Kim Kaze

Hey Neolights,

You sound kinda freaky, especially with that poor use of english you’re using. To be honest I found outbursts from people like you to be those in need of LOVE in their heart. Only someone with a VERY warped view of the scriptures would declare that a woman would be judged for teaching. For a start, there were female leaderships figures through the Bible, in both the old and the new testament. The reason we aren’t told about more than we are is because of due space, culture of the day and hey – the guys were’nt bad! 🙂 They did a sterling job.

You seem to fear women. Why is that, when God speaking through a child/man/woman is still the same God who made the universe? I have seen children as young as seven healing the sick in the name of Jesus. I suppose you think that’s wrong also?

By their fruits, FRUITS not rhetoric, shall ye know them. My Jesus doesn’t care if I am female or male, He cares if I know Him and if I speak with His voice or my own agenda.

If I have not love, I am a clanging noise. Think about that, and then speak only in love. And yes, correct love is still LOVE. Not hatred/sexism.

There’s also the crucial fact as well, that we are not saved through any actions but through grace ALONE (so childbirth certainly cannot save anyone as an action, though to do so itself is morally neutral scriptually speaking, since men cannot give birth and are considered as saved as a woman is) and also that in the same book of scripture as the discussed verse(s), we see women prophetesses! Now, how can a woman prophecy if she cannot speak in the local church? It is maddness and insecurity to even fathom that Paul was saying no woman should speak or teach in church. I think from all the greek scholars we have, the prevailing and sensical view is that this church had specific problems, some relating to women and that Paul was adressing these.

After all, the Bible ‘actually says’ pluck out your eye if it has caused you to sin’. I don’t know many men who have ever suffered from the sin of pornography/lust who have taken this scripture in a literal fashion, because we know what Jesus was talking about – He was making a strong point. But beign saved by Him cleanses the whole body, so clearly no hand-chopping is required. I think sometimes, the whole ‘but that’s what the Bible actually says!’ thing can become a mantra to certain teachers.

Let me say again here, that the Bible gives us an easy way to test these things. Jesus said that by their fruits you shall know them. If a woman is in ministry and it is Godly, with Godly fruit and Biblically sound doctrine on the essentials, then is she not Biblically proven to be acting in The LORD’s will? If not then…why does the fruit test not apply here?

Why are there women prophets, priests, Judges and Queens in the Bible that God raises up, does nto condemn, speak against nor does He set a man up in the place of? Quite simply, you have to leap through all sorts of hoops to try and prove that women shouldn’t be in ministry.

I still believe that most men with this issue are trying too hard to maintain what they see as pure scripture. Their aim is not to allow culture shifts to alter the Word of God, a noble aim! But, feminism is not the same thing as a woman called to ministry. Not at all. Ministry is serving, it is getting down on your knees to scrub the ground under the feet of everybody else, it is if anything, historically better SUITED to a woman’s role! When you tip the whole thing on it’s head, suddenly the pride aspect is exposed. Why are some men (and even some women) afraid of having a woman ‘lord it over them’? Why do they see church leadership in this way, when the Bible quite clearly teaches that leadership is not about being first, but being last?

I think once we understand how Jesus viewed His own role in ministry (that He could only do what he saw The Father doing, and that He came to serve and be last), we see why there is no Biblical or cultural reason for a woman not to serve in this way.

I won’t add to the deluge of Biblical stuff here, but I’ll say this. I like Matt’s site and his teaching, but I do believe that he is slightly blinkered on this issue and possibly has allowed pride to enter in, in his noble attempt never to allow man’s comfort to adjust what the Bible actually teaches. However, when you reach the stage when saying ‘What does it actually SAY???’ becomes something of your mantra, perhaps religion has crept in there? Who knows. I’m suggesting that I think on this issue of women as Pastors, Matt Slick is wrong. To err is human, though. I hope and pray that he would never show disrespect to a Pastor, Elder or Teacher who was a woman.

I am a woman. I am called to be Pastoral (though not to run a church, at least so far God hasn’t ever spoken to me about that aspect of ministry). I believe the whole of scripture, including the teachings of Christ Himself point towards the role of a Pastor/Elder (shepherd in the greek) as one of great sacrifice and servanthood. It in no way advocates a woman OR a man having some sort of ego trip or powergame in politics in the local church. Such things are carnal, fleshly and frankly have nothing to do with gender since either gender can equally sin in this way. When Jesus talked about the first being last and the last being first, when He washed His followers feet and so on, there was no ego in these actions. The work of a Pastor is never glamourous unless it is simply God blessing you for a season. In my experience of walking with The LORD, it is probably the least glamourous and powertrippy way to live your life, because you’re as likely to find yourself sitting in a gutter at 2am with a drunk person spilling their guts out to you (both literally and figuratively!) as you are to be standing on a platform reading aloud to lines of men in suits, listening to your every word.

In short, I believe that either gender can be called to any ministry and in fact in the Bible there are several examples of women in ministry and positions of leadership, OT and NT. We all understand that many men don’t like the idea of a woman ‘telling them what to do’, but a deeper knowledge of Jesus reveals the fallacy in this – if the Pastor is moving in the Spirit of God, then Jesus is speaking. God is ministering through His hands and His feet in the world, and who is any man or woman to scorn the mere vessel of His works? Test the vessel and the words of the vessel. Test everything, and look for fruit. But I think it is a folley of an person of either gender to misunderstand what the role of a Pastor is. If someone comes to you in the name of The LORD and you test them, then if they are of The LORD, one best honour them as you would honour The LORD.