TL

“Pastors, clergy, faith leaders are the #1 perpetrators of domestic violence against their family members–especially their wives. Law enforcement is 2nd. (Law enforcement used to be #1, but in recent years faith clergy have surpassed them.)”

WoW! I could use some references for that. It would come in very handy in teaching. What sources are you using?

In addition, I think that their responses typify the range of true freedom that God gives humanity in allowing us to make mistakes.

We use ‘persons’ to designate personality, intellect, will, etc. versus ethereal nothingness.

““ONE” is also a name of God. Hmmm?”

It’s a descriptive name like Father, counselor, wonderful, etc. 🙂

Charis,

Good observations about Keeper and Watchman.

However, keep in mind that the husband was NOT deceived. Some points of thought:

1. Both Adam and Eve were commissioned by God to exercise dominion, a dominion of guardianship over the earth and it’s creatures.
2. Adam as the first one created was further commissioned to be a Watchman/Guardian/Keeper in Eden.
3. Neither of these responsibilities was over or upon the other. Adam was not Eve’s ‘keeper’ or guardian and Eve was not Adam’s ‘keeper’ or guardian. There’s was to be a relationship of unity, togetherness, mutual support, and equality.
4. In that equality (neged) Eve was created to allay the man’s aloneness. Together they are to be united as one. Her equality with the man is a primary point in alleviating lonliness. She, her very person, including her equality with the man (not her actions) is the strong help that allays loneliness.
5. As the perfectly strong and equal partner she was created to be to the man, and the fact that they were to be ‘as one’, the husband cleaving to the wife, it is likely that she was to join him in guarding Eden. It would be something that they would do in perfect ‘oneness’. But that didn’t happen, as the husband did not cleave to her. He stood separate just listening as the serpent deceived her.

”Seems you like the word “equality.”?And, I’m stuck on the word “ONE.”

When Scripture says The Lord our God is One that means they are equal in will, power, authority and basically everything. They are so in unity that they are ONE! They are different persons, but so united in will, power, and authority that they cannot be differentiated on those things.

Hello A.Amos. I see you’re still here. 🙂

As to answering your question, actually I did indeed answer it. But I’ll try to be more specific. And yes, you can borrow my explanation above.

Every member of the Body of Christ is and should make themselves available to God to be used in any of the giftings/manifestations of the Holy Spirit as the HS so leads. While being a serving elder or an overseer or similar other kinds of leadership service to the Body of Christ is not a manifestation of the HS in itself, yet those who have spiritual experience and are able to teach not being a new convert, should be willing if God puts it on their hearts to serve the Body of Christ as a guardian of sorts. When Paul says “anyone who desires” the work of overseer desires a good work, I’m quite certain he meant “anyone who desires”. Anyone may desire such a service as long as they qualify, and the main qualification IMO is one of being a person (man or woman) faithful to the Word and the Spirit of the Word.

“Do you think women should/can be an “Elder/OverseerLleader/Authority?”

As Christians, we minister in the Body of Christ not according to our own gifts, knowledge and authority, but according to what God gifts to us. It is a circle. God died for us to give us life, His life. We in turn give back this life, spiritual life, that God gives us by serving and ministering to His people. God then gives us more to give out. Sort of like a circle of life. 🙂

Women are as much a part of the Body of Christ as men are and are just as capable of receiving the LIFE that God gives us through the H. S, and therefore, just as capable of giving, ministering and serving that life to others as God directs. Those who have are not to hoard but to share and bless.

husband of one wife — married, male.

Just one correction A. Amos. The lists are about character traits, not physical qualifications. The “one woman man” idiom means one who is faithful in relationships. It’s not about being married or not, or divorced or not, or having more than one wife.

Faithful is the Word, and those who serve the Word must be faithful also. The descriptions in 1 Timothy 3 are descriptions of a faithful type of person.

Is not what he said also the truth? Did God give Eve to him. Did not Eve give the fruit to him? So you see the same argument you use for Eve could equally apply to Adam.

Different emphasis. He did not eat of the fruit because God gave the woman to him and the woman gave the fruit to him. That’s like saying God made the sky and the sky was blue so I ate the fruit and therefore it’s the sky’s fault and God’s fault I ate. Sure God made the sky and it’s blue but that had nothing to do with his actions. The fact that God made the woman and the woman offered him the fruit had nothing to do with him eating the fruit. He was not compelled by Eve, and God did not make her with a sinful nature so that her actions compelled him. Adam was clearly blameshifting. He was saying ‘she made me do it’ and you gave her to me, so ‘it’s your fault too’….. ‘so, don’t blame me’.

Both were sinless and perfect.

Whereas, the serpent deceiving the woman had much to do with why she ate it. He confused her into thinking she was not doing what God told her not to do. That is the nature of deception and deceivers. This is why God cursed the serpent. The lesson that we learn from this is that even if we are deceived we will still suffer the consequences of our errors and wrong doings. Both Adam and Eve suffered the consequences of sinning. They suffered an immediate spiritual loss. They thought they were naked when before they did not. And they now would suffer death.

To try to equalize being deceived into an action and deliberately knowingly choosing an action has all the appearances of trying to cover one’s own sin and diminish it’s true depth.

thanks.

It is so disgusting listening to it. How sad that women are viewed as tied to the whims of a fallible creature, a male human. Having already lived that lifestyle, I can only say that it is soul robbing.

your link doesn’t seem to be working either. 🙁

Interesting Pam.

It seems that CBMW is so chicken spirited with their doctrinal claims that whenever they are questioned, they quickly hide. Perhaps, they are not really as convinced of their accuracy as they claim.

Mark,

”But let’s explore what a ‘free-will’ is. First it is not in the Bible, at least not in the way that we often describe it. So what is a free-will?”

Actually ‘free will’ is one of the first things described in Scripture. God creates humans with the capacity to learn and gives them a “blank slate” mind, a naivite. It takes ‘free will’ to learn. God sets them in a place of purity and gives them only one command, that is to not eat of a specific tree. It took two naïve’ humans to choose two different options in response to the situation. They used their “free will” to make their choices. Unfortunately, both were wrong choices, for which we all have suffered since.

”That is why the Bible speaks about needing a new heart. God gives us a new heart, so that our desire might change from sin to him.”

Quite right! And then with our new heart we hopefully will make better ‘freewill’ choices. 🙂

Mark,
”In fact the ‘desire’ Eve has, is the same word used in the Ten commandments for ‘thy shall not covet’. Her desire was not a good motive.”

I checked Scriptures4all.org and it does not appear that they are the same word. They may have the same root word in them but that is all. Having the same root does not make them equal. Often many words can share the same root but have varied different meanings.

As far as the use of teshuqa in Gen. 3:16, there is no way to extrapolate a clear bad or good meaning out of it. In fact, it may be that God’s warning to Eve includes both. She may become inordinately attentive to Adam in both good and bad ways, but they are definitely NOT spelled out. The point is that she is going to turn to him (the root meaning of the word) longingly when it may be that she should be turning toward God more.

What CAN be seen is that the mastering that the man will respond to her desiring is NOT good. It is far more clear that the mastering is bad then it is that the desiring is good or bad. Because of this it is my estimation at this time, that the woman’s error is an inordinate turning, almost a clinging, a self destructive yearning. This is the warning that God is giving her, and it may be that God hopes that by telling her she will be doing this, that when she finds herself doing it, it will help her to stop. That plus the warning that her husband is going to respond by doing something foreign to their relationship, something that is supposed to happen with the animals not between humans, that she will ‘wake up’ to it.

”Also her actions in hiding and covering are the same as Adam.”

I disagree. Adam was not deceived. He did what he did deliberately with full awareness. He cannot fault anyone else, although he tried. He was blame shifting. Eve on the other hand, was deceived. She was not blame shifting by naming her deceiver , she was acknowledging that it was the serpent who deceived her. She further acknowledged her sin of eating that which she was told not to eat.

”Both are guilty and culpable for their own actions in the fall”

Agreed. Being deceived is not an excuse that totally exonerates us. We do not escape the results of doing wrong because someone mislead us. Yet, there is a difference between having been deceived and knowingly deliberately doing that which we are fully aware of it’s wrongness. Adam dealt treacherously with God. In the midst of her deception, Eve did not realize she was disobeying God. That is the difference.

BTW, interesting discussion on Greek tenses. This helps.

Mark,

”I appreciate your call for us all to be in continual repentance- i couldn’t agree more. But maybe you can show me if the Cannanites in the conquering were given that opportunity to repent and enter covenant with Yahweh? Like it or not, God has always chosen some and not others, both in regards to salvation and in regards to earthly purpose.”

IMO it paints a false picture of God to think that God flippantly chooses one over another for salvation not according to whether or not that person himself chooses to love God. This creates several problems.
1. love is not a choice if God chooses for us.
2. God is a respector of persons, since He prefers one over another not according to their choice of Him, and without their acceptance.
3. Without our acceptance of God’s choice, then we are not free people but robots destined according to our birth to follow a preplanned destruction, in essence some people were hated by God at their creation, while others were preferred.

On the other hand, if all people were given freedom to choose whether or not to love God, but salvation didn’t come until Jesus, then the Caananites and others overtaken by sinful natures from their upbringings would still have that opportunity during the 3 days when Jesus went below before He was resurrected.

As for 2 Tim. 2:25, my take at this point in time, is that yes God gives us all the ability to repent (and come to their senses and seek to escape the traps of the devil) when He sees in His perfect knowledge of our souls that our hearts desire is to know God and love Him. Often God knows this before we do. God sees our hearts in ways we do not.

God’s ‘choosings’ are not after the fashion of human thoughts of choosings. God is Love. God did not send His Son to die for a few of which He coerced to come to Him. God’s Love is so great that He sent His Son to die for the entire world so that WHOSOEVER chooses to believe may be saved. It is humanities choice whether to love darkness instead of light and truth. God does not program that into our psyche. We are all created in His image and have the ability to choose in our hearts one thing or another. While it is true that the power of sin entraps and prevents many from being able to exercise in life their true inner choosings, yet God who sees all and knows these things grants those ones the abilities to repent at the right time.

I’d like to add …

Repentance is not an easy doorway. But it is a doorway. Through repentance we stand/kneel at the feet of Jesus where He can touch us for healing. Without repentance, God still hears us but the opportunity for healing of sin is not yet available.

This covers still our lives as Christians. Many seem to think that once we have accepted Christ, there is no more need for such humbling of soul as repentance, apology, and restitution. But repentance is a spiritual avenue that should be a part of every Christians life, not only with God but all people and especially with fellow believers. It is not only about personal healing, but the growth of one’s soul that comes after and the healing made available to those we have wounded.

“Perhaps TL can now see that he/she does not understand God’s electing purposes for some and not for others.”

God did not choose Abraham to create a nation to be His people for the purposes of salvation leaving out the rest of the world, else no Israelite would need Jesus. Israel was a people whose purpose was to enlighten the world about God. There is only one way to God in salvation and that is through God’s only begotten Son, who is available to all. However, as Cheryl has pointed out very well, all do not want to go through the process of repentance that is necessary.

Such men do not see any benefits in repentance, because it means losing their privileges. Unless he sees a woman or daughter he loves being hurt I really doubt that there is any incentive for such a man to change.

It is messed up Kathleen. And coercing women to comply with it messes them up also.

IMO it resembles extreme rascism. The privileged ones are chosen to be leaders claiming it is their natural rights. All the rest should be context with following and if they follow well enough the privileged ones will reward them.

” A deceived woman caused Adam to “fall.” And how exactly does that happen when one is not even deceived?! LOL”

Excellent point PinkLight! 🙂

However, I think that the next step to that fallacy is to accuse women of being seductresses, seducing men to do things they shouldn’t, which by the way is evil. This would hint that woman was created with evil inclinations and was not pure as the man was in creation. and on it goes…..

“It is obvious that the reason they do not believe/come is because the Father has not ‘given’ them to Jesus. So although they had seen all his miracles they were unable to be saved because God the Father did not allow them to come/ believe in Jesus- they were unregenerate.”

I understand that this was Calvin’s view on the elect. However, I cannot find any place in Scripture where God does not allow someone who desires to come to Him, to come to Him. To believe such sounds very much like God is a preferer of persons and prejudiced like the rest of humanity. But God’s ways are not like our ways, they are superior in reason and in divine compassion.

no problemo! 🙂 Just keep the info flowing.

yes, I added the first quote, but not the second one. Thought I’d let you do that if you wanted. You may have more info that we’d be interested in also. 🙂

Kay, Again amazing idiocy and hatred toward women.

I left you a note in the other thread. 🙂

It is indeed astonishing to what lengths male hierarchalists will go in order to restrain and chain their women. On another website, a male teacher has done some good research to show that John 14:14 is accurate according to different manuscripts. But this same person declines to do equally honest research about 1 Cor. 14:34-35 which has been found in several manuscripts on the side and not in the text itself. And one would assume that such an individual would know this. Instead, he wants to proclaim these words as Paul’s and not Paul quoting Judaizers in the epistle from them as is widely believed today.

Would you be willing to go here:
http://equalitycentral.com/forum/index.php?topic=1457.msg17990#new

and post the other quote as well. We are interested in these things.

It is not all that surprising that the Hindu’s would use any calamity in the world as yet another excuse to control their women to do what they want them to. But it is incredibly sad that the women have been brainwashed from childhood to believe these lies.

Amazing similarity, Kay. Thanks for the info.

Interestingly, I still hear words about the husband being the spiritual leader of the home in churches that believe in women in ministry, preaching and teaching. Sometimes, I wonder if it is tied to some sort of fear of women or fear of failure on the man’s part.

Where is everyone??