pinklight

“And if we were to believe that Adam had to identify her as woman and God wanted the man to create her identity, then we would also have to believe that God bringing the animals before Adam to find a mate for him was God’s plan to mate Adam with an animal if Adam found one he liked.”

Hi Kay,

My thoughts are that it’s a solid train of thought. I’ve been looking for holes in it and I can’t find any. It shows the Creator’s plan is subject to man’s where the plan of the created (Adam) is placed in front of the Creator’s.

It’s grose, that’s what I think. Man ain’t God.

🙂

No slight of hand can make this an act of authority when no authority has been given by God.

Oooooh. Now that’s bad to the bone!

Adam is the one who was ignorant of that plan, not God. And since God’s plan to bring her forth from Adam’s own flesh before even one of the animals was paraded before Adam, then the one who would be made from Adam’s flesh was created to be woman not just named woman because making her from Adam’s flesh was God’s plan not Adam’s.

This is good.

But why should Eve’s being beguiled in the Garden of Eden cause Paul to say that women should be silent in church?

Maybe Paul didn’t like the fact that Eve wasn’t told to be silent, when she spoke for herself to God, in the garden, when she came out of her deception and identified the serpent as the deceiver?

Unfortunately there are those who defy common sense

LOL

Oh yeah, that’s the kind of family man women look for in a mate!

Comps shouldn’t talk about their Mom’s this way, their Grandma’s or their sisters.

Yes, if her qualifying difference is defined by males because they possess the “authority” to define, they ought to be able to tell us what that is, right?

Now that’s funny!!

But again, it’s a restriction of function not role that is, being male restricts one from having children.

However, I still see a parallel in that God also did not define here how they were to multiply. He did not restrict a man here that he could not carry a child or breastfeed – we know that from elsewhere.

Hi again Gazza,
He did restrict the man’s function in verse 27 because he made them male and female. So we know this restriction from the context.

Hi Gazza,

Firstly regarding #41 I was actually refereeing to verse 28 not 29 – got my referencing mixed up.
I don’t think that verse 29 really speaks to the idea that the roles are identical. Am I wrong here?

Which roles? Please do point them out! I only read commands – be blessed, multiply and eat. Verse 29 doesn’t speak to roles at all.

Re# 42 I fully agree that they both have equal rulership – just as they have equal parts to play in multiplying – but we know for sure that in multiplying each has a different role to play so how is it different when it comes to rulership

We know for sure that each has a different function because one was made male and one was made female (v27) so one can naturaly bear children and the other cannot. A woman doesn’t play giving childbirth, it’s just a natural function. It doesn’t logicaly follow that since both were commanded to multiply and one was male and the other female that therefore it is different when it comes to rulership. How is it different when it comes to food?

Re #44 You say that God gave the command to multiply or “be fruitful and increase in number” but not parenthood. I fear that we are merely dealing with semantics; I used the term parenthood, although it was not in the text to sum up the process God was anticipating in the command being fruitful and increasing.
Either way God commanded them to multiply and God clearly created male and female thus creating the requirement for each to fulfil a different role to multiply. Though it cannot be done by either alone each has to do their bit or it won’t happen. It is exactly because multiplying can not be done that each has to fulfil their role to obey the command.

Gazza, in #32 you said “but parenthood was a task given equally to both but with distinct roles within it.” It’s not semantics though to one it could look like semantics. Since God gave a command to multiply rather than parental roles, it cannot be sematics. A command cannot be a role. There is not one mention of “role” in the text. As long as one was made male and the other female they can obey the command to multiply.

Re #43
You ask “What exactly has been said that is beyond what is conveyed in the text?” I feel that Cheryls statement “ Where is the difference in design here? There is no difference at all. There is only equality.” Goes beyond the text as I have explained previously I feel that the text open to the possibility of roles within the equality – I still don’t feel that anyone has pointed out why this is can not be so.

How come if what Cheryl said goes beyond the text then you are the one asking about possibilities that are not in the text, roles that the text doesn’t say a word on, and not able to answer her question on where the difference in design is? seems to me that you are projecting onto what Cheryl said/asked what you yourself are trying to do.

Do we have a contradiction? How can the husband be sole “head” of the home when woman is the “head” of the entire earth?

If the husband is the “head” of the home, then how come the first husband and wife were the “head” of the entire earth? That both were the head of the whole earth and all the animls, does that sound comp to you?

;P

A role in comp language is something that only the male or female can do. Only a male can be a father, or have the role of a father. And only a female can have the role of a mother, but neither can have the role of “being fruitful” without the other, so God didn’t assign or command parental roles in Genesis 1.

How come he didn’t command the role of the father? How come he commanded no roles of father or mother in Gen 1? Arn’t these roles (parental roles) integral to the comp position?

So since multiplying or being fruitfull and increasing in number cannot be a role since it cannot be done by the male or female alone therefore parenting cannot be a role and if parenting cannot be a role then neither fatherhood or motherhood. 🙂

How can multiplying or being fruitful and increasing be a role when it cannot be done by the male or female alone?

Is where I am having trouble keeping up. I know we have mentioned it twice already but parenthood was a task given equally to both but with distinct roles within it.

I see problems with this statement, Gazza. In Gen 1, God did give “parenthood” therefore he didn’t give “roles” (father and mother). Rather God commanded they multiply which is not language on “roles”. Being fruitful and increasing was the task given and notice it is not worded in language that would describe “roles” because God is not assigning roles or giving roles as a task. The text just does not in anyway read as “roles” being given. It’s important HOW the text conveys what it does.

Hi Gazza,

I would feel that there are a great many ways in which a task may be shared by two people (or genders) without each exactly mimicking the other.

I agree. Take two brothers for example or two sons – they do the same task but not exactly the same way, but both are males. So this concept you bring up applies to all people, male or female.

I don’t think that verse 29 really speaks to the idea that the roles are identical. Am I wrong here?

Are you referring to the verse on food?

just that I feel that some of the assertions that have been made towards uniformity are going beyond what is actually conveyed in the referenced text.

What exactly has been said that is beyond what is conveyed in the text?

Looking only at Gen 1 I don’t think that I could limit what distinctions were possible. Am I missing something here?

Well, what distinctions are possible in your opinion that are not given in the text? The husband and wife were given equal rulership, told to multiply and given permission to eat. They were already husband and wife, and they were commanded to “be father and mother.” What possibilites could exist outside the text? How could the command to multiply limit the distinction of father to mother or husband to wife?

Interesting inquiry for Gazza. (#37) The one thing I don’t see in the “subdue” command is either the man or the woman being told to “rule” their spouse.

🙂

Oh yeah, the man and the woman were already married. So actualy God gave the husband and wife equal rulership over the animals and the earth and he commanded them to multiply (or be father and mother).

And if there are possible distinctions in rule over the animals and the earth because there are distinctions in multiplying (parenthood -father or mother) then are there distinctions in eating?

God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
29 Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.

The main issue to me is if there are distinct roles in this part of the promise that are not precisely defined in the text (and it would seem that we agree that there are) how can you state so strongly that there are not similar distinctions in rule? Ie Is it not possible that both the man and the women are equally rulers of creation just as they are equally parents with different roles that are not defined in this verse?

Hi Gazza,

What kind of distinctions in rule over the animals and the whole earth would you have in mind? The text speaks of rule over the animals and the earth, so what kind of distinctions in rule could be possible in your opinion?

Thanks Cheryl 🙂

I messed up that last post of mine by accidentaly having my words in quotes somehow. Oops.

Cheryl always strays from the physical (male female) distinctions to the spiritual (sonship).

Mark, male, female distinctions of the flesh have absolutley nothing to do with one’s sonship.

To answer gengwell, some roles are spiritual and some are physical. A father for example is a physical one. A pastor is both.

Gifts (pastor, teacher, leader) aren’t roles based on gender but gifts given based on sonship (see Galatians). So a pastor “role” is not both physical and spiritual since it is only given based on one’s sonship not one’s gender. The problem then is with comp terminology – use of “roles” and the division of gifts based along gender lines rather than the spiritual. Comp thought makes gifts of the spiritual out to be “roles” therefore out to be “roles” of the flesh since “roles” are determined in comp thought by the flesh (gender). If “gifts” (spiritual) weren’t made into comp “roles” (physical, men lead and women follow) most of the confusion wouldn’t exist.

To deny women physical equality is to deny their humanity and to deny their spiritual equality is to deny their sonship.

Men and women’s physical equality is based on being human and their spiritual equality is based on their sonship. Differences are only seen within their humanity.

Let me see if I got this right.
In comp thought, flesh (gender) is what determines spiritual difference in function (pastor, teacher, leader) and if the flesh rather than the spiritual (sonship) is what determines spiritual difference in function then women are not equal spiritualy to men since it is not the spiritual (sonship) which determines their spiritual gifting but rather their flesh.
Now, if women were gifted based on their sonship, in comp thought, then women could be considered spiritualy equal to men but since their equal sonship is denied based on their flesh, then it is the flesh which determines the spiritual.
Their are differences in the flesh (men and women) but there are no differences in the spiritual (sonship) and men and women in the flesh and spiritual are equal even though there are differences in the flesh.
Gifts aren’t given based on the flesh (male or female) but rather given based on sonship. When comp thought denies this, it denies spiritual equality.

What kind of ruler of animals and earth does not even have Permission (!) to eat from trees on the face of the whole earth but only from trees inside the garden?

Let me re-word for clarity:

If Adam didn’t even have Permission to eat fruit from all trees on the face of the earth before the woman was created, then how could he have sole rulership over all the animals and all the earth when he was alone without the woman? LOL A ruler who is not even allowed to eat from that which he rules, that’s funny! So he can’t eat from the fruit trees outside the garden when he was all alone without the woman, yet he had rulership over the animals at this time? LOL

How could Adam have authority over all the animals and all the earth when he wasn’t even given permission to eat fruit from trees on the face of the entire earth untell after the woman was with him? I’m amused 🙂