This week: Women in Ministry Edited by: Jeff  
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About The Editor: Greetings! My name is Jeff and I'm one of your regular editors for the official Spiritual Newsletter! I've been a member of Writing.com since 2003, and have edited more than 400 newsletters across the site during that time. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact me via email or the handy feedback field at the bottom of this newsletter! 
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Women in Ministry
The Bible is one of those books that can be frustrating to get a straight answer from, especially since it was written by dozens of different authors over the span of hundreds of years, and occasionally contains contradictory passages. There are few places where this is more apparent or a point of greater contention among different churches than when discussing the role of women in ministry.
The more traditionally conservative view of women in ministry is called complementarianism, which is defined by the belief that men and women are both equal in personhood, but are created for different roles. Popular views among complementarians are that only men should hold church positions over other men (while women can hold leadership positions that do not directly have authority over men, such as women's bible studies), a patriarchal view of family, and that a wife should defer to her husband. Biblical texts that are often cited in support of this perspective include:
 The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” (Genesis 2:18, NIV)
Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. (Ephesians 5:22-24, NIV)
A woman[a] should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man;[b] she must be quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. 14 And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. (1 Timothy 2:11-13)
The more traditionally progressive view of women in ministry is called egalitarianism, which is defined as the belief that women and men are both equal in personhood AND that there are no gender-based limitations on the roles of men and women. Popular views among egalitarians are that women can serve in any role that men serve, including as pastors, heads of a household, and other positions of leadership including those over men. Biblical texts that are often cited in support of this perspective include:
There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. (Galatians 3:28-29, NIV)
Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. (Ephesians 5:21, NIV)
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. (Ephesians 5:25)
Egalitarians often also point to the frequency of occurrences in the Bible where both God in the Old Testament and Jesus in the New Testament used women (who were considered secondary citizens at the time) as part of the redemption of humanity. A woman was the first person to see the resurrected Jesus and relay the good news was a woman. There are repeated references in the New Testament where women are referred to as prophets, apostles, deacons, and house church leaders.
You might have noticed, too, that one of the passages of the Bible that has been most cited as a reason for subjugating women or at least relegating them to secondary status (Ephesians 5:22-24 above), is sandwiched between Ephesians 5:21 and 5:25 (also above), which are some of the strongest arguments in favor of women having parity with men. This phenomenon (citing a passage without looking at the broader context) is called "prooftexting," something I addressed in a recent newsletter: "Spiritual Newsletter (September 6, 2023)" . The irony of citing Ephesians 5:22-24 as a reason for why women cannot have authority is that the verse right before it makes clear that members of a household are meant to submit to one another, and the verse right after it details the ways in men should honor and serve women (which, if you notice is even longer and more involved!).
This is an issue that has been debated at length for years, decades even; it's not something that's going to be resolved with a Writing.com newsletter (as powerful a platform as it may be...  ). But my goal with this newsletter, as well as others recently (the one one prooftexting, plus last month's newsletter on Bible translations: "Spiritual Newsletter (October 4, 2023)" ), is that the Bible is a complex, nuanced resource. And while it may be the book that Christians are meant to use as a guidebook for their lives, it's important not to just use it for confirmation bias, selectively seeking out snippets that reinforce your world view.
As I'm sure is pretty apparent from this newsletter, I'm a committed egalitarian. My church has a female associate pastor who is amazing and teaches really insightful sermons, and I've been lucky enough to have many women in my life who are strong, capable leaders (even to men). But that support of egalitarianism also comes from a fairly extensive survey of the Bible and really wrestling over the meaning of different aspects of it. Women in ministry is biblically sound doctrine, at least as I read it. If you similarly research and wrestle and consider the issue and come out on the other side as a complementarian, then I suppose it's an agree-to-disagree situation. We're all entitled to our own opinions, and as I've mentioned in this editorial, the Bible is a very complex book with often differing perspectives.
And if you do happen to be a complementarian, I would challenge you to prioritize the equality of female personhood and different roles. As the United States learned as a country in a secular capacity through Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown v. Board of Education, segregation by its very nature runs the risk of being inherently unequal; if there are separate roles for men and women to be played in the church, in the home, etc., it's probably worth examining what those roles are and how to ensure that women are lifted up in equal personhood and importance.
I would encourage anyone who's tackling a "big" issue like women in ministry... or LGBTQ+ issues... or abortion... or [insert hot button issue here]... if you're going to engage in a conversation on the topic, it's worthwhile to do some homework first, and really examine the full extent of what the Bible (and other trusted sources) have to say on the matter. Just prooftexting a passage or two out of the Bible and saying, "These couple dozen words (out of 750,000+) are the definitive Christian position on this very complicated and nuanced issue that isn't expressly addressed in the Bible)" is probably not the best way to have a good-faith conversation.
Until next time,
Jeff
If you're interested in checking out my work:
"New & Noteworthy Things" | "Blogocentric Formulations"
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EXCERPT: When I was 10 years old, I started learning that there is a God out there. My parents were never church goers at all, and they were just regular Christians who never go to church. Mrs. Mckinder decided to start taking me to church because I asked her “who is Jesus?” after a couple of street preachers came to our apartment to share the Christian gospel to everyone.
EXCERPT: Billions of people are familiar with the gospel account of Jesus famously bringing Lazarus back to life. However, few people are actually aware of the enourmous significance of that account for mankind, and the future.
Why did Jesus bring Lazarus back to life, and where had Lazarus been while he was dead? And what did Jesus say about all those who had died, and would die in the future? You may be very surprised at the answers, and it may challenge what you have been taught before.
EXCERPT: The more I read the book of Job, the more the word “assumption” comes to mind. Job assumed God was angry with him and his life was basically over, and his friends assumed Job’s sins were so great that this was God’s punishment that would continue until he confessed and repented.
EXCERPT: Looking up at the stars on a dark night is the closest thing to God for me. I am an agnostic at best and on my bad days I don’t believe in anything whatsoever.
But I am in awe when thinking of the Universe with all the stars, and planets, with the mystery and the not-knowing, with the efforts of mankind to explore what’s out there. It’s huge, and it’s mind-boggling.
EXCERPT: Paul Whitby was bent over his desk vehemently pushing keys on his calculator when the doorbell rang. At first, he was annoyed by the interruption, but he got up, opened the door, and immediately a wave of delight washed over him, because it was his neigbor's daughter, Valeria.
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Feedback from "Spiritual Newsletter (October 4, 2023)" about Bible translations:
I currently have five of the translations you mentioned in this newsletter, plus Dake's Study Bible. A fun thing to do is to compare specific passages in each of them, reading side-by-side.
Why are there so many versions?
Why don't we have Jesus' original Gospel?
Why aren't there any original Gospels?
I had no idea that the King James version was over 400 years old.
Thank you for sharing this information. Did you know that some verses have been omitted in some versions of the Bible? This information is available online when you research omitter verses in the bible or similar wording. I also am exploring different biblical versions, and I related to your search and research. Have you considered reading the 1611 version? It has very interesting words, spellings of the words, and sentence structure, and the language is a bit bumpy compared to what we u
Love your newsletter. Good information. I like using a good of translations instead of just one.
I have a Women's Devotional Bible that I've had for years. It is an NIV translation. For my birthday I got a Parallel Bible that I can read side by side translations of scripture. The four translations are the NIV, KJV, NASB and AMP. I enjoy reading each of the translations side by side. Also, the stories you picked out for this newsletter have spiked my curiosity about them. They certainly grabbed my attention. Thank you for this newsletter.
If the allegories of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, as well as Paul's Epistles and Acts of the Apostles teach anything, they teach the mastery and transmutation of the human body by anyone who obeys the physiological guide book—the whole book—the Holy Bible. But let the reader observe that each of the 66 books, as well as an almost countless number of ancient books of all races and languages, teach the same mathematical and physiological facts. Man has turned the mighty power he possesses to every object and principle of force in the universe except himself^ the greatest miracle of all. When man focuses his divine thinking lens upon himself, he will realize that he is an epitome of unlimited Cosmic Energy. Then the "Heavens will roll together as a scroll" and reveal the Real Man as "the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world."
When read aloud, I love KJV. The meter and tempo are incomparable to any translation. Maybe the fact is that I read it and only use other versions for object comparison.
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Spiritual: November 01, 2023 Issue [#12255]
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