The Bible Teaches that Women can Teach Men in the Church

A few words prior to the onset of my argument. The resolution states "The Bible Teaches that Women can Teach Men in the Church. " This needs to be clarified prior to starting, that this is not a debate about if women can be leaders in business, can teach college courses that include men, or can be the heads of households. To be very strict, this is not even a debate about if women can teach men in the Church. .. it's about if the Bible teaches that. (I would argue that if the Bible teaches it, that is the way it should be in the Church. .. but that is a different debate. ) How this impacts our debate is the following: Examples of successful women in executive ministry positions in modern day, or historical, Churches have no bearing on the resolution. Just because something pragmatically works, does not mean that is what the Bible teaches. I call this to light, because I do not want my opponent to waste his text arguing from that angle, because it is easily defeated by appealing to the resolution. Furthermore, as Pro and Instigator, my opponent as the burden of proof in this debate. That means, that he needs to prove beyond any reasonable objection that the Bible affirmatively teaches that Women can Teach Men in the Church. In order to refute this, Con must only show that the Bible does not affirmatively teach that and need not show that it teaches the contrary. However, to be complete in my argument, I will in fact show that the Bible does teach that Women should not teach men in the Church. On to the Argument. To begin, I will summarize my opponent's arguments and proceed to dismantle them. Point A) God is Fair. Gender Discrimination is not fair, therefore God cannot practice gender discrimination. Point B) 1st Corinthians exhorts women to practice prophecy. This means that the prohibitions against women teaching are cultural in other epistles. This point is supported by Acts when it says "your sons and daughters shall prophesy. " Point C) There are female Prophets in the Old Testament as well as the New Testament. If we see examples of women teaching in the Bible, that means the Bible teaches that women can teach. Rebuttal to Point A) No where in Scripture does a passage teach that God is fair. The entire book of Job deals with this question. A man whom God Himself describes as Without Blame has his children killed, his property taken away, and his very health stricken from him. .. simply to prove that he is indeed blameless. This certainly does not seem fair. Near the end of the book when God confronts Job and Job asks "Why me God? " we do not see a gentle nudge toward fairness or an apology from God. God simply responds "I'm God, who are you to question me? Furthermore, we see God choosing one person over the other, or one nation over the other, for no reason other than he chose that person. Why was Moses spared and the infant down the road thrown in the river? Why was Israel chosen at the cost of the Canaanite inhabitants of the Promised land? Scripture teaches that God is Just, but never that he is fair. In fact the entire point of the New Testament is that God gives humans who trust in Jesus something they do not deserve, rather he gives them eternal life as opposed to eternal condemnation. Beyond that, my opponent has not proved that allowing a man to teach and not a woman is a violation of fairness. Point B) My opponent has assumed something that the text does not state. The passage simply says everyone. My opponent has made the mistake of assuming that this means everyone should prophesy, rather than reading it for what it says as "everyone who prophesies. " It is not saying that everyone should prophesy, rather it is saying that the person who does prophesy speaks to men for their strengthening. To assume that this means women are prophesying is to read into the text something that is not there. Furthermore, my opponent fails to see that the scriptures do not use the terms prophecy and teaching interchangeably and assumes that if a woman prophesies that she is teaching. This is not the case. In Scripture, Prophesy refers to a unique event in which a person is given direct revelation by God to share with a group or specific person. Teaching however, refers specifically to a general event in which a person shares doctrinal statements (usually from the Scriptures) in order to edify the Church. They are not the same, and I would challenge my opponent to show me any instance in the Scripture of a woman teaching anyone, especially a man. There is a further objective I will elucidate in my affirmative argument later. Rebuttal to Point C) Please see above comments on the difference between prophecy and teaching. Furthermore, just because the Bible shows us examples of something, does not mean that it is teaching us to do so. There are passages that are DESCRIPtive and DESCRIBE how things were, and there are passages that are PRESCRIPtive and PRESCRIBE how things should be. Historical documents like Genesis-Ruth, the Gospels and Acts are generally descriptive and not prescriptive. Otherwise my opponent would also be arguing that Christians should be communistic (Acts 2) or that we should slaughter non-Christians and take their land (Joshua). Affirmative Argument) In 1st Timothy, Chapter 2 Paul makes an explicit statement. "[A] I desire then that in every place the [B] men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling; likewise also that [C] women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire, but with what is proper for women who profess godliness—with good works. [D] Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. [F] I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. [G] For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the [H] woman was deceived and became a transgressor. " (ESV, Vs 8-13, Xrefs mine. ) A few specific comments, please see the in text Xrefs that correspond with my argument. [A] Paul states that in every place men should pray. The word used here is a gender specific word that means [B] Male (Gk = Aner) as opposed to the gender non-specific Mankind (Gk = Anthropos). He s specifically referring to the Males in the congregation when he exhorts them to pray. He then says "Likewise" and gives the [C] women, again gender specific Female (Gk = Guney), directions. The "Likewise" means "in the same way" so he is saying that the instructions he gives the Women is equivalent to the instructions he give the men. So where Men pray without anger or quarrel, women should adorn themselves modestly. These two different actions accomplish the same result in Paul's mind. He then says [D] "Let the women learn quietly" and explains [F] "I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man. " Now, many make the argument that this is a cultural restriction for the church in Ephesus because of the Temple of Venus. .. however, Paul makes the argument from a universal (a least in his mind) circumstance that applies to all people. He says that women should not teach or exercise authority over a man because of the [G] order of creation and the fact that it was [H] Eve who was deceived. All women everywhere are part of the created order and affected by Adam and Eve's transgression in the same way. Paul is saying [G] "Because women were created second, they should not teach over a man. " He is also saying [H] "because the woman was deceived, women should not teach over man. " Paul explicitly roots his argument in a circumstance that is NOT cultural, because he is making an argument that is NOT cultural. That will be enough for now, I think. I look forward to reading my opponent's response.