Women as Deacons in the Church

If you hang in long enough to read this post, I would be interested in your comments, please post them by clicking "comments" link at the bottom of the article.

There are many interpretations depending on your perspective. But what we do know for sure is Christ is the equalizer for the poor, women, orphans, and everyone else. Not just men. If someone truly believes they have a gift and are called to serve who are we humans to judge? Was not Christ on the cross for all of us? Is it too hard to believe that the issue at hand is salvation for all and each of us have a role to play. Using any amount of energy on condemning someones calling, even if it is a "woman", means we are not focused on Gods kingdom, but our own earthly world and biases.




Women role in church:

• Acts 2:18 - God ordained women to preach
• Acts 21: 8-9 - 3 of Philip's daughters preached.
• Acts 18:26 - Priscilla played key role in teaching spiritual formation even to men
• There is some evidence that a few were women deacons

Christ and women:

• Mark 5:25 - Christ touch women when menstruating, taboo back then
• John 4:1-27 - Christ established relationships with women of questionable ethical and moral backgrounds
• Gal 3:28 - In Christ there is neither male or female
• Christ reversed the trend deliberately and had a different attitude towards women than was expected. He spoke in public with the Samaritan woman (John 4 : 27) and allowed a sinful woman to approach Him in the house of Simon (Luke 7 : 37).
  
• He affirmed the equal status of the rights and duties of married couples ( Matthew 19 : 3 – 9).
  

Key verses people bring up are Eph 5:22-22 (wives submit) and 1 Tim 2:11-12 (learn in silence)

Taken at face value you can see why people believe women should not have roles in the church. But, looking at the bible and historically at the culture, education, and to other documents we find that it may be that some women who became Christians were quick to abuse the new freedoms of spiritual liberalization and not only spoke out about religious issues, but their marital issues and lectured husbands in the church. If that is the case, some think Paul was telling them to be silent in the church and talk in private. These scriptures were written to churches about specific issues.

The fact that the bible is believed to be infallible does not mean you take every scripture at face value or pull it out of context. Scripture was written to a certain culture and situations and to this day is valuable to Christians.

All of us see scripture through our own lens. What I mean by this is we experience life different then anyone else and we take these experiences and incorporate them into our faith and how we see scripture. I am sure we can interpret scriptures all day on all sorts of topics. But, I have to restate my first paragraph:

"But what we do know for sure is Christ is the equalizer for the poor, women, orphans, and everyone else. Not just men. If someone truly believes they have a gift and are called to serve who are we humans to judge? Was not Christ on the cross for all of us? Is it too hard to believe that the issue at hand is salvation for all and we all have our role to play. Using any amount of energy on condemning someones calling, even if it is a "women", means we are not focused on Gods kingdom, but our own earthly world and biases."

So will Women go to hell or disappoint God for being a deacon or will he rejoice because of the lives she touched and souls she brings to Christ using her unique and beautiful skills as a women?

Are we playing our part as a Christian or are we playing arm chair quarterback, picking at someone in the game?

In the end we all have a calling and only we know what God has put in our hearts. Let's travel the journey together and support each other on the way. We may disagree on some issues, but they all are overshadowed by the fact that we exist to worship him and in Christ we can do all things.

Here are some interesting info:

Greek Philosophy on the Inferiority of Women:
http://www.womenpriests.org/traditio/infe_gre.asp

History in the Baptist Church:
Even the early Baptist churches had women preach and deacons, not until Calvin and later Southern Baptist that these roles were taken away.
http://www.baptisthistory.org/contissues/deweese3.htm
http://baptisthistory.org/contissues/huffman.htm

Biblical commentary and good links:
http://www.biblicalfoundations.org/?p=38

Commentary on Church issues:
Getting the congregation involved, bridging the generational gap and the role of women.
7 min. 16 seconds into the video it talks about women in the church
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=9022771525666008496

Hanging Rock Trip

Family vacation was fun. We saw lots of waterfalls, got lost around the lake, and hiked Hanging Rock with a 3 year old on my back. When we got back our garden was bursting at the seams.


For more vacation pictures click here

Text Msg. and my Social Life

A few months ago we took most of the cell phone features away. This would include downloads, ring tones, text messaging, sending photos, etc... My 17 year old actually now has a cell phone to talk to people. No distractions in class, work, or driving: photos sent to her phone or the pressure of knowing her friends sent a text message and if she does not reply ASAP she is a loser, even at 1 am...

I know what it was like to be a teenager and now more then ever there are so many useless distractions in life. This includes useless expenses that add up. Five dollars a month here, Ten dollars a month there.

As Americans I read our debt ratio is the highest in the world. If we can't afford it, we put it on a credit card knowing we can't pay it off in a month. I wonder what I am teaching my kids and if my oldest really gets it. She is almost 18 years old and if I compare her life to mine as a kid, she really has no concept of struggling for "things". Not that we spoil her, by all means we are attempting to teach her how to budget by giving her an allowance and clothing budget each year. This has help a lot. Each school year she gets a set dollar amount and if she decides to spend it all on 2 outfits, then that's all the clothes she gets for the year. I notice her "need" for expensive/trendy clothes is less of a "need" now. I am proud of her, she works part time, paid for half her car, and is responsible for car repairs and some gas. She is also a great student. But, all the classes, they really never discuss checking accounts, investments, or debt and though we discuss it with her, we are her parents, and you know what that means....

She approach me and her mom on different occasions explaining not having text messaging has been a dent in her social life. I laughed it off and did not attempt to put it into perspective, but I recall a few dents in my social life as well. But, they were things like:

• Could not afford expenses of prom, so I avoided it
• Wore sneakers with tape around the sole
• Glasses broken, so my choice was to wear them with tape or not at all
• Many times not having a ride home from football & walking several miles or thumbing it
• Fighting over the last bit of milk and watching it spill on the floor, so no one got it.
• Having to show the cafeteria lady my "FREE Lunch card" in front of all my friends
• My lazy eye was real attractive when I was tired or had to take my glasses off in gym
• Ahhh, College... I was poor, worked and went to school the whole time including summers. There were no spring break trips or "discovery" overseas. I graduated in 1991 and in 2007 finally paid off my student loans
  

I can really say I don't miss those days. I do recall finding out who your real friends were, and I learned what was important in life quick.

I don't want my kids to go through many of the things I did, but I still want them to struggle, to have to work, set goals, and sometime fight for their wants and dreams. I think it made me a good person and can only hope my kids will grow up and be better then me.