Essay: "It's God's will for you to stop teaching after 54 yrs, so says me"

[Divine Discontent]

if anyone is interested, I discuss the anti-feminine right wing mentality taking over so many churches and the picking and choosing of scripture


'It's God's will for you to stop teaching after 54 years, so says me'

An Essay as submitted to the church in NY and newspaper

It was announced earlier this week that a young Baptist minister has, in effect, fired a woman from her Sunday school teaching position after 54 years of blessed dedication to the Lord, because he believes scripture says women should be silent about God in church. If he used that verse to simply push her out of the church for other reasons, then he's a fraud, and there's plenty of those walking around in suits "pastoring". But, I will take him at his word, that he does believe this, and therefore, I do not doubt his faith or that he means only to follow what he believes the scripture tells him, even if some would find him better suited to being a politician than being a reverend.

He is, nonetheless, ignoring the entirity of Paul's writings and is focusing in on one line; not a wise thing to do. The church claims there were other reasons, one being she was not in agreement with the church leaders and was disruptive, but ultimately they chose to say that women should not be teaching inside their church, and what a "shock" for the men of the church then to say she was not in agreement with them.

This is yet another sign of man's fundamentalist interpretation and redactment of biblical writings over the two milleniums since Christ walked this earth, that is devised to suit their ever growing similarities with the extremist radical mentality invading other religions, which have no right being in Christian churches. The role and treatment of women in a majority of Islamic countries is akin to servant and child rearing source, and by silencing this Sunday school teacher, it seems he'd rather have her baking for the church bazaar and leave the important things, like all that confusing biblical stuff, to the men.

Reverend LaBouf's act of booting Mary Lambert out of her teaching position conflicts with 54 years of ministers at the church who understood her value to the Almighty and his decision is not only misguided, but incredibly against the nature of Christ's respect for what every child under God brings to the table, regardless of our differences. I'll discuss Paul's agreement with that precept below.

The minister's reason - that he is a man, and only men can teach in church - per the first epistle letter to Timothy from Paul, which said, "I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent." First, Paul was not only part of the early Roman Catholic church, he was their first pope, if you will, as he had great power in his later life over church doctrine, but ultimately, his vast writings and teachings are dealing with morals and absolute devotion to God, and we know how only men are allowed to be priests and the wielding of power of men in the Catholic church.

Let's look at Paul a little further. He was not only a great man, but a Godly man and a faithful Christian, but one cannot negate Paul's hope for man to be virtuous & sacrificing of one's self in purity for the Kingdom of God, as often being noted as extremely puritanical. So much so, that if all men took some of his verses out of context, humans very well may have died out over a millenium ago. Paul was a great man, but we have to remember Paul was an imperfect man with hang-ups, problems, frustrations and the like, just like the rest of us humans, but surely should be respected as a messenger of The Word who was given a great gift to write some of the most beautiful scriptures, as in Corrinthians 13 (Love is patient, love is kind...), but the key being, that all of his works be well studied and understood in context.

Anyone who's read his letters to others can see his writings insinuate living your life as a moral compass with the direction always pointing to the north. And even I, in my prudishness, light-heartedly could picture if Paul had been born in Jesus' time and imagine Christ leaning over to him and saying, "lighten up, Brother!", which leads us back to the young preacher in the Baptist church who is quite reflective of a growing number of believers. I wish someone close to him would lean over and nudge him a little bit and tell him, "lighten up, she's got the God given right to teach the word", and with a dwindling church base over the past century, it's rather like shooting one's self in the foot.

The reverend is taking one verse out of context (something done way too often by many church leaders), and it seems as if he's forgotten that not only was Paul funded by a woman in his ministry, but he also worked in connection with a female minister named Priscilla. Paul also said in his divine writing that mankind should not segregate nor care about placing one person over another in the Christian faith, by saying in Colossians 3:11 "there is no Greek or Jew", and several verses later, "no male nor female" which often are looked at in our world as a way to segregate each other, and says these things have absolutely no business in the believer's life, and therefore, what you are should not be a dictation of what you are able to do in God's work! The spreading of the Good News of Christ's defeat over sin & death for His children and His glorious ascension are for all people to teach.

To force out a woman with incredible longevity at her church, because he believes women should be "silent" in church matters, is grotesquely unfounded and ignoring so much historical evidence of women's glory unto God. Jesus Christ was first found resurrected by whom, that's right, women. Who did Jesus show much adoration and friendship with besides the single male disciples He was leading? Women of course, and there's plenty of stories involving women in a positive light in the New Testament. Also, Christ revealed who He was to an unmarried Samaritan woman. That's right, some lowly woman was given knowledge that He was the Son of Man, the Almighty, and the Redeemer; that's putting honor on someone!

And yet, today we have thousands of overzealous and sometimes puffed up, "this is how it was taught to me" men leading church organizations like the Baptist and other church denominations who behave like they're the Judge, instead of the servants of the Lord who spread His word as the called upon evangelists they should be. Sometimes it takes just a few times (especially for a few very blessed called young men & women) to understand clearly a passage, and other times it takes a whole life to grasp what a verse truly means. The words of our Savior and His disciples, and those who came after, like Paul, are often interesting life tools that God The Father is giving us in each of their writings to gain knowledge & widsom from.

May I make the following point more clear than anything else I say. The "tent" that houses the speakers, teachers, carpenters, missionaries, artists and prophets that make up a church that tells of the "Good News of Christ", is a vast entity and is not closed off to anyone who has the call to serve the Lord Almighty upon their soul.

For too many centuries the conservative side of the Catholic & Protestant Christian churches have ignored the love in the act of His sacrifice and it's offering of salvation and His call for all to be a part of evangelizing souls. Instead, they'd have us believe the segregation of God's children by placing select people in position of being worthy of knowledge & power, decision making & leadership, acceptance & favor, is what God is telling us - while dictating that others are resigned to a life of submission, silence & judgement, or in some instances - shame & rejection from within the church.

Ultimately, it is our Savior Jesus Christ who judges the soul and who will see in the heart of every man, woman, and child; what a comforting thought that should be for all of us. It is the responsibility of the Christian to be of good cheer, no matter the situation, placing faith in Christ's promises, and to show others with their best gift possible that Jesus loves them no matter what situation mankind may look down upon them for and He wants to have a personal relationship with them in their life.

So, the point is this, this elderly messenger named Mary Lambert, was doing her job for 54 years in her church and has ultimately effected perhaps a million believers and hopefully non-believers alike in a spiritual way that her church's minister could have only dreamed of - so to her I say, "You're still teaching the word of God, never stop, never cease, never believe you've been silenced, for His authority has given you the right to speak as a child of God to those you meet, because of your devotion to Him and nothing in man's authority can ever take that from you or any disciple who worships the Risen Christ, praise be to God."

God bless the Reverend Timothy LaBouf with wisdom, Mary Lambert for having to deal with this and the media swarm at her age, and their Baptist church as a whole. It's on my heart to say they could certainly use the blessing.

Maranatha, amen.


http://news10now.com/content/top_stories/default.asp?ArID=76479

[RevCheesehead]

1. Something tells me Preacher LeBouf is about to get LeBoot.

When a pastor makes dramatic changes after only 2 years, it's a sign that he's going in a radically new direction, and doesn't give a damn about who's pissed.

Sadly, this is a tactic often used by the megachurch crowd. Get rid of the people you disagree with, then build your own church. I HEARD THAT from a mega-church pastor in a workshop. He said that long-time members can hold a church back from becoming what it can be.

One of my churches is a conflicted congregation, and I'd LOVE to boot some of the members. However, the Spirit has called these people to this congregation. It took 3 years before I confronted the secretary directly, and she quit on her own. I did not stop her, and told her "I think that would be best."

But Buddy LeBouf has only been there 2 years, and already he's making some crucial mistakes. Like making his wife head of the board of deacons - or secretary, or whatever - she NEVER should have been part of that decision, and most certainly should NOT have signed that letter. It's clear this move is the pastor's agenda, and he's pretending that it's coming from the congregation.

I was in a situation like that as an associate pastor. He was firing people right and left, got his wife on staff, and started acting like he was God almighty. I confronted him, and soon found out the Pastor-Parish committee voted that I be reassigned. Long story short: I was put on "spiritual renewal leave" by the conference. But the church members were mightily pissed off, the Sr Pastor continued to act out, and in a few months, he was notified that HE would be moved, as well.

All because of ego, and the illusion of the mega-church.

Hmmm... where did I read about someone being offered the kingdoms of the world, if only they would bow down and worship Satan?

[Divine Discontent]

2. very telling...

the megachurch mentality you heard from the workshop goober. you've been through a lot with people, and you've stayed firm in your belief that if people are called to be at the church, why push them out - you get major kudos for that, because that can't be easy.

bless you.

[RevCheesehead]

4. It's damned hard at times.

But as one seminary prof reminded us, if Jesus could put up with having Judas as his disciple, surely we could endure a little discomfort in our congregations.

[StoryTeller]

3. Pretty good essay...

Did you already submit it?

I like your emphasis on how Jesus treated women, and the fact that Paul was funded by and served alongside many women. And you mentioned one of my favorite verses! However, I think the one you were going for is Galatians 3:28 "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one is Christ Jesus." (NASB) The Colossians reference mentions Jew/Greek, but not male/female.

I do wonder, though, if it really serves your argument to point out that Paul was "only human" and could have made a mistake. When you consider that 1) the fundamentalists who do things like fire 81 year old Sunday School teachers firmly believe that every single word of the Bible is the infallible, divinely inspired word of God, and that 2) there's no objective way to decide what parts in Paul's writings may or may not have been "mistakes", you are leaving yourself open to a lot of attack that could easily be avoided.

I find it is a lot more powerful to argue directly from Paul's own words and from an understanding of the historical-sociological context. In an essay like this, it would be very easy to say something like "It's easy to twist Paul's writings the way Pastor LaBouf and his board have done when you don't consider the fact that we only have one side of the conversation. Paul was writing a letter, a personal letter to a person he considered to be like a son to him. He was addressing the specific needs in Timothy's church. The problem is, we don't have Timothy's original letter to let us know what those issues were. Responsible Biblical interpretation takes this into account and will do careful study and scholarship to piece together what may have been going on and why Paul said what he did. Sloppy eisegesis assumes that these ancient words addressed to ancient people and translated (sometimes poorly) into modern English can be taken at face value and applied to whatever situation suits our own agendas."

Then you could go on to explain what some of the leading theories are regarding this particular verse. For example, the strongest explanation I've seen is based on the fact that the rest of the letter to Timothy is focused on preserving good teaching and stopping false teaching from being spread. It's entirely possible, based on the remarks made in the first chapter of this book that there were men and women who were promulgating incorrect teaching, and that Paul's instruction to not let a woman teach was to help curb this problem.

Another strong argument looks at the word we usually translate as "have authority over" in that verse. It's the Greek word "authentien" and it is an extremely obscure word at that point in time. The closest use of that word in extra-biblical documents comes about a hundred years prior to this letter, and at that time, it meant "murder, especially of one's spouse." It's not until a century or so AFTER Paul that the word comes to mean "authority" and even then, it's a domineering, violent sort of authority. Not the normal word usually translated as "authority." It's also very close to the word that means "the originator of something."

So, putting that all together, first--we should be very cautious about being dogmatic about what this statement means. Considering there is no absolute way of knowing how Paul was using "authentien" we can't rush to conclusions. But it was obviously a word that had a very, very negative connotation. It wasn't referring to normal, organizational authority. Second, given the history of the area that Timothy was ministering in, and the hints in the book itself, and what we do know of the word "authentien" it's quite possible that Paul was referring to the WRONG teachings that the woman/women were spreading. It is very possible that essentially he was saying something like, "I don't allow a woman (any woman for that matter) to teach this sort of violence or dominance or that she was the originator of man. She needs to sit down and respectfully learn the truth."

And that's the other interesting thing about this verse that people overlook! Paul uses a very specific phrase when he says in the preceding verse, "Let a woman quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness." This phrase is the EXACT phrase used to describe the attitude and manner in which rabbinical scholars are to learn. Basically, Paul is saying that women have the right to become educated in the same way that male church leaders were educated. To become rabbis, even! Considering the extremely low view of women's education during that time period, this is a revolutionary idea. He's not saying that women should NEVER teach. He's saying don't let them teach the wrong things. Teach them the right things, and then they can teach others.

Anyway, you can't probably put all that into your essay. But I wanted to let you know that the lack of this sort of indepth, scholarly study that puts everything into its proper context is the main reason we have people distorting and twisting what Paul wrote. And it's because we as Christians are so ignorant of our own scriptures that people like this "pastor" can get away with this sort of abuse. So I guess I just wanted to be part of setting the record at least a little straighter.

[Divine Discontent]

5. you know you're right, lol

unfortunately, my argument is clear for those who believe that the epistle letter was written to Timothy as a directive for WHATEVER they were discussing, and I did think about that, but didn't write further about it, and probably will take some flak from a church that my ex-friend attends who I sent it to also, but the fact is, we don't know what context he truly meant it, and yet, they (the right wing) love to twist verses to their own desire. I still believe the Lord's words to be unmolested, and that the other books have Catholic canonization blemishes all over them... is that wrong in your opinion? it's just something I feel.

so yeah, I'll probably take some flak for the "redacted bible" comment, but oh well, it's what I feel, but your way of saying that part (twisting scripture) would've been more universal to write and not have an argument that I'm saying that people have re-written the bible to their liking over & over... but hey, didn't King James have an agenda when he had it re-written? (if you have time?)

thanks!

[Divine Discontent]

6. and...

aren't new versions of the bible changing "two men in one bed, one is taken, the other left behind", into, "two are in one bed"? I thought I saw that in one of the new transcriptions.

[StoryTeller]

7. Good questions--here's a LONG answer!

I think you're basically asking to what extent has the Bible been tampered with from the original manuscripts, either by scribes copying them or by translators. I'm not an expert in this area, but I'll tell you what I know and my take on it.

Our earliest manuscript fragments are, I believe, still about 100-200 years after we think the originals were written--for the New Testament writings, anyway. The Old Testament writings are a whole different matter, because the originals were written even earlier, so our oldest fragments are yet further removed from the originals.

What both the OT and NT writings have going for them as far as reliability is that, especially in the case of the OT, Jewish scribes considered copying the scriptures to be a holy act of worship. The scribes were some of the most educated men in that time, and they were accorded high honor because they not only handled the scriptures, but they were responsible for copying down the Holy Name (Yaweh). It was a BIG deal. So they were very careful about making exact copies and not changing anything.

To some extent, this tradition seems to have carried over into how the NT writings were handled, though in this case it would not necessarily have been scribes, but possibly other church leaders who were educated and who took on the responsibility of copying, say, Paul's letters for distribution throughout a church region. Even though they would not have approached it in quite the same understanding as the Jewish scribes, these writings about Jesus and instructions for Christian living were considered priceless treasures. So there was a lot of incentive not to mess it up when copying.

You can see how this reverence and attention plays out when you consider that across the various ancient manuscripts we have, there is remarkably few points of contention, given the entire scope of scriptural writings. The bulk of the oldest manuscripts are in agreement with each other. And most of the discrepancies come in the form of "typos"--very miniscule grammatical errors or spelling differences, etc., that don't change the overall meaning of the text.

There are a few ways that "editorial comments" or other non-authorial changes could have been made. The scribes often would add their own notes in the margin of a manuscript, and there are a few places in scripture (such as the ending in the book of John) where scholars suspect that these editorial comments may have eventually been inserted into the text itself. As future copies were made, the fact that these comments were originally editorial may have become lost.

Sometimes, a writer may have compiled the original author's work into one volume, as might be the case with some of the OT prophetic books. Most of the OT started out as oral tradition and was eventually written down--so the name on the book may not be the name of the actual person who initially wrote these things down. So there's always the question of how much is really what the original prophet/leader/whoever really did or said. It was also considered acceptable at that time to write a book and name it after another person, meaning, "In the style of, or tradition of this person's teachings." It was understood that the person the book was named after was not the real author, but one of his/her followers. But after a couple millenia, tracing that has become a fuzzy process...go figure.

With the NT writings, you have a strong early church tradition of who wrote which book, except for the book of Hebrews, which has always been an anonymous mystery. (My vote is that Priscilla wrote it.) Considering that some of the traditions come from church leaders who were only one or two steps away from the original author, (e.g. Ignatius, disciple of Polycarp, disciple of the Apostle John) there's a bit more credibility there. If you can get information that goes back earlier than the starts of the Catholic church (like info from 100-300 A.D.) you have less of a chance that it's been filtered by the Church.

However, particularly with the NT, and especially with Paul's writings, there are some of the more controversial passages that are disputed because they seem so bizarre or out of the flow of Paul's overall writing. I don't honestly know what the best arguments are for Pauline authorship or not-Pauline authorship. I haven't done enough study on that. My own opinion at this point is that because of the very radical nature of Paul's theology (at that point in time) and the controversy that followed him between the emerging Gentile church population and the traditional Jewish population, it's quite possible that some of those passages that seem to not fit or not make sense may have been, in fact, inserted by Paul's opponents during the copying process. The problem is, because we don't have any of those original manuscripts, we may never know for certain. So I don't like it when people are very dogmatic about it, because there is no way of being absolutely sure.

Once you get past the early church age, and into the Catholic Church period, monks became the Christian equivalent to scribes. MOST of them took their job very seriously, in a similar manner to the scribes. So most of these manuscripts are also very reliable. However, as you move further into the medieval period, you can find more and more examples where individual manuscripts had been altered or changed. You can find examples where one monk made one change, and then several copies later, someone else changed it back. This is why Bible translators and scholars now rarely rely on anything but the absolute oldest manuscripts we have available.

Now, for translations. That's a whole different story. The OT was translated into Greek before the time of Christ. So sometimes you have NT authors quoting from the Septuagint, which explains why their quote is slightly different from the OT text we usually have in our Bibles. The Septuagint was a pretty decent translation for its time.

The next major translation was into Latin--the Vulgate. I don't know a lot about this one, but I do know that it provided a major foundation for some of the earliest English translations because original Greek and Hebrew manuscripts were difficult to come by unless you had access to certain monasteries and scriptoriums. It was translated from the Septuagint, as well as some Hebrew manuscripts, and the Greek NT (which had been canonized by this time.)I don't know about the accuracy of it, but I've read that it renders sometimes-awkward Greek into even more awkward Latin in some places. But it's not considered to be a bad translation overall, I don't think.

The King James Version was, I believe, translated from some Greek and Hebrew manuscripts, as well as relying on the Vulgate and Septuagint for backup. But these manuscripts were not as old as the ones we found later (such as the Dead Sea Scrolls back in the 1940's.) So there are some textual variants due to that which couldn't have been helped at the time. However, there are some ways in which the KJV translation DID express the politics and culture of that time. It's small things, such as rendering "episcopos" (which literally means "overseer") as "bishop" in I Timothy. The early church didn't actually have "bishops" as they later developed in the Catholic church. So that rendering was designed to reinforce the authority of the official church. (I think this may have been an issue in the Vulgate first. I don't think it was unique to the KJV translation.) There are other similar "tweaks" that reinforce the power of the king or other political agendas.

There are also changes that have been made throughout the post-apostolic era that reflect the biases of the culture. For example, in Romans 16, Paul lists a whole bunch of men and women who are fellow church leaders. He lists Phoebe as a deacon, and a woman named Junia as an apostle. In many translations, you'll find that Phoebe is referred to as a "deaconess" even though there is no such gender distinction in Greek, or that she's referred to as a "servant" even though that word, when referring to men is consistently translated "deacon." With Junia, it's even worse. Most of your translations will read "Junias"--which is supposedly a more masculine name. However, while "Junia" is a well-documented, even COMMON Roman female name, there is NOT ONE example of a "Junias" anywhere. The problem comes down to that the Catholic church couldn't conceive of a woman being an apostle, so they changed the name.

These sort of biases continue in translations even to this day. Translation is NOT an exact science. You have to walk a fine line between a literal rendition of a text and conveying the actual meaning of that text. The best example of this is reading the Song of Solomon. There's a lot of imagery in there that is meant to be extremely sensual and even erotic. However, most of us nowadays have a problem finding anything attractive or complimentary about being told our teeth are like sheep or that our nose is like a "tower of Lebanon." :) The meaning truly "gets lost in translation" as well as lost in a different culture.

And there are deliberate cover-ups of textual meaning, such as the examples I gave above. The biggest controversy at present is the issue of "gender neutral" Bible translations, such as the TNIV or NIVI (the TNIV equivalent in the UK). The good folks who like to fire old grannies from the Sunday School room and who are enjoying their male dominance and hierarchy and don't want to change, thanks very much, are QUITE resistant to any attempts to translate the Bible into more gender inclusive language. So they've come out with their OWN new translation, the ESV, I think. This nicely preserves the generic "he" and would NEVER allow Junias to reclaim her own set of breasts. :)

There are always going to be translation arguments and controversies because of the subjective nature of translation and the shades of meaning various word candidates have. The example you gave in your second post, of "two men in a bed" versus "two in a bed" is an example of that. "Men" in Greek could have been "anthropos" which means "human person" (think "anthropology") or it could be the word "andros" which actually means "male person." Either way, that verse isn't talking about a couple. It's most likely referring to an inn or other group boarding situation where there would be lots of people all in one room or one bed, and one would be taken and the other left. Even families often shared a bed in their own home. So rephrasing this to remove "men" simply helps to clarify the actual meaning of the text, because I'm betting that the word there was probably "anthropos"--meaning person. You could also say "Two people" and it would be accurate.

So, to sum up this little dissertation, you have two separate issues to consider as far as the actual words in a text. You have the question of whether or not it was copied/rendered correctly, and then you have the issue of whether you're looking at the best translation or not. The best way around this is to get a variety of good study Bibles in a range of reliable translations, and to be aware of the biases of the translators and the biases of those writing the study notes. From there, you just have to use your brain and be willing to study a lot and think very critically about what you read.

Gosh, I hope this is what you were asking. If not, I've just wasted an hour and a half writing a humongous bunny trail! Let me know if I totally missed the mark on your question, or not. :)