How to defend the belief only men should be ordained?

God made man in His image.
Then He made woman from the man.
Not the other way around.

We talk about 'the sin of Adam' because Adam was responsible for correcting Eve; instead of doing so, he chose to participate with her in believing the serpent's lie and disbelieving God.

I do not have a problem with women being teachers of Bible principles and truths. I can understand some of the arguments for female deacons. I disagree with all rationales for female priests. I'm not saying it is necessarily sinful, but it is inappropriate and is not God's intent.

Although I place great stock in the leading of the Holy Spirit in my life, I am obliged to point out that Christians must first make certain that everything they believe lines up with scripture. The inner witness comes in at second place to scripture. The 'conscience' must agree with the written Word to ensure that one has 'heard God' correctly, and quite frankly we humans are quite hard of hearing, spiritually speaking.
Jer 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?
This is actually a leading error of Mormon laity; they are taught to pray and ask God whether Joseph Smith was a true prophet and whether the Book of Mormon is true, and countless Mormons have received an 'inner witness', a peaceful feeling, when they so prayed. This shows that a deceiving spirit is capable of producing a counterfeit feeling like the Holy Spirit's inner confirmation.
Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world (1 John 4:1). How do we test the spirits? By comparing what they tell us to the written Word. The Bible is our 'measuring stick' for discerning truth from falsehood.

 

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. Gen.1:26-28

God made the whole of 'mankind' in His image, not just a single man. God made them, meaning both men and women, in his image, not just men with penises and scrotums but all of mankind with all of the essential creational equipment to carry out God's first command. "Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it, and have dominion".

It is the human race which has this mandate, not just the males of the species homo-sapiens. MAN in this passage of scripture means 'mankind'. The word is 'Adam' and it means this:

אָדָם
STRONG’S NUMBER: h0120
Dictionary Definition h0120. אָדָם ’âḏâm; from 119; ruddy i.e. a human being (an individual or the species, mankind, etc.): — x another, + hypocrite, + common sort, x low, man (mean, of low degree), person.
AV (552) - man 408, men 121, Adam 13, person(s) 8, common sort + h7230 1, hypocrite 1;
man, mankind man, human being man, mankind (much more frequently intended sense in OT) Adam, first man city in Jordan valley.

Your rather masculinely biassed interpretation of the word "Adam" here would imply that God populated the earth with only men (made in God's image), and then commanded them to be fruitful and do the multiplying all on their own. This is clearly a very wrong way of looking at a biblical text for meaning, unless championing gay rights.

The use of the word "Adam" in this context clearly excludes the possibility of it meaning the primordial "Adam' of Genesis chapter 2. It is obviously speaking of 'Mankind' in total and not a single man or men, who alone without womankind would be utterly incapable of carrying out the command to be fruitful and multiply.

Thus the man Adam alone cannot be considered exclusively made 'in the image and likeness of God', thus attempting to exclude woman from being made in that same image. Your mental picture of the image of God seems fatally flawed by materialist and idolatrous assumptions imposed upon the text.

You're darned tooting right there, for sure. First though you need to interpret the scripture rightly before being certain of the 'rightness' of your interpretation. As demonstrated above you are proven mistaken about your assumption that only men with penises are made in the image of God and therefore God The Holy Trinity presumably must have a penis rather than a vagina, and further, that human beings with vaginas are not made in the image of God, when scripture actually declares that they were. Both 'male and female created he them, in his own image'. To do that kind of backwards logic when imagining and trying to portray a mental appearance of God is utterly idolatrous and totally inappropriate.

Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. 2 Tim.2:15.

Not just a superficial and literal 'understanding' is required, but an understanding which comes from study and right discernment of scripture, not just unquestioningly accepting the dogmas of a prevailing religious society. The Pharisees were accused by Christ of searching the scriptures in vain because in them they imagined they would find eternal life, but ignored Christ himself. John 5:37-40.

 

Tiffy I'm not sure why you're quoting Hebrew, Strong's definitions, as if Scripture were authoritative for you. You've already admitted that it isn't, in August of 2018, over a year ago:

And here we have the same theme reiterated in September of 2019:

Exactly. Scripture is not authoritative.

Moderated for language.

 

Man or woman are not defined only by their outward physical attributes. They feel, think and act differently from each other. Look at the corpus colosseum (spelling?) of each, for instance, which shows how each process their thoughts.

 

Section II. Rules on Religion

4. Modern errors
There shall be no statements to promote modern errors, such as gay "marriage" and women's ordination.​

The first part of @Tiffy 's post here is pragmatically a clean way to exegete and understand the passage from Genesis 1. The Forum rules should allow for that, and I believe they do, however that is really 0f little relevance to the discussion, and clearly in terms of the Forum Rules you cannot use scripture to promote the ordination of women here.

The problem is that the topic of the thread is hobbled because the argument can have no opposition by the forum rules.

@Rexlion has repeated the Pauline argument from 1 Timothy 2

For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet she will be saved through childbearing, provided they continue in faith and love and holiness, with modesty.
1 Timothy 2:13-15​

This argument from Paul seems based on Genesis 2 & 3, and is a difficult argument to sustain, as it seems to exonerate Adam and lay the burden of the fall solidly on Eve, whilst some may find this compelling it is not the sense of the passage in Genesis. Where when Adam argued the woman you gave me made me do it, it seems that God did not excuse Adam at all. It was a clear early example of an argument for diminished responsibility, and was not accepted.

That of course is not the only way Paul argues in terms of gender and the passage from 1 Corinthians seems to indicate a better grasp of Genesis 1, and indeed of mutual responsibility and interdependence within the Body of Christ.

Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man or man independent of woman. For just as woman came from man, so man comes through woman; but all things come from God.
1 Corinthians 11:11-12​

 

Genesis 1 harmonizes with Genesis 2. Let's not leave out this:
Gen 2:21 And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;
Gen 2:22 And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.
Gen 2:23 And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.

As I said, God created the man, Adam, first. Eve was created out of Adam, to be a helper and companion (Gen. 2:18) to him. This places men in a position of authority over the women. Modern humans wish to reverse this, to place women as authorities over men. In the church, this is neither appropriate nor consistent with the pattern God shows us in scripture. Citing Gen. 1 while ignoring Gen. 2 allows a tilted view of the issue.

Jesus taught His disciples to pray, "Our Father..." Our heavenly Father does not have (and has no need for) physical male reproductive organs, you're right about that, but He identifies Himself as masculine. He even incarnated Himself as masculine, not feminine. And I'll say this (a bit tongue in cheek): I can't help but feel that He has shown His spiritual cojones on many occasions throughout history.

 

Wow. I didn't know that. I must have overlooked that part. Geez .... this forum is really strict it seems.
I better watch what I type around here.

 

Scripture IS authoritative, but only to those who understand it and those who treat it with the respect that inspired text deserves. To do that you need the Holy Spirit. Without the Holy Spirit you run into exactly the same kind of pedantic, literalist, fanatical, fundamental errors that the Pharisees did. Merely claiming the 'authority' of scripture and applying doctrinaire, draconian dogma, as if it is God ordained truth, is the penchant of tyrants and abusers of The Word.
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If chronological order is indicative of higher authority, (as you seem to imagine), where did the creation of man come in the order of things created, Before or after the animals?

If, as Genesis chapter 2 suggests, Adam was made before all other creatures, then you may have a point. However Genesis chapter 1 suggests otherwise, which makes mankind, (according to your supposed reason for granting higher authority being timing in being created), subject to everything else on earth, since mankind was made last of all, after all other plants and creatures. If however being the final creative act of God is the apogee of authority, the creation of woman would confer the higher position.

In fact neither are the case because the supposition that order of creation confers 'authority', is bogus and has no support in scripture as a means of deciding who has or has not divinely ordained authority over anything. All 'authority' comes from God, as scripture attests and is not affected by who came first or last.
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It's not an issue of chronological order in this case. Rather, the commentaries I have read understand Gen. 2 as a sort of supplement to Gen. 1, adding some details that were left out previously, and not in any way an attempt to relate precise chronology. It's like the writer remembers something and adds it to what was already written. We often do the same thing when we are telling a story about some incident; we'll recall some extra details and mention them 'out of order'. We ramble!

I realize this is an emotional 'hot button' issue for you, Tiffy, as you have a personal interest in the matter. I want you to know that my posts are not meant to antagonize you. I have no dog in the fight.... unless I count the fact that, from a personal standpoint, I'd feel uncomfortable sitting under a female head pastor or priest... but I don't think that taints my understanding of scripture and tradition.

 

All the textual evidence points to the fact that the two versions of creation are from two separate traditions, which the editor of Genesis has woven together into a single narrative. Chapter 2 is not an afterthought or an adjunct to chapter one. It is an alternative account which deals with the spiritual aspects of human sin and our current 'fallen' condition, (part of which is the desire to dominate, with all that entails between the sexes).

The first effect of dissobedience to God was and is abdication of responsibility and shifting of blame from ourselves to others in an attempt to enhance our deficit of self respect and dignity, Gen.3:7-13, lost in our alienation from our creator and our fear of physical death, which now dominates our dysfunctional psyche. These effects can only be ameliorated by Christ, through the ministry of The Holy Spirit and faith in God, who is our saviour and redeemer. We are resurrected from the moment we are 'born again'. John 11:25, John 3:3.

After 'regeneration' in the Spirit, the human race are called to 'submit to one another', 1 Pet.5:5, out of respect to God, and Christ their saviour and author of the faith, who has demonstrated to us 'the higher way' which is "Love" and mutual respect.

And I will show you a still more excellent way. If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends;
1 Cor.12:31 - 1 Cor.13:7.

Before 'the fall' there was no hierarchy. Gen.3:16.

For Christians there is now no hierarchy, only mutual respect for one another's contribution to partnership in Christ's redemption. We follow his example:

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. Phil.2:5-7. Men who are discomfited by the thought of listening to a woman's advice or following her leadership are only "in the likeness of fallen man". We need to be made in the likeness of Christ. Rom.8:28-30.

If you are serious about not being able to take wise councel from a woman, then you are nothing like Christ, who was willing to change his mind when challenged, even by a Gentile woman he had previously refused. Matt.15:27, Mk.7:28.
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Please tell me that you are not suggesting that Holy Writ "rambles" and that a Biblical author might have 'forgoten' to include important details in chapter one of Genesis, so had to squeeze them into a story in chapters two to five because he didn't want to scrap his papyrus scroll of chapter one and start over. Please, please let it not be considered even plausible. Where ever might that end?
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That may not be as complimentary to men as you may think.

If God had decided to incarnate Himself in a woman,(and ironically He actually did, in the womb of the Virgin Mary), as a woman, would any men have taken any notice of anything Jesus had ever said or did? Would we have the Gospels and the church today?

Remember Jesus Christ came to save 'fallen' humanity. 1 Tim.1:15. Rom.3:23. Luke 5:32. His message got a much better reception from the women than it did from the men.

The record of male disciples and even apostles is not particularly good in the 'believing' department when it came to listening to women who had been given the first information on Christ's resurrection and told to tell them. Even when commissioned by Christ himself. Matt.28:10.

And they remembered His words. Then they returned from the tomb and told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest. It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them, who told these things to the apostles. And their words seemed to them like idle tales, and they did not believe them. Luke 24:8-11.
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My statement, to which you respond in this fashion, was: I'd feel uncomfortable sitting under a female head pastor or priest. I never said that I can't receive counsel from a woman, and I had pointed out earlier in the thread: I do not have a problem with women being teachers of Bible principles and truths. I can understand some of the arguments for female deacons. A pastor or priest is in a role of headship and spiritual authority over the local flock, and I simply would not feel comfortable in submission to the authority of a female shepherd. Your mischaracterization of my statement is disappointing and sounds like the product of overheated passion. Might I suggest a cold shower?

 

You're saying that since there was no hierarchy before the fall, there should be no hierarchy now for those who have been redeemed by Christ. You're implying that a redeemed condition is a pre-fall condition. Do you, then, deny the existence of Original Sin? There was no sin before the fall. Are you saying that redeemed Christians have no reason to suffer pain, no reason to be sick, and no reason to toil by the sweat of our brows? Freedom from pain, illness and hard work are all part of the pre-fall condition.

If there is no hierarchy for Christians, you should have no difficulty in showing us a solid tradition of non-hierarchical behavior throughout the history of the church, both in the home and at the altar. We should see a track record of Christians through the centuries wherein the husbands defer to the wives and female priests abound. Or, is it possible that the history of the church demonstrates your interpretation to be utterly opposed by the universally accepted interpretation among Christians for two millenia?

 

Yes I'm quoting myself, I didn't mean to start off another round of this controversy . The point I am trying to make is as follows. There appears to be three areas on this forum where the arguements against women's ordination come from.

1 From Scripture. To some people it is clear that this prohibits women's ordination and to some it allows it. God knows what the correct answer is. Surely both side can admit the possibility that the other side may have a point.

2 The B.o.C.P. Its my contention that the B.o.C.P. does not prohibit women's ordination. And if people think it does can they quote me that section? There are various "he's" and "him's" in it, but lets be honest the B.o.C.P. is a legal document and maybe he refers to men and women following the legal quip "man embraces woman" and of course English lacks a common gender singular third person pronoun.
It is my view that supporting women's ordination does not violate the Anglican badge oath. ( Correct me if I'm wrong).

3 The mods It is they who decided that women's ordination is not to be promoted .

 

Yes, that is exactly what I am saying. Equality of authority is restricted by God to members of Christ's Church, in Christ's Church. Those outside the church are still subject to the dispensation after the fall in which women are set under authority and men are fully responsible for themselves and partly also for also their spouses misdemeanours. Authority automatically also confers responsibility, but Adam sought to abdicate it and still does. Adam also tried to blame God for his predicament, (the woman YOU gave me), and still does. Adam being 'the fallen human race'. As in Adam, (the sinful human race), all die, so in Christ, (regenated in The Holy Spirit), shall all be made alive.

A qualified 'Yes' to that.

No, I'm not saying that. Spiritually, we are 'renewed', 2 Cor.4:16, Eph.4:23, Col.3:10, however we are still in a 'body of death' until we 'sleep'. Rom.7:24, Col.1:22. Only 'spiritually' though, and we are at war within ourselves even in that and are still physically subject to death as a natural event. Even Christ suffered death and he had no sin. So we cannot consider ourselves returned to an innocent pre-fall condition. We are not 'innocent', we are culpable but justified by Christ's atonement alone. We have no inherent righteousness of our own until we have 'run our course'. 1 Cor.9:24-27.

If slavery is wrong you will have no difficulty in showing us a solid tradition of non-slavery behaviour throughout the history of the church, both in the home and in the workplace. (Two can pull that trick).

You are exaggerating in order to ridicule the fully scriptural proposition that the redeemed have a restored relationship with God and each other, regardless of gender, race or social status.

That is truly the issue that is forbidden for posters in this forum to support. My biblical position is that both men and women who are redeemed by Christ have equal authority but only under Christ and Christ under God. Our deference to one another is mutual and our authority over one another is shared, mutually reverential and voluntary.
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This is a gnostic heresy, that the meaning of Scripture is hidden except only to a few, whose qualifications are invisible and untestable. I completely deny that you “have the Holy Spirit”, so if that was your basis for being right, then I reject all of your propositions from having any truth.

Your criteria for biblical interpretation are completely alien to the Anglican way. Unless you can prove your views by the sacred words of Scripture, and the teachings of the fathers, then you have no truth within you.

 

Now, hold on a minute. You claimed there is now (ever since the resurrection) no hierarchy for Christians, and I rebutted. If I were to claim that slavery has been sinful since the resurrection, your trick (thanks for owning up to the fact) about slavery behavior would be valid. But I made no such claim, so your attempt at rebuttal is a non-sequitur, irrelevant and immaterial.

I agree that Christians are spiritually renewed while in a body of death. You would like to make hierarchy a strictly spiritual issue, and thus conclude that hierarchy is done away with. Is it just a spiritual issue? Let's think about that.

As far back as the Garden, we see that God made Eve specifically so Adam would have a suitable "helper." Did Adam need spiritual help from Eve? Or was Eve a physical and emotional helper? Surely she was the latter. And Adam called Eve "the woman whom you gave to be with me," which could denote a somewhat lesser or subservient status for Eve. Adam wasn't given to be with Eve, rather Eve was given to be with Adam. This was prior to the Fall.

By God, Moses was made leader of the Israelites during their 40-year exodus. Was Moses merely a spiritual leader? Actually, Aaron (another male) was assigned much of the spiritual leadership tasks. Moses led the people in a very world-based, physical way as they made their way through the wilderness. Moses also delegated leadership/judging responsibilities to (all-male) subordinates, and there was a clear hierarchy.

In the Bible, there appears to be considerable mention of church leaders. A hierarchy. Why? Because sheep need shepherds, and even shepherds benefit from oversight.

Jesus chose twelve males as apostles. Not women. Men. The leaders of the church.

Paul wrote that husbands are to love their wives, but that wives are to obey their husbands. That's hierarchy.
Eph_5:22 Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.
Eph 5:23 For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body.
Eph 5:24 Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.
Peter wrote about this, too.
1Pe_3:1 Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands...
There can only be one head of a household, else it be a house divided against itself. The women submit to the men, not the other way around. The men oversee the women, not the other way around.

Likewise, there is one head of each parish. And one person oversees a diocese. Otherwise, chaos ensues.

If hierarchy were a spiritual issue only, surely God is powerful enough to have directly guided each and every person throughout history, without benefit of a worldly hierarchy. But there it is: hierarchy is a necessary component utilized by God to meet needs and provide guidance in this world. We are still in this world (even though just 'passing through') and as long as the physical world and our physical bodies exist, so will hierarchies.

We see an established pattern in the Bible, in church history, and in the home. This pattern, which derives from God, is one of male leadership in all of those settings. God made the man Adam first, then He made Eve to help Adam. God chose the man Moses, not Miriam or some other woman, to lead the Israelites. God chose Aaron, not Elisheba, to head the lineage of Israelite priests. Jesus chose 12 males as apostles. And so on.

A female priest would place a woman in authority over men, with the men in submission to her hierarchical leadership. This does not fit the pattern which God established and demonstrated throughout history and the Bible.

Peace, brother.

 

According to scripture, it is the Holy Spirit who reveals truth to the disciple of Jesus Christ, John 4:23, John 14:17, John 15:26, John 16:13, Rom.9:1, Eph.1:13, 1 John 4:6, not by merely reading the words of a book, even a book as inspired as the bible is. Demanding scholarly credentials of the exegete is truly a Pharisaical trait. That is exactly the attitude they had towards my master. He was guided by The Holy Spirit and they were not. Just as disciples today are guided by the Holy Spirit and 'unbelievers' are not.

If you think my biblical interpretations alien to the Anglican way, then correct me if you are able, using the 'Anglican way'. If you disagree with my exegesis of the scriptures then cite the references I have quoted, which you refute and we can then see which of us is nearer to the truth of scripture and which is relying solely on 'traditions of men'.
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