How to defend the belief only men should be ordained?

I suggest you are using a straw man argument here, intending by exaggeration to suggest that any criticism of any Old Testament law (such as laws regulating the use of slavery assuming that slavery was an OK by God and slave owning men), is a direct attack upon God's integrity. This seems to work well only if the assumption is made that all of OT scripture must be understood to be the actual moral precepts of Almighty God, and not a record of the legislative norms of a late Bronze Age agrarian/semi nomadic society.

Set fire to that straw man and it's imagined by its artificer that what's left is a victorious fundamentalist interpretation of the Old Testament as a blueprint for the perfect, God ordained system of Law, which if imposed upon the world, (as God did upon the Israelites), would result in blissful Utopia for all the Earth and its inhabitants.

But it IS only a straw man because The Law and Old Testament values, no matter how elevated by a fundamentalist belief system, to the status of "The words and Edicts of Almighty God", which such a belief system dictates, " should guide our lives and actions in every conceivable way," is incapable of ever delivering such a Utopia. The Teachings of Jesus Christ and all of His Apostles and Evangelists fully confirm that fact.

When asked "“Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

Far from implying that The Old Testament Law is a comprehensive manual of perfect God given rules, ensuring a perfect society on Earth, if followed to the letter, Jesus Christ is saying that LOVE itself can only be learned and gained directly from GOD. And it is THIS alone which can discern the mind of God on how we should interact with our neighbours on Earth.

Therefore a codified system of Love management through The Law is simply not available to mankind - EXCEPT through the ministry of The Holy Spirit and a God imparted - renewed heart.

If this, (Christ suggested), new method of discerning the extent that Women's Ministry is allowable by God, quite apart from any Old Testament "LAW" or "Example", one simply cannot point to Old Testament LAW or example and use it as a guide to correct praxis in Christ's Church. It would be an ABUSE of Old Testament Law and New Testament "Life", to try to use it that way in support of arguments against the emancipation and elevation of our sisters in Christ to the office of the priesthood by Christ's church on Earth, directly guided by The Spirit of the God, that it's first commandment is to LOVE ONE ANOTHER.
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All the verses which say that only men can minister in the church.

All the verses that say that man to woman is like Christ to the Church.

All the verses that say that man is made in the image of God, while the woman is made in the image of man.

There is a whole ocean here of Christology and biblical anthropology of what being a man, and being a woman, is, and how it relates to spiritual leadership.

Again you are imposing modern forms of speech, highly colored by 19th century positivism and the recent "speech-act" theories, coined literally in the 1960s. That's how recent your mental model of language is. Even in the 18th century, not to mention earlier, language was not used in the sense you are implying. The mere statement of something was not seen as equivalent to "establishing" or normalizing it.

So for example, you say that Paul teaches slaves to obey their earthly masters. But -- Christ also teaches us to turn the other cheek when assaulted, doesn't he. Does that then make the assault acceptable? Does Christ "permit assault" when he tells us to turn the other cheek?

This is how the rot of modernism is blinding people who aren't even aware of being blinded to the true meaning of Scripture.

So no, the Bible does not permit slavery, any more than it permits us to be assaulted. But if we are assaulted, the highest form of Christianity, a higher form of manliness and courage, is exhibited when we manfully bear the burden rather than striking back. And similarly if we are enslaved, should we try to kill our slaveowners (especially with the word "slave" having a radically different 1st century meaning)? No, we should not try to kill them, and neither should we make pretend like it's the movies, and stand there proudly until the slave guards beat us. We may try to escape if possible if no one is watching, but we should obey if we have no recourse. That does not mean we endorse slavery.

 

I think this is getting away from us due to our abstraction. I obviously agree with you that we do not endorse slavery, the point of this exercise is that reading the WO passages as you do (or more accurately as Rexlion argued, but presumably you are defending because you agree) requires us to read the slavery passages as I am suggesting. I would go so far to say scripture actually repudiates slavery. It does not do so clearly. A shallow reading of scripture clearly permits it. I am suggesting that the depth of analysis we apply to readings on slavery we ought also use on readings relating to the treatment of women. Some are no longer necessary mechanically (e.g. strict dress codes for women, I'm sure we all agree are now optional not mandatory. We can honour the intent of the rule without following it precisely as Paul outlined). Some may still be necessary.

I reject your characterisation of how language is used, it was used in the 1780s-90s in France during their revolution, and in Haiti as a defence for slavery. I can't think of any specific examples earlier than that, but I also don't think I can think of any example where scripture would have been quoted to defend the institution of slavery prior to that. It seems unlikely to me that how language is used has been redefined for every language on Earth in such a short time. It's up to the reader to comprehend the intent as it has always been. I agree you can read it without necessarily supporting slavery, that is how I read it, however it's not new to read it as an endorsement of slavery. Regardless, I was only using the epistles because they are also what we use to talk about women's permissibility as priests. For the sake of ease of argument there are far more detailed clauses in scripture:

As for the male and female slaves whom you may have, it is from the nations around you that you may acquire male and female slaves. You may also acquire them from among the aliens residing with you, and from their families that are with you, who have been born in your land; and they may be your property. You may keep them as a possession for your children after you, for them to inherit as property. These you may treat as slaves, but as for your fellow Israelites, no one shall rule over the other with harshness.
~ Leviticus 25.44-46 on slaves outside the covenant

These are the ordinances that you shall set before them:

When you buy a male Hebrew slave, he shall serve for six years, but in the seventh he shall go out a free person, without debt. If he comes in single, he shall go out single; if he comes in married, then his wife shall go out with him. If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master’s and he shall go out alone. But if the slave declares, ‘I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out a free person’, then his master shall bring him before God. He shall be brought to the door or the doorpost; and his master shall pierce his ear with an awl; and he shall serve him for life.
~ Exodus 21.1-6 on slaves given extra rights by the covenant.​

Now those laws were never repealed by a prophet. Jesus never abolished them, nor did any other prophet. We do not need a prophet to tell us God actually opposes slavery, we can use our reason, guided by the Spirit and by Scripture, to work it out ourselves and determine slavery is repugnant to God's will. If we can do it with slavery we can do it with WO. That doesn't mean WO is all good intrinsically, but it means it can't be dismissed by saying "If God didn't want us to follow the plain reading of 1 Timothy 2 He would tell us!". I think He does tell us, every day.

Yes, God did send Jesus to talk about marriage, but that doesn't mean he sent Jesus to talk about everything. Perhaps man was not ready to hear about slavery. Man was certainly not ready to hear about WO, if WO is pleasing to God.

 

Think about the gradual abolition of slavery in Europe over the period from 500 to 1500 AD. Remember that there was a time when Christians enslaved other Christians. But you have this inevitable one-way progression where in the 1300s some country makes an edict that no more slaves will be permitted in Poland; or in England that the Normans can no longer enslave the Saxons. It was a powerful, inevitable, centuries-long movement, because slavery was just seen as incompatible with the basic tenets of Christianity, centuries before the Abolitionism. There was never made a strong good Biblical case for slavery, although sure pro-slavery people tried to cite the verses you posted, just as pro-WO people cite that "there is no man and no woman in Christ". People latch on to whatever they can, even if the case is hopelessly against them.

This is a key point, thank you for letting me address it.

You have heard of the female priestesses in both the Greek and Roman cultures, right? Remember even something as recent as the movie "300" about the Spartans. It had that famous depiction of the priestess at the Temple of Delphi, who was able to speak the very words of God, something none of the male heroes could do. Here is a still with her from the movie:



Here are other examples of how prevalent female priestesses were in the Culture into which Christians were born:



Some helpful articles on priestesses who were sacred, virginal, and untouchable:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vestal_Virgin


In this context, then, the Christians' rejection of female priesthood was radical and unheard of. When St. Paul said that women must be silent in the Church, or, that "as man is in the image of God, so woman is not in the image of God, but in the image of man", it was radical. Christ our Lord having so many holy women yet ordaining only men, was radical and exclusionary.

That Christians didn't embrace WO because they "tolerated" the "misogyny" of the era couldn't be further from the truth. The era was uniquely amenable to women priests, women bishops. In fact the lack of women clergy among Christians lessened the amount of converts, people being so used to that in their native religions. If WO was pleasing to God, then there was no better time and place, no better cultural moment, than the times of the Old and New Testament.

The key point missing in your statement is what has priority. We can't allow ourselves to forget that everything we say and do, all our conclusions, have to be (first) subject to the Scripture, and second, to the authority of the Church. Once we comply with those two constraints, then sure, let our Reason roam free, as the Anglican tradition has done incredibly well for centuries. But Reason is not sovereign, in spiritual matters. It must submit to God's revealed Word, and it must obey the ministers which he has selected to speak in his name.

This rigid hierarchy of powers: first Scripture, then the Church, then Reason, was denied in the Episcopal Church way back in the 1950s. This is why today they have transgender priests, and women priests who preach that "abortion is a blessing". It started from a rejection of that hierarchy of powers.

So in our discussion of slavery, it is not enough to say that "our reason" says it was bad, and who cares what Scripture says. No Scripture is first, above all earthly conclusions. Then the Church. Then, yes, our Reason.

And similarly with WO, it is not possible to say that "we've evolved" our views. There is no evolution of ethics. Ethics does not change. Human nature never changes. Truth is forever. And God's word is forever. It can never be erased that woman was made in the image of man. St. Paul was not afraid of being "cancelled". He himself says how he was beaten, whipped, robbed, shipwrecked, his teeth broken, he hungered, he froze, he suffered. He was not going to be cancelled by feminism. He preached truth that is unchanging forever.

 

I don't think this addresses my point. I'm saying those verses are plainly pro-slavery, just like 1 Tim 2 is against WO. And the epistles were used to defend slavery prior to the 19th century. To take an inflexible approach to scripture is to come down on the side of the pro-slavery logic. That's what my entire point has been.

I'm familiar with hellenic cults. Women in those roles did not teach. Teaching is at the core of the Christian priesthood, and this is why women were excluded from it. The arguments Paul makes against women in the priesthood never say "It is immoral for a woman to be ordained". The argument is "I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence", and then from that it follows they cannot be priests.

Roman society was extremely patriarchal, even more so than medieval society. They would never have permitted a woman to take a role equivalent to a Christian priest. Vestal virgins and oracles had very different roles in their cults than priests have in our Church.

I don't think any true Anglican would ever say "who cares what Scripture says". At worst they value all pillars equally. I'm more conservative in my approach, I think scripture is paramount - however reason is a core piece of the puzzle in understanding scripture. This again comes back to my original response to Rexlion. If you read a passage of scripture and it discomforts you (e.g. Leviticus detailing it's lawful to enslave foreigners), then you should use that discomfort to explore the passage. Study it, compare it with other verses of scripture, and use your reason - guided by the Spirit - to come to the truth. Sometimes you'll find your initial understanding of the passage was wrong - slavery is immoral even if the passage seems to imply it is not. Likewise perhaps women can attend church without hats, and perhaps they can ask questions of men who are not their husbands, and perhaps they can teach. Plenty of families today have no problems with mothers teaching theology in the home to their children, or instructing in a Sunday School class. Where then do we draw the line? That's not discarding scripture, it's appreciating sometimes focusing on the mechanics of a passage can ensure you miss the forest for the trees.

I never suggested we evolve truth. We evolve our natures. We become better people and better Christians, generation by generation. Less savage, less fallen, more godly. This isn't my idea, it's the teaching of Saint Irenaeus. That more Christ-like nature evolves our understanding of ethics. What is right and wrong never changes, but what we understand to be right and wrong does.

I don't think Paul held back the ideas God inspired for fear of persecution, but there are some things God chooses to reveal to us at certain times, and some things He holds back, for a later time. One can appreciate part of this must be that God doesn't want mankind to fail, and revealing some things before we are ready to hear them would ensure we do fail. If we brought Christ's teachings to the Israelites in the time of Judges, when they thought it was moral and proper to murder every of-age man and married woman in a village, and then send the survivors to rape the surviving maidens I can't imagine he would have made it 3 years before being executed. If a woman preached the gospel to the Romans every Sunday in the 2nd Century, trying to teach them they lived immoral lives and begged them to repent, no one would hear a word she said. It's different now, at least in some provinces. Does that give us scope to understand the first letter to Timothy differently? Perhaps, perhaps not. All I'm saying is that there is a perhaps to consider.

 

I have not considered that, because it isn't the case. The argument from reason is quite strong, and isn't an argument from silence at all.

Irrelevant to the NT, which has no sacrificing priesthood other than that belonging personally to Christ as sole Mediator and God-Man.

That same circle of apostles was also 100% Jewish. Could Gentiles not be apostles as well?

This is a straw man. I'm not claiming that there is any; I've consistently acknowledged quite the opposite, actually. Sola scriptura in the Anglican tradition applies to those things that are necessary for salvation. I'm aware of no creed that states it is necessary to my salvation that I know whether the Office of the Christian Ministry is gender-specific or gender-inclusive. Therefore tradition and reason may be relied upon to answer the question as well.

Not sure why biblical writers is in quotes, but I have said no such thing.

It most certainly does, if we start trying to treat the Bible as a economics text. But that wasn't the point I was making. Rather, I was simply saying that it isn't intellectually responsible to put words in the biblical writers' mouths regarding events and social developments of which they had no knowledge.

One does not need "faith" in reason. Faith concerns the unseen; reason concerns that which is publicly ascertainable.

I have done so many, many times here. For some reason, there is a contingent here that apparently sees the Enlightenment-enabled world we live in to be some kind of hellhole compared to the impoverishment, ignorance, misery, and autocracy that came before it. I can't help such people.

Truth is truth, regardless of its mediate source. The ultimate source of truth is God Himself, so it's quite irrelevant whether the reasoning is "secular" or not. God created the secular as well as the sacred, and both are vehicles for knowledge of Him, as St. Paul stated so eloquently in Acts 15 and in Romans 1.

I appreciate that, and I also have heard the other side out. I have mentioned in this very thread that I have found C.S. Lewis' arguments against WO to be cogent, and there are Lutheran arguments on the subject that I find quite strong as well (I posted that here, too). Both remarks got crickets for a response. There's not much I can do about that.

Merely having an opinion on the matter doesn't mean that I elevate that opinion to the level of some kind of private dogma. To the best of my knowledge, it's not essential to salvation either way. The Orthodox don't have WO and that never bothered me when I was Orthodox, even though I had no problem with WO at that time. I've never met an Orthodox woman that wanted WO, so it's not a live issue for them, as best I was able to determine. Same goes for the Lutherans (Missouri Synod, anyway): if they don't want it, I see no need to refuse fellowship with them over that. It's not the differences in opinion I have a problem with; it's the crude (and often crass) fundamentalism that often goes along with it, which in turn often leads to intolerance as well as confusion/conflation with culture war issues, which I have no interest in debating.

 

Then why does my 1662 book of common prayer say on numerous occasions "The people will answer here" or " both he and all the people kneeling humbly upon their knees and saying"? Why doesn't the BoCP take note of what you say, and say, "the men only will say or answer" ?

 

"speaking" in the context St. Paul there means it, teaching. Spiritual instruction, spiritual oversight. It doesn't mean you can't shush your kids if they're too loud, or that you can't exchange pleasantries with a friend after the divine service.

 

The problem with discerning the subjects, (WO being one of them), upon which The Holy Spirit is revealing timely truth to the church can be summed up by whether any of the truths contained in the scripture are eternally fixed for the generation in which they were written and forever after fixed in the same way for every succeesing generation of the church OR whether there is an ongoing revelation of TRUTH on various subjects for each successive generation of the church relevant to the times that generation is living through and its capacity to understand the truth that the Holy Spirit is teaching it, in its generation.

I believe the former was the case until the coming of The Holy Spirit to the church.
I believe the latter to be the case now that the Church is guided by The Holy Spirit.
I do not believe Jesus Christ's Church should be entirely governed and controlled by the LAWS or the interpretaion of LAWS fixed and contained in any Book but rather By The Spirit of Jesus Christ and the mind of Christ. I believe St Paul believed the same.

For the first 350 years of its history The Church of Jesus Christ was not governed and guided by the contents of a book, but by the Spirit of Christ in its leaders, both men and women. That is the only qualification required of the priesthood, both male or female. That the Spirit of Christ should be within them.

The question then remains. What governs the praxis of the Church of Jesus Christ?
The mind of Christ in its members, or the literal interpretations of its leaders of the eternally fixed and perhaps misunderstood, words contained in a book. I appreciate this poses a problem for some.
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I think we may have talked past each other here. Previously I took it that you were saying the MO position is an argument from silence because scripture is silent on it (but apparently that's not what you meant); so when I said the pro-WO argument is an argument from silence, I intended it in like fashion: i.e., scripturally speaking you have no support.

I'm curious, are you now supportive of dispensationalism? Sounds that way. Regardless, though, the actions God took during Moses' day do provide insight into His intentions and will, particularly when combined with all the other actions we see (including God's express grant of authority over Eve to Adam, the anointing of only male kings, the anointing of only males as prophets, and so on). It's like looking at a tapestry and noticing a pattern that repeats throughout the fabric.

Good question. I'd have to say, 'no;' since none of the Twelve were Gentiles, none of the Twelve could be Gentiles. As for future apostles, show me some. Who and where are they, and did the Church have any say in their ordination as apostles? See, that's a non-issue.

I don't agree. Events and social developments are irrelevant to ethics and irrelevant to the revealed will of God.

Whether it is or is not essential to salvation is your 'cut-off point'? Why is that your standard? I don't think that's the correct way to evaluate for or against WO. To illustrate, suppose we have an Episcopal parish that decides to adopt snake-handling during the service, or to have naked dancers around the nave during the offertory? Neither issue is "essential to salvation," yet we can glean from a well-rounded reading of OT and NT that those activities are not God's will for the Church, even if new social developments were to make those activities seem broadly appropriate.

I deleted some things to keep this post from becoming too cumbersome. But I want to quote what Stalwart posted in #262, because it really is pertinent and I agree with it:

 

I don't think our Lord is inspiring the church to ordain females as priests. You, apparently, think He is so inspiring the church. What evidence do you have that you and people like you are hearing this new thing from the Lord, specifically?

 

The issue has been enlessly debated by all three synodical houses of the Church of England and the matter, after considerable theological debate and prayer, has been settled by THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.

That is good enough for me. And I guess it is also good enough for God. And it is definitely good enough for history. Get used to it or start your own denomination.
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Article XIX: even “… the Church of Hierusalem, Alexandria, and Antioch have erred”

“unless the church reinvents itself, it will disappear like the region’s textile industry… set the extinction date for the Church of England in Lancashire at 2050.”
https://archbishopcranmer.com/how-to-prevent-the-extinction-of-the-church-of-england/

“Church of Canada may disappear by 2040, says new report”
https://anglicanmainstream.org/church-of-canada-may-disappear-by-2040-says-new-report/​

How’s that for “good enough for history”?

 

That was interesting. Note the date: 1972. It's an interesting historical snapshot. The author is trying to steer a middle course between the practice of the people who formed ELCA in the 80s and the Seminex crowd, on one hand, and WELS on the other. At the same time, this predates the establishment of the deacon as a preaching office in the LCMS. So the presupposition is that there is a single order of sacramental ministry. He takes pains to distinguish the teaching office from the administration of the sacraments. This is not altogether honest in an historical Lutheran context, since Luther and Melancthon both considered the proclamation of the Gospel a lesser sacrament. And of course he probably didn't anticipate the laicization of liturgy in the LCMS and shoehorning lay volunteers into any number of parts of the Eucharistic service.

 

Agreed. The snapshot aspect of it is part of what makes it so interesting. He also makes some interesting observations about what was directly revealed in the 1 Cor. passage. I also tend to lean more toward Luther and Melanchthon than Zwingli and Calvin, so any Lutheran discussion of the subject is of inherent interest to me personally. I need to read the latter half of 1 Cor. straight through and then re-read his article in its entirety to get the full effect of his argument. (I’ve also been working through the 3rd volume of Peiper’s Christian Dogmatics as a reference point.)

 

I want to be very clear about my position: I do not support the ordination of women to the priesthood despite the Bible; I support it because of the Bible.

And I am by no means alone in this. I encourage those who argue against women’s ordination to the priesthood to engage the works of a great many respected and orthodox biblical scholars whose research on this subject directly refutes many, if not all, of the interpretive points raised by [traditionalist/fundamentalist theologians and interpreters of the relevant texts]. [my own words]

Craig Keener (the new president of the Evangelical Theological Society),
Scot McKnight,
Ben Witherington III,
Nijay Gupta,
Cynthia Long Westfall,
Lucy Peppiatt,
N.T. Wright,
Gordon Fee,
Richard Bauckham,
I. Howard Marshall,
and Anthony Thiselton, among many others.

In my view, Scripture does not, in fact, define narrowly what men and women are ontologically, nor does it demarcate women’s and men’s functions based solely on their gender. Such notions have to be read into the text.

Instead, the scriptures provide an overarching vision for women and men as different, distinct, and mutually submissive partners in the Kingdom of God. This was God’s intention from the beginning and it is a partnership restored in the reign of God inaugurated by Jesus Christ. And this new creation is something the church gets to embody as an outpost of the Kingdom within this fallen world until our Lord returns.

The complete article appears here.

It is not a New Revelation of truth from the bible that is influencing attitudes to the 'rightness' of ordaining women to the Christian priesthood. It is the fuller understanding of the more accurately interpreted meaning of the text of the Bible we can now understand after the 'scales' of male theological interpretive prejudice have dropped from our eyes and we see more clearly what the scripture has really meant all along, but men ignorantly misunderstood it. Such is the case with all scripture, in every age.

All deepening of understanding and the revealing of the scriptures is due to the work of The Spirit of Christ in the church.

Those that ignore or oppose it are simply not having their 'hearts strangely warmed' within them because they are simply not listening to what The Spirit of Christ is expounding to them on their modern day road to Emmaus. They remain hidebound in their traditional male pre-conceptions and secular sense of sociatal masculine priviledge. Much as anyone else unattuned to the instruction of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.
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If I'm not mistaken, all of these people are from within the last 20 years. If I'm also not mistaken, the Church has two thousand years to her age, and more generally speaking, five thousand years.

We've had a long time to think about this, as the people of God. Can you cite some of the same kinds of scholars from a thousand years ago? Or from 3000 years ago?

You should have no problem finding just as many scholars for your side from prior millennia of our history.

I'll wait.

 

But what exactly is your reason for wanting the opinions of long dead theologians to corroborate the findings of theologians over the last 20 years. Could it be that you prefer the wisdom of sages which endorses your own opinions, merely because your own opinions have been formed over studying only the ancient sage's wisdom?

That is not me implying that their 'wisdom' is any less wise today than it was then, but it was in many cases, the 'wisdom' of their own ages, and now indeed exclusively of ages past.

The church, and God too, are under no obligation to only be allowed to do things that have always been done from antiquity. The ancients had no monopoly on the truth or on what was allowable in the governance by God, of Christ's church.

However, having said that, I would be very interested to see if any ancient literature has survived, that either recorded or even endorsed women celebrating the Eucharist and leading communities of believers in Jesus Christ, in the Post Pentecost, Pre-ecclesiatical Constantinian, lets say, Early Apostolic church.

Given the passionate literary iconoclasm and heresy hunting that the church descended into after it became an arm of the Roman state after 400 AD it would be surprising that anything of that nature would have been likely to have ever survived eradication by its, by then, all male leadership.
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This is how it goes with modern rationalizations.

AD 33: "Jesus has risen from the dead!"
AD 100: "Jesus has risen from the dead!"
AD 200: "Jesus has risen from the dead!"
AD 500: "Jesus has risen from the dead!"
AD 1000: "Jesus has risen from the dead!"
AD 1500: "Jesus has risen from the dead!"
AD 1900: "Jesus has risen from the dead!"
AD 2000: "The wisdom of ages past was wisdom then, but today's wisdom tells us something different. Our greatest doctors and researchers assure us that rising from the dead is physically impossible, and therefore our theologians have reevaluated, blah blah blah..."

 

Emily McGowin conveniently overlooks Gen. 3:16, which throws a monkey-wrench into her thesis. Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.

Even if she's correct in her belief that Adam & Eve were co-equal halves of one another, that was before the fall. Now we are under the curse, and so it is until Christ returns. In the new heavens & new earth of the following age (when we all have the mind of Christ in perfection), males and females may well be co-equal. But right now, they aren't.