What does the bible have to say about the role of women in church?
Here’s what St Paul says:

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“Wives, submit to your husband as to the Lord”
Why?
“For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church”

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“A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent.”
Why?
“For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. But women will be saved through childbearing-if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety”

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Here’s what Jaybercrow thinks about that, and here’s what zoomtard thinks. Two eminant bloggers on the topic, they’re confident guys so won’t be put out by contrary comment.

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Ok then, who was St Paul? Well depending on your point of view he pretty much invented Christianity, His letters are the templates for the churches. Who knows what he actually believed?! but I think it’s only fair to assume he was a true believer in the David Koresh sense rather than a L Ron Hubbard ‘just trying to see if he could get a religion going’ sense – he did die for his beliefs, so let’s give him the benefit of the doubt.

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My mother had no problem with Pauls letters, she believed that that Paul was used as a vessel by god to bring his good news to the world, so when Paul says “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith — and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God” she took that as the word of god. Similarly the parts about women not teaching men and wearing head coverings in church and followed it – not sure she was overly enamoured, but it was the word of god. A lot of the people at my church were highly intelligent, the pastor was a Dr of divinity, one of the elders was a Prof of genetics – they took Paul at his word – for they knew the implications of not doing so.

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In this day and age women tend to see this as second class status, while Paul spoke of liberty for men and women alike, his idea of liberty for women still included subjection to their husbands.

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Jaybercrow espouses a view which is held by many, that the bits about grace are great, and are the word of god, but the bits about slaves obeying masters and women not speaking in church aren’t.

My point would be, what does this say about the bible!? What’s the deal with editorial control? Did god inspire every phrase and sentiment that’s in there, or did he edit bits out that were Paul’s errant opinion? It’s pretty clear from a lot of verses how Paul wanted women to perceive themselves and the reasons why. I find it confusing that he gives ‘Eve’ as a reason for promoting the idea of submissive women, did god not tell him that Adam and Eve didn’t actually exist! Why didn’t the women of Ephesus just say, hey what’s this bloke on! Eve is just a Jewish myth, whys he using her story to tell us how we should behave towards god!?

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If you don’t take these verses at face value, then at the very least it’s confusing, and surely if god had proof read it he would have known this. Does Jayber and co hold, that he decided that when people read all this stuff about women covering their heads and being silent, they’ll know that they don’t actually have to do it in 1000 years, but they’ll also know that when John writes about Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, that the people of god should take that as a literal occurrence – no questions asked. Is it unreasonable to ask that if a creator god did actually write and inspire the bible, then it would be a bit less vague and open to wrong interpretation by Joe Bloggs, who it’s meant to be for! Not saying that there isn’t a god out there, and he hasn’t written or been editor/inspiration for a book… just that maybe we should keep looking for a more god-like book.

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Its all in how you read it? come on! thats like saying Mein Kampf is great if you ‘read it properly’. The fact is it says what it says… and more than that, if you say its the word of god, then it should be held to an even higher standard of reliabilty.