Mark

Kristen,

Thanks for your imput. It is not uncommon for Paul to divert for a moment from his logical argument (as seen in verse 11) and then return to the original thought (verse 12). There is no exegetical reason i can see why verse 12 must mean ‘all deacons’.

Re #95, you are really just reaching for straws there. Just because something is not discussed does not mean it isn’t appropriate. Scripture interprets scripture and we know that both men and women should be faithful in marriage. Of course this whole point you made stems from your certain belief that gyne refers to women deacons and not simply wives of male deacons which cannot be proven decisively.
Waht intrigues me the most is that most mainstream egals argue that ‘one woman man’ is becasue men had more than one wife at that time (in fact iv’e seen Cheryl write that somewhere also), yet now you want to apply that phrase to women. Which way do you want it? When one argument fails another just seems to be advanced in its place. How much historic revisionism will egals continue to produce. I as a comp, find it very difficult to take seriously. Just to prove my point, how much of the Kroegers original work is now considered as true?…not much!

Anyway Kristen we are butting heads here. I am still interested to know why you think ‘one woman man’ is generic (and thus includes female overseers) and yet why Paul needs to single out ‘gyne’ in verse 11 since in your own admission it is a restatement of verses 8-10. You seem to talk around in contradictions. I’ll leave it here for you to answer that one query of mine. If Paul is truly being generic (in verse 1-7) why do you state that Paul has instructions for men and then women (in verse 8-13)? That’s a contradiction as i see it! Especially since you lean heavily on the ‘likewise’ hypothesis. If verse 8 refers to ‘male’ deacons (as you say) and Paul says ‘likewise’ there, does that therefore not exclude women from verses 1-7 by your own argument.