Simon_Templar
Not all who wander are lost
So that one verse, taken out of context, overrides the fact that Paul had female co-workers, that Priscilla taught Apollos, that Deborah had been judge over all Israel, that both the OT and NT had female prophets?
As I've said, many a time, my Minister does not have authority over me - and that was true even when we had a male Minister. Maybe things are different in other countries/traditions, but it is not the Minister's job to tell us what to think/do, where to live, what job to have, who to marry, how much money to give and so on. They can't even insist that we go to church. Ministers can, and have, given me references for jobs/voluntary work - that doesn't mean I am beholden to them or that I even need to agree with them.
So in what sense does a Minister even "have authority" over someone - far less usurp, or snatch it by force as I'm told the Greek suggests?
This issue is often clouded by the fact that the modern church doesn't really understand the ancient Church.
Consider for a moment that the original question was about a woman being a "Priest" does your church even have priests? Are you talking about women being "pastors" or "ministers" because being a pastor or a minister is not the same thing as being a priest.
Modern Christians who no longer understand distinctions like that, or what this distinctions meant in the ancient Church, frequently do prevent women from taking on legitimate roles and jobs, in an attempt to be faithful to the text, because they don't have the categories to understand what the text meant.
You are absolutely right to ask the question
So in what sense does a Minister even "have authority" over someone - far less usurp, or snatch it by force as I'm told the Greek suggests?
The answer is that ministers and pastors in the modern Protestant sense don't have authority and they generally don't even claim to have the kind of authority that Paul was talking about.
What Paul was talking about was the authority that included allowing and forbidding practices, like saying "you are not allowed to eat meat on Fridays" and people having to obey. Or the authority to literally exile people from the Church, not just tell them not to come back to your individual building, but literally to bar them from the entire Christian fellowship, the entire body of Christ. Or the authority to forgive sins, and NOT to forgive sins.
No modern Protestant minister or pastor that I've ever met even claims to have those kinds of authority, and certainly most modern protestants don't believe that their pastor/minister has that kind of authority.
Regarding "usurp" or "snatch it by force". Authority by it's very nature cannot be taken, it can only be had inherently, or by delegation.
For example. If I create something, I have inherent authority over it (note the similarity to the word author). I have authority over it because I literally own it. Someone else cannot come along and say "I'm taking authority over this" that is usurpation. I can, however, delegate my authority to another person.
Likewise, all authority ultimately rests with God and the only people who have authority are those to whom God has delegated it. God can also delegate the authority to delegate authority. He did this with the Apostles. He gave them the authority to pass on their authority to others.
Most of the time authority is passed on from people to whom God delegated it to others. So if God gave me an office of authority, I could pass on that office to someone else. This is one of the things that the laying on of hands was used for in the Bible.
While it is possible for God to make a new grant of authority to someone who did not receive it from the established authorities. This is very dangerous to trust because it is very difficult to verify. Anyone can claim this and it is incredibly difficult to prove, maybe even impossible to prove.
The point being, the things being done by the mainstream Protestant minister, are not what Paul is talking about.
As a last aside... If, by your own admission, your church does not have what Paul is talking about here, in terms of authority... do you ever wonder why?
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