Lori

Folks,
I’ve read through a number of the comments here, as well as the post, and I heave a great sigh over the attack against those of us who have been called to the ministry. I pray for women whose husbands feel the need to squash them, and I pray for congregational leaders whose hearts are to shepherd women in their gifting. Never before has the passage in Genesis 3:15 been so clear – that the animosity between women and the adversary, that curse, is still upon us in many ways. I pray for the Messiah’s return, when all things will be restored to their intended purpose, which we can see is men and women, side by side, teaching their children and a dying world who our Father is and how He desires for us to live.

Our congregational leader did a fantastic study over the past six months taking apart some of the very scriptures that are misused to keep women “in their place” in the assembly. I encourage you to study this out, so you can be fully equipped to have the discussion and be able to explain the true meaning of the scriptures to those who have ears. hodf.org

Blessings to all of you.

Cheryl, if you ever create that blog on marriage, I would definitely be interested. As Don said, it’s all related, especially in what I call compism. They view women as being generally inferior, so this extends to all areas of a woman’s life, not just what she may do in a church.

Ok, enough preaching. 🙂 In regards to ministry, I also think it would be interesting to explore the gifts of the Holy Spirit. I saw a comp. pastor on another blog say that women in his church were free to phophecy, but essentially the men weren’t bound by it since the women didn’t have any authority. So I guess that when the Spirit speaks through women it’s just empty words? Kind of contradicts the events of Pentecost or even Paul’s teaching, doesn’t it?

I also think it would be fascinating to explore the vision of the early church as laid out by Paul. Comps. are obsessed with power, authority, and hierarchy. Is that what Paul intended for the church?

And last, I would love to explore the women of the early church. Comps accuse egalitarians of “dodging scripture.” Well, what about those women that Paul mentioned–Phoebe the deacon, Priscilla the church-planter, Junia the apostle, etc.? Having been raised in the church, I can say that we Protestants try to sweep women under the rug of our history. It’s time we reclaimed them. Junia, especially, is a fascinating woman. It’s well documented that for centuries church leaders have tried to a) deny that she was a woman or b) deny that she was a an apostle. Jay Eldon Epps does a good job of discussing this in his book, but it’s very scholarly. It would be nice to have a layman’s concise overview of the issue.