[aron]

YP's insertion of the 'widow's roll' into the discussion of elders provides some helpful context for me. It got me thinking about the 'cultural relics' we often unknowingly insert into our practices, religious and otherwise. Hopefully my comments here serve as an adjunct rather than an impediment to the discussion.

--short hair. Paul prescribes women not to have short hair. That is not followed in the church, even in the Local Churches today. Some women have short hair, most don't.

--head coverings. Same as above. Most LC women don't cover thier heads, some do.

--women being 'silent' in the church. Not followed much in any fellowship of believers. I did meet with one non-LC group that had strict adherence to the above 3 points.

--Paul & Silas getting the right hand of fellowship to go forth, and being told to "remember the widows and orphans, which we assured them we were eager to do". Not much in record follows concerning widows and orphans being helped by them. Today, helping widows and orphans seems to be optional in Christianity. In the LC's, we looked for "good materials", which meant young college students. Widows and orphans were looked after privately, by some. But it certainly was not stressed. It seems to be more stressed in the NT, in places like this, and in the Gospels.

--the widow's roll, mentioned by YP. Again, optional, it seems. To me, inserting a widows roll, or some such practice, in the early assembly is not so much a cultural artifact as it is an attempt by the adherents of the faith to follow the Master's teachings. He said, "It is better to give than to receive", and some of the disciples looked for ways to give, and latched on to this as a way to help others. So they weren't being "Jewish" as much as trying to be "good". The cultural element might have been irrelevant.

--slaves obeying the masters. This is clearly cultural. It did get rehashed in the U.S. prior to the Civil War, with pro-slavery/states' rights groups citing this verse and abolitionists citing the "there is not any free man or slave in Christ" verses. Actually, some of the NT verses on slavery might be called anti-cultural, because they fly in the face of prevailing sentiment by asserting the equality of all men, and women, in the household of faith. That is the opposite of a 'nod' to culture, and also it follows Christ, to some degree, who could be quite iconoclastic in his speaking. Overturning the established order, and such.

--wives obeying husbands. In the LC's, at least on paper, this is adhered to, but in many Christian groups it is downplayed or ignored. As society changed, so did the attention to admonitions such as this. Today women can divorce husbands, can own property, vote, run for president, run companies, perform open heart surgery; they are in most cases equal. And in many Christian groups, even strict 'Bible-based' groups, women have equal status. In the homes also.

--"I do not permit a woman to teach". Same as above.

--children obeying/honoring parents. This seems to transcend culture. Children lack experience, and those children who are not obedient eventually learn, sometimes with a steep price, that the things Mom & Dad lectured on had at least a modicum of reality attached to it. The price to pay, learning from Mom & Dad, usually is less steep than learing from 'the world'.

--elders/leading ones in the assembly not being lovers of money, not vain, not striking others, not having multiple wives, not drunkards. Partly cultural. Interpersonal violence may have been more common back then, thus the need for an admonition. But most of it is common sense, really. Pretty obvious, and as such, to me, mostly irrelevant. There is a cultural element here. Paul would not have to write such words today, just like "Slaves, obey your masters." It is clearly a cultural artifact from now-departed times.

My point in this little list (which came to me "off the top of my head" as I was writing; surely there are other examples also), is to suggest that there are things which the christian community has ignored and/or abandoned as unworkable or outmoded or irrelevant by the changing times. And some things which some have abandoned and some other ones hold to, even tightly. So it seems to be okay to give ourselves some latitude as we attempt to determine what is "biblical" and what is "cultural".

Lastly, the trump card is Jesus Christ, not letters to Timothy or Titus. Paul said "Imitate me as I imitate Christ". We ought to determine where Paul was imitating Christ, and where he was nodding to the prevailing culture. Just because God gave Paul latitude to be a Greek among the Greeks, that doesn't mean we all have to strictly adhere to Greek customs and culture in order to follow Jesus the Galilean. We can be American among the Americans, and so forth. America is a much more decentralized place. If we collectively prefer a more decentralized or ad-hoc form of group leadership, I don't think God's throne will shake.