Quote:
Originally Posted by Evangelical
So why don't I turn this around and ask, what do you think women can women do and what can't they do?
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That is a great question, worthy of its own thread, and perhaps not suitable for this forum (alt views perhaps) since we will be leaving Witness Lee's little frog pond.
What do I think Women can do?
Let me change this question to
"What do you think the New Testament says Women can do?"
I think Jesus word about moving mountains by faith applies equally to women and men.
I think Paul's word charging the aged women to teach the younger women how to have a good marriage is not some superficial nursery school teaching but a critical and essential ministry for the church.
I think that women have very clearly been given the authority to teach the women, who represent 2/3 of the church and are therefore a very, very significant group in the church.
I think that women (and men) need to have their head covered when they teach. A woman should wear a head covering as a good example to the other sister's, whereas a man shouldn't wear a head covering but all the same needs to practice having his head covered. For example, what I think is insignificant, what the Apostle's taught is significant. That is the reality of head covering.
I think Paul's word in 1Tim 2 is about dealing with the local authority, and talking about women "being in quietness" refers to not getting all agitated and provoking an outcry. In this context, when the church deals with the local government, the newspaper, the press or any other public discourse, in that situation only the elders should speak and everyone else does not have the right to say anything other than point to the elders to speak.
I think that Paul's word clearly states that when you choose "an elder" you are choosing a couple -- a man and a wife, and that has been ignored and overlooked by too many. I see this similar to Genesis 5 -- and He called their name Adam. Therefore it is either incredibly ignorant or else willfully blind to say that an elder is a brother. An elder is "the husband of one wife", hence the term elder includes two people, a husband and wife.
What does the NT teach that women can't do?
They can't do anything of themselves. Apart from Jesus they can do nothing.
If they want to move mountains and have a prevailing ministry they need to be joined to Jesus.
For example, Jesus gave an example of powerful, prevailing prayer -- and the person he used to illustrate this power was a widow. Her head was properly covered, she didn't step outside the lines, but even unrighteous judges had to bow before her prevailing prayer. In my experience just the threat of this is enough to cause fire to fall from the heavens.
Let me share a little experience I had. I worked with my church in a ministry for the persecuted Christians around the world. We chose those in Sudan, we had a picture of a child who was killed, we used a small child's coffin and we had a rally across the street from the UN when they opened their session in the beginning of September. We filled the park. One man that came was involved in a ministry in Sudan (they made a movie about him, you might have seen the movie). The rally made international news and a number of ambassadors said that this was when they first took the issue in Sudan seriously. Our message was if you don't care about your brother when you can do something, no one will care about you when it comes here.
The following year we planned to repeat this rally, only this time we were going to have the front row of our march to be aged women. Each woman would carry the picture of some atrocity taking place. If they couldn't walk that far all the better, we would put them in wheel chairs being pushed by young men. The rally was planned for September 13th, but it was cancelled after the attack on September 11th.
How about you, do you agree? Disagree? Please respond to each point specifically. Thanks.