From: Theresa J List, Dcs (fcvandvi@juno.com)
Date: Thu Jun 26 1997 - 22:59:29 EDT
On Thu, 26 Jun 1997 23:41:16 -0400 Jonathan Robie
<jwrobie@mindspring.com> writes:
>In Acts 21:9, Paul visits Philip the evangelist, who had four virgin
>daughters who were prophetesses. (This kind of sentence always strikes
>me as
>a little strange: "Well, its good to see you, Paul! I'd like you to
>meet my
>four virgin daughters, who are prophetesses...") This sounds a lot
>like an
>position of some kind. Yet Paul seems to indicate that women shouldn't
>even
>speak in church in 1 Tim 2:12 ff and 1 Cor 14:34 ff. Could there
>really be a
>prophetess who couldn't speak in church? What exactly would such a
>prophetess do?
>
>Jonathan
>
>P.S. the last time I confronted these questions was the time that a
>woman
>asked me if I would sit under a woman. I replied that it depended a
>great
>deal on how much the woman weighed...
I suppose that would also depend upon your marital state! :)
Anyhow, there were most certainly women prophetesses, like Anna, for
example who SPOKE (LALEIN! Look it up!) in the temple! So, women are
not to speak (LALEIN, 1 Co 14:34) in the assembly, but, of course, Anna
did this with God's sanction. Or, 1 Cor. 11:5, a mere few hundred words
before the injunction against speaking in 1 co 14, where women are to
prophesy with their heads covered. I refuse to believe that either God
or Paul are schizofrenic, erego I know there is some way to understand
these as not contradictory. That way would be to understnad the
differences in office between prophet(ess), deacon(ess), overseer, etc.
I can also confidently assert that I have no clue yet what the office of
prophet(ess) entails, short of some fashion of "forthtelling God's Word."
Theresa List
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