Can Women Pastor ?

[Sister Alvear]

Banning women from ministry began with the so called church fathers...it was their quills that degraded women...not the quills of Holy men of OLD...

[Sister Alvear]

When I preached for years to the Lepers they did not seem to think me being a woman would take away anything from what I was telling them...The naked cannibal Indians listen to the story of Jesus...killer Indians listened...
The trinitarim pastor and his wife did not mind me baptizing them in the jungle many years ago in a stream full of alligators..they are still faithful to the Lord today...
Many a witch doctor I have won to the Lord ...Not one ever questioned the fact that a woman was telling them about Jesus…

[Sister Alvear]

WELL...have got to get ready for church...

[rdp]

Originally Posted by Sister Alvear

lol...go read acts 8...

LOL...I did & it says absolutely NOTHING about "women preachers". Address the question pls. How could the women 'went everywhere' from a prison cell:___________?

[rdp]

Originally Posted by Sister Alvear

Dear One...I was in a church where the pastor said...well we don´t believe in women preachers but Sister Janice is here so we want her to come up and prophecy for a while...
I just walked to the front and told them one of my missionary stories...

I'm aware of your style, & I do not call that "preaching," but rather simply telling faithful stories of God's Hand.

Regarding the Acts 8 account, the literal text says that the "women" were in prison. Where does the actual text say that the "women preached" to the churches:_________? Besides, this would be in a witnessing context & not a church setting, as I Tim. 2 refers to.

[rdp]

Originally Posted by Sister Alvear

The history of women in the Church has been paradoxical and a test of fellowship among some circles. I believe that makes Jesus weep.
It is obvious that if we take Deborah out of the Bible, Israel remains in bondage, if we take out Ester, Israel is killed, if we take out Huldah, Israel remains without someone to interpret the scroll. If we take out Mary we remain without a Savior, if we take out the women at the tomb no one knows He has risen. So at many key times God in his wisdom chooses to use women. Why? I just really don’t know. Maybe it is because of his sense of humor. Does not his own word say his ways are past finding out? On so many occasions when man has thought they have figured God out He shows up and does exactly opposite to our human thinking.

I'm one of them who will walk out on a woman if she stands in a mixed church congregation to "preach/teach". This is clear & flagrant disregard for plain Scriptural instructions to the church. And again, where did anyone of these women that you mention above take a text from the Scriptures [even when they were brought to them (Huldah)] & expound from them to men:_______________? Pls. provide the Biblical example.

So every woman who tells someone about the ressurrected Saviour is now a "preacher?" And how else was the Messiah to be born? A man certainly couldn't do it................

[rdp]

Originally Posted by Sister Alvear

1 Corinthians 14 describes what a service was like among the first Christians.
“Everyone has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation." (NIV, 1 Cor 14:26)
“Follow the way of love and eagerly desire spiritual gifts, especially the gift of prophecy. For anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but to God. (Indeed, no one understands him; he utters mysteries with his spirit. But everyone who prophesies speaks to men for their strengthening, encouragement and comfort. He who speaks in a tongue edifies himself, but he who prophesies edifies the church. 5I would like every one of you to speak in tongues, but I would rather have you prophesy. He who prophesies is greater than one who speaks in tongues, unless he interprets, so that the church may be edified.” (NIV, 1 Cor 14:1-5)
sorry for NIV I don´t have King James close by at this moment...) (I am not at my house)

How does this validate women preachers in the NT church?

[rdp]

Originally Posted by Sister Alvear

I never really “heard the voice of the Lord” call me to go “preach”, but He did call me to be a missionary. One day I heard him call my name. He told me to go to the people of Brazil. What could the word “missionary” mean? The meaning of “missionary” has various meanings to various people. One dictionary says it is a group of envoys (representatives or messengers) to a foreign country.
Well for me, it has meant going into the cities, the villages, the jungles, and telling a pagan people about the life-changing story of Jesus Christ. It has meant being challenged by witch doctors and priests, being threatened by bandits, standing before cannibal Indians, working in a leper colony as well as speaking in public schools and universities of Brazil.
It meant going into places where male preachers had never been yet some may condemn me for being willing to go. I had to wade across alligator-infested streams just to reach and baptize new converts. Being a missionary meant mixing mortar and laying bricks to build new churches. It meant performing weddings, burying the dead, and sometimes delivering babies.
It meant teaching new converts and preparing people for the ministry. It meant seeing a work be born and grow into maturity. It meant hours of radio programs. It meant long nights without sleep, traveling in the back lands, drinking contaminated water and eating all kinds of so called foods (some of which were indescribable). It meant sharing rooms with bats, rats, and all sorts of animals that crawled and flew at night.
It meant sitting in the conventions in the homeland and listening to men who made cutting remarks about women in the ministry. It meant being willing to go against the tide and obey a call that is stronger than meager earthly ties. It meant being different from the ordinary. It meant loving souls, no matter the circumstances. It meant taking in abandoned children or children whose mother was murdered, adopting them and loving them like my own. It meant traveling down the lonely road of not knowing where the next meal would come from, nor the money to pay for the food should it come our way.
Perhaps most prophets and prophetesses in the Bible had to travel down lonely roads themselves to obey God yet they could not understand why at that moment. I, too, am at a loss for words to describe the desolate anguish I had experienced at times. Equally difficult to explain is the call of God so strong in my heart. Maybe it’s all part of being a missionary. How can you describe a feeling to deep for words, a call to sacred to play with? This burden is so heavy that it never disappears. Maybe we could compare it with Jack London’s call of the wild.

And this is why I honor you & have tried to treat you w/ respect. If I felt sincerely that God had called me to do this, then I would hope that I'd have the sacrificial spirit to do so. But, this is witnessing to pagans, not preaching/teaching saints in a church setting, as I Tim. 2, I Cor. 14 addresses.

And, I agree, that POSSIBLY God sent you where a man refused to go, for the greater cause if His Love for souls. But, after you see them converted & teach them about modesty, etc., what do you do when you get to I Tim. 2:11-15, I Cor. 14:34? You owe these people the Biblical truth.

Blessings..............

[rdp]

Originally Posted by Sister Alvear

While the church leaders agree all must hear and obey to be saved, the clergy fuss about who tells the story. What difference does it make which gender pulls a burning person from the flame? Or what difference does it make that a man or woman, male or female, saves the drowning persons from a torrid river? Did the horrified soldiers care who answered the call that icy March afternoon in 1869 when Ida Lewis responded with haste to rescue the crying voices from the choppy waves at Lime Rock Lighthouse in Newport. One of the drowning men lost hope when he saw that it was a woman who came rowing out to save them. However, he was soon to change his mind after the job was successfully accomplished. She had fierce strength that wasn’t hers alone. Later, a newspaper recorded that she said that the Lord Almighty gave it to her when she needed it the most. (Women of the Lights, Candice Fleming, Albert Whitman & Co., Morton Grove, IL, 1996, 21.) Women can save lives just as men can.

No problem, but how does this invalidate Paul's clear instructuions to the NT church regarding the matter of women preachers/teachers?

[rdp]

Originally Posted by Sister Alvear

I am painfully aware that religious activities in Greco-Roman paganism included cult prostitution and shriek cries described as wild outcries. The Corinthian female dominated religious thought and practice. From the mother goddess Artemis to the women serving their time as sacred temple prostitutes and speaking messages from the gods, the male of Corinth was deeply dependent upon the female. Yet this has nothing to do with the gospel of Jesus Christ but sadly it has influenced the thinking of many people. Yet men like John of Chrysostom (who was no champion of women) called Priscilla a “teacher of teachers.”

Appeals to supposed church histrory [most of which is trinitarian, by the way] do not veto Scriptural instructions to the church.