From: Jonathan Robie (jonathan@texcel.no)
Date: Sun Feb 15 1998 - 07:19:09 EST
At 11:21 PM 2/14/98, Ben Crick wrote:
> I would like to see Ward Powers respond to this thread. In his book /The
> Ministry of Women in the Church/ he writes "an elder is to be (according to
> the literal meaning of the Greek) 'a one-woman man', that is, a person
who is
> loyal to a wife. The expression does not constitute a requirement that a
> prospective elder must be married (that would be worded differently, that he
> 'have a wife', or by using the word for 'to be married'). Rather, the
> expression means that he is not to be emotionally promiscuous or
flirtatious;
> he must not be a person who is susceptible to becoming involved with other
> woman in the congregation (or elsewhere). He must be a man who is
responsible
> and trustworthy in his behaviour with women" (page 133).
I like this, particularly because it is the first interpetation I've seen
that makes sense of the phrase hENOS ANDROS GUNH in 1 Tim 5:9. Why
shouldn't a woman be enrolled as a widow if she'd been married more than
once? But if a woman had been flirtatious or promiscuous, that would be an
indication that she was not a woman of good works. And it also fits in with
the concern expressed in 1 Tim 5:11 that younger women might feel sensual
desires and want to get married, setting aside their pledge. An older woman
who had shown herself subject to such desires might be similarly vulnerable.
Jonathan
___________________________________________________________________________
Jonathan Robie jwrobie@mindspring.com
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