Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!mips!dimacs.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: cctr114@csc.canterbury.ac.nz Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Sexism in the church Message-ID: Date: 11 May 91 02:55:10 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand Lines: 157 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu >>>In article , mls@sfsup.att.com (Mike Siemon) writes: >> [snip] >>>Now if a woman says that she feels she has been called to the preaching >>>ministry, I think there are valid reasons to say that she has not. The Lord >>>does not contradict himself; and God's Word is particularly clear on this >>>point: a woman should learn in quietness and full submission, and not act >>>as a man's master-teacher. (1 Timothy 2:11,12). If a woman claims to have >>>been called to the preaching ministry, then first of all she claims to have >>>a new revelation that contradicts the revelation we already have. We should >>>reject her as a false spirit, as would the Bereans. >> [snip] > >First of all, those are my words and not Michael Siemon's. Hang around the >net a while and you'll know the difference without our signatures. :-) Ok sorry. >> Well, maybe the Lord doesn't contradict Himself but that doesn't mean >> the Bible is always totally consistent. > >I can understand how you might believe that, but I believe that the Bible >is verbally inspired by God. That means it says what God wants it to say, >albeit in the words of a number of different human authors. So Paul's >words, for me, are God's Words. Otherwise we have to start picking and >choosing what is God's Word, and while some think they can do that, I >don't. A little story to illustrate what I mean. About 15 years ago I was in a church which did not have a church consititution, the Pastor decided it would be a good idea to have one so he drafted one and placed it before the elders for initial comment. One of the statements was something like ``The Bible is the inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God and the only rule of faith and practice in the Church today.'' One of the elders suggested that the statement be simplified to ``The Bible is the inspired Word of God.'' He pointed out that the statement went beyond what the Bible claims about itself and hence should be simplified. The people, the Pastor included, basically blew a fuse. An argument about that raged in the church for more than two years until the Pastor moved on and the idea of a constitution was dropped. I beleive the Bible is the inspired Word of God, but when I attempt to get more precise than that I run into all sorts of problems for none of the theories of inspiration is totally consistent. The theory you subscribe to, of verbal inspiration, has its problems. One of them is that we do not know what the original text was. There are some very clear contradictions in the Bible and it doesn't take much effort to find some. >> Pauls' teaching here is quite >> different to the teaching of Jesus about women, the Old Testament teaching, >> and whats more its is also different to other things that Paul says. >> (assuming, of course, that we take it at face value.) > >You might explain to us what Jesus taught about women that was incompatible >with Paul's teachings. I don't find Jesus setting up women as teachers of men >or choosing them as apostles. At the wedding at Cana he quite distinctly >put his mother in her place. I use ``teaching'' is rather a loose sense here as we learn from peoples' attitudes and actions as well as their words. Paul was a very highly trained Jew. In that age most (not all) Rabbis refused to teach women because it was believed that their minds were incapable of grasping Gods' truth. Paul seems to have carried over this idea into Christianity. Jesus clearly acted differently than the other Rabbis of his time for Jesus commended Mary for listening to his teaching (Luke 10.38-42). Jesus revealed that he was the Messiah to a woman (John 4:25-26). Jesus appeared first to women after his resurection and instructed them to tell his (male) disciples (Mark 16:1-8, Luke 23:55-24:11). There are many other passages where Jesus meets and talks with women and he never, with one exception, treats them in any other way than with dignity and respect. There is no implication that they are in any way inferior or incapable. Paul does not appear to give women the same place that Jesus did, the Timothy passage quoted being a good example. [snip] >> The mistake so many people make is that they start and finish at the >> teaching of Paul and ignore the rest of the scriptures which they >> claim they believe. A bad case of ``Paul''-ianity and not ``Christ''-ianity. > >But if I treat the canonical scriptures as inspired, then I have to >accept Paul's interpretation of Genesis in 1 Timothy 2:11-15! I take any commentary on scripture as a commentary. I prefer to study the scripture being commented on myself and see if I agree with the commentator or not. I do not take any New Testament commentary or interpretation of the Hebrew Scriptures as being the definitive commentary, after which no other understanding is possible. I think that it is unwise to claim that we have the final interpretation of a scripture even if that interpretation comes from another part of scripture. We must in every generation be prepared to admit that we may be wrong about our understanding of the scripture and let it speak to us afresh. Tradition is very valuable in preventing us from going off into error but we must not let it become like a set of blinkers which prevents us seeing the scriptures afresh again. Most Christians take the New Testament as their primary set of scriptures and the Hebrew Scriptures as a secondary set of scriptures. I realize that I am in a minority on this point but I look at what is in the New Testament (except the Gospels) in light of what is in the Hebrew Scriptures and in the Gospels. If there are differences in teaching I will usually accept the Old Testament or Gospel point of view. The vast majority of Christians I know take Pauls' teaching as the final word on the matter, hence my ``Paulianity'' statement above. So what about Paul's interpretation of Genesis which he makes in 1 Timothy. He claims: 1. Adam was formed first then Eve. 2. Eve was deceived and became a sinner. In the Genesis 1 passage God created mankind male and female at the same time in Their (Gods') own image. In this picture of creation there was no distiniction between them by order of creation. In the Genesis 2 passage it is clear that Adam was created first. But that Paul is claiming some sort of headship to the man ignores the equal place accorded to the women when the Lord did make her. Usually the English renders the passage something like ``a helper suitable for him''. The word rendered suitable contains the idea of equal, if you don't beleive me then go look the word up in Brown, Driver, and Briggs Lexicon, in the edition I have it is on page 617 in the right hand column. It was not until Adam and Eve sinned that the Lord said the man would rule over the woman. It would seem from that that the order of man being the head of the woman should be argued as a defective state caused by man's sin and not part of the order of creation as Paul argues. The deception of Eve point that Paul makes is a little bit hazy because he doesn't say what he thinks of Adams' sin in relation to Eve's. When I lived in another part of the country I was in the Anglican church and we had a confession which went something like ``we have sinned in ignorance, we have sinned in weakness, we have sinned through our own deliberate fault.'' Paul is saying that Eve's sin fell into one of the first two catagories (I am not sure which one) while it seems Adam's sin was his own deliberate fault. It would seem to me that Adam's sin was the more serious. It seems unusual to me that the person who sins through weakness or ignorance should be denied a particular ministry while another person who commits the same act in willful defiance of Gods' clear cut command should be allowed to exercise that ministry. Pauls statement seems to reflect the then prevailing Jewish veiw that womens minds were incapable of grasping Gods' truth. As a practical point in the very early church only those trained in Jewish schools would have had any detailed knowledge of the scriptures, these were almost exclusively males. Today theological education is just as available to a women as it is to a man. >And >for Christians the real question is not what can a woman do vs. what >can't she do. It is a question of how we interpret scripture. Do we >treat it as verbally inspired or just occasionally inspirational? Why not just treat it as inspired. [deatiled example on church practice deleted] >David H. Wagner >a confessional Lutheran. -- Bill Rea ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Bill Rea, University of Canterbury, | E-Mail b.rea@csc.canterbury.ac.nz | | Christchurch, New Zealand | Phone (03)-642-331 Fax (03)-642-999 | -----------------------------------------------------------------------------