Analysis of What is Happening with the Ordination of Women Pastors

[Gerr]

I need not remind you that Caleb & Joshua did not go in on their own.

[olger]

I need not remind you that Caleb & Joshua did not go in on their own.

Zing

G

[Tom Wetmore]

I need not remind you that Caleb & Joshua did not go in on their own.

Kind of missing the point though...

They were forced to suffer along with those who succumbed to the fate of group think. A whole generation perished as a result of mistaken group think and an unwillingness to listen to and follow those who took the contrarian view from the majority.

But they were the only ones allowed to finally go in to the promised land. And Joshua was made the leader of the next generation that did go into the promised land.

[CoAspen]

And that is the point. They showed true courage and were willing to demonstrate their belief.

The rest of the story is not about the exact events but about the individuals and their reasons for choosing to look ahead and what God would be doing for them. I see the journey from Canaan to the promised land as one of growth and learning to trust in God. They were given an opportunity to show what they had learned but choose to go back into the wilderness. What lessons have I learned in my experience? What lessons has Gods church learned? What lessons has the .org learned?

[Gerr]

Originally Posted By: Gerry Cabalo

I need not remind you that Caleb & Joshua did not go in on their own.

Kind of missing the point though...

They were forced to suffer along with those who succumbed to the fate of group think. A whole generation perished as a result of mistaken group think and an unwillingness to listen to and follow those who took the contrarian view from the majority.

But did they go in on their own? There is a price for unity. Joshua & Caleb were humble enough to submit to the will of the majority.

Quote:

But they were the only ones allowed to finally go in to the promised land. And Joshua was made the leader of the next generation that did go into the promised land.

When God wills something, it WILL happen, but not by human machinations. Abraham & Sarah tried to help God bring about His will. Look at the messy outcome. If you believe that God is still working with His Church, then He WILL make it happen if WO is His will without the division that CUC & SECC are causing.

[Johann]

Last week the Norwegian Union voted to make it possible for their ordained male pastors to ask the Union Secretary to request a transfer to the status of commissioned ministers. This would make male and female pastors be equal for the time being until the General Conference gets down to business to follow Scripture and ordain women into the ministry. At the same meeting it was also voted to translate a book written by a former president of the Yugoslavian Union, Priestly Ministry in the Old and the New Testament: Should Women be Ordained? (2012) by John Lorencin translated into Norwegian and sent to all members in this country.

The purpose is to let all Adventist in Norway know that ordaining women for the ministry is fully in accordance with Scripture, and be prepared to grant a full ordination to their female pastors latest by the end of 2015.

John Lorencin served as a Union President of Yugoslavia when he was fully convinced that women should not be ordained in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. At his retirement he decided to study the question in his Bible, and then he came to the conclusion that his former conviction was shaped by the influence of the Roman Catholic Church, the Orthodox, and the Muslims, the three dominant religious bodies in his country, and had nothing to do with Scripture.

[olger]

Not Scriptural, Johann.

Blessings to you.

Thought you'd like this - http://www.arenspub.com/317.html

G

[Johann]

Have you read John Lorencin's book? He shared your convictions before he took the time to study the Scriptures.

Is that you standing on that Pulpit? I lived in that area for 3 years but never had the time to go there. Too busy preaching.

[olger]

`tis I.

G

[Johann]

This discussion does not take into consideration that the General Conference has already issued the 2010 edition of the Church Manual which authorizes divisions to approve of Commissioned ministers being ordained. This ordination qualifies men and women to perform all of the duties of an ordained minister with the exception of organizing new churches and serving as president. And it is only valid in the local church where the commissioned minister has been assigned to by the local conference.

You may have noticed that some of the ministers who were approved by the "rebellious" unions were not ordained, but just given another title. This was because their former ordination, which has been approved by the General Conference, is regarded as the same ordination as given to a regular minister.

[Johann]

This small booklet is now available to download. It was written by a former union president who fought against the ordination of women at General Conference Sessions.

http://www.priestlyministry.com/uploads/Priestly_Ministry_FINAL.pdf

[Johann]

A report of the first seesion of the study committee is now available:

http://news.adventist.org/archive/articl...s-first-session

The discussions were stopped on the second day for prayer

[Johann]

Not Scriptural, Johann.

Blessings to you.

G

There ain't nobody yet who can explain to me why this ain't Scriptural.

More than a hundred years back Ellen White told us clearly while she served in Australia that women should be ordained to do soul winning work in the homes. Battle Creek ignored her words, and nobody is concerned about it yet. What does it take to make people wake up and following the counsel given us in the past? Even a devoted person like you still claim that the Spirit of Prophecy is not scriptural. How far have we gone?

[olger]

Momma said "Don't say ain't."

Is male headship scriptural?

[Johann]

Momma said "Don't say ain't."

Is male headship scriptural?

I had to catch your attention - give you the opportunity to tell me that!

It seems evident that the male headship doctrine was an invention by Sam Bacchiocchi who received a gold medal from the pope himself. He had to give the pope something back for that medal.You may recall that Sam also taught - at least in some of his epistles - that we should celebrate the old Jewish holidays as well as the Sabbath. I suppose that was his desperate attempt to justify the old Jewish Aaronic priesthood as a model for our church and doctrines and his unbiblical doctrine of male headship.

Olger, I attended Emmanuel Missionary College and the Adventist Theological Seminary 1952-1958, and I never heard any of our devoted Bible teachers teach that old pagan doctrine of male headship or tried to find Biblical texts to justify it. That is a modern invention.

Back in those days our Bible teachers had full confidence in the Spirit of Prophecy through Ellen G White. Never would they undermine her qualifications by introducing such modern and strange notions as the male headship, a Catholic/pagan invention.

Proud modern minds do not need the Spirit of Prophecy as much to satisfy the modern scientific thinking as we did 60 years ago. It was my privilege in my youth to talk to several people who had known Ellen as a personal friend and stayed in her home. Those people are not alive any more, and now the smart youth need a substitute and find it in that male headship notion coined by Sam Bacchiocchi and his disciples who have had such great influence in our church today. Saints with the wrong notions are a greater threat to us than atheism. Especially if they are given the opportunity of clapping themselves on the shoulder with the delusion that they are the conservative saints among us.

Olger, am I catching your attention? Pray about it.

[Tom Wetmore]

Momma said "Don't say ain't."

Is male headship scriptural?

Not as you are using it. In the context of the Church, Christ, and Christ alone, headship is scriptural. One head. Not every man. Multi-headed entities are also spoken of in Scripture. But that is not a God ordained thing.

[olger]

Oh really.

"But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God" (1 Cor 11).

[Johann]

Paul had a number of female coworkers playing leading roles in the church. In the same letter, 1 Corinthians 16:16 he tells the church members "submit yourselves unto such, and to every one that helpeth with us, and laboreth."

[Tom Wetmore]

Read about the headship of Christ in Ephesians 5 and understand what it really means.

[Johann]

The context and Greek wording of 1 Cor. 11:3 suggests this rendering: "But I would have you know, that the head of every person is Christ; and the head of the wife is the husband; and the head of Christ is God." Compare this with Eph. 5 and 1 Peter chapters 3 and 5.

[debbym]

Quote:

Poster: olger

For instance, I know of one executive member who attended PUC in full support of WO, and was so turned off by the proud spirit he saw there, that he left anti-WO--for the first time in his life. I like those kind of stories-they have a unique power to them.

a spirit of pride can in be any company of believers, fully ordained males or not. This is a test of Character. What Characteristics do we assume when we believe other members are in error. When we see error do we just get turned off and walk away? Was it the woman leadership that was displeasing or was it the pride, were they really synonymous? Does women's ordination equal pride?

If he was judging them to have a spirit of pride, doesn't that mean he was full of pride? If he felt the Spirit was directing his discernment, did he go one on one to those he felt were over taken in a fault and pray with them to restore them?

the Scripture says judge not lest you be judged.

i personally have felt i have encountered female pastors who may or may not have been ordained as essentially utterly unhelpful, and the same for ordained male pastors. I just don't think male or females have any monopoly on being out of tune with the Spirit and useless.

Ordination does not confer any special powers or assurance that the person will be faithful or above their flesh. It is about money and power. If you are ordained you will have bigger churches, and be able to work in any conference in the world and have an increase in pay. It is promotion in your career. Pastors were supposed to be the coaches training and sending out the members to labor. There was not to be an elite club who have power and authority to tell us what to believe.

i don't know if the SDA church is completely clean in the area of equal pay between men and women for equal work.

I know historically there was SOP guidance to start paying women who labored spiritually with their ordained husbands. Otherwise it would not have been brought to anyone's attention.

I am undecided on WO.

debbym

[Live4Him]

Johann i would be interested to know your thoughts on these verses.

Quote:

1Ti 2:11 Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection.

1Ti 2:12 But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.

1Ti 2:13 For Adam was first formed, then Eve.

1Ti 2:14 And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.

[Johann]

Johann i would be interested to know your thoughts on these verses.

Quote:

1Ti 2:11 Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection.

1Ti 2:12 But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.

1Ti 2:13 For Adam was first formed, then Eve.

1Ti 2:14 And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.

A good question. These verses are just as vivid on my Bible as in yours.

1. It so happens that I belong to a church which claims to have received the Spirit of Prophecy through the services of Ellen G. White. At one time she was supposed to preach at a meeting. I think it was at the beginning of the meeting that someone distributed slips of paper with reference to texts like that. These slips stated that according to the Bible a woman should not be preaching. A male companion of Ellen stood up and explained the meaning of these texts. After that Ellen could speak freely to the audience.

Ellen told her brother about this experience in a letter she wrote to him. We still have her letter, but she does not tell how her companion explained the texts. I have full confidence in her and therefore I do not permit any doubts to trouble my mind.

But I do know that when young king James gave a number of his theologians the task of making a new edition of the English Bible he instructed them not to make the wording of the new edition contradict the present doctrines of the Church of England, especially when it concerned the priesthood.

That Bible has really been a great blessing because it brought the Gospel of Jesus Christ to many people who would otherwise never have heard it. But the enemy of all truth has made well use of these small discrepancies. He could have foreseen that as 1844 was approaching a female prophet could be called by God, so he sent many of his wolves in sheep's clothing out to disturb people and get them to refuse to hear the messages of this prophet. And these wolves are still at work trying to diminish her words to the church. He still hates to read in her writings that women should be ordained and sent out into the homes of people with the Gospel. Just watch and see how many opponents will try to deny the truth that I am giving to you.

Have faith, my dear friend, in the message from God Himself, regardless if it is brought to you through a male or female servant.

2. I'd take a look also at the following chapter, verse 11, which is a strong indication Paul is giving these messages to and about women as well. The Church of England advocates want you to think this verse only applies to the wives, but the words of Paul himself makes it clear that he is also giving the same admonition to the women who are appointed to the same services as men in the church.

3. Pray about it. Let the Holy Spirit be you guide as you read the WORD for yourself.

[Stan]

so this means the women should not even be school teachers? Sabbath School teachers? University teachers?

[Johann]

so this means the women should not even be school teachers? Sabbath School teachers? University teachers?

Stan, that depends on your hermeneutics (method of interpreting Scripture). News from the first meeting of the General Conference Study Committee indicates that this was one of the first questions discussed. News indicate that Doug Batchelor and Stephen Bohr, both members of the committee, are both worrying as they discover they are winning souls to a church that is using different hermeneutics than they are. A difficult obstacle on the way to unity, but with prayer and willingness to let the Holy Spirit guide, nothing is impossible.

Pray for these people,