Paula

Cheryl, is there a way you can fix the comment? I have links to smilies and I think the comment editor took out the html brackets.

hope this works

Matt’s argument in a nutshell

Don, re. your question in post #4:

I got the information from Judaism 101: Signs and Symbols under “yarmulke”.

Paul tells Christian men not only that they must not cover their heads, but also why. The head covering was a symbol of guilt and shame before God, so for a Christian to cover in God’s presence was insulting to the sacrifice Jesus made. But upon hearing this, a Christian woman, especially one married to an unbeliever, was immediately between a rock and a hard place. If she covered she would shame God, and if she didn’t, she would shame her husband! No doubt the Corinthians needed to know the answer, because a woman’s life could be at stake.

So Paul’s solution is brilliant: Let her decide! He knew very well that a woman would face strong social disapproval at the very least, and possible death, if she followed this new rule about head coverings in church gatherings. This was not for the church, or Paul, or any husband to dictate to his wife, but for her alone.

As for vs. 8-10a:

7 A man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but woman is the glory of man. 8 For man did not come from woman, but woman from man; 9 neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. 10 It is for this reason that a woman ought to have authority over her own [b] head,

The man is the glory of God. Does God hide him? Push him down? What does it mean to be the glory of God, if not his “crowning achievement”, the pinnacle of the tower, something to be proud of and to be ELEVATED for all to see?

Therefore, when it says the woman is the glory of man, this in no way indicates that the woman is to be kept out of sight, under foot, silenced. She is his glory, not his shame! So he should treat her as one he is proud of, he should ELEVATE her and honor her.

Paul speaks of her coming from man and being made for him. Did not Jesus come down to our level and die FOR US? Does that make him inferior to us? Hardly! Being “for” someone else is not a statement of inferiority but an indication of the recipients NEED or deficiency. And that Eve came from Adam makes her his complete equal in every way, since they share the same flesh. In stating this, Adam was surely noticing the difference between her and all the animals; they were not of his “flesh” but she was.

Ha! This post’s anti-spam word is “helper”… how appropriate!

BTW: Hagar named God: El Roi

And all these years I thought Elroy was made up by the old Jetsons cartoon. 😉

My question is this: To what point does this become false teaching? At what point does reading INTO the text, twisting it to mean something else become false teaching?

If you mean something worthy of being thrown out of a fellowship and “handed over to Satan to be taught not to blaspheme”, I would say at the point where it alters the gospel, turns people away from it, or eats at their faith. There are many such issues today that would qualify, but the insidious thing about this particular issue is that it crosses all the lines, between denominations, religions, and societies, and has done so throughout history. (Which is to say, it isn’t us egalitarians who are bowing to culture!)
This male supremacism, and the larger issue of hierarchy between “clergy” and “laity”, are issues of pride, of looking on the flesh, and of thinking God really is a “respecter of persons”. The disciples are still clamoring for positions of importance in spite of Jesus’ clear statement, “not so among you”. For any believer to think he or she is to be a boss over other adult believers is nothing but conceit, and the method or character of such rule is irrelevant. To rule “gently and wisely” is still to rule and still in violation of every basic tenet of the Spirit-filled believer. It is impossible to “think of others as better” than ourselves while insisting on “having the final say”, whether it’s in the home or the community of believers (a phrase I much prefer to “church”).
For the Christian community at large to condone any system of hierarchy based upon the flesh or position is inexcusable. God will hold to account all who bind up at least half the Body of Christ, or who “beat their fellow servants”.

You would think a Calvinist like Slick would know a tautology when he sees one (since many of them pride themselves on their use of logic), but apparently he neither sees it nor expects anyone else to. I refer to his circularity in claiming 1 Tim. 2:12-14 confers authority onto Gen. 3. R. Groothuis elaborated on such circularity in Good News for Women. From my review of the book at this link:

They assume that Genesis supports female subordination, then when reading 1 Tim. 2:11-15 they appeal back to it as their justification for their view. In other words, they presume authority being established in Genesis, then use it to support their interpretation of Paul’s words to Timothy as being universally applicable since it refers to creation order.

So to stretch and twist scripture in a vain effort to keep grasping at male superiority, he uses circular reasoning and ignores the context of each passage, while also ignoring the grammar of 1 Tim. 2 to indiscriminately mix singular and plural. This is identical to the typical Calvinist twist on passages like John 3:16 and Romans 5:15-21, where somehow “all” means “many” and “many” means “all”, mixing and matching within a single sentence!

It’s just amazing, the lengths to which some people will go in order to “keep their position” (John 11:48). That passage also tells us how the Pharisees reacted to the raising of Lazarus from the dead: to plot to kill Jesus! But is the male supremacist attitude really much different? “Scripture shows women are equal to men, but we will suppress this and spread lies about those who would expose us and take away our place as rulers!”

I had a discussion in my board about some of these things last fall:
http://theology.fether.net/forums/index.php?topic=11.0
Of course, I reject the whole “spiritual CEO” paradigm anyway, so the question to me is not who should be ordained in the modern sense, but whether.

Kewl! But I have to smell some flowers and each chocolate before I write any more stuff like that.

I emailed you the first draft of the Manly Man Bible, because it wouldn’t post it here. I’m guessing it has to do with the fact that I typed it in a word processor and then pasted it into the comment box.

Hey Cheryl, did that post get to you?

Okay, first draft (men like that word)

Paul of Tarzan, the High-Ranking

To Tim the Toolsmith, my best buddy

Okay, listen up! I’m gonna cut to the chase and skip all that sissy stuff about love and peace and tender-hearted. I’m in charge, and you’re not, got that?

In the beginning, God made Man. Not mankind, Man. But God said, “It ain’t right for the Man to be alone– he needs somebody to boss around.” So he made woman, which everybody knows means “woe to man”. Things were okay for a while, but one day she brazenly dusted his golf clubs. That was unforgivable, so God cursed her and her female offspring for all eternity. And even though Man wasn’t supposed to leave his golf clubs out where they’d get dusty, God decided to let him keep bossing Woman around anyway. It’s just how things are, and everybody knows God is a Man too. But a really big one. Ever since then, women have lusted after golf clubs, and it’s men’s job to keep their wimpy hands off them.

So husbands, rule your wives firmly. Don’t give an inch or they’ll take a mile. Never let them catch you without an instant ruling on any matter; a wrong answer is better than “I don’t know”. Grow a beard, because women can’t. Not good girls anyway.

Fathers, teach your sons to hunt and your daughters to shut up and cook. Give the sons manly names and just give the daughters numbers, because they have to take a man’s name someday, so who cares.

Ruling men, you’re in charge, so act like it. You are the alpha-males of the pack; do not back down from any challenger. No man can be an alpha-male unless he has hair on his back and can take a tight S-curve on a Harley at 80mph without breaking a sweat.

Women,… um… just do whatever any Man tells you. That’s all you need to know. Hey, what are you doing reading this?? It’s only for men!

Men, find the dipstick that taught the women to read, and send him to boot camp.

Well, real men don’t like to write, so I’m signing off. Say ‘hi’ to to the guys, tell the girls to stifle. Tell Peter to bring my tools, I left ’em in his garage. Demetrius the Ironworker still owes me five bucks.

Now, git ‘er done!

Paul

oooo boy!
(Hey, the security word says “broad”. I’m offended!)
^^ but that does give me some ideas, e.g. “broad is the way…”

Oh, Cheryl, don’t encourage me! ;-p

You know I could have some gut-busting fun with the idea of a manly-man Bible.

At least we’ve got one thing in our favor this time, Don. They can’t burn down the internet. They’d be destroying their own freedom of speech in the process. And given a choice between whether the internet should ever be controlled by either the world or the church, I’ll pick the world. They don’t care how we interpret the Bible, and they don’t pretend to be speaking for God. And persecution of true believers is never worse than when it’s done in the name of God.
Are honest scholarship and accurate dictionaries really that much to ask?

Lin, you’re right on the money with the term “Christian Talmud”. That’s exactly what they’re doing (“they” being male supremacists in general). The Jewish one is all about control, and so is the “Christian” one. It’s about pride and power. They are like the wicked tenants of Jesus’ parable, or Diotrephes, or the Jewish legalists that constantly badgered Paul everywhere he went.
Oh, how the organic waste material will strike the oscillating air circulation device on Judgment Day! (I’ve heard it can be used to feed a fire, e.g. 1 Cor. 3.)

Oops, that should be 2:5, not 5:5.

Found something else in Ephesians.
In 5:5 we see the phrase commonly translated “you are saved by grace”. But this, like “dead to sin”, is in the dative case. I went to This Grammar Link and looked at the various options for the dative case here, and by process of elimination I concluded that it should read “You are the ones who have been saved because of grace!”. To use “by” here is wrong because grace is the cause, not the instrument. Grace is why we are saved, not how. The instrument of our salvation is the death and resurrection of Jesus.
Again in verse 8: “Because of grace you were saved”.
This may not seem like a big deal, but it points out sloppy translation that seems driven more by tradition and sometimes bias than a desire to accurately convey the words of scripture.

Correction: earlier I said GWTW when I was thinking of CBE. They do have a sort of primer on egal at This Link though.

Doesn’t GWTW have anything like that? I know they have tons of material, but I’m not sure they have a centralized Q and A sort of thing. I think that would be very useful for those who don’t want to wade through reams of scholarly detail. I’d be willing to assemble one if it doesn’t already exist. I already have a “wiki” summary of egal at http://wiki.fether.net (and I’m watching to see how long it lasts at http://www.conservapedia.com/Egalitarian)>). It would be nice if those with run-ins with CBMW, Grudem, and CARM could collect links with short summaries, and then I’d put it all into a handy chart or something.

Since it’s another side issue, I’ll end my comments on the 12 with this. Being an apostle does not make one a part of the 12, as everyone would agree. But neither does anything else; the only criteria were those stated by Peter, and scripture never says he was wrong. Everything else is inference, a poor foundation for any argument. All we have that is stated clearly is Peter’s statement. We can second guess him and claim he acted without God’s approval, but there is nothing in all the NT to stand on. Paul never told Peter he was wrong to appoint someone else; in fact, it was never mentioned again. Paul’s defending his mission and authority was not an appeal to be considered one of the 12, but simply to defend his rights as “an” apostle, and one to whom Jesus spoke directly. Again, this does not make him one of the 12, and again, it does not belittle his status. Paul was one of a kind.
Nothing hinges on whether one believes Paul was one of the 12, so to expend so much energy on such a topic is unproductive. We’ll all find out the answer when we see the New Jerusalem. To further debate such a thing would be like arguing over which three sons of Israel are named on the north wall’s gates.

I see an important issue with the choosing of Matthias as what Peter said in vs. 21-22, that it had to be someone who was with them from John’s baptism to Jesus’ ascension. Paul could not possibly qualify for that. And this was all Peter’s doing, not the group’s. Then they first prayed for God to direct the choice between two proposed candidates, and only then cast the lot. Lot casting of course was a legitimate method of finding the will of God in OT times, and at this early stage there was no other method, as the Holy Spirit had not yet come.

Paul, per his own words, was the apostle to the Gentiles, whereas the 12 were to the Jews. And he was uniquely commissioned to reveal the mystery, that is, the unity of Jew and Gentile into one Body. So his mission was entirely different from that of the 12.

Truthseeker said, “Paula, per androgynous process…sort of a distant cousin to Siamese twinship in a sense? ”
Possibly, or even identical twins. But I do think this is going too far off topic so feel free to email me, or maybe comment at the link on Bushnell’s book I gave earlier (post #16).

Cheryl,
Bushnell was not saying that Eve was a separate being inside of Adam, but that God fashioned her from the “part” (not “rib”) he took out (see This Article). There is no reason this couldn’t have been the “female” part.

Lin,

Yes, we’re very blessed to live in the internet age, if for no other reason than the access it gives us to information that most of us would never have seen otherwise. I truly believe we will be held accountable for how much use we make of what’s available to us. And just as it enables people to go past the mainstream media to get to the truth about daily news, it also enables Christians to go past the lock on the Biblical texts that the various publishing houses and denominational “clubs” have had. And since you’ve read Eph. as a letter, I’d be most interested in your opinion of the paraphrase, since I made it with that view in mind. And I agree with you ant Truthseeker about Katharine Bushnell, amazing woman that she was. I feel like such a wimp in her shadow.

Truthseeker, I can’t think of any reason to reject Bushnell’s argument on the possible androgyny of Adam before Eve was extracted from him. It makes a lot of sense, not to mention bolstering the fact that Eve could therefore not be inferior.

Ryan, tanx! Of course I was compelled to write, and any insight must come from the Spirit.

PS: Would it be possible to make the paragraph tags have some spacing below them? I know, nitpicky, but just a thought.

Hi Truthseeker,
The first one is likely out of print. It’s by a Dr. George Ricker Berry that was printed in 1961. The other is the one at Scripture 4 All.
I once asked a pastor why the literal readings in the interlinear were different from the KJV text along the side margins, and he had no idea. Didn’t seem to care either.

Speaking of interlinears, I just blogged about this Here. It includes a paraphrase I just finished on the letter to the Ephesians.

Tanx Truthseeker, glad to be of service.

Lin,
Yes, it’s very tough to keep examining our preconceived ideas and holding them up to the light of the Word. But there has to be a commitment to that principle by all involved, or at least the majority, or we find ourselves always fighting against the majority. This is the sort of “one mind” we should have, not that we all agree on every detail, but that we agree on basic principles.
Truthseeker,
I have yet to find a fellowship where egal is truly welcomed, or where the seeker movement has not taken over. It seems that Christians, sheep that they are, are easily herded and far too trusting of mere human leaders. But that’s the nature of “organized religion”, to control large masses of people. In contrast, Jesus spoke of a Body without walls, without rituals, without clergy, a relationship with him instead of a master/slave arrangement. Such a thing makes strong individuals who are not easily herded or fooled.

If anyone is interested, I wrote a long rant a few years ago about the sorry state of Sunday School (alliteration intended) at This Link. I’d be interested in any comments.

As I keep asking, what kind of Christian even wants to rule over another adult Christian? What kind of “servant” seeks preeminence? What “body part” tries to make other body parts go through it instead of reporting directly to the “brain”?

Anyone can see that a Christian with those attitudes has no idea of what Jesus modeled in his humanity and how we’re all supposed to treat each other. To aspire to the divine qualities of Jesus and tell the other half of his Body to only model the human qualities of Jesus is the height of conceit.

There is just something fundamentally wrong with any Christian who will fight for preeminence.