The Bible Teaches that Women can Teach Men in the Church

My opponent seems to have abandoned the idea of an organized argument. I will try to keep the thoughts as organized as possible. "The Bible records it was women who taught the male apostles that Jesus' prophetic word was fulfilled in his resurrection, but the apostles would not believe at first." - The passage in question simply records the women reporting a fact. This does not constitute teaching. When I watch the news to hear that the US has participated in an attack on Libya, the news did not teach me anything... they simply reported a fact. My opponent brings up the account of Aquilla and his wife Priscilla expounding something to Apollos. This is an example of a descriptive passage. The bible has reported that a woman once taught a man... however this does not constitute TEACHING. This is again simply describing an event... there are several events in the Bible that are recorded that we should not emulate (David murdering Uriah to steal his wife, whom he had already committed adultery with.) When we have a descriptive account of someone doing something, and than a prescriptive passage that says the otherwise we can come to one of two conclusions. The first is that Paul was wrong in his prescriptive passage, or that the person acting in the descriptive passage was acting incorrectly. If we dismiss Paul's prescriptive passages... we have a big problem. Beyond that, this passage states that Aquilla and Priscilla taught together. This does not constitute a case of a woman teaching executively over a man. My opponent then launches into a lengthy discussion of the semantics of fairness vs justice. He tries to claim that because fairness includes "lack of injustice" in its definition, that justice and fairness are synonyms. This is a faulty association. Lets look at an analogy. Lets construct a definition of "dog" that follows the same pattern. Dog: A carnivorous mammal of the Genus Canis and Species Lupus, with the subspecies Familiaris. Free from two leggedness. In this example, if we follow Pro's logic... "free of two leggedness" is synonymous with dog (Fair = free of injustice). However, there are many things that are free of two leggedness that are not dogs. Cats, Cows, Insects, Arachnids, Worms, Snakes... Furthermore... this is not even a function of using apaphatic definitions (Defining something by wht it is not). There are many Carnivorous Mammals that are not dogs (Large Cats, Otters, Orcas, etc) and there are even many animals that are of the Genus Canis and Species Lupus that are not dogs (Wolves, Dingos, etc). Just like something can be a non-two legged member of the Genus/Species Canis/Lupus and not be a dog... something can be "free from injustice" and not be "fair." My opponent then goes into a large discourse about the will of God... which is irrelevant to this topic. My opponent appealed to the "fairness" of God... which I have shown is not an attribute that is given to God in reference to vocation. However, I shall respond to the discourse since I have space... God has multiple types of wills. At a high level, a sovereign God demonstrates a Providential Will (Causing things to happen) and a Permissive Will (Allowing things to happen). However, if he could stop an event like the holocaust and didn't... he allowed it to happen (Permissive Will). If he could not stop it from happening, we would say it happened against his will... so if he could but didn't, we say it happened according to his will. Also, there is something called the "Moral Will of God" which is used to refer to what God finds morally acceptable. There are many examples in scripture of God Providentially or Permissively ordaining thing that are contrary to his moral will... The Crucifixion of the only innocent man in history is one, the killing of women and children in the Judges and Joshua Narrative is another. My opponent then argues that "God showed Job that his knowledge and ways are so vastly superior that we can trust that he is always doing the best thing even when we don't know his reasons." Does this line of reasoning not apply to him selecting men to teach rather than women. Perhaps God has "knowledge and ways" that are "vastly superior" that prove that this is the just and fair order of things... you need to be consistent in your application. If Job couldn't question the fairness of God... why can you? He then moves on to discuss praying and prophesying in 1st Corinthians... I have already shown that Prayer and Prophecy are not the same as teaching. I am not contesting that women can pray or prophesy, I am contesting that they can teach over a man. I'm not sure of the point Pro is trying to make with his discussion of the word "What" in 1 Cor 14:36. Furthermore, I'm also not sure where he got the translation that says What. I see it in the KJV... but the actual word in question is "h" (Greek Eta, with a rough breathing mark and an accent) which means "or" and is a "disjunctive conjunction. Used to distinguish things or thoughts which either mutually exclude each other, or one of which can take the place of the other."[A] What Paul is teaching in the rest of the passage (vs 26-40) is that the Church is supposed to teach according to the principles that God has ordained. He describes this order thusly (vs 35) "If there is anything [the women who are to keep silent in the churches] desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church." He then uses "or" as a way to set up a rhetorical dichotomy and says "Or did the Word of God come from you." Rather than "What, are you nuts?" Which is completely unfounded in its comparison... we might have a boss say "This is the way we are going to run this department, or do you think you are in charge?" This sets up one side of the premise as true and one side as false (typically the second half), in this case we see that the first half, teaching in an orderly manner with the women remaining silent is the true half of the dichotomy, while "does the word of God come from you" is the false side. Finally, Pro says "2 Tim 2:9-15 does not mention a gathering for worship and is probably discussing matters in the family setting where we know a husband is head of his wife, therefore he would be the one teaching the family." I didn't realize that "probably" was a valid debating tactic. However, the entire letter of 1st Timothy is written to a pastor of a church, and the entire content of the letter is about educating Timothy how to correctly run a Church. Beyond that... we don't have to guess at what Paul means... he says it flat out. "I do not permit a woman to teach over a man" and supports his assertion with a circumstance that is universal to all men and all women, the created order. My opponent has still not shown why Paul would appeal to a universal circumstance to make a localized command. Furthermore, Paul does not need to appeal to any authority. In Philemon, he has the authority to simply command if he desires (1:8). He could have exercised this in Timothy's case. Also, when an author (Paul or anyone else) gives us an explicit reason for a statement, it is disrespectful to undermine that and create another reason. Paul could have easily said "Timothy, I don't let women teach because it would make us look silly to the world." or "Timothy, the Temple of Aphrodite in Ephesus has connected women teachers to some gnarly stuff, and we don't want that image." But he didn't, he said "Timothy, man was created before woman and the woman was deceived, not the man... I don't want them teaching because of that." Thank you for your rigorous debate, I look forward to the next round. [A] http://www.blueletterbible.org...