Pacific Union Info on WO...

[Tom Wetmore]

On a very pragmatic level, if all else is equal, what is it about a man that makes them more capable to serve the church in ministry of any sort?  Or viewed from the opposite direction, what is it about women that would make them less capable?  And for whatever factor that might be, at what point would the male advantage or superiority of that factor be such that it would override a better qualified female in all other respects?  These questions do assume a normal range of variability among all men and all women on all factors common to both.  

To put it bluntly, what is about all men that is better than all women as it relates to serving the church?

[Rossw]

53 minutes ago, Tom Wetmore said:

  To put it bluntly, what is about all men that is better than all women as it relates to serving the church?

Is it really up to us? God is the authority not us.

How a man spiritually runs his family is a great determining factor in whether they are qualified to run a church. Why would we as a society ask the woman to put church responsibilities in priority over the raising of kids and taking care of the home. It's already bad enough for a woman to have to work outside the home, take care if the kids, and then expect them to run the church?

It seems, to ask if men are equal to women is a question motivated out of the humanist womens lib movement instead of a genuine Biblical question on if women should, not could, be ordained.

To the woman He said,
“I will greatly multiply
Your pain ^[e]in childbirth,
In pain you will bring forth children;
Yet your desire will be for your husband,
And he will rule over you.”

 

[Rossw]

2 hours ago, Gregory Matthews said:

Roosw said below:

I disagree with you.  No, I was not limiting my comment to a man who had fathered a child out of wedlock, and a man with dementia.  I was just illustrating my point that in  many of our small congregations there may, as I said earlier,  no male available who could be considered qualified and/or women were available who were better qualified.

Every example that I gave came from personal knowledge that I have/had.

If you think that I was being absurd, you simply are not aware of the issues that are faced in many small congregations here in the U.S.

 

 

 

It appears you are trying to loop hole your way into WO. Is that in keeping with the Spirit of God intentions expressed through Scripture or are you loop holing your way out of Scripture to get away with WO?

[rudywoofs (Pam)]

20 minutes ago, Rossw said:

How a man spiritually runs his family is a great determining factor in whether they are qualified to run a church.

not all SDA pastors are married...

[Robert]

2 hours ago, Rossw said:

To the woman He said,“I will greatly multiply Your pain in childbirth, In pain you will bring forth children;
Yet your desire will be for your husband, And he will rule over you.”

Did God cause the pain in child birth?  Did God make men the dominant sex to rule over women?  No, both are products of the fall of mankind. God assumes the blame for that which He does not prevent. 

Yes, generally speaking men rule over women because in this world the stronger takes advantage of the weaker.  

Ellen White: "man's abuse of the supremacy thus given him (by the fall of mankind) has too often rendered the lot of woman very bitter, and made her life a burden...Many husbands stop at the words, “Wives, submit yourselves,” but we will read the conclusion of the same injunction, which is. “As it is fit in the Lord.” God requires that the wife shall keep the fear and glory of God ever before her. Entire submission is to be made only to the Lord Jesus Christ, who has purchased her as His own child by the infinite price of His life. God has given her a conscience, which she cannot violate with impunity. Her individuality cannot be merged into that of her husband, for she is the purchase of Christ. It is a mistake to imagine that with blind devotion she is to do exactly as her husband says in all things, when she knows that in so doing, injury would be worked for her body and her spirit, which have been ransomed from the slavery of Satan." [THE ADVENTIST HOME, PAGE  115,116]

[Rossw]

Robert, is the EGW quote in regards to abuse by the man or is it response to the normal, Biblical, to "rule over"?

Are all men who rule over the woman abusive?

 

[Robert]

44 minutes ago, Rossw said:

Robert, is the EGW quote in regards to abuse by the man or is it response to the normal, Biblical, to "rule over"?

Are all men who rule over the woman abusive?

 

How do you define rule?  

[Rossw]

5 minutes ago, Robert said:

How do you define rule?  

I don't.

Word Origin
a prim. root
Definition
to rule, have dominion, reign
NASB Translation
dominion (1), gain control (1), govern (1), had charge (1), have authority (1), master (1), obtain dominion (1), really going to rule (1), rule (27), ruled (5), ruler (18), ruler's (2), rulers (6), rules (9), ruling (3), wielded (1).

http://biblehub.com/hebrew/4910.htm

[Rossw]

2 hours ago, rudywoofs (Pam) said:

not all SDA pastors are married...

Because of divorce?

[Gregory Matthews]

Rossw,  Some SDA pastors have never married.

 

[LifeHiscost]

1 minute ago, Gregory Matthews said:

Rossw,  Some SDA pastors have never married.

 

Other than to Christ.

4Therefore, my brothers, you also died to the Law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God....Romans 7

God is Love!~Jesus saves! 

[Tom Wetmore]

@Rossw - That really doesn't answer the question.

Just as not all pastors are married, not all women are either and many have already raised their children. 

You do realize the passage you quoted was a curse, don't you?  Do we aspire to live by the curse or overcome it?

[Green Cochoa]

7 hours ago, Tom Wetmore said:

On a very pragmatic level, if all else is equal, what is it about a man that makes them more capable to serve the church in ministry of any sort?  Or viewed from the opposite direction, what is it about women that would make them less capable?  And for whatever factor that might be, at what point would the male advantage or superiority of that factor be such that it would override a better qualified female in all other respects?  These questions do assume a normal range of variability among all men and all women on all factors common to both.  

To put it bluntly, what is about all men that is better than all women as it relates to serving the church?

To put it bluntly, you should ask that of God.  For example, according to the Old Testament rules, a Levite who had some birth defect or was otherwise abnormal, even if it were in his "stones" (testicles) where no one would have seen and known it, could not officiate in God's sanctuary.  Why?  The why question may be interesting, but to ask it too strongly is to imply a lack of faith in God's wisdom, and to imply that one knows better than God.  We might see a man who had suffered a harelip, for example, as fully able to perform ministerial work, as much as anyone else--but God demanded that the priests be perfectly whole in body.

Personally, while I think the question is a dangerous one (ultimately it questions God's wisdom and undermines faith in Him), I believe that the answer has to do with symbolism/representation.  God wants us to learn something from the examples given.  Why, for example, should we have such a ritual as the Communion Service?  It is the symbols.  God desires us to think about those symbols, and learn something.  In prophecy, a woman symbolizes a church.  The man/groom symbolizes Christ.  The church, collectively, is called His bride.  Jesus is THE Head of the church, just as a man is the head of his wife and a pastor/elder is the head of his local congregation (symbols again).  Put a woman into that position of headship, and you essentially have modeled the spiritual equivalent of homosexuality/lesbianism (a woman and her bride).  

God has a deep interest in the use of symbols to teach His important lessons.  I believe this is one of the important symbols He has ordained for the church.

[Rossw]

1 hour ago, Tom Wetmore said:

@Rossw - That really doesn't answer the question.

Just as not all pastors are married, not all women are either and many have already raised their children. 

I wanted to know the motivation of the question. 

1 hour ago, Tom Wetmore said:

@Rossw  

You do realize the passage you quoted was a curse, don't you?  Do we aspire to live by the curse or overcome it?

That is the fallen world we live in.

[Tom Wetmore]

Do you see the curse as descriptive or proscriptive?

[Rossw]

2 hours ago, Gregory Matthews said:

Rossw,  Some SDA pastors have never married.

 

Does that follow the Biblical outline set for us by the writings of Paul? Would they be considered a eunuch?

[Green Cochoa]

5 hours ago, rudywoofs (Pam) said:

not all SDA pastors are married...

In the case of elders who have been married, but are presently widowed and single, I see no scriptural cause for alarm.  There is, in scripture, no precedent for removing a man from his eldership, nor any case for it expiring.  In the case of elders who have never been married, the scriptural support for their eldership is ambiguous at best.  It is possibly unscriptural.  It may be construed that having their household under subjection would still be valid in their cases because they managed well what they had--even though they did not have a wife nor children.  Mrs. White seems to have been somewhat lenient on this point herself, and never demanded that elders be married.  Consider Zachariah and his wife Elizabeth.  Though they were childless, he could still officiate.  Many couples have no children for various reasons.  Should the men of such be disqualified from church duties?  If so, neither the Bible nor Mrs. White say so.

[Green Cochoa]

3 minutes ago, Tom Wetmore said:

Do you see the curse as descriptive or proscriptive?

Neither.  Prescriptive, if anything.  It was a "thus saith the LORD."  When God speaks, He can often have double meaning, and His words are filled with symbolic value in addition to their literal/practical application.

[Tom Wetmore]

"The church, collectively, is called His bride.  Jesus is THE Head of the church, just as a man is the head of his wife and a pastor/elder is the head of his local congregation (symbols again).  Put a woman into that position of headship, and you essentially have modeled the spiritual equivalent of homosexuality/lesbianism (a woman and her bride)."

That is some really twisted thinking...

[Green Cochoa]

4 hours ago, Robert said:

Did God cause the pain in child birth?  Did God make men the dominant sex to rule over women?  No, both are products of the fall of mankind. God assumes the blame for that which He does not prevent. 

Yes, generally speaking men rule over women because in this world the stronger takes advantage of the weaker.  

Ellen White: "man's abuse of the supremacy thus given him (by the fall of mankind) has too often rendered the lot of woman very bitter, and made her life a burden...Many husbands stop at the words, “Wives, submit yourselves,” but we will read the conclusion of the same injunction, which is. “As it is fit in the Lord.” God requires that the wife shall keep the fear and glory of God ever before her. Entire submission is to be made only to the Lord Jesus Christ, who has purchased her as His own child by the infinite price of His life. God has given her a conscience, which she cannot violate with impunity. Her individuality cannot be merged into that of her husband, for she is the purchase of Christ. It is a mistake to imagine that with blind devotion she is to do exactly as her husband says in all things, when she knows that in so doing, injury would be worked for her body and her spirit, which have been ransomed from the slavery of Satan." [THE ADVENTIST HOME, PAGE  115,116]

What the above fails to recognize is the phrase "the supremacy thus GIVEN him."  God gave men supremacy over women, not merely predicted they would take it.  There is a big difference between "give" and "take."  The Bible itself supports the fact that the command for woman to be in subjection to man was a Divine edict, not merely a prophecy of what God foresaw in the future.  Yes, men have abused their God-given powers.  The abuse should end, and we could talk about that aspect more.  But to say that the subjection should end would be to challenge God's authority in the matter.

[Green Cochoa]

10 hours ago, Robert said:

Not to get off the subject, but let me give an example:

1. You can have a person keeping the 7th-day Sabbath in order to be saved.  That person is keeping the right day, for the wrong motive.

2. On the other hand you can have another person keeping Sunday because they are resting in Christ's finished work.  They are keeping the wrong day, but for the right motive.

Who will be condemned in the judgment?

Person # 1

Is it a bad motive to want to be saved?

Again, motive is much, but is not everything.  The Bible tells us the Mark of the Beast will come to either the forehead or the hand, representing belief and action.  The person keeping Sunday disobeys in action, even if his or her belief has led to a "right motive."

9 hours ago, Gregory Matthews said:

If you think that I was being absurd, you simply are not aware of the issues that are faced in many small congregations here in the U.S.

If the congregation is too small to have qualified elders, it should still have the support of other congregations.

[Gregory Matthews]

May not have another congregation close by that is not struggling itself.

 

 

[Green Cochoa]

1 minute ago, Gregory Matthews said:

May not have another congregation close by that is not struggling itself.

 

 

If it's a house church, the husband and father of the family is its de-facto elder.  This does not, however, make every husband qualified to perform baptisms, marriages, etc. on behalf of the church.

[Rossw]

32 minutes ago, Tom Wetmore said:

Do you see the curse as descriptive or proscriptive?

No matter how many weeds in my garden I pull they just keep coming back. 

[Gregory Matthews]

Not a house church.

 

Not every house church has a husband/father available.