Women should not be allowed to preach in church
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Either women are allowed in leadership positions or they are not according to scripture. It is interesting that at a time when Israel was a mess, as you say, that God appointed a woman to lead His people. Perhaps this was an exception to biblically excluding woman from leadership positions. If so, it certainly was a notable one.
A
Compare 1 Timothy 2 with 1 Peter 3
I believe both verses refer to married women submitting to their husbands. Especially since 1 Timothy 2 talks about how THEY (the man and woman) will have a child. Also both talk about inner adornment versus outer jewelry.
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1 Timothy 2
9likewise also that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire, 10but with what is proper for women who profess godliness—with good works. 11Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. 12I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. 13For Adam was formed first, then Eve; 14and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. 15Yet she will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.
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1 Peter 3 ►
English Standard Version
1Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, 2when they see your respectful and pure conduct. 3Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear— 4but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious. 5For this is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves, by submitting to their own husbands
Scripture for that, please?
Again, scripture for that, please? (Good luck... there isn't a single verse which says anything of the sort)
Regardless of your opinion of the content of her teaching, she only claims to teach women. The fact that some men learn from her is not her fault.
Any other unsubstantiated slander you care to throw around while you're at it?
As I have written previously, Paul's words to Timothy on this subject make good sense if he's addressing proto-gnostic cultic behaviour and teaching. They make little sense otherwise. Anyone who is honestly concerned about this subject (rather than merely content to take the words in isolation and assume to understand them) does well to do their homework.
A question for every man who argues that women may not teach or lead in church according to 1 Timothy 2: Do you always pray with uplifted holy hands? If not, then you have no moral authority in this discussion, and your claim that you are merely following Scripture is laughably inconsistent.
Again, scripture for that, please? (Good luck... there isn't a single verse which says anything of the sort)
Regardless of your opinion of the content of her teaching, she only claims to teach women. The fact that some men learn from her is not her fault.
Any other unsubstantiated slander you care to throw around while you're at it?
As I have written previously, Paul's words to Timothy on this subject make good sense if he's addressing proto-gnostic cultic behaviour and teaching. They make little sense otherwise. Anyone who is honestly concerned about this subject (rather than merely content to take the words in isolation and assume to understand them) does well to do their homework.
A question for every man who argues that women may not teach or lead in church according to 1 Timothy 2: Do you always pray with uplifted holy hands? If not, then you have no moral authority in this discussion, and your claim that you are merely following Scripture is laughably inconsistent.
Because men weren't stepping up into the leadership roles they should've carried. That's why God used Deborah. However, that doesn't excuse what so many of these women pastors and false teachers are doing today. Scripture makes it clear on what women's roles are in the church. If you read Titus 2, Ephesians 5:22-24, 1 Peter 3:3-4, and Colossians 3:18, you'll get the picture. Do you own study in the Scriptures and let God reveal the truths to you. His Word does not lie or contradict itself in any way. God's word does not return void(Isaiah 55:11) even when a heretic uses Scripture, but does that make it okay for him to be pastor of a church?
Jesus gave us 2 commandments period...love the Lord you God with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself...love fulfils all the law so the only sin is the sin against loving God and our neighbor
2Cor.3: [SUP]2 [/SUP]You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everyone. [SUP]3 [/SUP]You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.
2Cor.3: [SUP]2 [/SUP]You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everyone. [SUP]3 [/SUP]You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.
If you go back to the beginning in the book of Acts when
the church was just beginning, you'll find several women
who preached the gospel and even to men. If a women
is as capable of teaching just as any man is, there is no
reason why they shouldn't preach. And in fact many
women do today. As to timothy I add this quote:
Both Jesus and Paul knew that rules and requirements
were just to get you seriously engaged with the need
for grace and mercy; they were never an end in themselves.
Learn and preach if you feel that is your calling
.
the church was just beginning, you'll find several women
who preached the gospel and even to men. If a women
is as capable of teaching just as any man is, there is no
reason why they shouldn't preach. And in fact many
women do today. As to timothy I add this quote:
Both Jesus and Paul knew that rules and requirements
were just to get you seriously engaged with the need
for grace and mercy; they were never an end in themselves.
Learn and preach if you feel that is your calling
.
So, I am copying and pasting something I wrote here, sometime in the past. I hope all those people with their bad Bible translation will read it and pay attention! Oh, this might have been a copy and paste of a copy and paste. It seems I was pretty upset when I wrote it.
I have said this so many times I am getting tired of it. People take an English translation and read into the text what is NOT there in the original language. They forget the context and rip verses out of their setting and who the book was written to!
Paul wrote the epistles to the various churches he founded and had pastored. In Corinthians, example, he writes to the church in Corinth. He addresses addresses various issues, including the sins of certain men.
"It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that even pagans do not tolerate: A man is sleeping with his father’s wife." 1 Cor. 5:1.
In 1 Timothy he also addresses specific sins to two men.
"Among them are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan to be taught not to blaspheme." 1 Tim. 1:20
"Alexander the metalworker did me a great deal of harm. The Lord will repay him for what he has done." 1 Tim. 4:14
In fact, I have heard it said that there was a woman in Ephesus who was causing great harm in the church, but Paul did not name her, because he hoped to have her restored to the fellowship. What is extremely important about this verse, is that it does not apply to ALL women!! It is about A woman who is causing problems in the church.
"A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. 12 I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet." 1Tim 2:11-12
It does not say SOME women or ALL women, but is addressed to A (singular) woman who was causing problems, probably a former priestess of Artemis. The pronoun SHE in the latter part of the verse is also singular because that is the tense of the verb. If Paul was wanting to address all women, for all time, he would have used the plural from of the verb and made it a continuing tense.
The first verb in Greek which then applies to following verses in this passage is LEARN. This is μανθανέτω, or manthaneto*. Because the third person pronoun is contained within the verb in Greek, I will examine this verb and the parsing is as follows:
PRESENT - That means it has to happen, NOW, - not the future or the past
IMPERATIVE - a woman is commanded to do this
ACTIVE - Means that the person must do it- it is not done to her
3 PERSON - he, she, it (in the singular) they (plural)
SINGULAR - ONE person only!!
Therefore the GREEK is very clear in saying that it is something that this woman is commanded to do NOW!! It is not forever, it is not continuing (Imperfect), it is not past or future. We do not have this verb tense in English, and properly it should be translated "LET HER".
ONE WOMAN, ONE PERSON - time is right now - in Ephesus in the 1st century AD.
I do hope some of you will take the time to read this. As I have said in so many places - (and NOT just about women), without a knowledge of Greek and Hebrew, you are depending on the personal bias of the translator. Although in this case, it is a pretty good translation. Single, present, and oh yes. Paul is personally commanding it to this woman, which also means it is a personal command, addressed to a single person, in a specific church -Ephesus! When we read the personal letters of Paul, which 1 & 2 Timothy both are, the hermeneutics is that he is talking directly to Timothy, the young pastor, about how to deal with specific situations - men who are bad and a woman who needs to be corrected!
As far as the word "authority" which has been a constant debate in this forum, and used by men to suppress women, mock them and put them down, we need to look in depth at the word!
"I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet." 1 Tim. 2:12 ESV
"διδάσκειν δὲ γυναικὶ οὐκ ἐπιτρέπω, οὐδὲ αὐθεντεῖν ἀνδρός, ἀλλ’ εἶναι ἐν ἡσυχίᾳ." 1 Tim. 2:12 Greek
The word AUTHORITY here is a hapax legomena. That means it appears only ONCE in the whole Bible. It is not the usual word in the New Testament for authority, which is exousia.
Instead, we have a word which cannot be translated in terms of the way it is in other Bible verses, but translators have to turn to other contemporaneous sources to find out what the word means.
The word is authentein, (αύθεντείν) in Greek. According to Rogers Jr and Rogers III, it means anything from "to act on one's own authority, to exercise authority, to murder, to domineer, to be an autocrat."* So ALL of these terms suggest that a woman is not to be without God's authority, nor dominate or be an autocrat over a man.
Contextually, this is very important, because Timothy was the pastor in Ephesus, which was the home of the goddess Artemis or Diana. The temple of Artemis was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, and Paul had already had run-ins with their silversmiths, who resented that Paul was pulling people away from worship of Artemis and not needing their idols. (See Acts 19)
Now the big thing about these worshipers of Artemis, was that the temple was run by wild priestesses. They wore their hair long and unruly and they did some nasty things to men in the name of their idol.
So imagine if some of them get saved, or pretend to be saved, and came into a church, and start domineering and doing all kinds of cultic things. Well, I agree these women should not be in control. They should not be exercising authority over anyone. They need to unlearn a LOT of things!
So Paul was right to tell Timothy in a private letter, to kindly keep these women under control in Ephesus. Does this one verse apply to ALL women for ALL time? Well, I think it is best that neither men nor women dominate. So in that sense, it is universal. But because Paul picked this word - the ONLY time he used it in all his letters, he was not talking about any kind of authority given by God. That would be exousia ἐξουσία.
"And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me." Matt 28:18 ESV
"καὶ προσελθὼν ὁ Ἰησοῦς ἐλάλησεν αὐτοῖς λέγων· Ἐδόθη μοι πᾶσα ἐξουσία ἐν οὐρανῷ καὶ ἐπὶ [a]τῆς γῆς·" Matt. 28:18 Greek
As far as the word translated "silent" in the KJV and other versions, ESV has it right, according to Danker **, the word ἡσυχίᾳ, should be translated as "quiet, well-ordered." That does not mean being absolutely silent. It means speaking at the right time.
Finally, it should be remembered that in that culture, women were not educated, and were little more than slaves or property. When they became Christians, they became equal with men (Gal 3:28) and they were joint heirs with Christ. BUT, they were not educated, and learning was essential. Most of the women could not read or write, and thus it was important for them to be instructed by men who were educated. Thank God, we are now educated, and we are able to understand, study and read the Bible for ourselves.
So, yes, you can teach. Now the men may not listen, because they do not understand the context or the Greek. They may threaten us, call us names, but God will deal with them in his time, for their discouragement and for trying to hold back the calling of God.
*The New Linguistic and Exegetical Key to the Greek New Testament, Cleon Rogers Jr, and Cleon Rogers III, Zondervan Publishing House, 1998.
**A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and other Early Christian Literature: Frederick William Danker based on Walter Dauer's German version. The University of Chicago Press, 2000.
I have said this so many times I am getting tired of it. People take an English translation and read into the text what is NOT there in the original language. They forget the context and rip verses out of their setting and who the book was written to!
Paul wrote the epistles to the various churches he founded and had pastored. In Corinthians, example, he writes to the church in Corinth. He addresses addresses various issues, including the sins of certain men.
"It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that even pagans do not tolerate: A man is sleeping with his father’s wife." 1 Cor. 5:1.
In 1 Timothy he also addresses specific sins to two men.
"Among them are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan to be taught not to blaspheme." 1 Tim. 1:20
"Alexander the metalworker did me a great deal of harm. The Lord will repay him for what he has done." 1 Tim. 4:14
In fact, I have heard it said that there was a woman in Ephesus who was causing great harm in the church, but Paul did not name her, because he hoped to have her restored to the fellowship. What is extremely important about this verse, is that it does not apply to ALL women!! It is about A woman who is causing problems in the church.
"A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. 12 I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet." 1Tim 2:11-12
It does not say SOME women or ALL women, but is addressed to A (singular) woman who was causing problems, probably a former priestess of Artemis. The pronoun SHE in the latter part of the verse is also singular because that is the tense of the verb. If Paul was wanting to address all women, for all time, he would have used the plural from of the verb and made it a continuing tense.
The first verb in Greek which then applies to following verses in this passage is LEARN. This is μανθανέτω, or manthaneto*. Because the third person pronoun is contained within the verb in Greek, I will examine this verb and the parsing is as follows:
PRESENT - That means it has to happen, NOW, - not the future or the past
IMPERATIVE - a woman is commanded to do this
ACTIVE - Means that the person must do it- it is not done to her
3 PERSON - he, she, it (in the singular) they (plural)
SINGULAR - ONE person only!!
Therefore the GREEK is very clear in saying that it is something that this woman is commanded to do NOW!! It is not forever, it is not continuing (Imperfect), it is not past or future. We do not have this verb tense in English, and properly it should be translated "LET HER".
ONE WOMAN, ONE PERSON - time is right now - in Ephesus in the 1st century AD.
I do hope some of you will take the time to read this. As I have said in so many places - (and NOT just about women), without a knowledge of Greek and Hebrew, you are depending on the personal bias of the translator. Although in this case, it is a pretty good translation. Single, present, and oh yes. Paul is personally commanding it to this woman, which also means it is a personal command, addressed to a single person, in a specific church -Ephesus! When we read the personal letters of Paul, which 1 & 2 Timothy both are, the hermeneutics is that he is talking directly to Timothy, the young pastor, about how to deal with specific situations - men who are bad and a woman who needs to be corrected!
As far as the word "authority" which has been a constant debate in this forum, and used by men to suppress women, mock them and put them down, we need to look in depth at the word!
"I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet." 1 Tim. 2:12 ESV
"διδάσκειν δὲ γυναικὶ οὐκ ἐπιτρέπω, οὐδὲ αὐθεντεῖν ἀνδρός, ἀλλ’ εἶναι ἐν ἡσυχίᾳ." 1 Tim. 2:12 Greek
The word AUTHORITY here is a hapax legomena. That means it appears only ONCE in the whole Bible. It is not the usual word in the New Testament for authority, which is exousia.
Instead, we have a word which cannot be translated in terms of the way it is in other Bible verses, but translators have to turn to other contemporaneous sources to find out what the word means.
The word is authentein, (αύθεντείν) in Greek. According to Rogers Jr and Rogers III, it means anything from "to act on one's own authority, to exercise authority, to murder, to domineer, to be an autocrat."* So ALL of these terms suggest that a woman is not to be without God's authority, nor dominate or be an autocrat over a man.
Contextually, this is very important, because Timothy was the pastor in Ephesus, which was the home of the goddess Artemis or Diana. The temple of Artemis was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, and Paul had already had run-ins with their silversmiths, who resented that Paul was pulling people away from worship of Artemis and not needing their idols. (See Acts 19)
Now the big thing about these worshipers of Artemis, was that the temple was run by wild priestesses. They wore their hair long and unruly and they did some nasty things to men in the name of their idol.
So imagine if some of them get saved, or pretend to be saved, and came into a church, and start domineering and doing all kinds of cultic things. Well, I agree these women should not be in control. They should not be exercising authority over anyone. They need to unlearn a LOT of things!
So Paul was right to tell Timothy in a private letter, to kindly keep these women under control in Ephesus. Does this one verse apply to ALL women for ALL time? Well, I think it is best that neither men nor women dominate. So in that sense, it is universal. But because Paul picked this word - the ONLY time he used it in all his letters, he was not talking about any kind of authority given by God. That would be exousia ἐξουσία.
"And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me." Matt 28:18 ESV
"καὶ προσελθὼν ὁ Ἰησοῦς ἐλάλησεν αὐτοῖς λέγων· Ἐδόθη μοι πᾶσα ἐξουσία ἐν οὐρανῷ καὶ ἐπὶ [a]τῆς γῆς·" Matt. 28:18 Greek
As far as the word translated "silent" in the KJV and other versions, ESV has it right, according to Danker **, the word ἡσυχίᾳ, should be translated as "quiet, well-ordered." That does not mean being absolutely silent. It means speaking at the right time.
Finally, it should be remembered that in that culture, women were not educated, and were little more than slaves or property. When they became Christians, they became equal with men (Gal 3:28) and they were joint heirs with Christ. BUT, they were not educated, and learning was essential. Most of the women could not read or write, and thus it was important for them to be instructed by men who were educated. Thank God, we are now educated, and we are able to understand, study and read the Bible for ourselves.
So, yes, you can teach. Now the men may not listen, because they do not understand the context or the Greek. They may threaten us, call us names, but God will deal with them in his time, for their discouragement and for trying to hold back the calling of God.
*The New Linguistic and Exegetical Key to the Greek New Testament, Cleon Rogers Jr, and Cleon Rogers III, Zondervan Publishing House, 1998.
**A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and other Early Christian Literature: Frederick William Danker based on Walter Dauer's German version. The University of Chicago Press, 2000.
So... we throw out all the rest of the New Testament instructions?
Plus, in the context of what Jesus said, he basically summed up the entire moral code. He wasn't even giving a command in the context, he was answering a question:
34 But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. 35 And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
Here are some other things Jesus commanded:
Be perfect
Lay up treasure in heaven, not on earth
Don't judge hypocritically
Beware of false prophets
Don't lust
Love your enemies
Don't cast pearls before swine
Seek God's kingdom first
And on and on it goes.
Plus, in the context of what Jesus said, he basically summed up the entire moral code. He wasn't even giving a command in the context, he was answering a question:
34 But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. 35 And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
Here are some other things Jesus commanded:
Be perfect
Lay up treasure in heaven, not on earth
Don't judge hypocritically
Beware of false prophets
Don't lust
Love your enemies
Don't cast pearls before swine
Seek God's kingdom first
And on and on it goes.
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