The "rules" of religiosity..

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Permalink Reply by Frank on April 12, 2012 at 12:18pm

To my fellow elder in Christ.

You are a rebel, a rebel against the falsehood that organised church has become.

Long may you rebel!

The sad thing is that Christians seem to always demand a king to rule over them, just like the Israelites did. Get a group of believers together for a meeting, and the first thing is that someone will ask, "who is going to lead".

Aahhgg. Grow up you infantile milk suckling people!

BTW Jesus was a rebel also.

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Permalink Reply by Frank on April 28, 2012 at 3:59am

I was in dispute with one of the elders over the interpretation of a verse. I had mortally offended his wife (who was sent as a leadership "plant") in our house group meeting, and he was out for blood, mine. This was the part of a long going feud directed at me by several of the elders who despised me because I was "unsubmissive".

The fellowship had been originally started by an anointed international bible teacher and I took the precaution of checking with him, without giving a reason, as to what the verses meant and he gave me the same interpretation that I had presented in the house group.

The offended elder hauled me to account and berated me for offending his wife. I tried to explain that what she was presenting at the group meeting, was a false description of God's character. He would not have it, and defending his wife, continuously accused me of being rebellious and unsubmissive to authority, his to be precise. As this was going on, my heart was filled with the joy of the Lord because I knew that God was in the process of overtly demonstrate something about "authority", which I already knew in my spirit to be true.

I was listening to this pompous elder's ranting, but also far more intently listening to the Holy Spirit for wisdom. At the right time, I asked a simple question, "why is it that your interpretation of scripture has to be the right interpretation, and my interpretation automatically the wrong one?"

"Its because I am an elder, and you are not. Therefore as an elder, I am more able hear God than you are"

I could hardly contain myself, inside I was overwhelmed with both the joy of the Lord and natural joy and laughter. I could hardly stop my feet from dancing or keep my face straight at what he had just said. 

Straight out of his mouth had come a demonstration of what was behind the authority structure of most church systems. The belief that certain men are appointed closer to God than others, and therefore must be bowed down before whether they are right or wrong. This is simply Papalism at work in the so called free churches.

It is idolatry and pride working in unison.

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Permalink Reply by Micheal Ellis Childress on April 29, 2012 at 12:32am

Leading is the opposite of driving.  I am constantly admonishing our fellowship that it is their duty and responsibility to check everything I say against Scripture and with the Holy Spirit through prayer and to call me on it if they have a question or see it differently.  I do not want to be on their pedestal.  It is too easy to fall off and it can be a long ways down.

 

Peace, from the NN's of the Earth,

 

Mike

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Permalink Reply by Salvatore Vavalle on April 29, 2012 at 9:25am

Shawnice, I'm glad that you agree. You want to see just how much theses titles are out of control? Ask yourself , and the male "clergy" how we have female roles such as "Deaconesses" and have no Scriptural way of explaining their functions within the church!

Let me give you some back ground on how this came about.

 

I was doing a study on the book of Timothy. You know the simple basics of when and why it was written according to the events of the book of Acts (Acts 19:20 seems to be the starting point for those who are interested.) and it seems that there are some seriously misinterpreted teachings because of the things in the epistle to Timothy aren't fully put within their historical and cultural context. I was looking at it as a whole and couldn't understand how men had to be put in roles and women were separated, yet they too, were called the same as these "positions" by Paul and others in the Bible.

Like "deacons" for example. Paul calls Phoebe a "servant" in Romans 16:1 with the same word he uses in 1 Tim 3:8 as "deacons" and then it seems as if the same word is translated to a position specifically delegated to a man in Tim 3:12. BUT IT CLEARLY ISN'T THE CASE FROM THE ACTUAL GREEK SCRIPTURES!

 

Here. I will post the Greek first and then the explanation along with the example for it later on.

 Rom 16:1   sunistemi de umin phoiben ten adelphenemon ousan DIAKONON(servant/DEACON) tes ekklesias tes en kegchreais
Rom 16:1 ESV  I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a SERVANT of the church at Cenchreae,

1Ti 3:8   DIAKONOUS osautos  semnous  me   dilogous  me oino   pollo prosechontas  me  aischrokerdeis

1Ti 3:8  Deacons likewise must be dignified, not double-tongued, not addicted to much wine, not greedy for dishonest gain.

1Ti 3:9   echontas  to musterion  tes  pisteos en kathara suneidesei

 1Ti 3:9  They must hold the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience.

1Ti 3:10   kai  outoi  de dokimazesthosan  proton eita  DIAKONEITOSAN anegkletoi ontes

1Ti 3:10  And let them also be tested first; then let them SERVE [as deacons]* if they prove themselves blameless.

* side note: notice the actual word diakoneitosan is translated as "serve AS DEACONS" here yet in Romans 16:1 it is translated as a "servant"? What do you think would happen if we also used the same word deacon instead of servant in Roman's 16:1?

1Ti 3:11   gunaikas osautos semnas me  diabolous   nephaleous  pistas  en  pasin

1Ti 3:11  Their wives likewise must be dignified, not slanderers, but sober-minded, faithful in all things.

1Ti 3:12   DIAKONOI estosan mias gunaikos andres teknon  kalos  proistamenoi kai ton idion oikon

1Ti 3:12  Let deacons each be the husband of one wife, managing their children and their own households well.

Ever wonder WHY a DEACON'S WIFE (verse 11) must be dignified while the overseer's wife is not really mentioned by way of how she needs to be in order for this overseer to be considered? Better yet. Ever wonder WHY a wife, or a woman is mentioned AT ALL in this "role" for a MAN'S "ROLE?"

 

Well, here is the why:

 

There is a small "interpretive" anomaly in the Greek that has been influenced by the authoritarian, or "lord" minded man to change a wording in the actual Greek to a DEACON'S WIFE INSTEAD OF A "DEACON WIFE" OR "DEACON WOMAN" and thereby limiting the "role" to man appointed instead of an equally shared one. You don't believe me? Check it out for yourself. Heck. I'm not the only person who ever saw this interpretive difficulty in the language and just newly spoke of it. RESEARCH IT for yourself and you'll be amazed at what you find.

 

Look at the 1889 Darby New Testament translation for example. Why doesn't he translate verse 11 to "the deacon's wife"? Does the translation change the meaning of the verse now?

 

1Ti 3:8 Ministers, in like manner, grave, not double-tongued, not given to much wine, not seeking gain by base means,

1Ti 3:9 holding the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience.

1Ti 3:10 And let these be first proved, then let them minister, being without charge against them .

1Ti 3:11 The women in like manner grave, not slanderers, sober, faithful in all things.

1Ti 3:12 Let the ministers be husbands of one wife, conducting their children and their own houses well:

 

Pay attention to verse 11.

 

This is some seriously oppressive stuff here. I was having some problems reconciling some "roles" between men and women because of what we are taught and what Paul called and entreated as fellow co-laborers in Scripture like Phoebe (Rom 16:1), Euodia, and Syntyche (Phil 4:2). This women not being able to teach stuff is doing exactly what Christ has been telling us over and over within the Scriptures when he says that we aren't to "lord" things over one another like they do in the world.

 

I know what you're thinking here. "Salvatore Vavalle! You are completely off your rocker! This is so outrageously new that it can't be true!"

 

I know what you mean! I thought it was odd too! But careful searching of the Scriptures REVEALS IT AND HAS DONE IT throughout history but never stressed upon within the faith, yet commonly giving a woman of God a "position" within the church that had to be in accordance with SCRIPTURE THAT WAS APPOINTED FOR A MAN IN 1 TIMOTHY! Didn't that EVER SEEM ODD TO YOU? I do admit this is a shocker to me because I not once ever bothered to question such a thing because I was a man in Christ BUT WHOA!

 

Now, I'm still looking into this but the "woman in church teaching" thing is also in question too. How you might ask? Well, let's look at the cultural outlay of the land that the epistle was written in and to whom it was written to according to the context. The whole culture of the Gentiles was not like the Jewish one. Women, although very servile in Judaism were liberated by Christianity because God deemed them to be equals among men and able to be in the same room with men when worshiping God as opposed to the Jewish way of separating women outside the congregation of men.

 

But for the Gentile culture, the woman was a prominent one and could sometime be considered to be superior to the man. If you read the Pauline epistles you will see that most of these gatherings were within WOMEN'S HOUSEHOLDS. These women were prominent according to Luke and Paul. So, with that in mind, women had a way of gaining notoriety by way of buying their freedom and gaining a higher foothold by several unmentionable mentionable ways.

 

So where is this going, you may ask? Well, because the even happened in Ephesus still according to the Acts of the Apostles chapter 19! What was the God of the Ephesians? (Hint Acts 19:28)

 

That's right! You got it. DIANA! A GODDESS! A woman was given the right to be a revealer of truth and also a god in the gentile world. So, is that it? Can you come up and prove this, Mr. Vavalle?

 

YES I CAN! First off, we can see that Paul was not just dealing with Jewish men coming at him disputing the faith now, but also Greek PHILOSOPHICAL MEN (Acts 17:18-22) who came by way of a sacred knowledge in a religious manner! That is why Paul mentions to the Colossians to ignore every wind of teaching that comes from PHILOSOPHY in his epistle to them (Col. 2:8). How do we know that this secret knowledge was evident then? Simple! Because Paul TELLS TIM TO AVOID THIS IN THE EPISTLE TO HIM. 1 Tim 6:20  O Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to you. Avoid the irreverent babble and contradictions of what is falsely called "knowledge," This "knowledge" is GNOSEOS (pronounced nosis) in the Greek. Yup! You guessed it! GNOSTICISM comes from this. That is what Paul was saying. Gnostics were the first to come up with the belief that Jesus wasn't God in the flesh.

 

Now, where does this all come from in order for me to try to reconcile the woman in this teaching fiasco?

 

Haven't figured it out yet? OK. Let me try it this way. Women who were used to being prominent and looked upon to be something that men coveted one way or another in the Gentile world, would exercise authority over the man and would come up with things that some would say was revealed to them by the gods! So, if this was happening in a group that now had the Holy God's Spirit indwelling them who were taught that when they spoke, they should speak as if they were speaking the very words of God, then can you see where this could easily be abused and why Paul had to address this issue in this certain gathering now?

 

No? Then how does one reconcile the fact that EVERY SERVANT OF GOD MUST BE ABLE TO TEACH (2 Tim. 2:24; Titus 2:3)?

 

Or the even bigger fact that Paul also wrote the first epistle to Tim in order to tell him to tell CERTAIN PEOPLE that they should not TEACH instead OF ALL WOMEN EVERYWHERE (1 Tim 1:3)?

The same thing holds true in the 1 Corinthians 14 passage of women not being able to speak in the gathering of God because it is shameful (1 Cor. 14:33-35). Remember these epistles, although extremely important to us now, were written specifically to a gathering's situation such as the Corinthian one was to rebuke of a gathering that was NOT following the already taught way of sharing among the gathering of, and by one another in an orderly fashion. It's like some women were talking while one was sharing and then when asked why she was speaking, she'd reply with "I was asking a question about such and such to my husband or to so and so" type of thing. That is why Paul said, if they had questions to ask their husbands at home. It was something specifically said to a few married women and not to ALL WOMEN IN THE BODY OF CHRIST (1 Cor. 14:33-35). Otherwise how could ALL (1 Cor. 14:26, 31) share and edify the church if only SOME are doing it?

But where do we see the interpretive influences of man (who means well, but is still under the tendency of the sinful nature and ways of the world) in this instead of the truth of God? How about this way? Paul is rebuking THAT GROUP of PEOPLE AND uses the word ekklesia as a singular one throughout the text and suddenly becomes a PLURAL interpretation in verse 14:34.

Frank, I know EXACTLY what you mean and am experiencing the same type of blessing through our Lord with the my former pastor and his elder board because of what I now am coming up with. I'm being silently called a heretic because of it. lol Ironically, I showed them that to be "selectively cliquey" such as they are IS HERESY that the Bible speaks about by just showing them what the word actually means! I too, couldn't help myself from laughing when they came up with the same type of responses to some of my questions regarding the women's roles and what passage they get sworn in to from the Scriptures.

Michael, I agree brother! Leading is by serving all as an example. Mind if I ask you if you are the sole person who is doing most of the speaking during the fellowship? It is refreshing to read that you actually admonish the brethren to check everything that you state by the Scriptures, bro. To be honest with you, that wasn't all too common a saying in the few churches that I attended within my organized walked with Christ. That is awesome to know that there are brothers who lead in the gatherings who state such a thing. Do you encourage the brethren to question you during your teaching or after it, may I ask?

Thank you all for your input. I'm blessed by your honesty and continued contributions in the Lord.

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Permalink Reply by Micheal Ellis Childress on April 30, 2012 at 1:32am

I do most of the speaking/teaching during our meetings but, I constantly encourage others to ask questions and offer input.  We have a pretty relaxed settingand quite often digress from the original intent to discuss something that comes up in the pasages we are reading or sometimes someone will have a question and we will never get started on what I had planned.  I make it a point to read 1 Corinthians 14:26 every so often and remind everyone that it is not my show and they have a responsibility to bring something to our get-togethers.

 

Peace from the NN's of the Earth,

 

Mike

 

 

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Permalink Reply by Frank on April 30, 2012 at 3:26am

Just curious, what is the layout of your meeting. Do the congregation all face the front where you preside, or is it laid out around the room in a circle so nobody has pride of place. I know this sounds a little trite, but "body language" ie. seating arrangement, goes a long way to inhibiting 1Cor14v26.

Sadly, at heart, most Christians just want a king to rule over them, and any excuse will do for them to avoid their responsibility to listen to God.
Micheal Ellis Childress said:

I do most of the speaking/teaching during our meetings but, I constantly encourage others to ask questions and offer input.  We have a pretty relaxed settingand quite often digress from the original intent to discuss something that comes up in the pasages we are reading or sometimes someone will have a question and we will never get started on what I had planned.  I make it a point to read 1 Corinthians 14:26 every so often and remind everyone that it is not my show and they have a responsibility to bring something to our get-togethers.

 

Peace from the NN's of the Earth,

 

Mike

 

 

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Permalink Reply by Micheal Ellis Childress on May 1, 2012 at 12:51am

We meet in a long narrow room that has 6' plastic folding tables arranged along the sides.  People bring snacks and get coffee and wander in and out to use the restroom or check on kids.  They can bring notebooks and spread out Bibles and have a place for the kids to draw or color.  Everyone faces the "front" because that is where we project music and words, from DVD's, that we sing to.  I do start out at the "front" but seldom stay there and hopefully I create an atmosphere that helps people feel I am a leader in terms of a guide rather than a ruler.  When we meet in house for midweek studies (not always possible because of work schedules and such) we just sit around a living room and discuss Scripture.  Does that help?  If you are ever in the middle of Western Colorado, stop by and visit us.

 

Mike

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