When Church leaders fail us...

[LifeHiscost]

2 hours ago, rudywoofs (Pam) said:

that is one of the saddest, truest statements I've read in a long time....

  they ask themselves, “what is it I can get here [in the church] that the world doesn't offer?” and the answer is, “nothing”    

Just recently I was financially strapped when I accidentally spilled a glass of water over the top of my PC. It pretty much destroyed its' usefulness for any internet activity and since I hadn't any capacity for getting another, one of the sisters in Christ in the body of believers where my wife and I worship when she's able to function outside of the home, without any prompting other than her own sense of responsibility for the position of SS secretary, she arranged to acquire for us a refurbished laptop, of which it's the only one of the more recent reasons I am able to dispute wholeheartedly that sad misconception of belonging to the church body of Christ belonging to our church.

OTOH since God told us in His Word, "As a man sows, so also shall he reap. we didn't receive the very welcome gift in a vacuum.\, to God be the glory.

God is Love!~Jesus saves!   

 

 

[rudywoofs (Pam)]

1 hour ago, CoAspen said:

Pam, could you explain a little more? This time I am the one not sure of what you are saying!

Joeb was saying (I think) that there isn't anything in the church nowadays that can't be gotten outside of the church.  The church has become a means for displaying "correct" behavior and ideas on the one hand, and complacent minimalizing behavior on the other.  I don't think it's offered Spirit-filled fellowship and interaction for decades and decades and decades, if indeed it ever has.  Yes, there's some "feel good" congregations, with all the soft fuzzies.  But is that preparing anyone for the 2nd coming?  Is it?  Really?  .... not much.

The church isn't offering people, members nor nonmembers, *hope*.  Oh yes, a watered down hope is offered by platitudes that all Christian churches spout from the pulpit.  But people need to understand that the Hope in Christ is REAL.   Hope that this present life isn't all there is.  Hope that suffering will end with something great and spectacular beyond that.  Hope that the futility that haunts so many people's lives isn't an end to to all ends.  

And it's not just the poor or sick who need the Hope.  The church is not "grabbing" those with apparent prosperous and successful lives and showing them that the church has something to offer *them*.... 

I think God brought about the Seventh-day Adventist church as a vehicle to show the world what the early Christian church was like... how Christians were supposed to behave towards one another and towards God.  But look what it's become:  the church is now known for its infighting on something as ridiculous (yes, I said *ridiculous*) as to whether women should be ordained.  What a colossal waste of time, money, and energy.  And Satan is just absolutely delighted with the whole affair.  What better way to keep the Light of Hope away from people than by placing in the minds of the church membership a counterfeit "church issue" to contend with.  Yeah...Satan's just delighted.  The Adventist Church has lost its way.

I sometimes just want to get up on a soapbox and tell the church exactly what I think.

 

[CoAspen]

Agree, but I do know that there are some churches doing what is needed. I believe our local church is doing just that. But overall, you do have a point as I often feel the same...mostly about the corporate church. I see the local churches carrying the burden with out the funding. 

Quote

 But people need to understand that the Hope in Christ is REAL.   Hope that this present life isn't all there is.  Hope that suffering will end with something great and spectacular beyond that.  Hope that the futility that haunts so many people's lives isn't an end to to all ends.  

The following story, I wonder, may be an illustration of your point. Politics, ordination, etc are meaningless when such tragedys are a daily occurrence everywhere.

http://www.9news.com/news/local/missing-mom-2-kids-found-dead/359220312

[rudywoofs (Pam)]

I think there are local churches where the constituency really does try to be a "light" in the community.

[debbym]

20 hours ago, joeb said:

It is claimed that we need to understand the “historical context” of what Paul said about men being the only ones to hold the
offices of ecclesiatical authority in the church. It's claimed that this “historical context” completely negates a block of 22
consecutive verses in length to the point to accept this block of scripture as it is written is to reject solid Biblical analysis.
What. Utter. Sophistry.

 

I have been on the fence about WO as I have seen it as a tempest in a teapot the entire time it's been being agitated for, but the
use of such sophistry as I have seen on this thread has made me plant my feet firmly on the side of God on this issue. When
someone starts using sophistry in attempts to “win” a debate I know from where that side is getting its motivation and agenda.
There is only one ultimate source of sophistry and he is the father of all lies.

 

 

 

Joeb,

i am sorry but i am not debating here on CA.  i don't think Paul was in any argument as he was writing his letters either.

that is a different format.

just speaking from the heart is not going to pass for legal argument or pure logic.  If it seems my logic is deceptive or subtle and in error, if you are reading me critically  i suspect it is because you are not hearing my conviction or my heart.  Intuitive communication is influenced by the right brain and  it does not mean it it has no validity, it just may not bear all the markers a more critical thinker may look for.

 

 

[CoAspen]

Pam,

The quote I took from your post, I believe, is worthy of its own thread. In light of all the constant back and forth we have going on over various religious topic, a topic about hope, what it is, what it does for people, etc is much needed. Not only by 'believers' but others as well. If a person doesn't have hope, what does all the theology, whatever that may include, will be of no value.

Suggesting you start one....?

[Kevin H]

On ‎12‎/‎2‎/‎2016 at 11:24 PM, jackson said:

. 

We have inspired counsel from both the SOP and the Bible that we accept no doctrine or precept that does not confirm to the word of God. The people of Berea were considered noble for doing just that. Do you think this adherence to scripture is now outdated?

 

 

Of course not. What I'm worried about is that we are reading the words of the Bible but too many read their own ideas and traditions. For example the idea that Paul saw the law as done away with that is so popular in churches who call their interpretation "Plain reading" But over the last couple of decades scholars realized that their "plain reading of Paul" was reading into Paul's words the ideas of the church/synagogue split of 135 AD, St. Augustine and the Reformation theologians. When they try to strip that away and read Paul in the context of his day and what the words he used was used in other contexts in his day they come to see him as keeping God's law, see Paul as keeping the Sabbath and eating Kosher. Yes, they debate whether he expected Gentile to keep these, but that he clearly expected Jews, even when accepting Christ to remain Sabbath keepers and to keep Kosher. And while they debate whether he expected gentiles to keep them, they clearly see him as seeing the Sabbath as special and Paul at least inviting Gentiles to enjoy the Sabbath, but for them to realize that the Sabbath is the Sabbath, and that the arguments that the popular churches use against the Sabbath are incorrect. They also recognize that Paul did not see an immortal soul but that the dead sleep in schoal until the resurrection.

People don't realize how much they are reading into the words of the Bible rather than reading what the Bible is trying to teach us.

My complaint about the anti women's ordination people is that they are reading ideas into the words of Paul and their other proof texts,  just as much as the "Paul said the law was done away with thus keeping Sabbath is a work, and Paul said that when we are absent from the body we are present with the Lord." The are not in adherence to the scriptures and I am pushing for adherence to the scriptures, not to traditions that we read into the scriptures.

Our church is based on scholarly study of the scriptures. While I need to study this more, apparently most of our doctrines and understandings of the Bible started with Athanasius of Alexandria. But then the church got away from that as St. Augustine's views, especially of Revelation became popular. Then came Joachim of Fiore. Many Christians believed that Joachim of Fiore was a true prophet of God. This was especially true of the Franciscans who would study the Bible in light of what the leaned from Joachim of Fiore. While the Reformers followed Joachim of Fiore, they tended to read him through the eyes of Augustine. But the Franciscans went a different direction which entered Protestantism in the Adventist movement of the 1700s (Sir. Isaac Newton belonged to this group.) and lead to a series of Bible conferences by the leading scholars of this evolution of thought in the end of the 1700s and early 1800s, the powers court conferences.

There was an infidel in New England who was using his "Plain reading" of the Bible to be an unbeliever. He use to embarrass religious people with his arguments. But then a minister challenged him that his "plain reading" was not what the Bible was really teaching. So he began to read the Bible but with the information that evolved through the Franciscans' study of Joachim of Fiore, the advent movement of the 1700s and the great scholars of this movement meeting and discussing at the Powers court conferences. This completely changed this infidel into a believer. His name was William Miller.

And we have to remember that when the Powers court conferences took place, Robinson had not yet explored the holy land to open the door to Archaeology and the rediscovery of the ancient world. What I am advocating is to not follow the approach of the Jehovah's Witnesses, hyperfundamentalist evangelicals and William Miller before he decided to challenge his "plain reading" with the information presented in the Powers court conferences.  Since the mid 1800s (interesting time period) we have more information available to us. I believe that we are doing the same METHOD as the Franciscans and the Powers court conferences and of course William Miller, only with more information than they had available. The methodology does not change. It is NOT " interpreted through the lens of a new enlightened hermeneutics" No no, it is the same OLD hermeneutics. Exegesis is only trying to be even more fair to these same old hermeneutics. It is to see where we are reading tradition or other ideas into the words of scripture so that we can remove from our eyes the glasses that we filter the words of scripture through, into back to the words of scripture and getting to the meaning of those words instead of reading them through filters that filer out their meaning and filter into the words of scripture other ideas that we end up thinking that the Bible is teaching.  

[Gregory Matthews]

Was Cruden's Concordance  really available to William Miller?  Yes!  Cruden's Concordance was first published in 1737!  Who knows if Millar actually used it.?  But, He could  have. 

 

[Kevin H]

I noticed that it said Newton and Faber... (Now I am not familiar with Faber. I just tried googling and got a Frederick William Faber who does not sound like he would have been the one mentioned. ) But Newton was a part of the Advent movement in England that became a Protestant version of the beliefs that developed among the Franciscans' application of Joachim of Flore's studies and thoughts, and that developed into the Powers court conferences. This was the thread that developed our Daniel and Revelation Seminars.  Newton is the connection I was talking about above to this scholarly trend. They were focused on the historical understandings.

How do you get from the Bible and the Bible only how do you get 457 BC as the starting date of the 2300 days?  (Now an interesting point, most of those histories were lucky if they could pick a date in the same century that it actually occurred in. However they were correct in 457 BC.

What is sad is that after the Powers court conferences the churches left this trend and split either into Modernists/Preterists or Fundamentalists/ Dispensationalists. It is only Seventh-day Adventists who continue this trend. This is one reason why we are the "remnant church." (Joachim of Flore, his students among the Franciscans, and people in the advent movement that included Isaac Newton and the scholars of the Powers court conferences would find themselves VERY comfortable in a Seventh-day Adventist church.)

But we see in Miller's work just what I'm advocating: The Bible for reading the Bible. Cruden's concordance shows that Miller wanted to study what the words of the Bible meant and not just take a superficial reading using his imagination to interpret the text, like how a number of the Anti Women-ordination people like to read their ideas into the words of the text and fear an honest study of these texts like the plague.   but to take the best material that he had available to him to try to understand the words of scripture as best he could. And we find him turning to people like Newton, the historians who try to learn the historical context of the Bible so that he knew to start the 2300 days in the year 457 BC.

Today we should follow these exact same methods. We only have better material to work with due to the rediscovery of the ancient world

[Kevin H]

On ‎12‎/‎11‎/‎2016 at 1:03 AM, jackson said:

 

Please, Kevin, give me scriptural evidence that I should not take Jesus' command to Paul regarding the qualifications for elder and deacon just as it reads. If Paul meant something other than what is written, surely you will find other verses that make his statements more understandable.

 

Well, for starters Paul uses those titles for women in the book of Romans. The anti-ordination people spend a lot of time trying to explain away those texts. Second it has been pointed out many times that 1 Timothy3:2, which has been translated with the translator's bias as "The husband of one wife" but that the actual Greek simply says "One man/women" meaning simply monogamist relationship not assigning the sex of the Bishop but only that the Bishop and spouse needs to be in a monogamist relationship.

The anti-ordination people do a lot of their own tap dancing around the texts they don't like, so you can't just blame us.

Also, in their "plain reading" of the text, it would exclude the work of Mrs. White. They have to tap dance around these texts too by saying that a women can do everything that Paul apparently tells them not to do just as long as they are not ordained. And that a prophet has no authority only God does therefore a women can be a prophet because she does not have authority. When you have to go to these acrobatics to defend your view (and hold to Mrs. White too) that makes as much sense as the Sunday keeper who says that the New Testament does away with the law, the whole law, then replaces 9 of the 10.  

[Gail]

11 hours ago, Kevin H said:

... just what I'm advocating: The Bible for reading the Bible. Cruden's concordance shows that Miller wanted to study what the words of the Bible meant and not just take a superficial reading using his imagination to interpret the text, like how a number of the Anti Women-ordination people like to read their ideas into the words of the text and fear an honest study of these texts like the plague.

A pastor I now explains it like this: isogesis vs exogesis. He sees it as the reason for all confusion.

[Gail]

Thanks, Wanderer. Spelling with half a brain today

[joeb]

I have been suspicious of Kevin's “new scholarship” claims as he has never pointed to what this “new scholarship” is, or where it comes from. I have found the answers to that though, and I am going to point out what I have found.

Kevin has claimed again and again that the passage from 1Timothy 2 and 3 could not be trusted. He further said that “new scholarship” has shown that there was “translator bias” responsible for obscuring what Paul really meant to say. So, I started looking at different translations. I started out with 10 and not a single translation differed from the King James. I thought that a little suspicous as if bias occured surely other translators had seen this and put this supposed ambiguity found in the Greek into their translation. So, I expanded my search to 32 translations. Not a single one differed from what the King James says. This was making me really curious by this time so I expanded my search to all 55 Bible translations I have access to. I finally found 1 translation that said what Kevin has been alleging. He wants us to ignore the 54 translations that agree, and go with the single translation that disagrees. Huh? Can he be for real?

This Bible is called the “Open Bible” and was published in 2011. So, I did some research into this translation: who started it, who was involved in the translation team, what their purpose was in creating a new translation, etc... What I found is pretty interesting.

The project is not a translation as such. It uses as its basis a translation called the “Twentieth Century New Testament” based on the Wescott-Hort Greek manuscripts, which anyone who has paid any attention Bible translations knows has problems. 

What was the goal of this translation team? It was to create an ideologically driven translation to support the political agenda of the “council” created to guide this process. In other words, it was created to fulfill an agenda, not to follow truth wherever it led. This means there were many presuppositions put in place before the process started. 

The leader, and originator of the project is a guy named Hal Taussig. Who is this man? He is a founding member of the Jesus Seminar, a project dedicated to debunking the Bible. This project denies the virgin birth of Christ. It denies his resurrection. (The founder says Christ's body was buried and dug up and eaten by dogs.)It denies that miracles are real. It denies that Divine inspiration exists. It has it's own color-coded Bible that marks the the sayings of Jesus in the Gospels with color according to how they have classified Christ's sayings. It has 5 classes ranging from Jesus most likely or did say what the Bible says, to Jesus could not have said it. Only 20% of the sayings of Jesus are marked as very likely to have been said by Jesus. 

One of their reasonings, I should say, presuppostions, is that since miracles cannot occur Jesus could never have said anything that took place during the performance of His miracles. Thus most of His sayings have to be false. The leader of the project says Jesus was a Jewish stand-up comic.

This keeps on going and I will provide a link at the end of this that shows all of this, but I think it's very clear by this time that this so-called “scholarship” is of Satanic origin for it denies the divinity of Christ when it denies the virgin birth, denies the originator of the Bible, denies it's divine inspiration, etc.... 

This is Kevin's claim to be using “new scholarship”. The results of this so-called “scholarship” is utter blasphemy and nothing but sophistry straight from the devil. However, this is not “new”. It's been around for 250-300 years. It rose out of the French Revolution, which was at war with God, and then spread to the leadership of the German Lutheran church who embraced this philosophy fully and implemented into their church. The philosophy is called Rationalism and I will give a short summation of what the proponents of this so-called scholarship held forth. They denied miracles. They denied the virgin birth of Christ. They denied His resurrection. They denied that Divine inspiration exists. As an example of their reasoning the inspiration of Isaiah was said to be no 
different than the inspiration of Homer, although Homer was given higher marks because he wrote in Greek rather than in Hebrew.

Once again this is clearly of Satanic origin for it denies the divinity of Christ as well as the possibility of there being such a thing as Divine inspiration. For a peek at where this led the Lutheran church in Germany read Eric Metaxas' book on Deitrich Bonhoeffer. In his day, pre-World War 2, the leading Luthern theologians denied the existence of God. 

Now, to claim that the pioneers of the SDA church were involved in this is patently false. Rationalism is the reason the Loud Cry was met with so much hatred, scorn, and mockery. The pioneers of the church were called too “ignorant” to understand Rationalism. Sounds just like the cries I hear today.

Ellen White said we are to study the writings of the pioneers of the church to see how they handled all the error and sophistry they had to deal with so that we could understand what we would face in what was at Ellen White's day, the future. Well, the future is now. We see all the same sophistry being repeated all over again. 

For documentation of what I said about Rationalism you can download a booklet written by a Millerite named N.N. Whiting. He started out as a member of the Dutch Reformed Church, then became a Baptist. He was a well-educated man who was known for his skills as a linguist. The book is titled “Origin, Nature, and Influence of Neology”. You can download it from adventpioneerbooks.com, as well as quite a number of other early SDA/Millerite authors including William Miller, J.N. Andrews, John Loughborough, E.J. Waggoner, A.T. Jones, James White, etc.... It's a very good, and eyeopening read.

Here is the link to the expose on the Jesus Seminar, although what they have said over the years is public knowledge for I can remember hearing news blurbs about what they had to say as the press has faithfully reported a lot of their nonsense.

http://www.christiananswers.net/q-eden/edn-t017.html

[Kevin H]

Joeb: I point out that my study has been in Biblical history from those sinful schools of Atlantic Union College, The Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary, Andrews University, and the Jerusalem Center for Biblical Studies.

My studies in the languages have much to be desired.

However the translation I pointed out is what our Seventh-day Adventist leaders from Andrews University has pointed out about the text in some of the discussions and studies that the Seventh-day Adventist church has done in looking at the topic. Since this reflects comments from Seventh-day Adventist leaders who side on both sides of this issue, I thought it would be safe to share. I'm just the messenger.

[Kevin H]

Just found this on facebook, hope you find it useful!

 

[Gregory Matthews]

Joeb, my thinking is that you have misrepsented what Kevin has actually said.

However, I will leave it to Kevin as to what he says about this as I may be wrong.

[Kevin H]

Joeb: Sadly after the Powerscourt conferences Biblical Scholarship split into two directions; the Modernists/Peterists who believed that the Bible is only from natural origin, and only dealt with current events, maybe projecting those current events into the past and made up a history that they believe never happened. They do not believe in miracles or a personal/active God and often are atheists. This is where the "Jesus Seminars" and "Reason" that Joeb is falsely accusing me and our Seventh-day Adventist colleges of teaching.  Joeb you are trying to force all scholarship into this category and thus you can simply dismiss what I share here.

The other direction it went has been into the Fundamentalists/Dispensationalists, which was a reaction to the above but gets into the other ditch. Sadly this one has crept into our church despite Mrs. White, Willie White, A. G. Daniels, W.W. Prescott and others have been fighting it.

Our schools try to carry on the tradition of the Powerscourt conference which with Millerism was the last high point of Historisim. I do not claim any type of "New Scholarship" thus you are LYING about me. What we have are new discoveries about the ancient world where we have a better understanding of culture, geography, language. These discoveries do not need to be filtered through" the Wescott-Hort Greek manuscripts" or "Open Bible" or "Rationalism" etc. I know that we do sometimes have our professors who get a little too mixed with Modernism/Preterism and even more common get a little too mixed with "Fundamentalism" even though we tend to do a good job of avoiding "dispensationalism" But our professors and schools do try to build on the  work of the historisists scholars before us. It is the same scholarship that you can read about in the articles of the Seventh-day Adventist Bible commentary, only with information that was not yet known when the commentary was written, but the methods used in the SDABC.

Joeb, I'm sorry but you owe me and our Seventh=day Adventist schools an apology and you really should pray and ask God to forgive you of giving false witness against us.

 

[Donato]

On 5-10-2016 at 7:26 PM, Stan said:

It would be a huge thing to me if this was not a trivial item, and I know calling it trivial will seem insulting to some, but it is not.

 

So a conference thinks that women should be able to organize and close Churches.  that is about the only difference between a Commission Pastor and an Ordained...  for that they are willing to risk splitting the Church

 

I say leave the Unions and Conferences alone, if they grow than good, if they fail to grow the mission of the Church then they need to re evaluate. The proof will be in the pudding.

 

Not difficult to me.

Jehova Witnesses are growing ; says nothing.to me.

[LifeHiscost]

36 minutes ago, jackson said:

Kevin, context is to be observed here. You are flagrantly omitting it in your example.

Paul said: 

But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. Notwithstanding she shall be saved in child-bearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety (1 Timothy 2: 12– 15).

There is no gender neutrality in these verses for Paul is quite clear in contrasting the roles of women and men.

Now we go to the two verse that immediately follow and read:

This [is] a true saying, If a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work.  A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach; 1 Tim 3:1-2

Taking the context of Paul's discourse here, why in the world would anyone claim that that the noun gender in the last two verses is more neutral than the first 3 verses?

Surely you must other verses more worthy of serious consideration

…3The sons of Israel cried to the LORD; for he had nine hundred iron chariots, and he oppressed the sons of Israel severely for twenty years. 4Now Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lappidoth, was judging Israel at that time. 5She used to sit under the palm tree of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim; and the sons of Israel came up to her for judgment.… Judges 4

This verse might give some clarification to God's willingness to ordain who He is willing to ordain for use in ministering.     

[Kevin H]

Just found this on facebook, hope you find it useful!

 

[Kevin H]

Sorry for the repost. for some reason it would not let me add a new post without first reposting that video. But I do hope you find it useful.

Anyway, as we are remembering the birth of Jesus during this season, we find that Shepherds came to him when he was born. Did you know that in the middle east Shepherds were 70% to 80% women?

[Kevin H]

3 hours ago, jackson said:

Kevin, context is to be observed here. You are flagrantly omitting it in your example.

Paul said: 

But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. Notwithstanding she shall be saved in child-bearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety (1 Timothy 2: 12– 15).

There is no gender neutrality in these verses for Paul is quite clear in contrasting the roles of women and men.

Now we go to the two verse that immediately follow and read:

This [is] a true saying, If a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work.  A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach; 1 Tim 3:1-2

Taking the context of Paul's discourse here, why in the world would anyone claim that that the noun gender in the last two verses is more neutral than the first 3 verses?

Surely you must other verses more worthy of serious consideration

Jackson, as I've repeated over and over, my study has been in the history and geography of the Bible. My language study has much to be desired. You are asking questions that those with better language skills than I have can deal with. I know that they have dealt with them. I have shared with you some of what I have been reading on what they point out. But again that is sharing what others have been pointing out. I think that I will talk about different historical events and cultural events where it appears that Paul is not practicing what he is apparently preaching in these verses. And since linguists show different possibilities for understanding these texts where Paul's actions would not be in contradiction, I tend to lean towards the language understanding that is in harmony with Paul's and Jesus' and Adventist Pioneer's actions and not where Paul does not practice what he preaches, and Jesus and our pioneers actions contradict.

[Enabled]

On November 30, 2016 at 9:55 PM, rudywoofs (Pam) said:

Joeb was saying (I think) that there isn't anything in the church nowadays that can't be gotten outside of the church.  The church has become a means for displaying "correct" behavior and ideas on the one hand, and complacent minimalizing behavior on the other.  I don't think it's offered Spirit-filled fellowship and interaction for decades and decades and decades, if indeed it ever has.  Yes, there's some "feel good" congregations, with all the soft fuzzies.  But is that preparing anyone for the 2nd coming?  Is it?  Really?  .... not much.

The church isn't offering people, members nor nonmembers, *hope*.  Oh yes, a watered down hope is offered by platitudes that all Christian churches spout from the pulpit.  But people need to understand that the Hope in Christ is REAL.   Hope that this present life isn't all there is.  Hope that suffering will end with something great and spectacular beyond that.  Hope that the futility that haunts so many people's lives isn't an end to to all ends.  

And it's not just the poor or sick who need the Hope.  The church is not "grabbing" those with apparent prosperous and successful lives and showing them that the church has something to offer *them*.... 

I think God brought about the Seventh-day Adventist church as a vehicle to show the world what the early Christian church was like... how Christians were supposed to behave towards one another and towards God.  But look what it's become:  the church is now known for its infighting on something as ridiculous (yes, I said *ridiculous*) as to whether women should be ordained.  What a colossal waste of time, money, and energy.  And Satan is just absolutely delighted with the whole affair.  What better way to keep the Light of Hope away from people than by placing in the minds of the church membership a counterfeit "church issue" to contend with.  Yeah...Satan's just delighted.  The Adventist Church has lost its way.

I sometimes just want to get up on a soapbox and tell the church exactly what I think.

 

Just reviewing what Pam said above (again) in response to Joeb: May I posit that the soap box is the Word and that it is no three legged stool but a rock that will never fail. I have delivered a few sermons on the like matter in the past years, half the church shook my hand, half berated me for making people uncomfortable but both groups do nothing about it in general.  and the Virgins continue to sleep.

 

[Kevin H]

Wanderer:  Just how many people do you find being ordained in the Bible? 

Maybe you might say that there was the laying on of hands of Barnabas and Saul. So does this mean that no other disciples were ordained? If you want to include the disciples as being ordained then you need to be open to all 82 disciples being ordained and the possibility that there were women in that group. You will have to explain away the controversy in Jesus' day about women rabbis and why Jesus allowed Mary to sit were only rabbis and rabbinical students were allowed to sit instead of making her stand with the other lay members, or join Martha in her protest against women rabbis.

As for Deborah, she was NOT just a prophet but she was a Judge. The book of Judges has 12 stories of Judges, one from each tribe and one anti-judge.  We know from Samuel that these were not the only 12 judges and the time of the judges do not add up for a nice string between Joshua and Saul.  The book is simply where a story was written about just one Judge from each tribe.  Until the Samuel Compromise the Judges combined the office of prophet (or more technical, seer), priest and king. When the people wanted a king, then Samuel separated the 3 offices where a King was never to be a priest or do any priestly functions.

It is only in Jesus where we again find the role of Judge where Prophet, Priest and King are again united.

[Kevin H]

“Many have felt, ‘Well, it doesn’t matter if we are not so particular to become thoroughly educated,’ and a lower standard of knowledge has been accepted. And now when suitable men are wanted to fill various positions of trust, they are rare; when women are wanted with well-balanced minds, with not a cheap style of education, but with an education fitting them for any position of trust, they are not easily found.” Fundamentals of Christian Education, 118.