Women Pastors

Johnv, you need a lesson in what legalism really is. it's putting the letter of the law above the spirit.

Legalism, definition number one: "Strict adherence to law, especially to the letter rather than the spirit" (The Random House College Dictionary, pg. 765)

Adherance to God's word, which forbids women leading a Church, is far from legalism.

Allowing women pastors, is an exercise in apostacy, IMO.

http://www.bibletruths.net/Archives/BTAR214.htm

 

Also, to Johnv, would you say that Muslems are legalists, since they don't allow women pastors ? What about catholics ?

 

If you study the epistles many times Paul gave his opinions not necessarily what the Lord told him. REad those scriptures carefully that it quotes so many times. Paul said that HE FORBADE
women to teach. He did not say this was a command from God. He did not say others taught this. He admitted this was his practice. The other Apostles were silent on this subject but let us look at what the Bible says about this subject.

First and foremost God never changes. THis is what hurts the churches credibility when we say it was okay under the Old TEstament but God changed things under the New. That is not true.
The Old Testament was types and foreshadows of Christ. Everyone was looking forwarded to Christ Jesus.

God called Deborah to be the judge of Israel. A woman. Imagine that. Guess who was underneath her authority? A man. Barak. Now doesn't that smack of equality. Miriam was called a prophetess. Anna who prophesied to Mary the Mother of Jesus was a prophetess. Philip had 7 daughters and they were all prophetesses. Imagine that. LEt us also look at Aquila and Priscilla. It is obvious they did not share Paul's beliefs.
Then there are other women mentioned in Acts who were called Deaconnesses. Imagine that. Guess who first brought the message that Jesus was alive and had been resurrected. A woman. Not men. A woman.

We tend to forget that Paul when writing his epistles were writing to local churches. Has anyone considered in the least bit that Paul was probably addressing this subject based on things happening in the church he was writing to. NO.
We carry a superior attitude towards women which is not taught in the Bible. We men are taught to HONOR THEM, not dishonor them.

I know of case after case where men refused to take the leadership role. They refused to start churches or teach the flock and so it fell to women. Whether we men like that idea or not does not matter. What matters is God will use who he needs to use to get his work done.

Do I believe a woman should pastor. Absolutely not but if a man is derelict in his duty to start a church then I believe a woman could do this but should choose men under her to guide her decisions.

We cannot blame women when they seem to be more willing to serve God then the majority of men.

 

All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable... Are you saying that God was not inspiring Paul to say these things? And if so, do you realize you are calling God a liar?

The other apostles were also silent on the subject of being saved by grace through faith. They were commissioned by Jesus to preach and teach the gospel of the Kingdom. (see the first couple of chapters of Acts) Paul's message was completely different from the apostles' message.

Don't tell me you are one of those people who believes that salvation has always been the same. God does not change. That is correct. But His way of dealing with man at different periods of time has changed. If you don't believe this then show me one person in the OT that was a part of the Body of Christ, was indwelt by the Holy Spirit, and had eternal security.

Like I said, God deals differently with man at different times. Why aren't we still performing sacrifices if everything is still supposed to be the same as it was in the OT?

I'm sure he was addressing things happening in the churches he wrote to. But God decided that what Paul wrote was good for all churches at all times and that's why it is included in scripture.

We men are told to honor our wives. I'm not married to your wife and I have no need to honor her. Besides, saying that women should obey God is not dishonoring them.

Those men who refused to obey God will pay for that when they are at the Judgment Seat of Christ. But just because men aren't willing to obey God doesn't mean that women should disobey God either. The end does not justify the means. In this case women can witness to people and the gospel still gets spread. They can hold Bible studies for other women. But they should not be starting churches.

I'm not sure where you are getting your numbers here. But the bottom line is that God inspired the whole Bible. And it is NOT up to us to pick and choose which parts we want and which parts we like, then ignore the rest. Do I have anything against women. No. Men and women are different. Men and women have different roles. God did this on purpose. Women are to support men, not to rule over them.

 

IMO, yes, I think that any religious institution that forbids women from getting ordained and serving is being legalistic, the sole reason being gender.

This issue remains a controversial one in many churches and denominations. It stems from two scripture passages written by the Apostle Paul, which are frequently interpreted differently. In the first, Paul writes, "Let your women keep silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak; but they are to be submissive, as the law also says. And if they want to learn something, let them ask their own husbands at home; for it is shameful for women to speak in church" (1 Cor. 14:34-35). Some churches interpret this to mean that Paul forbade women to speak publicly or preach in the church. However, others contend that he used the Greek verb that described "talk or chatter," and was only discouraging conversational interruptions in the assembly. The tradition of the early church (synagogue) was that the men and women sat on opposite sides, divided by a waist-high partition. There's speculation that during the teaching, there was disruptive chatting between the women or perhaps they asked questions of their husbands across the partition.


The other passage written to Timothy is even more controversial. Paul wrote, "I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man, but to be in silence [submission]" (1 Tim. 2:12). This is seen by some as an indisputable restriction against women holding church positions of teaching or authority, but others believe that Paul was speaking to a wife's domestic submission to the authority of her husband. Whatever Paul meant, it apparently was not intended to be a sexist bias against women, as he explained elsewhere that gender held no distinction to those in Christ. "...there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Gal. 3:28).


What is clear is that the broad context of the New Testament shows that women did have a significant role in the early church. Besides continuing with the Apostles in prayer, there were women, such as Phebe, whom Paul described as a deaconess (Greek, DIAKONOS), a term which referred to an office of ministry (Rom. 16:1). And there were other women, such as Philip's four daughters, who prophesied, proclaiming public messages from God (Acts 21:8-9).

 

OK, John. Good answer. But I think it's important to note that those of us who reject women pastors on Biblical grounds, take offense to those who construe it as disrespect towards women.

 

I am a woman, a Jet Engine Mechanic and very strongheaded. On many occasions I have had people (mostly women) try to drag me into this debate trying to get me to back them up. NO dice! The bible says women are not to be leaders in the church. Even though I am the first to argue equal opportunity, God said NO, They should not be pastors.
Women can serve God by witnessing to friends, teaching sunday school for the children or women, but not get behind the pulpit and preach.
I don't feel slighted at all. If the bible says it , we have to abide. There are many men that do not become pastors, I don't feel it is disrespect toward women, it's just a fact.

 

I can accept that. Most certainly, whether one is for or against, the basis for one's belief is meant to be biblical and not disrespectful towards women.

 

(duplicate post deleted)

 

BMA Baptists reserve the pulpit for men only. Women may teach women and children's classes and serve in many other ways. JUST NOT PASTOR!

1 Tim 3:2-7
2 A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, temperate, sober-minded, of good behavior, hospitable, able to teach;
3 not given to wine, not violent, not greedy for money, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not covetous;
4 one who rules his own house well, having his children in submission with all reverence
5 (for if a man does not know how to rule his own house, how will he take care of the church of God?);
6 not a novice, lest being puffed up with pride he fall into the same condemnation as the devil.
7 Moreover he must have a good testimony among those who are outside, lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil.

rufus

 

Don, A woman Biblically can't be a pastor I agree with you of course. I don't exaxtly understand what your saying on the second part. Yes a woman can and should witness to others ,but witnessing and preaching are not exactly the same. A woman should not try to preach.
Hedied4U, I was not there with you so of course I can not explain it all. But God is sovereign and will honor His Word so maybe God was just using His Word. I truly could not give you a perfect answer because we none understand it all and like I say I wasn't there but don't take experence over Scripture. I am not saying you are I am just saying don't make the mistake of doing it. I do not in the least bit agree with a woman trying to preach. I heard of one old preacher saying "God has never called a woman to preach but there are a few self-appointed,(he said) I have one of those at home".

 

I think it would be helpful to clarify what we mean by certain words here. In these sorts of discussion, words such as pastor, teacher/ teaching, minister, elder, bishop, prophecy/ prophet/ prophesying, preacher/ preaching, authority tend to be thrown around as if they are all much-of-a-muchness and interchangeable terms. I don't think they are. With apologies for bad spelling and for even more appalling Greek (I don't have my dictionary or lexicon in front of me), here's my stab at differentiating the terms in some Scriptural context:-

Pastor - the OP is believe was asking about women pastors. In Eph 4:11, the word translated thus is poimanein which means 'shepherd'. I can't think of any verse that expressly forbids a woman to be a poimanein

Teacher - didaskon (?). In the oft-quoted passage in I Tim 2, Paul expressly forbids a woman to teach - whether just to teach men or generally is unclear from the word order. However, other posters have pointed out that Priscilla was teaching Apollos in Acts 18:26. There is I believe a reason for this discrepancy which I will endeavour to explain below

Minister - can't find an equivalent Greek word here - anyone? In my church, the terms 'minister' and 'pastor' are synonymous and, FWIW, they can be women


Elder - presbuteros - originally this described men of standing within the Jewish community, whose opinion and authority were to be highly valued. Arguably, therefore this excludes women - see esp Titus 1:6; but question as to whether that was a cultural phenomenon 'inherited' from the Jews and whether Deborah could be counted as an elder in pre-monarchic Israel(?)

Bishop/ overseer/ superintendent - episkopos lit this means 'one who sees over'. I Tim 3:2 seems to exclude women, but see my comment about elders.

Prophet - prophetein - lit 'to speak before', either to speak before something has happened (fore-telling) or to speak on behalf of someone (eg: 'to speak before the throne of God')(forthtelling). This can encompass predictive prophecy such as that of Agabus in Acts 11:28 and Acts 21:11-12, but also generally speaking forth the Word of God ie: preaching. Acts 21:9 and I Cor 11:5 seem clear that women can do this

Preaching - see above. Again, no direct Greek equivalent - you can either use prophetein as above or keryssein - lit 'to proclaim'. Again, no prohibition on women AFAIK - so women can have a pulpit and be preachers.

Authority - exousia - so we are left with the apparent prohibition in I Tim 2:11-15, and in particular v12. Here is it noteworthy that Paul uses authentein rather than exousia ; this is significant as it is the only place Paul uses this word. It has connotations of usurpation and is used outside the NT to describe seduction techniques used by prostitutes, so it appears to be a form of sexual authority. This places the passage in its context, its sitz im leben: the church(es) to which these Pastoral letters was addressed faced two main threats - persecution and heresy, both resulting in the need for strong leadership and sound teaching. The false teaching was the various Gnostic heresies. At Ephesus, where young Timothy was pastor, in particular there was a Gnostic 'Eve-cult', associated with Diana-Artemis, that taught that since Eve ate of the Tree of Knowledge first, women were possessed of superior spiritual knowledge to men; this knowledge could however be passed to men through sex. This had infiltrated the Ephesian church - and women were teaching this heresy and seducing men through it , so what we witness here is Paul seeking to correct this problem, rather than a doctrinal point to be true for all time.

So, to try and tie all of this up:-

Can a woman be a pastor? I don't see why not

Can a woman be a teacher? Following the exegesis
of I Tim 2:11-15 above and cp with Priscilla, yes.

Can a woman be a minister? If that means the same as pastor, then yes.

Can a woman be an elder or bishop? - possibly.

Can a woman preach and prophesy? - most definitely yes.

Can a woman have authority over men? If again my exegesis is correct then provided she doesn't use it to seduce men (!), then yes.

That's my two cents on the subject!

Yours in Christ

Matt

 

Ok, how about a woman being a pastor but not teaching men? What's your opinion? How about if she just, say, ummm, performed weddings?
Gina

 

Originally posted by Tentmaker...

No, my friend, I was not decieved, and neither were the rest of the people in that church. God was moving in a mighty way in the lives of people, and He was using both of them, not just the man, to do His work.

They were both proclaiming God's Word, and lives were being changed. Why would satan want to change someone's life for the better? Why would he remove all urges to drink from a drunk? Why would he want marriages, that were on the brink of divorce, put back together? I could go on and on, but I'd hope you get my point.

Oh sure, you could say that he would do all of that just to decieve us, and maybe he would, but I'm sorry, I'm just not buying it. It was the work of God through this godly husband and wife team, not satan trying to decieve us.

God Bless!!!

Adam

 

It is politically correct for women to pastor churches, lift weights, talk to snakes, ride in a basket, tame a wild beast and even dip snuff; but its not Biblically Correct.
The religious community will readliy accept this teaching as it does all hereies but people of faith will never accept such departures from the Word of God.
This error is simply a reflection of the rising cultural influence on the religious community. People of God are not called to compromise with the spirit of this age but to correct it.

Sheeptender

 

It's biblically incorrect for women to lift weights??

 

Sheeptender, I agree with you. I have always thought the Scriptures to be obvious on these issues.
A woman is not to perform marriages or pastor over just women unless there are no good Bible-believing Baptist churches around.And even then the woman does not pastor she shold not be considered a pastor.

 

Gina, of course, you will hear both sides probably answer your question. So my suggestion is to you get your King James Bible out and study on the subject and then pray and let God show you from prayer and His Word which is right.(Though the truth is women are not to preach)

 

CDGriffin - which Greek word are you translating 'preach'? And what do you think Philip's daughters were doing?

Yours in Christ

Matt