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[Gregory]

Aliex said:

If a woman claims to be called by God to preach....she is a liar. There is no biblical foundation to support it.

Alex, let me give you a true situation:

World War II was in progress.  In a certaian country in Scandanavia the governmental authorities had removed all of the male clergy of the SDA church from their pulpits who were of a certain age range.  The only male clergy left in that country were a very few elderly clergy.

Two women believed that in these circumstances, in a time of war, the gospel needed to be preached.  So, they struck out on their own and began to hold evangelistic meetings.  During the time that they held evangelistic meetings, several thousand people, accepted Christ and requested baptism.

That presented a problem.  These women were not ordained.  They believed that God had called them to preach the gospil.  They did not believe that they should baptize.  So, the few elderly male clergy left in the country baptized their converts.

Do you believe that under these circumstances God did not call them to preach?  Do you believe that it would have been better if they had not preached the gospil in evangelistic meetings?  Do you believe that it would have been better if these several thousand, both males and females, had not been converted to Christ tlhrough their preaching.
 

[Gregory]

An interesting passage:

"Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law" (1 Corinthians 14:34).

"Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence" (1 Timothy 2:11-12).
 
In these verses, Paul cannot be addressing women who were in the ministry, but rather those in the congregation who were out of order. How do we know this? We have many such proofs, many from Paul himself. Here is a partial list of women who were all in influential positions of leadership in the early church.
 
Pheobe (Romans 16:1-2): This woman was a deaconess of the church in Cenchrea, who was beloved of Paul and many other Christians for the help she gave to them. She filled an important position of leadership. It would be a difficult stretch of the imagination to say that this woman fulfilled her duties without ever speaking in the church!
 
Priscilla (Acts 18:26): Priscilla and her husband Aquila are often mentioned with great respect by Paul. Together they were pastors of a church in Ephesus, and were responsible for teaching the full gospel to Apollos. We are informed that they both taught Apollos, and pastored the church together. In fact, Priscilla is sometimes listed ahead of Aquila when their names come up. This has led some to speculate that of the two, she was the primary teacher and her husband oversaw the ministry. At any rate, we see here a woman in a very prominent position of teaching and pastoring. (Other references to Priscilla and Aquila are Acts 18:2, 18; Romans 16:3, and I Corinthians 16:19).
 
Euodia and Syntyche (Philippians 4:2-3): Here we see reference to two women who were "true yokefellow" and who labored with Paul in the advancement of the gospel.
 
Junia (Romans 16:7): In this verse we see Paul sending greetings to Andronicus and Junia, his "fellow-prisoners" who are of note among the apostles. Junia is a woman's name. In some modern translations, an "s" has been added (Junias) because the translators were so sure a woman could not be an apostle, that they assumed a copyist has accidentally dropped the "s." However the proper male ending would have been "ius," not "ias." No church commentator earlier than the Middle Ages questioned that Junia was both a woman and an apostle.

Though there were other women throughout the Bible in positions of leadership, such as prophetesses, evangelists, judges, leaders, etc., the above references should be enough to establish that women were indeed a vital and normal part of church leadership. Paul expected women to speak in the church, or else why would he have given the following directive? It would have been useless to give directions for women who were speaking in the church, if they were never allowed to do so.
 
1 Corinthians 11:5, "But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoureth her head: for that is even all one as if she were shaven."

Furthermore, if Paul believed that all women should never teach or speak in church, why does he commend many women who did just that?

With all this in mind, what then do we make of the troubling verses that command women to be silent in the churches? First of all, we must interpret those verses in light of what we have just established--that there were women in leadership positions of the church. Obviously, Paul is not writing to them. He is must be addressing another issue entirely--the women who were loud and unruly during the service, causing disorder and confusion..

When he wrote the Corinthians, he was dealing with a church that was very disorderly in their services. Much of the letter was spent correcting excesses and abuses. Some of these pertained to women in particular and some were to the entire church. Paul is not being prejudiced against women when he instructs the Corinthian women to keep silence. In the early church the seating arrangement was quite different from our modern day churches. Men were seated on one side of the church while the women and children were seated on the opposite side. This is still practiced in many cultures today.

The women of Christ's day were generally uneducated and usually only the men were privileged with an education. Due to this situation, when the church met the women were tempted to shout across the room and ask their husbands the meaning of whatever was being taught. This disturbed the service. Paul was simply saying during the service, "Women, keep your children quiet and you be quiet, and if you have anything to ask your husbands, wait until you get home." Because of the new equality that Christianity brought to women, it could be that some of them were taking their freedom too far, to the point of being obnoxious.

When Paul wrote to Timothy, he gave him a similar directive. Again, it is important to understand the context in which the letter was written. In I Timothy, a careful reader becomes aware that many severe heresies and false teachings that were being dealt with. We can draw a conclusion here that many of the proponents and victims of the false teachings were women. Timothy pastored in Ephesus, and it has been suggested that goddess worship might have played a large part in Paul dealing so severely with the women. Ephesus was a primary center of the worship of Diana or Artemis. The heresies being taught might have suggested that women were authoritative over men and had higher access to spiritual knowledge than men did.

Regardless of the particulars, in both cases we can see that Paul is dealing with specific incidents in specific churches for very particular reasons.

We must understand that many of Paul's epistles dealt with local problems and his commandments are not meant to be taken as "commandments" across the board for all situations. Rather, we are to seek the Lord for the basic principal that needs to be incorporated in our churches. Because of Old Testament precedents that had already been set, apparently it never occurred to Paul to re-establish the case for women in ministry. Why would he need to? The early church took it as a matter of course that Jesus would call and ordain anyone He chose--and that settled it! As a matter of fact, the Bible mentions a prophetess who was in the Temple when Jesus was brought there as a baby. Her name was Anna (Luke 2:25-35), and she was one of two people who recognized Jesus as the Messiah because of her sensitivity to the Holy Spirit.

Paul's writings are sometimes misunderstood today because we do not know all the details that led him to write as he did. We must rely on the Holy Spirit, and the rest of the testimony of Scripture to interpret how we are to apply these things to our everyday lives. Scripture should always be compared with other Scripture and the context taken into consideration. Even in Paul's day, there were those who tried to twist the meaning his words.
 
"...His (Paul's) letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do other Scriptures, to their own destruction" ( 2 Peter 3:16).

It is a fair conclusion that the testimony of the bulk of Scripture, church history and God's anointing upon them, all speak plainly for women being able to fulfill all positions of the five-fold offices of apostle, prophet, pastor, evangelist and teacher.

The above was taken from:

http://www.bible.com/bibleanswers_result.php?id=141

[Gregory]

An interesting commenet taken from the REVIEW:

Church planter extraordinaire Zu Xiu Hua, who has personally started 380 congregations in the northeastern province of Jilin, spoke with Paulsen through an interpreter over an evening meal hosted by Adventist leaders from the city. Her congregations, now totaling more than 20,000 persons in the mostly rural region, are served by dozens of volunteer women whom she trains to conduct Bible studies, preach, and offer spiritual care. One of her converts, Lan Yong Shen, now also an Adventist pastor in the same region, joined her in meeting with Paulsen and the other leaders.  He managers more than 300 congregations with a total of 7000 members.
 
 More than half of the Adventist pastors in China are women, and a large majority of the members are also female. Some pastors have earned formal degrees through seminaries sponsored by the China Christian Council, the umbrella organization that coordinates the affairs of the nation’s estimated 20 million Christians, but an increasing number are emerging from training centers established by local congregations. In meetings with both the national and regional branches of the Christian Council, Paulsen expressed the Adventist church’s interest in assisting both established  seminaries and training centers in preparing larger numbers of pastors equipped to  serve the distinctive needs of Adventists in the country.

 http://www.adventistreview.org/article/2594/archives/issue-2009-1514/finding-faith-in-china-report-2

 

[Johann]

The Beginning of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Denmark
In 1878 John G. Matteson returned from USA to Denmark to proclaim the faith he had discoverd in America. One of his early converts was a young girl, known as Sine Renlev who took a course in the new school Matteson established, and soon after that she started preaching. Here is a word picture found in a local newpaper on February 14, 1890:

„A peculiar movement, rightfully named a Powerful Movement, has recently attacked the southern area of our generally tranquil parish. This movement started among the Baptists at Kolkaer. As far as we know most of these, who have had their services at this place, have now become Adventists. Among them has risen a great prophet in the person of a young and charming lady, using such a pleasant language and a lovely disposition that the audience is all taken by her message. It has been surprising to see what a power this woman has. She preaches one evening after another and people attend in great multitudes, returning to get more. People all want to have her in their homes, and many follow her as if she was an angel from heaven.“

Kronikøren A skriver i Herning Folkeblad d. 14. februar år 1890  From Wikisource.

That article goes on to describe a dangerous heresy which leads even solid Lutherans to leave the blessings of the holy water of infant baptism to follow the magic of this woman.

Sine Renlev kept preaching and sacrificed herself establishing new churches in Denmark. She also sang and played the guitar. I have seen that instrument which then belonged to a pastor‘s wife in Denmark. Sine was a great pastor/evangelist, our first in Denmark. Do you wonder if we have learned from our history and still want female preachers in Denmark?

Without the preaching around 1880 - 1899 by this female pastor our history in Denmark had never been the same. Where would we be without our history which shows us how God has guided His Church in the past? What are these new-comers following the dictates from Rome doing to His Church? What a loss when Sine Renlev died around 1899, but she gave probably about 20 years of her life to preach the gospel with great power. (Seems like I read somewhere years ago that she was sick some time before she died. There was a article about her in 1999 - the hundredth anniversary of her death - by Elder H J Schantz, but I have not been able to get hold of that article now.)

[Johann]

Aliex said:

If a woman claims to be called by God to preach....she is a liar. There is no biblical foundation to support it.

Alex, let me give you a true situation:

World War II was in progress.  In a certaian country in Scandanavia the governmental authorities had removed all of the male clergy of the SDA church from their pulpits who were of a certain age range.  The only male clergy left in that country were a very few elderly clergy.

Two women believed that in these circumstances, in a time of war, the gospel needed to be preached.  So, they struck out on their own and began to hold evangelistic meetings.  During the time that they held evangelistic meetings, several thousand people, accepted Christ and requested baptism.

That presented a problem.  These women were not ordained.  They believed that God had called them to preach the gospil.  They did not believe that they should baptize.  So, the few elderly male clergy left in the country baptized their converts.

Do you believe that under these circumstances God did not call them to preach?  Do you believe that it would have been better if they had not preached the gospil in evangelistic meetings?  Do you believe that it would have been better if these several thousand, both males and females, had not been converted to Christ tlhrough their preaching.

Gregory, I believe the country you are referring to is Finland. I have only been to Finland once on a short visit, but I remember reading articles about these remarkable female preachers in Finland who kept on preaching even after the male pastors returned and young ones joined the forces. I have seen at least one of these remarkable women attending a meeting for pastors in Scandinavia when I was still a young pastor.

[Johann]

Here is a word for those who consider Billy Graham an authority (others need not read it):

Dr. Billy Graham, when asked by David Frost about women's ordination, said, "Women preach all over the world. It doesn't bother me at all from my study of the Scriptures. And there were many women preachers in the Bible." . . .

Yet, each leaves open the possibility of women as preachers. Ironically, on the same day that the SBC published its proposed revision to the "Baptist Faith and Message," USA Today carried an article about Anne Graham Lotz, daughter of the famous evangelist. In that article, Graham called her the "best preacher in the family."

From the Texas Baptist Committed, July 2000

[tinka]

A lot of these called SDA pastors that went to war now presented a problem for that certain sect from that area. They turned out to be conscientious objectors. Now what shall they do?? EW was asked this very question and not to make the post long and not quoting, she advised that if they were to go to war then they should go and did not back their reasoning against the government. With out presenting the whole story it came across that why let others die and protect them--?? and that would leave in other words bad taste against SDA not doing their part. If some could be medics or placed in a position they were not on the firing line it was good but all could not be and therefore seek to do their part.

Well, from that the SDA were much appalled and accusing EW of going against thou shalt not kill.  At that time they broke away from SDA and formed the SDA Reformers it is a huge situation by now.

Their main talk is "Who is Jesuits" and constant talk of the "Catholics" filtrating the SDA secretly. That SDA is Babylon, Just on and on.  It all has the same familiar talk that is now being posted along with complete liberalism. It has great cause in me now to wonder just what really did happen at 3abn beside misuse of funds and backing "Ordained women preachers yea or nay.  But yet it appears now that 3abn must handle infiltrated wantabes. Who knows what happened of what appears to be for this length of time and observance.

and clear off the wall and subject and as I posted on posts long ago after observance of all court proceedings and aspects I felt OJ was innocent. and now some of you may have heard...he was!  Fox is now interested in getting justice --the story is tragic. But I brought this up cause one never knows secrets of evil until they are caught up in it and it leaks one way or the other. till sin finds you out!!!  Yes, I should probably keep many thoughts but no one that knows me including children have to guess my coming and goings. and then I get truth out my way...

[tinka]

Here is a word for those who consider Billy Graham an authority (others need not read it):

Dr. Billy Graham, when asked by David Frost about women's ordination, said, "Women preach all over the world. It doesn't bother me at all from my study of the Scriptures. And there were many women preachers in the Bible." . . .

Yet, each leaves open the possibility of women as preachers. Ironically, on the same day that the SBC published its proposed revision to the "Baptist Faith and Message," USA Today carried an article about Anne Graham Lotz, daughter of the famous evangelist. In that article, Graham called her the "best preacher in the family."

From the Texas Baptist Committed, July 2000

Billy Grahm did not get a lot of scripture right including that, BTW has anyone came across the decked out "ornament, many color flamboyant hair where the hair and eyelashes met"  lady --worse then Tammie Faye Baker appeared.  I discovered it is part of the "Grahm Kingdom".  I do not claim to dislike Billy Grahm or his wife, I listened to him a lot but knew the jumping off point but always felt sorry he never grasped "scripture as it stated" on the Sabbath, and death and rapture but so it goes. But the lady had been hilarious for me to imagine her next concoction of hair as her facial expressions looked to be off into another world while squeaking her voice into such dramatizations. Just watched it the other night and I think her hair must be falling out as now she finally had to cut it. I turned it as I laughed again of such stupid vanity. Almost like someone else on tv that you get glimpses of once in a while. Oh my, Scripture does say their will be strange dress in last days. lol  I just did not like to see some on Hope and abn being shown going that route. so I stated about it. 

Conclusion of Billy Grahm, he made no waves of any doctrine therefore he drew in the most money! Sort of what Olsen is doing. and that leads people into falseness of Ten Commandments or Gods Law

[Johann]

A lot of these called SDA pastors that went to war now presented a problem for that certain sect from that area. They turned out to be conscientious objectors. Now what shall they do?? EW was asked this very question and not to make the post long and not quoting, she advised that if they were to go to war then they should go and did not back their reasoning against the government. With out presenting the whole story it came across that why let others die and protect them--?? and that would leave in other words bad taste against SDA not doing their part. If some could be medics or placed in a position they were not on the firing line it was good but all could not be and therefore seek to do their part.

Well, from that the SDA were much appalled and accusing EW of going against thou shalt not kill.  At that time they broke away from SDA and formed the SDA Reformers it is a huge situation by now.

Their main talk is "Who is Jesuits" and constant talk of the "Catholics" filtrating the SDA secretly. That SDA is Babylon, Just on and on.  It all has the same familiar talk that is now being posted along with complete liberalism. It has great cause in me now to wonder just what really did happen at 3abn beside misuse of funds and backing "Ordained women preachers yea or nay.  But yet it appears now that 3abn must handle infiltrated wantabes. Who knows what happened of what appears to be for this length of time and observance.

and clear off the wall and subject and as I posted on posts long ago after observance of all court proceedings and aspects I felt OJ was innocent. and now some of you may have heard...he was!  Fox is now interested in getting justice --the story is tragic. But I brought this up cause one never knows secrets of evil until they are caught up in it and it leaks one way or the other. till sin finds you out!!!  Yes, I should probably keep many thoughts but no one that knows me including children have to guess my coming and goings. and then I get truth out my way...

I don't know where you get your history from, tinka, but for your information Europe is much more than one nation with many independent countries where there is also quite a difference between Adventists.

One of those Finnish young men who were drafted into war, Bengt Lillas, wrote a book where he told about his encounters and fight to follow his conscience. Just the title of the book gives a good idea of what kind of soldier he was, A Fighter Without Weapons. Incidentally the Swedish word for fighter also means a champion. The book came as a serial in youth magazines in various countries and was a great challenge to be true to God and fight for him without carrying a gun in warfare nor compromise with your conscience and the principles God has given us.

I have met several SDA Reform people, and even their former Union President and his wife became very dear friends of ours. They gave us a pretty good idea of how it all started and what was going on. This leader of the Reformed movement left the Reformers and joined our Church, when they discovered how many mistakes they had made. At a later date I was asked to have meetings with the Reformers on behalf of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, so I am fairly well acquainted with what has gone on.

Besides that I have also struck an acquaintance with the Reform movement in the United States to get an idea of what was going on there.

What you are stating is partly true. . .

[tinka]

For a fact.. the president or leader of the North American Division SDA Reformers and his associate stayed at our farm for 4 weeks before traveling on to their Conference Convention. They were told by someone that knew us they could find hospitality with us and then were told of what had happened to us by SDA and have the story right from the top whether anyone knows the history or not. We were almost convinced but much study led us to not venture there.  I am well aquainted with their origination and why. We had already studied much before hand and started to realize their point sounding wrong bells.

[Gregory]

Johann, I  believe that you are correct that the two women I mentioned were from Finland. I had forgotten.

[Gregory]

SDA Reform Movement:  Their history goes back into Europe and Nazi Germany, although I do not deny a background that is prior to Hitler.  It is complex.  For those who know their history there are two points that are clear:
1) The elected SDA Leadershilp, in the area in which the Reform SDAs arose clearly made some major mistakes.
2) The leadership of what became the Reform SDA Movement clearly made some mistakes and their hands are not clean.

While the outline of the issues that resulted in the growth of the SDA Reform movement have been known for years. It is clear that the picture of the events of the times in which the Reform Movement grew have not been fully understood.  Seminal work in understanding the history of this period has been done by a SDA historian teaching at a New York college (CIty College of New York ?).  I have forgotten his last name, but his first name, as I recall is Ron.

Tinka, as Johann said, your post is only partially true.

By the way, the SDA Reform Movement is a strong supporter of EGW.  One of their issues with the SDA Chruch is their belief that it does not follow EGW as closely as it should.

There is a nice article about the SDA Reform Movement on page 1332 of the 1976 edition of the SDA Encyclodia.  That article concentrates on the Pre- Nazi Germany origins  and is basicly silent on WW II and Nazi Germany.  In my personal approach I place the emphasis on the Nazi Germany time frame, but, I acknowledge the earlier background.

One of the reasons that I do this is that The Reform Movement itself gives a high priority to the Nazi Germany time frame in their accusations of wrong doing on the part of the SDA Church.  There is truth in their accusations of wrong doing.  but, their hands are not clean either.

[princessdi]

Paul said that but there is a clear contradiction with God appointing women in political and spiritual authority, and Paul's later comments against it.  How do you reconcile that contradiction?

Nope, Paul made his position clear time and time again.

I cannot believe many here except myself, Gailon, Bob, and Tinka are the ones who are biblically correct on our position.

[Johann]

In one of the churches where I was a pastor in Denmark I learned of a woman who had meant so much to that church in the past. For years she had held the church together, and I actually met this lady before she died. Although she never received a salary from the church, she functioned like a church pastor, evangelist, Sabbath School teacher - everything.

This was before automobiles were in general use, but to help the church out the Conference President (Hakon Muderspach was his name) had a public campaign in that town. He would travel a couple of hours each way by train. Somehow, like I suppose it happens to administrators, several times during the season something came up suddenly which prevented him from getting to the meeting. Each time he called the female lay evangelist on a short notice, and she always managed to preach a sermon on the subject announced.

This woman kept the church alive for a number of years in spite of her being a female. Several years later this church had a female pastor employed by the conference, and she did the work almost like her sister had done it in the past. She manage to keep the church well alive as long as she was there - better than most male pastors.

[Johann]

As I said before, the German Union President of the Reform movement and his wife became good friends of ours after they joined our Church. We had actually lived and worked in the same area some years before, and both of us regretted that we had not become friends already then. Later he showed me some of the material he had been using against the Church while we were "neighbors". Later he discovered the material he had was not true. Now I am giving this only by memory, where some of the details could be faulty.

His wife's family were the original Reformers, SDA workers in Hannover, Germany. It happened during World War I (1914-1918) when the European Division President (Conradi) sent an order to all workers in Europe that if any pastor would discourage drafted Adventist from from fighting for the Emperor and carry the gun assigned to him, they were no longer workers in good and regular standing in the Adventist Church.

This portion I also heard from Dr. Walter, professor of Church History at Andrews. He was originally from Switzerland and he told us that as a young worker he had received this order from Conradi.

Back to Hannover where a youth leader disagreed with Conrady and helped hide a young man to prevent him from having to carry a gun in the war. For this reason he was fired on orders from Conradi, and with that he and some sympathizers formed the Reformed Church.  It seems to me they had to go under ground for the rest of the war. We can agree now that the Reform Movement was, at that time, the true Church.

After the war, seems like it was 1920, men from the GC came to Germany to negotiate with the Reform people. According to docujments I have seen, and also acknowledged by my friend, the former Reformed President, and also a former Reformed member from USA, the GC people acknowledged the mistake Conradi had made. Conrady left our church and joined the Seventh-day Baptist Church (in Holland, as far as I remember).  They apologized to the Reformed people and welcomed them beck into our fellowship.

Unfortunately the negotations did not succeed. These were the reasons I learned:

1) The reformers refused to accept the apology, because they felt the GC was at fault for what Conradi had done. They felt the GC should have been able to prevent him from making the mistales he did.

2) The reformers then maintained that the GC should not have permitted the SDA young people to response to the draft even if they could work as medical cadets, while the GC maintained this was in accordance with the agreement made between the Church and Abraham Lincoln.

The present Reformers seem to have added a few items which they use as reasons for still having their own movement apart from the main Church, but I will not attempt to get into that here.