# Female Pastors



## Osage Bluestem

Does anyone know of a "scriptural" argument for female pastors? 

The positions I have seen presented for this from the liberal denominations are that they don't believe the bible is inerrant so they reject the parts where it teaches women are not to pastor. They don't believe what Paul wrote is the Word of God generally so they also accept homosexual pastors. However, that does not present an argument from scripture for these positions. 

Is there a bible believeing church that has female pastors just by sheer error? If there is, how do they scripturally justify it?


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## Mushroom

There ain't none.


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## Scott1

No, God qualified the authoritative church offices for men as per I Timothy 3 and Titus 1 and it reflects the priority of creation in Genesis and I Timothy 2 and the example of all the early apostles and deacons (Acts 6).

Some will misrepresent "there is no male or female" (Galatians) to say it is somehow talking about church authority, but by context it is not at all- it is talking about salvation.



> Galatians 3:28
> 
> 28There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.



So, no, there is no biblical argument, there are lots of the rebellious imaginations of men, making as it were, their own religion.


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## gene_mingo

My father tried to use:



> Galations 3:28
> There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.



To argue for female pastors.


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## Andres

I think they _attempt_ to justify it by taking an egalitarian understanding of the scriptures. Of course, I am not sure how they arrive at this either, but a beginning point might be something like Gal 3:28 -"There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus."

(Update:Oops, I see some beat me to it!)


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## PresbyDane

"Female Pastor" is that not what you technically call an oximorron?!?


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## Oecolampadius

PresbyDane said:


> "Female Pastor" is that not what you technically call an oximorron?!?



It is an oxymoron.

BTW, I used that word ("oxymoron") on Facebook and some people thought I was cursing.


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## Mushroom

Chippy said:


> PresbyDane said:
> 
> 
> 
> "Female Pastor" is that not what you technically call an oximorron?!?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> It is an oxymoron.
> 
> BTW, I used that word ("oxymoron") on Facebook and some people thought I was cursing.
Click to expand...

Well.... it IS Facebook, after all...


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## lynnie

Deborah is the main example I've heard. (I usually point out that while she was wise and insightful as she judged, it was Barak leading the people into battle). Then there is Priscilla and Aquilla as a team explaining the gospel to Apollos, so that means a wife is a co pastor 

I do think that between examples of various women prophets and other godly women, churches might want to encourage older women to be doing counseling of younger women, instead of sometimes putting all that on male elders. I am not sure how men elders guarding the flock, and older women helping younger women according to scripture should be divided up, but churches should at least think about it. I've seen an awful lot of women over the years with serious emotional and relational problems, who I think in some cases might have been better off with a mother figure than the assistant pastor or elders for counseling. But hard to know what is best sometimes....


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## Michael

A female pasture is where you keep the heifers from the bulls.


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## Nathan Riese

gene_mingo said:


> My father tried to use:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Galations 3:28
> There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> To argue for female pastors.
Click to expand...


My brother and his wife argued Galatians 3:28.

I was also told, "if ANYONE desires the office of bishop..." 1 Timothy 3:1. See...ANYONE, male or female, can be a pastor!

Not even kidding! That is the "Scriptural" argument that I was given for female pastors. Is that not the most out of context statement you've ever heard?


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## JonathanHunt

There is section of the Church of England that is NOT liberal and believes the gospel - but allows lady ministers. I have met one such lady and she was to my mind sound in so many ways (especially on the gospel, jbfa etc).

The ground I have heard from those who claim to be Bible believers is that the commands ARE part of scripture, but that they are cultural and must be reinterpreted. Male headship is still on in the home, but not outside it. yeah, right.

Same lady I have in mind was vehemently against homosexuals in ministry. But how can there be this massive blind spot that fails to note that the same rationale for allowing her to minister allows homosexuals to minister?

Just my personal opinion, but I believe those ladies now actually preaching the gospel (yes, the true gospel - not the majority but a significant number) here in Britain are part of God's indictment upon the failure of men to be men.


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## Jake

Nathan Riese said:


> gene_mingo said:
> 
> 
> 
> My father tried to use:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Galations 3:28
> There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> To argue for female pastors.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> My brother and his wife argued Galatians 3:28.
> 
> I was also told, "if ANYONE desires the office of bishop..." 1 Timothy 3:1. See...ANYONE, male or female, can be a pastor!
> 
> Not even kidding! That is the "Scriptural" argument that I was given for female pastors. Is that not the most out of context statement you've ever heard?
Click to expand...


That's pretty ironic considering most Bible translations use "any man" or "a man" there anyway.


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## blhowes

I was curious, so I Googled. Came across this defense by a pastor (male) in an article called "What Does the Bible Say About Women Preachers?". . Here are his main points:


> 1. There is not one Scripture in the Bible that forbids women from preaching, but on the contrary, there are many verses that encourage both men and women to preach the Gospel...
> 
> 2. The Bible teaches that God is not a respecter of persons, and He will use any and all who will yield to Him, regardless of race, age, or sex...
> 
> 3. The Great Commission, Mark 16:15, "Preach the Gospel," is to ALL believers, and to all the church of Jesus Christ. The command to "preach the Gospel" is to both male and female...
> 
> 4. It is an undeniable fact that God has called and anointed thousands of women to preach the Gospel. The Full Gospel organizations have hundreds of licensed and ordained women who are preaching, teaching, evangelizing, pastoring, and doing mission work with the signs following their ministry. God is using them for the salvation of the lost, deliverance from sin, gifts of the Spirit, and infilling of the Holy Spirit...
> 
> 5. Women preachers are a fulfillment of Bible Prophecy and another sign of Christ's soon return to earth (Joel 2:28; Acts 2:17-18)...
> 
> 6. The Bible declares that women will prophesy: 1 Cor. 11:5, "For every woman that prayeth or prophesieth...."...
> 
> 7. God called and used women preachers in the Old Testament...
> 
> 8. God called and used women preachers in the New Testament...
> 
> 9. There is no sound reason why a woman or man should not preach the Gospel. There is a desperate need in the church for more workers. Laborers are few, and God will use any and all who will go for Him. Some say God will not use a woman to preach, because "The woman was deceived," but remember Romans 5:12: "Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world." It seems to indicate that Adam was just as guilty as Eve in the fall of man. If anyone should be kept from preaching because of sin, it would be Adam. But God does not forbid anyone from preaching, because of Adam's or Eve's sin...
> 
> 10. 1 Cor. 14: 34-35 does not say anything about women preachers. If Paul intended this verse as a general rule to bar all women from speaking in church, then they cannot teach Sunday School, testify, pray, prophesy, sing, or even get saved, and this would contradict the rest of the Bible (Acts 2:4; Acts 2:16-18)...
> 
> 11. 1 Timothy 2:12 is not a blanket rule for all women of all churches. If it were, then the women could not speak at all, for the same verse that tells them not to teach also tells them to be silent...
> 
> 12. Some have used Titus 1:6-7, "If any be blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children...", but there is a difference between a preacher and a bishop. For I was an Evangelist and now am a Pastor, but I am not a Bishop (Overseer), and most Pastors are not...
> 
> 13. To condemn women preachers and women church workers is a serious offense, because God has stamped His approval on them by His Spirit over and over again, and who is man to fight against the Spirit of God?...


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## Rich Koster

There is a method to scripturally justify female pastors......twist scripture like a pretzel and ignore the full counsel on the topic.


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## Grillsy

Galatians 3:28 and also Deborah both mentioned above. Also many Pentecostals point to the massive spread of their movement as proof the God blesses female pastors.


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## Jack K

DD2009 said:


> Does anyone know of a "scriptural" argument for female pastors?



The best Biblical argument I've heard for female pastors came from Mardi Keyes who's with L'Abri. I didn't buy it, but the reason it was a good argument was she didn't try to make her case by prooftexting from a verse or two. She noted specific texts, but argued from the larger pattern of what the Bible says about men and women. So her scriptural argument was not something I could summarize by pointing you to a verse or two, even if I could remember it well enough to try.

Her "Feminism and the Bible" pamphlet contains most of what I heard, I think. Again, it didn't convince me. But it made me wonder a bit and I admired the argument. So if you really want to hear a decent argument...


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## au5t1n

Ah, more "jumbo shrimp." 

To answer the question, the crux of it is using Gal. 3:28 and the example of Deborah (see the book of Judges) to argue for egalitarianism, and then arguing that the Scriptural prohibitions against female pastors are cultural and addressed specific issues in those particular churches, such as uneducated women calling across the isle to the men, asking them questions during church, etc.


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## Osage Bluestem

Jack K said:


> DD2009 said:
> 
> 
> 
> Does anyone know of a "scriptural" argument for female pastors?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The best Biblical argument I've heard for female pastors came from Mardi Keyes who's with L'Abri. I didn't buy it, but the reason it was a good argument was she didn't try to make her case by prooftexting from a verse or two. She noted specific texts, but argued from the larger pattern of what the Bible says about men and women. So her scriptural argument was not something I could summarize by pointing you to a verse or two, even if I could remember it well enough to try.
> 
> Her "Feminism and the Bible" pamphlet contains most of what I heard, I think. Again, it didn't convince me. But it made me wonder a bit and I admired the argument. So if you really want to hear a decent argument...
Click to expand...


I was wanting to hear a decent argument from one. I don't understand how a person who holds to full inerrancy can explain away some of those texts. I once thought that this could be done and I just trusted that because the PC-USA had female pastors, but I'm convinced that scripture teaches only men should be shepherds of the flock. I have heard those in the PC-USA and ELCA go for a while with similar arguments as given above by some, but it always seems to end for them taking refuge in their view that the bible is "authoritative but not inerrant"...so they in the end claim that those verses aren't really part of scripture or that Paul didn't even write them.


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## Grillsy

I'm just thankful for the clarity of Scripture and that gender roles are rooted in creation rather than culture.


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## Marrow Man

Galatians 3:28 is one verse usually mentioned, but also Acts 2:17 (" your sons and your daughters shall prophesy"). I saw both of these mentioned by a male pastor at from a liberal Baptist church in Greenville, SC, in a letter to the editor of the newspaper (which I felt obliged to reply to  ). Interestingly, some time later I saw where these were gleaned from a book written to justify the practice; D.A. Carson mentions the verses and shows why they are off in _Exegetical Fallacies_.

BTW, I appreciate the excellent grammar displayed in the title of this thread!


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## Scott1

> Galatians 3
> 
> 23But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed.
> 
> 24Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.
> 
> 25But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.
> 
> 26For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.
> 
> 27For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
> 
> 28There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.
> 
> 29And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.



The Gospel in the Old Testament is grace through faith in Christ, as it is in the New Testament to Jew and Gentile, men and women... the same to all whom God would redeem.

(Has absolutely nothing to do with women exercising ecclesiastical authority over men.)


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## DMcFadden

With the strong emphasis upon egalitarianism in the academy, it is not unusual for otherwise conservative to VERY conservative profs to advocate for women in "non traditional" roles. Some groups ordain any full time staff person of either gender, others only ordain the sr. pastor/lead pastor/sr. minister/solo pastor. In groups that ordain only the preaching pastor, the tendency is for inerrantists of various traditions to oppose the ordination of women. However, some inerrantists are happy to have women in other full time staff roles (e.g., Christian education, children's ministry, women's ministries). For them, since the staffer does not "exercise authority" they see it as acceptable. 

At the beginning of the evangelical egalitarian era in the 1970s, a woman who had published in the Westminster Journal of Theology wrote a book typologizing views for the role of women in the church. Part of what she said included the following options:

* Yes authority, yes teaching
* No authority, yes teaching
* No authority, no teaching

The first view is the "evangelical" egalitarian. Here ordination is encouraged as a "right" of biblically qualified candidates regardless of gender. The third probably represents most PBers and denies the appropriateness of women to be ordained or to teach in the church. Those holding to the second view would argue against ordination, but permit women roles of teaching, preaching, and authoring theological works.

My wife has been a "career" Christian educator who has served full time on church staffs (in Chr. ed and children's ministry) for more than two decades. She is NOT ordained (by her own choice since our denomination would have ordained her) and views 1 Tim 2 as contradicting the "evangelical feminists." Whenever she hears of another pontification by a "female pastor," she shakes her head and moans "Paul was right."

In my limited experience, the general evangelical arguments for ordaining women reduce to a limited number of trajectories:
* Paul was wrong in 1 Tim, we are free to go in a different direction (Paul K. Jewett, Westminster grad).
* Paul was dealing with a social situation that prevailed in the Ephesian church and the prohibition can be separated from the transculturally binding principle.
* Redemptive-movement hermeneutics (cf. Webb, _Slaves, Women, and Homosexuals_) argues that the Bible captures an earlier stage in the unfolding story of God's redemptive purposes. We can expect the Spirit to "lead us" beyond some of the specific teachings of the Bible that were appropriate in their own time.

I find these arguments flawed, wrong-headed, and dangerous. The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW) where Ligon Duncan is chairman of the board has produced some great materials, many of them available for free download on the subject.

THE expert (at least on the PB) on this topic is our own Lane Keister (Greenbaggins).


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## earl40

I do not have a biblical reason but I do know I have a good friend in Africa that "allows" ladies pastors because there are simply no men to do the job.


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## Scott1

> *DMcFadden*
> Those holding to the second view would argue against ordination, but permit women roles of teaching, preaching, and authoring theological works.



My understanding of the biblical principles is women can teach other women and can teach young children, in a lay capacity. But not be ordained to office, which are qualified explicitly and by analogy from the priority of creation to male leadership. Nor teach mixed groups of adults. Nor authoritatively proclaim as part of worship by reading Scripture during public worship or exhorting from it, as part of music or in any form during corporate worship.

All that to say that what is so damaging about your #2 is that it devalues ordination, and the offices of the church.

This is the argumentation being used in a few places in reformed circles with the effect of devaluing male leadership, ordination, and church office and replacing it with ambiguity, relativity and confusion.

The witness of church history is this was not confused historically. It's just a symptom of the blindness of sin- each man doing what is right in his own eyes.


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## lynnie

_My understanding of the biblical principles is women can teach other women and can teach young children, in a lay capacity._

I hope you guys all focus on the need for this. Yeah women should not be ordained, but shepherds are supposed to provide for the needs of the flock, and that includes young women. I spent most of my early Christian life, and as a new mother, with almost no older woman to talk to or learn from except for one nice aunt. I had loads of peer friends, but we all came from the great revival of the Jesus movement and older women were few and far between. As an avid reader I had help from books, but many women just don't read much. 

I have known so many women who are/were depressed, molested by relatives while teens or younger, girls with abortions in their past, gals with critical controlling husbands or silent neglecting husbands, ladies with so many problems. Today, God has raised up such wonderful helpful resources from places like CCEF, Peacemakers, etc, to help people deal with emotional and relational problems in a biblical way. And does the lady who is having flashbacks of being raped when she lies with hubby, and dealing with the searing feelings of shame and pain and rage, really need to go talk to male elders about what happens when she gets physically aroused? Huh? I am not making up some fringe hypothetical situation, they say 1/4- 1/3 of women in America have been molested, and many more were promiscuous before salvation. I know these people and their marriages are a MESS.

Is your church ready for a revival, when people from this gutter of a culture get saved, with all the baggage they will have? Are you doing something- major somethings- to help older women minister to the younger?

I know you guys here have beautiful caring hearts for the church and for pure doctrine. But if you teach (correctly) against female leadership, without seriously considering how you can facilitate older women ministering to younger women, then the women in your churches may feel lonely and longing for help that isn't there. At the very least get in good DVD and CD materials. Pay the way for women to go to conferences like CCEF where the subject applies (they've had them recently on addiction, worry, etc). Make a well trained female biblical counselor available (for free, and it will probably cost the deacons fund a mint). Make sure that their women's meetings focus on good doctrine, and I don't mean Beth Moore. Have the guts to tell them that the best bible study materials out there are by men, and if they want to get together and study doctrine (not related to kids & marriage) it doesn't have to be a woman they listen to or read, generally the men's materials are far better (you might get some real flack on this one, ha. I've gotten it too! So what, it is true. Stand your ground even if they give you those silent witchy vibes back.) 

If you want to fight the strong minded women out there who suck younger women into their spiderweb, the way to do it is to provide so well for the younger women that they don't go wandering.


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## ChariotsofFire

earl40 said:


> I do not have a biblical reason but I do know I have a good friend in Africa that "allows" ladies pastors because there are simply no men to do the job.



If there are no men, where do the ladies come from?


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## earl40

ChariotsofFire said:


> earl40 said:
> 
> 
> 
> I do not have a biblical reason but I do know I have a good friend in Africa that "allows" ladies pastors because there are simply no men to do the job.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> If there are no men, where do the ladies come from?
Click to expand...


Smert arse.


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## BobVigneault

If I was going to argue for woman pastors I would use 1 Timothy 2:11


> Let a woman LEARN quietly with all submissiveness. 12 I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet.



I would emphasize the word "learn", explaining that this is a very radical and game changing signal of the progressiveness that Christianity was bringing in contrast to Judaism. It was forbidden for a woman to learn the scriptures and their interpretation but now, Christ was introducing 'new wine skins' and an effervescent movement. Why would a woman be allowed to learn and interpret scripture if she would never use it to teach? As soon as the education of the woman was complete, it would be foolish to 'hide her light under a bushel'. Paul's temporary ban against women as teachers would be removed as they demonstrated an ecclesiastical and Biblical fitness.

I also would limit the pastorate to women whose husbands can play the piano or organ but I can't back it up from scripture.

{This post is for entertainment purposes only and in no way is an actual endorsement of woman pastors. No part of this post can be copied or published without the expressed written consent of the commissioner of baseball.}


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## timmopussycat

DD2009 said:


> Is there a bible believeing church that has female pastors just by sheer error? If there is, how do they scripturally justify it?



You will find that a variety of solid "bible believing" churches have female pastors. Denominationally they range from Pentacostals through Baptists and Evangelical Anglicans to perhaps some Presbyterians...

Although I do not now believe in women in unrestricted teaching ministries(female pastors), I came to that conclusion after been born again in and involved for over a decade with churches in all the above denominations (save Presbyterian) that have had female pastors. Consequently, I think I understand the arguments egalitarians derive from Scripture as the advocates of female pastors would present them. And in my case, alll but one of these (local) churches were either 4 or 5point Calvinist in soteriology so they were reasonably, if not absolutely "bible believing." Ironically, I fist came to realize the egalitarian view I had known from the new birth had significant problems in the most unexpected of places; I was doing a course assignment on a relevant text in an Exegesis class taught by the very determined egalitarian advocate Gordon Fee!

In reading this thread to post 28, I saw only one presentation of the "female pastors" position that would be recognizable to anyone in leadership in the churches that I was in, or the broader movements of which those churches were representative. And that one was incomplete. What I saw in the rest of the thread was superficial dismissals that show no apparent knowledge of how the vast majority of egalitarians in Evangelicalism justify the practice. 

That's a concern, because if the knowlege of the egalitarian case is no deeper than what I have seen here, then those who encounter egalitarians whith those arguments will be far more likely to confirm egalitarians in their prejudices, then help them understand the shortcomings of the egalitarian case. 

It is, for example, a simplistic and arrogant sounding condescension to dismiss some of the cases made for the practice as "twist Scripture like a pretzel and ignore the full counsel on the topic." The egalitarians may be wrong, but this issue is one where Paul, in particular, has written some things that are truly "hard to be understood" and mistakes can happen without twisting Scripture or ignoring its full counsel.

In my experience, it is only when the strong side of the egalitarian case is fully acknowledged that its weak side can be successfully addressed.

If anyone would like me to present a condensed version of the egalitarian position *solely to help those who seek to help others wrestle with the matter*, and if the moderators will promise not to conclude that I am arguing for female pastors by so doing, I will post a detailed view of how Evangelical egalitarians attempt to justify the practice.


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## Osage Bluestem

timmopussycat said:


> If anyone would like me to present such a position *solely for their information, to help those wrestling with the matter*, and if the moderators will promise not to conclude that I am arguing for female pastors by so doing, I will post a detailed view of how egalitarians attempt to justify the practice.



I would be interested to hear it. I believe that the PCA is right on the matter, so I would love to see the best argument that can be given for that position so I can learn the keys to refuting it in detail to justify the position of the PCA.


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## BobVigneault

I believe the story of Deborah gives us the proper perspective to examine the role of the female pastor.

Many years ago I had a conversation with a female pastor who took the position reluctantly. She did not believe that the office ought to be filled by a woman. When the office was left vacant NONE of the men, including her husband, wanted to be the pastor. They asked her to do it and she took the position until a man could be found.

It was wrong for her to do it but I believe this is how God shames the church for the passivity of the men. Passivity is the great genetic weakness we men inherit from Adam. When men will not act out their roles God will justly shame us.

So, though it's against scripture the woman pastor is a very significant and godly judgment against the men of the Church. God will raise up a woman to shame the men to action. Unfortunately, in our culture, the men have been so feminized already that they can no longer feel shame. Shame was once an effective motivator, now, it's how celebrities stay in the headlines.


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## Scott1

> *timmopussycat*
> You will find that a variety of solid "bible believing" churches have female pastors. Denominationally they range from Pentacostals through Baptists and Evangelical Anglicans to perhaps some Presbyterians...



That's quite a claim. "solid Bible believing" linked with female pastors.

By definition, I don't think we could include pentecostal in that category (e.g. second work of grace at baptism of Holy Spirit, etc. before even getting to reformed doctrines of grace, covenant theology, etc.).

Can you give some examples of "solid Bible Believing" Baptists, Anglicans and Presbyterians you have in mind?


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## BJClark

lynnie;




> I hope you guys all focus on the need for this. Yeah women should not be ordained, but shepherds are supposed to provide for the needs of the flock, and that includes young women. I spent most of my early Christian life, and as a new mother, with almost no older woman to talk to or learn from except for one nice aunt. I had loads of peer friends, but we all came from the great revival of the Jesus movement and older women were few and far between. As an avid reader I had help from books, but many women just don't read much.
> 
> I have known so many women who are/were depressed, molested by relatives while teens or younger, girls with abortions in their past, gals with critical controlling husbands or silent neglecting husbands, ladies with so many problems. Today, God has raised up such wonderful helpful resources from places like CCEF, Peacemakers, etc, to help people deal with emotional and relational problems in a biblical way. And does the lady who is having flashbacks of being raped when she lies with hubby, and dealing with the searing feelings of shame and pain and rage, really need to go talk to male elders about what happens when she gets physically aroused? Huh? I am not making up some fringe hypothetical situation, they say 1/4- 1/3 of women in America have been molested, and many more were promiscuous before salvation. I know these people and their marriages are a MESS.
> 
> Is your church ready for a revival, when people from this gutter of a culture get saved, with all the baggage they will have? Are you doing something- major somethings- to help older women minister to the younger?



There are some churches that are yes..

I minister to these women you speak of personally and have for many years..

Our church offers a support group for such women, the problem is, many women who come from that background do not desire to go back and deal with those issues and the effects that type of sin has on their lives...most are ashamed to admit they lived it, and tend to believe that 'because they are no longer in that situation it doesn't effect them" (but how many can honestly say sin does not have long term effects and consequences)

There are a few books out there that I would highly recommend for people who come from that background (both men and women)..but there are far fewer men who admit to coming from that type of past as their are women..


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## timmopussycat

Scott1 said:


> *timmopussycat*
> You will find that a variety of solid "bible believing" churches have female pastors. Denominationally they range from Pentacostals through Baptists and Evangelical Anglicans to perhaps some Presbyterians...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> That's quite a claim. "solid Bible believing" linked with female pastors.
Click to expand...


Yes it is. Churches can be solidly biblical on many other doctrines and have a high view of Scriptural authority yet they differ on this issue. We must ask why the difference in this case. 




Scott1 said:


> By definition, I don't think we could include pentecostal in that category (e.g. second work of grace at baptism of Holy Spirit, etc. before even getting to reformed doctrines of grace, covenant theology, etc.).



Not all Pentecostals can be excluded from the solid bible believing category. I know it's unusual but my first church was an independent Penetecostal where the pastor was 5 point Calvinist soteriologically.



Scott1 said:


> Can you give some examples of "solid Bible Believing" Baptists, Anglicans and Presbyterians you have in mind?



Certainly JIPacker is still a solid five pointer and I studied under him at Regent long before his ECT stumble. There remains within English and Canadian Anglicanism a solid if small block of Evangelicals who follow in that tradition. Watch the fracas in Canadian Anglicanism over gay marriage and you'll soon identify some of the players. I don't have firsthand acquaintance with any Presbyterians, that's why I said perhaps...

Yet the primary point behind "solid bible believing" that is relevant here is that each of these churches I was in took Scriptural authority seriously and the pastors devoted a high degree of care, accuracy and thoroughness to their work. Take for example, Bruce Milne (the former pastor of my church FBC Vancouver) who is at least a 4.5 point Calvinist in soteriology depending on how you read the relevant passage in his book "Know the Truth." If we are going to help egalitarians out of the error, we need to understand that it arose within a context of a genuine commitment to the authority of Scripture and that there are genuine indicators in Scripture that, at first sight, point in an egalitarian direction.


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## Scott1

Tim,

I was understanding you had in mind some denominations, "solid Bible believing" ones, "...Baptists and Evangelical Anglicans to perhaps some Presbyterians... " that have female Pastors...

(We'd have to differ up front on your including ones that describe themselves "Pentecostal" as "solid Bible believing")


----------



## Nathan Riese

timmopussycat said:


> Scott1 said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> *timmopussycat*
> If we are going to help egalitarians out of the error, we need to understand that it arose within a context of a genuine commitment to the authority of Scripture and that there are genuine indicators in Scripture that, at first sight, point in an egalitarian direction.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Just curious, what "genuine indicators in Scripture" did you have in mind that, "at first sight, point in an egalitarian direction."? Honestly, I'm just wondering for the sake of curiosity.
> 
> Click to expand...
Click to expand...


----------



## LeeJUk

Bishop NT Wright, of the church of England which of course supports women ministers and has done for a while has written on this topic and lays out scriptural reasons for supporting women ministers.

No matter what you may think of the man on the new perspective on Paul row, please listen and don't prejudge his motives. Just read what he's written.

Women’s Service in the Church: The Biblical Basis by N.T. Wright


----------



## DMcFadden

timmopussycat said:


> You will find that a variety of solid "bible believing" churches have female pastors. Denominationally they range from Pentacostals through Baptists and Evangelical Anglicans to perhaps some Presbyterians...
> 
> In reading this thread to post 28, I saw only one presentation of the "female pastors" position that would be recognizable to anyone in leadership in the churches that I was in, or the broader movements of which those churches were representative. And that one was incomplete. What I saw in the rest of the thread was superficial dismissals that show no apparent knowledge of how the vast majority of egalitarians in Evangelicalism justify the practice.



Hmmm. "Superficial dismissals that show no apparent knowledge of how the vast majority of egalitarians in Evangelicalism justify the practice"???

Wow, Tim, I'm sorry to have been so ignurent and unedukated. I guess graduatin' from the home of egalitari-whatchamacallitism back in the '70s when Jewett published his seminal book and we decusssssed it for a whole buncha time and carefalllly reding thar 'bout 30 of the leadin egalitari-whatchamacallit books, and serving on an ordination kounsel in an egalitarius denumeration for 28 years (charin' it for the last 15 or so) whar we done approved or disapproved 450 or so of them ordinandos, ain't enuf background to komment on the good ole PB. Oh, and forget 'bout the little woman on full time church staff fer two decades too. She don't know nuttin from her 4 theological degrees either. Sorry. Mebbe I shud go bak to skool and get some mur learnin' . . . ya think? 

Should we try to understand another's position with integrity rather than caricaturing it? Duh! But, please do not be so hard on people for disagreeing or failing to show "all their work" in arriving at the solution.


----------



## Peairtach

The more radical among the evangelical/liberal feminists will argue that the whole of Man's position in relation to Woman developed as a result of the Fall. There was a change in relations between Man and Woman/Husband and Wife at the Fall, but it was at creation that Woman was made to be a helper for Man rather than the other way round.

Apart, from the fact that it is commanded, what is the Biblical/theological rationale or the rationale that is believed to be the correct one, why women are not permitted to lead in Church by God's Word? 

Is it because the Church is "the Household of God", and therefore men, women and children should be equal yet subordinate, as in the family? 

Is it because God is revealed as male and is incarnated as male in Jesus Christ?

Is it to remind us that sin came by a woman?

Or a mixture of these?

Or other?


----------



## Scott1

> *Richard Tallach*
> 
> 
> 
> The more radical among the evangelical/liberal feminists will argue that the whole of Man's position in relation to Woman developed as a result of the Fall. There was a change in relations between Man and Woman/Husband and Wife at the Fall, but it was at creation that Woman was made to be a helper for Man rather than the other way round.
Click to expand...


There sure was a change.



> Genesis 3
> 
> 16Unto 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.
> 17And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;
> 18Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;
> 19In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.



Man longer wants to be the servant leader God created him to be.

Woman no longer wants to be the helpmate, respecter of her husband God created her to be.

Both are given over to natures with a bias toward sin, rebellion.

(All the more reason to know God did not create women to rule over men in ecclesiastical authority)


----------



## Edward

timmopussycat said:


> You will find that a variety of solid "bible believing" churches have female pastors. Denominationally they range from Pentacostals through Baptists and Evangelical Anglicans to perhaps some Presbyterians...



You are obviously far more broadminded than I am. And that probably shouldn't be considered a compliment.


----------



## TaylorWest

*Bible Please*



timmopussycat said:


> DD2009 said:
> 
> 
> 
> Is there a bible believeing church that has female pastors just by sheer error? If there is, how do they scripturally justify it?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> You will find that a variety of solid "bible believing" churches have female pastors. Denominationally they range from Pentacostals through Baptists and Evangelical Anglicans to perhaps some Presbyterians...
> 
> ...
> 
> That's a concern, because if the knowlege of the egalitarian case is no deeper than what I have seen here, then those who encounter egalitarians whith those arguments will be far more likely to confirm egalitarians in their prejudices, then help them understand the shortcomings of the egalitarian case.
> 
> ...
> 
> In my experience, it is only when the strong side of the egalitarian case is fully acknowledged that its weak side can be successfully addressed.
> 
> If anyone would like me to present a condensed version of the egalitarian position *solely to help those who seek to help others wrestle with the matter*, and if the moderators will promise not to conclude that I am arguing for female pastors by so doing, I will post a detailed view of how Evangelical egalitarians attempt to justify the practice.
Click to expand...


Isn't this what this post was for?


----------



## Hebrew Student

Hey Everyone!

This is a hot topic here at Trinity. However, from what I have seen, the argument from the other side is much more geared towards how we are to contextualize Paul's statements in 1 Timothy 2 and elsewhere. For example, the Bible also tells us we are to have a railing around the roof of our house; however, I don't know of anyone who has a railing around the roof of their house today, since it is generally understood as requiring one to put barriers around certain heights or pits, such as cliffs at a park, or a deep swimming pool, in order to protect innocent life.

Most people who argue for women pastors will take Paul's statements in a very similar way, and argue that they are to be understood as an example of his own command to, "Become all things to all people." In other words, because Paul knew that the Jews would never tolerate women teachers, he forbade women to preach simply so that there were no problems within the community between Jews and gentiles with regards to how the church was ran, which would cause the Jews to leave.

Now, the most common argument from our side at this point is that these commands are rooted in the creation order. However, most people on the other side of this issue would say that the woman's head covering is as well, and most of our churches do not require a head covering for our women. In fact, I have heard many churches who require the women who attend to cover their head use this very same argument against those churches who do not require women to cover their head.

Hence, the issue really boils down to a problem I have been working on for a long time. How does one know whether any given application of a Biblical text is correct or not? There are a whole lot of people who will apply texts in all kinds of strange ways to forbid all kinds of odd things, and you will also find several liberals who will argue that the Bible cannot be applied for today, simply because it was an ancient document speaking to an ancient world. While I think both of these extremes are wrong, I think we do need to ask the question as to how we distinguish between correct and incorrect applications of scripture. It is an important question, but it is one that is, to a large extent, ignored in most circles today.

It is interesting that R.C. Sproul did some work on this topic a long time ago, and, while he didn't have an answer to the question I have posed, he did give several guidelines, among them is the reason why I would say that female pastors are not allowed. This guideline is simply that it is better to follow applications of scripture that you are uncertain about, then to get to end of your life, and have to explain to God why you didn't obey his commandments. Until someone can come up with a definitive linguistic rule as to how we know whether something is a proper or improper application of scripture, or definitively show that our application of these texts is incorrect, I would rather err on the side of caution.

God Bless,
Adam


----------



## Emmanuel

One of my fellow Classics majors will be going to Princeton Theological Seminary next fall to pursue a M.Div. She's a member of a PC(USA) congregation and plans to be ordained in that denomination.

She argues that "Junia" in Romans 16:7 was a female apostle––this is in turn used to justify the ordination of women.

First off, the text does not clearly indicate that Junia was an apostle. Nor can we securely say that Junia was female.

Additionally, she is failing to interpret scripture with scripture. 1 Timothy and Titus clearly contradict this theory.


----------



## TaylorWest

*Hard to Understand? Hardly!*



timmopussycat said:


> The egalitarians may be wrong, but this issue is one where Paul, in particular, has written some things that are truly "hard to be understood" and mistakes can happen without twisting Scripture or ignoring its full counsel.



No, what Paul has written concerning men and women is NOT hard to understand. In fact, Peter himself, whom you are quoting mind you, wrote the same things about how men and women relate in the same ways!

What is 'hard to understand' is things like 'Justification by Faith Alone' which the Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants have had a hard time agreeing on for hundreds of years. No churches, no matter how much in disagreement on the 'hard things', have disagreed on this or even put the apostles teaching on men and women in the category of 'hard to understand' in the vast history of Christianity until the last 50 years.

It is only the 'educated' who choke on this. Why is it so hard for them to understand?


----------



## CatherineL

To address Lynnie's concerns, which I believe are completely valid, I think its important to point out that just because women are not called scripturally to lead churches and teach formally, we are biblically mandated to teach and encourage those women younger and less mature. I see no reason at all that women counseling women has anything to do with women being pastors. Women don't need a special title to encourage and admonish one another. We don't even need formal programs, just open attitudes and willingness to open our lives to other people. We don't have formal women's ministry mentoring at our church, but it gets done anyway over coffee tables with toddlers shrieking in the background! It takes women being alert to the Spirit and willing to get involved in other women's lives.

Men who speak out against female pastors are not saying that women are worthless and have no place of important service within the church.


----------



## TaylorWest

*Complementarian? Wright Is Right!*



LeeJUk said:


> Bishop NT Wright, of the church of England which of course supports women ministers and has done for a while has written on this topic and lays out scriptural reasons for supporting women ministers.
> 
> No matter what you may think of the man on the new perspective on Paul row, please listen and don't prejudge his motives. Just read what he's written.
> 
> Women’s Service in the Church: The Biblical Basis by N.T. Wright



I really like what N.T. Wright says here:



> Likewise, to use the word ‘complementary’ and its cognates to denote a position which says that not only are men and women different but that those differences mean that women cannot exercise ministry, or some kinds of ministry, within the church, is I think a shame; as I shall suggest, I think the word ‘complementary’ is too good and important a word to let that side of the argument have it all to themselves.



And this is why I don't use the word 'complementary', but rather the biblical term 'patriarchy.'

-----Added 12/10/2009 at 10:46:51 EST-----

From the Wright article:



> 2. Galatians 3.28
> 
> The first thing to say is fairly obvious but needs saying anyway. Galatians 3 is not about ministry. Nor is it the only word Paul says about being male and female, and instead of taking texts in a vacuum and then arranging them in a hierarchy, for instance by quoting this verse and then saying that it trumps every other verse in a kind of fight to be the senior bull in the herd (what a very masculine way of approaching exegesis, by the way!), we need to do justice to what Paul is actually saying at this point. I am surprised to see, in some of your literature, the insistence that women and men are equally saved and justified; that is, I’m surprised because I’ve never heard anyone denying it.



Again, so far, so good.

-----Added 12/10/2009 at 10:59:45 EST-----

From the Wright article:



> But it’s then fascinating, by contrast, that when we turn to Acts, and the persecution that arose against the church not least at the time of Stephen, we find that women are being targetted equally alongside the men. Saul of Tarsus was going to Damascus to catch women and men alike and haul them off into prison. Bailey points out on the basis of his cultural parallels that this only makes sense if the women, too, are seen as leaders, influential figures within the community.



"Only makes sense?" I think I have a better solution; one that makes more sense. Luke is showing us how despicable Paul is in his raving hatred. Surely Paul was the greatest of sinners. In fact, he is justified in his statement:



> (Titus*3:3) For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another.



Wright's exegesis is growing weak.

-----Added 12/10/2009 at 11:06:12 EST-----

From the Wright article:



> Anyway, the result would be that during the sermon in particular, the women, not understanding what was going on, would begin to get bored and talk among themselves. As Bailey describes the scene in such a church, the level of talking from the women’s side would steadily rise in volume, until the minister would have to say loudly, ‘Will the women please be quiet!’, whereupon the talking would die down, but only for a few minutes.



So, Wright is really wrong. He gives us two choices. Either Paul didn't really write 1 Cor 14, or the women just couldn't keep quiet because they were silly, ignorant, babblers.

Really! Who has lower views of women?

-----Added 12/10/2009 at 11:21:26 EST-----

From the Wright article:



> Another dimension to the problem may well be that in the Corinth of his day the only women who appeared in public without some kind of headcovering were prostitutes. This isn’t suggested directly here, but it may have been in the back of his mind.



I don't buy it. The reason Paul has to exhort this church to follow the 'tradition' that has been handed down is because it is so foreign to the Corinthians, not because it is so common and there is confusion over new found religious liberties.

-----Added 12/10/2009 at 11:31:59 EST-----

From the Wright article:



> ‘headship’ in the sense of ‘source’, like the ‘source’ or ‘head’ of a river



1) Very weak exegesis as shown by Grudem's work.
2) Either way, Paul's point stands and so arguing about this is fruitless: smoke and mirrors which, after passing through, one finds himself at the same end.

-----Added 12/10/2009 at 11:43:38 EST-----

From the Wright article:



> Then the crucial verse 12 need not be read as ‘I do not allow a woman to teach or hold authority over a man’ – the translation which has caused so much difficulty in recent years. It can equally mean (and in context this makes much more sense): ‘I don’t mean to imply that I’m now setting up women as the new authority over men in the same way that previously men held authority over women.’



For the life of me, I can't see how Wright gets here from the text and context.

-----Added 12/10/2009 at 11:46:43 EST-----

From the Wright article:



> I believe *we have seriously misread the relevant passages in the New Testament*, no doubt not least through a long process of assumption, tradition, and all kinds of post-biblical and sub-biblical attitudes that have crept in to Christianity.



Uhmm, ... yes, I believe you have Dr. Wright.


----------



## Nathan Riese

very interesting indeed, TaylorWest! Thanks for that review.

Also, what Hebrewstudent (Adam) pointed out applies directly to NT Wright and other female pastor advocates.

Dr. Wright cannot _prove_ anything, only argue away certain texts without actually giving substantial positive proof that female pastors are actually allowed. Having male pastors, however, has much substantial positive proof, and the negation of female pastors is _at the very least_ hinted at (and i think explicit, but to N. T. Wright and others, it must at least be hinted at), so would not the side of caution, as well as taking a Biblical theology of male headship as normative, be reason enough to N. T. Wright and the others?

Apparently not. People like to argue that what they _desire_ is permissible.


----------



## timmopussycat

TaylorWest said:


> timmopussycat said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> DD2009 said:
> 
> 
> 
> Is there a bible believeing church that has female pastors just by sheer error? If there is, how do they scripturally justify it?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> You will find that a variety of solid "bible believing" churches have female pastors. Denominationally they range from Pentacostals through Baptists and Evangelical Anglicans to perhaps some Presbyterians...
> 
> ...
> 
> That's a concern, because if the knowlege of the egalitarian case is no deeper than what I have seen here, then those who encounter egalitarians whith those arguments will be far more likely to confirm egalitarians in their prejudices, then help them understand the shortcomings of the egalitarian case.
> 
> ...
> 
> In my experience, it is only when the strong side of the egalitarian case is fully acknowledged that its weak side can be successfully addressed.
> 
> If anyone would like me to present a condensed version of the egalitarian position *solely to help those who seek to help others wrestle with the matter*, and if the moderators will promise not to conclude that I am arguing for female pastors by so doing, I will post a detailed view of how Evangelical egalitarians attempt to justify the practice.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Isn't this what this post was for?
Click to expand...


Because of certain incidents in the past, If I am going to post the egalitarian view, I want it clearly understood beforehand that by so doing I am NOT advocating for women in unrestricted teaching or authoritative ministry

-----Added 12/11/2009 at 09:19:21 EST-----



Emmanuel said:


> .
> 
> She argues that "Junia" in Romans 16:7 was a female apostle––this is in turn used to justify the ordination of women.
> 
> ... Nor can we securely say that Junia was female.



ALL the evidence we have is that Junia was a feminine name in the NT era: there is no evidence whatsoever for a masculine form of the name.

-----Added 12/11/2009 at 09:32:05 EST-----



DMcFadden said:


> timmopussycat said:
> 
> 
> 
> You will find that a variety of solid "bible believing" churches have female pastors. Denominationally they range from Pentacostals through Baptists and Evangelical Anglicans to perhaps some Presbyterians...
> 
> In reading this thread to post 28, I saw only one presentation of the "female pastors" position that would be recognizable to anyone in leadership in the churches that I was in, or the broader movements of which those churches were representative. And that one was incomplete. What I saw in the rest of the thread was superficial dismissals that show no apparent knowledge of how the vast majority of egalitarians in Evangelicalism justify the practice.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Hmmm. "Superficial dismissals that show no apparent knowledge of how the vast majority of egalitarians in Evangelicalism justify the practice"???
> 
> Wow, Tim, I'm sorry to have been so ignurent and unedukated. I guess graduatin' from the home of egalitari-whatchamacallitism back in the '70s when Jewett published his seminal book and we decusssssed it for a whole buncha time and carefalllly reding thar 'bout 30 of the leadin egalitari-whatchamacallit books, and serving on an ordination kounsel in an egalitarius denumeration for 28 years (charin' it for the last 15 or so) whar we done approved or disapproved 450 or so of them ordinandos, ain't enuf background to komment on the good ole PB. Oh, and forget 'bout the little woman on full time church staff fer two decades too. She don't know nuttin from her 4 theological degrees either. Sorry. Mebbe I shud go bak to skool and get some mur learnin' . . . ya think?
> 
> Should we try to understand another's position with integrity rather than caricaturing it? Duh! But, please do not be so hard on people for disagreeing or failing to show "all their work" in arriving at the solution.
Click to expand...


Thank you for your entertaining sarcasm. It was however uncalled for. I thought my comment "no apparent knowledge" was sufficient to show that I understood that some here had engaged the egalitarian case in more detail than they have shown in the thread.

But we can't afford to forget that many folk overlook crucial details in arguments to which they are not sympathetic. For me, the classic example was found in CS Lewis "Rejoinder to Dr. Pittinger" where Lewis points out that his critic had said that Lewis believed something that Lewis had explicitly denied in the writing under review.

So when only one person in 28 posts shows a partial understaning of the egalitarian case as I have usually heard it presented, I was left to wonder, what exactly was going on: particularly when many posts degenerated to the level of the sarcasm I had quoted.


----------



## Scott1

Tim, it would be helpful to follow up on your assertions here so they are not misunderstood.



timmopussycat said:


> Scott1 said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> *timmopussycat*
> You will find that a variety of solid "bible believing" churches have female pastors. Denominationally they range from Pentacostals through Baptists and Evangelical Anglicans to perhaps some Presbyterians...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> That's quite a claim. "solid Bible believing" linked with female pastors.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Yes it is. Churches can be solidly biblical on many other doctrines and have a high view of Scriptural authority yet they differ on this issue. We must ask why the difference in this case.
> 
> Can you give us some specific examples of "solid Bible believing" churches that have female Pastors? (esp. the Baptist, Anglican, and Presbyterian ones you mention?)
> 
> 
> Scott1 said:
> 
> 
> 
> By definition, I don't think we could include pentecostal in that category (e.g. second work of grace at baptism of Holy Spirit, etc. before even getting to reformed doctrines of grace, covenant theology, etc.).
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Not all Pentecostals can be excluded from the solid bible believing category. I know it's unusual but my first church was an independent Penetecostal where the pastor was 5 point Calvinist soteriologically.
> 
> ... we'll need to disagree on your classification of Pentecostal ones as such, because of their views on baptism of the Holy Spirit, for starters).
> 
> 
> 
> Scott1 said:
> 
> 
> 
> Can you give some examples of "solid Bible Believing" Baptists, Anglicans and Presbyterians you have in mind?
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Certainly JIPacker is still a solid five pointer and I studied under him at Regent long before his ECT stumble.
> 
> Are you saying Mr Packer advocates female Pastors?
> 
> There remains within English and Canadian Anglicanism a solid if small block of Evangelicals who follow in that tradition. Watch the fracas in Canadian Anglicanism over gay marriage and you'll soon identify some of the players. I don't have firsthand acquaintance with any Presbyterians, that's why I said perhaps...
> 
> Can you name some of the "solid Bible believing" theologians who have a "high view of Scriptural authority yet they differ on this issue" that you have in mind?
> 
> Yet the primary point behind "solid bible believing" that is relevant here is that each of these churches I was in took Scriptural authority seriously and the pastors devoted a high degree of care, accuracy and thoroughness to their work. Take for example, Bruce Milne (the former pastor of my church FBC Vancouver) who is at least a 4.5 point Calvinist
> 
> Never heard of 4.5 point Calvinist- I would argue that all 5 points are necessarily biblically and logically related to and dependent on on another. "4.5 points" would almost be like saying God is 90% sovereign.
> 
> in soteriology depending on how you read the relevant passage in his book "Know the Truth." If we are going to help egalitarians out of the error, we need to understand that it arose within a context of a genuine commitment to the authority of Scripture
> 
> It seems the difficultly we might have is that a genuine commitment to the authority of Scripture leads us to conclude as the witness of the church virtually did unanimously until about 1960 AD is that men are qualified to lead that office.
> 
> and that there are genuine indicators in Scripture that, at first sight, point in an egalitarian direction.
> 
> Can you give an example? And also, it might be helpful to define what you mean by "egalitarian."
Click to expand...


----------



## timmopussycat

Scott1 said:


> Tim, it would be helpful to follow up on your assertions here so they are not misunderstood.
> 
> 
> 
> timmopussycat said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Scott1 said:
> 
> 
> 
> That's quite a claim. "solid Bible believing" linked with female pastors.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Yes it is. Churches can be solidly biblical on many other doctrines and have a high view of Scriptural authority yet they differ on this issue. We must ask why the difference in this case.
> 
> Can you give us some specific examples of "solid Bible believing" churches that have female Pastors? (esp. the Baptist, Anglican, and Presbyterian ones you mention?)
> 
> Scott all I am saying is that you can find churches within Pentecostal Baptist and Anglican and (possibly) Presbyterian denominations where the leadership is committed to the inerrancy and infalliblity of Scripture and either holds to or accepts women in unrestricted teaching and pastoral ministries. I am not saying such churches are confessional by PB standards for they are not.
> 
> 
> Not all Pentecostals can be excluded from the solid bible believing category. I know it's unusual but my first church was an independent Penetecostal where the pastor was 5 point Calvinist soteriologically.
> 
> )... we'll need to disagree on your classification of Pentecostal ones as such, because of their views on baptism of the Holy Spirit, for starters).
> 
> 
> 
> Scott1 said:
> 
> 
> 
> Can you give some examples of "solid Bible Believing" Baptists, Anglicans and Presbyterians you have in mind?
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Certainly JIPacker is still a solid five pointer and I studied under him at Regent long before his ECT stumble.
> Are you saying Mr Packer advocates female Pastors?
> 
> Dr. Packer's position is nuanced. He does not recommend the practice but he can in good conscience remain in a church that has women in such positions and he had done so for a number of years.
> 
> There remains within English and Canadian Anglicanism a solid if small block of Evangelicals who follow in that tradition. Watch the fracas in Canadian Anglicanism over gay marriage and you'll soon identify some of the players. I don't have firsthand acquaintance with any Presbyterians, that's why I said perhaps...
> 
> Can you name some of the "solid Bible believing" theologians who have a "high view of Scriptural authority yet they differ on this issue" that you have in mind?
> 
> Packer is the obvious example.
> 
> Yet the primary point behind "solid bible believing" that is relevant here is that each of these churches I was in took Scriptural authority seriously and the pastors devoted a high degree of care, accuracy and thoroughness to their work. Take for example, Bruce Milne (the former pastor of my church FBC Vancouver) who is at least a 4.5 point Calvinist
> Never heard of 4.5 point Calvinist- I would argue that all 5 points are necessarily biblically and logically related to and dependent on on another. "4.5 points" would almost be like saying God is 90% sovereign.
> 
> I agree with you that a full Calvinist is biblical by definition. I shouldn't have made the sidebar about 4.5 Calvinists since the point I'm trying to make is that people can arrive at egalitarian conclusions from within a framework of inerrancy and infallibility of Scripture.
> 
> in soteriology depending on how you read the relevant passage in his book "Know the Truth." If we are going to help egalitarians out of the error, we need to understand that it arose within a context of a genuine commitment to the authority of Scripture
> It seems the difficultly we might have is that a genuine commitment to the authority of Scripture leads us to conclude as the witness of the church virtually did unanimously until about 1960 AD is that men are qualified to lead that office.
> 
> Perhaps, or, as the egailitarians would put it, perhaps the Ante-Nicene church was subverted by the culture. And we must turn to Scripture to find out which possibility is correct.
> 
> Click to expand...
Click to expand...


----------



## au5t1n

timmopussycat said:


> *So when only one person in 28 posts shows a partial understaning of the egalitarian case as I have usually heard it presented,* I was left to wonder, what exactly was going on: particularly when many posts degenerated to the level of the sarcasm I had quoted.



Okay, you've said this a couple of times, but many of the arguments presented in those posts were ones that I myself used as an egalitarian, and that I have heard and read many other egalitarians making. The reason for the sarcasm in some of them is simply because this is the PB and the egalitarian arguments are not held in high esteem here!


----------



## Scott1

> *timmopussycat*
> Perhaps, or, as the egailitarians would put it, perhaps the Ante-Nicene church was subverted by the culture. And we must turn to Scripture to find out which possibility is correct.



For their argument, must have been the post-Nicene church also, because they didn't have women pastors, and must have been the apostolic church, too, because all the apostles chose by our Lord, elders and bishops were men.


----------



## DMcFadden

> Thank you for your entertaining sarcasm. It was however uncalled for. I thought my comment "no apparent knowledge" was sufficient to show that I understood that some here had engaged the egalitarian case in more detail than they have shown in the thread.



Glad you found my sarcasm entertaining. However, as far as "uncalled for" I'm not so sure. When someone, particularly a younger person, sets himself (or herself, given the topic of the thread) up as judge and jury of everyone else in a discussion, it practically invites ridicule or at least sarcasm in response. Again, please do not "talk down" to the rest of us who did not receive our "Dip. C.S." under Packer and Fee. Colleagiality works so much better when we treat one another with respect as equals.

BTW, has Packer changed his view since his influential piece in _Christianity Today _back on February 11, 1991??? Having watched a number of my theological heroes change, waffle, equivocate, and temporize over the last five decades, it would not surprise me. However, as a former student of Packer, what is your take, Tim?

In 1991 he wrote an article titled “Let’s Stop Making Women Presbyters.” In it Packer asserted that Protestants are abandoning the position traditionally held by Roman Catholics, Orthodox and evangelicals with respect to the ordination of women. Packer's own explanation for the emerging trend was attributed to five factors:

1. Feminism has infiltrated the church. 
2. The socialization of women since World War I has permitted them to enter spheres previously open only to men.
3. The New Testament passages on women speaking in church (1 Cor 14:34-35) and teaching men (1 Tim 2:11-14) have proved “problematic” both in their interpretation and application.
4. God apparently has blessed ministries led by women.
5. Ordination with its incumbent status and privileges has provided a certain degree of “job-satisfaction” to females in professional ministry roles.

Nevertheless, he offered a theologically based and exegetically sound argument *against* the practice (cf. "Let's Stop Making Women Presbyters"). Has he shifted again since then?


----------



## Curt

I believe that women should not be pastors, preachers, theology teachers (and maybe a few other things). I'm not going to enter into the fray regarding proofs. Many of you are doing a fine job at that (no sarcasm).

I do, however, want to relate a story. An old friend of mine, a well-known quantity (at the time) of a denomination well-represented on the PB, went to preach at a church in a denomination which had allows female pastors. He was a candidate. He received much criticism for even preaching there. His response: "What's worse, a denomination that allows women to preach or one that treats its pastors (who are not stars) like ****?"

There are times when not all the stances of a church are equally defendable. There may be times when such choices present themselves. They may be opportunities.


----------



## DMcFadden

Since Tim invited us to interact with the arguments advanced by egalitarians on a more substantive rather than anecdotal level, I would like to know how some of you who attended solidly Reformed schools handled Packer's five explanatory factors.



> 1. Feminism has infiltrated the church.
> 2. The socialization of women since World War I has permitted them to enter spheres previously open only to men.
> 3. The New Testament passages on women speaking in church (1 Cor 14:34-35) and teaching men (1 Tim 2:11-14) have proved “problematic” both in their interpretation and application.
> 4. God apparently has blessed ministries led by women.
> 5. Ordination with its incumbent status and privileges has provided a certain degree of “job-satisfaction” to females in professional ministry roles.



It seems to me that the first two are most easily dismissed by our standard, "don't follow the world," type arguments. However, the last two are the most existentially difficult to deal with since they are based upon experience rather than exegetical and theological reflection. Did your profs acknowledge the force of these factors or did they rule them irrelevant given the exegetical disagreements they had with broad evangelical egalitarian arguments regarding Pauline texts of the kind found among the CBE crowd?

Frankly, given the fact that Fee has been invoked in this thread already, I am absolutely insensate to how such a textually sensitive expert as Fee can make the case he does for ruling out the Corinthian variant as unoriginal. If we are permitted such lattitude in dismissing verses we disagree with, I can think of a bunch of 'em that would make my life a lot easier to live if they were not in the New Testament!


----------



## TimV

Just a note on Bishop Wright's Junia argument. Junia is here:



> Rom 16:7 Greet Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen and my fellow prisoners. They are well known to the apostles, and they were in Christ before me.



The Bible doesn't give a list of the 70 apostles. There are different lists of names, from eastern orthodox sources (Eusebius said no such list existed in his day, and Protestant and Catholic scholars have traditionally not taken such lists seriously) and on the oldest of these lists (700 years after Christ) you find the name Junia.

Wright says that modern Greek experts in accent marks say that the name is feminine, and uses that reasoning to over turn 4000 years of tradition and specific Christian texts. 

He uses similar arguments to show that Justification does not mean the righteousness of Christ attributed to believers, but rather Justification means that God is just.


----------



## timmopussycat

Instead of a full presentation of the egalitarian view, I'm going to interact with TW and NTW in the following post. 



TaylorWest said:


> LeeJUk said:
> 
> 
> 
> Women’s Service in the Church: The Biblical Basis by N.T. Wright
Click to expand...




NTW said:


> But it’s then fascinating, by contrast, that when we turn to Acts, and the persecution that arose against the church not least at the time of Stephen, we find that women are being targetted equally alongside the men. Saul of Tarsus was going to Damascus to catch women and men alike and haul them off into prison. Bailey points out on the basis of his cultural parallels that this only makes sense if the women, too, are seen as leaders, influential figures within the community.



While I generally recommend Bailey's work, this is one instance where he has missed a key point. Saul of Tarsus was trying to stop the spread of the gospel. Women are not prohibited from gossiping the gospel in the trad view, and if some of the women in Damascus were diligent and effective gossipers thereof, that would have been sufficient ground for Paul to target them even though they would not have been teachers and leaders within the community.



NTW said:


> Anyway, the result would be that during the sermon in particular, the women, not understanding what was going on, would begin to get bored and talk among themselves. As Bailey describes the scene in such a church, the level of talking from the women’s side would steadily rise in volume, until the minister would have to say loudly, ‘Will the women please be quiet!’, whereupon the talking would die down, but only for a few minutes.





TaylorWest said:


> So, Wright is really wrong. He gives us two choices. Either Paul didn't really write 1 Cor 14, or the women just couldn't keep quiet because they were silly, ignorant, babblers.
> 
> Really! Who has lower views of women?



Unlike Fee I assume the authenticity of 1 Cor 14:34, 35. Although Fee has a strong case that something odd happened with those verses in the textual transmission, I don't think the verses formally contradict anything else Paul says, particularly if we accept Bailey's explanation of the problem they were written to address. In Corinth, Paul would have been speaking in Greek which the women knew as well as the men, but if the women were a) seated on opposite sides of the assembly from the men, which is possible b) the generality of them were less educated than their husbands, which is likely and c) less theologically educated than their husbands, which in the case of the Christians from Jewish backgrounds, is more likely yet, the possibility of cross-church dialogs must be taken seriously. It certainly explains the apparent contradiction with chapter 11 better than any other view I know.



NTW said:


> Another dimension to the problem may well be that in the Corinth of his day the only women who appeared in public without some kind of headcovering were prostitutes. This isn’t suggested directly here, but it may have been in the back of his mind.





TaylorWest said:


> I don't buy it. The reason Paul has to exhort this church to follow the 'tradition' that has been handed down is because it is so foreign to the Corinthians, not because it is so common and there is confusion over new found religious liberties.



You may not want to buy this argument yourself, but it fits the known facts: people did draw wrong conclusions about the extent of Christian freedom in the NT era (cf. Rom 6 and 7), as applied to dress codes: I Cor 11:1-16 states that dress codes were being affected, what is at issue is how far and why.

At this point I want to interject to make a note on Junia and Priscilla because this will be in the back of an egalitarians mind about now. Junia (and there is not the slightest evidence in contemporary texts to show that the masculine form exists) was "of note among the Apostles". If the name was masculine nobody would have queried the idea that the individual named was an "apostle" in some sense even if "the apostles" referred to were not the 12. Yet it remains an open question whether or not these other "apostles" carried the same teaching authority as did the 12. And in Acts we have Priscilla apparently joining with her husband in teaching Apollos. This would appear to be a real contradiction with what Paul says in 1 Tim 2: 13,14. If a woman is not to have teaching authority over a man in a church setting, it would appear to be a necessary consequence that she should not teach men Christian doctrine in any setting. So at this point, someone may legitimately wonder if Paul's prohibition is as absolute as it appears. 



NTW said:


> Then the crucial verse 12 need not be read as ‘I do not allow a woman to teach or hold authority over a man’ – the translation which has caused so much difficulty in recent years.



This is a translation issue arising in an occasional letter written as a reminder, to a man who already knew Paul's views on church order. In the previous sentence of v. 11 Paul is speaking in the imperative but with verse 12 he switches to the indicative. What is at issue is the consequences of the change for Paul's intended meaning. The imperative must stand for all time as it is an apostolic command not specifically limited by the context, but are we to read it over into the next sentence (which, as the grammarians, tell me sometimes occurs) or are we not to so read it (which is also known to occur). If the latter is correct and we are to read Paul as writing "I am not permitting", then what we have is Paul telling Timothy that he is varying his customary practice, and, for reasons peculiar to Ephesus, not permitting women to teach in the Ephesian church. It is on this point that Paul is "hard to be understood." 

The usual traditional counter is that Paul gives reasons for the prohibition anchored first in the creation order and then in v. 14 the fall, which appears to imply that that his prohibition has an eternal and not local relevance. But Paul does not make it explicit that he is adducing those reasons for an eternal prohibition, and if he is, the question may be legitimately asked why did he make the imperative/indicative switch, which implies the contrary possibility, in v. 11? Not to mention why Aquila allowed his wife to apparently help teach Apollos and why Luke notes the fact without comment?

These and similar arguments on 1 Tim. 2:11-14 form the heart of the exegetical case for allowing women to minister in unrestricted teaching or authority roles in the churches. I believe that while we may freely concede that such arguments are a possibly valid reading of the biblical evidence, our best response to egalitarian arguments is to insist that Paul's anchoring his prohibition in the creation order and the fall events is strong enough to require egalitarians to provide more than "possibly valid reasons" to justify their stand. If we are to conclude that Paul's prohibition is local and or temporary, it can only be on the basis that the point is proved by the Confessional standard of biblical proof (i.e., good and necessary consequence deduction from Scripture.) 

Absent such proof, I cannot accept, the egalitarian explanation with any high degree of confidence, let alone the certainty of faith. 



NTW said:


> It can equally mean (and in context this makes much more sense): ‘I don’t mean to imply that I’m now setting up women as the new authority over men in the same way that previously men held authority over women.’





TaylorWest said:


> For the life of me, I can't see how Wright gets here from the text and context.



Remember Bob V.'s post? It really was a truly radical thing to teach women theology in the Jewish context. From the fact that such instruction was now being given, it would have been easily possible to jump to the erroneous conclusion that in Christ the authority structures have changed or reversed.


----------



## Andres

"God apparently has blessed ministries led by women." What exactly is this supposed to mean? Is this argument that churches pastored by women have grown in numbers or seen people come to Christ so it must be biblical? 
If that is the case, then what of the majority of the mega-churches and their pastors we so vehemently denounce? 
Osteen, Warren, and several of the prosperity preachers have HUGE churches that are growing weekly. Surely no one would advocate because of this these are biblical examples of the right way to do ministry.


----------



## timmopussycat

DMcFadden said:


> Frankly, given the fact that Fee has been invoked in this thread already, I am absolutely insensate to how such a textually sensitive expert as Fee can make the case he does for ruling out the Corinthian variant as unoriginal. If we are permitted such lattitude in dismissing verses we disagree with, I can think of a bunch of 'em that would make my life a lot easier to live if they were not in the New Testament!



Having studied under Fee on the point at issue, my guess is that Fee's background in Pre-charismatic Pentecostalism has overruled his exegetical judgment in this particular case. If you read his commentary on 1 Timothy, you find him presenting possibilities as certainties, a mistake he does not usually make. 

Fee actually does have 2 good points to make in commenting on 1 Cor. 14 34,35, namely something odd does seem to have happened in the textual transmission of these verses; and that how the law is cited here, by indirect reference rather than explicit citation, is unparalleled in Paul. 

His other claim that the law does not say what the Paul says it says is more problematic, Paul may be referring to an inference drawn from the law rather than a direct statement therof, and the inference that women should remain silent while teaching was going on could, in Jewish contexts, have been easily drawn from either the relevant creation or the fall texts. 

But to say that these 3 points make it certain that the text is a non-Pauline interpretation is once again mistaking a possibility for a certainty.


----------



## Notthemama1984

Andres said:


> "God apparently has blessed ministries led by women." What exactly is this supposed to mean? Is this argument that churches pastored by women have grown in numbers or seen people come to Christ so it must be biblical?
> If that is the case, then what of the majority of the mega-churches and their pastors we so vehemently denounce?
> Osteen, Warren, and several of the prosperity preachers have HUGE churches that are growing weekly. Surely no one would advocate because of this these are biblical examples of the right way to do ministry.



Mainstream Evangelicals define God's blessings quantitatively vs. qualitatively. Thus anyone whose ministry is growing financially, numerically, or by the "professions of faith" (which we all agree here has its own problems), must be on the right track and blessed by God.


----------



## timmopussycat

DMcFadden said:


> Thank you for your entertaining sarcasm. It was however uncalled for. I thought my comment "no apparent knowledge" was sufficient to show that I understood that some here had engaged the egalitarian case in more detail than they have shown in the thread.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Glad you found my sarcasm entertaining. However, as far as "uncalled for" I'm not so sure. When someone, particularly a younger person, sets himself (or herself, given the topic of the thread) up as judge and jury of everyone else in a discussion, it practically invites ridicule or at least sarcasm in response. Again, please do not "talk down" to the rest of us who did not receive our "Dip. C.S." under Packer and Fee. Colleagiality works so much better when we treat one another with respect as equals.
Click to expand...


I'm not so sure being 52 in 10 days automatically qualifies me as "younger" by the average age of the PB. I responded as I did because I saw two things: 
1) only 1 in 28 posts showed awareness of the heart of the egalitarian case, and 
2) that much of what I was seeing in the thread was on the level of sarcastic dismissal, which if applied to egalitarians almost certainly will not be helpful as I know from personal experience having seen such arguments deployed elsewhere. 

My apologies to those who took my concerns the wrong way. 



DMcFadden said:


> [BTW, has Packer changed his view since his influential piece in _Christianity Today _back on February 11, 1991??? Having watched a number of my theological heroes change, waffle, equivocate, and temporize over the last five decades, it would not surprise me. However, as a former student of Packer, what is your take, Tim?
> 
> In 1991 he wrote an article titled “Let’s Stop Making Women Presbyters.” In it Packer asserted that Protestants are abandoning the position traditionally held by Roman Catholics, Orthodox and evangelicals with respect to the ordination of women. Packer's own explanation for the emerging trend was attributed to five factors:
> 
> 1. Feminism has infiltrated the church.
> 2. The socialization of women since World War I has permitted them to enter spheres previously open only to men.
> 3. The New Testament passages on women speaking in church (1 Cor 14:34-35) and teaching men (1 Tim 2:11-14) have proved “problematic” both in their interpretation and application.
> 4. God apparently has blessed ministries led by women.
> 5. Ordination with its incumbent status and privileges has provided a certain degree of “job-satisfaction” to females in professional ministry roles.
> 
> Nevertheless, he offered a theologically based and exegetically sound argument *against* the practice (cf. "Let's Stop Making Women Presbyters"). Has he shifted again since then?



I don't believe Packer has shifted since that article, but I am not in close touch with him. But at the time that article was written, JIP was, and until forced out last year, he remained a member of a denomination which *did* ordain women presbyters and As far as I know the parish church he attended and still attends agreed with that stance. (BTW that church St. John's Shaugnessy, Vancouver, deserves our prayers as it is a leader the fight against gay marriage in the Anglican Church of Canada, and their minister David Short has just gone on stress leave.)

As I said Packer's position is nuanced. He doesn't buy the practice of ordaining women but he won't leave a church or denomination over it. I can understand why he has reached that conclusion, but what we do about Christian fellowship with those who disagree on women presbyters is another topic.

-----Added 12/11/2009 at 01:01:26 EST-----



austinww said:


> timmopussycat said:
> 
> 
> 
> *So when only one person in 28 posts shows a partial understaning of the egalitarian case as I have usually heard it presented,* I was left to wonder, what exactly was going on: particularly when many posts degenerated to the level of the sarcasm I had quoted.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Okay, you've said this a couple of times, but many of the arguments presented in those posts were ones that I myself used as an egalitarian, and that I have heard and read many other egalitarians making. The reason for the sarcasm in some of them is simply because this is the PB and the egalitarian arguments are not held in high esteem here!
Click to expand...


Sure those arguments were used in years past, but they are not the heart of the egalitarian case which will be arguments attempting to refute the traditional understanding of 1 Tim. 2:11-14. The egalitarian interpretation of the Gal. text is so easily refuted that better advised egalitarians are no longer using it, at least up here in Canada. And my point is simply that if we are going to help egalitarians we must carefully choose our ground when we do so.


----------



## au5t1n

timmopussycat said:


> austinww said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> timmopussycat said:
> 
> 
> 
> *So when only one person in 28 posts shows a partial understaning of the egalitarian case as I have usually heard it presented,* I was left to wonder, what exactly was going on: particularly when many posts degenerated to the level of the sarcasm I had quoted.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Okay, you've said this a couple of times, but many of the arguments presented in those posts were ones that I myself used as an egalitarian, and that I have heard and read many other egalitarians making. The reason for the sarcasm in some of them is simply because this is the PB and the egalitarian arguments are not held in high esteem here!
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Sure those arguments were used in years past, but they are not the heart of the egalitarian case which will be arguments attempting to refute the traditional understanding of 1 Tim. 2:11-14. The egalitarian interpretation of the Gal. text is so easily refuted that better advised egalitarians are no longer using it, at least up here in Canada. And my point is simply that if we are going to help egalitarians we must carefully choose our ground when we do so.
Click to expand...


Fair enough. I can attest that the majority of time spent in debates between egalitarians and complementarians is focused on whether the 1 Corinthians and 1 Timothy passages were only for specific cultural situations or not. Usually Gal. 3:28 is mentioned, but less as an argument than as a "closing quip" of sorts for the egalitarian.


----------



## DMcFadden

> I'm not so sure being 51 automatically qualifies me as younger by the average age of the PB.



You are correct, it does not. I was taking advantage of the larger issue that we face here often and expanding my comment to include a related factor, younger folks lecturing the board. Your age is not relevant to that tendency by some younger ones.



> I responded as I did because I saw two things:
> 1) only 1 in 28 posts showed awareness of the heart of the egalitarian case, and
> 2) that much of what I was seeing in the thread was on the level of sarcastic dismissal, which if applied to egalitarians almost certainly will not be helpful as I know from personal experience having seen such arguments deployed elsewhere.
> My apologies to those who took my concerns the wrong way.



Thanks. I DO understand your frustration with those who dismiss out of hand the positions of their opponents without carefully considering the bases for them. Straw men are soooo much easier to attack and on that point, I agree with your corrective.

Tim, I still struggle with the peculairly bloodless medium of e-mail and computer discussion boards. It is very easy for us to miscommunicate unintentionally because nuance, body language, and tone of voice are missed. That is why I "harp" on the need for civility and mutual respect rather than letting it all fly as in some other venues on the Internet. 

If my scold was offensive to you, I should apologize and do so. That was unnecessary. However, it will continue to be my plea that we do not talk down to one another or set ourselves up as THE expert. On this board there are some VERY accomplished scholars in a variety of fields (e.g., theology, biblical studies, medicine, science, law, education, homemaking, etc.). We will get along much better if we simply disagree with one another without impugning the cognitive skills of our brethren.



> I don't believe Packer has shifted since that article, but I am not in close touch with him. But at the time that article was written, JIP was, and until forced out last year, he remained a member of a denomination which *did* ordain women presbyters and As far as I know the parish church he attended and still attends agreed with that stance. (BTW that church St. John's Shaugnessy, Vancouver, deserves our prayers as it is a leader the fight against gay marriage in the Anglican Church of Canada, and their minister David Short has just gone on stress leave.)
> 
> As I said Packer's position is nuanced. He doesn't buy the practice of ordaining women but he won't leave a church or denomination over it.



If not leaving over his disagreement qualifies as nuance then I will not be left thinking that he changed his mind fundamentally on the topic and that he still remains opposed to the ordaination of women.



> Sure those arguments were used in years past, but they are not the heart of the egalitarian case which will be arguments attempting to refute the traditional understanding of 1 Tim. 2:11-14. The egalitarian interpretation of the Gal. text is so easily refuted that better advised egalitarians are no longer using it, at least up here in Canada. And my point is simply that if we are going to help egalitarians we must carefully choose our ground when we do so.



Frankly, perhaps cynicism leads me to despair of "helping egalitarians" anymore. Unless someone is atypically open to changing paradigms, it is simply too easy to go with the flow of broad evangelicalism and its embrace of "evangelical feminism" with its egalitarian intellectual architecture.


----------



## DMcFadden

At the heart of it, we ALL have to struggle with a tendency to *use* arguments to provide cover for our biases. If you grow up in an egalitarian culture and a PhD authority figure tells you that you can be a "biblical" Christian AND still go with the flow of culture, it takes a person of atypical intellectual honesty to poke holes in that logic or exegesis. The same holds true of the gay issue and [I would also contend, albeit somewhat more controversially in this venue] six day creation. It is soooo very much easier to accept the societal consensus on all three of these issues, particularly if a Dr. Oh So Smart at the local "evangelical" seminary says that it is OK.

[BTW, imagine the cognitive dissonance of conservative women, sometimes with multiple degrees in theology and biblical studies, who serve on church staffs and do NOT buy the egalitarian line!!! Now, that is courage.]


----------



## timmopussycat

DMcFadden said:


> Frankly, perhaps cynicism leads me to despair of "helping egalitarians" anymore. Unless someone is atypically open to changing paradigms, it is simply too easy to go with the flow of broad evangelicalism and its embrace of "evangelical feminism" with its egalitarian intellectual architecture.



Dear brother, dare I gently remind you that despair is a sin? 

Since the Holy Spirit changed my mind on the topic after my being born again and raised to some measure of maturity in egalitarian circles, then we must conclude that unless he has "lost his touch" in the intervening 22 years (unthinkable!), he can equally change the minds of others.

-----Added 12/11/2009 at 02:00:44 EST-----



DMcFadden said:


> [BTW, imagine the cognitive dissonance of conservative women, sometimes with multiple degrees in theology and biblical studies, who serve on church staffs and do NOT buy the egalitarian line!!! Now, that is courage.]



I sympathize acutely. It was only after I finished my studies that Regent made its stance on women in ministry a doctrinal crux, and that means that I cannot support the school that meant so much to me despite the excellent work it is still doing in many areas.


----------



## Scott1

> *Scott1*
> Can you name some of the "solid Bible believing" theologians who have a "high view of Scriptural authority yet they differ on this issue" that you have in mind?





> *timmopussycat *
> Packer is the obvious example.





> *timmopussycat *
> As I said Packer's position is nuanced. He doesn't buy the practice of ordaining women but he won't leave a church or denomination over it.



After your assertion that "solid Bible believing" churches (and you included "Pentecostal" ones in that) believed in women's ordination you really have not named any. You mentioned ones that were apostatizing.

You then, went on to name Mr. Packer as an individual supporting an "egalitarian" view (which you have yet to define) and have now basically said he does not advocate that.

It was a mistake for you to assert both that "solid Bible believing" communions believe in women's ordination and for Mr. Packer as advocating that.

The truth here is that while individuals can certainly have blind spots to the clear teaching of Scripture, there is no clear biblical warrant for women being ordained.

The explicit commands of Scripture, the normative descriptions of Scripture, the witness of virtually all of church history, the outflow of women's ordination from communions in apostasy show that God calls, equips and appoints men for ecclesiastical office. It's even consistent with the priority in creation.

We do not know all the reasons God does what He does.

Rebellion against God manifests in men not wanting to do what God wants them to do, and women not wanting to do what God wants them to do. Scripturally, that should not surprise us.

What ought surprise us is that we can rationalize away the explicit and implicit commands of Scripture, the normative description of Scripture and the witness of church history to accommodate our imaginations. The effects of this falling away from truth and rebellion are all around us.

While there is usually some truth in the "other "argument, it is like so many, a combination of truth, half truth and error. It all leads to the same place.

But God calls us to a more excellent way.


----------



## timmopussycat

Scott1 said:


> *Scott1*
> Can you name some of the "solid Bible believing" theologians who have a "high view of Scriptural authority yet they differ on this issue" that you have in mind?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> *timmopussycat *
> Packer is the obvious example.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> *timmopussycat *
> As I said Packer's position is nuanced. He doesn't buy the practice of ordaining women but he won't leave a church or denomination over it.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> After your assertion that "solid Bible believing" churches (and you included "Pentecostal" ones in that) believed in women's ordination you really have not named any. You mentioned ones that were apostatizing.
> 
> You then, went on to name Mr. Packer as an individual supporting an "egalitarian" view (which you have yet to define) and have now basically said he does not advocate that.
> It was a mistake for you to assert both that "solid Bible believing" communions believe in women's ordination and for Mr. Packer as advocating that.
> 
> The truth here is that while individuals can certainly have blind spots to the clear teaching of Scripture, there is no clear biblical warrant for women being ordained.
Click to expand...


Please go back and reread the original post. You will note that I said in that post that Packer does not support the egalitarian view, yet he does not depart from churches that do. I misunderstood what you are asking. Bruce Milne, a Baptist is one who does support women in unrestricted teaching roles yet holds to biblical inerrancy (see his Know the Truth).



Scott1 said:


> The explicit commands of Scripture, the normative descriptions of Scripture, the witness of virtually all of church history, the outflow of women's ordination from communions in apostasy show that God calls, equips and appoints men for ecclesiastical office. It's even consistent with the priority in creation.
> 
> We do not know all the reasons God does what He does.
> 
> Rebellion against God manifests in men not wanting to do what God wants them to do, and women not wanting to do what God wants them to do. Scripturally, that should not surprise us.
> 
> What ought surprise us is that we can rationalize away the explicit and implicit commands of Scripture, the normative description of Scripture and the witness of church history to accommodate our imaginations. The effects of this falling away from truth and rebellion are all around us.
> 
> While there is usually some truth in the "other "argument, it is like so many, a combination of truth, half truth and error. It all leads to the same place.
> 
> But God calls us to a more excellent way.



Scott, I don't buy egalitarianism and I will not be provoked into defending a position I do not agree with. My single point in this thread is to advocate care in choosing the ground from which we counter the egalitarian propaganda. 

Yet while I hold no brief for the egalitarian framework, I encourage you to realize that it is simplistic to label arguments that have arisen within the framework of Biblical inerrancy and infallibility as rationalizing away - there are some legitimate questions that need to be properly addressed addressed as to whether the explicit commands and normative teaching of Scripture are in fact what tradition says they are. And our Confessional forefathers have told us that "the supreme judge by which all controversies of religion are to be determined, and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men, and private spirits, are to be examined, and in whose sentence we are to rest, can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture" (WCF I x) which would seem to rule out arguments from church history and the "bad effects" argument. The "bad effects" argument also can cut both ways. Should men not be teachers in Christ's churches because of heretics like Arius and Servetus?


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## Scott1

> *timmopussycat*
> Yet while I hold no brief for the egalitarian framework, I encourage you to realize that it is simplistic to label arguments that have arisen within the framework of Biblical inerrancy and infallibility as rationalizing away - there are some legitimate questions that need to be properly addressed addressed as to *whether the explicit commands and normative teaching of Scripture are in fact what tradition says they are*.
> What do you mean by this?
> 
> And our Confessional forefathers have told us that "the supreme judge by which all controversies of religion are to be determined, and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men, and private spirits, are to be examined, and in whose sentence we are to rest, can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture" (WCF I x) which would seem to rule out arguments from church history and the "bad effects" argument. The "bad effects" argument also can cut both ways. Should men not be teachers in Christ's churches because of heretics like Arius and Servetus?



The church is subject to the Holy Spirit speaking through Scripture. Scripture is infallible, church authority is fallible.

At best, church authority is secondary. It can be helpful, especially as one believes God has superintended His Word and its witness in His Church through history, but it is always secondary to Scripture.

If that is what you are saying, I agree.

That's why when Scripture explicitly qualifies the offices elder/pastor/bishop/deacon for men, examined, with exemplary lives, we are not free by church decree, religious opinion, or any imagination of mankind to deny them and supplant something else (such as a pattern of women ecclesiastical authority over men). 

On top of that, we have the virtually unanimous witness of church history (including among all the historic Baptists, Anglicans, and Presbyterians) on this point..


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## TaylorWest

*Let's Try One More View*



timmopussycat said:


> It certainly explains the apparent contradiction with chapter 11 better than any other view I know.



There are at least two things that we moderns must struggle with when we come across a text like this. First, we have to ascertain what the author is saying and second we have to ascertain the significance of what has been said in our day. In this case, we must first ask the question, “What did St. Paul really say?”

Paul wrote, “The women must keep silent in the congregation, for they are not permitted to speak, but are required to subject themselves just as the law says.” As you can see, I’m wrestling with the third person active imperatives behind the phrases ‘must keep silent’ and ‘are required to subject’. Here is one area I’m especially unhappy with the King James Version. ‘Let your women keep silence’ is far too weak to communicate the imperatival force here (and just about everywhere else the third person imperative is used). ‘Let’ has a permissive connotation in modern English. ‘Let them eat cake!’ Are we allowed to eat cake, or are we commanded to eat cake? Paul is not saying that the women are allowed to keep silent, he is commanding that the keep silent.

At this point, many modern readers jump to the question of ‘why’ Paul would say such a thing. Scholars begin looking at the larger context of the letter, the context of Paul’s other epistles, the context of the New Testament in general (with special emphasis on the Gospels), and even at the context of the first century cultures themselves. As they begin weighing and configuring all the relevant data into a coherent mosaic, they are able to come up with a reasonable framework within which to interpret what St. Paul has said.

However, I’ve never seen an egalitarian scholar actually wrestle with the immediate context of this commandment (I can’t keep up with their writings, but I have read a whole lot on this).

Specifically, I think there are two very important items to consider in the immediate context that need to be considered when determining what St. Paul is saying. These are the words ‘speak’ and ‘silent.’ It should go without saying that these two concepts, in the midst of the congregation, are the main things that Paul is addressing in the context. And besides these two items, there are also the themes of ‘prophecy’ and ‘subjection’ that need to be considered.

*On Speaking in the Congregation:
*
1 Cor 14:23 - If therefore the whole church should assemble together and all *speak *in tongues
1 Cor 14:27 - If anyone *speaks *in a tongue, …
1 Cor 14:28 – he must *speak *to himself and to God.
1 Cor 14:29 - And two or three prophets must *speak*, …​
*On Keeping Silent in the Congregation:
*
1 Cor 14:28 – if there is no interpreter, he must keep *silent *in the church
1 Cor 14:30 – the first must keep *silent*​
So we see that Paul is giving the church a series of commands about when to speak up and to keep silent in the church. In each of these cases, there is a very specific circumstance surrounding the exhortation. In other words, Paul outlines the conditions that must be met for each of his commands to make sense. ‘If’ this is the case, ‘then’ do thus.

When we get to verses 34 and 35, we see the same concepts passing through, and even a similar structure, but there is a very important difference. Though Paul is addressing the concepts of ‘speaking’ and of ‘silence’, he does not give circumstantial conditions. He does not say, ‘If the women get bored and begin speaking so loudly that they begin disturbing those that are trying to listen, then they must keep silent.’

Rather, Paul grounds the command for women to keep silent in the congregation in the commands of the law! To miss this structural change is to miss the whole point of the passage.

As for the relationship between 1 Cor 14 and 1 Cor 11, I think we need to fall back on the age old interpretive methods of the Reformers, 1) scripture must interpret scripture and 2) the clearer passages inform the less clear.

In this case, 1 Cor 14 is clearly speaking about how men and women are to conduct themselves in the congregation with special reference to speaking and prophesying. 1 Cor 11 however, seems to be speaking more generally about how men and women are to pray and prophesy outside of the congregation. 

While I know that many good Calvinists would disagree with me here, the context, leading up to the head-covering passage is about how we conduct ourselves in public. It is only after Paul has addressed how men and women are to pray/prophesy that he moves to a discussion about the Lord’s Supper. At the very least, this is a contested passage (unclear) and therefore we should seek the help of 1 Cor 14 to make sense of it.

For my part, I take the clear command of 1 Cor 14 (women must not speak in the congregation) and use as a prism through which I understand 1 Cor 11. Therefore, I’m inclined to see 1 Cor 11 as 1) a transitional passage, bridging the instructional content of 1 Cor 10 on public conduct with the instructions on the conduct of the congregation that follows it, 2) and therefore I see the specific instructions about a woman’s praying and prophesying with her head covered as instructions that are fit for life outside of the congregation.

Well, enough said. Be well.


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## DMcFadden

> After your assertion that "solid Bible believing" churches (and you included "Pentecostal" ones in that) believed in women's ordination you really have not named any. You mentioned ones that were apostatizing.



It is not too difficult to find inerrantists who support unrestricted teaching roles for women:

* Roger Nicole of Gordon Seminary and RTS fame
* Vernon Grounds
* John R. Kohlenberger III (?)
* Numbers of faculty at institutions promoting inerrancy such as Trinity Evangelical Divinity School or Gordon Conwell
* F.F. Bruce
* A.J. Gordon

In my opinion, Wayne Grudem has done some of the best work on the subject. His _Evangelical Feminism: A New Path to Liberalism_, is one of my favorites.

I agree with the blogger who recommended it as follows:


> 1. It lifts high the authority and inerrancy of Scripture
> 2. It presents the arguments of egalitarians fairly
> 3. It equips the believer for egalitarian arguments that are unsubstantiated, purely speculative and wrong
> 4. It enlightens the believer as to where our culture has been, is, and is moving toward
> 5. It presents a sense of urgency that will require love and prayer on the complimentarians part
> 6. It will help complimentarian pastors develop a strong sense of Biblical standards regarding this issue
> 7. It states plainly that disobedience to Scripture based on any “argument” is simply disobedience and sin


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## Scott1

> *TaylorWest*
> For my part, I take the clear command of 1 Cor 14 (women must not speak in the congregation) and use as a prism through which I understand 1 Cor 11. Therefore, I’m inclined to see 1 Cor 11 as 1) a transitional passage, bridging the instructional content of 1 Cor 10 on public conduct with the instructions on the conduct of the congregation that follows it, 2) and therefore I see the specific instructions about a woman’s praying and prophesying with her head covered as instructions that are fit for life outside of the congregation.



Your careful study and reasoning from Scripture is commendable. It reminds me something of that of the Bereans that Paul commended.

Are you somehow concluding that women are given biblical warrant to teach, preach as part of corporate worship?

Or, is your point limited to interpretation of this one particular verse only?


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## EricP

I must say, as a non-theologian I am amazed and impressed with the breadth and depth of the thinking and comments of so many on this board, and generally the controlled tone of the conversation. I can add really nothing of exegetical value, but please allow me a social comment or two. As an old guy who was an atheist for the better part of his life, I see "the church" (generically speaking, but indicating those who have not derailed too far off orthodox tracks) as lagging behind common culture by a couple of decades--the feminist stuff hit the world at large years ago, and has been slowly entering church circles since. As far as I know, no new Scriptures have been discovered in that time; rather, "new" interpretations of old Scriptures have been found. Admittedly, church "tradition" is not as deep a well to draw from as Scripture itself, but there is water there which can still slake a thirst; it isn't inerrant, but exegetes today are telling us in effect that traditional exegesis of Scripture HAS been in error--wrong-headed, patriarchal, exclusive, whatever, but wrong in deed. In my opinion, common culture generally has no use at all for bible believing Christianity; I certainly didn't before I was saved: in essence, common culture wishes no good for the church, for Christians, or for matters of faith in one, all powerful, sustaining and creating God. Common culture wants God dead, buried, and marginalized--does now, and always has since Christ walked the earth. 
So now, the push for inclusiveness--what is the drive behind it? If the driving force were a generally, exegetically, theologically agreed-upon "aha" moment ("face it folks, all of us agree that the church has been wrong about this for 2000 years; let's get our acts together") then fine. The skirmishes I have read not only here on the PB but elsewhere suggest strongly that this inclusiveness has not come from anything generally agreed upon, no system-wide "oh, that's what Paul meant..." event; rather, as one not on the exegetical front lines, it seems as if the changes in common culture have driven the changes in exegetical emphasis; changes which, as they have in common culture and elsewhere, begin a real domino-falling process which like it or not leads to a change in attitude/acceptance for various abnormal (historically) sexual and other behaviors (in and out of church circles), as well as a trend away from biblical inerrancy, and so forth. The domino theory is real, and can be seen readily in what has happened in the American culture over the past 40 years or more. While many of the proponents of Christian gender-inclusivism are nice, articulate, well-meaning, intelligent, believing people, that doesn't mean that they are right, or that their "movement" shouldn't be resisted--the stakes are too high. As the book of Judges proves, pagan culture generally wears down the faithful--not so much victory in battle as victory in the day to day, the Christian version of "can't we all just get along", and "it just seems right" to do such and such--ordain women, ordain homosexuals (initially abstinent, but then "how can we reject another form of love--God is love, right?"), supply denominational money to Planned Parenthood ("they do provide counseling!"), etc. NT Wright may be a smart articulate guy, but he and others had best be able to prove that they are smarter, more articulate, and more faithful than 2000 years of Christian theologians before they can step to the podium and say "this is what Paul REALLY meant". The law of unintended (and I'm being kind here) consequences is a hard taskmaster; God is omnipotent, but Christ's bride can be willful, weak, and fickle. Women are smart, strong, and competent and their roles in the church are and should be many and varied; but we had best be sure our hearts, minds, and exegesis are in their right places before we condone or support a movement the foundations of which involve forces and opinions that generally do not have the best interests of the church in mind!

-----Added 12/12/2009 at 08:38:56 EST-----


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## TaylorWest

*Women Teaching?*



Scott1 said:


> *TaylorWest*
> For my part, I take the clear command of 1 Cor 14 (women must not speak in the congregation) and use as a prism through which I understand 1 Cor 11. Therefore, I’m inclined to see 1 Cor 11 as 1) a transitional passage, bridging the instructional content of 1 Cor 10 on public conduct with the instructions on the conduct of the congregation that follows it, 2) and therefore I see the specific instructions about a woman’s praying and prophesying with her head covered as instructions that are fit for life outside of the congregation.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Your careful study and reasoning from Scripture is commendable. It reminds me something of that of the Bereans that Paul commended.
> 
> Are you somehow concluding that women are given biblical warrant to teach, preach as part of corporate worship?
> 
> Or, is your point limited to interpretation of this one particular verse only?
Click to expand...


Eric,

For the record, I think Paul restricts women from 1) Preaching (any environment), 2) Teaching men (any environment), and 3) Leading the congregation in Prayer or even the Reading of Scripture.

From the flow of thought in 1 Cor 14, it is evident that the 'speakers' in each case are 'speaking' in such a manner as to edify in a very upfront way (leading that aspect of the worship service). I'm concluding by the fact that Paul uses a blanket statement, without conditions, that women are not to take part in the leading of congregational worship.

When our church has a time of announcements, in the middle of the worship service, I think it is more of a parenthetical moment, unrelated to worship. Therefore, I don't believe that Paul's exhortation for women to keep silent at this time applies. Giving announcements is not an act of one in authority.

Was there something I said specifically that gave the indication that I thought Paul would permit women to preach? I didn't mean to.


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## KaphLamedh

It has been door to liberalism, if the church has female pastor.


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## Scott1

> *TaylorWest*
> Was there something I said specifically that gave the indication that I thought Paul would permit women to preach? I didn't mean to.



Christopher,
Great post- and your summary here appears to be the biblical one, and the one witnessed by the church through history.

Only trying to follow the careful reasoning here, and wanted to clarify.




> While I know that many good Calvinists would disagree with me here, the context, leading up to the head-covering passage is about how we conduct ourselves in public. It is only after Paul has addressed how men and women are to pray/prophesy that he moves to a discussion about the Lord’s Supper.



If I'm understanding what you are saying, and what I think is the biblical principles here, we would say God has qualified men to lead in corporate worship and authority by office and by function.

We don't understand the "keep silence" to be no speaking ever, but no authoritative leading of corporate worship. Some exceptions:

1)esp. older women teaching younger women,
2)women teaching younger children,
3)and maybe some incidental parts of corporate worship (e.g. announcements).

But clearly, reading scripture, exhorting from scripture, teaching, or qualifying church office leadership as deacon or elder is biblically qualified to men. 

As well, men ought ordinarily be leading in aspects of worship, as reflective of the priority of creation, with many un-ordained men and women helping and serving under that


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