What About Women In Ministry?

How can we know anything about anything

To try to explain truth to him who loves it not is but to give him more plentiful material for misinterpretation. George Macdonald

Do we have to make a choice between science and the Bible?

NO!

That is NOT where the problem is, but that is what everyone seems to want to talk about.

Take science as an example. How can we know anything about the created material world around us?

How can we know anything from what we can see using natural sciences?

We all see the same things in the material world, but we don't come to the same answers.

Why is that?

How can we know anything about the Bible and what it teaches? Every person believes different things about the Bible and how it should be read.

Why is that?

Same scientific facts. Different answers.

Same Bible. Different answers.

Why is that?

The true question is this: How do we come to our answers that we get from what we can see through science or what we can read in the Bible?

How do we think about what we see using science or what we read in the Bible?

How do we analyze what we have seen and read?

How do we interpret what we have seen and read?

We use logic, but logic always has a foundation. Jesus talked about building on the Rock. That Rock is Jesus Christ. He is the true foundation. There are also the false foundations of the ungodly.

An example might help.

Question: Why do you believe in evolution?

Answer: Because my science teacher told me that evolution is scientific fact.

Question: Why do you believe your science teacher?

Answer: because he agrees with the textbook he assigned us to read.

Now, we have asked, "Why?" twice.

If we continued to ask, "Why?" we would come down to the foundation of this person's thoughts.

When we get down to the foundations, there are no more questions that can be answered. So where to the foundations come from?

There are three possibilities.

things that we make up, pulled from the air
demonic lies
divine revelation

Question: Why do you believe in creation?

Answer: Because God revealed this to me. He spoke to me through the Bible and gave me His faith so that I could believe Him.

See how quickly we got to the foundation. This is a belief that has a foundation that is solid and that cannot be moved.

In reality, the things that we make up, that are pulled from the air, are actually from demons and all the lies of demons spring from the prince of demons, Satan. So these are one and the same.

Divine revelation comes from the Almighty, Creator, God, Jesus Christ. So there are only two choices, but how do we know there are only two choices? Because God has revealed this truth to us.

The question then is how do we tell the difference between the revelation that comes from God and the lies of Satan?

The answer is that everyone who sincerely wants to do the will of God will know.

Jesus said, "If you really want to obey God, you will know if what I teach comes from God or from me"

The rejection of the revelation that comes from God is not an intellectual problem. It is a moral problem.

Jesus said, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you: For everyone who asks receives; and he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks it shall be opened." *

Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to those who ask him? Matthew 7:7-11 *

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. You can set the truth before someone, but you can't make anyone believe those things that they don't want to submit to. They have to want to obey God.

How frequently it is brought to our attention that nothing good can be done if the will is wrong! Reason alone fails to justify itself. Richard M. Weaver

Jesus said, "You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (John 8:32)

"If we are not prepared to buy the truth at the cost of our own humbling we shall not receive it"

Lies appear to have no price upon them. They seem cheap and they abound everywhere. But for the truth there is always an obvious price to pay.

"[God] has set a day when He will judge all the world's people with fairness. And He has chosen the man Jesus to do the judging for Him. God has given proof of this to all of us by raising Jesus from death" (Acts 17:31).

"There is a judge for the one who rejects Me [Jesus] and does not accept My words; that very word which I spoke will condemn him at the last day" (John 12:48)

That also stands for every person who speaks the utterances of Jesus. When we hear them, we hear Jesus Christ, and we either accept or reject. Every person who follows Jesus Christ is commanded to only speak His utterances and not their own.

"When we love others, we know that we belong to the truth, and we feel at ease in the presence of God" (1 John 3:19)

Ravi Zacharias did two open forums in a university. On the second night, one man told him that he had brought two Atheists in the night before who said that the arguments presented were so strong that they could not contend with them, but they were going to remain Atheists because that is what they prefer to be true.

In another case of just listening to an unbeliever and drawing out his reasoning, the unbeliever finally came to his foundations.

They turned out to be assumptions that were pulled from the air. When asked why he believed his basic assumption, the unbeliever looked startled and blurted out, "I guess I'm making the whole thing up." It was quite a revelation to him since he hadn't even known that he had any assumptions. However, he decided to remain an Atheist because he didn't want God to rule over him.

What about women in ministry?

Every member of the Body of Christ has a ministry and is a ministry. If a woman is part of the Body of Christ, then she is a ministry and she has a ministry. How this word has been twisted! The ministry is the Christ within each one who has accepted Christ.

The Bible says that older women may teach the young women to be serious, love their husbands, love their children, be discreet, be chaste, be keepers at home, be good, and be obedient to their own husbands. Women prophesy, pray, sing songs, sing in prophetic songs of the Spirit, and exhort (encourage).

The Scriptures are not for private interpretation, but those things that have been hidden in times past are now revealed to God's holy apostles and prophets. So we are not concerned with our own opinion or anyone else’s opinion. We are concerned only with what has been revealed concerning the question of whether or not a woman can serve as an elder or hold the office of an elder... or any other question. Ephesians 3:5 What is revealed continually turns out to always be exactly what the Scripture says. It seems that every time God reveals anything, He reveals that the Bible means exactly what it says and says exactly what it means. Many Scriptures show us that it is the apostles who are given the authority in revelation of the meaning of scripture.

By the way, there is no Biblical basis for the local pastor (sometimes called a minister) in the local church as we see today. This was a practice that was introduced centuries after the church was established and is part of the reason for the descent into the dark ages.

So, the local elder is the highest level of authority in the local church. However, the local elders always walk in submission to the apostles. They are set by the apostles and they receive their teaching from the apostles. They teach no other doctrine.

Regarding local elders: 1 Timothy 5:17-18 is the only verse in Scripture regarding what local elders ought to receive as opposed to what apostles, traveling elders and deacons should receive. It is included here because it shows the stark difference between the local elders and deacons as opposed to the apostles, the traveling elders and deacons. Traveling elders and deacons and their portion it explained in 1 Corinthians 9:1, 7, 9, 10, 14, 15 and in Luke 10:7 and Matthew 10:10. The difference is obvious. Also, fathers and mothers in the home receive no salary for their work, but they ought to have a double measure of honor.

It is important that a woman does not take authority over men. "I do not allow a woman to teach nor to usurp authority over the man." 1 Timothy 2:12 The elders of the local church must be apt to teach and also are the highest level of authority in the local church. For this reason, a woman cannot hold the office of the elder in the local church.

The older women may teach younger women. "The aged women ... That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed." Titus 2:4-5

Women prophesy, pray, sing songs, sing in prophetic songs of the Spirit, and exhort (encourage). 1 Corinthians 11:4-11 "Every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonoureth his head. But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoureth her head: for that is even all one as if she were shaven. For if the woman be not covered, let her also be shorn: but if it be a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her be covered."

Let me add that the power of submission is not trivial. When the apostles are walking in submission to each other and to Christ, they have all the authority of Christ. When the local elders are walking in submission to each other and to the authority of the apostles and Christ, they carry all the authority of the apostles and of Christ. When the local deacons walk in submission to the authority of the local elders, they, in turn, walk in that same authority. The same is true for every family. Every husband who is in submission to the government that God has established for the church is a partaker of that same authority. The wife, through submission to her husband is a partaker of that same authority. The children in the home also have the same spiritual authority through submission to their parents.

Not only that, but "He that receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet's reward; and he that receiveth a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a righteous man's reward." Matthew 10:41 For instance, there are some men who cannot hold an office because they have had more than one wife, yet, they can have the same reward through submission. So0me have worried about God's reward system and whether or not it will be fair. This fear has sometimes lead to contention in the churches. There is no reason to fear or to contend for position. God will be fair in everything. He judges correctly and everything will be according to justice and righteous judgment.

What About Women In Ministry?

How can we know anything about anything

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