I have a church nearby that's has woman clergy. Any advice?

Well yes exactly! We are not sure if this Law is from; God, Paul, or elsewhere. All Paul says is women should keep quiet, "as the Law says" all I want to know is what Law this is. If Paul is referencing it, it must have been in existence prior to his letter to the Corinthians.

 

Search results for 'submission' across 20 versions of the Bible reveals no hits in either OT ot NT except 1 Cor. 14.
Search for 'submit' = 12 hits, Gen.16:9; 2 Sam.22:45; Ps.18:44; 66:3; 68:30; 1 Cor.16:16; Eph.5:22; Col.3:18; Heb.13:17; Js.4:7; 1 Pet.2:13; 1 Pet.5:5
The bold type references refer to women, all the others are not gender specific. None refer to being silent.

Search for 'women+silence' = 1 hit, 1 Cor.14:34.
Search for 'women+not+speak' = 1 hit, 1 Cor.14:34.
Search for 'women+to+keep+silence' = 1 hit, 1 Cor.14:34.
Search for 'women+to+speak' = 3 hits, KJV : 1 Cor.14:34. 14:35; 1 Tim.5:14.

There is no law in either Old or New Testaments forbidding women to speak, remain silent, or refrain from 'prophesying'.

Acts 2:18 however contains this prophesy:

"In the last days it will be, God declares,
that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh,
and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions,
and your old men shall dream dreams.
Even upon my slaves, both men and women,
in those days I will pour out my Spirit;
and they shall prophesy."

So either this prophesy remains unfulfilled, thus proving Peter a liar, or women / daughters / female slaves, are all allowed by God to 'prophesy'. Basically meaning to 'speak forth' or 'teach'.

And before anyone tries to convince us that the last days are yet to come Heb.1:1-2 informs us we have been living in the last days since 28AD.

"God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds;"
.

 

At the very least it refers to the Levitical Priesthood, ie. the liturgical worship and praise of God reserved to consecrated men:

And I have given the Levites as a gift to Aaron and his sons from among the children of Israel, to do the work for the children of Israel in the tabernacle of meeting, and to make atonement for the children of Israel, that there be no plague among the children of Israel when the children of Israel come near the sanctuary"
Numbers 8:19 (NKJV)

"Now when Moses saw that the people were unrestrained (for Aaron had not restrained them, to their shame among their enemies), then Moses stood in the entrance of the camp, and said, "Whoever is on the LORD'S side-come to me." And all the sons of Levi gathered themselves together to him"
Exodus 32:25–26 (NKJV)

Nor was this arrangement unjust or inappropriate:
"perfection were through the Levitical priesthood (for under it the people received the law)"
Hebrews 7:11 (NKJV)

 

Baptism by a woman is licit, if not always ideal.

 

"I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet." 1 Tim 2:12

"women are to be silent in the churches. They are not permitted to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says." 1 Cor. 14:34.

There IS no Law forbidding women to speak in church, either in the Torah or in the Old Testament. There are however examples of women speaking, prophesying and leading worship in the Old Testament Assembly of the people.

If the law referred to is the unwritten law of the Pharisees, then that was roundly condemned by Jesus Christ, and later by Paul, in his tirades against Judaisers infiltrating the churches. See Gal.

Here is where the issues surrounding these verses come right down to one of faith in the character and reforming zeal of Jesus Christ Our Lord.

If one is determined to ignore the truth that these verses have doubtful authenticity, and insist rather that the 'inspiration and authority' of New Testament scripture must be understood to be Law based and therefore 'binding' upon the church to word, letter and even the non existent punctuation, (however dubious that 'Laws' existence may actually be), then we have constructed a system so similar to that of the Pharisees, that we would find ourselves in opposition to our own Lord and Master, who adamantly opposed their restrictive rules and nit picking religious pettifoggery, to the shedding of his blood on a torture stake.

If on the other hand it is recognised and accepted that the 'Law' mentioned cannot be found anywhere in Holy Scripture, even though it is apparently referred to in 1 Cor.14:34, and that other writings from supposedly the same author never appeal finally to the imposition of 'the Law' as a means of control over church members, male or female, it leaves the church free to discover for itself in other parts of Holy Scripture what might throw more light on the correct way we are to behave toward one another as brothers and sisters in Christ, building one another up in faith, supporting one another in the ministerial tasks assigned to us by God, under The New Covenant, according to our several gifts, and bringing in by greater measure The Kingdom of God which even the gates of hell will not resist.

So this little verse, of historically dubious authorship and authenticity, becomes the most 'inspired' verse in the Bible, because it forces us to choose between Christ's way of faith in Him and his teaching, the way of The Holy Spirit, and the Pharisees way of rigid imposition of 'the Law' to control God's people in Christ's Church.

Do we slavishly follow the dictates of a Book we have idolatrously and unscripturally elevated to the position of 'infallibility', (as the Pharisees did with the law, regardless of the problems this caused for others), only God is infallible, or do we honour the memory of Jesus Christ, Paul and the other Apostles by seriously seeking the Way, the Truth and the Life as fellow members of Christ's church, by considering the whole of the Bible, not just single verses of admittedly doubtful authenticity?

Life in the Spirit or obedience to a Law? That is the stark choice that 1 Cor.14:34. and 1 Tim.2:12. constantly offers the Church. This is genuine 'sheep and goat separating' and it is not we who are doing the separating, it is The Holy Spirit. 1 Pet.4:17. Acts.5:38-39.
.

 

1. What do you mean by prophesying? I suspect that what you mean by this word is very different from what the Scripture and the Fathers, not to mention the Anglican divines, have meant by it.

2. There is no example of women leading a liturgical worship of God, in the Old Testament, and if you have a passage, please show it. It was the exclusive role of the Levitical priests and levites, who were (as in my quotes) the sons of the tribe of Levi. It was also the exclusive role of the Rabbis of the Inter-Testamental Period; who were also exclusively men.

3. The whole of the Torah, the five books of Moses, is considered to be "The Law", so the institution of the male Aaronic levitical priesthood can be considered to be the institution of The Law.

 

Acts.21:8-9. On the next day we departed and came to Caesarea, and we entered the house of Philip the evangelist, who was one of the seven, and stayed with him. He had four unmarried daughters, who prophesied.

Luke.2:36-38. And there was one Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Aser:

προφητεύω
STRONG’S NUMBER: g4395
Dictionary Definition g4395. προφητεύω prophēteuō; from 4396; to foretell events, divine, speak under inspiration, exercise the prophetic office: — prophesy.
AV (28) - prophesy 28;
to prophesy, to be a prophet, speak forth by divine inspirations, to predict to prophesy with the idea of foretelling future events pertaining esp. to the kingdom of God to utter forth, declare, a thing which can only be known by divine revelation to break forth under sudden impulse in lofty discourse or praise of the divine counsels under like prompting, to teach, refute, reprove, admonish, comfort others to act as a prophet, discharge the prophetic office.

By prophesying I mean what the KJV means by prophesying, wherever 'prophet' and 'prophesying' appear in the text. g4395 and its cognates.

Judg.4:4-7; Judg.5:1-31.

There was no liturgical worship as such in the Old Testament and the New Testament 'Priesthood' is not a continuation of the OT priesthood. (2 Chron.8:12-16, they made sacrifices for sin, on behalf of the people). They are utterly separate, no connection whatever.

The only mention of a 'Priest' in connection with the New Testament Church of Jesus Christ, is Jesus Christ himself. 26 references priest and priesthood all appear in Hebrews and nowhere else in connection with leading the worship of the Church, (apart from 1 Pet.2), most are referring to Christ, some to the priesthood under the Old Covenant (which decayeth and waxeth old and is ready to vanish away) Heb.8:13. That exclusively male priesthood is long since passed away along with the Covenant requirements that existed under that dispensation.

New Testament priesthood is as different a matter within the church as a lady vicar is from the 'priesthood' of the High Priest Caiaphas, who arranged Christ's death. We in the New Testament get our priestly office from our own High Priest, namely Christ himself, not through Aaron at all, but though Christ and the order of Melchisedec. Heb. 7:11; 7:21

Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace. Rom.6:13-14.

1 Pet.2:1-5. Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings, As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby: If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious. To whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious, Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.

This is addressed to all disciples of Jesus Christ, not just men.

1 Pet.2:9-10. But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light: Which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy.

Not addressed to men, but to all disciples, male and female. (any other interpretation would have to presume women are not the people of God and have not obtained mercy.)

Rev.20:6. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.

Women priests, unless you want to sell us the idea that no women will be included in the first resurrection either, in addition from being banned from your male only New Testament 'priesthood'.

 

Okay, so by prophesying you mean making prophecies. Very well. This has nothing to do with the priestly office, either of the old or the new testaments. Even if I grant you that women may be prophets, which I by no means grant, but letting that be a different discussion, the prophetic office is very different from the regular clerical priestly office.

Sorry you seem to have a congregationalist, baptist, and generally evangelical understanding of the New Testament priesthood. Not only is it factually wrong, more to the point, it is completely alien to the doctrine of Holy Orders as understood in the Anglican tradition (and the Church Fathers).

Here, consult this:
Jeremy Taylor, Clerus Domini; A Discourse of the Divine Institution, Necessity, Sacredness, and Separation of the Office Ministerial; Together with the Nature and Manner of its Power and Operation"
https://books.google.com/books?id=wDU8hOs8SlwC&dq=jeremy taylor clerus domini&pg=PA1#v=onepage&q&f=false

Or how about this: Thomas Bilson, "On the perpetual government of the church", from the Apostles era to the modern day (the 1590s, by his reckoning):
https://www.anglican.net/works/thomas-bilson-the-perpetual-government-of-christs-church-1593/

You also might enjoy the book on the Nature of the Church published by the Convocation of the Church of England in 1606, which teaches the nature of holy orders, from the Old Testament times, down through the priesthood of Mechisedec, down to the Apostles, and the patristic era. Can you get back to us when you have studied these?
Google Books: https://books.google.com/books?id=c...ce=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false
online: https://www.anglican.net/works/john...ent-of-catholic-church-kingdoms-of-the-world/

 

You seem to have a rather Roman Catholic and Greek / Russian Orthodox view of it. Perhaps instead of quoting non scriptural stuff from 'Church Fathers', you might stick to the Holy Scriptures and refute my arguments from the scriptures themselves, concerning the distinct separation in the New Testament High Priesthood of Christ, from the 'passed away', Old Testament male only Aaronic priesthood. It is after all the scriptures which are our guide to church praxis, not the Church Fathers or even 'Anglican tradition'.

No doubt most of the worthys you have been reading were very informative and spiritually attuned to those of their own time, but they were far removed from Apostolic Times and also living at a time when it was common practice to silence those who disagreed with one's theological viewpoint by burning them at the stake, beheading them or torturing them in the Inquisition.

Those habits have changed, so may some attitudes to a male only priesthood, at least for some of us.
.

 

So quoting Anglican divines to you is a Roman Catholic thing, is it?

I suppose you fancy yourself your own prophet, do you? Able to determine your own meaning for the Scriptures, even if the meaning is poisoned or tainted by a distance of 2,000-3,000 years? All classic heretics have approached the truths of God this way.

 

Anglican divines were men, like other men, of their time. They claimed no Apostolic authority. They searched the scriptures just as we do. They made judgments which were influenced by the era they lived in, just as our judgments are influenced by our upbringing, education and social situation. Unless we were brought up by wolves in a cave like Romulus and Remus, never being educated or living in a 'society' we cannot escape entirely the influence of the zeitgeist, neither could they.

The Church of England is not tied to 16th century theology. It is informed by 1st Century theology from the scriptures themselves. Some interesting insights might be gained from the Divines, I grant you, but they do not formulate our doctrine, nor did they ever pretend to dictate church praxis for all future generations.

We are straying quite far from whether you would prefer to be baptized by a righteous woman or a pedophile male priest though. Camel soup anyone?

 

Perhaps the Roman Catholic view on baptism by a woman can be found in the Mortara case. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortara_case

 

To be fair, the Roman Catholic view would presumably be that in extremis baptism can be performed by any believer male or female. Most midwives were female and few doctors would be called upon to perform the ritual, when all doctors were male. The whole issue becomes somewhat ridiculous when considerations of whether God would allow infants, who through no fault of theirs were unbaptised, to go to hell, (Linbo if you like), just because the right was performed by a female instead of a male, or not performed at all, because neither were around at the time. The Anglican church certainly holds the view that baptism in such circumstances can be administered by women just as validly as men.

To hold the view that babies must be left unbaptised unless a man is available to perform the ritual and that if the ritual is not performed, the baby will perish eternally, would be tantamount to suggesting that the Omnipresent God is not around for the most vulnerable, when most needed, by the most needful. A notion unacceptable for any but the most legalistically minded who for theological reasons cannot accept the RC notion of Linbo.

 

You're probably right about the "in extremis " bit, but I assume a "second rate" baptism is still considered valid.

The good news here for unbaptised RC babies is 3 or 4 years ago the Pope decreaded that unbaptised babies no longer go to Limbo. (Typo corrected)

 

As usual, Tiffy cannot actually reference Scripture that commands priestesses/bishopesses or ones that refute Paul's words.

Tiffy must be uniquely blessed to be so much more enlightened on the meaning of the Word regarding holy orders as to have perceived the apparently cryptic meaning of the Bible on these things that 2,000 years of Christian testimony missed.

But I have come to expect little more from an admitted Donatist.

 

This is genuinely amazing, even for Tiffy. Now that we've boldly dismissed Paul's canonical writing as found in God's Word, we instead must look to who...well the Church. Yet these very same Church Fathers are dismissed as sexists. So one must conclude that for 2,000 years the Church simply did not exist and instead has now only been restored (a la the Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses or similar such fringe restorationist claims) in a small fringe in the Global North (curious how this new revelation just so happens to line up exactly with the rich modern liberal zeitgeist we live in). We cannot trust the Word, and we cannot trust the Church Fathers, instead it seems we must trust Tiffy and their fringe of Global North modernists. Their stance is basically a paraphrase of Louis XIV:

"L'église, c'est moi."

 

When I was a member of the Orthodox Church, their theologians argued as well that the Church created the Bible, and that Holy Tradition had equal standing.

Tiffy, however, appears to have no use for tradition and, what really alarms me, is when he refers to the scriptures as "Godly advice." I think what we read in the Bible goes a bit beyond "advice," or recommendations on how to live.

We are unable to interpret parts of the Bible ourselves, and any number of Godly men and women have prayed, studied, and meditated on the scriptures and reached different conclusions. This is where the Fathers and Tradition come in, as well as Church councils. Otherwise, every man is his own Pope. We have a universal witness in the Church via Tradition, the Fathers, and the Ecumenical Councils. We cannot, and must not, abrogate that witness, otherwise, anything goes.

 

Lol, savage...

 

Was Paul, in 'the Church'?
Was Peter, in 'the Church'?
Was Matthew, in 'the Church'?
Was Mark, in 'the Church'?
Was Luke, in 'the Church'?
Was John, in 'the Church'?
Was (whoever wrote Hebrews?), in 'the Church'?

Q. Who wrote the God 'inspired' Bible:
A. The Church.

 

The Holy Ghost.