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Permalink: http://www.fulcrum-anglican.org.uk/759
Fulcrum Subjects: Women Bishops / Anglicanism, Church of England Other articles by Tom Wright are available from this site Discuss this Article on the Fulcrum Forum See the 110 comments on this article Women Bishops: It’s about the Bible, not fake ideas of progressby Tom Wrightcopublished, with permission, with The Times, 23 November 2012
E “But that would be putting the clock back,” gasps a feckless official in one of C. S. Lewis’s stories. “Have you no idea of progress, of development?” “I have seen them both in an egg,” replies the young hero. “We call it Going bad in Narnia.” Lewis nails a lie at the heart of our culture. As long as we repeat it, we shall never understand our world, let alone the Church’s calling. And until proponents of women bishops stop using it, the biblical arguments for women’s ordination will never appear in full strength. “Now that we live in the 21st century,” begins the interviewer, invoking the calendar to justify a proposed innovation. “In this day and age,” we say, assuming that we all believe the 18th-century doctrine of “progress”, which, allied to a Whig view of history, dictates that policies and practices somehow ought to become more “liberal”, whatever that means. Russia and China were on the “wrong side of history”, Hillary Clinton warned recently. But how does she know what “history” will do? And what makes her think that “history” never makes mistakes? We, of all people, ought to know better. “Progress” gave us modern medicine, liberal democracy, the internet. It also gave us the guillotine, the Gulag and the gas chambers. Western intelligentsia assumed in the 1920s that “history” was moving away from the muddle and mess of democracy towards the brave new world of Russian communism. Many in 1930s Germany regarded Dietrich Bonhoeffer and his friends as on the wrong side of history. The strong point of postmodernity is that the big stories have let us down. And the biggest of all was the modernist myth of “progress”. “We call it Going bad in Narnia.” Quite. It won’t do to say, then, as David Cameron did, that the Church of England should “get with the programme” over women bishops. And Parliament must not try to force the Church’s hand, on this or anything else. That threat of political interference, of naked Erastianism in which the State rules supreme in Church matters, would be angrily resisted if it attempted to block reform; it is shameful for “liberals” in the Church to invite it in their own cause. The Church that forgets to say “we must obey God rather than human authorities” has forgotten what it means to be the Church. The spirit of the age is in any case notoriously fickle. You might as well, walking in the mist, take a compass bearing on a mountain goat. What is more, the Church’s foundation documents (to say nothing of its Founder himself) were notoriously on the wrong side of history. The Gospel was foolishness to the Greeks, said St Paul, and a scandal to Jews. The early Christians got a reputation for believing in all sorts of ridiculous things such as humility, chastity and resurrection, standing up for the poor and giving slaves equal status with the free. And for valuing women more highly than anyone else had ever done. People thought them crazy, but they stuck to their counter-cultural Gospel. If the Church had allowed prime ministers to tell them what the “programme” was it would have sunk without trace in fifty years. If Jesus had allowed Caiaphas or Pontius Pilate to dictate their “programme” to him there wouldn’t have been a Church in the first place. So what is the real argument? The other lie to nail is that people who “believe in the Bible” or who “take it literally” will oppose women’s ordination. Rubbish. Yes, I Timothy ii is usually taken as refusing to allow women to teach men. But serious scholars disagree on the actual meaning, as the key Greek words occur nowhere else. That, in any case, is not where to start. All Christian ministry begins with the announcement that Jesus has been raised from the dead. And Jesus entrusted that task, first of all, not to Peter, James, or John, but to Mary Magdalene. Part of the point of the new creation launched at Easter was the transformation of roles and vocations: from Jews-only to worldwide, from monoglot to multilingual (think of Pentecost), and from male-only leadership to male and female together. Within a few decades, Paul was sending greetings to friends including an “apostle” called Junia (Romans xvi, 7). He entrusted that letter to a “deacon” called Phoebe whose work was taking her to Rome. The letter-bearer would normally be the one to read it out to the recipients and explain its contents. The first expositor of Paul’s greatest letter was an ordained travelling businesswoman. The resurrection of Jesus is the only Christian guide to the question of where history is going. Unlike the ambiguous “progress” of the Enlightenment, it is full of promise — especially the promise of transformed gender roles. The promise of new creation, symbolised by the role of Mary Magdalene in the Easter stories, is the reality. Modern ideas of “progress” are simply a parody. Next time this one comes round, it would be good to forget “progress” — and ministerial “programmes” — and stick with the promise. Tom Wright, a former Bishop of Durham, is research professor of New Testament and early Christianity at the University of St Andrews Discuss this Article on the Fulcrum Forum Forum Posts About This Article:Posted by: Bowman Monday 22 April 2013 - 09:15pm Andrew-- I would be delighted to know your well-read thoughts on prophecy in the Church, but we should probably discuss them in a fresh thread. I will be in the village more often in about a month. Posted by: Andrew Chapman Monday 22 April 2013 - 01:34pm Bowman and Phil, Sorry for the delay in replying. Would be happy to talk about the role of prophetic revelation in the church of Jesus Christ, if you would like to. Am also quite happy to drop the subject, now that I have shared what I did. I was afraid not to at least draw it to the brothers' attention, in the light of Ezekiel 3:17-18. Shalom in Jesus Christ the Lord, Andrew Posted by: Bowman Thursday 11 April 2013 - 07:22am Christos anesti, DavidR! With respect to your 23308, I take cheerful notice of your disclaimer. I don't entirely understand it, but then neither are my own views easily understood. I hope your first Easter in the new town was exhilarating! Posted by: Phil Almond Wednesday 10 April 2013 - 02:17pm Bowman Part of my reply to Iconoclast was: ‘Or, in this present disagreement, it is clear that Paul is saying that ‘a man is head of the woman’ is a true creation fact. He draws implications from that creation fact in the first century so clearly ‘a man is head of the woman’ in the post-resurrection first century. There are no grounds from the Bible for believing that that creation fact, true in the first century, is not now true in the 21st. century, nor for believing that the implications Paul draws in the first century should not continue to be drawn in the 21st. century’. By asking you to engage directly I was asking you to say something (agree, disagree and why, don’t know) about the assertions in that extract of my post, namely: 1 Paul is saying that ‘a man is head of the woman’ is a true creation fact. 2 He draws implications from that creation fact in the first century so clearly ‘a man is head of the woman’ in the post-resurrection first century. (The implications are that wives should submit to their own husbands, that (taking 1 Corinthians 11:3, 11:7b-9 together) the woman ought to have authority on the head because of the angels, that he did not permit a woman to teach nor to exercise authority of(over) a man) 3 There are no grounds from the Bible for believing that that creation fact, true in the first century, is not now true in the 21st. century, nor for believing that the implications Paul draws in the first century should not continue to be drawn in the 21st. century’. Part of what you said in your latest post: ‘What is mainly missing for me in your citation of Genesis is a complete sense of what St Paul was using it to do in the 1C, and how that relates in the Lord to the campaign he has given us to be fighting now-- not for ourselves, but for the love of the world and for his greater glory’. It seems to me that my reply to Iconoclast does give a complete sense of what Paul was using it to do in the first century with respect to marriage and ministry and that we glorify God and witness to the world now by using it in the same way today. Please can you detail what you see as incompleteness? I would need to study your whole post to make a complete response but the first thought that comes to mind John 15:20 Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also. 1 Corinthians 14:37 If any man think himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord. Doesn’t this mean that we ‘prioritise that text-Christ relation in interpreting scripture in any later age’ by carefully reading, understanding and obeying what Paul exhorts and commands us to do? Phil Almond Posted by: DavidR Wednesday 10 April 2013 - 02:02pm Phil No, not at all. 1. I have agreed with you and Andrew, that the Paul draws on the creation narratives to teach into the life and ordering of the early church, women and men - and so into ours. But I do not agree (any more than I think Paul would) with what you both think the creation narratives actually teach about women and men together in the world and church. 2. What Paul is addressing is precisely the 'particular social circumstances of the day'. He is writing to Corinth. To a particular community in a particularly time and place - to their world, context and the questions they raise in their letters to him. How can we claim it is not so? And if our interpretation of scripture is to speak transformingly into our age we must first understand how it spoke to the church in Corinth. Posted by: Bowman Wednesday 10 April 2013 - 01:21am Christos anesti, Phil! In a way, we all engage the risen Christ directly, and each other only indirectly, or we are just talking nonsense. More to share Easter greetings than because I have anything new to say, I'll dash this off. Iconoclast has asserted the relevance of historical context to the interpretation of scripture, and since nearly all persistent disputes in the village turn on that relevance, it seemed worthwhile to clarify what that relevance is. My hypothesis, with which he, you, or others may disagree, is that if a text has no historical relation to Jesus himself, it is unlikely to be in the canon at all, and that as a matter of faith Christians should prioritise that text-Christ relation in interpreting scripture in any later age. A high doctrine of scripture at some point has to reckon with the high christology that gives it a raison d'etre, and from the beginning the Christians later seen to have been orthodox have known this and read the scriptures accordingly. Our philology is usually, but not always, better than theirs; their faithfulness as readers is usually superior to ours. All the spokes run to the hub, or they are no part of the wheel. As you will know better than most, Christians of past centuries understood this centrality of Christ to mean that even the Israelites anticipated something of Christ from the scriptures collected as the OT, which we recall together at such times as Advent, Epiphany/Theophany, the Annunciation, Palm Sunday, and the Transfiguration. And because many of these writings are in fact collections and "mash ups" of texts, there is an organic logic to their eventual inclusion in the canon that leads us from diverse chroniclers, psalmists, prophets, and sages to the Entry into Jerusalem and the Emmaus Road. These writings from ancient Israel remain a very diverse literature, each kind of which has its own interesting connexion to the Lord, so that the reader of law is momentarily mindful of him in a way different from the reader of apocalyptic in another chair. In many instances, these "minds" are their meanings in the "mind of Christ," so that the whole range of the sensibility we experience in them and in him, are formative of the renewed humanity in him in which we believe. For this reason, the study of scripture is not just an exercise of scholarship, but a spiritual practise, one that the "devil who [also] quotes scripture for his purposes" studiously avoids. Time is not a movie shown over and over again. Our battle under the Lord's banner is not the same as that of any other moment that has been or will ever be. We can learn from the tactics of earlier combatants, but we have to deploy them in the fight that we ourselves are given to fight. In that way, being a Christian is wholly unlike being an adherent of those religions that deny either the reality or the importance of time, or a naif of the sort of secularism that does not learn from history. Still, the age of the decisive confrontation with evil in the Cross and Resurrection shows us in a clearer way just what the fight is all about, and indeed has been all about from the beginning. But to understand the accounts we have, we must read them in Christ, from under his banner, and so much as a general reads another general's memoirs of a war, not so much for the facts as for the mind of a soldier in combat for the cause of his life. Phil, I am glad that you cite Genesis in the discussions of the thread, and I have agreed (at lengths that some must have found tedious) that the contrast between the irrigation farmer of Genesis 2 and the child bearer of Genesis 4 reflects something in our nature that any human being ignores at grave moral peril. This contrast is a theme running through the canon because Christ wants us to be, not just better servants of the caesars of successive ages, but better men, husbands, and fathers and better women, wives, and mothers in this creative dialectic that is in our DNA and that glorifies God. And surely the first thing to notice about sex in the scriptural account of the origin of all things is that it is not quite the first thing and is far from the last-- a world for God's glory required stewardship which preceded companionship which begat begetting which founded human society which soon ran amok and led God to make a covenant with Abraham to which all can now belong by faith in Christ. Your insistence (and now Andrew's) that this is not a peripheral matter is one I wish more on all sides would take to heart. Yet timeless truths smoothly defined with sparkling clarity are not everything. If they were, perhaps we would have had several serene treatises written by St Peter or St James at their leisure in Jerusalem, and not so many field dispatches from a converted persecutor sometimes persecuted himself making tents and arguments deep in the Gentile world. But it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit to give us Christ in that resourceful and contentious mind to the glory of the Father, and so we read him to learn how and against whom to contend for the love of the world and the glory of God. A tough tactical intelligence in the "mind of Christ" is part of what we are to take from reading his general orders. When General Paul inspected his troops, he had some campaign in mind, and overhearing his speeches to them in Christ, it helps us to know better his immediate adversary, his order of battle, his tactics, his choice of terrain, and his plan of occupation. A generation of controversy about such things-- over his view of the Jews, justification, imperial cult, apocalyptic, etc-- is what, in part, gave birth to Fulcrum. What is mainly missing for me in your citation of Genesis is a complete sense of what St Paul was using it to do in the 1C, and how that relates in the Lord to the campaign he has given us to be fighting now-- not for ourselves, but for the love of the world and for his greater glory. To be fair, it is not clear to me that your critics have done this either, though DavidR has offered some historical hypotheses about particular passages. But you are the one who brought Genesis and so the wider canon into the discussion, which presented the issue that Iconoclast raised, which occasioned my post below. For that, I again thank you in the Lord. I hope that your Easter was a joyous one! This was pounded out in haste, but God willing, in several weeks I will be more often and more thoughtfully in the village. My prayers are, anyway, with everyone in the Lord. Posted by: Phil Almond Tuesday 9 April 2013 - 05:05pm Extract from Andrew Chapman (first paragraph) 11 March 2013 ‘Hi DavidR, I think the scripture is clear that the reasons for the apostle's instructions are from the order of creation and from the circumstances of the fall, and not from the particular social circumstances of the day.’ From DavidR 12 March 2013 (my italics and bold) ‘I agree with everything you say in the first paragraph. Completely. I have just come to a very different understanding of what the Bible actually teaches on these topics and am living in faithful obedience to the Word.’ DavidR From this post I conclude that you completely agree that ‘…the scripture is clear that the reasons for the apostle's instructions are from the order of creation and from the circumstances of the fall, and not from the particular social circumstances of the day’. Does it not then follow that the ‘…particular social circumstances of the day’ did not influence what Paul wrote and should not influence how we understand what he wrote? Phil Almond Posted by: Phil Almond Tuesday 9 April 2013 - 02:24pm Bowman Why don't you interact directly with the points I made in my 23 March 2013 reply to Iconoclast? Phil Almond Posted by: DavidR Tuesday 9 April 2013 - 01:47pm Greetings Bowman. Thank you for your helpful reflections on philogical vs historical readings. But I do not believe my position to be reading scripture as 'only a document from sacred time'. But I have been arguing that the historical context is a vital part of the way we seek understanding from the text - not least these texts in question. My concern is that Phil and others appear unwilling to accept any consideration of the historical in the work of interpretation. Posted by: Bowman Tuesday 9 April 2013 - 02:32am Christos anesti, Iconoclast! Your 23238 below was one of the two most interesting posts of the past few months. You are surely right that Phil and DavidR differ in their relative interest in history as a guide to the meaning of the scriptures. However, I wonder whether the essential difference in the two positions is that one (here Phil's) is interpreting the text only as a chapter of a sacred message whilst the other (here DavidR's) is interpreting the text only as a document from a sacred time. If the gnostics had been right, then the scriptures would just be oracular statements and the conflict would not arise-- Phil's way would then be the only way. But insofar as these texts are themselves actions in time-- causes of the preconditions of the Incarnation (eg Messianic prophecies) and also direct consequences of the Resurrection (changes to Jewish mores in the apostolic community)-- those readers who believe that God was in Christ cannot faithfully ignore the question how the text before them is part of that sacred time in this further way, and how it presences them, not only before an oracular meaning but also in the fellowship of the apostles. The latter is what compels attention to the contingencies of the apostolic age (eg the ones that DavidR and Tom Wright mention). In the writings of St Paul, the tension between the two sorts of reading-- "philological" and "historical"-- is most interesting just where this discussion has been hovering for some months-- where passages of an epistle are said to be, or are denied to be, pure oracle without any contingent significance in them whatsoever. # Thanks for your thoughtful contribution to this discussion! Posted by: Bowman Tuesday 9 April 2013 - 01:48am Christos anesti, Andrew! If Phil is suggesting a distinct thread someday on prophecy and apocalyptic, I am inclined to second his motion. For now, does it clarify your point to distinguish God "revealing" saving truth in Christ and God "illumining" the import of that revelation for particular persons or peoples in eg prophecy, visions, or dreams? Or do you see no point to this distinction? Posted by: Phil Almond Monday 8 April 2013 - 06:57pm Andrew The issue you raise is a big issue in itself. I don't want to debate it on this thread. I have expressed a view elsewhere, rightly or wrongly. Phil Almond Posted by: Andrew Chapman Monday 8 April 2013 - 01:05pm Phil, I am of course not basing my case on prophetic revelation, as I hope is clear from other posts of mine. But it seems clear to me that there will be prophecy, especially in the last days, see Joel 2, and that it is unbiblical to despise it (1 Thessalonians 5:20). We should test it and hold fast to what is good. There are a great many similar accounts of revelations being granted to believers concerning heaven, hell, and the end times. I have a collection of maybe 30, and without checking through all of them, the ones by Carmelo Brenes, Daniel Ekechukwu, Jannet Balderas, Mary Baxter, Ricardo Cid, the seven young Colombian young people (who were all taken to heaven and hell at the same time, and who all (or 6 of whom) gave a separate account of their experience), Victoria Nehale, Yong Park, and Howard Pittman - these ones in particular seem to me worthy of investigation as to whether they are not indeed genuine revelations from the Almighty. Such revelations seem to be particularly common in times of revival - this may be why there are quite a lot from South America in recent times. See also Unity's vision from the Shillong revival, and the visions of the Chinese children recorded by H.A. Baker. There is remarkable consistency in the messages they received, and especially about God's requirement for holiness and obedience in His children. Hallelujah for the pure and spotless bride that is being prepared for the Master when He comes to judge the earth and take His holy church to Himself! Richard W, re 'The sin of this city has reached my father', how about ' And now behold, the cry of the children of Israel is come unto me' (Exodus 3:9)? See also Revelation 18:5 'For her sins have reached to heaven' in the NKJV (but this is probably not right, should be 'joined to' or somesuch), Jonah 1:2 'their wickedness has come up before Me' - this latter seems to be very close to what you are objecting to. Shalom, Andrew Posted by: Phil Almond Saturday 23 March 2013 - 08:07pm DavidR Sorry – I have been misunderstood on one point – probably my fault for not expressing myself clearly. I was trying to say that just as Andrew was claiming support from outside the Bible, so do some of those who support the ordination of women. In contrast I believe, and you believe, that this matter should be settled by understanding and applying what the Bible says and means. I know you have one understanding of what the Bible says and means and its implications for this disagreement. I have argued that your understanding of what the Bible says and means and its implications is wrong, whereas my understanding is right. What I am trying to do is to catalogue the points where I consider the ball is in ‘your’ court (i.e. Roger Hurding, Ian Paul, you, possibly Bowman, and, indeed, all the bishops who support the consecration of women (would that they would enter the debate!)) and the points where I consider that the ball is in my court. We can then see how effectively or ineffectively we can make return shots. Iconoclast You say, ‘Both tasks will necessarily require input from outside scripture to discover the correct way to think contextually’. I do not agree. Often the Bible is clear that what it says applies to all, at all times and in all places. For instance, when God in Isaiah says, ‘Look unto me and be saved all the ends of the earth….’. Or, in this present disagreement, it is clear that Paul is saying that ‘a man is head of the woman’ is a true creation fact. He draws implications from that creation fact in the first century so clearly ‘a man is head of the woman’ in the post-resurrection first century. There are no grounds from the Bible for believing that that creation fact, true in the first century, is not now true in the 21st. century, nor for believing that the implications Paul draws in the first century should not continue to be drawn in the 21st. century. Phil Almond Posted by: Iconoclast Saturday 23 March 2013 - 02:41pm Rather than being about the whys and wherefores of Woman Bishops this thread seems to me to be becoming more about the correct way to do hermeneutics. If we are to insist that the biblical texts mean what they meant, then the task is to find what the text originally meant to the hearers and then hear that same meaning in the contexts of our own day. Both tasks will necessarily require input from outside scripture to discover the correct way to think contextually. Phil, it often seems to me that you take a very confessional approach to scripture. You interpret scripture by using other scriptures. However if the scripture is misunderstood contextually then you are in danger of error. You don’t need to look very far to see examples of this in the plethora of Christian denominations and some of their more arcane practices. So I think in order to convince David R of your arguments you have to first demonstrate that you have understood the scripture in context and I am not sure if you have done that. Posted by: DavidR Friday 22 March 2013 - 03:55pm Phil I can't let this moment pass without comment. I think this is first time you have agreed with on Fulcrum, ever! You even agree with my view that we need to be focused on scripture. But then you go and spoil it by claiming that my view on this topic is taken from 'outside scripture'. Meanwhile your view, it seems, is not only scriptural. Scripture agrees with you and Andrew. You are right. Well congratulations. Phil I can cope with the fact we disagree. I come on these threads to test ideas and to learn. I have a number of times expressed respect for your love and passion for scripture - even when strongly disagreeing with you - a compliment you have never returned I might add. But to claim my position is not just wrong but is not even based on a serious attempt to study holy scripture is not just exasperating - it is actually deeply offensive. Posted by: Phil Almond Thursday 21 March 2013 - 08:20am Andrew I do agree with DavidR's 'Let’s get back to scripture shall we …'. Both sides in this disagreement claim guidance from outside the Bible - the 'pro' lobby in the form of conviction of Divine calling. But the Bible supports our case and not DavidR's. Phil Almond Posted by: DavidR Tuesday 19 March 2013 - 09:06am You are a puzzle Andrew. Engaging, helpfully, in quite academic theological debate on one thread while on this one you suddenly seem to have left your brain on top of the microwave and post lurid apocalyptic visions from an unknown source as an self authenticating, authoritative warnings to folk like me that we are dangerously astray. 1. Scripture says claims to prophecy should be tested. Who is she? Where, how and by whom has her revelation been discerned? Why does she herself not urge us to test what she says? 2. Prophecy in scripture is a form of teaching. She is teaching throughout this prophecy and leaves no margin for doubting her. Hell is the place for those who question. 3. To avoid double tribulation in hell as false pastors do we have to literally believe that in hell everyone is saying ‘ouch, ouch, it’s for ever’ and in heaven all houses are made with solid gold and there are escalators. It sounds like a mix of Colonel Gaddafi’s former summer palace and John Lewis. Let’s get back to scripture shall we … Posted by: DavidR Tuesday 19 March 2013 - 09:06am You are a puzzle Andrew. Engaging, helpfully, in quite academic theological debate on one thread while on this one you suddenly seem to have left your brain on top of the microwave and post lurid apocalyptic visions from an unknown source as an self authenticating, authoritative warnings to folk like me that we are dangerously astray. 1. Scripture says claims to prophecy should be tested. Who is she? Where, how and by whom has her revelation been discerned? Why does she herself not urge us to test what she says? 2. Prophecy in scripture is a form of teaching. She is teaching throughout this prophecy and leaves no margin for doubting her. Hell is the place for those who question. 3. To avoid double tribulation in hell as false pastors do we have to literally believe that in hell everyone is saying ‘ouch, ouch, it’s for ever’ and in heaven all houses are made with solid gold and there are escalators. It sounds like a mix of Colonel Gaddafi’s former summer palace and John Lewis. Let’s get back to scripture shall we … Posted by: Richard W Monday 18 March 2013 - 11:14pm Hi Andrew, I suppose this gets us back to the question, of what it is that differentiates roles/gift/ministry. It seems to me that teaching and prophecy are just different spiritual gifts, and in essence very similar. I don't see any indication that some spiritual gifts are reserved for men. What difference does it make if a woman says "God gave me this prophecy for you" and "God gave me this teaching for you"? Why do you think it was not from God Three main reasons - (1) The "voice" of Jesus speaking seems very different from any of the gospel records. I realise that if true this has gone through a human, but it all seems a bit contrived to me. (2) It doesn't seem to hold up to bearing the fruit of the spirit. (3) It doesn't seem very consistent or logical in places. Examples: in her vision Jesus tells her off for being lazy and then says "If you want to go to heaven, you have to be holy as I myself am holy" after which, without further ado he takes her to heaven presumably in her still unholy state. " The sin of this city has reached my father" - sounds like God is distant and only just noticed - doesn't really fit in with what my Bible says about God. Re Rapture: Luke 21:36 could only possibly refer to it if you presuppose that it does. Likewise Rev 3:10 - how do we know that this has not already been fulfilled and the church there was not already spared something? I don't think it's mad or ridiculous, but I'm not sure why I should presuppose something that doesn't appear to have any basis in scripture, regardless of how well regarded some of the proponents of it have been. Peace, Richard Posted by: Andrew Chapman Monday 18 March 2013 - 01:29pm Richard W, I don't see any irony in sharing a prophetic vision received - or should I say experienced - by a woman. It is obvious from the scriptures that women are greatly used in prophecy, and I am not aware that I have ever said anything to the contrary. The scripture says that in the last days, God will pour out His Spirit on all flesh, giving dreams and visions and prophecy. So if we can expect God to give visions to His people, then surely we should take note of them and enquire of the Lord whether they are from Him or from elsewhere. Is there anything contrary to scripture in this vision? Why do you think it was not from God? David, I think any of us can miss out on the rapture: Luke 21:36 seems to me to point in that direction, as does the parable of the ten virgins, and Jesus's word to the church of Phildelphia (Revelation 3:10). There is a good defence of this position by Watchman Nee, who says that Hudson Taylor held it also, as well as many leading pre-millenialists of the nineteenth century. For those who may think that belief in the rapture of the church is mad or ridiculous, I would ask if you believe in the ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ? If one, then why not the other? Blessings, Andrew Posted by: Richard W Friday 15 March 2013 - 08:49am Andrew, I'm afraid I find it hard to escape the irony of you quoting, in defence of male-only leadership, a woman who claims to have had an out of body experience and uses that to rebuke her pastors. Shouldn't she be listening in quietness? Why didn't God give this revelation to a man? In any case I've read her story and isn't this gibberish the kind of thing that leaders (male or otherwise) should be warning their flock about? I have to say that I'm quite disturbed you've mentioned her as someone worth taking note of, in what is normally a well-balanced and rational forum. Richard Posted by: DavidR Tuesday 12 March 2013 - 04:46pm Greetings Andrew I agree with everything you say in the first paragraph. Completely. I have just come to a very different understanding of what the Bible actually teaches on these topics and am living in faithful obedience to the Word. Meanwhile I presume your reference to one Bernada Fernandez and her technicolour visions of heaven and hell (yes I googled her!) are intended to be an added inducement in case my wife and I are still in any doubt that our approach to marriage and ministry means we are surely well on the way to missing out on the rapture? Posted by: DavidR Tuesday 12 March 2013 - 04:46pm Greetings Andrew I agree with everything you say in the first paragraph. Completely. I have just come to a very different understanding of what the Bible actually teaches on these topics and am living in faithful obedience to the Word. Meanwhile I presume your reference to one Bernada Fernandez and her technicolour visions of heaven and hell (yes I googled her!) are intended to be an added inducement in case my wife and I are still in any doubt that our approach to marriage and ministry means we are surely well on the way to missing out on the rapture? Posted by: Andrew Chapman Monday 11 March 2013 - 11:11am Hi DavidR, I think the scripture is clear that the reasons for the apostle's instructions are from the order of creation and from the circumstances of the fall, and not from the particular social circumstances of the day. When we are saved from our sins, and are baptised, and put our trust in Jesus Christ for our salvation, and receive new life in Him, then we are translated from the domain of darkness into His glorious kingdom of light and love. The kingdom of God has its own rule and order, and I see nothing in the scripture to suggest that we are to be constantly adjusting church practice to conform to the ways of the world, which is ruled by the evil one [1 John 5:19 etc]. How could that be? Friendship with the world is enmity with God. No, we are to hold on to the traditions, delivered to us by the apostles, and bring our lives into conformity with the word of God, not with current social mores. As to what I think you should do in your situation, the first thing surely is to seek the Lord as to whether He means His holy word to be obeyed today as yesterday. He Himself is the same yesterday, today and forever. There is an important testimony by Bernarda Fernandez, who was taken out of her body and shown heaven and hell and things to come. She testifies that the Lord Jesus told her that pastors who say that the word of God is not adapted to this century will be left behind at the rapture and have to suffer greatly in the great tribulation. I pray that the Holy Spirit will convict you and your wife of any changes He wants you to make in your life together to bring it more into conformity with the scripture. Andrew Posted by: DavidR Thursday 7 March 2013 - 11:56am Andrew I accept that the text says (with some variations) ‘A women should learn in quietness’. We differ on whether Paul is addressing a particular local issue or laying down a universal rule (though I am still no clearer knowing what you think learning ‘in quietness’ actually means in practice). I wonder if this helps you understand my position: Imagine you and I are living in C1 Ephesus. Our wives (by arranged marriage) would have had no education and are (probably) illiterate. They would have only known a segregated world in which the public world of leadership and debate was male. Women are in fact generally treated as second class. There is no expectation of women’s involvement in public society or that they even have the intelligence or ability to do so. Indeed without TV or internet very little of the wider world would be known to them beyond what we choose to tell them. Imagine we and our wives become Christians. We join the church led by Timothy. Suddenly a different world begins to open up. The Spirit falls on us – in equal measure. Our wives begin to prophecy. They pray, they worship … this gospel involves them. They want to learn more but can’t read. They have never been encouraged to learn before beyond domestic skills. So they are asking questions by the dozen. But being part of any public debate is very new to them. The main meetings are getting interrupted by a genuine but disordered enthusiasm to learn and participate. Some practical, interim ground rules are needed. So Paul says, yes I want women to learn, but when the church is meeting altogether women - hold on to their questions. Don’t interrupt. Ask your husbands at home. Fast forward to early C21 somewhere in the UK. In this society women and men have long been integrated. Women are educated alongside men (and indeed regularly outperform them academically). Careers are open to them on the basis of ability (though there is still discrimination around). In the church? – well my wife and I are both ordained. But my wife has taken theological studies further than me. She has been a theological teacher and trainer. She has led and grown churches and now exercises senior leadership in a diocese. These are clearly her gifts. By their fruits you know them Jesus said. Would you insist that this verse means my wife should be publically silent in church and ask me at home when she has something she doesn’t understand? Posted by: David B Monday 4 March 2013 - 09:06pm Have I also missed something in this thread? Through all the discussion of what Paul literally is is saying in I Tim and 1 Cor about church practice and the surrounding culture in his day and ours, I have seen no mention of the issue where his practices are coming from, including the way he invokes God's creation order. As I understand it, Paul's epistles use every scrap of Jesus's own teaching about order among his followers as subsequnet survived in the canonical Gospels. Yet the problems at Corinth and in Timothy's 'diocese' went beyond the reach of those central matters of liturgy and discipline. What other resource do we know that Paul had - indeed had given priority to in his first (com)missioned journeys? The practices of the synagogues, and the rabbinical teachings in which he obtained a higher degree (so to speak) at a young age. Did Paul develop his views on women's and men's hair lengths and coverings among the new people of God purely - and their centrality! (whether for his churches or for all times and places) - from his own personal reactions to pagan culture? Well, yes, but that person had been an expert teacher of the Law of Moses. Jesus's views on hair have not been preserved for us, except that God's how many (or few) each of us have. Neither, as far as I'm aware, are they in the written Law of Moses in the Christian Old Testament. Mustn't they have come from the rabbinical exposition of the spoken Law of Moses that Christians were guided not to share from the orthodox Jews? I've seen no acknowledgement on Fulcrum of the relationship of Paul's style of argument about the priority of Adam or Eve to rabbinical exposition of the Law outside the OT. Do all sides in this discussion take as the simple Gopel truth (cp. 3:16 of John ...) the cross-referencing of Paul's invocation of God's Law to Genesis 3:16? (Phil Almond even rolls the Fall into the Creation order.) "I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing .... your husband ... will rule over you[, as you desire]" are God's curses on the woman for disobeying God's explicit command. God has created redemption of a woman from these curses, by glorying in her part in God's created gifts to her and her husband. So why should Paul impose the unredeemed woman's Curse on the churches? Maybe he isn't: Maybe he's desperately applying the wisely known and accepted ancient Mediterranean patriarchicalist and autoarchical traditions as polished in the synagogues, for lack of any other tools to discipline unruly women (and disruptive men as well, as others in this thread have noted). This consideration does not diminish Christ's authority through Scripture in the slightest. Paul is capable of using downright pagan traditions to serve the Gospel, such as an altar to an unknown god and the philosphers' joke about Cretans. How shoud we build on his divinely inspired use of rabbinical traditions today? Posted by: Andrew Chapman Monday 4 March 2013 - 11:45am Hi DavidR, I did have a look for any responses to my challenge to defend Tom Wright's 'translation' of 1 Timothy 2:11. There was one from 'Bruce', on the 6th of January, on my grammatical point about the third person imperative, to which I responded, and he didn't comment further. I think my point stands that Γυνη εν ησυχια μανθανετω means 'a woman should learn in silence/quietness', and it can't mean anything very different from that. I am not aware of any other attempts to defend it as a translation. You keep calling it an interpretation, but Wright himself has called it a translation, with the result that innocent believers who don't feel able to tackle the Greek text, are being misled to believe that this is a possible translation of the text. How can you defend a translation of a Greek text without actually engaging with the text itself, and what the words mean? Andrew Posted by: Phil Almond Sunday 3 March 2013 - 02:13pm James In a nutshell (see wider debate on other threads) the 'hermeneutical move' which persuades some of us that Paul's practice should be imitated for all time is the fact that he grounds it (verses 13 and 14) in the creation order of man and woman and in the fall, strengthened, as we have argued, by Ephesians 5 and 1 Corinthians 11 with their teaching on male headship and the authority and leadership that goes with it. Phil Almond Posted by: James Friday 1 March 2013 - 05:13pm What is the hermeneutical move which takes us from Paul's description of his practice (dida¿skein de« gunaiki« oujk epitre÷pw oujde« aujqentei√n aÓndro/ß - Teaching [that] I do not permit a woman [to do]) to a general prohibition on women teaching? Why do we assume that this is timeless theological truth, rather than a response to the particular circumstances that Paul and Timothy faced at the time? We may suspect from what he says in the letter that there was disruption in the church Timothy had charge of because the men's prayers were angry and disputatious, and because of unquiet and challenging behaviour from the women when the church was being taught. In fact, it may well be a fair deduction from other parts of the letter that Timothy was having a fairly turbulent time with people unwilling to listen to his teaching, other teachers competing with him, trouble in the church, and people refusing to accept his authority on account of his youth. I think the question remains open, and requires careful reading of the text, as to how far in each case Paul's prescriptions are general for all the Church in all time, and how far they are specific to the situation to which he is writing. Posted by: DavidR Wednesday 27 February 2013 - 09:22am Andrew Greetings. I was responding to your 'I remain appalled' post, to reassure you that you have apparently missed a number of posts that clearly did respond to your concern and openly support for Wright's interpretation of this passage. If this reply is an indirect way of saying 'ah yes, David, I missed those - though i still disagree' - then fine. Back in January you wrote .... 'If we are evangelicals, then it is not for us to try to work out with our feeble minds whether the bible is right about this or not'. And do you apply this fallibility to your own mind as well as those you disagree with here? From one feeble evangelical mind to another - let's agree to differ on this. Posted by: Andrew Chapman Tuesday 26 February 2013 - 09:39am DavidR, I don't know why you refer to my 'translation' of 1 Timothy 2:11 in inverted commas. If I have offered one, it was really not much more than an amalgamation of the many almost identical translations that are current in existing English bibles. I have preferred 'quietness' to 'silence'; and I have preferred 'should' to 'let', to avoid any ambiguity about the word 'let'. Apart from that, there is not a lot of scope to vary the translation, if one wants to translate the words that Paul wrote. I notice that you don't dare to use the word 'translation' yourself about Wright's version, but rather call it an 'exegesis'. You say that it fits better, in your opinion, with other parts of scripture. Well, that's nice isn't it. I suppose if I wanted to, I could try to change Romans 16:2b to say of Phoebe, 'for she has been a good housewife and has brought up lots of children', which for someone who can't handle the diversity of God's dealing with men and women, might appear easier to 'place alongside' 1 Timothy 2:15, say. But there's no need to do that, nor is there any need to change 1 Timothy 2:11, thank God. This is not a paraphrase that Wright has produced. A paraphrase is a 'a restatement of a text, passage, or work giving the meaning in another form' - the same meaning, that is, not a different meaning. Andrew Posted by: DavidR Tuesday 19 February 2013 - 05:25pm Andrew You write - 'A woman should learn in quietness in all submission'. Tom Wright mis-translated this verse to read: 11 They must be allowed to study undisturbed, in full submission to God. (see his lecture here). This 'translation' also appears in his book Paul for Everyone: The Pastoral Letters. He writes there (p.24) 'The key to the present passage, then, is to recognize that it is commanding that women, too, should be allowed to study and learn, and should not be restrained from doing so (verse 11).' I remain appalled that nobody associated with Fulcrum, which maintains that it is evangelical, has seen fit either to defend this as a translation (which I think is impossible), or to admit that this is not a translation at all, but a re-writing of the text to change its meaning.' A number of us have actually. You must have missed them. Perhaps that is why you have yet to respond to several challenges I have made to your 'translation' of these texts. To jog your memory - I wrote on Jan 3rd in response to your question - 'Is there anybody in Fulcrum willing to defend it as a translation'? - 'Yes I am. I have long thought this sort of exegesis makes much more sense of the text itself and its place alongside the more clearly affirmatory texts in the Epistles for the ministry of women alongside men. So no I don't think he has mistranslated. I would be very interested in your response to the article Richard W invited you to read on this text on the 'Evangelical Opponents' thread. It traces my own exegetical journey in many ways. Wright is offering an English paraphrase of this Greek text which is a perfectly legitimate way of seeking to express the actual meaning of a text. A 'literal' reading may not convey the sense of what is actually being said at all. May even mislead. (what is your French or German like? You cannot learn a language with just a dictionary and book of grammar. You need its 'sense', and its cultural context). I am in very good company when I believe that these verses are a classic example. Posted by: WATERANGEL Tuesday 19 February 2013 - 02:02pm Andrew Chapman Hi Yes i see your point the word "allowed" has been used by Tom Wright, it is a significant change. I wondered why that is? When i read it and i need to read it a few times to pick up subtleties in the way he expresses his view. what i understand is that, Tom has gone to great trouble to address the culture of the time. (Now sometimes and this is simply a view that i share with you)" stepping stones" are required when enabling people to engage with the "true translation" of the gospel. Immediately i write that i realize i have opened up questions about the word" true and translation" this is because truth is often dependent on understanding when dealing with cultural issues and translation of language is likewise dependent on the culture of the day, just on a basic level for instance today as you know the word "wicked" means good to the younger and even 30 and 40 somethings nowadays which is quite a large age range, whereas age differentiation was far smaller in those days, and due to travel restrictions the distances traveled were usually shorter and translation was slower and to smaller gatherings. Age in itself is an important factor, as well as social change. Tom Wright remember is writing for a multicultural society which is part of the wider world of which some small sections still see women as "something to posses" a stepping stone might be to "allow" the posession (woman) to study that God may have control, and as we know we are individually answerable to God. Then again he could mean something entirely different, but in a multiculteral society freedom begins when translation is not the blockage to understanding of the Gospel. Fulcrum as a think tank of debate and study, may take the view that is in their disclaimer that the views expressed on the forum are not nessesarily the views of the leadership, however freedom of expression is paramount in understanding what others undeerstand. As a lecturer I am sure that Tom Wright well understands that all his writing is open to scrutiny and that his aim is perfectly achieved when you or I ask questions and explore issues with it. I will go back and read it a few times, but my overall impression is that Tom Wright appears to look at ways and explore ways of reconciling the gospel of yesterday to the language of the gospel today that people might be able to engage with it. Angela Posted by: Andrew Chapman Monday 18 February 2013 - 11:38pm Dear Angela, I think you may be referring to my post of 8 January on this thread, in which I listed 11 translations of 1 Timothy 2:11 and then said 'That is what it means. Don't change it.' You refer to the word 'permit', which occurs in verse 12. As I remember it, the discussion was mainly about verse 11, which says: 'Let a woman learn in quietness in all submission', or more precisely, 'A woman should learn in quietness in all submission'. . Tom Wright mis-translated this verse to read: 11 They must be allowed to study undisturbed, in full submission to God. (see his lecture here) This 'translation' also appears in his book Paul for Everyone: The Pastoral Letters. He writes there (p.24) 'The key to the present passage, then, is to recognize that it is commanding that women, too, should be allowed to study and learn, and should not be restrained from doing so (verse 11).' I remain appalled that nobody associated with Fulcrum, which maintains that it is evangelical, has seen fit either to defend this as a translation (which I think is impossible), or to admit that this is not a translation at all, but a re-writing of the text to change its meaning. Andrew Posted by: WATERANGEL Friday 15 February 2013 - 05:19pm Andrew Chapman, I recall you answering one of my post with the words "the gospel is what it is dont change it" with reference to this issue and the exploration of the original text and meaning. The word Permit was looked at and it was discussed, as the original meaning was different to what we understand, when it comes to the issue of women teaching men, it seems to me that you are viewing it from the perspective of submission of the woman to the man the teacher, however, it was gods initial intention that the woman should be the "helper" according to genesis. Now there was no mention that Adam was over and above Eve the instruction was that, the woman would be a helper, the definition of helper is one that assist, now if we use your way of looking at this issue that would say to me that the man should do the work and the woman assist in that, (seems like a good deal to me). Now we can take that very instruction where the man teaches and the woman assist, we still do not a subordinate relationship, what we have is two halves of the same relationship working in co-ordination and collaboration with each other, in the instance of the church i would suggest that they both work under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. The issue is that the Man is not lead by the woamn as you put it, rather the woman is alongside, in tandem if you like. It is crucial that this is recognised as the original intention of God, as it was only after the fall that divisions came about, for we know that neither the man or the woman were aware prior to that. Again i looked at this word permit and one of the translations states the word permit as "to afford opportunity or possibility for" which is very interesting when you follow it through, to Gods instruction in the Garden of Eden "you can eat of anything but not from forbidden fruit of the tree" In this instruction God knowingly gave free will to both Adam and Eve, he gave them "permission" to disobey by affording them the opportunity or possibility to make a different choice from the command he gave them. This was a joint decision even though Eve bit the apple first according to genesis, remember she was "assisting", she was Adams companion and on equal terms they went about thier business. Not wishing to be confrontative i have waited to reply because i was not sure how to , and i have no wish to antagonize you, but Jesus ministry was about change, Jesus came to save us precisely because the instructions of God had been so badly misunderstood, the people were destroying one another and stealing and lying and yes getting involved in all kinds of things which God knew would create problems for the future, but God still in all of that gave the commandment "thou shalt not judge" and there were many instructions about planks and spots etc , the point of all of this was to say to "individual" human beings i created you i knew you before you were born. Now in any language that tells us that God although disappointed that the creation he began was affected by the original disobedience, that God wanted individuals to be responsible to him and him alone, the Ten Commandments do not state anywhere that a woman shall not teach or preach, rather they are an instruction to us all that if we keep them, then no-one will have a problem. But of course there are problems because none of us keep the ten commandments completely, but our saviour is not just Jesus forgives us, but that we are all still part of Gods original plan, that we may serve and help one another on equal terms. Christianity is unique in the fact that God himself wishes to relate to us and God was the initiator of relationship when he saw Adams lonliness, he did not leave him isolated he created from him companionship and a helper, in its purity it is a very beautiful thing, however the human race has managed to turn it into something else. I dont remember Adam judging or blaming Eve I dont remember God actually only blaming Eve either. They were equal then as we are equal now, it was human beings who made different rules even different rules to the Ten Commandments. Do you see why for us to use the gospel to defend our own stance, which keeps any section of society down is not in accordance with the gospels or Gods original intention. Angela Posted by: Andrew Chapman Tuesday 12 February 2013 - 10:50am Dear User 4976, You pushed me on another thread to answer your questions of 18 January. Here goes: 1) How should men learn? Studiously, with vigour and sharpness, diligent to present ourselves approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed. With regard to the matter you may be driving at, whether there is a difference between men and women in how they should learn. Yes, definitely, as I said below January 20, there seems from the frequent use of the word διαλεγομαι to have been much dialogue and debate in the churches in the course of teaching and proclamation. Perhaps one can gain a hint of the tenor of this by thinking about the present day proclivity of the Jews for sharp debate, both in the yeshivas and in more secular settings and cultures. In contrast, the women are instructed to learn in quietness, and to ask their husbands at home if they want to learn anything. 2) διδασκειν δε γυναικι ουκ επιτρεπω ουδε αυθεντειν ανδρος, αλλ ειναι εν ησυχια. With this word order, especially (rather than γυναικι δε διδασκειν), I have always read this as saying, as it were, 'to be teaching, a woman, I do not permit; nor to exercise authority over a man'. I know that the 'complementarians' like Grudem read it as saying 'I do not permit a woman to be teaching a man nor to have or exercise authority over a man'. I had a look at the older commentaries recently, to see how they read it. William Kelly: 'I permit not a woman to teach, nor to exercise authority over a man, but to be in quietness.' Ellicott: 'Διδασκειν is emphatic as its position shows.. Every form of public address or teaching is clearly forbidden..' As I do, and fairly obviously, Ellicott sees the 'opposition' between learning in verse 11 and teaching in verse12: 'The δε.. with its usual adversative force marks the opposition to μανθανετω'. They should be learning, not teaching - that's simple, isn't it? Fairbairn: 'But to teach (the best authorities place διδασκειν first) I permit not a woman - (namely, in public: she is not to act the part of a teacher in the meetings of the faithful) - nor to lord it over the man, but to be in silence.' William Mounce, who takes the 'complementarian' position as far as I know, seems rather defensive about it: 'διδασκειν is moved forward in word order for emphasis, separating it from ανδρος further than perhaps expected'. So in answer to your question, teaching in the church is one thing that men are authorised to do, and women not. I H Marshall, citing Witherington (both I think egalitarians) says that 'διδασκειν here connotes the task of conveying authoritative instruction in a congregational setting', which sounds reasonable to me. It doesn't seem hard at all to distinguish this from the discipling of younger women by older women described in Titus 2: 'to admonish [them] to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be blaphemed.' Oh for the restoration of this vital ministry in the church of Jesus Christ! Andrew Posted by: DavidR Sunday 20 January 2013 - 07:47pm Andrew 'So, there may have been more discussion in church than we are used to now, and the women are being told not to participate in it'. Well no. At least acknowledge that you know I and others believe Paul is saying the complete opposite to your reading. I welcome the full participation of women alongside men in theologolical study in church - on the basis of that same text. Posted by: DavidR Sunday 20 January 2013 - 07:08pm Andrew 'So, there may have been more discussion in church than we are used to now, and the women are being told not to participate in it'. Well no. At least acknowledge that you know I and others believe Paul is saying the complete opposite to your reading. I welcome the full participation of women alongside men in theologolical study in church - on the basis of that same text. Posted by: Andrew Chapman Sunday 20 January 2013 - 05:27pm Hi DavidR, I am delighted that you are open to dialogue in church in place of the one way sermon. I don't preach very often, but I did once end my sermon with 'so what do you think?', and did get one response, along with some surprised and perplexed looks. This seems to have been Paul's common practice, to mingle preaching with conference, to employ the Vincent Word Studies definition of διαλεγομαι, which is used in Acts 17:2,17; 18:4,19; 19:8,9 (Tyrannus's school); 20:7,9 (Troas, through the night); 24:12,25. So, there may have been more discussion in church than we are used to now, and the women are being told not to participate in it. 'If they want to learn something, let them ask their own husbands at home; for it is shameful for women to speak in church.' A leader in the American house church movement told me that they sought the Lord about this and decided to ask the women to be silent in their assemblies. The women went home and asked their husbands about things that had been taught. The husbands didn't know the answers and rang the elders, who told them it was their responsibility to answer their wives. So the men took to bible study and prayer, much to the delight of their wives. Hallelujah, for His word is perfect and brings order and peace in the house of God. Andrew Posted by: DavidR Saturday 19 January 2013 - 08:44am Andrew Chapman I realise my posts to you are in a lengthening queue of thoughtful challenges to your posts ... 'We are used to learning in quietness in church, are we not?' Sorry I simply don't know what you mean. Though there are times to reflect and be still the most effective learning together is engaged and even lively and robust. The quietness of some of the more traditional churches I preach in is actually unhelpful. They are not learning in quietness they are simply on mute. I have no idea if anything is going in and I strongly doubt this is the quietness Paul is talking about. Nor have I ever gone home from church saying - 'that was a blessing today we really learned in quietness'. And have you ever worshipped in an Afro-Carribean church? Or a Pentecostal church? or a rural middle eastern church today where congregs are still segregated, where the worship and teaching is all the task of the men and the ignored and bored and uneducated women and children on the other side of the partition just start chatting among themselves and need telling off at regular intervals for not being silent. But when you say 'we' I hear you agreeing with my view that whatever Paul is telling women is good behaviour in the context of Christian learning it is actually no different from how he expects men to behave. Posted by: User 4976 Friday 18 January 2013 - 07:39pm As one who believes in the priesthood of all believers and cannot find diocesan bishops in the New Testament, I have little sympathy with this discussion. Nevertheless, I have some questions for Andrew Chapman: 1. How should men learn? 2. Given that authentein occurs only once in the NT, where do we find men doing, or being authorised to do, what Paul does not permit women to do? 3. Did Paul approve of women praying angrily and contentiously or of men dressing provocatively and loading themselves with gold and jewellery or learning noisily and rebelliously? Posted by: WATERANGEL Thursday 17 January 2013 - 08:54am The phrase "i am not permitting a woman to teach or domineer over a man" is interesting to say the least. It says more about the writer than it does about Jesus who did not say that. So lets break it down "I am not" I would ask the question what are we talking about here the "mans" understanding of how "he" should be set apart and above for christ?" or about "the fellowship" as he speaks in the first person and in the singular, i would interpret that as "his" will and not Gods. Then we have this interesting word "permitting" so the man having interpreted the word for himself then , does not" set him self apart" for the expansion of the good news rather he "sets himself above" considering himself not as one with Christ, but as one "equal" to Christ, whilst at the same time not behaving in the way in which Christ would have behaved. Then we have the word "teach which is paralleled to domineer" . Teaching and learning are not static states and they are not independant states either, a teacher with no pupil has no role and a pupil with no teacher cannot learn . Particuarly in spiritual terms learning will always be a two way process, so the word "domineer" is misapplied in terms of teaching. Humility was what Jesus gave us and Jesus died in humility, So in my understanding to do anything other than teach in humility is not in accordance with scripture, humility in this instance would be to receive teaching from a woman if you were a man . The woman on the other hand would serve in humility in the same way through obedience to Christ and service to Christ by which ever means that might be, it may have been to wipe his feet with her hair or to prepare a feast, but what we have is not a dominant stae but a mutually submissive state of considering the other worthy of listening to and learning from. Learning is best done when neither side has anything to gain or lose other than understanding the will of God that cannot be done once humanity gets in the way. We have all been there i am sure, we hear a one off sermon, and we hear the word of God , but when we hear the same person, that we relate to in some other capacity whether as friend colleague or partner, we hear the person and not God we hear the interpretation of the person saying it rather than God. It can be difficult and lonely discerning Gods will for us but when we do it is powerful. This is my understanding of "shall not dominate over" I have nothing to gain or lose i am not that important in the scale of things. Angela Posted by: Andrew Chapman Tuesday 15 January 2013 - 05:36pm DavidR, my 'if a woman wants to learn' is from 1 Corinthians 14:35. The emphasis is not on the 'should learn', but on the 'quietness'. I think he is talking about meetings of the church, where the believers are listening to the teaching of the word, something like one of our church services (probably in a home, so with more opportunity for interaction, a bit more like a house group, perhaps, or something in between the two). We are used to learning in quietness in church, are we not? Here is a quotation from I H Marshall, who happens to be an egalitarian: "The verb μανθανω (manthanw) envisages Christian instruction given by a teacher.. The situation of the Christian meeting is in view..; an integral part of it was instruction, and all believers in attendance, except the one teaching , would be in the position of learners. It is sometimes said that the use of the term 'learn' dustinguishes the Christian situation from that of Judaism where women merely listened, but there does not seem to be any strong early evidence for this view [134]. Certainly in the church it would not be regarded as unusual for women to be instructed 'to learn' along with the men. The emphasis in the imperative μανθανετω (manthanetw) is therefore to found not so much in 'learning' as such but rather in the manner in which women are to learn, namely 'in quietness and subjection', as the next verse with its closing return to the thought of quietness shows." [Pastoral Epistles, 1999, ICC] Andrew Posted by: Bowman Sunday 13 January 2013 - 06:40am Another David-- Your 22803 on 9th January comes close to the philosophical hermeneutic of Hans Georg Gadamer-- the differences in the worlds of author and reader enable the self-awareness in the reader that allows these worlds to touch in some negotiated way that lets the text speak frankly to the reader. In his view, we do not know what it is about ourselves that we do not know until the strangeness of a text poses problems to us in our understanding that cannot be solved in our everyday self- understanding. We value certitude so much, and yet the reader who is sure about everything is in a kind of danger. Posted by: Another David Saturday 12 January 2013 - 07:53pm Andrew, With DavidR, I'm also puzzled by your hermenutical proposal. How would you respond to someone else, who disagrees with you, saying the same basic thing, e.g. "Andrew, start by believing that is OK for women to be bishops as a matter of faith, and you will find that you are given understanding by the Holy Spirit". It is 1 Tim 2.12 which seems to be critical for The Debate. Two points. Vine, in his Expository Dictionary of Bible Words, has this on authenteo: "AUTHENTEO, from autos, self, and a lost noun hentes, probably signifying working (Eng. authentic), to exercise authority on one's own account, to domineer over, is used in 2 Tim 2:12, A.V. "to usurp authority" R.V. "to have dominion". In the earlier use of the word it signified one who with their own hand kills either others or himself. Later it came to mean one who acts on his own authority; hence to exercise authority, dominion." Its use (unique in NT) perhaps suggests that the problem in Ephesus was that some women (or perhaps just one woman?) who were untaught, were setting themselves up as authorities. The word has a negative sense, and it is not clear that men should be doing this either. It is to be contrasted with ordination, which is the recognition by the church of the gifting of an individual. Then we have the main verb for the verse, which the Greek interlinear I have transliterates as "not I-am-permitting". Firstly, this is Paul expressing his policy. It is not a command - no imperative here. Secondly, I'm curious that the transliteration has used the English present continuous, rather than the plain present I-permit. " I am not permitting a woman to teach or to domineer over a man." [the text has woman and man in the singular, as does v11] This has a different flavour from the more common translations, although I must be very tentative about this point about the translation of the tense. James Choung's article is interesting, as it suggests that the reason for the quotation about 'the woman' and 'the man' from Gen 2-3, is that this is an illustrates what can go wrong. His references show he is not unique in this. One reference is to an article from the Tyndale Bulletin 44 (Jan 1993) (certainly a respectable Evangelical publication) with the title "What Eve did, What Women shouldn't do: The Meaning of authenteo in 1 Timothy 2:12". (Does anyone have access to that article?) This kind of idea seems a much better reason for vv13-14 than Paul setting out some hierarchy based on the sequence of creation. Posted by: DavidR Friday 11 January 2013 - 09:00am Andrew Chapman, Thank you for your contributions to this discussion. Two responses. By saying 'if a woman wants to learn' - as if this is up to her to choose (but 'if' is not in the Greek is it?) you completely miss just how radical the very idea of a woman learning at all was in those times. Paul clearly wants women, alongside men, to be theologically educated. This would have been a very new kind of community. And it is not surprising if both men and women there needed guidance as to how this would work well in practice. Secondly, does anyone know any educational method anywhere that is based on students learning 'quietly'/'in silence'. Who learns in 'silence'? And if they are silent how do you know if or what they are learning at all? I was lecturing at a bible college yesterday. I not only expected that the women in the class (the majority) to fully join in discussing, asking questions and debating it would have been very boring if they didn't. Can't they laugh or call out or interrupt, or is only what men can do? Common sense alone suggests the need to probe behind the apparently literal sense of the words here. Or should I be teaching to silent classes (or to silent women)? So the question for me is - how should 'quietness' or 'silence' be translated in this text. What does it actually mean? And more importantly, why did Paul find it neccessary to say this at all? What is the context? It is another example of how the literal meaning of the text may actually mean anything but what is appears to say. Posted by: Bowman Friday 11 January 2013 - 03:24am Another David-- Yes, I agree (see my 22799 of 9th January 2012). However St Paul understood the complementarity of the genders, and whatever else is going on in 1 Timothy 2, it cannot have been a replication of patriarchy because he commands women to study torah. Understandably, traditionalists of other persuasions may only "get" what happened there with difficulty, but for bible-based believers, the implications of this should leap off the page, especially if they understand the Jewish precept this command abrogates. As with circumcision, Christ has detonated the bridge back to patriarchy, and though we may long for that sort of clarity in these perplexing times, there is no way back to it for Christians. We are the New Israel, but we are not Jews, and God has given us another path forward. Posted by: Bowman Friday 11 January 2013 - 02:45am Tom Wright's Times Article on Women Bishops under the title "Women Bishops: It's about the Bible, not fake ideas of progress" appears here-- http://www.fulcrum-anglican.org.uk/page.cfm?ID=759 Posted by: Bowman Friday 11 January 2013 - 02:40am Tom Wright's translation of, and comment on, 1 Timothy 2 appears near the end of this lecture-- http://ntwrightpage.com/Wright_Women_Service_Church.htm Posted by: Bowman Friday 11 January 2013 - 02:31am Angela, Simon, Andrew-- Discussing English let/hinder? (Why?) Then you may enjoy Peter Kirk's discussion of the similar Greek "epitrepo" at-- www.gentlewisdom.org/4885/n-t-wright-paul-doesnt-direct-women-to-teach Posted by: Another David Thursday 10 January 2013 - 08:44pm If the issue is the ordination of women, it does seem better to discuss 1 Timothy, rather than Ephesians 5, as 2.8-15 (I think that one should read vv8-10 as well, the passage is about good order as much as structural authority). However, in the discussion I don't think nearly enough has been made of (as it were) the "elephant in the verses". That is that in v11, Paul either commands, or at least assumes, that women are to learn. Do we realise how astonishing this is? Here is a first century Jew, one who had been a pharisee of pharisees, one who had probably thanked God each day that he had not been born a woman, saying that women can learn, indeed should be learning. This is contrary to both Jewish and Gentile culture. However, it is not a stranger to the Gospel. Jesus commends Mary for choosing to sit at his feet (Lk 10.38-42). A woman sitting in the position of a disciple to their Rabbi - astonishing! So, a woman can be a disciple, the equal of the male disciples. The idea that it is appropriate for women to learn is one which has not exactly been common in history, or even in the modern world as recent events have illustrated. Lest we in the west are too proud, I have to recall that my own university did not award full degrees to women until after WWII. Yet, over 1900 years earlier Paul is saying that women should learn. If one places these verses against the culture of the time, it is the liberation of women that should stand out. So, the Gospel sets women on a track lifting them from the subjection the world would impose, and it gives them a new position. It is not surprising that the Way was so popular among women. And perhaps not surprising that issues arose in congregations when this new-found position and freedom was misused (hence the violent language of v12). Posted by: Andrew Chapman Thursday 10 January 2013 - 09:24am Angela, There are certainly words for let or allow or permit or (suffer - with the sense of permit, as in the KJV), in the Greek language. The most common I think is αφιημι. An example is Matthew 19:14 ..Let the liitle children come to me and do not forbid them.. φετε [let] τα παιδια και μη κωλυετε υτα λθειν προς με Another word is πιτρεπω, which is used in the very next verse, 'I do not permit..'. Another example of its use is Matthew 8:21 'Lord, let me first go and bury my father.' 'κυριε, πιτρεψον [let] μοι πρωτον πελθειν και θαψαι τον πατερα μου.' My point was that there is no such word in 1 Timothy 2:11. Paul is not telling the men to allow the women to learn. He is saying that a woman, if she wants to learn (see also 1 Corinthians 14:35), should learn in quietness. Hallelujah, for His commandments are not burdensome. Shalom, Andrew Posted by: Another David Wednesday 9 January 2013 - 10:12pm A book I have which I must re-read sometime is Umberto Eco's Mouse or Rat?; Translation as Negotiation, which is a set of essays about translation. As soon as one starts to consider what is involved, the issues become complex very quickly. The title comes from Eco's experience in translating into Italian La Peste by Camus. Translating a modern work from one romance language to another might be thought to be straightforward. But not so. The subtitle comes from the idea that the translator stands between the author and the reader, and the translation comes from negotiation in some form with both parties. Coming to an ancient text for translation into a form for our modern world must be significantly harder than translating a modern text. We do not live within the society, the assumptions and world-view of the writer or the readers. So, I am with those who consider that translation, meaning, interpretation, exegesis are all mixed up - and often much more uncertain that some would like. But perhaps it is in that uncertainty that the Spirit can create the living and transforming Word for our time. Posted by: Bowman Wednesday 9 January 2013 - 03:59pm Andrew-- I usually construe "manthaneto" just as you are doing, though reading the verse as an apostolic command to women to study torah is revolutionary, undoing patriarchy at a stroke. Taken that way, the verse does fit better into the flow of the epistle, but it colours several of the words around it. The studious woman-- sharply contrasted with the vain woman imagined in verse 9-- then has a hesychia even further removed from cowering tongue-biting, and her "ordering under" is most logically in relation to the word of God (ie. this is not reading a Hellenistic romance for amusement), since she is wary lest she, like Eve who also had words straight from God, should likewise be deceived about them (unlike Adam who knew better and just sinned anyway). Read that way, this is St Paul being his usual complementarian self, and I suspect that this is what Tom Wright is trying to convey in the bit that distresses you. # My own quibble with Wright's construction is that if the setting was as "feminist" as we have said that it was, then who needed to be commanded to stop disturbing the studious women? So far as we can tell, St Paul's women are usually rich-- rich enough to face the temptations of verse 9 or to be the patronesses of assemblies-- and rich Hellenistic women, though lacking in public status, seem to have controlled their time and attention. In this, however, I am influenced by Wayne Meeks's study of The First Urban Christians, and Wright may have something more recent in mind. Posted by: Bowman Wednesday 9 January 2013 - 02:00pm Simon-- Have you finished your book? Posted by: WATERANGEL Wednesday 9 January 2013 - 09:09am yes Andrew Submission to God that is the point if you believe that God is Lord of all, if you believe that the purpose of study is to "hear gods word for us" which is then proven in justification through faith, if a woman studies in silence, then you may be wise to accept that God would communicate with a woman in the same way as a man, the request is to study in silence and submission without speaking much the same way as many hear sermons without speaking, however if God then reveals is word in a way which requires communication then Go forth and tell, comes to mind. I am not changing the meaning the instruction as i read the translation said "do not impede" now that instruction was to the men, why you might ask would God instruct the men to not impede the woman in her learning? well they must have been doing it and he wanted to guide them not to. I study the word and share it as it is revealed to me (ie how i understand it at the time) my understanding has changed as i have become older, but at the same time time stayed the same, the first thing is to pray the second is to study the third is to share the fourth is to consider what others share the fifth is to pray again, always with the desire to enhance the understanding of the gospel that it might be the tool of life for all that read it. It has occurred to me that theologians spend much time talking often about original translation, and yet we also talk about revelation for our time, it is difficult to discern in a multilingual multiculteral world the relevance of the revelation for all, because "meaning" and i am exploring this with you now appears to me to be a subjective state based on interpretation but keeping in mind revelation for the propogation of the gospel. does that make sense to you? ie God will communicate with you in a specific way, god will reveal to you and you alone his will for you, in the same way he will reveal himself to me for me and me alone, they will be different revelations , because like pauls example when he travelled to corinthia galatia and ephasus and other places he took into account the different cultures and current religious practice, but his basic message stayed the same, the way it was practiced differed. The importance being the difference in language and culture so there was no word for "let" in the original greek, in the same way as there are no consonants in Hebrew, because the words of ministry are only a part of the revelation. once you receive the words, you then decide how to act on them in accordance with the revelation you have received, as we know some people get this terribly wrong and use it as a means of userping and dictating. However if you truly hear the word of Christ in New testament terms you will hear that Jesus says love one another as i have loved you" one of the ways which Jesus in humanity showed the example was to say "let them speak, or let them hear" but i suspect if as you say the word let was not in the original translation and it was do not impede, that again it is not the words we should concentrate on but the intention of the word. Christ never had the intention of exclusion, that it one thing we can be certain of. Peace be with you Angela Posted by: Andrew Chapman Tuesday 8 January 2013 - 08:37pm Angela, there is no word for let or allow in the original Greek, which reads: Γυνη [a woman] ν !συχια [in quietness] μανθαωετω [must learn - this is the third person singular active imperative of μανθανω, to learn] ν πασￃ Qποταγￃ [in all quietness]. Tom Wright mistranslates this as: 'They must be allowed to study undisturbed, in full submission to God.' He is pretending that the command is to Timothy and/or the church not to 'disturb' the women, when in fact the command is to the women to learn in quietness, in all submission. Here are translations from a few different committees of bible scholars and translators: Let a woman learn in silence with all submission.[NKJV] Let a woman learn in quietness with all subjection.[ASB] Let a woman learn in quietness in all subjection;[Darby] A woman should learn quietly and humbly. [Phillips] A woman must quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness.[NASB] Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness.[ESV] A woman should learn in silence with full submission.[HCSB] Women should learn quietly and submissively.[NLT] A woman[a] should learn in quietness and full submission.[note: or wife] [NIV] Let a woman[a] learn in silence with full submission.[note: or wife] [NRSV] Let a woman learn in silence with all submissiveness.[RSV] That is what it means. Don't change it. Andrew Posted by: Bowman Tuesday 8 January 2013 - 04:29pm Resurrection-minded villagers-- This discussion of 1 Timothy 2 is not going to supply the ancient textual evidence that alone could place the semantic content of words like "manthaneto" or "epitrepo" beyond all question, or that of "authentein" within the scope of evidence-based reading. Given the corpus of evidence available, rational confidence in any reading of this holey verse, however holy, is as low as it gets in the Greek scriptures. Perhaps we should not be surprised that when an apostle explains something revolutionary, his choice of words will be creative. Tom Wright has not solved these problems, but he has honestly and intelligently faced up to them, which some very good minds are not able to do. # The big story here is that, once again, Wright's assertion that the Resurrection is the origin of the apostolic ministry is being ignored whilst a sort of desperate refuge is being sought from that position in a verse that can be made to say almost anyrhing in the present state of our objective knowledge of it. That frail defense cannot hold, and the vultures circle overhead-- for whom? # Since Wright's own position explicitly recognises complementarity both in the natural order and in the scriptures, it seems clear that they do not circle over complementarians as such. Rather, overall discussion of Wright's article, both here and in the wider blogosphere, suggests that his argument has forced evangelicals into a choice-- utterly renounce patriarchalist readings or deny the Resurrection as the origin of apostolic ministry. Some, it seems, are running from that choice and reading patriarchy into 1 Timothy 2 because there is so little there to resist their fantasies. Of course, a patriarchalist would have to do this since no complementarian passage elsewhere can be given a clearly patriarchal sense without the support of 1 Timothy 2. And so the vultures circle. When we see this happening, we shouldn't care how they fill the holes-- we know that it cannot be with the substance of the text itself-- nor should we be distracted by cheap shots at Tom Wright. We should be asking why they are so afraid of the obvious central thrust of Wright's argument-- the Resurrection is the basis of apostolic ministry, and the New Creation is not patriarchal-- that they do not dare even acknowledge it. The gospel is good news. Posted by: Simon Morden Tuesday 8 January 2013 - 04:10pm My old black passport instructed the foreigners I presented it to that I was to pass "without let or hinderance", the meaning of which is either perfectly clear, or entirely obscure, depending on what 'let' means, and critically, its context. Posted by: WATERANGEL Tuesday 8 January 2013 - 11:42am I looked the word" let" the sentence says "do not let" pre 12th century the word let was defined as " impede" which subsequently was defined as "obstruct" so the sentence would read do not obstruct the woman from learning. The word impede appears to be accompanied by "presupposition" .This brings us back to the point of the bible being a book we engage and journey with, because the minite we start to make assumptions, because of the presuppositions we start a new journey which leads us to "attach meaning" from our own current understanding. ie "let them hear" "let them drink" let them not depart from thine eyes . I was getting a bit lost here because what i realized was that what i was reading appeared to be saying the opposite to the definition, i then realized it is a linguistic thing ie the French and the welsh often say things the opposite way round ie gorsaf bws in welsh is bus station or in French gare de nord meaning station the north instead of the north station. So on reading the gospel hearing what God has to say to us and drinking is Dependant on our knowledge that Jesus was likened to water of life , quite difficult in translation! John 4-10 it is further complicated by John 6 16-21 when Jesus walks on water. The only way i can understand and and explain this that makes any kind of sense is to think of Jesus as "who was and is and is to come" ie jesus was the water of life he is the water of life and the walking on water being the is to come it was a precursor to the ascension in a way.It would seem to make more sense if Jesus was solid water that melted and then became the water of life. That takes us back to things appearing to be the opposite way round. So you can see what i mean about attaching meaning it has to be in context. In Peace Angela Posted by: DavidR Tuesday 8 January 2013 - 07:53am Andrrew Chapman 'Surely, exegesis is to be distinguished from translation?' Why? How? Translation is always work of exegesis and interpretation. I don't think you can separate them. Posted by: Andrew Chapman Monday 7 January 2013 - 09:42pm Bruce, no I don't see that at all. The command is to the women: it should be translated 'a woman must learn..' or similar. I think Porter is saying that the use of the word 'let' should not be understood in a permissive sense - eg 'allow a woman..'. As he says, the permissive sense is a phenomenon of our English idiom, but is not there in the Greek. I don't understand why that is not clear to you. Here is another explanation from Daniel Wallace's Syntax of New Testament Greek [p.210/211 of book/pdf], which says the same thing more directly: "One final note: the third person imperative is normally translated Let him do, etc. This is easily confused in English with a permissive idea. Its force is more akin to he must, however, or periphrastically, I command him to. . . . b. Illustrations Mark 2:14 ακολουθει μοι Follow me! Jas 1:5 ε0 τις Qμων λειπεται σοφιας, α0τειτω παρα του... θεου If anyone of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God. The force of the imperative is probably not a mere urging or permission, but a command, in spite of the typical English rendering. An expanded gloss is, “If anyone of you lacks wisdom, he must ask of God.” " In other words, according to Wallace, it's probably neither an urging, nor a permission ('allow..'), but a command - eg 'a woman must learn..'. William Mounce translates it 'A woman should learn in quietness, in all submissiveness'. [Word Biblical Commentary, Pastoral Epistles, Nelson 2000, p.102]. Mounce also points out that 'the emphasis of the verse is not that women should learn but how they should learn. The Greek word order and use of inclusio [repetition of ν !συχια at end of verse 12 (my explanation of what Mounce means by inclusio)] show that the emphais is on the manner ('in quietness').' [Mounce, p. 119] I learned some New Testament Greek from a retired liberal Anglican minister who was not perhaps a Greek expert, but had been using his Greek testament for 50 years. We read through several books in Greek, verse by verse. I remember asking him about one of the disputed passages (and I am almost certain it was 1 Timothy 2), and what he thought of the egalitarian reading. He laughed and dismissed it out of hand. My working understanding of this verse is that when the women are sitting under a teacher in church, they should be quiet, with a generally submissive attitude (especially perhaps to the teacher). They shouldn't argue back, for example. Shalom, Andrew P.S. Dave, did you see the link to the CPAS site? DavidR, I will have a look at that article. Surely, exegesis is to be distinguished from translation? Posted by: Bruce Sunday 6 January 2013 - 09:26am Andrew You refer to Tom Wright's misptranslations in 2 Tim, but do you not see that your quote from Porter in December actually supports Wright's translation of a third person imperative? Posted by: Bowman Saturday 5 January 2013 - 07:29pm Andrew-- What does manthaneto mean to you in verse 11 and why? By that I mean-- what was concretely happening in those instances of it that St Paul blessed, and what ancient evidence for this reconstruction have you found persuasive? I ask because I am trying to find your working understanding of a notably challenging text. Thanks btw for the articles on kephale. Have a blessed Epiphany! Posted by: Dave Friday 4 January 2013 - 10:58am Andrew, Where do the CPAS do this? I assume that this is a quote from the translation in the for Everyone series. The preface to the collected edition states that Tom Wright intends it as a translation rather than a paraphrase and comments on the translation philosophy, David Posted by: DavidR Thursday 3 January 2013 - 08:17pm Andrew Chapman 'Is there anybody in Fulcrum willing to defend it as a translation'? Yes I am. I have long thought this sort of exegesis makes much more sense of the text itself and its place alongside the more clearly affirmatory texts in the Epistles for the ministry of women alongside men. So no I don't think he has mistranslated. I would be very interested in your response to the article Richard W invited you to read on this text on the 'Evangelical Opponents' thread. It traces my own exegetical journey in many ways. Posted by: Andrew Chapman Thursday 3 January 2013 - 02:06pm I see that the Church Pastoral Aid Society are disseminating Tom Wright's mis-translation of 1 Timothy 2:8-15 (see my post of 2 December below for 3 glaring errors - or perhaps 'changes from the original' would be a more appropriate expression). I don't know if Wright intended it to be understood as a translation of the Greek text, in the usual sense of translation. But he used that term himself, so can hardly complain if less well informed people understand it that way. Is there anybody in Fulcrum willing either to defend it as a translation, or alternatively, to admit that it has not been translated accurately and that it should be changed before more people are led astray? Posted by: Bowman Monday 10 December 2012 - 03:57pm Curiously, Tom Wright's bluntly postmodern, Resurrection-driven stance in this article for The Times-- its main point-- has attracted no direct comment below. Yet it leads Wright to a stinging rebuke of those who would invoke modernity or Parliament to get OWE, and to sweep prooftexting off the table with one hand whilst holding out a narrative argument for OWE with the other. Since Wright's thesis builds on the rest of his life's work, and has something to unsettle both sides of that debate, it is noteworthy that no voice has directly replied for either one. A few early posts expressed relief that a scriptural argument for OWE had been offered, and a few later ones just prooftexted anyway without engaging Wright's main argument about the use of scripture. Why this odd silence? # Also noteworthy are the several new or returning voices on the thread who have offered interesting posts-- thank you! Posted by: Bowman Monday 10 December 2012 - 12:01am Darren-- You are probably right about Doug Wilson's intent in his funny posts, but I expect that his own serious thinking is too careful to stumble into the trap described in my 22537 of 26 November 2012. Philological competence is a start in biblical scholarship, of course, and as you and Wilson point out, Tom Wright's skill in close reading is one of the pleasures of reading his work. But the sort of omnivorous scholarship that knows everything and understands none of it cannot by philology alone distinguish those arguments which are grounded in the gospel from those which are not. Only some salvation narrative can do this and the historical reconstruction of that cannot be reduced to linguistic technique. # When writing an op ed for The Times to defend the independence of the Church from the prime minister, a bishop understandably uses an argument from nearer the heart of the gospel. Thus, as we see, Wright sensibly takes up 1 Timothy 2 in his op ed to set it aside for a starting point nearer the gospel that is our reason for caring about the bible or the church or the ordination of women in the first place. Which returns us to the puzzle-- if Wright has the gospel in the gospels right, then it makes sense that he would read a verse in the pastoral epistles in a way consistent with that narrative. Wilson, in fun at least, seems not to concede that. # I worry less that Wright might turn out to be a "pope" than that Wilson's important pastoral work might be overshadowed by crackpot opinions that could be improved by the gospel as Wright understands it. Posted by: Darren Moore Saturday 8 December 2012 - 12:11pm Actually he explains that. He doesn't engage textually there because there is nothing to engage with. What he says, is right's move is, "some scholars say, this is now it is, from here it must mean that". & even gives his own translation. Wilson's point is the whole tactic has to be laughed at & offers his own outragous translation, making the point, we have to deal with the words in front of us & how they connect with the rest of the Bible. Not, appeal to history & chop in out. The main context of any bit of the Bible is the rest of the Bible. I think Wilson's issue with Wright is that most of what he does is quality. People know that, so listen to him. That is an awesom position of responsibility. People will listen to him, even if he spouts complete nonsense. It is a kind of papal thing going on. For textual stuff, then tackle the stuff in, say "Women in the Church" by Kostenburger, Schriner, Bladwin etc. If you take those things on, people will really start to sit up & listen to textual arguments. Posted by: Bowman Tuesday 4 December 2012 - 01:29pm Darren-- Doug Wilson's posts on the vote have indeed been hilarious-- eg "the pig, once swallowed, must continue through the python" ;-) -- and I can see that the Patriarch of Moscow, Idaho did jab at Tom Wright with more restrained good humour than is usual for a battlescarred PCA streetfighter, but curiously I cannot detect explicit scriptural reasoning in his attack. Rather, Wilson seems, in his other role as the renowned Prophet of Testosterone, to be needling Wright for insisting that the cause of OWE in England is grounded in scripture rather than in the feminist zeitgeist. For example, although Wilson does not engage the text himself, he chides Wright for alluding to contemporary scholars on 1 Timothy 2. Now, snarky fun aside, what puzzles me about Wilson's posts is that, as you say, he agrees with Wright on the gospels. Why then does he not give more weight to the same historical narrative when it resurfaces in St Paul, and indeed in a matter like OWE? Absent an argument, we must guess. My guess is that Wilson's prior commitments-- Federal Vision and militant complementarianism-- keep him in an ahistorical reading of St Paul that is resistant to Wright's arguments from historical context. Though I truly am intrigued by much of Doug Wilson's smart, ambitious, pastoral work in Moscow, Idaho, and though I do not dismiss pragmatic complementarian insights that are actually useful, his authoritarian complementarianism has reduced his credibility precisely on issues like OWE in England. I don't dislike him, but I don't care what he thinks about this, and neither, I suspect does anyone else who has closely read some of his-- frankly unprintable-- ruminations on women. We all have our blind spots... Posted by: Darren Moore Monday 3 December 2012 - 11:31am Did anyone in a previous post any of these? the 1st 4 being relevent to this particular thread (by the way Doug Wilson is quite a NT Wright fan) http://www.dougwils.com/Table/N.T.-Wrights-and-Wrongs/ don't click if you have no humour, or offended when people disagree with you. Posted by: Andrew Chapman Sunday 2 December 2012 - 09:14pm Thank you, Bowman, for pointing me to Tom Wright's longer article at http://ntwrightpage.com/Wright_Women_Service_Church.htm. I am appalled by his 'translation' of 1 Timothy 2 vv 8-15. Take verse 11 - Γυνη εν ησυχια μανθανετω εω παση υποταγη, which Wright translates as 'They must be allowed to study undisturbed, in full submission to God.' It is often translated 'let a woman learn..', but this is not to be understood as 'allow a woman to learn..'. μανθανετω is a third person imperative, so the command is to the woman, not to those who might supposedly hinder her, as in Wright's translation. I am no Greek expert, but here is a quotation from Stanley Porter's 'Idioms of the Greek New Testament' (p.55): "Whereas the second person is similar to the English form when translated, the third person imperative requires what has sometimes been labeled a permissive sense (let…). However, any permissive sense is a phenomenon of English translation, not Greek. The third person Greek imperative is as strongly directive as the second person. ..." 'Translating' υποταγη as 'submission to God' is outrageous, especially given that the entire passage is about men and women, and their relative roles. It's fairly obvious to all but the most biased that it is more likely that Paul is speaking about a woman's submission to a man or men (not to exclude submission to God but indeed be an expression of it), since the very next verse contains an injunction that a woman is not to exercise authority over a man, so these go together in parallel. Since she is learning, the most likely possibility seems to me to be that she is to be in submission to the man that is doing the teaching (as William Mounce argues in his commentary on the Pastoral Epistles). In verse 12, why does Wright blatantly mistranslate ουκ επιτρεπω as 'I am not saying' rather than 'I do not permit'? Is it because he does not like to allow the apostle to have authority over anybody, including Tom Wright himself? Andrew Posted by: DavidR Sunday 2 December 2012 - 08:18pm Andrew We differ on this. Fine. I wonder if you are aware that this has been discussed at some length over the last few months on another thread. On the 27th Sept I posted a fuller biblical reflection there of the position you are disagreeing with so you will appreciate I do not think it helpful to start repeating it here. I also give my sources there. If you have not followed the discussion you can find it at: http://www.fulcrum-anglican.org.uk/forum/thread.cfm?page=6&thread=16429&sort=creatdesc Posted by: DavidR Sunday 2 December 2012 - 08:18pm Andrew We differ on this. Fine. I wonder if you are aware that this has been discussed at some length over the last few months on another thread. On the 27th Sept I posted a fuller biblical reflection there of the position you are disagreeing with so you will appreciate I do not think it helpful to start repeating it here. I also give my sources there. If you have not followed the discussion you can find it at: http://www.fulcrum-anglican.org.uk/forum/thread.cfm?page=6&thread=16429&sort=creatdesc Posted by: Bowman Sunday 2 December 2012 - 12:25am Another David-- I like your post so much that it has pulled me far off topic in reply ;-) Where "headship" is understood as a relation of "protection," it should prevent the gross forms of harm against women that rightly concern you and all of us. Standard complementarian thinking is therefore on the case. Since "males" actually need to be taught to be "men" with the self-control and emotional intelligence to be protective rather than exploitive of women, it stresses the value of helping males to become men, and of helping even good men to become the best of men, who are always in short supply. It also unhappily predicts that neglect of that development will inevitably cause violence against women in the worst cases, and men who do not do for women what they should do in the general case. If you've ever worked in a social service ministry, you can probably illustrate this from experience since absent and abusive fathers and their broken sons are so much a part of the background of many social problems. You and Angela are quite right that this is an area for church intervention, and given the seriousness of the matter, one would want to do it in the most effective way. Now, what would that be? Speaking of that, everyday complementarians get concrete just where we villagers often get abstract-- young confused males with a history of violence will listen to counsel about becoming men because it is in their neurobiology to do so, but they will not usually take in scolding about equality that further undercuts a fragile sense of self. Furthermore, they will take in models of manhood-- preferably heroes-- far better than abstract ideals for emotional processing that they may not even be able to conceptualise. To keep this real, the vicar of the parish in which this laptop is sitting is an astrophysicist turned priest who tries to explain the concept of "feeling sorry for doing wrong" to young men in jail who have never heard of the notion. What sort of fathers are they? A fine scientist before, she is a fine liberal priest now, her marriage seems to be unimpeachably egalitarian, and some us think she may make it to the next Lambeth Conference. But she finds the men in her parish indispensable for this ministry, not because she reads Ephesians 5 that way but because she can see that God makes males that way, as St Paul well knew when he wrote Ephesians 5. The point anyway is not to understand the scriptures for their sake but to save the world for Christ's sake. The question-- ironic to most who read this, I suspect-- is: can blessed egalitarians in the sunshine of enlightenment, who actually do tend to be the most concerned with the big picture of violence against women worldwide, engage their complementarian brothers and sisters, now dangling off the cliff by their fingernails, in a productive discussion about actually doing something about its root cause? Could we see more social ministry designed with both egalitarian compassion and complementarian realism? Between arguments about women bishops, can we please fit this in? If so, how? If not, then for the love of Christ, why not? The nice thing about such a mission-based dialogue is that each side can be sincerely respectful of the other. Ecumenism, we all know, was born in the mission field of faraway lands where weakness and strength were indisputable, and where the immensity of the need dwarfed differences that seemed huge in more comfortable places. In a mission-based dialogue, respect for what the other side has a better handle on is enforced by the facts on the ground. (When synods cannot agree on things, I say that they should break for the nearest jail. Better yet, recruit layfolk for synods from those who are already in some challenging diaconal work. But I digress ;-) Now to be clear, the fact that women and men have different developmental pathways is not an argument against women in ordained ministry, whether they wear black or purple (see above). But that developmental difference, and the fact that some need to learn it, does explain, at least to me, why there are some who have taken a path in reading the scriptures, studying for orders, doing pastoral care, organising lives and parishes, etc that starts from the human processes that we have known for millennia to be most fragile and most related to the worst and best that we do and are. Wisdom herself is well aware of them in Proverbs, a collection of collections of soundbites for the impatience of youth that mysteriously connects a neglected account of the creation to the perils of coming of age and the possibility that life might hold the happiness of a Good Wife, or more precisely, a mother admiring her son's wife's fully developed virtue in marriage. If biology is reason, and reason has a place in threads like this, it seems to me that those complementarians kicking their feet over the abyss may have some on their side. In fact, if I really thought that a church was in any danger of running out of them, I think I would propose a nationwide network of them, so that they would be present near every community, just as Gerald Bray has done. But that would be a topic for another thread, no? ;-) Perhaps we should batch your post with some of Angela's posts and start a thread on just your topic? It's important. Posted by: Bowman Saturday 1 December 2012 - 10:15pm Andrew-- Sorry to differ with you on an adiaphoron,* of course, but then the constructive thing for us to do is to recognise the SWOT* of our respective positions and uphold each other as brothers in the Lord. Tom Wright's scriptural argument, both in the Times and in this lecture, is an historical argument from tradition, not a philological discussion of canon law. His view of Phoebe makes sense in that context, and Allan Chapple 's article** supports that view adequately for the sort of argument that it is, which is one sort of argument that the Lord wants us to make. If the distinction that I am drawing between historical and philological readings of scripture is unfamiliar, then please see my post 22537 of 26th November. You can find it by clicking my name, or going to the thread, Canonical Scriptures, Inspired Authors: Hearing the Word of God. It is not meant to convince you, but it is meant to explain why we do not agree, and I suspect from your choices of words that it does that. I am disappointed that you did not say more about your own conservative pentecostal position. I had hoped that you might compare Wright's lecture to Prince's video. If the video that I saw is the one you meant, I thank you for the reference. I liked Prince's pastoral touch and his scrupulous honesty about how much of his complementarian view came from scripture and how much was his own godly judgement beyond the standard texts he mentioned. It was a model of the way an adiaphoron should be discussed, that I wish more would follow. Unlike some who otherwise agree with him, Tom Wright has retained a pastorally and practically useful sense of the relevance of the differences between women and men, yet without implying that women should stay home and avoid owning businesses, meeting religious teachers, patronising churches, making trips to Rome, explaining letters, etc as the commended Phoebe did. * Definition: adiaphoron, plural adiaphora = a church policy selected from several that are plausibly discovered in the scriptures. On some matters on which churches must have policies, there is more than one sound option discoverable in the scriptures. ** American usage note: SWOT = strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats. *** On Phoebe: Allan Chapple (2011) Getting Romans to the Romans: Phoebe and the Delivery of Paul's Letter, Tyndale Bulletin, 62 (2), especially pages 210-214. **** The scriptures themselves are far from teaching that there is one and only one demonstrable policy for every situation that can arise in time. Human minds, however, can be self-deceived about this by an observable tendency to prefer kinds of understanding that fit their mental characters, and to find other understanding of equal objective probability to be unintelligible and unlikable because they do not fit their mental characters. As minds seek company, they naturally prefer that of those who understand and like what they understand and like, and self-conscious groups have further temptations of self-deception. For these reasons, there have always been persons and churches that naively insisted that those making other choices than their own were making wrong choices, simply because they do not see what others see. In the video that I saw, Derek Prince was careful not to overstate his scriptural case, although he was also quite forthright in explaining his views. This is not easy for everyone to do. Posted by: Another David Friday 30 November 2012 - 08:16pm This has been weighing on my heart for a while. I hope it is OK to share it. Sunday (25th November) was International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. The statistics are horrific, see www.restoredrelationships.org for some details. This is world-wide and even at home the extent of violence and more general abuse is alarming. As someone who works with young poeple, I was particularly struck by statistics concerning abuse of young teenage girls by their male peers. This is not, I believe, some abberation of a few, but is just the extreme result of a deep-seated denigration of women. Milder forms vary from a patronizing "Calm down, dear", to the objectivization of women in advertising and "Page 3", and the sexualization of young girls. So, I would say the most common attitude to women in the world is a view which sees them as inferior to men, of little worth, and there to serve male needs. Of course, we should not be surprised. That the man rules over the woman is part of the consequences of the fall. It is a sign of the broken relationships in a broken world. But the Gospel, the Good News, is about God in Jesus Christ bringing about a new heaven and a new earth where the effects of the fall are removed. Above all, this started at the Cross and Resurrection, but it should continue in what is now the Body of Christ on Earth, i.e. among the redeemed people of God. We should be showing forth, as far as is possible this new life which we have, and which we would share with others. So, that's why I have a problem with this doctrine of "male headship", it is aligned too much with the way women are actually treated in the world, and it is antithetical to the weight of the Good News we have. Anything which speaks of submission , subordination or subjection of anyone contradicts the freedom, flourishing and fullness which should be ours in Christ. Now, I'm not saying that many of those who hold this are abusers. However, as a doctrine it can make abuse worse. It heaps on the woman the religious burden that she should accept whatever her husband does to her. This can and does happen, I have seen it. It is no accident that "women's lib" has arisen in those cultures steeped in the Christian Gospel, and not elsewhere. But, as on other matters in the past, the Church often seems to lag behind the advance of the Gospel. Posted by: Charles Read Thursday 29 November 2012 - 02:57pm User 4922: Taking your literalistic stance to II Timothy means that single men cannot be bishops as they are not the husband of one wife. Do you think that perhaps we need to use the texts a bit less woodenly? Posted by: Andrew Chapman Thursday 29 November 2012 - 01:04am Concerning αυθεντεω, the scholarly debate seems to be about whether it should be taken to have a negative or a positive connotation - both seem to be possible, from a lexical point of view. However, I have the impression that Kostenberger demonstrated convincingly, from a syntactical argument concerning the ουκ.. ουδε construction, that the positive meaning is much more likely. (I haven't read the material, only quotes from reviews etc). It seems to me fairly obvious, that there are two opposites in verses 11 and 12. Women are to be learning and not teaching in the church, and in submission, not exercising authority. Then the reasons given for these instructions also refer to these two aspects, the man being created first is therefore to be in a position of authority, and the woman being the one who was led astray by the serpent is not to be teaching. That seems to fit together well, and the overall import of what is being said is not difficult to understand at all. If you are evangelicals as you say, and according to this web-site at http://www.fulcrum-anglican.org.uk/ceec.cfm that you accept the bible as ' the ultimate rule for Christian faith and conduct, and the supreme authority by which the Church must ever reform itself and judge its traditions', then you need to submit to this rule, and repent of promoting the idea that you can be an 'evangelical' at the same time as believing in a new rule that supercedes the biblical one. DavidR, your view that Paul's reasons for teaching what he did about women in the church was to avoid scandal in a conservative society, seems to me to contradict his stated reasons, which are from Genesis, and therefore apply to all social settings. Bowman, I read the article on Phoebe, and found it completely unconvincing. I have learned that there is much support, including from ancient times, for the idea that Phoebe bore the letter. But she might also have accompanied those who bore it, as has also been suggested. She was apparently engaged in some sort of πραγμα, some business or matter, and so she was not apparently a full-time minister of the gospel, let alone a teacher. When Allan Chapple suggests that the business in hand was that of making copies of Paul's letter, he seems to me to be veering off into sheer fantasy, and what would it prove anyway? This is just idle speculation, and there is no evidence that she was entrusted by Paul to explain the letter - perhaps he would have said so in the letter, if that had been the case. For Tom Wright to describe her to the Times readers as 'the first expositor of Paul's greatest letter' is really outrageous. DavidR, I have to admit that I hadn't read the whole of Russell Bowman's article in JBMW, and wouldn't want to defend it in detail. It just happened that I had come across it that day or the day before, so it seemed pertinent, and I was in agreement with him, that the repeated biblical injunction to women is to submit to their own men ie their husbands, rather than to other men. There is a distinction to be made between the commandments to the churches, and a general principle about male headship from creation, which could be applied to society as a whole, so I think it is possible to be less concerned about what happens in an ungodly society than in what is being allowed in the holy church of Jesus Christ, which is being prepared to be as a bride without spot or blemish for His glorious return. Shalom. Posted by: User 4932 Tuesday 27 November 2012 - 10:17pm Just to identify: I'm Dr. Kenneth W. Regan of Amherst (Buffalo) NY USA, D.Phil. Oxon. 1986 (Maths.), University at Buffalo. My comment originally had line/paragraph breaks at: "The context of 1 Timothy...", point 1., point 2., "Both of these tenets...", point I., "Allowing matters...", and "As a footnote..."; Greek and Latin words were italicized. Posted by: User 4932 Tuesday 27 November 2012 - 06:52pm To answer Andrew Chapman (user 4906, whom I believe to be a Reverend) about the Greek words and the larger meaning, everyone agrees that authentein is a compound whose first part is auto, "self-", and whose second part means to strike or thrust or start. As-such it has ancient recorded meanings of self-strike = commit suicide; auto-thrust = commit murder; self-push = dominate, lord over; self-start = initiate, originate. The Vulgate ("dominari") and King James translators ("usurp authority") of 1 Tim. used the third meaning, while I think the context going with "not to teach" also speaks the fourth meaning---which is closest to our use of "authentic" today. Either way, however, reading it as "any exercise of authority" is too weak. Likewise too weak is reading the previous words as the kind of teaching one finds in (adult) Sunday school or sermons today. The context of 1 Timothy is the planting of churches at a time when practices derived from Scripture were formative, when even the Book of Acts (Praxeis) was yet to be written. The "false teachers" Paul needed to combat had divergent views of the Gospel of a different magnitude from any fundamentals that any Anglican would consider un-settled today. There are two tests of interpretation and one major commission from Jesus to consider. 1. Does the Archbishop of Canterbury himself currently have any self-executable authority to change anything at the level Paul is talking about", without constitution, without Synod...? Can he infallibly dictate encyclicals? If not he, then what of "she"? 2. If the "weak" interpretation of authentein is to be for-all-time, can one consistently apply that regard with the rest of the passage? About submitting in silence, because Adam dominated (Gen. 3:16) Eve? When full consistency in one reading is universally known to be wrong, selectivity leads to the kind of hypocrisy Jesus was quick to expose regarding law. Both of these tests are guided by the reality that the Church of England is a well-constituted body with established teachings and leaders constrained by democratic governance. This body is the receptacle by which we now are given to read: I. Jesus' first commissions to His Church, in Matthew 16:18-19, and amplified in 18:18-20 where it is also clear that not only the apostles are involved in the binding-and-loosing. Allowing matters such as women bishops to be determined thus by the church body may seem weak and rule-less to those aligned with Rev. Chapman, but those of us who differ are also responding to the authority of Scripture, which here recognizes power of agreement. As a footnote, this extends what I commented in Bishop Nick Baines' July 11 item at nickbaines.wordpress.com/2012/07/11/ahead-of-the-debate/, where I ended by contending that "the capacity of a woman bishop to hire/fire men and approve regional funds is not the kind of action Paul is concerned about." As a non-footnote, this is not light for me because it was the subject of a tearful argument with my wife when we still barely knew each other on a trip to Scotland in 1986, when she found my when-the-body-agrees reasoning above (then on priests) cold and demeaning. Just to say: I was viewed in Rev. Chapman's place by the person closest to me... Posted by: Bowman Tuesday 27 November 2012 - 02:55am Taking the long view, making the right mix of changes for the Wright reason would be helpful to the ministry of the Church, hence both the article and the letter. When making a mission-directed choice among adiaphora, there is a difference between recognising social change and just replicating it. Wright emphasises the Resurrection faith of the apostolic age whilst Rowan Williams stresses the eternal priesthood of Christ, but both have been careful not only to articulate a scriptural rationale independent of supine secularising, but also to accommodate views of "old believers" in a way that improves on the past but does not abrogate it. Revolutions are more exciting, but evolution is what works. Posted by: John Watson Monday 26 November 2012 - 09:20pm Letter to The Times from Tom Wright Sir, Matthew Parris (“Church and State must loosen their bonds,” Nov 24) agrees with me that “society” shouldn’t boss the Church around, and declares that “the argument should work both ways”. The Church neither possesses nor desires any mechanism for imposing its will on “society”. We have no equivalent to the power which “society”, through Parliament, already possesses and sometimes threatens to use against the Church. A handful of ennobled bishops gives the Church a voice, not a veto; presence, not actual power. Matthew Parris seems to think that my argument about “progress” was simply that the Church should be exempt from it. My point, rather, was that modern Western “progress” has itself been ambiguous for everyone. One of its most dubious innovations is just that separation of God and the world, of Church and “society”, which Matthew supports and for which he co-opts my own argument. But redefining “religion” as “private” and “spiritual” was always too neat. The Church, following the example of Jesus himself, has always been called to speak the truth to power, particularly on behalf of the powerless. That responsibility remains. The fact that the Church often gets things muddled (Matthew Parris rightly instances divorce) doesn’t remove the vocation. There are doubtless many ways of working this out. The English model of “Establishment” isn’t the same as either the Scottish or the Swedish. The continental Catholic “concordats” are different again. Most Churches today have no such arrangement. But we are not starting with a clean slate. Any move towards disestablishment in England today would rightly be seen as a power-play by late-modern secularism, trying to win debates by silencing opposition. The secularist myth (that “religion” would wither on the vine) has proved false. [paragraph not printed: In such a context, any small comfort is welcome. I am proud of having provoked Matthew, however tongue in cheek, to say that ‘perhaps there is a God’. Yes, Matthew, there is; and he’s probably not much like the one you don’t believe in.] Tom Wright Former Bishop of Durham St Andrews Posted by: Deleted user 4924 Monday 26 November 2012 - 11:33am User 4920: "But what is clear either way, and I am surprised Tom did not mention this, is that 1 Timothy is a letter, and therefore addressed a particular group of people, and a particular situation.". The same can be said about Romans, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians etc. Posted by: Bowman Monday 26 November 2012 - 07:53am 1 Timothy 2-- Tom Wright's general approach to the ministry of women and his translation of this passage is in this lecture. Posted by: Bowman Monday 26 November 2012 - 07:51am Andrew-- No, it makes sense that Phoebe would explain Romans. On Phoebe, please see Allan Chapple (2011) Getting Romans to the Romans: Phoebe and the Delivery of Paul's Letter, Tyndale Bulletin, 62 (2), 210-214. For a fuller introduction to Tom Wright's general approach to the ministry of women, see this lecture. You may enjoy comparing Wright's thoughtful approach to the differentiation and complementarity of the sexes to Prince's. Nice to hear from any sort of a conservative pentecostal! Posted by: DavidR Monday 26 November 2012 - 07:04am Andrew, thank you for your challenge to my last point about women in public submission. But I don't agree with you. Those who argue for Biblical male headship usually see it as a creation ordering - not just domestic. So In traditional patriarchal society the public world mirrors the household. It would be a very strange world if it didn't actually - for one gender to be completely submission at home but free to take authority and be fully involved in public. Indceed in these societies assumptions about education, career and everything flow from the domestic code. Are you aware of literacy rates among women in traditional patriarchal societies even today? But even in Britain women have only has a vote for less than 100 years - and allowed equal places on CofE church councils or the National Assembly for even less than that. Biblically part of the scandal Mary caused by sitting at Jesus's feet was that she was placing herself in the public position of men - and seeking to be taught. That was not the woman's role. So I found the article you pointed me to very strange and, for a conservative, actually unbiblical. He gives no actual examples of what he means so it is not clear. He keeps using the word 'submit ' where it is not used in the biblical text at all. Eve 'submitted' to the serpent? She didn't. Both she and Adam asserted their choice over against God's will in taking the fruit .And Mary is a role model because she did not submit to Herod!! `What? Actually I think that what Paul was facing in early church was precisely that women were finding the gospel liberating them into new partnership with men in all parts of life. But in a conservative society that may simply cause scandal and needs wisdom in the living out of it. I have been arguing on these threads that this explains the background context to Paul's teaching about 'head' and 'submission' .c is a transitional mission strategy for behaviour that would otherwise cause scandal to those outside that leaves them quite unable to hear the gospel meassage behind it, The irony is that in our own context in UK reverse is happening. A conservative insistence on the submission of women to men in the church is causing total scandal in the eyes of the watching world and obstructing our proclamation of the gospel. Posted by: Deleted user 4922 Monday 26 November 2012 - 12:42am As a pastor I wonder at times if the ordination of women is not confused with the election of women to serve in a church capacity. It is clear that women were not called to serve in leadership postions over congregations but within congregations in NT times. In my mind, a woman can and should serve as a preacher and a teacher within a congregation but not called as the pastor of the congregation. I find no Biblical support for women being ordained to the priesthood. The author's example of the "apostle" Junia and "deacon" Phoebe are circumstancial at best. It is clear from 1 Timothy III:2 that a bishop must be a man, a husband of one woman, and an example of Christ. Also, a bishop was a leader of a local congregation and not a leader of a large ecclesiastical area. Peace and love Posted by: Andrew Chapman Sunday 25 November 2012 - 08:25pm DavidR, thanks, interesting points about whether the conservative evangelical points are behaving consistently by allowing women to be active in the General Synod. Probaly not, I would have thought, although your last point seems weak - where does the scripture say that women have to obey men in general (as opposed to their own husbands) - see the latest issue of the Journal of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood for a refutation of that one. In any case, (again with regard to your last point) we are to obey God rather than man (Acts 5 v 29 etc), so I am sure that they would say that their obligation to God to protect biblical doctrine would take priority over any obligation to men. I am not a conservative evangelical, as it happens, but some sort of a conservative pentecostal, and find myself in agreement with almost of all what of what Derek Prince said in his lecture on the subject. Bowman, re paras 11-14, women can serve as evangelists and as deacons. The idea that one can get from Romans 16 verses 1-2 to believing that Phoebe expounded the book of Romans is patently absurd, is it not? Andrew Posted by: DavidR Sunday 25 November 2012 - 08:09pm User 4911 Be encouraged. The Church of England first ordained men - and we now know it to have been in steady decline under exclusively male leadership since the early part of the last century. It is, in more recent decades, just begun to address and even slowly arrest that decline and this appears to coincide with er ... the ordination of women. Still lot's more to do - but rejoice! It's progress. Posted by: Bowman Sunday 25 November 2012 - 03:57am Speaking of ordaining women in America, the Wesleyan-Holiness Churches have been ordaining them here for over a century. The arguments of such pioneers as Phoebe Palmer, Katherine Bushnell, Catherine Booth, and Aimee Semple McPherson do acknowledge women's gifts, but of course they also engage scripture. Characteristically, they situate all ministry in God's redemptive and eschatological plan, whilst challenging the distinction between prophecy and pastoral authority. Within that wider context, they reduce the pauline rules for women in the public churches to their historical circumstances. Appeal to an imperative zeitgeist is notably absent from these pre-feminist arguments. Whatever we make of them in the light of present knowledge, the Wesleyan-Holiness churches here do not seem to be on a slope more slippery than any other. Posted by: User 4920 Sunday 25 November 2012 - 01:05am I am not aware of the disagreement amongst scholars about what 1 Tim 2 says, although I do understand there is disagreement about whether the text is original, or a later interpolation. But what is clear either way, and I am surprised Tom did not mention this, is that 1 Timothy is a letter, and therefore addressed a particular group of people, and a particular situation. And while the original recipients may have been given this instruction, it is clear that this was not the practice in the early church as a whole (Junia and Pheobe are obvious examples). This is why 1 Timothy is never a good place to start on the issue of women Bishops. Posted by: Bowman Saturday 24 November 2012 - 06:49pm Yes, 4911, by all means avoid mere "progress" that, in just ratifying conventional wisdom, leaves a church with no gospel! But a more open evangelicalism grounded in the Resurrection may be the most important of those means for a church with public responsibilities, whether the Church of England or the old American mainlines. To avert the decline you rightly reject, a church with public responsibilities needs a gospel with both personal and public meaning, and that is what Tom Wright and Fulcrum are working to articulate. God bless them! # Here in America, a theology of personal conversion was tried and was too narrow in its scope to offer social leadership. Moreover, many evangelicals followed it from the responsible churches for more self-absorbed alternatives. (Please consider carefully that the old Princeton theology most admired by Reformed evangelicals did nothing on its own terms to stop this, and that is why it was left behind.) The resulting vacuuum was filled by liberalism, which was quite effective for a time in challenging racism, poverty, and war. Do not think that Jim Crow laws in the American South would have ended without the activism of liberal protestants, nor, alas, that white evangelicals were mostly on the right side of that history. But in the past generation, liberalism too has failed. It has no personal gospel at all, and nobody but a politician has time for a weekly political meeting with choir and hymns. It also lacks any organic impulse to plant churches and evangelise, and so it is more content to struggle over control of old churches than to engage a vibrant, mobile population with new ones. It cares about the poor, in a bureaucratic sort of way, but it does not support the wisdom and discipline they need, and anyway they cannot possibly care about it. God used liberalism in America for a time, but today it bears comparison with the self-absorbed evangelicalism of a century ago. # Since God desires both public witness and personal faithfulness, the question now is-- how can his will best be done today? Nobody who faces up to the whole problem seriously believes that a weaker Church of England would help. If as 4911 believes, the American experience is relevant, then it suggests that, although evangelicals everywhere have been entrusted with the gifts both our countries need, they do struggle with the public aspects of God's creation. Tom Wright and others have shown that the problem is not in the scriptures. Fulcrum are showing that it need not be in ourselves. Posted by: DavidR Saturday 24 November 2012 - 06:33pm Andrew It is not just Tom Wright who is trying to avoid the 'plain teaching of scripture'. So are the leadership and membership of Reform and Synod ConEvos. Claiming to be seeking a church faithful to NT teaching, women members have sought and gained election to the most senior leadership forum of the church where they have used the authority of that position to argue that er .... according to the NT, women should not be in public leadership or authority in the church. They have been publically teaching and expounding scripture in debate in the presence of men while surely believing the NT teaches that er .... women shouldn't teach men. They are very public and vocal in their views while presumably believing that er ... the NT says women should be silent in church. Finally, while insisting the NT teaches women should obey the man as head they disobeyed the male leadership of their church last week by voting against a motion that they were urged to vote for - and despite believing that the NT teaches that women should submit to the authority of men. You don't need to be a liberal to find all this a strange and contradictory doublethink. Posted by: DavidR Saturday 24 November 2012 - 06:33pm Andrew It is not just Tom Wright who is trying to avoid the 'plain teaching of scripture'. So are the leadership and membership of Reform and Synod ConEvos. Claiming to be seeking a church faithful to NT teaching, women members have sought and gained election to the most senior leadership forum of the church where they have used the authority of that position to argue that er .... according to the NT, women should not be in public leadership or authority in the church. They have been publically teaching and expounding scripture in debate in the presence of men while surely believing the NT teaches that er .... women shouldn't teach men. They are very public and vocal in their views while presumably believing that er ... the NT says women should be silent in church. Finally, while insisting the NT teaches women should obey the man as head they disobeyed the male leadership of their church last week by voting against a motion that they were urged to vote for - and despite believing that the NT teaches that women should submit to the authority of men. You don't need to be a liberal to find all this a strange and contradictory doublethink. Posted by: Roger Hurding Saturday 24 November 2012 - 01:48pm As he so often does, Tom Wright puts his finger on the correct issues. The argument for women's access to the episcopacy is biblically based rather than simply conditioned by modern notions of 'progress'. Even so, we need to discern through general revelation where the 'world' has stumbled on biblical truth in its commitment to the equality of the sexes. Here, Wright declares, 'Part of the point of the new creation launched at Easter was the transformation of roles and vocations: from Jews-only to worldwide, from monoglot to multilingual (think of Pentecost), and from male only leadership to male and female together.' As on other threads, we are back to the wondrous call of the new creation and its transformation into a renewed community, women, men and children alike. Let us be truly biblical and pursue the vision glimpsed in the early Church in the callings of Lydia, Priscilla, Junia, Phoebe and innumerable Marys. Posted by: Jody Friday 23 November 2012 - 11:56am Dear Friends we've published Tom Wright's Times article. please use this thread for your discussion. blessings, Jody Posted by: Bowman Friday 23 November 2012 - 08:14am Angela, Roger, Another David, Dan, Carl, Maggie, Marling, Craig-- Thank you all who affirmed the objective measures of church support for OWE, and thanks as well to Maggie and Carl for offering interpretations of an enigmatic vote. Assuming both that the opposition to OWE must also have known of these same measures, and assuming also that they would never have voted "yes," what mindset would vote "no" anyway, threatening disestablishment or intervention, rather than just recording an abstention, which would have preserved the autonomy of the Church of England, a logical objective for conservative evangelicals? The answer would influence next steps. # Do the "noes" see from the diocesan votes and the speeches in Church House that women bishops are inevitable? Do they care about the Church's establishment and autonomy? Do they know that Parliament will not approve a Measure with stronger protections? Are the "noes" uncoordinated, purely self-expressive votes cast without thinking of the consequences for the Church or of the will of the laity? The answers have actionable consequences. # Craig, Carl, and I recall synodical votes in The Episcopal Church and The Anglican Church of Canada that left opponents of change with no home at all, and none who have seen this believe that the Church of England would wish to repeat this tragic mistake. Yet partisans focused on winning often do not think past the struggle for a desired victory to the reality it creates for all the next day. Since we now know from the answers of the Second Commissioner in the House of Commons that Parliament would not approve any firmer protection than that already in the Measure, and that Parliament is not debarred from securing the OWE by repealing the Equality Act exemption or by passing the Measure itself, the outcome is clear. The burden of this strange interim may be that of securing a worthwhile home for the "noes," if need be alongside, rather than inside, the established Church. That's what evangelicals should be talking about. Posted by: Dan Friday 23 November 2012 - 01:00am "I find it hard to think that any could answer "yes", in that 42 of the 44 dioceses voted in favour and that the nation generally finds the rejection of the Measure difficult to fathom." Roger, as Another David has since noted, what counts is the total tally of votes across the dioceses, and that was approximately 3 to 1. Meanwhile I'd like to know how you've managed to poll the nation. I follow a secular, economics-related forum, and in the thread that's been started on this topic it appears that hardly anyone is a practising Christian, yet the mood is overwhelmingly along the lines of, "If you're going to disobey the Bible in this or that area you might as well chuck the whole Christian thing." Now I'm certainly not saying I think that's fair, but it does devastatingly give the lie to the endlessly rehashed claim that this vote damaged the church's credibility in the nation. The liberal 'side' has in fact received scant respect on the non-churchy thread in question. It seems some feminists are just saying what they want to be true, and for them that is enough! Posted by: Another David Thursday 22 November 2012 - 08:28pm (I started a response but it disappeared, I don't know if it has been submitted) The reason for 'tail' is simply that a small number of dissenters are holding things up and this is resulting in the Church being held to riducule. A very high bar is set for approval of measures, and it only just failed. By most measures the result would have been acceptance. The result is at odds with the voting in the diocese over the draft measure (which seems to have had less provision for dissenters). In those votes, admittedly only a simple majority was needed. However, there were only three houses where this failed, and that closely (clergy in London, clergy and laity in Chichester, not surprisingly perhaps given the strong Anglo-Catholic presence in those to diocese). Overall, however, the approval was significant. Aggregating over all diocese, 75% of clergy and laity voted in favour, and 81% of bishops. These proportions were reflected ay General Synod, except for the Laity. One does have to ask the reason for the discrepancy. That house does not seem to reflect the balance of opinion in the wider Church. Posted by: Another David Thursday 22 November 2012 - 08:13pm Thank you, Bowman, for defending me. However, my reference to "tail" was simply that a small portion of the Church of England seems to be holding the rest to ransom, to the general detrement of all. It is only the very strict terms of the vote which prevented the measure being approved. Without dividing into the houses, the numbers were: For: 324 Against: 122 Abstained: 2 (both Bishops) Of the total, 72% voted in favour. Also there is a significant difference between this vote and the vote for the original draft measure (which had less provision for dissenters, I think, than the measure presented this week) in the diocese. Only a simple majority in all three houses was required to pass. In the end this failed in only two dioceses, London and Chichester (and the failure was for the clergy and laity in the latter, and only the clergy in the former). These two are not surprising, given the strong Anglo-Catholic representation within. Aggregated, the voting was (hoping this lays out OK): Bishops Clergy Laity For: 75 1553 Posted by: Another David Thursday 22 November 2012 - 08:13pm Thank you, Bowman, for defending me. However, my reference to "tail" was simply that a small portion of the Church of England seems to be holding the rest to ransom, to the general detrement of all. It is only the very strict terms of the vote which prevented the measure being approved. Without dividing into the houses, the numbers were: For: 324 Against: 122 Abstained: 2 (both Bishops) Of the total, 72% voted in favour. Also there is a significant difference between this vote and the vote for the original draft measure (which had less provision for dissenters, I think, than the measure presented this week) in the diocese. Only a simple majority in all three houses was required to pass. In the end this failed in only two dioceses, London and Chichester (and the failure was for the clergy and laity in the latter, and only the clergy in the former). These two are not surprising, given the strong Anglo-Catholic representation within. Aggregated, the voting was (hoping this lays out OK): Bishops Clergy Laity For: 75 1553 Posted by: George Day Thursday 22 November 2012 - 10:27am Why have we not had any comment from the Fulcrum leadership on Tuesday's vote? Yes, it is good not to rush too quickly into making off-the-cuff comments, but by now I would have expected at the very least an interim statement. I hope this will soon be rectified. And perhaps too it would be good to have comment on where this leaves the evangelical wing of the Church of England, since so much of the opposition came from a group of conservative evangelicals who are clearly out of step with the majority of the Church of England, even if they may be thoroughly representative of their particular section of it. When I was ordained in 1971 there was a sense of growing strength and unity amongst evangelicals (Keele, Nottingham, Eclectics, Islington conference, and various societies) but now there is a deep division, and many of the old institutions have fallen into disarray. It might be worth starting a new thread about this. Page 1/4 | First Page | Previous Page | Next Page | Last Page Posted by: David Baker Saturday 24 November 2012 - 11:24am A great article. As he rightly says, 1 Timothy 2 is a key issue, and it's a really difficult one. But until we are clear on that (or perhaps I should say, until I am clear on that), it is difficult to jump firmly one way or the other. Posted by: User 4911 Saturday 24 November 2012 - 05:12am The American mainline Protestants first ordained women, and now they are ordaining gays. Plus they are dying off rapidly. That's where this "progress" is going to lead. Posted by: Bowman Friday 23 November 2012 - 11:45pm Yes, perceptive 4868, we really do need that dialogue on what it means to be, as we say here, "in the fellowship and teaching of the apostles." For some, that means doing things that apostles did, possibly without understanding whether or why they would do it now, whilst for open evangelicals it means primarily acting in a way rooted directly in the apostolic witness to the Resurrection. Our brother in Christ 4906 surely understands more than he explains, but his post is a good specimen of the former, in that it is quite a stretch to get from faith that God raised Jesus from the dead through Wright's faith-filled paragraphs 11-14 to 4906's overconfident result. But while an intelligent faithfulness is obviously better, its scriptural basis has not yet been reduced to a sound practice, and that has indeed left room for some use of worldly arguments that are noise rather than signal. To leave them behind, we have a journey ahead, but it should lead toward understanding that irrigates obedience with living water. Posted by: Andrew Chapman Friday 23 November 2012 - 09:37pm Tom Wright says that 'I Timothy ii is usually taken as refusing to allow women to teach men.' So it is. The reason? Because it says that it is not permitted for women to be teaching (men or women). A typical translation (ASV): 'Let a woman learn in quietness with all subjection. But I permit not a woman to teach, nor to have dominion over a man, but to be in quietness.' Ah, but 'serious scholars' can't work out what this really means for the 'key' Greek words 'occur nowhere else'. Oh really? Well let's try a Greek concordance. OK there's Γυνη (woman), ησυχια (quietness), μανθανω (learn), πας (all), υποταγη (submission), διδασκω (teach), επιτρεπω (allow, permit), ανηρ (man), and αυθεντεω. All but the last occur elsewhere in the New Testament, and in fact only one, υποταγη, is at all infrequent (and the allied verb υποτασσω, meaning submit, occurs frequently). So, contrary to what Tom Wright says, the prohibition on teaching does not contain any words that occur nowhere else in the New Testament. Who is telling lies? (Tom Wright claims that it is a 'lie' to say that 'people who “believe in the Bible” or who “take it literally” will oppose women’s ordination'.) The meaning of 1 Timothy 2:11-12 is clear - the only question is whether we choose to obey the instruction of the apostle who was appointed by the Lord Jesus Christ to open the eyes of the nations and turn them from darkness to light (Acts 26: 17-18), a teacher of the nations in faith and truth (he speaks the truth in Christ and lies not) (1 Timothy 2: 7). So repent, brethren, and turn back to true evangelicalism, which relies upon and trusts in the truth and accuracy of the inspired and holy scriptures, and don't believe the lies of those falsely called teachers. Andrew Posted by: User 4908 Friday 23 November 2012 - 09:26pm Hear, hear... it has been disappointing to listen to opponents of women bishops dismissing those who support them as not believing in the Bible, God and Church and not to have the supporters interviewed responding to those arguments but putting things on a completely non-theological footing... Posted by: Bob Marsden Friday 23 November 2012 - 08:05pm Lot's of good comments as usual by Tom Wright ... but not always right. See http://www.dougwils.com/N.T.-Wrights-and-Wrongs/squeezing-harder-than-that.html Grace and peace to everyone! Bob Marsden Posted by: User 196 Friday 23 November 2012 - 07:49pm Tom Wright's article picks up something which desperately needed saying. It is brilliant. If the current head of steam for State intereference picks up we will need to take heed. Better by far to stick to Scripture - that's all the witness we need and the most powerful. ROY MELLOR (Revd) DURHAM Posted by: User 196 Friday 23 November 2012 - 07:48pm Tom Wright's article picks up something which desperately needed saying. It is brilliant. If the current head of steam for State intereference picks up we will need to take heed. Better by far to stick to Scripture - that's all the witness we need and the most powerful. ROY MELLOR (Revd) DURHAM Posted by: Bowman Friday 23 November 2012 - 05:04pm Paragraphs 11-14 summarise what open evangelicals should be advocating-- an independent Church that acts primarily on the ground, not of a time-bound ideal from any century, but of a Resurrection hope that, wider than personal eschatology, encompasses a better way of being human "in every community." This is the ultimate scriptural argument, of course, but its practical demands are still unfamiliar to evangelicals who have long been committed to a different idea of just restoring the 1st C. To make the Resurrection case clearly, to them and to all others, requires the "message discipline" to maintain focus on the scriptural hope. That is our duty in any case, but it has the incidental merit of giving those who must abandon a customary opinion to do the right thing something truer to believe in as they do it. The setback to OWE is just temporary, but what it shows about how open evangelicals have been understood by others warrants a more concerted and better grounded communication of the message of the God of Love. Posted by: 1disciple Friday 23 November 2012 - 02:48pm Thank you, Bishop Tom, for pointing us back to Christ and his resurrection as the turning point of all history. And with Christ as Lord, we should take seriously our call to live out this chan of the order of life. Posted by: User 4868 Friday 23 November 2012 - 01:07pm A very fine article from Dr. Wright. It is worthy of careful thought. However, among those in the church, this is entirely too facil - and certainly not reflective of the actual state of research on the question: "Yes, I Timothy ii is usually taken as refusing to allow women to teach men. But serious scholars disagree on the actual meaning, as the key Greek words occur nowhere else. That, in any case, is not where to start." In house - not with the world - we need to seriously reckon with the Pastoral Epistles and what it means to be an "Apostolic Church" - otherwise we will be just as "progressive" as the progressives Dr. Wright righty warns us about. 
Posted by: Graham Kings
Friday 23 November 2012 - 11:08am
We have just copublished with The Times, Tom Wright's article today 'Women Bishops: It's about the Bible, not fake ideas of Progress' http://www.fulcrum-anglican.org.uk/759 |
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xhorting the CoE to ‘get with the programme’ dilutes the argument for women bishops