Struggling with female eldership

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Singalphile
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Joined: Sun Apr 22, 2012 12:46 pm

Re: Struggling with female eldership

Post by Singalphile » Sun Jul 16, 2017 2:42 pm

Homer wrote:It seems to me beyond dispute that the husband is head over the home. He is to be the leader, but as a servant, modeled after Christ's relationship to the church (1 Cor. 11 & Ephesians 5. Imo it is implausible that this same situation would not be true in the church as well. Seems to me implausible that a woman
would be an elder over her husband and then be subject to him at home which is to be a spiritual place, as is all of life for the Christian.
Yeah, that's true.

At this point, the only very good scriptural case that I see for limiting overseers to men would be 1 Tim 2 - "I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man ...." That's not exactly a command or instruction, but I am nevertheless willing to go with him on that.

Perhaps female overseers or elders (elder-women) would only overseer other females. Surely there are situations where it would would be best for a female to receive instruction or advice from elder, mature, godly woman.

(Again, I myself would have no trouble being taught or instructed or overseen by any more mature, godly, wise person.)
... that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. John 5:23

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steve
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Joined: Thu Aug 21, 2008 9:45 pm

Re: Struggling with female eldership

Post by steve » Mon Jul 17, 2017 5:06 am

(Again, I myself would have no trouble being taught or instructed or overseen by any more mature, godly, wise person.)
Nor would I, even if it was a woman. The issue is not one of holding women down, or seeing them as lesser than men. It is simply a matter of discerning the mind of God with reference to church structure.

If Junias was a woman and an apostle, for instance—or if Philip's daughters were prophetesses, this would not impact my exegesis on eldership, though there might be grounds for seeing both apostleship and the office of prophet as more prestigious (if such an abominable word were to be used with reference to church ministries) than that of being an elder.

Women can do any kind of ministry that God allows. If He restricts them from the role of eldership, this does not mean that He has no significant work for them to do, any more than my being restricted from eldership (because of my children) means that I am not permitted to do any significant service for Christ.

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