Don Johnson

Cheryl,

Not slinging mud certainly does NOT leave you on the short end for those with discernment, even if they disagree with you.

Debates by their nature are time limited with rules of order. Due to the time limited nature, the side with the most “sound bites” has an advantage, want any political debate for examples. Another aspect with time limits is the less familiar position can simply need more time to present its case. Also, if one’s conclusions take a long process to arrive at, then a debate is very disadvantageous, a debate is not the place to present a long math proof, for example.

For all these reasons, a debate is far from the preferred format to the 1 Tim verses. IMO, the BEST format is for each to teach as much or as little as they wish on a subject. However, many people do not want to hear both sides.

Here is a post from someone who calls themself oldschool on the CARM blog, I post it here as he does not know much about blogging and may not know of this site.
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Cheryl, if you read this, I hope you will agree to debate Matt on Pal Talk or wherever. A structured, moderated debate would serve you better than just having a discussion on the air. A debate will force both sides to bring their A game. It’s not about who wins and loses. It’s about expressing an idea and defending it against criticism. We the audience can decide who put forth a better argument.
I mean no disrespect, but, I found your arguments rather incoherent. They were laced with too much emotionalism and stories. I’m interested what the text of scripture says. I feel this issue shouldn’t be rocket science. However, when I heard your arguments defending women being pastors/elders, my head was dizzy keeping up with the mental gymnastics. This issue shouldn’t be hard to figure out. Doing a moderated debate will force you and Matt to stay on target. Also the cross examination will be a good way to see which side really knows what their talking about and which idea has the most merit.
On the flip side, I have to commend you for you courage in stepping up to the plate. It can be uncomfortable to have to defend your beliefs to somebody who is trained how to argue. Yet you stepped up to the plate twice. I ask you to have that same courage and conviction and be in a better position to defend your belief and to show in your opinion if the other side is wrong and why.
I read in another post you’re going to be busy for a little while. That’s fine. Maybe in a month or two would be better. In the mean time, I look forward to hearing a debate on “Is the office of Elder/Pastor just exclusive for called men only?”
You’ve already endured being with Matt twice on this issue. A formal debate would probably be easier in the long run.

Take care and God bless!
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I have been crucified with Christ ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. Gal. 2:20

Charis,

I mainly use e-sword, which is freeware and have many versions for free, some for money. I have ALT, ESV, GNB, KJV+ (w/ Strong’s numbering), KJVA (for apocrypha and KJV without Strongs), and LITV. The LITV says “wise ones”. These are all free.

I also have Bible Explorer, freeware, which has ASV, HCSB and many others for free, some others for money.

I also have NIV and TNIV as separate files.

I use Scripture4all for an interlinear.

I read a lot.

Think of any translation as a good faith effort to make it easy for you to adopt the understanding of someone else about what the Bible says. But realize it is someone else’s understanding.

The history of Bible interpretation tells one to be VERY WARY of an interpretation/translation that gives special priviledges to some subset group of believers that are NOT defined by what spiritual gifts they possess, for example, a church, popes, kings, slave owners, males.

On the exegesis and application paradigm, Gordon Fee says most of what I wrote. I try to learn from everyone I can.

The Greek is sophos, it is not (necessarily) gender specific, see the Literal Version which translates it as “wise ones”. Recall that the plural male form of nouns can include females in Greek, like 1950s English. It may or may not include females, one needs to try to discern from other clues which is meant. But as the size of the group gets larger, it is a safe assumption that it does, unless there is some reason to think otherwise.

On your quote from Jesus, you got what I wrote, great.

On deversify, we need to remember that chapters and verses were not in the original, also some versions add paragraph headings for what they think is being discussed, but they can be wrong. Even just paragraph breaks can be wrong, for example many Bibles make a paragraph break from Eph 5:21 to Eph 5:22 but this is not even possible to do in the Greek, as verse 22 inherits its verb from verse 21.

The teaching unit in Proverbs MAY be a single verse, because of the way Proverbs is structured. I think 1 Tim can be “chunked” into a few teaching units, but one should always keep the whole letter in overall context. I think one teaching unit is 1 Tim 2:8-3:16 as I see this as all about restoring errant overseers (or those wishing to be overseers).

Here is my basic 2-step formula for the Bible.

1. Exegesis: try to do one’s best to figure out what a teaching unit (pericope) meant to the original readers. If you go with less than a teaching unit, then you risk taking a verse out of its immediate context. A way to remember this is the word: deversify – verses were added by human effort and can help or hinder. In this process I am the subject and the Bible is the object.

2. Application: What does this mean for me and others today? How am I changed by this? The Bible is meant to change me. In this process the Bible and the Holy Spirit is the subject and I am the object.

Note that one may be a great exegete and a terrible applier or vice versa; this idea is to be both. And of course, use all the help you can get.

You could not act as a priest if you have open sores. Do any elders have acne today? The Mosaic covenant provides a TYPE, a SHADOW of the reality in the new covenant.

Fortunately, every believer is a priest in the new covenant and the high priest is Jesus.

The point is that Paul is talking about people in a congregation setting. If you reverse engineer the phrases, it means some men were getting angry and some women were wearing ostentatious rich clothes.

All those other things are true, but not the point of this passage.

Here is how I see it. Many people (I did) think that there was only one command from God in the garden, as this is what they have been taught. But this is not true. There was one negative command, a prohibition, but there were many positive commands.

Doing a prohibited act is a sin, but also not doing a commanded act is a sin.

The man was to till/work and guard/keep the garden (Gen 2:15). The keep/guard is the same word used in Gen 3:24 where the angel keeps/guards the man from the tree of life. In other words, both are active things, till and guard.

One does not ask someone to guard something unless there is something to guard it from. So when we see God saying the man was to guard the garden, we should be expecting some threat to the garden, in the back of our minds.

As we know, in Gen 3 the serpent shows up and starts twisting and changing God’s words. This is a threat to the garden and is where the man should have used his authority over all animals. But he did not, he did not obey the positive command to guard the garden, this is the first person who does not follow God’s plan, but it may take some mediation to see it.

Is T-day in October somewhere, perhaps Canada?

Where I live it is in late November, always on a Thursday.

Well, keep me honest, I can make mistakes or be too brief.
As Einstein said (or at least was reputed to have said) “Everything should be as simple as possible, but no simpler.

I am begining to feel like I am a member of a mutal admiration socieity, at least for our understandings. haha. I thank Cheryl for this website.

One needs to see where male-prefernce hierarchy leads, which is to more hierarchy with most men under some men and some men under one man who is not Jesus. I see the hierarchy of the church as flat, everyone is under Jesus. We can choose to be under someone else ONLY as they are under Jesus and ONLY for a Biblical reason, for example, to learn from them, etc.

On “saved thru childbearing” this wording misses a crucial “the” in the Greek. It is really “saved thru the childbearing”. As such I believe it is refering to the most special child ever born, namely Jesus. However, it is using terminology of Ephesus, where they had the “goddess” Artemis workshipped in a 5 story building and one of the things they asked for was to be “saved in childbearing” which was very dangerous back then.

So I think Paul is using terms familiar to Ephesians, but giving them a Biblical meaning.

The “every where” in 1 Tim 2:8 is a translation interepretation. This is one of those times when it translates away from an idiom and so it is easy to miss. It would be better if they had translated it as it is in the Greek “in every place”. Then at least people would be able to perhaps figure out that “place” is an idiom for “holy place” as in church. This was a common Jewish way of wording things.

Paul is not giving general instructions to Timothy about what men should do. He wrote a letter to a church with a problem, teaching of false doctrine, and everthing in that letter is directed to that problem.

Dusman,

I liked it.

I think the primary meaning of Scripture is how the original readers would have understood it. That is what I seek to do my best to recover in my studies.

Regarding the debate format, I do not believe this is the best way to discuss the women in ministry issue, as I think teaching is the best method, but it is A method to discuss it, if one is willing to conform to the requirements of such a format.

There are some truths that are simple and some that are not as simple to explain. To claim that everything taught in the Bible is simple is a mistake, IMO, altho some make that claim.

On the paltalk debate, have a mutually agreed upon moderator.

Thanks for the link, I posted a compliment there.

Yes, we all need each other. I found Cheryl’s DVD and website after I prayed for additional wisdom on 1 Tim.

I found a thread where Matt asked for a SHORT summary of your position. I posted my understanding, which includes ideas from yours, as I did not see your post there.

I posted the following on the CARM board.
The basic reason 1 Tim 2:12 refers to a specific woman is that 1 Tim 2:15 refers to a specific woman and the “she” in “she-will-be-saved” (Greek sothesetai) in 1 Tim 2:15 refers back to 1 Tim 2:12 as it cannot refer to the woman in the garden.

The verb in 1 Tim 2:15 is future (She will be saved…), while the verb in 1 Tim 2:12 is present active, as in “I am not now permitting…”.

The repeated hesuchia (in verses 11 and 12) forms a inclusio and serves to bind 1 Tim 2:11 tightly with 1 Tim 2:12 as one thought. As 1 Tim 2:11’s verb is an imperative, this is the key concept that has priority in understand the 11-12 “bundle” and would have been very counter-cultural in the 1st century.

The basic reason for the letter is to stop false teaching at Ephesus. In order to do that, Paul uses 2 methods, disfellowship for the 2 main deliberate offenders, Hy and Al, who will be taught by satan. The second method he uses is current silencing (but not disfellowshipping) the deceived offender (a woman, not named as naming her would be impacting her potential future ministry), commanding that she be taught correct doctrine by the tearchers in the congregation and then (hopefully) having her restored, depending on her choices once she knows the truth.

I put in my comment on CARM board about Matt inviting Cheryl back.

Yes, 1 Cor 14:36 is one of the most liberating verses in the NT as Paul is giving the women-silencing legalists a severe rebuke. Too bad some translations do not show this.

One does need to see that the very words of God found in the Bible have come thru both men and women, but this is not too difficult for a Berean. If God can speak Biblical-authoritative words from both men and women, then certainly both men and women can teach with authority those Biblical truths.

Charis,

I believe that such is the case. This is true for 1 Cor 11, 1 Cor 14, Eph 5-6 and 1 Tim 2-3. They are all good news for women (and men).

On Acts 15, in Greek the male plural form for a group can be used when at least one member of the group is a male. So a group of “brothers” may or may not include “sisters”. One needs to try to discern from other clues what is the intent. This is just the way Greek works. So that person’s rationale on CARM simply falls apart as being conclusive.

For example, Luke clarifies that some of the disciples of Jesus were women. Certainly some of the people in the Jerusalem church were women.

The sad part is the one pushing for gender-based limitation are following the Pharisee Legalists’ position, but even then they are not heretics. That is, one can be wrong in one’s understanding of many things the Bible teaches yet not be a heretic.

The JPS English version of the Tanakh makes that simple claim that it is “a translation from the Hebrew”. It makes no claim to the “THE OFFICIAL JEWISH translation” or even “the best translation”, just that it is one possible faithful translation, and they (at least implicitly) admit that other faithful translations are possible.

The same is true for the NT.

On “huios” it does mean “sons” as a primary meaning, it is just that “sons” can include daughters, that is, the male plural forms are used for a group that has at least one male in it (like 1950’s English), so the group might be all male or it might not be, one needs to look for other clues. If there are no other clues, then one makes a best guess. The same is true for woman/wife, one looks for other clues and sometimes reasonable people can disagree.

On the way Greek works, there is a definite article (in English “the”) but there is no indefinite article (in English “a/an”). If there is a noun like gune (woman), then it MIGHT be definite, it might be indefinite, it might be best translated with no article at all, and it even might be describing a group with a property (not with gune per se, but with other nouns). This is a judgment call of the translator based on other clues. A similar judgment call is made on whether gune should be translated as woman or wife, based on other clues.

Cheryl has given her reasons why she would translate as she did, which I find very persuasive. I do not find the male hierarchicalists reasons for their understanding anywhere near as persuasive.