Woman senior pastor

1 Tim 2:12 (NET)
2:12 But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man. She must remain quiet.

Why would more need to be said?

 

It is not what I THINK. It is NOT scriptural.

 

Because, Paul said that before the women's lib movement. I am sure if he were around today...........

 

Why anyone would want to be part of a church where the leader is in rebellion against God and not being lead of the Spirit is confusing to me unless they too are in rebellion against god and not being lead of the Spirit.

 

I explain these briefly, and add a few more graphics, in a blog post I wrote last month.

 

Looks interesting, Mark. Thanks. I wrote about this from a somewhat different angle in ALL male apostles.

 

I read your article, it's well reasoned and well written. Thanks!

 

The church has a right to do whatever it wants, but that is an unscriptural act on their part. Any Pastor should be male, you cannot twist the Greek that much to make it female when it is masculine for a bishop/pastor. The world has gone to such a crazy place here in America! This PC junk is an abomination, strive to be Biblically Correct and you will do well.

 

Some biblically conservative scholars disagree with your interpretation without "twisting" anything. It is a more complicated issue that many like to admit.

"Political correctness" has little to do with a biblically conservative argument for female apostles, pastors and deacons. It comes straight from the gospels, the Book of Acts, and the writings of Paul. You may disagree, but that's where the position has its root.

As I have recommended previously, if you want to read a biblically conservative analysis of Paul's position regarding female leadership in the church, I suggest reading E. Earle Ellis' book, "Pauline Theology: Ministry and Society."

For the last 25 years of his life, Dr. Ellis taught at Southwestern Theological Seminary at the pleasure of the Presidents (including Ken Hemphill and Paige Patterson) where he engaged in teaching and research. He described himself to me as more conservative than Paige Patterson, and was anything but PC. (For example, he hated translations of scripture that changed a masculine noun to a gender-neutral noun on the basis of context, because he did not like the translation making that interpretation for the reader.) But at the same time, Ellis was driven to open up the teachings of the Pauline community and make them understandable to the church in this age, and felt compelled - because of the meaning of scripture - to be an advocate for female participation in church leadership.

You may disagree with him on this issue (I disagreed with Earle on a number of issues, but thought he was correct on this one), but you can't simply brush it off as someone being PC or not taking scripture seriously.

 

Only if one needs it to be to prove a point.

Conservatives don't do that.

 

I notice Ellis's book is available for preview at Google Books.
Pauline Theology

 

still NO NT verses that support a female can be a pastor/Elder though!

 

Biblical interpretation is never complicated. Got it.

Uh huh. Right.

 

Actually, yes. But I'm not going to make the case for an audience that is hostile since you have probably already rejected something you have not investigated. If you want to take on the challenge of considering another viewpoint, feel free to pick up a copy of Ellis' book. It is written on a popular level that does not require an understanding of Greek - although it is helpful.

 

The chapter "Paul and the Eschatological Woman" addresses the topic at hand. All of the book is worth reading.

I doubt you will be able to preview all of the pertinent material, but you should be able to see enough of it to understand that Dr. Ellis is dealing quite conservatively with the text - not like some commentators who have not bothered to review his work have asserted.

 

Baptist Believer,

Although I disagree with your position on this view (I'm complementarian), I respect your courage to hold minority views within our community when you are convinced the Bible teaches them. And yes, I'm aware that there are people who overall are theologically conservative evangelicals who hold an egalitarian view. Nevertheless, it seems to very often be the case that this particular view leads individuals and denominations into theological liberalism. But not in every case.

I have not read the specific book you mention, but I have read other books from the evangelical egalitarian side. On the complementarian side, imo the best book remains Wayne Grudem's Evangelical Feminism an Biblical Truth.

While I understand your reluctance to discuss this on this forum, I for one would be glad to discuss the evidence in a calm, respectful way.

 

If I can't be faithful to the places where I believe the Spirit of the Lord has led me, I need to disassociate myself from the call of Jesus. I don't choose my views, I simply try to be obedient to scripture. If that's not popular, then I am in a long line of God's people who have faced alienation from the mainstream.

I don't think it is any more courageous to hold unpopular views than it is to simply be a disciple of Jesus. Discipleship requires death to selfish desires (including popularity) and devotion to Christ and His teaching. My life has no meaning outside of that. It takes courage to initially follow the call of Jesus and everything after that is simply a continuation of that initial decision.

Sure. Often the move to egalitarianism has been driven by culture and the desire to be acceptable to popular viewpoints. But that's not the motivation for all. Those who affirm conditional mortality (aka "annihilationism") are often accused of simply having an emotional aversion to the "traditional" idea of God personally torturing individual humans for all eternity and therefore cooking up a unique interpretation of the scriptures to make all of that go away. But you and I know that is not true in many (most?) cases.

Ellis' approach (and my approach) is to take scripture very seriously and carefully work through it to see if it has something to say beyond simply affirming what we already culturally believe. On numerous occasions, I have found that scripture speaks more profoundly and deeper than our contemporary religious culture about many issues and have brought that to bear in my teaching. I'm certain that some people reading this are going to assume that I am talking about viewpoints that are more "liberal", but that is not always true. I am sometimes driven to be more "conservative" than the contemporary religious culture.

I have not read Grudem's book, nor have I done much reading in this area lately since much of this was settled for me years ago. Formerly, I have been both neutral and opposed to women in leadership ministry, but could not shake the implications of things I noticed in the gospels, Acts and Paul's writings. I searched for ways to honestly reconcile those issues and Ellis' work - along with a few other influences - brought everything together for me and I haven't run into any evidence to move me from the position in my studies.

I appreciate the offer, but don't have that much time to devote to an involved discussion at this time. Moreover, I am convinced that those who truly want to know that understanding can discover it on their own. If they don't want to know right now, it is better that they remain ignorant of it rather than reject it out of hand simply because they have already decided to do so. I do not want to participate in the self-blinding of Christians. I trust that the Spirit will guide people when they are ready to explore this issue.

 

The word διάκονον may refer either to a female who is serving, or more specifically refer to a female deacon, a deaconess. But what is your point? What does this have to do with a woman serving as a Senior Pastor? This is a sincere question, I honestly do not understand your point here.

 

This post is beneath you.