Jim

I am not knowledgeable enough to debate you folks on the different flavors of who believes what, but I do see something that has not been proposed so I would like to enter it into the conversation with the hopes that you will be gentle if I am completely wrong. The essence of this argument is the belief that God does Gift Women with the “Gift” of being a pastor/preacher. I agree with the statements to the nature of God and his nature does not include taunting or torture, however taunting and torture only take place if the gift is in fact bestowed. This is a topic that is very confusing for me, I’ll admit I don’t have as much experience debating it as most on this site, but I can’t help but believe that the bible is reasonably clear, and consistent in it’s discussion on this. I think that we are all limited in how we can serve God, in different ways. I can never be a mother, although I have many of the “gifts” that a mother posses. God expects us to live within his limits as a measure of obedience. I don’t believe God gives us gifts we can’t use, I think we sometimes use the gifts he gives us inefficiently. You can list the successful female “pastors” as evidence of the gift, but the other side of that coin could be a woman who would have been even more successful if they applied their gift in a more obedient way. There is no way of knowing. It has nothing to do with intelligence, or abilities…it comes down to doing what The Lord Says…so I ask you, if the Lord spoke to you clearly and told you that he doesn’t want women as pastors…could you obey? My next question is how much clearer does he need to be then what he has already said? Pride has nearly destroyed me more than once, and knowledge of God and the bible fills us with a pride like no other. Being limited on how we are allowed to share that knowledge I think is not torture, it is obedience. I hope I haven’t made too many people upset, I read this blog often, I have twin baby girls, and I don’t want to “oppress” them or steer them wrong. It just seems much more a matter of giving in to him and working in his plan using his gifts, his way.