Are WOMEN Pastors Biblical??

[mustaphadrink]

Phoebe was a diakonos in the ekklēsia. in Corinth's port city of Cenchreae. She is not mentioned in the Corinthian correspondence, but she has a prominent place in Rom. 16:I. The term diakonos in Paul's letters does not necessarily denote the same office that "deacon" or in this case "deaconess" later represented. It is clear from 1 Cor. 3:5 and 2 Cor. 3:6; 6:4; 11:15; 11:23 that Paul used diakonos for leadership roles in the Christian community, since he applies it to himself and Apollos. It does not necessarily imply a role subordinate to other church offices, but it does imply a self-perception as one subordinate to God and as a servant to the ekklēsia. that one has been called to serve. It is possible that it refers to someone who is a preacher and teacher, possibly even a traveling missionary.

Paul also calls Phoebe a prostatis, which in view of the context in Romans 16 likely means "patroness," not "protector" or merely "helper." There is clear evidence that women in the Roman world could assume the legal role of prostatis. A papyrus document has been discovered that speaks of a woman becoming the prostatis of her fatherless son in 142 B.C. Furthermore, perhaps one-tenth of the patrons, protectors, or donors to collegia mentioned in inscriptions are women. "As a general rule, then, women as benefactors should be imagined playing their part personally and visibly, out in the open."

Bill Witherington

And what has that got to do with the leadership of the church?

 

[mustaphadrink]

8In the same way, deacons b are to be worthy of respect, sincere, not indulging in much wine, and not pursuing dishonest gain. 9They must keep hold of the deep truths of the faith with a clear conscience. 10They must first be tested; and then if there is nothing against them, let them serve as deacons.

11In the same way, the women are to be worthy of respect, not malicious talkers but temperate and trustworthy in everything

People who think that Paul excluded women miss verse 11. He knew that women were involved in ministry.

No one has said they weren't.

 

[calibob]

Honestly it leaves a person to wonder if some passages were written considering the customs and etiquette of biblical times. We must consider that women could not legally own real estate or divorce their husbands. Not matter if he was a drunkard, a whore monger and or had dozens of concubines. But all that a husband had to do was to produce a letter of divorcement.

We should also remember that in Mark 16:1 When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus’ body. 2Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb 3and they asked each other, “Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?”

4But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. 5As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed.

6“Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. 7But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’ ”


The first mission after the resurrection was given to women, plural!

 

[calibob]

I would take no issue with a Pastors wife pastoring for example, a women's ministry.

 

[mustaphadrink]

Honestly it leaves a person to wonder if some passages were written considering the customs and etiquette of biblical times. We must consider that women could not legally own real estate or divorce their husbands. Not matter if he was a drunkard, a whore monger and or had dozens of concubines. But all that a husband had to do was to produce a letter of divorcement.

We should also remember that in Mark 16:1 When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus’ body. 2Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb 3and they asked each other, “Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?”

4But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. 5As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed.

6“Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. 7But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’ ”


The first mission after the resurrection was given to women, plural!

Your first paragraph is not a protrayal of the New Testament Church. One of its attractions for women was the way they were treated with deference and honour.

And your last sentence is comple bunkum as to the leadership of the NTC. Nowhere in scripture does it say one qualifies to be an elder if they were at the ressurection of Jesus.

 

[calibob]

Your first paragraph is not a protrayal of the New Testament Church. One of its attractions for women was the way they were treated with deference and honour.

And your last sentence is comple bunkum as to the leadership of the NTC. Nowhere in scripture does it say one qualifies to be an elder if they were at the ressurection of Jesus.

This is not the Unholy Roman Empire and women now have equal rights in our nation. Times, laws and customs have changed. Or do you believe that we are saved only from the Levitical laws by Jesus?

Who said anything about being at the resurrection as a qualification to be an elder? You're translating something I wrote into something that I didn't. I said that the women were given the first message to carry as in, 'sent on a mission.' I've mentioned it several times here on CC in order to counter anti female rhetoric.

Do you take issues with female pastors in Women's ministries?

 

[calibob]

@mustaphadrink Please allow me to clarify. I've worked at churches that had youth pastors. Pastors of the music ministry, crisis intervention. Women's ministries and battered women's & children's safe houses.. 1/2 way houses too. Although I don't really like the term pastor. Especially in churches that may have a dozen or more folks with that title. It is what it is. I was born mid 20th century and became a senior citizen in the 21st. The progression of the English language has to be considered in discussions or they get convoluted.

 

[notuptome]

All Scripture was indeed given by inspiration of God... IN A PARTICULAR CONTEXT. Ignore that context, and you cannot help but misinterpret the message.

Culture may change but God's word does not change. Change God's word to fit cultural norms and you violate the integrity of God's word.

Trust God's word and cease from endeavoring to change it to fit corrupt cultural norms.

For the cause of Christ
Roger

 

[Dino246]

That is you point of view but you have not given us an exegesis of the passage involved. So we have to guess and as I don't do that, so what you say is not very helpful.

Okay... In 1 Timothy 3:12, Paul writes, "Deacons must be husbands of only one wife...." (NASB). THe KJV has, "Let the deacons be the husbands of one wife...." Now, given that Paul commends Phoebe, a deacon, he is either contradicting himself, or his instruction about "husband of one wife" is excluding polygamous men, not women.

Some argue that Phoebe's role was merely that of a servant, and did not carry any authority or recognition beyond that. I call that special pleading and circular reasoning. There is no reason to think that Phoebe's role was any different from the people about whom Paul gave Timothy instruction, unless one already holds the idea that women may not be deacons.

Given that the phrase, "husband of one wife" is informed by Paul's commendation of Phoebe to mean "not a polygamist", the same sense must be applied to the phrase earlier in 1 Timothy 3 where it is applied to elders.

In other words, women are not excluded from eldership either.

 

[Dino246]

Culture may change but God's word does not change. Change God's word to fit cultural norms and you violate the integrity of God's word.

Trust God's word and cease from endeavoring to change it to fit corrupt cultural norms.

For the cause of Christ
Roger

You are completely missing the point. Scripture was written IN a particular cultural context, which is relevant to understanding the text.

 

[Scribe]

Culture may change but God's word does not change. Change God's word to fit cultural norms and you violate the integrity of God's word.

Trust God's word and cease from endeavoring to change it to fit corrupt cultural norms.

For the cause of Christ
Roger

If you send a runaway slave back home to his owner because Paul did so, and claimed that you were following God's word that does not change to fit cultural circumstances it would be very unfortunate for the slave.

 

[Lucy-Pevensie]

Honestly it leaves a person to wonder if some passages were written considering the customs and etiquette of biblical times. We must consider that women could not legally own real estate or divorce their husbands. Not matter if he was a drunkard, a whore monger and or had dozens of concubines. But all that a husband had to do was to produce a letter of divorcement.

We should also remember that in Mark 16:1 When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus’ body. 2Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb 3and they asked each other, “Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?”

4But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. 5As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed.

6“Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. 7But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’ ”


The first mission after the resurrection was given to women, plural!

This is IMO, an interesting cultural side note.
I think the reason that the women went to anoint Jesus' body was because touching dead bodies made one unclean under mosaic law. (Numbers 19: 11-16.) Therefore work involving handling dead bodies was often left to women.
For their trouble The Lord twice blessed them. First they avoided becoming unclean for 7 days because his body wasn't there to be touched. Second they were the first to receive the news that The Lord had risen. Jesus puts such a unique signature on everything he does! Both tender & powerful at once.

 

[notuptome]

If you send a runaway slave back home to his owner because Paul did so, and claimed that you were following God's word that does not change to fit cultural circumstances it would be very unfortunate for the slave.

Actually slavery in the time of the apostles was nothing like the slavery experienced in the West. Slavery was far more benevolent during Paul's day. But it serves your purpose to couch it that fashion.

For the cause of Christ
Roger

 

[Scribe]

Actually slavery in the time of the apostles was nothing like the slavery experienced in the West. Slavery was far more benevolent during Paul's day. But it serves your purpose to couch it that fashion.

For the cause of Christ
Roger

If the conditions of the slave were exactly like it was in the first century it would still not be correct for you to send the slave back to his owner and claim that we must do exactly what Paul did. You know full well that cultural conditions having changed allow you to help that slave find legal protection and sanctuary not afforded to him at the time of Paul. (i.e. cultural changes.)

Cultural context in hermeneutics is extremely important in understanding authorial intent and applying the underlying principles to our current cultural and situation in life. This has nothing to do with justifying sin based on cultural acceptance.

It was not ok for Christians to fornicate in the first century because it was culturally acceptable. It is not ok today. But some things have a cultural context such as eating meats offered to idols bought in the market place. Not many if any of on on the planet today are actually dealing with that issue. However so much is said about it that we look for the underlying principle and we can find other cultural applications to our day.

We do not send a slave back to his owner today because we have a cultural society that will offer them legal protection and sanctuary from their oppressors having governments that have outlawed slavery and do not rule on the behalf of the slave owners.

We understand that the Christian, human compassion, law of love, would have us to save and protect that slave and we would not use Philemon to justify sending them back to their owner (even if his conditions were the same in the country of origin in question, as they would be for Onesimus in the first century)

Knowing that you would agree with that if you were being intellectually honest enough to allow yourself to concede, I will now promote and forward the premise that there were conditions for women in the first century that would be illegal today in modern cultures because they were treated also as property and slaves without the God given human rights they deserved.

We should not take scriptures that assume in a first century male dominated culture that a male will most commonly be appointed an elder and therefore the male pronoun used by Paul in describing examples of blamelessness proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that Paul mean to establish a Pauline New Testament Law banning the female sex from ever being considered spiritual enough, seasoned enough, educated, gifted, mentally or naturally capable enough, or blameless enough, to serve the body of Christ in that same office.

Since he did not specifically say that the elder should be a man because God does not allow women, but it is only inferred because the statement used male examples is a very weak argument to assume such an authorial intent not specifically stated. Therefore it will NEVER be possible to prove that Paul was saying "An elder must never be a female" and you will always be in danger of being mistaken.

 

[mustaphadrink]

This is not the Unholy Roman Empire and women now have equal rights in our nation. Times, laws and customs have changed. Or do you believe that we are saved only from the Levitical laws by Jesus?

Who said anything about being at the resurrection as a qualification to be an elder? You're translating something I wrote into something that I didn't. I said that the women were given the first message to carry as in, 'sent on a mission.' I've mentioned it several times here on CC in order to counter anti female rhetoric.


Do you take issues with female pastors in Women's ministries?

This is what you call a slide view. Avoid the issue by slding into some other discussion. The comment was written in response to a judgnemnt made regarding women in New Testament times not now.

The implication is there otherwise why bring it up.

We are not talkikg about women's ministry. We are talking about leadership of the church.

 

[mustaphadrink]

@mustaphadrink Please allow me to clarify. I've worked at churches that had youth pastors. Pastors of the music ministry, crisis intervention. Women's ministries and battered women's & children's safe houses.. 1/2 way houses too. Although I don't really like the term pastor. Especially in churches that may have a dozen or more folks with that title. It is what it is. I was born mid 20th century and became a senior citizen in the 21st. The progression of the English language has to be considered in discussions or they get convoluted.

I am sorry but once again you are avoiding the reality of scripture. What churches you have belonged to that had this or had that or did this or did that is totally irrelevant. There is only one thing that interests me and that is what does the scriptures teach. if the scripture teaches to appoint youth pastors I am all for it. If it doesn't then I am not interested.

 

[mustaphadrink]

Okay... In 1 Timothy 3:12, Paul writes, "Deacons must be husbands of only one wife...." (NASB). THe KJV has, "Let the deacons be the husbands of one wife...." Now, given that Paul commends Phoebe, a deacon, he is either contradicting himself, or his instruction about "husband of one wife" is excluding polygamous men, not women.

Some argue that Phoebe's role was merely that of a servant, and did not carry any authority or recognition beyond that. I call that special pleading and circular reasoning. There is no reason to think that Phoebe's role was any different from the people about whom Paul gave Timothy instruction, unless one already holds the idea that women may not be deacons.

Given that the phrase, "husband of one wife" is informed by Paul's commendation of Phoebe to mean "not a polygamist", the same sense must be applied to the phrase earlier in 1 Timothy 3 where it is applied to elders.

In other words, women are not excluded from eldership either.

If you ignore modern parlance which I do, being a deacon is being a servant. Being an Elder is being a servant. Being an apostle is being a servant in biblbical language. In fact anyone who is in ministry in the church is a servant not a master. That has been lost in today's church because most leaders are bosses not servants.

I am very fortunate that I have been part of churches where the leaders were servants so I have seen the difference. Given the choice I would much rather be led by someone who is a servant. What that means is that if you are not a servant you do not have any authority. What you do have is man made, not God ordained.

If one looks at Paul's instruction to Timothy about the appointment of MALE elders, it is clear that they are definitely servants. I guess that because we prefer the modern terminology to what the bible says we do not understand the role and requirement of ministry in the New Testament.

After two years of study of ledership of the New Testament, I have not found anything about polygamy in respect of Phoebe and I do not rule out every other passage of scripture because of one that might say some thing different.

 

[calibob]

I am sorry but once again you are avoiding the reality of scripture. What churches you have belonged to that had this or had that or did this or did that is totally irrelevant. There is only one thing that interests me and that is what does the scriptures teach. if the scripture teaches to appoint youth pastors I am all for it. If it doesn't then I am not interested.

So, please don't misunderstand, (however) How would you run a church with television, radio, music, crisis counseling, private school and youth ministries? Or would you just not have it attempt such undertakings?

 

[Lucy-Pevensie]

If you ignore modern parlance which I do, being a deacon is being a servant. Being an Elder is being a servant. Being an apostle is being a servant in biblbical language. In fact anyone who is in ministry in the church is a servant not a master. That has been lost in today's church because most leaders are bosses not servants.

I am very fortunate that I have been part of churches where the leaders were servants so I have seen the difference. Given the choice I would much rather be led by someone who is a servant. What that means is that if you are not a servant you do not have any authority. What you do have is man made, not God ordained.

If one looks at Paul's instruction to Timothy about the appointment of MALE elders, it is clear that they are definitely servants. I guess that because we prefer the modern terminology to what the bible says we do not understand the role and requirement of ministry in the New Testament.

After two years of study of ledership of the New Testament, I have not found anything about polygamy in respect of Phoebe and I do not rule out every other passage of scripture because of one that might say some thing different.

Are you denying that polygamy was common practice in the ancient world and still is in some cultures?

 

[notuptome]

If the conditions of the slave were exactly like it was in the first century it would still not be correct for you to send the slave back to his owner and claim that we must do exactly what Paul did. You know full well that cultural conditions having changed allow you to help that slave find legal protection and sanctuary not afforded to him at the time of Paul. (i.e. cultural changes.)

Cultural context in hermeneutics is extremely important in understanding authorial intent and applying the underlying principles to our current cultural and situation in life. This has nothing to do with justifying sin based on cultural acceptance.

It was not ok for Christians to fornicate in the first century because it was culturally acceptable. It is not ok today. But some things have a cultural context such as eating meats offered to idols bought in the market place. Not many if any of on on the planet today are actually dealing with that issue. However so much is said about it that we look for the underlying principle and we can find other cultural applications to our day.

We do not send a slave back to his owner today because we have a cultural society that will offer them legal protection and sanctuary from their oppressors having governments that have outlawed slavery and do not rule on the behalf of the slave owners.

We understand that the Christian, human compassion, law of love, would have us to save and protect that slave and we would not use Philemon to justify sending them back to their owner (even if his conditions were the same in the country of origin in question, as they would be for Onesimus in the first century)

Knowing that you would agree with that if you were being intellectually honest enough to allow yourself to concede, I will now promote and forward the premise that there were conditions for women in the first century that would be illegal today in modern cultures because they were treated also as property and slaves without the God given human rights they deserved.

We should not take scriptures that assume in a first century male dominated culture that a male will most commonly be appointed an elder and therefore the male pronoun used by Paul in describing examples of blamelessness proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that Paul mean to establish a Pauline New Testament Law banning the female sex from ever being considered spiritual enough, seasoned enough, educated, gifted, mentally or naturally capable enough, or blameless enough, to serve the body of Christ in that same office.

Since he did not specifically say that the elder should be a man because God does not allow women, but it is only inferred because the statement used male examples is a very weak argument to assume such an authorial intent not specifically stated. Therefore it will NEVER be possible to prove that Paul was saying "An elder must never be a female" and you will always be in danger of being mistaken.

You are not correct. Slavery in Israel was quite different from the nations surrounding them. In Israel a Jew could sell himself and his family into slavery to pay debts. Such was likely the case to which you refer that Paul was advising the slave to return to his master. If one looks at this objectively one can see that it is not all that different from today when one borrows money from the bank. The borrower is servant to the lender until the debt is repaid. If you have no way to repay it becomes a problem.

God's word is never wrong. God's intentions do not change with cultural changes. The man is head of the family and Christ is head of the church. Men pastor and women come alongside to help.

Where can I find the AoG's doctrinal statement on the blood of Christ?

For the cause of Christ
Roger