Sexism prompts Christian bookstore to pull Christian magazine

Now I understand why they tell me to sit down and shut up!

There are times one has to bite into a pillow and just scream. I am so sick of this. Thanks for the post, it got me going on my post today! lol. Lynda you are incredible!

This is just so wrong.

Your grasp of biblical theology is evidently lacking... as is basic biblical knowledge. Timothy did not write this letter... it was a letter from Paul TO Timothy. Also... this text must be weighed with other verses that deal with the relationship between men & women, and on a larger plane, the relationship with Christ and his bride (the church). If you read Ephesians 5:21-33 you will see that any woman who has a husband like the one in this passage would love to be "submissive" in that situation. Also, we have corrupted this term "submission"... submission does NOT equate to the term "subservient". God, and any biblical Christian, view men & women as equal... however, equality of worth is not equality of role. Until this is adequtely brought into the discussion, there can be no proper debate.
Also, you cannot compare women in politics to women's roles in the church... as many are so quick to point out... separation of church and state!

There is no church that is perfect, only one perfect person, Jesus. Some churches have deeply hurt and wronged people, but that does not mean that Jesus would approve. Remember that Christians are sinner themselves. Jesus loves all sinners, that is why when he came to earth he hung out with sinners. My prayer is that you read the whole New Testement and decide who Jesus was for yourself. Don't believe everything that you hear about Christianity without looking into the whole thing yourself. Different denominations and non-denominations believe different things. I don't believe that Christ looks upon women lower than men, but that is how I read the bible. Over and over again we see that Christ treated women the same as men.

I do not attend this church, but the pastor there is highly educated and I thought it was worth sharing...

From Rich Nathan:
Now, I underline all these things to give you a backdrop for how utterly revolutionary Jesus' attitude was toward women. For example, Jesus redefined adultery in Mark 10. Applying the prohibition not only against women, but also against men and giving women the right to divorce their husbands for adultery. And Jesus limited divorce in contrast to the rabbis who said you could divorce your wife if she burned a meal and put her out on the street. Jesus said divorce only applied to a very limited situation of unfaithfulness and the breaking of one's marriage vows.

What is really interesting in the ministry of Jesus is the way that he interacted with women. For example, unlike any rabbi of his day, Jesus had women among his disciples. If you are taking notes, you might want to jot down Luke 8:1-2.

Now, I think the most interesting story is the story of Martha and Mary in Luke 10 where Martha is doing what would be expected of a woman who has invited a well-known rabbi into her home. She is busy and bothered about many preparations. But her sister, Mary, is doing what is absolutely forbidden. She is sitting at Jesus' feet listening to him instruct her in the Torah. He is a rabbi. And in that culture when he spoke, everything he spoke was called Torah. He was giving people an understanding of what it meant to be God's people. Mary is sitting at his feet and she is not sitting there, as some people would like to put it, just adoring him with not a thought in her head. She is sitting at his feet, which would have been the position of a disciple, and she is learning Bible from him.

And so Jesus then challenges Mary's sister, Martha, saying, "You are anxious and distressed about many things, but only a few things are necessary. Indeed, only one and Mary has chosen the better part. It shall not be taken from her."

I put on the overhead a list for you of some of the things that we see in the ministry of Jesus.

**Overhead -
1. The first news of the incarnation went to a woman. (Luke 1:32-35)
2. The first miracle was performed for a woman. (Jn. 2:1-11)
3. The first Samaritan convert was a woman. (Jn. 4:7-42)
4. The first person clearly told by Jesus that he was the Messiah was a woman, a Samaritan woman. (Jn. 4:26)
5. The first Gentile convert was a woman. (Matt. 15:21-28)
6. The first resurrection teaching was given to a woman. (Jn. 11:23-27)
7. The first to witness the resurrection was a woman. (Matt. 28:9)
8. The first witnesses to the resurrection were women. (Matt. 28:10; Jn. 20:18)

Again, amazingly in contrast to the culture that said women could not bear witness. They weren't considered credible, Jesus reveals himself as risen first to women.

Dorothy Sayers, a Christian writer and dear friend to C.S. Lewis, summed up the attitude of Jesus toward women. Listen to this quote: "Perhaps it was no wonder that women were the last at the cross. They had never known a man like this Man. There never has been such another. A prophet and teacher who never nagged at them, never flattered or coaxed or patronized; who never made sick jokes about them…who rebuked without querulousness, and praised without condescension; who took their questions and arguments seriously; who never mapped out their sphere for them, never urged them to be feminine or jeered at them for being female; who had no ax to grind and no uneasy male dignity to defend; who took them as he found them and was completely unself-conscious. There was no act, no sermon, no parable in the whole gospel that borrows its pungency from female perversity; nobody could possibly guess from the words and deeds of Jesus that there was anything funny or inferior about women's nature."

While it is not often that I quote from Alan Alda, I really like his definition of a feminist. He says, "I am a feminist in so far as I believe that women are people." And that is what we could say about Jesus. He was a feminist in so far as he believed that women were people. Not lesser people. Not inferior people. Not dumb people. Not people to be made fun of. Just people.

And this attitude of Jesus affected his followers including the apostle Paul in a text that has often been called the Great Magna Carta, the announcement of liberty and freedom for women. We read in Galatians 3:28, "In Christ Jesus there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one." All the old distinctions of the Jewish culture, the Greek and Roman cultures - ethnic distinctions, economic distinctions, gender distinctions - these things are overcome in term of limitation in Christ Jesus.

...

Now, I want to turn with you to what may be the most controversial text regarding women's roles in the church in the entire New Testament and that is 1 Timothy 2:9-15. Before we look at the text's possible meaning, let me suggest to you that I know of no text in the New Testament that has been more variously interpreted than 1 Timothy 2:9-15. There are many people out there who say that they are certain that they have the obvious meaning and that they know the obvious intention of the apostle Paul. I have a file of 11 very different interpretations of 1 Timothy 2. I know of no text in the New Testament that is more problematical and that has given rise to greater shotgun approaches than 1 Timothy 2:9-15.

Part of the problem we have, before we even get to the interpretative work is that there is no agreement regarding the appropriate translation of certain words. For example, in v. 12 it says, "I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man." That little phrase "have authority" is a possible translation of the Greek word "authentein". This word is used nowhere else in the New Testament. To be dogmatic about its meaning is impossible because we don't see it anywhere else. Some people say that it refers to any exercise of authority or leadership over a man in the church. Other people siting numerous Greek works outside the New Testament say the word authentein means to domineer or usurp authority.

Then we come to the word "silent." It says, "I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man. She must be silent." There is debate about the meaning of that word. Some people say that a woman should be absolutely silent in the church, that she is to have no vocalization whatsoever other than, perhaps, to sing - but she shouldn't pray out loud or share a testimony or do anything that would break silence. Others say the word doesn't even mean silent. It means quiet spirit.

And no one knows what v. 15 is talking about. Here the NIV says, "But women will be saved through childbearing, if they continue in faith, love, and holiness with propriety." You talk about a problematical verse. Some translations put it, "But women will be saved through the birth of the child [not childbearing] but the birth of THE child" - meaning that women will be saved through the birth of the Christ Child.

Some people say the back drop of Jewish myth is that women were particularly susceptible to demonic attacks and Paul is giving a word of assurance to Christian women that they would protected from demonic attack in childbirth. Other people say that women will be saved so long as they adopt the role appropriate to them.

The short of it is that not only do we have a range of interpretations that I will get to in a moment, but also there is no common agreement on even what the Greek means. All we would have to do is do some of the reading that I have done and you would see this scatter shot of enormous amounts of confusion ranging over this text. And do not say to yourself that the only reason there is this confusion is because we don't want to take Paul literally, but it is some sort of feminist conspiracy. The truth is that there is legitimate difference regarding what the backdrop was for this text and legitimate disagreement over the meaning of the words.

Indeed, I would suggest that the problem we have with 1 Timothy 2:9-15 is not a problem of our feminized culture and this literal restriction on the roles of women. The problem is not between us and them. But the problem is really between them and them. That is the entire New Testament seems to open up doors and opportunities for women to function. Women are given the gift of the Spirit and are prophesying. Women are co-laboring along side of Paul. Women are instructing men as Priscilla instructed the teacher Apollos in Acts 18. And in several debated texts, women appeared to be functioning in church government - Phoebe in Romans 16:1 appears to be a deaconess, although only in her particular case is the word translated "servant." And in a heartily debated text Romans 16:7, a woman named Junia, who only after the 13th Century was turned into a man named Junius is said to be outstanding among the apostles.

So, we have a flow or a direction of New Testament teaching and the attitude of Jesus and then we have this one text that seems to form some restrictions. We have these translations problems. And in addition an enormous range of interpretations. Virtually every verse and every word is fought over. Let me give you the range of interpretations briefly.

First of all, we have the most conservative perspective that no woman may teach or lead any male above age 10 in anyway. Some churches say that they can't have a woman teach a Sunday School class where there are teenage boys or men present in the class. Some churches say that women cannot be ordained or exercise leadership over any male in the church who is a teenager or an adult. There is an absolutist position. And they would base it on 1 Timothy 2:12, "I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over men, but she must be silent."

Now, these churches like to pride themselves on the literal reading, what they might call a common sense reading of the text. And they would suggest that any kind of compromise or soft-pedaling of a woman's restricted role is simply accommodation with the feminist spirit of the age. It is simply a refusal to face up to feminism as it has been announced in its secular forms. But I honestly believe that that is an unjust charge. And even among those who have an absolutist position regarding women's roles in ministry one can find grave inconsistencies in the practice of the church. For example, many churches that say a woman is not allowed to teach men allow women to teach men when they are on the mission field. If there is a universal prohibition that Paul is announcing, why would a woman be allowed to be a missionary teaching and instructing men in other nations in doctrine and the gospel, but not allowed to do that here.

And 1 Timothy 2:9 and 10 are not taken nearly so literally as 1 Timothy 2:12. Many women wear gold and pearls to church. Why is that permitted if that teaching isn't culturally relevant, that is applicable to the culture of Paul's day, but perhaps not applicable in the same way to our situation today? If Paul is giving universal commands that must be obeyed in every church in every time and in every setting, then why is it that those with a so-called absolutist position would permit women to come to church wearing gold or pearls. And why not go the whole route and say that even the 1 Cor. 11 command to wear a veil must be applied to women today in the modern evangelical church? What is the particular hermeneutic, that is what is the particular interpretative device that the absolutist uses to say that only this verse is universally applicable, but this other verse is simply cultural and can be dispensed with?

Now, some churches take what I call the middle position. They say that women are allowed to speak. They don't have to be absolutely silent in front of men in church. But what Paul is referring to in 1 Timothy 2:12 is authoritative teaching. So they read v. 12 this way, "I do not permit a woman to authoritatively teach a man, she must be silent regarding the teaching of doctrine or the offering of direction." These churches would permit a woman to speak from the front, but they don't call it teaching they call it sharing. Sister So-and-So is going to share with us.

Now, obviously, this opens up all kinds of contradictory and inconsistent practices, especially when Sister So and So is not just sharing a testimony, but is actually opening the bible and very often in churches that have this middle position, they allow women missionaries to come in off the field and teach. But they call it sharing. Or they might call it an inspirational message.

And then there are the whole range of opinions that suggest that 1 Timothy 2:9-15 is not meant to be a universal prohibition against all women teaching or exercising authority over all men in all cultures for all time. And there is a whole range of opinion regarding why people read 1 Timothy 2:9-15 in a more open, culturally relative way. Some folks claim to have found evidence that there was a feminist cult operative in Ephesus, a cult that women were drawn to that involved the worship of Goddesses. And that Paul was specifically attempting to stamp out that feminist cult teaching that many women in the church had given themselves to. And so he is saying in this instant "I don't want women to teach or to exercise authority over a man." Opinion ranges about how sound the evidence is for the existence of that feminist cult. Wayne Grudem, for example, suggests that we don't have external evidence in that regard.

Other people say that because of the social position of women in the Jewish and Greek world, women were not permitted to teach or to exercise authority because they were unlearned or because they had never really had the opportunity to learn the scriptures so that they could teach them. And what Paul was doing was not prohibiting something so much as permitting women to learn. So v. 11 for them is the key, "A woman should learn in quietness and full submission" and until she learns she should not presume to be a teacher. Now, I think this view has some merit. Because indeed as we learned at the front end of this talk, rabbis considered it a sin to teach Torah, the law, to women. So rather than being a restrictive perspective, Paul is actually opening the door for women to learn.

The best perspective that I think takes account of the most evidence in 1 Timothy is the one offered by Gordon Fee. Gordon Fee says that when you read 1 and 2 Timothy as a whole, what you will find is that they were written to combat false teaching. For example in 1 Timothy 1:3, we read, "As I urged you when I went into Macedonia, stay there in Ephesus so that you may command certain men not to teach false doctrines any longer nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies."

1 and 2 Timothy were written to direct Timothy to stamp out false teaching. Apparently, false teachers had worked their way into the church. Not only had they worked their way into the church, but apparently there were women in the church who were listening to this false teaching and who were being communicators of it broadly. And so we see in 2 Timothy 3:6-8 "They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over weak-willed women who are loaded down with sin and who are swayed by all kinds of evil desires always learning, but never able to acknowledge the truth. Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so also these men oppose the truth-men of depraved minds, who, as far as the faith is concerned, are rejected."

These false teachers wormed their way into the homes of women and then the women in the Ephesian church became the carriers of this false teaching. And Paul says that in 1 Timothy 5:13 - he is talking about the younger widows who "get into the habit of being idle and going about from house to house. And not only do they become idlers, but also gossips and busybodies, saying things they ought not to." Now, the word "gossip" is a poor translation. Nowhere do we find a shred of evidence that this word should be translated "gossip." The word means to talk foolishness and it is mainly used in philosophical texts in the ancient Greek world. It means to communicate false teaching. Paul was talking about women who were going from house to house carrying false teaching with them. And we can see that is what Paul was talking about in v. 15 of 1 Timothy 5 when he says, "Some have, in fact, already turned away to follow Satan."

And so it is with that as a back drop - false teachers spreading false teaching through women in the church that the apostle Paul puts this prohibition on women in the church saying, "I don't want you to teach, but instead to submit". And then he uses the illustration of Adam and Eve, not in terms of, I believe, some universal creation ordinance, hence another Old Testament context - the first born are not to have been the priority. Jacob, for example, is given priority over Esau. And Isaac over Ishmael and David over his brothers. I don't think Paul's concern was who was formed first and who was formed second, but the fact that the one who was formed second was deceived. But Adam was not the one who was deceived. It was the woman who was deceived and who became a sinner. And he is saying just as Eve became the one through whom false teaching spread, so women in the Ephesian church are the vehicle through whom false teaching spread. Thus as Eve became the open door to Satan, women in the Ephesian church became the open door to Satan and must be silenced.

Let me bring all of this home. #1 - I would say there is legitimate debate in the church world regarding the true meaning of 1 Timothy 2:9-15, both the translation of the text and also its interpretation.

#2 - The entire New Testament seems to be tilted toward giving women opportunity consistent with their gifting and calling before God. If you read 1 Timothy 2 as a restriction universally on women, then it stands alone. I choose to read it congruent with the rest of the New Testament.

#3 - To read 1 Timothy 2:9-15 as a cultural prohibition, not universally applicable in all times and in all places, does not open the door to calling every command into question e.g. for the recognition of homosexuals. What we are not saying that every time the culture changes we are just going to accept something new despite what the Bible says. Listen, friends, there is a bright line of distinction between the moral prohibitions of the Bible and those who have to do with our social relationships. When the Bible calls something sin, it is sin always in every place. Homosexuality, adultery and pre-marital sex are always called sins. And it doesn't matter how the culture shifts, the practice of sex outside of heterosexual marriage is always disapproved of.

On the other hand, while the instances of women leading are admittedly rare in the Old Testament and New Testament context, nevertheless, we find clear instances of women leading with God's approval. Deborah led Israel as a judge. There is no doubt that Priscilla was a leader in the church. Hulda, a prophetess, led the people of Israel. These things are never called sin. I don't believe we get on a slippery slope when we say that certain commands in the New Testament are not universally applicable, but may be culturally relative. The truth is everyone reads the New Testament that way, otherwise we men would be greeting each other with kisses, as Paul commands in four separate places in Romans 16, 1 Cor. 16, 2 Cor. 13, in 1 Thess. 5. And Peter commands it is 1 Peter 5. We all draw lines culturally regarding social relations; otherwise we would require women to never cut their hair or to wear veils.

Here is what I believe is the controlling principle behind 1 Timothy 2 as well as many other commands about social relations in the New Testament. I believe that the controlling principle in the mind of the apostle Paul is the promotion of the gospel. For Paul he regularly called upon people to limit their freedom in order to not hinder someone else from accepting the gospel. For the apostle Paul there were lots of things that might be permitted, but if it didn't promote the acceptance of the gospel, Paul would tell people to not do it. The gospel and only the gospel was the supreme value in the mind of Paul. So, for example, he tells women in Titus 2 to be domestic, to take on certain roles. Why? So that the word of God will not be maligned. So that people will think much of the gospel.

He tells slaves to obey their masters in 1 Tit 2:9. Why? To make the teaching about God our savior attractive.

He tells people in 1 Cor. 10 to not eat meat offered to idols so that they don't put a stumbling block in some one else's way regarding the reception of the gospel.

He tells people to give up the right to sue each other, to lose money, even when you have a legitimate lawsuit so that they won't bring any shame to the gospel.

It was the promotion of the gospel that I believe underlines this particular text in 1 Timothy. If the gospel was being hindered, then Paul had no problem saying, "Women, I want you to take on this role and not that."

But Paul could be exceptionally flexible and here is my last point. Paul could be exceptionally flexible in different cultural settings regarding people's social relationships if the gospel wasn't being hindered in any way. So Paul had co-workers who were women and let women teach men in different instances and has women who are of great value to him in the service of the gospel and in spreading the gospel among men and who are leading apparently in house churches.

To sum up -here is what I believe the New Testament message is concerning women in roles of leadership in the church. I believe that the New Testament says to women, "Your role in the church is dependent upon the culture you live in and whether a broad exercise of leadership and teaching would hinder the gospel." I don't believe that the apostle Paul lays out a one-size fits all rule. Because of the gospel, I believe Paul would permit enormous liberty and enormous freedom to women on a college campus in the US in the 1990's in an urban area. He would say, I believe, that it would hinder the gospel to restrict a woman from any role, that you are throwing a stumbling block in the way of the gospel. That social relations are merely cultural clothing and these things can change, but the gospel never changes.

On the other hand, if a woman exercises great liberty in a village in India or in the Arab world where the liberating message of Christianity has not penetrated and done its work for generations, that would be a great stumbling block and so for the sake of the gospel, Paul would say, if you are working in India or are in an Arab culture, you restrict your liberty for the sake of the gospel. So a dear missionary friend of mine, whose name I can't say publicly, allowed herself to be veiled from head to toe when she was a missionary in Pakistan. Did she have the permission to wear jeans and a t-shirt as she did in the US? Yes. Would it have been beneficial for the gospel? No. So, she took on a restricted role so that Jesus would be promoted.

And these things take great gifts of discernment. It is far easier to have a one-size fits all approach. But the New Testament in a variety of areas does not give us that kind of absolute clarity and it doesn't because it has the overriding concern of the gospel. What is appropriate at a university setting, may not be appropriate in rural America. What is appropriate among 20-year olds may not work with 70-year olds. In a time of great transition in culture, we need great discernment to work these things out in practice.

http://www.vineyardcolumbus.com/resources/sermons/keyword_search.asp

THANK YOU! Some one has a lick of sense on this page.... I just had to shake my head so many times during this article... people should not write articles about issues they are obviously ignorant about. Do some research.
And btw, I AM a woman, and a woman's place is not at the head of the church! It makes us no less important, but that is just not our place. And my gender's covetous of the position only shows how sinful we all still are - hence even more reason not to be the head of a church.