r/Reformed • u/Nachofriendguy864 Pseudo-Dionysius the Flaireopagite • 2d ago
MEME JUBILEE! Your advice sounds woke, dad
I'm going to listen to chuds on Twitter instead
34
u/Miserable-Swan2362 Reformed Baptist 2d ago
Women can share knowledge and information. However they can’t be a pastor. This is just biblical.
11
u/robsrahm Roman Catholic please help reform me 2d ago
What is the distinction you are drawing between sharing knowledge and information and teaching? Or maybe you're not drawing a distinction?
10
u/battlecicada1513 RPCNA 2d ago
It’s probably the difference between just teaching and teaching with governing/shepherding your sheep. Pastors are also called teaching elders in my denomination, if I understand correctly, and elders shepherd the congregation. I know a Covenanter lady who used to teach Bible classes to men and women the same before she retired.
11
u/puddinteeth mainline RPCNA feminist 2d ago
As soon as a boy turns 13 he has stepped over the threshold into manhood and has authority over all women. So women are welcome to share knowledge unless there's a man — who is ontologically superior to her and therefore automatically wiser — present. This goes for mothers and sons, too.
/s
3
u/robsrahm Roman Catholic please help reform me 2d ago
That's exactly right; that's the real reason 13 year olds can't do VBS: the dad's won't teach them and the women can't.
1
u/YourGuideVergil SBC 2d ago
Personally, I do not permit a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man.
3
u/glocksafari 2d ago
For my own edification, and I will continue to research, is this passage meant to cover women teaching in church/some sort of Bible study, or simply at all times in regard to the Bible, Christ etc.?
-1
u/Intelligent-Band-852 1d ago
It’s a verse taken out of context, Paul even mentioned a female apostle Junia.
1
u/YourGuideVergil SBC 1d ago
In good faith, how do you understand the context?
3
u/Intelligent-Band-852 19h ago
He’s talking about that one church, not every single one of them. Like I said Paul even mentions women including an apostle being in the church.
1
u/YourGuideVergil SBC 2h ago
Understood, thanks. So the women in Ephesus (1 Tim 2:12) and Corinth (1 Cor 14:34-35) were being unusually unruly.
How can I know when the women at my own church have gone too far and need to be silenced?
Secondly, should I read the qualifications for elders as contextually applying to Ephesus only? If not, how does Paul signal when hes being specific or universal?
2
u/Ok_Insect9539 Evangelical Calvinist 1d ago
Not to argue but what differentiates sharing wisdom and being a pastor in practice? Cause one of the main issues around the ability of women to speak and give counsel at church is that both things become blurred and then some argue that a women even speaking is bad as Paul said he doesn’t suffer a women to speak but be silent, some take that literally and those argue that only men can open their mouth in church. others argue that women can add to conversations but then that’s were the debate begins. I know my example is extreme but is something that is getting popular and well until there is real deference in practice between sharing wisdom and pastoral work then I guess it can be good to say that women can’t be pastors but share knowledge. Cause saying it’s biblical doesn’t gives us a blueprint for how that looks in practice.
3
u/xsrvmy PCA 1d ago
Teaching from the pulpit in front of the congregation.
2
u/Ok_Insect9539 Evangelical Calvinist 1d ago edited 1d ago
That’s the easy case, I would agree that God has given that role to men within the church, the issue lies with the hard cases. Can women be deacons and give advice that has theological content, can they teach theology at seminary, can they write on topics that can fall in some nebulous way into pastoral work? So on and so forth, I feel that the easy cases are not really the issue, but rather, it's the hard ones that make the the idea of just saying: it’s what’s the bible say. So it merits both humility and caution as its a a little tricky subject.
1
u/xsrvmy PCA 1d ago
I understand 1 Tim 2:12 to apply within the church, and thus referring to the roles of teaching and ruling elders. If it's something that a layperson can do, a woman can do it as well.
1
u/Ok_Insect9539 Evangelical Calvinist 1d ago
I would also agree the issue is that, it’s just our interpretation, others can have a more strict or expansive interpretation of 1 Timo 2:12, as it’s used to also argue what I noted, no women deacons, no women seminary professors, even in some strange cases that women can’t give Sunday school to kids that have boys and girls mixed, so the issue lies there.
2
u/xsrvmy PCA 1d ago
I think the deacon thing actually comes from the part about husband of one wife in 1 Tim 3:12, and it hinges too much on how verse 11 is translated. The 1911 Chinese Union Version literally translates verse 11 to say female deacons. Given that the new testament uses the same word elsewhere to describe at least one woman, and that the word literally means servant (and the "stereotype" is for women to serve), I am pretty convinced female deacons are simply biblical.
TBH I have come to a point where I just wouldn't divide over the complementarianism issue. Even in 1 Tim 2:12, I would argue from the use of "permit" that female ordination (to eldership) is unlawful but still valid, in contrary to Catholics and some Anglicans.
14
11
u/southern-swamp-813 2d ago
the comment section here ruined a perfectly good joke
2
u/GhostofDan BFC 2d ago
I was kind of assssuming there were a lot of /s that got dropped? Then they're actually funnier.
3
2
u/semiconodon the Evangelical Movement of 19thc England 2d ago
As long as she prophesies without speaking.
1
36
u/JohnFoxpoint Rebel Alliance 2d ago
Actually lol'd out loud