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Sunday 8 September 2024

CHRIS ROSEBROUGH: UNQUALIFIED WOMEN (AND MEN) TEACHERS

F4F | Karena Carrasco In Unqualified Rebellion Against God (youtube.com)

Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. (James 3:1).

Karena Carrasco head of Kidz City Daycare at Chooselife Church (Hobbs NM) is not only unqualified to teach, she is also scripturally unsound. I agree with Rosebrough that Carrasco's "sermon" on "divine power and influence" is utter nonsense. Carrasco: "When Jesus spent time with the Father there was always something different about His countenance.. To have His divine life you have to abide in the vine, that's where power is going to come from.. when you spend time with Hinot just your insides change but your outside changes.."  Her justification for teaching this nonsense is the transfiguration of Jesus in Luke 9: 28-36.  

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. (2 Corinthians 4:16).

In the New Testament, the office of elder, overseer, and shepherd (pastor) refers to the same teaching office within the church. (Acts 20:28; Titus 1:5,9; 1 Peter 5:1–2; Ephesians 4:11). Although Carrasco has not set herself up as a "pastor" per se, teaching sermons to a mixed congregation is to assume the role specifically reserved for those holding the office of an overseer. The fact that the leaders of Chooselife Church have sanctioned Carrasco makes them culpable and puts them in direct rebellion against God.

Rosebrough's use of 1 Corinthians 14:34-38 is not the best passage to demonstrate his point. Most teachers explain these verses in terms of problems specific to the Corinthian Church which faced challenges relating to cultural norms, immorality, division, and the misuse of spiritual gifts. Since Paul acknowledged that women were "praying and prophesying" in 1 Corinthians 11:5, these verses cannot be taken outside their specific context without creating an internal contradiction within Paul's writings.

As in all the churches of the saints, the women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says. If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church. Or was it from you that the word of God came? Or are you the only ones it has reached? If anyone thinks that he is a prophet, or spiritual, he should acknowledge that the things I am writing to you are a command of the Lord. If anyone does not recognize this, he is not recognized. So, my brothers, earnestly desire to prophesy, and do not forbid speaking in tongues. But all things should be done decently and in order. (1 Corinthians 14:34-38).

In his excellent series on Women in Ministry, Mike Winger refers to "the strict view" i.e. "the utter silence view" which does not allow a woman to speak in any public meeting whatsoever.1  The Greek word “σιγάω” (sigáo),  means “to be silent” or “to refrain from speaking”. An alternative view of sigáo has been suggested in contexts where refraining from certain types of speech is appropriate or required as against "silence" in the strictest sense. Winger quotes Professor Anthony Thiselton who was my professor at Nottingham University. 

Thiselton: "The speaking in question denotes the activity of sifting or weighing the words of prophets, especially by asking probing questions about the prophet's theology or even the prophet's lifestyle in public."

Meyer: "ἃ γράφω ὑμ.] (the things I write to you) refers to the whole section regarding the πνευματικοῖς. To refer it, as Billroth and Olshausen do, to the command that the women should keep silence, does not harmonize with the introduction εἴ τις … πνευματικός, and involves the awkwardness of only this intervening matter being thus confirmed with such solemnity, and the principal and far more important section not at al.."2  

The judging prophecy view   

Mike Winger points out that the context of 1 Corinthians 29ff concerns prophecy, and he makes the an interesting case for tying 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 back to verse 29 which is split into two parts - speaking and judgingLet two or three prophets speak, and let the others weigh what is said. (1 Corinthians 14:29).  Winger reasons that when a question arises about whether a prophecy is true or false, the natural arbiters would be the overseers whose function is to uphold sound doctrine. This view therefore excludes women from judging prophecy.      

In contrast to 1 Corinthians 14:34-38, 1 Timothy 2:12-14 is transcultural and refers to the order of creation. These three verses present an irrefutable case against women elders/teachers. 
 
1 do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. (1 Timothy 2:12-14).

Some denominations seek to overcome the difficulty of people of any gender speaking inappropriately by conducting rigidly structured church services. However, this strategy is no fail-safe against Satan's determination to introduce false teaching into the church. Satan simply changes tactic and deceives leaders into promoting false teachings such as baptismal regeneration (Lutheran), limited atonement (Calvinism), skewed eschatology etc. 
 
The widespread apostasy we are witnessing in many churches today is off the scale, but I do not believe that we are living in the apostasy referred to in 2 Thessalonians 2:3 which is directly linked to the man of lawlessness aka the Antichrist. When the Antichrist is revealed the rebellion/apostasy will be on an entirely different level. (Matthew 24:9-12; Revelation 13:7; 12:17).

Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction.. (2 Thessalonians 2:3).   

As Rosebrough points out, any church with a woman pastor/elder/teacher is in open rebellion against God. It seems reasonable to suppose that the rank apostasy occuring within many churches is a precursor to the rebellion of 2 Thessalonians 2:3. 

Many who hold the position of overseer are unfit by reason of their ungodly lives and their obvious incompetence as teachers. The scriptural qualifications are being openly flouted in favour of man centred teachings that accomodate itching ears. (2 Timothy 4:3).

The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church? He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil. Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace, into a snare of the devil. (1 Timothy 3:1-7).

Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers. (1 Timothy 4:16).

Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth. (2 Timothy 2:15).

1. 5 Views on “Women Keep Silent" (1 Cor 14:35-36): Women in Ministry part 11 (youtube.com)
2. 1 Corinthians 14 Meyer's NT Commentary (biblehub.com)

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