult to translate. The second term means alongside him, opposite him, a counterpart to him. "Help" is too weak because it suggests a merely auxiliary function, whereas 'ezer elsewhere connotes active intervention on behalf of someone, especially in military contexts, as often in Psalms"

 

[Simplistik]

I do. Definitive. So I guess we have to leave it at that.

The Catholic church even agrees that it may not be the burial shroud of Christ so how can you find it to be definitive?

 

[Simplistik]

Once they’re dead they believe in God, because they meet him.

yea but that's now how it works. The point is to believe BEFORE we die. Once we're face to face with God, that's it, they can believe all they want but in life they chose not to believe. So you're saying the Catholic Church is suddenly becoming Universalist? Psshhh, no way

 

[Simplistik]

Yes, God forces them to be saved.

That is exactly what I was inferring when I wrote:
"Yes, atheists can go to Heaven."

Please read posts before replying. Please reply to what was written.

God does not force anyone to be saved and the idea that he does goes against everything the Bible teaches.

 

[Strong in Him]

---Staff Edit---

A verse which said, "I will build my church - and women will never be leaders in it, ever", or "The Lord has commanded that no woman ever be in leadership"; taught by Jesus and repeated by Paul, Peter and John in ALL their letters - THAT would be irrefutable Scriptural teaching and proof.

We don't have that.
Jesus said nothing on the subject, but his actions showed that he valued, respected and elevated women. He taught, healed and forgave women. He revealed himself as the Messiah to a woman and chose one to be the first witness to his resurrection, and then go and tell the men. He told us to love as he loved - and what does the church do? Suppresses and insults women; "they can't do that", "they are feminists", "they are deluded/walk in darkness".
The early church did not discuss the "problem" of women in the church, because there wasn't one. Women were in the upper room with the 12 before Pentecost, women hosted church meetings in their houses - which probably meant that they led them, rather than providing tea and biscuits. Women were deacons and deaconesses. Women worked alongside Paul for the Gospel. Women are not excluded from the command to go and teach, preach and make disciples.
Women in the OT were judges, queens and prophetesses. In the NT, Paul appears to tell women to be silent, yet has already instructed them how to pray and prophesy.

There are one or two verses that can be read and understood to mean that women can't be deacons or overseers - that's because it was not the norm then, they mostly didn't.
That is not PROOF that God cannot, and will not, call women today to be Pastors.

 

[Simplistik]

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.

I appreciate your candor and also appreciate your situation. I respect you as a woman of God and all those like you. As I've said previously, I don't agree with women pastor's but I still respect you and your chosen vocation and personally I have no problem learning from a woman or even sitting in on sermons from them. At the end of the day, we are all children of God and Jesus saw us equally. Just because I don't agree with what you believe God called you to do doesn't mean that I can't love you as a woman of God or respect what you do for Him. And as a side note, I don't agree w/ all the heavy handed, disrespectful attitudes being thrown around either.

Just wanted to throw that out there.

 

[Paidiske]

I appreciate your candor and also appreciate your situation. I respect you as a woman of God and all those like you. As I've said previously, I don't agree with women pastor's but I still respect you and your chosen vocation and personally I have no problem learning from a woman or even sitting in on sermons from them. At the end of the day, we are all children of God and Jesus saw us equally. Just because I don't agree with what you believe God called you to do doesn't mean that I can't love you as a woman of God or respect what you do for Him. And as a side note, I don't agree w/ all the heavy handed, disrespectful attitudes being thrown around either.

Just wanted to throw that out there.

Thank you; I very much appreciate that.

 

[messianist]

"helper" is actually a very weak transliteration of the word in question there. according to Robert Alter (the foremost Hebrew language expert in the world) it is better translated as "sustainer beside him." He says "The Hebrew 'ezer kenegdo' (KJV 'help meet') is notoriously difficult to translate. The second term means alongside him, opposite him, a counterpart to him. "Help" is too weak because it suggests a merely auxiliary function, whereas 'ezer elsewhere connotes active intervention on behalf of someone, especially in military contexts, as often in Psalms"

Thank you for your correction on this scripture.

 

[Simplistik]

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?

That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm not referring to every church leadership position. I am only referring to the head pastor at a church, the pastor's pastor, the top leader who runs the church, etc., just to be clear.

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"?

I have absolutely no problem with women running bible studies, teaching informally or anything of the kind. Priscilla was teaching informally and she didn't have any authority over Apollos in doing so. You are correct, though, and the way that he chose to word his proclamation is the reason there is so much debate over it. What would have killed this whole argument would be if Jesus had made a woman one of his 12 apostles but he didn't. Every church leader he promoted was a male and as for women, they had specific roles as well but sadly none were in leadership.

 

[messianist]

There is not one account in the bible of a woman teaching man doctrine.

 

[Paidiske]

That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm not referring to every church leadership position. I am only referring to the head pastor at a church, the pastor's pastor, the top leader who runs the church, etc., just to be clear.

Not every church even has that kind of leadership structure.

 

[Paidiske]

There is not one account in the bible of a woman teaching man doctrine.

Proverbs 31:1 begs to differ.

 

[messianist]

Taught him what?

 

[Paidiske]

Taught him what?

The whole passage which follows; including the Hebrew acrostic poem on "a woman of valour." Which it would be hard to dismiss as having no doctrinal value?

 

[Strong in Him]

an evangelist is NOT the head of a church or the lead Pastor of a church.

No, it isn't.
But in that case, 1 Timothy 2:12 cannot be used to "prove" that women shouldn't do certain things.
A woman who tells a man that he is a sinner, that he won't get to heaven by his own good deeds, shows him, from the Scriptures, what the Good News is and then leads him to Christ, could be said, by some, to be teaching and having authority over. Some posters, in previous debates on this topic, have got quite passionate about women NOT teaching men or having authority over them, and in the next breath say, "of course women can evangelise; I do it myself."
And if those people are ignoring, or glossing over, 1 Tim 2:12 but claiming that other verses "prove" their case, that would suggest they are being selective in the Scriptures they choose to "prove" their point.

 

[messianist]

The whole passage which follows; including the Hebrew acrostic poem on "a woman of valour." Which it would be hard to dismiss as having no doctrinal value?

They are not talking about teaching a man doctrine you clutching at straws.

 

[Paidiske]

They are not talking about teaching a man doctrine you clutching at straws.

You said there was no account in the Bible of a woman teaching a man doctrine, and I didn't even have to think hard to come up with an example where it explicitly says the Scripture which follows (and all Scripture is God-breathed, remember?) was taught to a man by a woman.

 

[Simplistik]

Yep, and no cripples. Handicapped men cannot be pastors, because they were not chosen by God.

i'm sorry....what?

 

[messianist]

You said there was no account in the Bible of a woman teaching a man doctrine, and I didn't even have to think hard to come up with an example where it explicitly says the Scripture which follows (and all Scripture is God-breathed, remember?) was taught to a man by a woman.

The scripture is talking about the woman teaching her son whilst he was a boy, its nothing to do with women preaching men the word of Elohim

Fair play I'm glad you didn't have to think hard.