...there is neither male nor female: for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Galatians 3:28
The Church today is called the Bride of Christ.
In the venacular of the Bible, the words man, men, and sons, usually leaves out the female gender in its terminology.
However in God's eyes we are not humans who have spiritual experiences.
We are spiritual beings having a human experience.
The Church today is called the Bride of Christ (Rev.21:9-10).
Our human minds can hardly understand the rationale of the spiritual experience in this analogy, but its there in the souls who are with God after the 'Catching Away' (1 Thes. 4: 17; Rev. 21: 9-14).
According to Jesus in Mat. 22:30, spirits have no gender. Here is a personal quote just for this. I hope everyone, male and female, see the humor in it.
"If men can deal with being members of the Bride of Christ, women can deal with being members of the sons of God." D.P. Linderman
In Matthew 3: 6 Jesus says, "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." When the Bible talks about man, men, or sons; Ladies, it's talking about you too.
In the Bible there are women elders, deaconesses, and prophetesses. And even a woman Judge of Israel, the highest authority, (the supreme human leader of Israel) before Israel rebelled and demanded a King. Judges of Israel where also the highest spiritual leader. The one whom all the people looked to for guiedance, and to hear the words of God. See Judges chapters 4 - 5, her name was Deborah.
Also prophet and preacher are interchangable. Deacons preach to. One only need to know how to use a concordance to prove this. Too much emphasis is placed on the clergy today being, "called". If you have the Word of God in your heart. You are called to preach. More about that in the dpversion blog September 2011.
As for some saying Paul orderd women not to speak in church. We need to learn the whole truth, not just what suits us.
Apostle Peter wrote in 2 Peter 3: 16 about Paul's writings saying this, "...some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also other scriptures..." The word 'wrest' comes from the greek word 'strebloo', Strong's Conc. 4761, (streb-la-o), which means to pervert. Some pervet, or explain falsely what they can't explain by what they know.
If the Word preached edifies (strengthens your faith), exhorts (encourages your faith), and comforts (makes you feel safe in your faith), as Paul said preaching should do in 1 Cor. 14: 3, then it dosn't matter if it was preached by a man or a woman.
