After putting together what I considered to be a comprehensive answer to what appeared to be a clincher of a post from @Rexlion, I could find nowhere to post the reply to. Everything had been shut down, discontinued or withered on the vine. The logic of this assumes a prototype is superior to later developments but experience tells us that where creativity is concerned, what follows is usually an improvement. If Adam needed a helper, that implies that Adam was lacking and needy. Woman was therefore God's solution to the defect in the original prototype, provided though that the prototype would accept the help that God's solution had supplemented, ameliorating Adam's inherent design deficiency. i.e. loneliness and an inability, on his own, to reproduce, like the other creatures could. Being alone and suffering loneliness, being an inadequate work force, incapable of performing the tasks alone, that God had allotted to him, without help, was a design defect noticed by God, in man. "Then the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” God's original search for a solution to Adam's inadequacy was to search out a suitable one from among the other creatures God had made. "Now out of the ground the LORD God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him." It was God, the designer of Adam, who was looking for the solution to Adam's need, - not Adam. Adam probably didn't even recognise he even HAD a 'need'. It was God therefore who decided no creature currently existing 'fitted the bill', all being considered by God to be 'unsuitable', (There is absolutely nothing, like a dame), and it was God who went back to the drawing board and 'fixed' it by producing Eve as the perfect solution. What was not good for man, now became good for man but man himself was unconscious, throughout the entire operation and to a large extent, it seems, still is. We are talking about a patriarchal society and the way things happened. EVERYTHING was controlled by men in those days. According to men, even God didn't have anything to do with women. It was men who organised everything and claimed often that God had told them to do it even if God hadn't. The notion that the Aaronic and Levitical priesthoods were chosen by God because they were male rather than for any other reason, is extremely tentative, to say the least. In any case we are considering the priesthood of The New Testament which is quite different than that of the Old Testament, which is 'passing away' anyway, and has been replaced. The Aaronic and Levitical priesthood in Jesus Christ's and the early church's time, were essentially bent on the repression and if possible the total eradication of the Christian faith, not being in any way its pioneers or champions and certainly not any representative epitome of male only church leadership. There was nothing 'God chosen' about them. Jesus' life, death and resurrection, spelt the eclipse, if not the destruction of the old priestly structures. Jesus' own teaching had placed him at the heart of a new sacerdotal structure; "Something greater than the temple is here". Mt.12:6. The author of Hebrews makes it abundantly clear that the Old Testament version of priesthood, both Aaronic and Levitical was defective and ineffective. Hebrews presses persistently its claim that Jesus has been appointed by God Heb.5:5-10, to be the new, the true high priest, who can finally deal with human sin. The old priests never could. An insistence that the priesthood MUST be male is merely symptomatic of an innate and retrogressive desire to return to the old standards of intermediary priesthood, instead of accepting the High Priesthood of Christ, who we cannot emulate, stand in for, act as mediator for, but only appeal to and present as the Lord and Saviour of us all. Yes Jesus IS of the order of Melchizedek, but not because Melchizedek was male or even because God chose Melchizedek because he was male, or because God always chooses males for every order of priesthood. It is because Christ's priesthood surpasses Aaron's Heb.7:11 and stretches back to Melchizedek's Heb.7:15-17, containing the perfection missing from the older sacrificial system, Heb.7:18. (1) It is based on God's own oath. Heb.7:20-22. (2) It is permanent because it is centred in the eternal Christ. Heb.7:23-25. (3) It partakes of the perfection of Christ who had no need to be purged of sin, as did the sons of Aaron. Heb.7:26-28. (4) It continues in the heavens where God himself has erected the true sanctuary of which Moses' tent was but 'a copy and a shadow'. Heb.8:1-7. (5) It is the fulfilment of God's promise of a New Covenant. Heb.8:8-13. (6) It's sacrifice needs no repeating but was rendered once and for all. Heb,7:27, Heb.9:12. (7) Its offering was not the blood of bulls and goats, unable to take away sins, but the body of Jesus Christ, through which believers are sanctified. Heb.10:4, Heb.10:10. (8) Its result is full and regular access to God for all Christians, not just a priestly order. Heb.10:11-22. (9) Its promises and hopes are assured by the faithfulness of God and the assurance of Christ's second coming. Heb.9:28, Heb.10:23. (10) Its full forgiveness provides the highest motivation for our works of love and righteousness. Heb.10:19-25. (11) Its effectiveness in the lives of God's people is guaranteed by Christ's constant intercession. Heb.7:25. In view of ALL THIS, the new order of Christian priesthood, (which incidentally is corporate and never spoken of as being represented in any distinct individual, other than Jesus Christ himself, according to everything said about it, in New Testament scripture), the NEW order of Christian priesthood is so much better in every respect than the Old, 'exclusively male', one of Aaron and Levi, that the fact that it was entirely, 'men led', far from necessarily being an attribute, might almost be seen as just another of its serious and debilitating defects. Jesus was incarnated as a human being and he came as a servant to serve. Had be come as a woman to serve, the men in the Jewish human race at that time, would not have even permitted him to speak in synagogue or temple, let alone to die for the whole of mankind. So it was of necessity that Christ was male, not necessarily by CHOICE. Christ's mission on earth had to succeed. Therefore he had to be incarnated as male, otherwise she would have failed, even though she would have survived the slaughter of the innocents of Bethlehem, (girls being held of no account), no one would have listened to her teaching, she would not have been circumcised, never accepted in a position of leadership, not even allowed into the inner courts of the temple. The human race had already gone so far into sin that it would have been impossible for a female saviour to have saved it. The 12 males were also all Jews, to a man, but we don't insist that priests must be of Jewish descent on the grounds that Jesus chose all Jews, without exception, for the 12. Since Apostle just means sent, (by Christ) there were many more apostles than just the 12. Scripture attests that at least one was probably a woman. Certainly the first one Jesus 'sent' to tell the 12 men of his resurrection, was a woman, and THEY didn't believer her. Mark 16:9-11. Little wonder then that Jesus Christ had to be born a man, because of men's sinful disbelief and disgracefully disdainful treatment of women at the time. No Apostle ever ordained any 'priest', male or female. Priests only came in, in the Christian church, AFTER the deaths of all the Apostles. The main characteristic of Christianity, from the first beginnings of the ministry of Jesus Christ, was the inclusion of women into positions of responsibility and even teaching and leadership. Christ's ministry was largely funded by the women. I would say, as I have already, "Look at what God was forced to do because of men's usurpation of power to themselves while dead in trespasses and in sinfully arrogant rebellion against God." Mankind had screwed itself. 'He' had almost destroyed, with 'his' male supremacy arrogance, the help that God had originally provided for him. Losing the companionship and assistance offered by womankind, by rejecting and spurning God's provided answer to man's LACK. So much good destroyed by sin and feigned 'superior knowledge' of good and evil. The war of the sexes is the most prevalently obvious indicator of fallen mankind. That is why Christian divorce is so tragic and why the metaphor of marriage betwixt Christ and his church is so apt, representing God's intention to restore the human race to wholesome unity, just as there is no hierarchy within the Oneness of the Trinity. This is displaying a desire to regress to old testament standards of priestly 'representation'. I'm surprised at that, knowing as I do how often your posts show the knowledge that do not need any intermediary to stand between you and Christ, your High Priest, to whom you have immediate access through the Holy Spirit. The church's priesthood in the new testament is corporate: no individual minister or leader is called 'priest'. The post apostolic writings however move quickly in the direction you appear to want to move in, back to an OT mode of an inter-mediatory system. Clement (Ad 95-96) describes Christian ministry in terms of high priest, priests and Levites. (1 Clem.40-44) the Didache (13:3) likens prophets to high priests. Tertullian (on babtism 17), and Hippolytus (Refutation of all Heresies, preface) seemed to have pioneered the use of the titles 'priest' and 'high priest' for Christian ministers (c. AD 200) I consider all this a regretful (post Apostolic) regression, into ignorance by male leadership nostalgic hankering after the 'good old days', when women were silent and men ran the show. A trend which continued down the ages until the church was almost irretrievably, unspeakably, corrupt, by scripturally New Testament standards. What you are describing though is substitution of a male 'stand in' between you and a "Life giving Spirit", which you presumably think of as 'male'. In other words, something very much like yourself. There is a word for that, but I won't go as far as to say it. John 4:1-2, Incidentally does not mean Jesus just baptised only his own disciples. It means Jesus did not baptise, only his disciples baptised. Jesus didn't. The only baptism Jesus does is baptism in the Holy Spirit. That is the one baptism that matters. The priest does nothing of the sort. Christ was not offering his body to his disciples as a eucharist. He was telling his disciples that his body, like that bread would be broken for them and his blood would be spilt for them and that they must accept, each one of them, the full responsibility for his necessary death to obtain their salvation. Christ died for the sins of the whole world and there has never been, nor will ever be a single person who Christ did not need to die for in order for them to have true life. John 17:3. No male or female 'priest' can perform the function that Christ has performed, either as a 'stand in', a 'substitute', a 'go-between' or even a representative. Jesus Christ made on the cross (his one oblation of himself once offered) a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction, for the sins of the whole world; and did institute, and in his holy Gospel command US to continue, a perpetual memory of that his precious death, until his coming again. The priest is merely obeying Christ's command to US ALL on the congregation's behalf. The priest is not God, is not Christ, is not a stand in, is not a reflection, is not an intermediary, is not a representative of Christ, is not offering anything whatsoever TO the congregation. He or she IS OFFERING OUR sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving; most humbly beseeching God to grant, that by the merits and death of His dear Son Jesus Christ, and through faith in his blood, we and all the whole church may obtain remission of our sins, and all other benefits of his passion. All of us, including the priest, whether male or female, are unworthy and so should be doubly grateful for God's mercies. Jesus of Nazareth was undoubtedly male from his conception to his resurrection from the dead. 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, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him . . . Christ was born in the likeness of men i.e. He was born a human being, this is not trying to say he was born in the likeness of a man. That would be idolatrous and quite blasphemous. Jesus Christ was a unique individual, he was not in the likeness of any 'man'. WE are ALL of us, male or female, supposed to be the likeness of HIM, and what Jesus is NOW is an omnipresent, "Life giving, Spirit." In order to get any scriptural support though for a male only priesthood you cannot go to the New Testament. You have to hark back to Old Testament thinking and Old Covenant practice. A possibly dubious regression, OR hark forward to Church Fathers writings, Papal and other assumptions and edicts, for your 'patterns of conduct' that you claim to be set in place by God, but which for some reason God did not see fit to clearly stipulate in the Apostolic record of the New Testament, even in such an exhaustive account of the nature of priesthood and salvation, under the New Covenant, as the Epistle to the Hebrews undoubtedly represents.
I am also asking this question. And in case that none of those threads are still opnen, could on be re-opened? @ The question of women's ministry: Are any threads still open?
Thank goodness for small favors! But I see you found a way around that. By implication, then, if a jigsaw puzzle is missing one piece and a new piece is made to fit the empty spot, that new piece is superior to the rest of the puzzle. Can you now see the fault in this argument? There might be tad of merit to the idea, however. Did you ever hear the joke about how Eve came to be called "woman"? You see, when Adam woke up from that deep sleep, he took one look at Eve and exclaimed, "Wooo, man!" Women have been trying to twist men around their little fingers ever since. The problem with the "changing society" argument is that the same rationale can be used to justify all sorts of changes that contradict the Biblical view of things (the view God gave us). For example, the homosexual will say that society now accepts gay sex and therefore it can't be wrong. The adulterer will say that society now accepts 'sleeping around'. The potty-mouth will say that society now accepts cussing (boy, does it ever!) and therefore taking the Lord's name in vain is no longer wrong. What does Article 6 say about Holy Scripture? "...whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the faith..." Women's liberation, female priests, female elders: do we read any of this in the Bible? No. Therefore it may not be proved and should not be believed as a matter of faith. 1Pe 3:1 Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives; 1Pe 3:2 While they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear. 1Pe 3:3 Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel; 1Pe 3:4 But let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price. 1Pe 3:5 For after this manner in the old time the holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection unto their own husbands: 1Pe 3:6 Even as Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him lord: whose daughters ye are, as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement. 1Pe 3:7 Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered. We can observe throughout the Bible that women are, according to the word of God, to be obedient and subject to the men. In particular, wives are to be in subjection to their husbands just as all are subject to Christ. All Christian women are "daughters of Sarah" in a manner of speaking, and they are called to act as Sarah acted. Thus we see continuity: the behavior considered correct in the OT is incorporated into the NT, according to 1 Peter 3. 1Ti 5:1 Rebuke not an elder, but intreat him as a father; and the younger men as brethren; 1Ti 5:2 The elder women as mothers; the younger as sisters, with all purity. Notice that we are not to treat the elder women as fathers (which is what you would do if you made them into priests), but as mothers. Notice also that throughout the discussion of women and widows in 1 Timothy 5:1-16 no mention is made of any possibility that they could be elders of the church. Wouldn't it have been a great place for that to be stated if it were acceptable for women to do so? The juxtaposition is highlighted by the fact that verse 17 does transition to the matter of elders (all of whom were male back then, and all of whom should be male today): 1Ti 5:17 Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honour, especially they who labour in the word and doctrine. Elders that rule... ruling elders. In Greek, "elders that rule" is presbuteros proistēmi. Sounds like priests to me. It would have been a splendid place for God to teach us that women could be priests, were He going to do so. But He didn't. He left off the subject of women with them being mothers and sisters, avoiding idleness and gossip, keeping house, and avoiding occasion for reproach (v. 14). It doesn't matter that NT priests hold a different role than the OT priests. That's because we also observe that OT elders and leaders, just like NT elders and leaders, were always men. It wasn't just the priests; it was all people in godly authority! If this were in error, God never corrected them. God never said, "Thou shalt allow thy women to rise in authority over thee." It would have gone against the pattern of God (a male figure) being ruler over His people (spoken of in the OT as a female virgin or sometimes a harlot, and in the NT as the Bride of Christ). As Adam was in authority over Eve and Abraham was in authority over Sarah, so Christ is in authority over the Church, and we see the pattern set forth by God on display throughout both OT and NT. If anyone would accuse men of being chauvinists for observing the pattern set forth by God, then by implication at the least (if not outwardly) they also accuse God of being chauvinist. Would they have the Bride be equal to Christ, or perhaps even exercising authority over Him? When people deny the clear lessons of the Bible and insist that they, in this 'enlightened society,' are wise enough to correct what they allege to be 'a wrong perpetratrated' by adherents to the word of God, they set themselves up as 'little gods' in opposition to the Almighty.
No, but God does through the Holy Spirit. Your line of attack should be on what does "subjection" mean in the eyes of God. If every point of doctrine must have been expressly stated by Christ, and then recorded into the Gospels we're in big trouble.
I wouldn't say that God made Adam with a piece missing, as if something that was orginally there had got lost or been stolen or that Eve was a 'spare part' which fixed an otherwise defective product. Adam was actually disfunctional while he was the whole human race all on his own. He had to be separated from himself and learn to give like God gives. It was not just a 'Rib' that God took from Adam in his 'sleep'. It was a whole side of him, (Metaphorically his better half). The same Hebrew word is used to describe a side of the Ark of the Covenant I think. Both Adam and Eve were made in the image of God and God has nothing missing. Quite the contrary in fact God has internal relationships beyond our human comprehension and has no secrets from himself. It was rather more a case of it being a deliberate oversight on God's part, so the author could make some important further points. Man is not meant to live alone, no man is an island and all that. God could have made the male of mankind fully independent but the author obviously didn't want things to go that way. So first the story teller stresses that no other creature was found to be 'suitable'. Then that God himself comes up with the solution and it is a perfect one as far as Adam, (mankind), is concerned. Gen.2:23-24 (The Hebrew word for woman is ishshah which sounds almost the same as sha which is the word for man.) The both sound like 'aShaah'. Its all very figurative and obviously intended to explain the attraction between the sexes, sanctify the sex act and ensure as wide a tribal gene pool as possible. Thus verse 24.
I also have taken that line often. And none of the 12 males wore glasses, So all priests must be Jews and not wearing glasses!
It's an expression. "Your best approach...", "The optimal tactic...", "You should have asked...", etc.
Rom.16:12. Phil.4:3 There were quite a few labourers in the word and doctrine and many were women right from early times. Strangley as time goes on in the written record of the New Testament they get less and less mentioned until by the Time 1 Tim. etc gets written they are being silenced and sidelined as the Jewish and Gentile men who had not been directly exposed to Jesus Christ's teaching during his 3 and a half year ministry began to take over and take control. It was all downhill after that . . . . . back to a modified form of misogynistic Judaism or a modified form of misogynistic Roman Paganism which eventually wasn't even totally put right in an incomplete or partial Reformation also run almost entirely by men. .