From: Peter Phillips (p.m.phillips@cliff.shef.ac.uk)
Date: Fri Jun 27 1997 - 03:22:41 EDT
But to put Theresa's two postings together - if you accept the role of prophetess and that Philip's daughters in Acts were prophetesses, then I don't see your reluctance to accept the role of Apostle as a functional office within the Church in Paul's time.
In one of the list of gifts we have a clear push in this direction: God has established in the church first apostles, then prophets, then teachers....How could the assumption that apostle is a church office be more firmly founded? Not only is it an office, but it is an office which is part and parcel of the edification of the Church - surely the whole point of the gifts in 1 Cor 12.
Secondly, if personal witness of Jesus was the overriding qualification to be an apostle then clearly there would have been hundreds - see Paul's list of those to whom Jesus appeared not to mention the thousands who must have met with him in his life time - some of whom clearly rejected him. APOSTOLOS is not MARTUS. An apostle is surely one sent out by Jesus. Paul became an apostle because Jesus sent him out after his experience on the Damascus Road. Perhaps Junia had a sending experience and this was ratified in the Church....you see where I'm going :) ?
Pete Phillips,
Cliff College, England
-----Original Message-----
From: Theresa J List, Dcs [SMTP:fcvandvi@juno.com]
Sent: 27 June 1997 03:59
To: jwrobie@mindspring.com; FCVandVI@juno.com; B-Greek@virginia.edu
Subject: Re: Junia EN TOIS APOSTOLOIS (and Andronicus too)
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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