Should women be ordained

S'all right.
I can't determine what goes on in the Church. If we have female pastors, well, uh (got Metallica in the background), then I guess you have female pastors. I don't know if being a woman has any true impact on the Church, so long as the message is given out, whether through an estrogenic voice or a testeronic voice. One or the other. It matters to me, but if it's good for your church to have a female pastor, then I can't change that. I just know I wouldn't be comfortable, and would most likely not go to a chruch taught by a female pastor. For some reason or another, God says not to. Or does he...? The struggle continues.
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] (Mr_Eon @ Jan. 11 2003,11:41)]
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(Mr_Eon) Pauls demand that Women subject to male authority is rooted in HIS cultural origins, and not in any divine commandment.

(Me) I agree that his belief was largely rooted in his cultural origins. Of course, so was his belief that God exists, and so was his belief that Christ was the Messiah. However, that doesn't mean that it's wrong. Since this argument (1 Tim 2) is included in the Scripture, it is true. Thus, women are not to hold position of teaching authority over men in the Church. To do so is to explicitly contest the authority of the Bible, thus explicitly destroy your own ministry.

Sola Scriptura
 
I'm actually surprised to see so many here opposing women ministers... So far I thought most of the users of this board were younger and more progressive Christians, but apparently many of you are still clinging to your sexist traditions. I feel bad for the others who aren't, since you are giving all Christians a bad name here. Never again can you point the finger at the Islamic treatment of women and call it unjust, you would be hypocrites.
 
To deny the female is to deny fully half of creation. You cannot say that the female principle is less than the male, they are equal.

Timothy was wrong. After all, the bible says firstly that structured church is not necessary. Priests, sermons, Hymns, robes, gilt crosses - none of this is required. Women are clearly fit to intercede with the Almighty on their OWN behalf - so the issue is not that women aren't fit to represent women - just that they're unfit to represent MEN. And that suggests that men are somehow morally and spiritually superior to their women - a notion that all women (and all men, if it come to that) should reject automatically.

Eon
 
I have been to some really strict churches (as a visitor) where a woman as not allowed to say Amen, all they could do is wave a hanky. I think that's pushing it too far.

Men and women are designed differently and have different specialties and roles. Males in authority generaly have more respect than females in the same position. My church has women speakers, women groups with leaders but no female preachers per say. I think the Bible is against it...however if I was stranded on an island with believers and I was the most knowledgeable I would start doing the preaching if no one else would. I wouldn't go to hell or anything. It's just a role issue. Repect and authority.

When I was dating my husband I was more spiritually mature but he has matured a lot and takes his role seriously. Nothing wrong with that at all.
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]Pauls demand that Women subject to male authority is rooted in HIS cultural origins, and not in any divine commandment.
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I wholeheartedly agree with that Eon! 100% my point!
 
Thank you Tom. To which I have to add that Paul was a Roman, not a Hebraic Jew. So his cultural origins had nothing to do with the origins of the old testament and the bible.

In Roman times women were subjugated much as they were recently in our society - women ruled as the power behind the throne, rather than the man in charge. It's a waste of assets.

Eon
 
You're a woman CCGR? Wow. I always, uh, thought you were a guy.
Well, not if you were stuck on an island with Jews...j/k.
Okay Mustard. I got a bone to pick with that post you slapped down: We do not cling to sexist traditions. Listen, we don't know what the Jews of four thousand years ago did. We don't know what the original laws God laid down, if any, for Adam's era. Times change, as do things. The Jews, if any of you non-Christians who love to twist our words and Scripture against us, loved the Law to the point of placing it before God, but never realizing it, thinking they were doing God's will in living the Law. God gave us the Law to follow, right? He said as much as Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ himself says, "For God did not send His Son into this world to condemn it, but that the world through Him may be saved." Somewhere else he mentions the fulfillment of the Law: he is it. And he also summarizes all the laws that the Jews worshipped into two: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your mind and all your soul," and "Love your neighbor as yourself." Keeping those two meant you would keep all 6,537,319,816 laws the Jews kept themselves busy with. If any Jews take offense, oh well. That's just an estimate. The Noadic Jews have over 600 laws, and get this: NOAH WASN'T A JEW! There were no such things as Jews back in those days! Geez Loweez!
Women were made to be a companion to man, to love him, honor him, blah blah. To help him. Not to fight with him, and not for men to beat into submission. Those are the two general sides that feminists take up: men dominate and women are forced into submission. Stupid. No. It's true, but it's not what God set up. He set up woman as man's assistant and companion, and man as her companion and uh, well, assistant as well, in a sense.
Nero's freak mom comes into mind with that last post Eon. And Paul was a Roman citizen, a fact he used at least twice to get himself out of trouble with the Roman law when the Jews tried to kill him. But if you also read the Bible, you would know that Paul was a Jew of Jews, a Pharisee. He lived the Law to the letter. And that included punishing those who said they were God. That was blasphemy. Jesus Christ came out and said in so many words, "Yo homes! I'm the Son of God." GASP! Stone the heathen! or, as it ended up: Crucify! Crucify!
Paul's origins may have been Roman in citizenship, but he was Jewish in culture: there is no freaking way the Jews would allow a Gentile to be a Pharisee: to do so would be a sin against the law of God. The Law, the Law. That's all the Jews worried about.
Also Eon, Timothy wasn't wrong: it was Paul who wrote to Timothy. So if anyone was wrong, it was Paul, as appears to be the general agreement of the feminist supporters here.
And I do believe that man is in a sense superior in ways to women, and women superior to men as well in certain ways. Men are aggressive. Admit it, even the wusses. We're all aggressive. The women however are softer and gentler and more sensitive, a lot more emotional. Men hide their feelings with ease. I do. No one can tell when I'm mad, angry, hateful, sad, happy, fine, okay, bad, terrible, raging, joking, sarcastic, cynical, serious, depressed, nothing. I hide it so well behind a mask. It's easy for me: it happens automatically.
Mustard: Christians do not strap women to the beds and dominate them or shout "Stone the harlot!" when we see a woman's leg exposed. We usually see one of three things on women: kinda clothed, hardly clothed or not clothed. The Islams have their women wrapped up in robes. And if you knew anything, you would also know that the Islams are shocked that we have pornography and scantily clad women all across America. It's a shock to them. It's a sin to expose the body in such ways. We may oppose women ministers: that doesn't mean we're sexist! That just means we don't agree/believe in it! I don't and I would feel completely uncomfortable in such a situation.
While God did not tell the Jews, "And women shall be treated as animals" and "Thus says the Lord: And women shall have no place in my Temple." NO! NO NO NO! God never said such a thing, such a relative thing. It is in no way divine. But, he strictly said this: the teachers of the Law (Levites (Pharisees and Sadducees) are all men! God made man in his image. He did not make women in his own image. He made women kinda in the image of man, and not directly from his own image. Read Genesis again if you can't handle that. God did not say, "And let us create woman in our own image." He said "man."
Men treat women as less than men, and since the teachers of the Law and the priests of God are all male, it is understandable that we carry on that tradition that men alone preach the Word of God.
Ensign Fine Megan came to my school on Monday and said her feelings of women in the military: she did not approve of it for several reasons. And SHE's an ensign in the Navy! That tells you something. With the rise of feminism and equality, then, in the case that women bawl to be able to preach in Church, let us then do this: make them equal with men, completely. If they get pregnant and can't get to work, dock their pay, make them work overtime. How do they get pregnant? Hmm. Through sex. Men and women alike do that, however, men aren't usually hampered by it, unless they get a disease from it. Then they, uh, either get better in a long time or never get better. Women want equality? Then they better be ready to be fired for not showing up at work for a long time. Women want equality? Then they'd better not expect men to hold doors open and compliment them on their dresses. They're to go out at war, pregnant or not, and be expected to kill the enemy.
Women don't want equality: they want what can make them feel good about themselves, so they whine for a little for equality, thus equalling better pay in managing positions but lawsuits if they're docked for being pregnant on the basis of sexual profiling.
No, my friends. Women want equality when it's in their favor. Otherwise, let the men have it all.
And the army is strict about women in the infantry: a big fat emphatic NO! For one, women distract men most times, and another, the enemy, as the Israelis found out, fights a whole lot harder to win if women are in the front lines, because they definitely don't want to be humiliated and have to say, "DANGIT! We lost to women!"
If women want to be in the Church, let them bring their lawsuits against God.
And if we want to argue about cultural roots, then we can fight over this: where do we get the idea that man can't kill fellow men? Self-conscience? Random laws some old guys with wigs living in the 1700s thought up and put them down as our constitutional law? No. Where did they get that from? They got it from, gasp, the Bible! Cultural roots anyone? Why is it that Intel would get mad if I stole their supercomputers and all data on it? Why? Cause it's a law! No theft or else. ANd where did that come from? Farmer Bob? NO! It came from the Bible!
Comments? I expect a slough.
 
Don't be ridiculous! Just because the bible has laws about theft and murder, you act as if no other culture has those same laws! The Babylonians, funnily enough, were the first peoples to have a written code of laws - Hammurabi's Code of Laws. The Egyptians had laws. The Chinese had lawyers and courts long before the rest of us had learned how to read and write!

And to say you're not sexist before slapping down that load of, frankly, sexist tripe towards the end of your post is hypocritical to the nth degree. I don't know how old you are, and what your experience of women is, but you have a LOT to learn about women if you think that they can't be every bit as agressive as men, and if you think that they can't hide their feelings. A hell of a lot.

Ask the Russians how well women can fight. Did you know that the first unit of Soviets into the Reichstag during the siege of Berlin was all female? That the Russians fielded female pilots and snipers. The Israeli's still use female soldiers to this day, so I imagine their experience with them during the various wars can't have been that negative.

Most modern armies don't, and it's entirely due to;

1. Tradition.
2. Logistics.
3. Legality

I do agree with you about one thing though. Women wanting a career in the military should expect to go through exactly the same training to exactly the same standard as their male counterparts. Your tirade about pregnancy, I feel, shows your true feelings about women. Barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen, eh?

Eon
 
Excuse me: no. In most cases, men are proven to be more aggressive than women, and if you don't think women show their feelings more easily then men do, you need to do some analyzing. Women are much more emotional than men, and yes, they can as well hide their feelings. Men can't tell women's feelings most of the time.
I am fully aware that many cultures have their own laws and regulations of what can or can't be done. Especially China. Steal something? WHACK! There goes your hand. Caught in adultery? WHACK! Ugh. Don't even wanna think about that.
But: our forefathers did not go to China to get their moral laws, or to Babylon for their own. They got them from the Bible. If you read the Constitution, if you read our Declaration, and if you know the backgrounds of some of our forefathers, you will see that most were Christians. Benjamin Franklin, however, was not. He was a humanist to the core. He looked at pride and vanity as virtues. Won't get into that, but he's wrong.
Let me restate myself: in Israel, everyone fights, yes. But not on the frontlines.
So what is your response to my post about women in the Tabernacle of God? I didn't see any.
And I'll toss this one in: NASA has scientifically proven that women are more resistant to extreme heat, cold and pressure than men, so they should be in the Air Force as well.
Now I'll tell you one thing: I AM NOT SEXIST. I love girls. All the way. I give them respect, I listen to their opinions, I hang out with them, I debate with them, I talk with them. Not much different from guys right? Right. I don't shun them away from me or not let them have anything to do with me because they're a girl. I know several genius girls.
Despite all that, I still would not support a female pastor. At all.
 
You must also remember that, Paul gives a reason for this.  It's not just some random decision he made because he felt like it.  But also you must decide if this for certain churches or all the churches.

[b said:
Quote[/b] ]1Ti 2:13  For Adam was first formed, then Eve.
1Ti 2:14  Adam wasn't deceived, but the woman, being deceived, has fallen into disobedience;
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Nowhere does it say a woman CANNOT be an ordained minister.  It says a woman should not exercise authority over a man.  Due to the order of creation and man's own stupidity over listening to his wife at the dawn of creation.  That said, Paul also says there is no difference between man and woman in God's eyes.
Also Robertson's Word Pictures of the New Testament says
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]To teach (didaskein). In the public meeting clearly. And yet all modern Christians allow women to teach Sunday school classes. One feels somehow that something is not expressed here to make it all clear.
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And to deal with the scripture in 1 Corinthians about women keeping silent in a church
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]1Co 14:35  If they desire to learn anything, let them ask their own husbands at home, for it is shameful for a woman to chatter in the assembly.
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 The important thing here is the "chatter" part.  I think Paul just wanted women to not interupt the service with pointless talking, Clarke says
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]For it is a shame for women to speak in the church - The Jews would not suffer a woman to read in the synagogue; though a servant or even a child, had this permission; but the apostle refers to irregular conduct, such conduct as proved that they were not under obedience, 1Co_14:34.
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 Though I think Clarke is missing a few important things such as the judge Deborah.  the prohpetic writings of Joel saying that "Our sons and daughters will prophesy" and the fact that Paul himself teaches on how women should pray in the church

But I think the People's New Testament Commentary says it best
[b said:
Quote[/b] ] (1) Paul's prohibition of speaking to the women is, in the churches; that is, in the church assemblies when "the whole church is come together into one place" (1Co_14:23). It is an official meeting of the church. "Church" in the New Testament always means the ecclesia. It does not apply to such informal meetings as the social or prayer-meetings, but to formal gatherings of the whole body. (2) It may be that even this prohibition was due to the circumstances that existed in Ephesus, where Timothy was, and in Corinth, and would not apply everywhere. If so, it applies wherever similar circumstances exist, but not elsewhere. Both were Greek churches. Among the Greeks public women were disreputable. For a woman to speak in public would cause the remark that she was shameless. Virtuous women were secluded. Hence it would be a shame for women to speak in the church assembly. It is noteworthy that there is no hint of such a prohibition to any churches except Grecian. Wherever it would be shameful, women ought not to speak.
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When they say church they mean the actual Sunday Morning Meeting (for most Christian denominations)  BUt the commentary does point out that this prohibitions is only pointed toward Grecian churches and there is no talk whatsoever about women not speaking/teaching in say Romans.    And this is my stance on women ministers.  an example is, in a Muslim country, a woman should not be a minister, solely due to the fact that being so might disrupt the meeting, and drive people away from the chruch.  But in any western society, a woman should feel free to become one, provided she stays in submission to her husband

And on that note, a woman needs to be in submission to her husband, provided that her husband is a God-fearing man, teaching as he is supposed to, instructing his family, obeying the word of God, being a servant-leader and TREATING HIS WIFE, AS CHRIST TREATS THE CHURCH.  Christ doesn't beat us down.  Christ treats us with love, respect, and His desires for us are always in OUR BEST INTERESTS.  Likewise a Christian husband should treat his wife in the exact same way.  And that that submission includes being taught first and foremost by her husband.

Eon
1 Timothy not wrong per se.  1 Timothy is very detailed, and dealing with churches in places where it was shameful for a woman to be a minister. Paul says that we should be all things to all people, if it allows 1 person to become saved.
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]I do agree with you about one thing though. Women wanting a career in the military should expect to go through exactly the same training to exactly the same standard as their male counterparts.
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Eon this is unprecidented but I've managed to agree with you twice in one thread
smile.gif
.  If women want to serve in the military that's fine, but you don't lower the bar because they're expected to perform at a lower level.  The bar should be the same for everyone, that's what equality is all about(which is also why I disagree with Affirmitive Action).
 
Well this is the longest thread that i have read to date.... in fact with the mix of politics, others countries and religions and taunts.... (like women will be saved through childbearing.. haha reminds me of bible college)

Should women be in ministry.

Yes.

I am a pastor in Australia. What a great thing. I have been both a youth pastor and now a senior pastor. In both these roles i have worked with women in ministry at all levels. The youth ministry in my church is run by a woman who is a pastor. My childrens ministry leader is going through the processes of recognition to be a pastor right now.

THe senior minister of our other church in our city is a woman, and she submits to her husband in the home, and she is still the spiritual leader in her church, with His support.

You do have to get your standards from the bible.
Period.

There were elders set up in the NT over the local church, both men and women.

There are prophetessesseess (however you spell that) in the OT. there's a challenge.And today we see them still. thank you Jesus..

In our culture (western) it works. In our church structure for our movement we are all accountable to our national leaders and state leaders. So being a women isn't a problem.

In fact one of my male peers (Youth pastor) says that women build his youth ministry. In his words males are retards. They'd rather be off skating (and there's nothing wrong with that, i still skate when i can) where the girls have better perspective at the teenage years and really focus on what God wants..

I agree. We have great guys serving God, but our girls are going off for God.

I have had people leave our church because of women being appointed in leadership. But they were from a different culture and women in leadership were an abomination. They are happy in another church, and we are growing.....

If it shouldn't happened it wouldn't be blessed or fruitful. Jesus said test everything by it's fruit. IT's either all good or all bad.

So look at some fruit, and judge each tree by it. Not the whole forrest on one tree...

I know some women who should never be a pastor even though that's what they want. They would abuse the authority. IT would be to heavy for them.

Aspiring to be an overseer is a great thing paul says. But we don't get given a position, and then have to live up to it. Our leaders see the potential for what God has for us, and if we grow in that- who we are- what our gifting is, is recognised. God put it there, The holy Spirit gives gifts as he see's fit.

The main thing that we all have to remember is we are all called to be ministers of the Gospel. A royal preisthood.

Pastors, prophets, teachers, apostles and evangelists are a gift to the Chruch Body to teach the body (eph)(everyone else) and release them into their communities.

So you are all ministers of the Gospel if you accept Jesus as Lord. Whether you are a woman or not.



be cool


sealcomm
 
....I feel....sense! I can sense now! Thank you sealcomm.
While I still don't agree with the whole women pastor thing, judging by the fruits puts it again in perspective for me. I'm not sexist: I just don't believe in it. Okay? That's like saying eating lettuce makes you vegetarian.
 
I'd like to state that in 1 Tim 3:12, the KJV states: "Let the deacons be the husbands of one wife, ruling their children and their own houses well." Crosswalk allows for strongs numbers to link to those words. The word "wife" is "gunhv" meaning "a woman of any age, whether a virgin, or married, or a widow" or "a wife". In any event, it is clearly a feminine word. The word husband is "ajnhvr". It seems like 99% of the time it refers to males alone. On occasion it could be used to refer to a group comprised of both men and women. But that doesn't quite square with the "wife" part. It also states that the decons should rule their own houses well. That is a male's place in God's scheme of things.
 
here let me just help you guys out with this, women shouldnt be minsiters, period, the men are doing a fine job as is. when we need the 3rd string qb to stand in for us, we will ask.

as for the pc afirmitive action junk, white men are just better at everything than females, or people of other races, skin color, creed, etc...
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] (GodlyLeetPerson @ Jan. 29 2003,8:55)]as for the pc afirmitive action junk, white men are just better at everything than females, or people of other races, skin color, creed, etc...
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I'm thinking we picked up another joker here...
 
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