Need Some Input on - Women Worship Leaders

Michael D

quote:
19 Then Moses told them, “Do not keep any of it overnight.” 20 But, of course, some of them didn’t listen and kept some of it until morning. By then it was full of maggots and had a terrible smell. And Moses was very angry with them.
New Living Translation. (Ex 16:19-20).

?????

markm2553

Try Exodus 15:20, sorry about that. Slipping in my old age.

God is cool

ACfixer

I am dying laughing here!!!! LOL Maggots!!!

And God has a sense of humor since we were created in His likeness!

Welcome to the nuthouse Mark!

Exodus 15:20,21 (NIV) Then Miriam the prophetess, Aaron's sister, took a tambourine in her hand, and all the women followed her, with tambourines and dancing. Miriam sang to them:

"Sing to the LORD ,
for he is highly exalted.
The horse and its rider
he has hurled into the sea."

[This message has been edited by ACfixer (edited February 05, 2003).]

Meridian · House Cat Joined: 02 Dec 2002 Posts: 154

matdvd · Posted: Sat Feb 15, 2003 12:14 pm Post subject:

But ya know that the ladies section sounded much sweeter that the fellas....hehehe.

markm2553 · Posted: Mon Feb 17, 2003 6:41 am Post subject:

Meridian, you bring up a good point. But I see Miriam leading all the women in song and dance, much like a chior leader leading a choir in Worship. I don't see that it means they where the only ones thanking God, or singing.
The instruction Paul gave to Timothy needs to be looked at in the whole. When we read 1 Corinthians Chapter 8, we find out sometimes we keep from doing some things to keep our brother from getting into trouble. In that case Paul spoke of eating meat from idol worship. Paul tells them you know it's ok, but don't if it's going to cause your brother to stumble. Now when we look at 1 Timothy 1:5 Paul writes:
"The purpose of my instruction is that all Christians there would be filled with love that comes from a pure heart, a clear conscience, and sincere faith." ( New Living Translation ) Does "Christians there" mean some of this instruction is special for the problems Timothy was having in the Church in Ephesus? Many of the pagon religions of the time had women leaders, some of them as temple prositutes, perhaps Paul did not want the new Christian converts at Ephesus to misunderstand what the woman where there for?
That's the way we teach it in out Sunday School class anyway.

God Bless,
[/u]

asaph

[quote="Meridian"]Hey, I'm just taking matdvd's advice and generating some discussion. [img]http://www.guitardiscussion.com/ubb/smile.gif[/img]

Seriously, I need some input from other knowledgeable Christians on this question: Should women lead praise & worship in a church service?

Before we go discussion the question, my usuall process for exegetical analyses starts with prayer, asking God to give me some insight or revelation, then finding some salient scriptures, opening the Strong's and going from there. Sometimes I do "vector checks" with commentaries, sometimes not. Typically, once I've gotten some cogent thoughts together, I bounce them off other Christians I know.

Now, back to the question. I've been hashing through an exegetical analysis in an attempt to identify all the relevant moving parts related to the question (1 Tim 2:12-14, etc.), and I think I'm okay there. The proscription regarding women in authority isn't a cultural matter (as Paul tied it to the nature of the created order, not a societal preference). I think the answer to the original question hinges on whether or not a praise & worship leader in front of a group of people exercises authority (authenteō as Paul identifies it in 1 Timothy) (the teaching proscription isn't really an issue here). I think there's good precedent set in the Old Testament making a case for praise & worship as an exercise of authority.

What do you folks think?

Please, keep this in mind as you reply: "Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another,..." Eph 4:31-32

TIA for the replies,

Mer[/quote][quote]This whole issue of women and their ability to hold office, lead, teach, be in a position of authority, have been discussed many tiem on many different disscusion boards.
I have noticed that peole who try to quote scripture in a positive sense {women are allowed to lead} ususally have a hard time refuting Timothy and Corintians. They generally fall back to old testament or use the argument that if men would take their place of headship then women wouldn't need to take a position of leadership.
We must, as Christians, remember that all scripture is God breathed and good for teaching and we should be looking for harmony in scriptures and not casting doubt on what the scriptures say if they don't coincide with what is politically correct.
Paul is very careful to tie his thoughts in 1 Timothy 2:11 back to the creation of man and woman {see 13,14, & 15} I beleive that even though Paul was talking to Timothy at Ephesus, he is relating to a subject that addresses us all. 1 Timothy is apart of my Bible so therefore it is scripture and good for instruction.
It is very interesting that Paul starts out his letter to Timothy by warning him about false teachers, most probably Gnostics, who relied on on false doctrines to make their brand of religion work. Humanism and secret knowledge were the basis for alot of thier doctrine. The ways of this world tell us that alot of the values established in our faith are false and this may be one of them.
We are equal to one another in Christ, we just have different jobs. { I try not to get stressed over the fact that men can't bear children. } We do all have the same inheritance of salvation as Paul points out to us in Galations 3:28.
Paul's letter seems to be addressing three issues in the Ephesian church: to refute false teachings, to supervise the affairs of the growing Ephesian church, and the appointment of qualified church leaders. It seems as though the scriptures in question are dealing with church or corporate worship, so your question about women leading worship is very relavant to what situations Paul is addressing. One might even say it is there in black and white, even though I'm sure someone will dissagree with that.
Asaph [/quote]

Meridian · House Cat Joined: 02 Dec 2002 Posts: 154

Asaph,

Thanks for posting your thoughts. I thought the thread had played itself out.

After much rumination and prayer these last six months and considering the thoughts in the other posts here, I have come to this: I find it very difficult to believe that women should exercise the authenteo type of authority in Church that Paul writes of in 1 Tim 2. I say very difficult for two reasons. First, the passage of Scripture has a prima facie prohibition that is very specific and very direct. Second, as you mentioned, it is no coincidence that Paul ties that prohibition to the created order rather than addressing it as a cultural norm or imperative (as he does with other issues like meat sacrificed to idols, etc.).

I am typically warry of comments that proffer "balance" and "context" of Scriptures when those comments are just opinion and/or verses taken out of context to mitigate or countermand the passage in question. You get to weird, erroneous conclusions when you start pitting Scripture against Scripture. For example, we can mitigate 1 Cor 6:9 with Rom 14:20, Acts 10:28, and Acts 11:9 and all of a sudden homosexuality isn't a bad.

So, the question for me is not whether or not women are allowed to exercise the authenteo authority Paul speaks of; I believe the answer to that is very clear. The pivotal question is whether or not leading praise & worship in a congregation is an exercise of authenteo authority.

Grace,

Mer

ACfixer · Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2003 5:53 am Post subject:

Interesting, and I too would agree as to that being the issue. One could look at it in several ways... If the (male) pastor of the church chooses a female for worship leader, who has asserted authority? Then again if a female worship leader chooses the songs is there not an indication of authority there? Hmmmmm.

asaph · Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2003 3:25 pm Post subject: Women leading worship

Meridian,

I do not envy your position if you must be the one making the decision as to who leads worship, male or female, or if that is a gender sensitive role in the church. I hope this is just a intellectual mental exercise for you.
When I looked in my McReynolds Word Study, Greek-English for the New Testament for that passage 1 Timothy 2:12, there was only one instance of the word "authenteo" being used in the New Testament. McReynolds used it to say "have authority, to dominate"
In our services, the worship leader pretty much runs the show until the Senior Pastor comes forward to deliver the message. All band members look to our worship leader for their que, he leads us in prayer, he leads us in praise, he asks us to stand or tells us to sit, and he give us insight to scripture before offering and communion. I am a leader in our church, but the worship leader, leads all of us in that 20 or 30 minutes of worship before the senior guy does his thing. That, is domination and authority, no matter how one tries to classify it otherwise.
But lets say that another body doesn't have the music minister that busy. Perhaps all that he does is lead the singing. Normally a church body has about 20% mature Christians sitting there on Sunday. What do you think the rest of the congregations' perception is of who has authority? What did Paul say about the freedom we have to eat meat sacrificed to idols.
The male / female relationship to the body isn't easy to answer. We have a female in our body who is nationally published writer of songs and performs one of her songs on a Worship Leader Song Discovery CD. But she also teaches a class called "Me Obey Him" which teaches about the male / female relationship in God's plan. How God has blessed our body!
And she doesn't lead worship at our church. Okay, I am biased about this sister in Christ. And I would have a hard time telling this sister that she couldn't lead worship if she decided that it would be cool to be in charge.
I don't know, sometimes we must look to God's word for answers and sometimes things just don't make sense because we can't see the whole thing.
In Christ
Asaph