Female Pastors - Some thoughts about it

Red-Curious · 2019-01-14T18:07:47+00:00

I'll preface by saying that I agree with your conclusion. That said, your backing is weak. Consider this comment less a personal dig at you and more a way for me to openly process some ideas I have on an upcoming post on effective communication.

preacher's wife ... didn't do much for the church

What about all the preacher's wives who actually do hard work? You can't generalize a few anecdotes onto everyone. That's a poor way to make a point.

atrociously bad sermons

I've heard many excellent sermons preached by women. If one of your main excuses is that "women aren't as good at preaching," then you're going to get a lot of objections on that ground alone. At that point you're arguing probability: women are less likely to preach good sermons than men. That isn't a very persuasive leg to stand on for most people, and it does nothing to address the crowd who follow the women who actually do preach good sermons. Once again: you can't generalize a few bad women preachers that you've heard onto everyone. This is fallacious logic.

And to be clear: that's all you're arguing at this point: logic. You've only made philosophical and observational arguments, which are inferior to theology, which you rightly moved on to ...

Somehow the modern church decided to stomp over a bunch of verses ... doesn't even care about the Bible at all.

Ah, just like you probably stomp over verses that disobedient children should be put to death and alleged cheaters should drink a vile concoction to determine if their claimed virginity was authentic or not?

"But those are all just Old Testament laws; I quoted New Testament verses" ... Right. So do you let women speak during small groups, which were considered churches in the early days? Do you demand your wife and sisters wear hair coverings? Do you eat rare meats that still have blood in them? Do you check to make sure the animal whose meat your eating wasn't strangled first? These are all NT commands.

"But I can justify why I don't follow those verses!" ... as do those who support women in church leadership. There are many strong cases that can be made. That doesn't make them right. It just means that you're arguing from a position of weakness.

Again, I'm not saying you're wrong - you're just being irrationally dismissive. When you can't understand and articulate from your opponent's perspective, you lack credibility in your own perspective and it sounds like you're just another ignorant extremist, the way the liberal media likes to portray us.

Another brief note on quoting verses without context: wrong application happens this way all the time. After dinner one day, I said it's time to clean the kitchen, and I assigned my son the job of cleaning the table. He put the dishes in the sink then wiped all the spilled food on the floor. I scolded him for this and he didn't understand: "You said to clean the table, and the table is clean. What did I do wrong?" He focused on one isolated thing I said - the part that was to him - and ignored the context that we were cleaning, not making a bigger mess. His application, while technically correct, led to the exact wrong conclusion about what to do. When we quote verses in isolation, without contemplating the greater context of what God is saying and doing throughout His Word, we run the risk of doing the same thing - and if we get the right conclusion, it is merely a matter of accident, not proper interpretation.

Another point: your post mistakenly assumes that preaching is the primary role of the pastor. There is a phrase that gets thrown around in Christian circles every now and then: "the primacy of preaching." It's not found in the Bible. But somehow this concept has caught on as if preaching is the primary job of pastors. A more biblical approach would be to consider "shepherding" as a whole to be the primary job of pastors. Preaching can be one part of that, but if that's all a pastor does, or if that's seen as his primary role, he is grossly misleading his congregation and I would never follow such a man unless he were open to correction on that point.

So, if a woman is a bad preacher, what if she is excellent - even better than the men in the congregation - at all the other responsibilities of shepherding? Now your preaching argument loses even more weight.

Rather than quoting a few verses without context, the easiest solution is to take the same approach Paul does: point to Genesis. God created men to lead and women to follow. This is something that was not only true in the beginning, but remained true in the New Testament. There are plenty of posts already up on this, so I won't re-hash it all here. By pointing to Genesis, Paul is saying that his teachings were on the order of creation, not on what was most effective in the present culture. When women take roles of leadership within the church, including positional authority over men, they are violating that order of creation.

Simply put: it's wrong because God said so, not because women are lazy leaders or bad preachers. Why did God say so? Because it falls within the design of how he created men and women. Why did he create men and women that way? Because humanity needed a tangible leader-follower structure on earth within a gendered context in order to be able to grasp the leader-follower structure on a spiritual level with Christ within our spiritual marriage context. It all points back to how God wants to relate with us. When we allow women into leadership over men, it leaves the implication that the church can be a leader over God too - and God simply wouldn't have that. And yet in the age when the church lets women lead, we also see the church trying to control what God does and doesn't say, what he does and doesn't act on, etc. The church thinks it IS God rather than being an ambassador. That's the danger.

Jalakee · 2019-01-14T14:33:18+00:00

I dont attend church but did for many years and agree for the same reasons. I find their sermons insufferable and dont think they have the same ability to lead and connect with an entire congregation as men do. Not to say there arent bad male pastors, but in general they are more organized, better teachers of the word, and impartial in the right ways. Also it sets a bad precedent for female leadership in the home, etc. Taboo opinion to have these days but whatever.

Crazy_Ol_Maurice · 2019-01-14T16:10:25+00:00

I’ve never heard a convicting message from a female pastor. Similar to their role in family dynamics, they are the comforter, not the protector. Their messages are for newborn Christians but that’s also the problem, they keep them at that infantile stage in Christianity. I think female pastors best represent the milk of the Word whereas male pastors better represent the meat of the Word.

Male pastors can better relay the concept of a Heavenly Father. They can preach on God’s love but also his wrath. Whereas female pastors focus mainly on God’s love and see it completely inconsistent to preach about God’s wrath in the same sermon.

I think women can make good Sunday school teachers but ultimately stunt the growth of a maturing Christian.

OsmiumZulu · 2019-01-14T16:06:21+00:00

Churchianity ≠ Christianity

WorkingHardAtIt · 2019-01-14T20:00:08+00:00

Hey Friend,

I believe that the predominance of female preachers can (in part) be traced back to the unfortunate way boys and girls have been raised differently over the last 40 years or so. Boys are continually being told to 'wait your turn', 'don't push in', 'learn to listen' and 'hold your tongue'. On the other hand, girls are continually told to 'stick up for yourself', 'don't take no for an answer', and 'bring out your leadership potential'. I don't know if your experience has been the same, but that's certainly how it has been for the last few decades in my part of the world. I have never yet seen a leadership forum solely for young men, yet there appear to be a predominance of these solely for young women. Now there are some parts of this message which are helpful, but when mixed with the church, it can lead to the problem you are reporting.

Many churches are keen to develop new leaders, so if you have an entire generation of men who have been conditioned to be placid, and an entire generation of women who have been told to be bold leaders, you get the mess we have now.

In my opinion, this is largely a man problem. I think men need to 1) continue to be convinced of the value of vocational ministry as a path of seeking first God's kingdom, and 2) continue to encourage young men to be biblical leaders, be entrepreneurial for the gospel, and to grasp responsibility with both hands, not shy away from it.

That's just my two cents brother, God bless you!

Stryker7200 · 2019-01-14T14:26:37+00:00

Female led churches are not churches. They are temples to Satan.

nut-busting · 2019-01-20T17:23:35+00:00

It’s unbiblical, sentence after sentence after sentence proving women can, may and should not preach. Everyone knows this. Some people feel the need to walk on the edge between hell and heaven.

Hannelore010 · 2019-02-22T23:13:18+00:00

Whenever we encounter a female “pastor,” (pastorix) we tell our kids they are pretending. Not in the fun way, but the pathetic way where they don’t realize they aren’t actually what they think they are, and they embarrass themselves without realizing it

And that women can be pastors in the same way men can be mothers or women kings. It’s a categorical error

Title	Female Pastors - Some thoughts about it
Author	Lairhoss
Upvotes	19
Comments	9
Date	January 14, 2019 1:33 PM UTC (5 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/RPChristians
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/RPChristians/comments/afvude/female_pastors_some_thoughts_about_it/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/RPChristians/female-pastors-some-thoughts-about-it.301487 https://theredarchive.com/post/301487