Cheryl

teknomom,

Thanks for all the great points! I have to continue to work on setting an outline in my head so I can follow through with all the points in the “heat” of the battle. It ain’t so easy when you are up against someone who doesn’t want to let you talk and keeps interrupting you. Several times I tried to follow a line of reason and I was stopped. Another time Matt desperately didn’t even want me to read a scripture about how “anyone” can mean male or female. He tried hard to say that “anyone” as singular masculine means only males and I was able only to read one scripture to prove him wrong. I had many more, plus I had references from respected lexicons that proved him wrong, but once again the one who has the mike is the one who ultimately calls the shots and who can shoot down the messenger. It is my sincere desire to remain calm and respectful. If I tried to bully my way through the conversation I could have gotten more points through, but then I would have lost my goal of being respectful. I believe with this debate I got further than I had even hoped and this was evidenced by all of Matt’s groaning and sighs. His frustration with me was evident.

Let’s see if I can get him past the groans and sighs for the next debate. We will certainly come back to the “authority” issue as that is key to the debate although I want to tackle the authority issue from 1 Timothy 2. This passage pulls back the curtain on the root of the prohibition and without 1 Timothy 2 as ammunition, 1 Timothy 3 is nothing less than a shadow, a “normative” according to Matt’s words and not a prohibition.