Cheryl Schatz

Rose, welcome to my blog. I am sorry that I am slow in getting back to your original post.
You said:

I have very “old-fashioned” beliefs as far as being a Christian is concerned. I believe the Bible is the perfect, inspired Word of God and I do believe that Jesus is the one and *only* way to the Father in Heaven and that you can only be saved and have eternal life through Him alone.

If that is old-fashioned, then I too am old-fashioned.

I do *not* have a lot of the traditionally comp beliefs that most others with these same beliefs tend to have. I do believe that Phoebe was very likely a deaconess in the early church and I do believe that Priscilla was a pastor of a home church, facts that a lot of comps like to try and sweep under the rug and overlook to suit their own purposes

Praise the Lord!

I think that Deborah is a very strong example of God putting a woman in a position of spiritual authority over His people, and if God would do that in the stricter Old Testament days then why wouldn’t He do it in the New Testament days and the Age of Grace, right?

It seems unthinkable that the Old Testament women of God would have more freedom than the New Testament women.

Anyway, I just wanted to introduce myself. I’ve been a lurker here for quite some time and I really love your blog, Cheryl. It’s a great place for someone “in the middle of the road,” I guess you can say, whose opinions of theology don’t seem to fit in too many places in the Church nowadays.

Thank you for coming out and introducing yourself! It is SO enjoyable for me to “meet” the people that visit my blog, especially those who regularly come here. My other DVD projects do prevent me from being as fast to post and/or comment as I would like to, but I do love the community that this blog provides.

Rose, I hope you and others like you who are “middle of the road” feel warmly welcomed and feel free to contribute your own thoughts.

It seems that the churches who do hold to truer Biblical beliefs are chauvinistic as heck when it comes to women being in positions of leadership, especially within the church, and the churches who *do* treat women as equals are apostate as heck and ridiculously liberal in their beliefs!

This is the one thing that frustrates me too and one of the reasons why I want to have my voice heard as a conservative, God-loving, believer in “every Word of God as inspired” Christian. I do not want the issue of women in ministry to draw people to liberalism nor do I believe that it is necessary. I do believe that this is what sometimes happens only because there hasn’t been more churches open to the gifts of God’s women believers. I find this truly sad.
Now to your questions. I will answer right away in my next comment here.