Religious Controversies: Man/Woman Equality

Off Topic Politics and World Issues
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An interesting topic came up in the homosexuality thread, and that was about man/woman equality. The Bible says that a man is the head of a woman, but he is to love her and respect her. The Bible also teaches that a woman should not teach in the church. It even mentions that a the woman came from the man and is beneath him.

So does the Bible really teach that men are superior in authority over women, or was that the custom of things in that time period and no longer applies now?

I don’t expect this thread to take of as much since it was discussed some what in the other thread.

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No, man is not superior to the women. Man is not the authority of the women, he is only given responsibility before God for the direction and decisions of his family. The woman is commanded to allow (submit) the man bear this position of responibility. This has nothing to do with the authority or superiority - read the description of the ideal woman in Proverbs 31 and see if that describes the typical concept of an inferior, controlled woman . . . it obviously doesn’t. Man has to answer to God for his family and the woman is commanded to allow him to do that, just as Christ must answer for the Church.

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God originally wanted Man and Woman to be equal.

The New Testament talks about the woman should be submissive to the man, but it also talks about the Man loving the woman as Christ loved the church and gave up his life for it. Man is to protect woman, and love her so much that he is willing to die for her. To me the man has a lot more to live up to. Man has a tendensy to want to lord over the woman. That is not what was intended.

Why do you think Proverbs 31 was written?

Man and Woman in marriage are to be one flesh. That is one cohesive person. One is not better than the other.

On the topic of a woman teaching in the Chruch. There are woman in the Bible that are over the people/church in both the Old and New Testament. These are very rare circumstances though. There are maybe half a dozen women in the Bible that are over people, and this took over 3000 years for these women to come up in the church. I have issues with women preaching from the pulpit, but have no issues with a woman teaching in say a Sunday School setting.

For example sake I will say there is a woman in my Sunday School class that will not keep her mouth shut. She always has to let people know what she is thinking about the topic. She talks and talks and talks, but really does not have a point. I think she just likes to hear herself talk. I think these are the women that Paul was talking about in the New Testament.

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[quote]forbes wrote:
An interesting topic came up in the homosexuality thread, and that was about man/woman equality. The Bible says that a man is the head of a woman, but he is to love her and respect her. The Bible also teaches that a woman should not teach in the church. It even mentions that a the woman came from the man and is beneath him.

So does the Bible really teach that men are superior in authority over women, or was that the custom of things in that time period and no longer applies now?

I don’t expect this thread to take of as much since it was discussed some what in the other thread.[/quote]

I’m going to need citation.

And is everyone aware that some of the Judges (early rulers of Israel) were women?

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[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]forbes wrote:
An interesting topic came up in the homosexuality thread, and that was about man/woman equality. The Bible says that a man is the head of a woman, but he is to love her and respect her. The Bible also teaches that a woman should not teach in the church. It even mentions that a the woman came from the man and is beneath him.

So does the Bible really teach that men are superior in authority over women, or was that the custom of things in that time period and no longer applies now?

I don’t expect this thread to take of as much since it was discussed some what in the other thread.[/quote]

I’m going to need citation.

And is everyone aware that some of the Judges (early rulers of Israel) were women?[/quote]

To my knowledge there was only one, and that was the Prophetess Deborah. That is the one I was referring to in my post.

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The differences between men and women in the Bible have nothing to do with importance, intelligence, dignity or one bearing more of the image of God and they are rooted in creation itself, not transient customs. They are differences in design of function and responsibility. Sorta like the tires and the engine of an automobile. Neither is more important. It won’t work without either one, but they are not interchangeable.

Boy does this topic have vast import for todays society.

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[quote]dmaddox wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]forbes wrote:
An interesting topic came up in the homosexuality thread, and that was about man/woman equality. The Bible says that a man is the head of a woman, but he is to love her and respect her. The Bible also teaches that a woman should not teach in the church. It even mentions that a the woman came from the man and is beneath him.

So does the Bible really teach that men are superior in authority over women, or was that the custom of things in that time period and no longer applies now?

I don’t expect this thread to take of as much since it was discussed some what in the other thread.[/quote]

I’m going to need citation.

And is everyone aware that some of the Judges (early rulers of Israel) were women?[/quote]

To my knowledge there was only one, and that was the Prophetess Deborah. That is the one I was referring to in my post.[/quote]

I was thinking there were 2 or 3, but I’d have to go back and check.

There are many other critical women in the bible. Women like Ruth even got their own books.

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[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]dmaddox wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]forbes wrote:
An interesting topic came up in the homosexuality thread, and that was about man/woman equality. The Bible says that a man is the head of a woman, but he is to love her and respect her. The Bible also teaches that a woman should not teach in the church. It even mentions that a the woman came from the man and is beneath him.

So does the Bible really teach that men are superior in authority over women, or was that the custom of things in that time period and no longer applies now?

I don’t expect this thread to take of as much since it was discussed some what in the other thread.[/quote]

I’m going to need citation.

And is everyone aware that some of the Judges (early rulers of Israel) were women?[/quote]

To my knowledge there was only one, and that was the Prophetess Deborah. That is the one I was referring to in my post.[/quote]

I was thinking there were 2 or 3, but I’d have to go back and check.

There are many other critical women in the bible. Women like Ruth even got their own books.[/quote]
Women are loved and treated with every bit as much dignity as men by God himself. There absolutely are critical women in the Bible. You’ll notice that the section of Proverbs 31 describing the wife, whose worth is far above jewels is reported as having been taught to king Lemuel by his mother.

Rahab, THE HARLOT is named in the famous “hall of faith” in Hebrews 11 right alongside the giants of the old testament. Mary Magdalene, the women taken in adultery that Jesus saved from stoning was a first witness to his resurrection. Paul commands men to love their wives as themselves, as Dmaddox said, even being willing to die for them if need be. He in turn commands the women to live for their husbands submitting to them as to Christ himself. A man cannot love God while not loving his wife and a woman cannot claim submission to Christ while refusing submission to her husband.

Isaiah says in reporting the cursed state of Israel that “women rule over them” 3:12. That’s not what women are for. The largest, heaviest most cumbersome chains of bondage ever put on women is when somebody convinces them they are not free unless they can be like men. The apocalyptic disaster that is the American family is screaming testimony to this very thing.

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I think this is an interesting topic because most take the Bible/Christianity as anti-feminist due to the fact that it puts men in charge of household, teaching, preaching, etc. However, by doing this, it actually makes it harder for men to shirk their responsibility. Think about it. If men are to be in charge of the religious instruction, which was key to ancient society, how could they abandon their families? Look at our modern society. Today, women have taken a much more prominent role while men have been able to get off the hook and never really shoulder the burden of family duties. We have tons of single mothers raising children while the fathers are nowhere to be found. Have women really found a better life by allowing men to escape their responsibility? We wouldn’t have a lot of the broken families that exist today if men had to be men.

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[quote]BBriere wrote:
I think this is an interesting topic because most take the Bible/Christianity as anti-feminist due to the fact that it puts men in charge of household, teaching, preaching, etc. However, by doing this, it actually makes it harder for men to shirk their responsibility. Think about it. If men are to be in charge of the religious instruction, which was key to ancient society, how could they abandon their families? Look at our modern society. Today, women have taken a much more prominent role while men have been able to get off the hook and never really shoulder the burden of family duties. We have tons of single mothers raising children while the fathers are nowhere to be found. Have women really found a better life by allowing men to escape their responsibility? We wouldn’t have a lot of the broken families that exist today if men had to be men.[/quote]
Quite so. Modern feminism is the reverse side of the coin to Islamic oppression. Both are equally corrosive to the design of femininity, only in different ways.

There’s an old Christian saying that goes: Eve was not taken from Adam’s head that she should lord over him, nor from his foot that he should tread upon her, but from his side that she should walk with him as a helper. Something like that. Kinda corny sounding, but it’s true to the principle.

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Unfortunately, the issue goes beyond family values. Much of the problem is ingrained in the law too. Legally, marriage is a joke. Between the combination of no fault divorces and alimony (alimony with current property divorce laws) a man and any children can be shafted very easily. I think this is where a lot of the idea that a lot of women have ‘I don’t need a man to take care of myself and my children’ came from.

Children are optimally raised with a mom and dad that are together so this is how they lose out on the deal. In a society where a woman gets much of the property from a marriage (whether she made the money to have that or not) and receives alimony from a man she divorced, all that has to happen for the woman to want a divorce is if the ‘magic’ is gone. On the flip side, with laws like that a lot of men just won’t marry and will shack up with their woman instead. Then kids come along and he disappears. In this case, welfare and other federal programs pick up the slack for the mother thus draining the government of more resources. I would like to get married some day but with current day values and divorce laws, the concept of marriage terrifies me.

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[quote]forbes wrote:
An interesting topic came up in the homosexuality thread, and that was about man/woman equality. The Bible says that a man is the head of a woman, but he is to love her and respect her. The Bible also teaches that a woman should not teach in the church. It even mentions that a the woman came from the man and is beneath him.
[/quote]

The Catholic Marriage, the man is the head of his family, not the head of a woman, she still needs to make her own decisions. You have the second part correct, he is to love her and respect her, as Jesus loves and respects his The Church.

The Catholic idea that women shouldn’t teach men in The Church comes from that men are the leaders, it is very difficult for a young man to take a woman serious. As well when it comes to teaching young men how to act, should a woman or a man be the one teaching? How about for the girls, the Catholic Church tries to make logical sense. Women know better and can related to another female than a man, same goes for boys.

Do you really believe that a woman came from man, or do you think that story is just a Myth to explain original sin, because I follow in the latter. Same as Jews.

The Bible never teaches that women are beneath man, just because they are subordinate does not make them a lesser person. I am sure most Catholic men will admit their love for women, but that does not mean we become their subordinates, our culture or religion places value on both the man and the woman, but in their respective roles.

No, it teaches that the way of The Church is for women to submit to men, although they still have free will. Just like men submit to God, but still have free will. It is not just a custom of the times. The difference between now and then is that women were not dealt with in business leaving them mostly helpless to be subordinate to the man in their lives.

[quote]
I don’t expect this thread to take of as much since it was discussed some what in the other thread.[/quote]

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[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]Brother Chris wrote:

…Do you really believe that a woman came from man, or do you think that story is just a Myth to explain original sin, because I follow in the latter. Same as Jews…

[/quote]More of this “Genesis is a myth” crap, huh? If the first three chapters of Genesis are a myth then why isn’t Proverbs 31? Or John 3:16? Or Jesus walking on the water? Or feeding the five thousand with two loaves and fish? Or that King David actually lived? Or that Christ actually died on the cross? Or that He rose again? Or that He’s coming again?

Is salvation through Jesus Christ a myth? If not, why not?

Is transubstantiation a myth? The Catholic church teaches it’s not. So woman coming from man is a myth…but bread and wine touched by the hands of a mere priest in 2010 literally becomes the flesh and blood of God the Son and is not a myth?

John, where do you and the Catholics like you get off on these myth designations? Why should the “woman coming from man” idea be labeled a myth but the Second Coming not? You don’t realize what a huge pond of quicksand you have willfully walked into when you or your pope think you have this “divine right” to decide what Scripture is “mythological” and what is real.

The creation of woman is not in the same context as the original sin nor in the concept of original sin. Those are two separate events.
[/quote]

Wow. I take time usually to read up on the various beliefs of branches of Christianity but I never know that catholics/pope believe that. Interesting

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I don’t know that I would have approached this the same way Push did LOL. However, while were at it, regardless of what the Roman catholic or any other church says, 1st Corinthians 11:3 indisputably states that “the man is the head of a woman” which far from being a license for tyranny or an indication of inferiority is an awesome loving responsibility on his part and a covering of safety on hers. IF the Bible is to be taken as the source for the Christian representation in this thread. If not then who cares? It’s whatever anybody thinks.

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[quote]farmerson12 wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]Brother Chris wrote:

…Do you really believe that a woman came from man, or do you think that story is just a Myth to explain original sin, because I follow in the latter. Same as Jews…

[/quote]More of this “Genesis is a myth” crap, huh? If the first three chapters of Genesis are a myth then why isn’t Proverbs 31? Or John 3:16? Or Jesus walking on the water? Or feeding the five thousand with two loaves and fish? Or that King David actually lived? Or that Christ actually died on the cross? Or that He rose again? Or that He’s coming again?

Is salvation through Jesus Christ a myth? If not, why not?

Is transubstantiation a myth? The Catholic church teaches it’s not. So woman coming from man is a myth…but bread and wine touched by the hands of a mere priest in 2010 literally becomes the flesh and blood of God the Son and is not a myth?

John, where do you and the Catholics like you get off on these myth designations? Why should the “woman coming from man” idea be labeled a myth but the Second Coming not? You don’t realize what a huge pond of quicksand you have willfully walked into when you or your pope think you have this “divine right” to decide what Scripture is “mythological” and what is real.

The creation of woman is not in the same context as the original sin nor in the concept of original sin. Those are two separate events.
[/quote]

Wow. I take time usually to read up on the various beliefs of branches of Christianity but I never know that catholics/pope believe that. Interesting[/quote]

The Pope alone doesn’t shape our theological understanding. Not even close, really.

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What’s with all the Christianity topics lately, by the way?

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[quote]Sloth wrote:
What’s with all the Christianity topics lately, by the way?[/quote]

Why not? There are plenty of people here that have a ton of knowledge on the different subjects. It is kind of like iron sharpens iron. I am learning a lot, and in that learning it makes my sword a lot sharper. Listening to the different denominations on here helps in my studies. I would hope I am adding to the different discussions. I like talking about God, and his word.