^{Brother Jon Greene, my Charismatic colleague who operates a website, http://revolutionbrigade.com/ , that includes an enjoyable blog made an interesting observation about my entry yesterday, which follows as such.}


I think Eli gets a worse rap than he deserves sometimes. He was a poor priest, but mostly he was a poor father. His kids ran over him. He’s guilty mostly of being a pushover. But, by the time Samuel came on the scene, he already knew that his priesthood was kaput. It had been prophesied. And yet, he still chose to equip Samuel, which was even more amazing considering he was not his own son.

^{I can only add a hearty amen, especially to the last comment.  I wonder if perhaps Eli, in raising up Samuel (of course this was all part of the destiny appointed since Hannah was going to surrender the boy to the Lord), was trying to make up for his mistakes with Hophni and Phineas.  Who knows.  Either way, Eli welcomed the boy on board with him and taught him all there was to know about the priesthood.  The great thing, was that this boy was organically raised up out of the tribe of Levi adopted by Eli, raised up by the Lord for the express purpose of getting His people back on the road to righteousness and sanctity.  The Lord stops at nothing and will use a lazy old high priest to raise up a holy, set apart man or woman of God to accomplish his purposes.}  

^{Your thoughts???} 

Ahh, back to the Scriptures. There are few things I enjoy as much as a serious study of God’s word.  Now that things have started to settle back down, I am going to be giving some time to the continuance of the narrative of 1 Samuel, since much of what it says applies directly to us.  Here is the text (NKJV) of 3:1, which is all I could get through tonight.  More tomorrow. 

Verse 1
 ¹ Now the boy Samuel ministered to the LORD before Eli. And the word of the LORD was rare in those days; there was no widespread revelation.

The unusual thing to us here is that Samuel is ministering to a God he does not know (Verse 7) before a priest who equally does not know the Lord.  The difference, though, between Eli and Samuel is this. 

On one hand, Eli should know better, not only because he is the priest ordained to stand before the Lord and hear His voince, but also because he has heard the word of the Lord, especially as given in chapter 2.  The issue for Eli is that he refuses to act on the word he has been given, as shown in the previous chapter.  James 1:22 commands the reader to be a doer of the word and not merely a hearer.  Eli is doing just that, hearing but not doing. In not doing what we have heard, we choose to subject ourselves to deception.  We ask the enemy to come in and to deceive us.


On the other hand, Samuel hears the word of the Lord, and does the only thing he knows to do, talk to Eli.  He is acting in ignorance and without a lick of wisdom.  But he is not at fault because Eli never taught him how to properly respond before, because Eli would not know how to properly respond, something completely alien to him, because he has chosen all of his years the response rooted in rebellion.  He is old, and probably blinded in his attitude and hardness of heart and is incapable of teaching the lad how to hear the voice of God and then how to do the will of God.  Samuel shows here that He is willing to DO SOMETHING with what he has been given.  Blessed are those who act in ignorance moreso than those who do not act even with all the understanding in the world. 

Also beyond this, we see a potential reason for widespread inaction among the preists and people:  the word of the Lord was rare in those days, and there was no widespread revelation.  People did not move and act because the Lord was not speaking to them frequently in those days.  This begs the question, “how did the word of the Lord get to be so rare in those days?”  The book of Judges clues us in to what was wrong.  “In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his or her own eyes.”  

Two things are evident from that verse.  First of all, everyone was so busy self-gratifying and self-caring, that they took no interest in anything else, an attitude that was fostered all the way back to the Exodus, and through the conquest of the promised land, when Israel repeatedly rebelled, refused, and rejected the message of God.  It was not that people did not obey because God did not communicate clearly and frequently enough.  It was that God’s people rejected the word of the Lord and as a result, God quit speaking.  It might be unjust to characterize God’s mercy this way, but consider this.  If I ignore my wife’s request to clean up the house or pick up after myself or to have a conversation with her, or if I refuse to respond to her when she speaks to me, pretty soon she is going to lessen her communication with me and cease altogether.  Same thing with God’s relationship with Israel.  God’s people kept ignoring, refusing, and rebelling against him, which caused Him to speak less and less.  


Second of all, there was no king in Israel.  Consider the next time a king was mentioned, it was when Israel was rejecting the Lord as their king (1 Sam 8:7).  The sad thing is that 1 Samuel 8 was not when Israel’s rejection of the Lord as their king began.  This attitude began to be fostered and seeded throughout the book of Judges.  Now I am not one to allegorically interpret the scripture, but I would in this case like to submit that a possible idea that the author of  Judges is communicating in 21:25 that Israel is leaderless, and no one is listening to any leaders, whether physical king, or divine King.  This statement may be communicating that Israel neither followed a human authority, or their heavenly Authority, the Lord of heaven and earth.  And because “everyone chose to do what was right in his or her own eyes,” the Lord saw fit to stop speaking and allow His children to reap the consequences of their actions.


The real question is, 


Are we doing the same?  Are we hearing and heeding the counsel of the Lord, or are we doing what is right in our own eyes?  Are our actions causing the voice of the Lord and the inner witness of the Spirit to be quenched in our own life, or are they causing His voice to increase and our communication with Him to become easier.


Consider this and let us examine ourselves…

You want the man of Christ, here it is. You want the God of Christ. Here again. Pound is the best at this. This poem has the attitude of Psalm 2 nailed. Without a doubt this captures our Lord’s attitude toward His enemies.

Ballad of the Goodly Fere
Ha’ we lost the goodliest fere o’ all
For the priests and the gallows tree?
Aye lover he was of brawny men,
O’ ships and the open sea.
When they came wi’ a host to take Our Man
His smile was good to see,
“First let these go!” quo’ our Goodly Fere,
“Or I’ll see ye damned,” says he.
Aye he sent us out through the crossed high spears
And the scorn of his laugh rang free,
“Why took ye not me when I walked about
Alone in the town?” says he.
Oh we drank his “Hale” in the good red wine
When we last made company,
No capon priest was the Goodly Fere
But a man o’ men was he.
I ha’ seen him drive a hundred men
Wi’ a bundle o’ cords swung free,
That they took the high and holy house
For their pawn and treasury.
They’ll no’ get him a’ in a book I think
Though they write it cunningly;
No mouse of the scrolls was the Goodly Fere
But aye loved the open sea.
If they think they ha’ snared our Goodly Fere
They are fools to the last degree.
“I’ll go to the feast,” quo’ our Goodly Fere,
“Though I go to the gallows tree.”
“Ye ha’ seen me heal the lame and blind,
And wake the dead,” says he,
“Ye shall see one thing to master all:
‘Tis how a brave man dies on the tree.”
A son of God was the Goodly Fere
That bade us his brothers be.
I ha’ seen him cow a thousand men.
I have seen him upon the tree.
He cried no cry when they drave the nails
And the blood gushed hot and free,
The hounds of the crimson sky gave tongue
But never a cry cried he.
I ha’ seen him cow a thousand men
On the hills o’ Galilee,
They whined as he walked out calm between,
Wi’ his eyes like the grey o’ the sea,
Like the sea that brooks no voyaging
With the winds unleashed and free,
Like the sea that he cowed at Genseret
Wi’ twey words spoke’ suddently.
A master of men was the Goodly Fere,
A mate of the wind and sea,
If they think they ha’ slain our Goodly Fere
They are fools eternally.
I ha’ seen him eat o’ the honey-comb
Sin’ they nailed him to the tree.
Ezra Pound

Finally, after getting my computer back up…here is my review on David Jeremiah’s book, “What In the World Is Going On?: 10 Prophetic Clues You Cannot Afford to Ignore,” without the theological jargon, except where defined.



First of all, Jeremiah does a good job of tying together some factors I had not previously thought of that help us clue in that these are the end times, especially US dependence on foreign oil, Islam, and terrorism.  And without getting to technical, as many end times authors get, he explains these themes in such a way that I felt compelled to keep reading and understood what he was saying.  I finished it in about 14 hours.  Jeremiah’s position (which states the church will be removed from Earth before the “Tribulation Period” begins-read Daniel 7 for more on this) gives him the chance to interpret the current events with insightful but disturbing results. It was an exciting and engaging read, on the point of interpreting current events.



Having said all this, Jeremiah’s perspective, called Dispensational, Pretribulation Rapturism appears to stretch the biblical evidence farther than warranted.


Definitions
Dispensational-in end times studies, Dispensationalism sees the letters of Revelation 2 and 3 to the seven churches as symbolic of seven ages of the Church, and that we are currently in what are called the “Laodecian Age,” where the faith of many is lukewarm and uncommitted.


Pretribulation Rapturism-The Church, will be taken away before the earth experiences a period of unprecedented suffering.  Pretribbers like to take Revelation 3:10 as their banner verse to prove this, and also argue that the church is nowhere to be seen in Revelation. 


The trouble with this perspective is that it not only does violence to the texts where Christ said we will “have many tribulations,”  among other key passages on suffering for the sake of the gospel.  Also, it seems to disregard the simplicity of other biblical arguments, such as the one that other passages talking about “the trumpet of the Lord” could be talking about the same event.  Because of this, Jeremiah and other pretrib works, such as Left Behind, need to be read with a large grain of salt and that we should be ready to suffer more readily than to expect God is going to save us simply because He told believers in Philadelphia (Rev 3:10) that He would save them.


Now, before anyone goes on about how the pretrib position is required in order to take the doctrine of the Immanent Return of Christ seriously, which is a can of worms I will open later, I would respond that Christ can come at anytime he wishes, but then again, my faith is not shaken if the Antichrist appears before this takes place.  Moreover, we will not know and have the revelation of the Antichrist before he stands in the temple, etc.  The real question we should be asking is “would our faith be shaken if no pretrib rapture occurred, but rather we were faced with tribulations and testing.  


For a sum of my views on endtimes, I will save that for another post.


One other issue among many that Jeremiah fails to resolve is, when discussing Islam, even though He says Allah and the God of the Bible are not the same God, he fails to offer any solution as to how missionaries, like myself, can resolve this issue and effectively minister to the Muslim people.  Because of this, the chapter on Islam felt like a drive-by backhanded treatment of God’s love for the Muslim people with no solution for Christians who have a heart for these people.


Also, his chapter on the Jewish people, made me feel, as a non-Jew (I do not take the label of Gentile), as though I were a second-class citizen in the kingdom of God.  This is an inherent weakness in many dispensationalist writings, in that they do not take Romans 11:17-24, Galatians 2:38, and especially Ephesians 2:11-17 seriously.  We are grafted into Israel’s heritage by the Spirit, There is no Jew, Greek, or any other in Christ, and the middle wall of partition and the hostility between the Jew and the non-Jewish believer have been broken down and put to death respectively.  Jeremiah and his ilk seem to wish to establish that wall again. 


In conclusion, as intriguing as the issues were that Jeremiah raised up, I felt like he left a number of loose ends tied up. For the purpose of missions, evangelism, and outreach, all of which are required to happen in order for the end of the age to come, he gave us no solutions to the challenges posed to reaching out effectively to our Jewish and Muslim brothers.  As excellent as the issues mentioned and current events highlighted, it was highly dissatisfying, leaving me hungry for answers to all the questions that he raised, especially with my heart for Muslims.


I received this book compliments of Thomas Nelson Publishers for my honest review, and was disappointed.
And the link to the book is here.


http://search.barnesandnoble.com/What-in-the-World-Is-Going-On/David-Jeremiah/e/9780785231172/?tabname=custreview

And there came a man of G-d to Eli and said to him, “Thus says the L-RD, ‘Did I indeed reveal myself to the house of your father when they were in Egypt subject to the house of Pharaoh?

‘Did I choose him out of all the tribes of Israel to be my priest, to go up to my altar, to burn incense, to wear an ephod before me?

‘I gave to the house of your father all my offerings by fire from the people of Israel.

‘Why then do you scorn my sacrifices and my offerings that I commanded for my dwelling, and honor your sons above me by fattening yourselves on the choicest parts of every offering of my people Israel?.'”

“Therefore the L-RD, the G-d of Israel, declares: ‘I promised that your house and the house of your father should go in and out before me forever,’ but now the L-RD declares: ‘Far be it from me, for those who honor me I will honor, and those who despise me shall be lightly esteemed.

‘Behold, the days are coming when I will cut off your strength and the strength of your father’s house, so that there will not be an old man in your house.

‘Then in distress you will look with envious eye on all the prosperity that shall be bestowed on Israel, and there shall not be an old man in your house forever.

‘The only one of you whom I shall not cut off from my altar shall be spared to weep his eyes out to grieve his heart, and all the descendants of your house shall die by the sword of men.

‘And this that shall come upon your two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, shall be the sign to you: both of them shall die on the same day.  And I will raise up for myself a faithful priest, who shall do according to what is in my heart and in my mind.  And I will build him a sure house, and he shall go in and out before my anointed forever.  And everyone who is left in your house shall come to implore him for a piece of silver or a loaf of bread and shall say, ‘Please put me in one of the priests’ places, that I may eat a morsel of bread.'”

1 Samuel 2:27–36

How favored was the house of Aaron?
The Lord told him that forever he would walk before the Lord as his chosen representative to all Israel.
The Lord told him that he would have the blessing of representing the nation before the Lord and walk continually in His presence.  The Lord promised to give him the portions of all the meat offerings and permit him to burn incense before the Lord continually.  How Eli’s house is kicking at, dishonoring, insulting, and making light of the sacrafices of the most High, and treating his priviledge of standing in God’s presnece with contempt and without honoring Him.  Eli is permitting a loose and casual attitude, one of apathy, to seep into the liturgy of the temple. Now, since this is happening, the Lord is about to take away the priesthood from Eli’s house and give it to one who will do all that is in the Lord’s heart, and mind.  And we read in a couple of places in 1 Samuel (2:18, 3:1), that Samuel has properly walked out his life in preparation for this destiny of walking into the priesthood, since he honors the presence of the Lord, while Eli does not. 

Moreover, it takes an itinerant man of God, a prophet, to speak this prophecy at random.

And then, in stark contrast to Hophni and Phneas, Samuel ministers to the Lord and before the Lord and cares only for the glory of God and not whether ro not his basic needs will be met.

Also, at this point, I would say that Hophni, Phineas, and Eli, because of the state of their hearts, were way beyond the point of repentance and persuading God to move in mercy and forgiveness.  The next calling, that of Samuel, was already set into place, due to their hardness of heart.

The question is, do we spend our time in the days of small beginnings despising those beginnings, growing hard, offended and bitter, or embracing them and walking in them to prepare us for the fullness of God’s destiny for us.  Samuel’s understanding of the holiness of the Lord, enabled him to walk blamelessly and into greater things.

Moreover, Samuel, because he did “according to what [was in the Lord’s] heart and mind,” and was without corruption, he would be blessed by the Lord.  He did all that the Lord asked of him, and walked in nearly as Scripture can record, without fault and blame before the Lord, and was blessed.  So much so, that the nation of Israel would tremble at his coming, and the house of Eli would be at Samuel’s mercy.  


When we walk in the fear of the Lord and blamelessly before hin, with no though or care towards the opinions of man, then we will be a force to be reckoned with, and not because we have any power, might, or strength in our hands (Zechariah 4:6).  If we strive to do all that is in His heart and mind and to know all that is on his heart amd mind, and operate and obey according to all that is in his heart and mind, then we will have the authority to carry that understanding and message to the nations of the world, as did Jeremiah did, to set up kings and tear them down.  But only if we know His purpose and plans, and only if we humble ourselves to walk according to all He has given us, in His word. 


And with the exception of the affair with Uriah the Hittite, both Samuel and David walked in this authority and we hated by the establishment and status quo.

One other things that I got from the desk of Jon Greene, that I found fascinating, and makes sense, in the line of prophetic writings.


The passage is also a prophecy about the rise of the priesthood of the order of Melchizedek. In the immediate future, ministry to the Lord would be undertaken by the “sons of Zadok,” or “sons of righteousness.” Of course, the order of Mel…chizedek (king of righteousness) is the order by which Christ entered into legitimate priesthood and remains to this day the high priest, and we have legitimate claim to be “Sons of Zadok” to this day. Also of interest is that Melchizedek was King of Salem (Peace). So, you have the prince/king of peace ministering to Abram of the BREAD and WINE and receiving tithes from him of the spoils. Ha ha. It’s just epic symbolism.

I wonder, if dispensationalists in my generation are a dying breed, why are the previous generations, which are fraught with them,  making us look at Scripture through an exegetical lens (dispensationalism) that just does not square with a common sense interpretation of Scripture, in favor of homoletical and hermeneutical acrobatics?  Why are they telling us, “if you disagree with me than that is okay,” one minute while the next minute say “this is what Scripture teaches.”  


Maybe if the translators had used a common sense interpretation of each thought in the New Testament, then we would not be so taken with everybody’s exegetical biases on everything from the end times to salvation to the nitpicking of each canonical phrase and Koine nuance (Piper, Grudem, Dunn, Barclay, Ratzinger, Swaggart, Dake, Torrey, Scofield, Ripplinger, Chick, Ryrie, Fee, McNelley). That is quite a list to wade through.


Why is it that the verses concerning the trumpets and clouds and the appearings of the Lord can’t be superimposed upon one another and seen as all referring to a similar event?


Why is it that the only people that seem to make the most sense on this issue are Marvin Rosenthal, and, according to one of my associates, Mike Bickle (I am in the process of examining Bickle’s analysis and positions on the Revelation)?


Why is it, when this issue, which really is not a big matter in the scheme of things, that those who preach hard and fast on this matter preach so violently against any assault on their position as to make us appear full of the devil himself?

Why do we have to violate so many principles of interpretation in order to make Scripture fit a mold just so it appears that we will escape, no questions asked, when our Lord himself said we should be ready?


Why can we not just be ready and occupy until he returns, and if the man of sin is revealed before we are taken away, or we go through some stuff before the Rapture, we just do what we are told by the Spirit of God?


What are we so afraid of?  Besides sloughing off theological stances and positions that might not hold up in a third world country?  

Are we afraid of nixing the dispensationalist idea that the letter to Philadelphia is completely applicable to us in the present day and pulling Revelation 3:10 away from it’s context and slapping it like a prooftext onto our circumstances, without first thinking it in it’s context through?


Someone answer these questions, please.  And the following…


Are we just being selfish?

So from the last post on this portion of the Scripture, we gathered all that the Lord was getting ready to do to prepare Samuel to lead and Israel to follow.  

Now let’s consider the text itself verse-by-verse

Now Eli was very old; and he heard everything his sons did to all Israel, and how they lay with the women who assembled at the door of the tabernacle of meeting.

Eli heard that Hophni and Phineas were sleeping with the women who assembled in front of the tabernacle, turning them into regular shrine prostitutes, and treating the meat offerings of the Lord with contempt and vulgarity.

So he said to them, “Why do you do such things? For I hear of your evil dealings from all the people. No, my sons! For it is not a good report that I hear. You make the LORD’s people transgress. If one man sins against another, God will judge him. But if a man sins against the LORD, who will intercede for him?”

 And all Eli did was speak to them.  He did not discipline them with actions, but merely with words.

Nevertheless they did not heed the voice of their father, because the LORD desired to kill them.

 Of course, because Eli did not honor God, and every time I read this text, I get the feeling or impression, though Scripture nowhere states it so explicitly, that Eli is a lazy and lackadaisical individual in his attitude toward God, and it is this lazy and lax attitude that causes his sons to act as corruptly as they do.  It seems like Hophni and Phineas do not respect Eli or his leadership and do whatever they want to do.  In this case, they make the choice to disobey their father’s advice, and I also get the feeling that the God may be doing a hardening of the heart, in accordance with their attitudes which have been displayed adequately up to this point in the narrative.  Their actions up to this point demonstrate a stubbornness and hardness of heart, and that they actually do not know God.  From this, I would almost be one to say, “neither does Eli.”


And, as expected, Hophni and Phineas chose to not listen to their father.  This was for two reasons.  1) Hophni and Phineas knew that Eli would do nothing more than lecture them.  He would not execute justice.  This is what happens when parents use only mercy as a tool to correct their children.  Without justice, children learn to disrespect their parents, and the be able to get away with anything they deem available.  More importantly than their understanding of Eli was 2) The LORD knew this would happen, and he knew the depravity of their hearts, that He gave them over to a reprobate and defiled and corrupt mind (Romans 1:21-24), so that He might justly execute his wrath upon them.  What does this say to us?  if we continue in our iniquities, the LORD will judge us eventually.  It may not be today or tomorrow or the next day, but soon the LORD’s just judgment can and must come.


And the child Samuel grew in stature, and in favor both with the LORD and men.

Samuel, on the other hand, does the exact opposite, growing in his walk with the LORD and in favor with his fellow men.  What a juxtaposition!  This is what causes the fear of the LORD and favor of the LORD and, dare I say it, the anointing of the LORD to rest upon Samuel, it’s his sensitivity toward the LORD and his dedication to the LORD, begun in the womb of Hannah. 
  
Next, part 3, the narrative of the man of God visiting Eli to confirm all that has already taken place, and the sense of judgment that the LORD has purposed.

This article has two aims.


First, it aims to interpret several passages in kind.


1 Timothy 2:12
1 Corinthians 14:34
Colossians 4
Ephesians 5


Second it aims to set Scripture’s view on women in ministry in light of their complete context, and (a subject in which I admit I am much weaker) women’s roles in the household. I do not seek to, since I do not know the totality of their arguments, to set my argument within the context of the discussions Grudem, MacAurther, and others have set forth.  Merely, I seek to set forth the interpretations that I have come to.


I have, since coming to Christ, seen several views on the subject of women in ministry.  They are


1. Women should have no place in ordained ministry.
2. Women should teach other women.
3. Women are permitted to function as missionaries, but not as pastors.
4. Women are permitted to pastor, but not as senior pastors (or as “senior teaching authorities,” in the language of John Lindell, of Ozark, Missouri).
5. Women are permitted in every position except oversight (the role of a bishop or as we call in the Assemblies of God, a presyter.
6. Women are permitted to every position, bar none. 


Most of the first through fifth opinion find the basis for this belief in 1 Timothy 2:12 and 1 Corintians 14:34.


1 Timothy 2:12 reads, in context from verse 8 to verse 15, in the NKJV (the translation I happen to have on hand)

I desire therefore that the men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting; in like manner also, that the women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with propriety and moderation, not with breaded hair or gold or pearls or costly clothing, but, which is proper for women professing godliness, with good works. 

Let a woman learn in silence with all submission.

[Moreover,] I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man, but to be in silence.
[Because] Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being decieved, fell into transgression.

Nevertheless she will be saved in childbearing if they continue in faith, love and holiness, with self-control.

Let’s take this verse-by-verse:

I desire therefore that the men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting;

This is a continuation from verses 1-7,  and the phrase that follows in verse 9 (“in like manner”) connects verse 9 to verse 8 and both verses to verses 1-7.  Paul singles out the men for prayer and supplication.  Honestly, I do not pretend to know why he does this.  Perhaps the Ephesian context was such that women were not educated or prevented from occupying prominent places in the public arena.  The only place that I do know women occupied for certain in public was as cult prostitutes (One temple in Ephesus employed over 1000, according to the commentary of the Quest Study Bible).  They also, from what I recall, were not permitted an education in that context, and may have been, because of this, easily led astray.  If this were the case, it would have led to the men taking the prominent roles in worship.


Even still, considering the terms Paul used for “man” and “woman” were primarily translated “husband” and “wife” (see 1 Timothy 3:2 and 3:12 for an example of this inconsistent translation) leads me to believe that this passage is talking about household relationships inclusive of times of private marital communion with the Lord rather than ettiquete for public places of worship.  See Colossians 3:18-19 and Ephesians 5:22-33 for a similar prescription for husbands and wives using the same Greek terminology.  I think this passage is part of that whole body of Biblical texts that discuss marriage relationships in the home.  Be that as it may, the text speaks to me that men are to take the lead in initiating worship and communion with the Lord with our wives, and in the context of the Colossians and Ephesians passage (passages where the husband loves his wife) would lead to a greater clarity of marital conduct. 

in like manner also, that the women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with propriety and moderation, not with breaded hair or gold or pearls or costly clothing, but, which is proper for women professing godliness, with good works. 

Okay all you ladies, time to strip yourselves of the lipstick and mascara and makeup and jewelry,a nd wedding rings, and engagement bands, and my wife who has 7k sitting on her finger and…heh heh.  I think what this communicates is a message that is similar to that of 1 Peter 3:1-5.

Let a woman learn in silence with all submission.

Let the woman learn in silence with all submission.  Again the wife is learning the place of submission, as the husband is also learning the place of sacrifice and death.

[Moreover,] I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man, but to be in silence.

Okay, here is the kicker ladies and gentleman.  I interpret this as saying exactly the following, “I do not permit a wife to teach or have/excercise authority over a man, but to be in silence.”  If you are going to have an application for the modern day it is this.  Look at this verse through a few other verses.  such as the proverb that “a continual dripping on a rainy day and a quarrelsome wife are alike” (Proverbs 27:15).  It’s great for a wife to give her husband counsel and advice, especially if she and he are in the same boat that my wife and I are in.  I have a right to speak to this issue because I am married to an older more experienced woman who is experienced in life and decorum and dress and matters of not looking like a bum.  She has the duty to tell me when I am off base et cetera.  However, a wife does not have the duty to, if the husband is too intimidated to step up to the plate and take the leadership role, to constatnly and naggingly do all in her power to take that position of leadership.  She is to encourage him to grow into all he is designed to be.  I think this is a powerful application.  The concept I gather from this is exactly that griping, complaining, quarreling, usurping, overthrowing type of leadership.  Think Jezebel and Ahab.  Ahab let Jezebel have her way with God’s kingdom.

[Because] Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being decieved, fell into transgression.

Adam did the same thing.  He did what Eve and the serpent did.  He did not step up, and made the choice to follow his wife over obeying God.

Nevertheless she will be saved in childbearing if they continue in faith, love and holiness, with self-control.
I just received a thought while looking at this verse.  Something completely new, and I am going to share it here and now.  “They” in this verse talks about the children.  There are several proverbs that communicate the idea that a wise and prudent child is a delight to his or her parents.  Remembering that the majority of women of Ephesus frequently practiced prostitution, which would have led to abortions of unwanted children in order to continue the practice of their prostitution, Paul is inserting a dynamic here that would totally shred to pieces that debauched order.  If a woman would step away from that debauched lifestyle to embrace the sacrifice of motherhood, it would begin to eliminate, in a rather revolutionary matter, the prostitution rituals of Ephesus.  Perhaps corporate redemption of the city of Ephesus, which means the deliverance of that community from Diana worship and prostitution bondage, would involve t
his process.  maybe Paul is staking redemption and salvation for the female members of that community on practices that bred idolatry.  Prostitution and whoredomes which were incorporated in the worship of the idols, and fed the religious industry in that community, once ended, would be replaced with childbirth, the raising of families, and through Paul’s teaching, would open the door for the Spirit of God to transform whole sectors of the populace.  I am not saying that having children is the key to a woman’s salvation, but when other gods are placed above the one true God, and those gods, as part of their rituals and worship, require prostitution and, as a result, abortion, then the riddance of those practices and the doing of the right thing makes the community more open to the influence of God through whatever vessel or preacher he chooses to bring.


To sum up, I would say this passage is not talking about how we treat gender roles in the church, but rather in the household.  I would say better passages exist that treat the subject of women in ministry, especially by implication.


Here is a good list


Acts 2 and Joel 2 give good references to the Holy Spirit and the proclamation gifts being poured out on both male and female, all flesh.


The concept that God can do whatever He want with whomever He wants is pretty straightforward.  We do not have the right to tell God what He can and cannot do, even if our narrow interpretations of Scripture do not line up with what THE WHOLE OF SCRIPTURE ACTUALLY SAYS.  

Huldah, Deborah, Mary Magdelene, Priscilla and Aquilla, Junias, Phoebe, Miriam of Exodus, Anna of Luke 2, and other women in the account of Scripture all serve as narrative examples of women at work for the kingdom in various roles of ministry.  

My wife, mother, Oleeta Hardenbrook, Beth Nussel, Melanie Harris, Renee Modica, Michelle Tepper, Deborah Gill, Barbara Cavaness,  and others are the examples I personally know of women I have spent time hearing who definitely have a gifting for the proclamation of the Gospel.  And without my mother explaining the matters of the faith to me, I would not have had confirmation of my conversion experience at the age of four.  Without her, I can say I would not have been a part of the kingdom as early as I became part. 


For me as part of the Methodist and Pentecostal traditions, the placing of limitations of God as to whom he can and cannot use on the basis of their anatomical equipment is simply an indicator of ludicrous insanity that borders on heresy and severe judgment at the hands of God himself.  To be uncomfortable with the idea of God using a woman in a position of leadership is understandable, but to rebel and scream that it’s impossible is a violation of Jesus observation and its logical implication:  With God, all things are possible. 


I hope this blesses and informs.

This article by a friend of mine sums up the best perspective I have seen on the potential of cessation of the spiritual gifts (1 Cor 14)http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=thepashamm-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=B0015T963C&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifrhttp://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=thepashamm-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=1616381434&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr in Pentecostal churches.  An article that everyone should read on the subject

Post pentecostalism? God Forbid

Pentecostal and charismatic churches across America are facing a new and puzzling trend: postpentecostalization. Reports are frequently heard that some Assemblies of God pastors are pastoring churches that do not accept our pneumatology or allow for the manifestation of spiritual gifts in worship services. At the same time, some churches lament that their pastor neither practices nor encourages others to practice spiritual manifestations.
While reports of declension in Pentecostal worship are not new — as early as the 1920s some Pentecostal leaders were warning that there was declension in our Movement — we may be facing a new wave of declension that is more serious. If so, we must pay serious attention to the renewal of the charismata in our worship services across the Pentecostal-charismatic movement. Not only does our tradition call for renewal, but also faithfulness to Scripture demands it. It is time to consider whether Pentecostalism without expression of the charismata is, in the parlance of the Greek New Testament, an idiotikos Pentecostalism.

Idiotikos Pentecostalism

The term idiotikos is potentially offensive and must be explained. Idiotikos is derived from the Greek word idiotes and has a different meaning from the English word idiot. I do not wish to apply the English word idiot or idiotic to any person or religious perspective. The use of idiotikos is not an epithet, but a goad to reflection.
The concept of idiotikos Pentecostalism is based on 1 Corinthians 14:23, where the apostle Paul warned the Corinthian church that theapistoi and idiotai would think that the members of the church had gone mad if they should enter the service and find them all speaking in tongues at the same time. To understand Paul’s point in this passage, it is crucial to know who the apistoi and idiotai were. Apistoi clearly refers to unbelievers, but Bible translators do not agree on the identity of the idiotai.1
The King James Version renders idiotai as “those who are unlearned.”2 The Revised Standard Version translates the word as “outsiders.”3 The New American Standard Bible translates idiotai as “ungifted men.”4 The New International Version translates the word as “some who do not understand.”5 What is surprising is that these contemporary translations do not reflect the definition provided in the leading New Testament Greek lexicon.
A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, edited by Frederick Danker, offers the idea of “layman, amateur”6 for the first definition of idiotes. The lexicon explains that this definition is not intended to express the religious division between laity and clergy, but to stress expertise versus inexpertise in many contexts. Thus, the first definition of idiotes is the idea represented in the King James Version of a person unlearned, uninstructed7 in spiritual gifts.
The second meaning offered by Danker for idiotes is a religious novice or catechumen. References are adduced to show that the term was used in religious contexts to refer to people who attended the services of a particular religion but had not yet become full-fledged members. In discussing 1 Corinthians 14:23, the lexicon states that “the idiotai are neither similar to the apistoi, nor are they full-fledged Christians; obviously, they stand between the two groups as a kind of proselytes or catechumens.”8 Thus idiotai may refer to people who were new believers but who had not been baptized.
A possible New Testament example of the second definition is the disciples at Ephesus in Acts 19:1–7. They had believed in Jesus, had been baptized in John’s baptism of repentance, but had not been baptized in Jesus’ name and had not heard of the Holy Spirit. In 1 Corinthians 14:23, it seems the first definition applies. The idiotai were new believers who had not yet been instructed about the use of spiritual gifts in Christian worship. Paul’s concern is that these new believers, as well as unbelievers, may become confused or offended by the unruly use of the gift of tongues in corporate worship.

Church-Growth Models

This Pauline concern for the welfare of new believers takes us back to our contemporary situation relative to postpentecostal churches. The popularity among Pentecostal churches of church-growth models such as the seeker-sensitive model or the purpose-driven model has led some pastors, perhaps many, to completely reject charismatic gifts in corporate worship.9 Yet this approach is clearly against what the apostle Paul intends in the passage. Like the missionaries of the early 20th century who were confronted by Roland Allen’s book Missionary Methods, St. Paul’s or Ours? pastors in the United States today must consider whether we are better advised to use our methods of church growth, or those taught by Paul in the Word of God.
Paul makes it obvious in 1 Corinthians 14:23 that he is not opposed to the manifestation of spiritual gifts in public. After warning the church not to abuse the gifts, and especially the gift of tongues that would lead the apistoi and the idiotai to think the church had gone mad, he sums up his argument two verses later:
“What then shall we say, brothers? When you come together, everyone has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. All of these must be done for the strengthening of the church” (1 Corinthians 14:26).
From this it is clear that Paul’s intention was not to eliminate spiritual gifts from public worship, but to protect them from abuse so they might fully edify believers and convict sinners.
It is important to consider the opposite of idiotikos worship. Manaical worship is the opposite extreme. When Paul said the apistoi and idiotai will think the church has gone mad, he used the word mainomai. Mainomai is related to the English word maniac. Critics of charismatic abuse have done well to call such worship “charismania.” It is the maniacal charismatic expression to which Paul objects. Nevertheless, while it is good to join Paul’s position in opposition to maniacal worship, it would be a grave error to forbid the exercise of the charismata in the process. Genuine Pentecostal-
charismatic worship holds the middle ground.

Who Determines What Model?

Paul’s support of charismata in public worship raises this question: who is going to determine what we allow in our worship services? Will the Word of God determine it or will it be determined by apistoi and idiotai? If it is by the Word, then we will need to ensure that our worship is faithful to God (as opposed to apistos, faithless) and clearly instructed in Scripture. The abuse of spiritual gifts in Christian worship by the unlearned is not acceptable. This fact obligates pastors to instruct their congregations carefully about the use of spiritual gifts.
It is often said that Pentecostals are more embarrassed by the use of gifts in worship than their unbelieving and non-Pentecostal Christian guests. It would seem this embarrassment comes either from being ashamed of the gifts themselves (which is unacceptable) or being ashamed of untutored exercisers of those gifts. In either case, the answer is more and better instruction, not shrinking back from the exercise of spiritual gifts.
On the other hand, if we allow the form of Christian worship to be determined by the apistoi and the idiotai, we must carefully draw out the implications of this decision. First, we allow the unbeliever to define what we can believe in and practice. This is a formula for failure. It is also unfaithful to God who has lavished His grace (charisma) on us. Second, such worship will be idiotikos — being determined by the idiotai.10
Idiotikos worship is the purposeful decision (if not purpose-driven) to refuse to instruct new believers and unbelievers about the biblical use of spiritual gifts. I recently heard an Assemblies of God pastor talk about his new church plant. About 300 people had been added to his church in a year’s time; 150 of them were new believers. He explained he did not want charismatic giftings in his church, since most of the transfer growth was from evangelical churches. He was worried they would be offended by the exercise of spiritual gifts and that new believers could become confused. The answer to this dilemma is apparently to leave everyone in the state he or she was found in. This decision is appropriately termed idiotikos since it puts the doctrinal position of the ungifted and uninstructed, rather than Paul’s teaching, in the driver’s seat of the church.
Another crucial aspect of idiotikos worship is that it is a conscious decision to rest on our own abilities rather than on God’s power. The word idiotes is closely related to the Greek word idios, meaning “one’s own” or “one’s self.” The basic concept of idiotes is that a person is on his or her own. She has not been instructed by others, but left to her own understanding. He is not empowered by the Spirit, but operating on his own strength.

Why A Pentecostal Model?

One hundred years of Pentecostal experience, coupled with the greatest church growth the world has ever seen — church growth that dwarfs that of the Early Church — should have convinced us that we need to rely on God’s power, not our own, for church planting and growth. Postpentecostalism, or idiotikos Pentecostalism, goes against scriptural teaching and against the methods used in the church’s greatest period of success. At the same time, when millions of unbelievers (apistoi) and ungifted cessationists (idiotai) are sailing into the ports of Pentecostal and charismatic churches, the postpentecostals are determining a course that will lead their barks out into the open sea, against the tide and into the storm. The prospects do not seem bright.
In 1 Corinthians 14, the apostle Paul made clear that Christians who are uninstructed about spiritual gifts are not mature (pneumatikos Christians), but idiotai.11 He could not have suspected that within a century most of the church would fit into that category. Idiotikos Christianity, untutored in the use of spiritual gifts and left to its own devices, would drift into liturgical woodenness and spiritual slumber. It would partner with state and empire, substitute its own judgment for that of Scripture, and make that judgment a rigid, unbreakable tradition so tightly tied to the power of a few that it would become a means of oppression. Idiotikos Christian leaders, left to their own devices, would burn other believers (as well as unbelievers) at the stake, kill them with the sword of state and empire, and enforce their power and hegemony over God’s little flock and the unbelieving world as well. Great atrocities like the Holocaust would be committed against God, His people, and against the world Christ died to save by idiotikos Christianity.
Then, the greatest revival in the history of the Church would come. Hundreds of millions of believers would turn from idiotikos to pneumatikos, or spiritual Christianity. Now, at the very hour of the triumph of the Holy Spirit and of the rescue of the human spirit, will we turn back to an idiotikos form of Christianity? Having begun in the Spirit will we seek to be made perfect in the flesh? God forbid.