Cheryl

Val,
I don’t know why it is a “secret” to so many that they believe it to be a sin for a woman to teach the bible to men. One of my friends was extremely prejudiced against women believing that women are sinning against God when they teach the bible to men, but he kept it hidden from me. I could not figure out, though, why he was treating me so badly. I experienced the brunt of his anger many times and it didn’t make any sense to me. It wasn’t until I came to understand how strong some complementarians are and I pushed him to admit that I am not sinning against God for teaching the bible to men and he refused to say that I wasn’t in sin, that I became fully aware of what his problem was. It is my belief that a person cannot fully respect or love their sister in Christ while at the same time believing that their sister is willfully sinning against a direct command of God’s. Finding this out freed me to move on from our friendship because a friendship like this is not healthy or respectful to the woman. I tried to save the friendship for a long time before I realized that it was hopeless. Unless one can change their view about this “sin” it appears to me that it is pretty much impossible to have true Christian fellowship. This makes me very sad but it also helps me to want to fight against these false beliefs because this error in belief is responsible for tearing apart brothers and sisters in Christ.