Last night was one of the best nights in the life of my ministry. I spoke to my church about leadership. I spoke to them about what the Scriptures say in regards to men being elders/bishops/overseers and women being prohibited from the office. We spoke of deacons in the church and the fact that scripture seems to allow for deaconess's. I was wondering how it would be received and even thought I might have to pack my bags if the meeting didn't go well.
Bless God, the meeting went fabulous! The opinion was unanimous and they would like me to proceed with making adjustments to our Constitution to reflect a more biblical position in the areas of leadership. Any time you begin tampering with things 'the way they have always been,' you risk rejection. But God gave a spirit of unity and there was actually a sense of relief from our people as they felt like something wasn't quite right but didn't know what to do about it.
Thank you Lord!
The Skinny
- Joe VonDoloski
- Medford, Oregon, United States
- God has me in Medford, Oregon starting a charter school. I have the "total package," for a wife and five arrows in my quiver that together we are working on straightening.
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5 comments:
Awesome. So you're going to work women & men as elders and pastors and leaders into your constitution? That's great, and very Biblical. Keep up the good work!
Sorry for the confusion, I have since edited the post. We will not be working women into pastors and/or elders as my understanding of 1 Timothy and other scriptures is that the qualifications of a bishop/elder/pastor is that they must have the ability to teach and the NT prohibits women from teaching men and usurping or having the authority over men in the church.
If the New Testament prohibits women from teaching men then why does Paul give allowance for them to pray and prophecy (fortelling and forthtelling of Scripture) in 1 Corinthians?
I would say, there is no "If."concerning 1 Tim. 2:12. It clearly prohibits women from teaching and having authority over men. Paul even says in 1 Cor. 14:34 "Let your women keep silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak." What else could that possibly mean?
How then do we reconcile that clear teaching with 1 Cor. 11:5?
My understanding is twofold:
1. In 1 Cor. 11 I do not see the passage dealing with functions within the church.
The previous context of Chapter 10 deals with functioning in the marketplace and in other's homes.
My understanding is that women should pray, they should teach children and other women and in fact are instructed to.(Titus 2, 1 Tim. 5) I do believe a distinction needs to be made when men are present, even more so in the assembly of the ekklesia(church)and in positions of leadership.
OH. I guess I always viewed 1 Cor 11 (and 14) fitting well with 1 Tim(and Titus). It would seem that 1 Cor. 11 is VERY church centered (communion) as well as covering their head in assembles because the angels see them (why else have women covered their heads in church gatherings over the years?).
So, coupled together, Paul may not be forbidding them to teach, but forbidding them to usurp authority, which may be a given (obviously), but could have been an issue in the churches Timothy was dealing with (remember many of them had no leadership as Titus and Timothy were going about to establish that).
I view 1 Corinthians being the larger voice in this conversation, to which the Timothy and Titus passages (written much later) should heed to.
So why are women singled out in these passages? Why are there no commands for men to not usurp authority (or is it okay for men to do this? it is not!)? Because, Christianity, still in development, was using women in leadership (see their qualifications in 1 Tim 3 - the age old argument over the interpretation of "wife" is something to be considered, it probably is better translated "woman").
Paul lists several of these women in Romans. Obviously, this was a "new thing" to Jewish worship, coming from a strict Synagoge mentality where women and children were to sit on the outter edge - in Christian churches women were able to pray and prophecy publically, as long as they modeled submission (which fits in which "not allowing them to speak but to rather ask their husbands if they have questions" - it's not that they couldn't SPEAK but they needed to show submission to their husbands).
But, you sound pretty convinced of your arguments, and heirachical complementarianism wont die in the near future, so I wish you and your church well, and hope that they are able to submit themselves to your interpretations of a 2000 year old document.
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