Readings:
Job 17
I Corinthians 11:1-16
Focus:
I Corinthians 11:11: "Yet in the Lord's fellowship woman is as essential to man as man to woman."
Although in much of this passage it sounds like Paul is saying that men are superior to women, in essence this verse is key to all. Women are as essential to men as men are to women. In other words, they are equal. This was radical for the first century, but it was typical for Christianity to be radical: Christians also treated slaves as brothers and sisters, for example.
In other parts of the Bible we also see how women are lifted up beyond the cultural customs that had held them back. Jesus gave them attention and dignity that would not normally have been accorded women. In God's sight, there is no male or female. Christianity teaches us that maleness and femaleness are both reflections of aspects of God. Women were the first to discover Christ's empty tomb. That's pretty special! As a woman, I'm grateful that God does not make distinctions of worth between the sexes.
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In your view, does this equality go as far as ordination? That is, is it essential that women be ordainable, or is it optional?
ReplyDeleteActually, I don't know! Are you talking in terms of "essential tenets"? Because to me ordination questions in general are not essential tenets. That is, they are things that Christians of good will can disagree about. (I'm not talking here, however, about differences in ordination eligibility for categories of people who are engaging in behaviors that could be considered sinful--and if we're going to go into that question it should be considered elsewhere, as this blog is not for discussion purposes.) On the other hand, I would not care to belong to a church where women could not be ordained. So my personal preference lies toward women's ordination. So I'm dancing around your question, Doug, and for further discussion, as I say, we should do this elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteDancing is ok; didn't mean to hijack your blog. I think, actually, that you danced out a complete answer. I wasn't really after a full discussion, since I knew that wasn't what this was for, I was just curious after reading this post, in that I didn't know what your thoughts were on ordination specifically. Thanks for humoring me!
ReplyDeleteThat's fine, Doug! I always like to talk to you about stuff!
ReplyDelete