Kristen

I will conclude with this. Jeremy, you said:
“I am a complemenatarian because I don’t see any other way to understand God’s Word on this issue. It would be easier to be an egalitarian, but I would not feel that I was accurately handling Scripture. If I could see a true way of interpreting these passages that favored the egalitarian position, I would gladly shift sides.”

I have shown that there certainly are other ways to understand the Bible texts which you appear to believe are conclusive. Even if you don’t find these other readings conclusive either, I hope you would agree that the “plain sense” isn’t really quite as “plain” as you might think– and that this supposed “plain sense” is actually a traditionalist interpretation, and not “plain sense” at all. In any event, tradition is a very shaky foundation on which to base the restriction of half of all Christians from using gifts that God might very well be giving them.