House Church Talk - speaking

[David Miller]

Tim Poole wrote:
> In My Opinion, I Cor 11:5  Paul has already assumed the 
> right of women to pray or prophecy publicly (11:1-16);

Yes, women may pray and prophecy, but there is an order that Paul
desires for believers to follow in this.  Women should minister under
the headship of man.  Man is to show the glory of God when he ministers;
women are to show the glory of the man.  Upset this order and we are
perverting God's order in a similar way to how the homosexual perverts
God's order by insisting that same sex couples should be allowed to
marry.

I always think of the apostles and the extent they ministered while
Jesus was still physically there.  Jesus was their head.  He sent them
out teaching and preaching, to go into the towns ahead of him,
proclaiming the gospel, healing the sick, raising the dead.  The
headship of Christ did not prevent them from ministering, but surely we
understand that when they were in the presence of Christ, they did not
insist on Christ being silent so that they could minister.  In the
presence of Christ, they were the ones who assumed a more silent and
submissive role.
 
Tim Poole wrote:
> here he probably is emphasizing the right of women to 
> judge prophecy, something restricted to the male 
> leadership of the church.  

I don't see women being encouraged to judge prophecy.  It is one thing
to utter prophecy, and quite another thing to judge prophecy.  I see
women being free to declare the mind of Christ to the church.  Judgment
might be made, but if there were any disputes in judgment, women should
be silent while the men hash it out.  Women are the weaker vessels and
should not be subjected to verbal abuse when men are hashing out their
differences.  Women need to be protected and guarded and treated with
greater respect.

Tim Poole wrote:
> As well, women (or men for that matter) shouldn't 
> be disrupting meetings with questions or chatter .

I agree with you that women should not be allowed to disrupt meetings
with questions, and Paul is partly addressing this.  On the other hand,
men should be free to "disrupt" meetings so to speak with questions.
This is indicated by 1 Cor. 14:30, which says that it is the speaker who
should be quiet when being interrupted by someone sitting by.  This is
not really a disruption when we understand the masculine nature of the
meetings, but in our feminine culture, such interruptions are almost
always described as being disruptive.

We really have only two choices for maintaining order in the meetings.
Either we adopt the feminine attitude that speakers should be able to
finish what they want to say without any interruption, or we allow
interruption and the speakers submit unto the one who is interrupting.
Our culture is highly feminized and has caused the men to become
feminine in their attitude.  This is how our society seeks to protect
the women and the men.  The problem is that the meetings suffer loss
when it is the men who must refrain from speaking in these situations.
God's Holy Word opts for the women being silent and allowing the men to
interrupt.  In other words, men can be men in the church meetings.  They
can be passionate and interrupt one another, and they can be corrective
and vocal, teaching and instructing one another, and correcting one
another.  The caveat is that in order to protect women as the weaker
vessel and keep them from being hurt, they should be silent and allow
their husbands to speak up if necessary.  If she is going to object that
she is put at a disadvantage in learning by not being able to enter the
heated fray of words, the solution is that she can ask her husband at
home.  This is the proper order that we learn from Torah, which teaches
us that the woman's desire would be for her husband, and he would rule
over her.

Tim Poole wrote:
> I see coverings in that it was an issue of hair, 
> long for women short for men. A cultural issue.

If you list on a piece of paper every reason that Paul gives for women
having long hair and men having short hair, every reason is
non-cultural.  Even his argument that nature teaches us this seems to
transcend culture, for even in our gender-equal society, more men have
short hair and more women have long hair, especially among the Godly.
Why?  What does your conscience tell you when you look at a man with
long hair and at a woman with long hair?  What are your thoughts when
you look at a bald headed man and a bald headed woman?  Are the thoughts
of your heart identical with either situation?  Mine aren't.  I see long
hair as glorious on a woman, but the shaved head of a woman is shameful,
same as Paul's teachings which was in a very different culture.  Surely
his teachings on this are non-cultural or they would not make sense to
us today.

Tim Poole wrote:
> I feel the real issue is insecure men afraid of what 
> their wives might say about them in the meetings, 
> revealing who they really are. Isnt it just old 
> fashioned CONTROL? 

I grant you that many men who are insecure have abused the passages of
Scripture we have been discussing, and they end up suppressing women and
keeping them from functioning in their God ordained ministries.  But we
should not think that this is the total issue here.  The reasons that
Paul had for telling women to submit unto men and not to teach in these
particular situations does not have to do with control at all.  It has
to do with order and encouraging Godly attitudes in the men.  When we
allow aggressive and manly behavior in the meetings, women and children
who try to participate in this activity may get upset and hurt.  We have
two choices:  1) emasculate the men and feminize the meetings so that
they are meetings suitable for full participation by women and children,
or 2) instruct the women and children to be quiet during these parts of
the meetings so that men don't feel compelled that they must be quiet so
as not to give a woman a bloody nose so to speak.  Either the men have
to tone it down and be quiet, or the women need to be quiet in these
situations.  The Bible urges us to have the women be quiet and let the
men be vociferous and go at it with each other in the spirit of love and
peace.

Peace be with you.
David Miller, Beverly Hills, Florida.