129 Mark,

You said:

Again you are playing semantic games with my words. If you have any legitimate claim to show that there is no difference between Pauls letters and Acts 16 for example please provide.

The difference between the assembly is that one is a Jewish assembly where the people needed the gospel preached to them and the other assembly of believers need the ministry of the body.

I don’t understand your attributing to me “semantic games”. However I do appreciate your challenge to prove that there was an assembly of (Jewish) believers in Acts 16.

Acts 16:13 (NASB) And on athe Sabbath day we went outside the gate to a riverside, where we were supposing that there would be a place of prayer; and we sat down and began speaking to the women who had assembled.

The fact is that the apostles had presuppositions. Their presupposition was that whenever there was no quota for a establish Jewish synogague, there would be a public meeting where the Jews would meet together for prayer and the reading of the Torah. This public meeting would be at a place outside of the city but also at a public place.

John MacArthur, who is a strong complementarian, records these observations in his MacArthur Study Bible:

16:13 to the riverside. Evidently, the Jewish community did not have the minimum of 10 Jewish men who were heads of households required to form a synagogue. In such cases, a place of prayer under the open sky and near a river or sea was adopted as a meeting place. Most likely this spot was located where the road leading out of the city crossed the Gangites River. women who met there. In further evidence of the small number of Jewish men, it was women who met to pray, read from the OT law, and discuss what they read.

Prayer, reading of the bible, and biblical discussion were considered a proper Jewish assembly although it was an unathorized synagogue since it was only women without 10 qualified men to establish a Synagogue. So it was a bonafide outdoor assembly of believers (Jewish ones who apparently feared God since they accepted the gospel).

Since the Jewish people were used to these kinds of assemblies and the Christians were mostly Jews in the beginning, it would have been logical for them to meet just as they did before for assemblies of believers with the women praying, reading the Word and giving their discussions on that Word. Paul also gave women the right to speak forth concerning the Word of God in these assemblies. He never forbid women to speak God’s Word.

Since you, yourself, have said that 1 Cor. 14 is a formal gathering of the church and since the women were allowed to speak forth the Word of God, what do you base your reasoning that women may not give a verse by verse explanation of God’s word in the assembly?

I agree with Dave that I have yet to see you actually get into the text and use it to give your reasoning. You see to want to remain with generalizations while we are digging into the text. Is there a reason for your hesitation? Is your conscience perhaps bothering you that if you discuss a particular text and listen to our (women’s) interpretation that you might be sinning?