[Curious]

As I’m the source of this thread originally, I feel I have a bit more to add now its been revisited.

My opening diatribe was my attempt to compare what the bigger view of the council of scripture would indicate on the idea that women are more easily deceived, rather than take a big lead on this from one statement of Paul, though I don’t pretend to have all the answers.

History attests to much mistreatment of women, especially from Homer the Greek philosopher, onwards, in the rise of Western Civilisation. But most parts of the world have exercised misogyny as part of the cultural norm without the help of Homer’s philosophies. In Italy in the middle ages, it is advised to men to treat their wives as they will, with the only caution being not to beat her too harshly while she is heavily pregnant, or a disaster may happen.(!) The implication being that a man can beat his wife to the degree that could cause a miscarriage in a heavily pregnant woman, at any other time, including while in early pregnancy. He also has liberty to use her body in any way that so pleases him in regards to sexual practice, she is as ‘meat’ to be had according to his inclination. This is from literature written during the time. Disturbingly, that sort of attitude is not unusual for most of the world, for most of time.

I advise anyone subject to human nature to be cautious about doctrines that elevate men to positions that give free reign in terms of authority without due accountability. The fallen nature of either gender loves this kind of liberty. As women carry babies and are physically weaker and as child rearing necessitates their dependency on men, this puts women in a more vulnerable situation. This is important to keep in mind in my opinion.

An alternative possibility I’ve heard regarding Paul’s words is that when he said ‘A woman’ must remain silent, he was referring to one particular woman, but not naming her. He did not mean every woman, just one asking questions and disrupting the flow of the meeting. That could be a possibility.

Also, ‘she must ask her husband at home’….women were not educated, only men could read and study the scriptures. This is an undisputed fact from the times. They also had been allotted a separate area in the temple, although this had not been the case originally. So being once again included in the proceedings of the gathering of the faithful, they had lots of questions and learning to catch up on. To ‘ask their husbands’ at home was the revolution in including women, advising husbands to teach them, rather than exclude them as had been the norm.

I think we in our times don’t appreciate the dangerous and perilous nature of existence of people, especially women, in the times of the bible (as per Nell’s post). Nor do we appreciate the extent of the ‘oppression’ and exclusion of women from education and higher pursuits. That women are capable of these activities is born out by women who wrote under male pseudonyms and even the odd artist was secretly a woman, in past centuries. Personally, I can’t accept the position that God only equips one half of the human race with talents and abilities only to supply genes to the other half. But that issue is not really at question here, except as an extension to ‘teach (include) your wives at home’.

My last bit here is to say: Any human who submits their life to God, is going to develop wisdom, good character, faith, resistance to careless sinning etc, over time. Regardless of their gender. Any person who does not, will be prone to both disobedience, (to any Christian values they don’t subscribe to) and deception, self-deception etc. A wise person teaches others by word, conduct, even just their composure and presence. It is unavoidable that when a person possesses substance, it influences others. It is impossible to avoid learning from a maturing person. If it’s a person’s journey with the Lord that is being testified, how can that be a sin, based on their gender? We all learn from each other all the time. It is intrinsic to relationship that mutual learning happens. To take Paul’s instruction to mean he is forbidding all women to ever teach any man just makes no practical sense to me and is impossible to implement.

Men in the church who subscribe to the doctrines that have come from these scriptures of Paul, often seem more worried they might sin by overlooking those scriptures, than they are worried about the danger they might sin by denigrating, misusing and abusing through disempowerment, the helpmeet God gave them. Adding to, if even in a lesser way, the volume of injustice that has and continues to happen against women. That’s my thoughts.