How to defend the belief only men should be ordained?

This is entirely correct. It is for this reason I am not a fan of Bishop Leo I of Rome; he was the first Roman bishop I really disliked, for his decision to style himself using the previously Pagan title of Pontifex Maximus* (St. Victor had his flaws, but accepted correction from his bishops, and did introduce vernacular worship in the Latin language, allowing the Roman church to, for the first time, reach the poorer strata in Roman society, those who lived in Insulae rather than in a Domus, and who did not speak the Greek tongue, knowledge of which was nearly universal among the upper classes of Roman society).

*Literally, “Chief Bridge Builder”, the high priest of the Roman state religion; the most notable holder of this office was Julius Caesar.

 

. Although I would consider this attitude 'unchristian', since 'putting up with' implies a certain amount of disdain, I do not consider it to be any more abusive of a female priest than a male one, who one may consider unfit for his office. That does not discriminate on grounds of gender, but on grounds of competence. No one is compelled to attend any particular church and an individual's reasons for non attendance are their own business and Christ's, not the business of the church.

Wrong! On the contrary I am merely saying that the case for a male only priesthood of believers is not proven, nor supported by a biblical edict from God, and that I have as much access to the Holy Spirit as do you and those who espouse your view on the matter. You, on the other hand seem to be guilty of the thing of which you accuse me, namely you want me to believe that the bible and the tradition of men has revealed to you and all those who agree with you, and only those who agree with you, that God desires women to be debarred from the priesthood of all believers, and therefore we should all believe it to be so.

Unless you can present to us all a closely reasoned scriptural case firmly establishing a 'male only priesthood' in the Church of Jesus Christ, based solely upon the words of Holy Scripture, without bias or social assumption, then as an Anglican I do not have to accept the 'male only' restriction you wish to impose upon the church. I have to accept as doctrine only what can be proven from the scriptures.
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There is either inadvertent miscommunication happening here or you are deliberately setting up straw men to knock down in order to support an untenable position, I think.

I have claimed that those who oppose God are unable to rightly interpret scripture. The logical opposite to that position would be that anyone can interpret the scriptures correctly, regardless of whether they oppose God or whether they are enlightened by The Holy Spirit. If that position is true, as you seem to be insisting, then you would have to also admit, by the force of your own logic, that Satan is able to correctly interpret the scriptures and that he was equally as accurate in his interpretation of them as was Jesus Christ himself when Christ was tempted in the wilderness and Satan quoted scripture to tempt him.

You also have to admit that the Pharisees were as inspired in their interpretation of the scriptures as was Jesus Christ. This is in fact very far from the truth of it though. Christ was filled with the Holy Spirit, whereas they were totally lacking. It was no wonder then that the scriptures were so obscure to them that they crucified their own messiah. The same principles apply to this very day.

John 4:23;- Only those who worship in Spirit and Truth are able to worship God rightly. (I fail to see how this can be considered irrelevant).

John 14:17;- The Spirit of Truth cannot be received by the world. (This is also pertinent).

John 15:26;- Christ sends The Holy Spirit to his disciples to bear witness to himself. (I think you may be missing something if you think this verse irrelevant)

John 16:13;- Disciples will be "guided into all truth by The Holy Spirit". If you correctly know something to be true, then it has been The Holy Spirit that has guided you there. Read The Bible as much as you like, but if you are not guided by the Holy Spirit you will not correctly understand THE TRUTH, because it is by the Spirit we are guided into ALL truth.

Rom.9:1;- Paul claimed to be speaking the truth BECAUSE his conscience informed him Through The Holy Spirit, (not through church tradition, dogma or the traditions of men).

Ephesians 1:13;- Only those who have heard and responded to the Gospel, the word of truth, and believed in Christ, have been sealed with the promised Holy Spirit. (again I fail to understand how you cannot find this relevant to the issue, unless you are not in the category stipulated by Paul).

1 John 4:6;- It is fairly obvious that you are not listening to me. So that may be telling me something about how well you know God.

I wonder how many readers in this forum actually click on the scripture reference links and read the scripture for themselves, and weigh and contemplate it in their mind before just dismissing it, declaring it irrelevant and refuting the author of it simply because they disagree?

As to the case of your sister-in-law or whoever, I am not her, I am an entirely different person with almost certainly entirely different opinions and views, so your anecdote is spectacularly lacking in relevance.
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Because I don't believe that Paul ever knowingly contradicted himself. There has never been any doubt that the whole of Galatians comes from Paul.

And what do you mean by authority? Are you questioning his statement in Galatians because you prefer other statements from elsewhere which are more appealing to your way of thinking?

If you were a Galatian you probably would never have known what Paul wrote to Timothy or the church in Corinth so it would be irrelevant to you. What Paul wrote to the Galatians is relevant to us in a different way than it was to them, just as most of what Paul wrote to Corinth was intended for Corinth, what was written to Timothy was intended for Timothy and the local church Timothy led at that time. Any apparent contradictions between Paul's statements to individuals or churches, in his letters, which span 10-20 years, are merely circumstantial.
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Oh I'm quite aware of that verse. I've heard it quoted by heretical Episcopalians for years and years in support of transgenderism, feminism, women priests, the whole deal. Except you said that we are all one in the Church, while the text there, in black an white, says that we are all one in Christ.

Here is the basic error in how they interpret this verse: you (and they) interpret it to say that we are all one to the Church (present), while the text itself (and the church for 2000 years) interprets it as we are all one to Christ (eschatological). I fully will accept that we are all, men and women, one to Christ and will be saved and judged equally by him. But to say that there is no gender here on earth was never his intention, and is not an authentic reading of the sacred Scripture.

Yes absolutely Satan was able to correctly interpret the Scriptures (whether he did is a different story).

If you think God hid the meaning of His Word from Satan, then what for is Satan to be condemned? You really do seem to think that the Scriptures are given to an elite few, and hidden from 99% of the Creation, including his angels.

Of course they were able to interpret the scriptures. That's why he blames and chastises them for failing to do so! He calls them "hypocrites", "vermin", for the reason that they did not interpret the Scriptures correctly.

What did He do with the two men on the road to Emmaus? They read the Scriptures together, and he helped explain the meaning of the Old Testament to them. What did the Ethiopian eunuch say to Philip? "I'd like to understand the scriptures, if you will explain it to me."

If the Holy Ghost prevented the Pharisees from understanding his Word, then why would our Lord blame them for anything? They were innocent victims of God's neglect, in your view.

Sorry, we really have to work on your Christology.

 

Nor do I.

No. Rather I am questioning why you think Galatians, when addressing the unity of the Christian congregation, overrides the pastoral instructions in 1 Corinthians and 1 Timothy.

I do beg your pardon, but I can’t for the life of me understand your point in this paragraph. While St. Paul may have written these epistles to specific churches, the early Church found them to be generally applicable, which is why they are part of the canonical New Testament.

After all, God is no respecter of persons, as St. Paul wrote; what is good for the goose is good for the gander in this case.

To put it another way, there is no logical scenario in which what Paul wrote about the Body of Christ and Church discipline in 1 Corinthians is not as applicable as what he wrote to the Galatians.

Indeed, the two epistles are directly related, in that Galatians 1:8 provides us with the means of removing from the Body of Christ those mosquitos who land on us preaching false Gospels, like Mani, or Marcion, or Donatus, or Pelagius, or Mohammed, or Joseph Smith.

 

No one in this thread has called for that. And it can be misleading, using the same word to refer to the Jewish Kohanim, Pagan priests like the Chaldeans of Babylon or the Magi (or Mobeds) of Zoroastrian Persia, the Sacerdotal priesthood of all believers, and the office of Presbyter, which in vernacular English became known as the Priesthood, but it is an eldership, different from the sacerdotal priesthood previously performed by the sons of Aaron, and now available to all of us via Christ after the order of Melchizedek.

Saying a woman cannot and should not be a presbyter or bishop is not the same as denying her membership in the sacerdotal Priesthood of All Believers.

 

I do beg your pardon, but this is seriously misleading Christology bordering on Adoptionism, Nestorianism, Arianism and Apollinarianism.

Our Lord Jesus Christ was God incarnate, and therefore consubstantial with the Father and the Holy Spirit; in like manner, via his incarnation, He is also consubstantial with us. But if you say He is filled with the Holy Spirit, you imply any number of heresies in which the Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ are not, together with the Father, coequal and coeternal persons of the Trinity.

 

Nobody here has said that. The concept of the priesthood of all believers comes from the book of Nehemiah in the Old Testament. The word in hebrew is "Mamlechet Kohanim". Yet do you think that Ezra and Nehemiah were abolishing the Aaronic priesthood through their institution of the mamlechet kohanim? Hardly. I discuss this on page 1:

 

John the Baptist was "filled with the Holy Spirit from before his birth", are you suggesting that Jesus Christ was less so? Luke 1:15. It would seem that you place John above Jesus as far as his intimacy with the Holy Spirit is concerned. Also you have a strange concept of the Trinity if you think you can divide the persons of God up into separate identities. There is one God but three manifestations of that unity. I hope I will not need to quote the Athanasius Creed to prove my point. Before quoting long words it would be wise to understand what they mean and I am not guilty of any of the heresies you mention.
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So you are saying then that St Peter was only writing to men when he wrote "You yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood . . . 1 Pet.2:5

Or "But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own possession . . .1 Pet.2:9.

None of what Peter wrote here applies to women, you say. I say you are wrong and so may Peter when you meet him, but that is a matter between you and him and Christ.
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On the contrary, I say that it applies to both men and women, as the people of God are (now, after the Babylonian captivity) permitted to read God's word directly, which before Ezra and Nehemiah was an exclusive prerogative of the priests. Thus all people of God have this form of priesthood, the priesthood of the people, mamlechet kohanim.

What we're also saying is that this priesthood of all believers is altogether different from ordained ministry, which was a different institution in the Old Testament and by no means was abolished or altered by Ezra and Nehemiah. It likewise functions in the New Testament era among us. Thus the priesthood of all believers applies to men and women only, while ordained ministry was by Christ, through Melchisedech, given to men only.

 

I interpret the verse to say we are all one in Christ Jesus. Meaning we all owe our salvation to Jesus Christ and none other, which makes us all of equal status regarding righteousness and therefore authority. It is inappropriate for the unrighteous to have authority over the righteous and since all have sinned both male and female, both male and female owe their salvation and imputed righteousness to Jesus Christ alone. Thus believing and righteous men have no more divine right to leadership in the church than do believing and righteous women. The unrighteous are unrighteous because they are not "In Christ". If they were "In Christ" then they would have Christ's imputed righteousness, but they have not until they are "in Christ", because "all have sinned and fallen short". Therefore there is no essential difference between man and woman as far as either righteousness or authority is concerned. Their righteousness both belongs only to Christ, their authority comes alone also from Christ. No one who is not "in Christ" has any Christ given authority since ALL authority comes from Christ. Jude 1:25.

Since he never has, how can you be so absolutely certain that he can? You seem very confident of Satan's exegetical ability, in view of the fact that he is incapable of telling the truth. John 8:44. I wonder where you get your confidence. You'd make a good devils defense lawyer.

I don't think God hides the truth from anyone, not even Satan. I think you keep taking this tack and accusing me of believing such nonsense because you can't find any irrefutable scriptural evidence to support an exclusively male priesthood, and you desperately want there to be one. Be that as it may.

You obviously have not read and fully understood what I have written concerning this matter. I have never said that the Holy Spirit prevented anyone understanding anything. I said without the Holy Spirit it is not possible to understand the truth. It is The Holy Spirit who enables us to understand the truth. The Holy Spirit is available to anyone who asks. Those who don't ask, don't want. Those who don't want, have voluntarily prevented themselves from understanding the truth. They are culpable, guilty and condemned already. John 3:18-21.
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God forbid, no. Here is what I am saying, which is also the Orthodox, Anglican, Patristic, Roman Catholic and conciliar doctrine:

- St. John the Baptist and forerunner was filled with the Holy Spirit
- Jesus Christ is God incarnate, fully God and fully man, in one person, with his humanity and divinity in hypostatic union (following the Chalcedonian definition).
-In his Divine nature, Jesus Christ is of one essence with the Father and the Holy Spirit

No, far from it, because our Lord is coessential with the Holy Spirit in His divinity, whereas St. John was merely filled with it.

Uh, no. The Nicene creed uses the Greek word Prosopon, which means person, face, mask, or indeed, identity.

Whereas it is true there is one God, referring to the Persons of the Trinity as “manifestations of that unity” is not a Patristic definition of the Trinity and makes me nervous, in that we have to avoid Sabellianism or crypto-Sabellianism.

The conciliar, Patristic faith, expressed in Chalcedonian terminology, is that there is one God, the Father almighty, and His begotten and uncreated Son Jesus Christ, the Word of God, by whom all things were made, who is also God and of one essence with the Father, but a separate person and a separate hypostasis, and the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father (and in Western uses of the Creed, from the son, and these apparently different views can be reconciled; I have discussed this elsewhere). The Holy Spirit is also of one essence with the Father, and the Son, and a separate person with His own hypostasis as well, according to Chalcedon.

According to Chalcedon, in his divine nature Jesus Christ is of one essence (homoousia) with the Father and the Holy Spirit; his human nature is consubstantial with us, and the two are connected by hypostatic union, since our Lord has one hypostasis.

Nestorius said that He had a separate human and divine hypostasis, in a personal union, so Nestorius justify not calling the Virgin Mary Theotokos, but instead to insist she was merely the mother of Christ. And some Nestorians went even further, insisting that there were two persons, one human and one divine, in a union of will.

St. Cyril in opposing Nestorius taught that our Lord has one nature, from two natures, and in this nature he is fully man and fully divine, and thus the concept of a hypostasis is not required; there is no confusion, change, or separation between the two natures, and in recent years it has been recognized this Miaphysite Christology, used by the Oriental Orthodox, is compatible with the Chalcedonian Christology used by the Eastern Orthodox, the Roman Catholics and those Western churches which are not Nestorian (some Zwinglian and other Reformed churches were accused, validly I think, by Martin Luther, of being Nestorian, and many Evangelical churches where the councils and creeds are not taught also suffer from either official Nestorianism, or a widespread Nestorianism among their members, due to poor catechesis.

Speaking of Nestorians, the Church of the East is commonly called Nestorian, but in reality it is not, although they do venerate Nestorius stupidly (but they wisely venerate Mar Theodore of Mopsuestia, and his anathematization along with that of the saintly Origen by Emperor St. Justinian I, being post-mortem, was wrong). Their Christology however was formulated by their great 6th century Syriac speaking bishop Mar Babai the Great, and is basically Chalcedonian, albeit using Syriac terminology like qwame instead of Greek words like Hypostasis.

For purposes of convenience, here is the version used in the Book of Common Prayer:

And here is the version used by the Eastern Orthodox, which is commonly found in Greek Horologions (books with the Common of the Divine Office and some Propers), and Russian Psalters, and translations thereof, for example, A Psalter For Prayer, published by the Holy Trinity Monastery of the Russian Orthodox Church outside Russia, in Jordanville, New York (which features the Coverdale Psalter, modified to conform with the Septuagint Psalter in content and versification, and divided into 20 Kathisma, or sittings, allowing it to be read weekly or twice weekly according to the Orthodox custom):

I hope that not only you, @Tiffy, but my other friends on this forum including but not limited to our honorable and learned members @Rexlion, @Stalwart , @Shane R , @ReligiousFanatic and @Anglo-cracker find the latter form of the Quincunque Vult to be of interest, as it is a rare and obscure text. I wrote a paper comparing the two and studying the question of Athanasian authorship, which I am happy to PM anyone who desires it.

I am also a strong supporter of the use of the rarely heard Quincunque Vult, which has been set as a canticle by some composers, but is almost never heard in the Church of England today. The 1928 Deposited Book and the 1938 Melanesian BCP have an Office of Prime, which was intended to be served before Mattins, but potentially could be used in lieu of it together with the Litany on days the Eucharist is being served, as it is shorter, or could be served after it, as Mattins or Morning Prayer was basically a combination of Matins, the early morning office, and Lauds, the sunrise office, with Prime originally being used at 7 AM or so.

If one wanted to replicate the convenient All Night Vigils of the Slavonic Orthodox churches and the monks in Jerusalem and Mount Athos, one would serve on Saturday night Choral Evensong, Compline, Morning Prayer and Prime, in that order, and then the next morning serve Midday Prayer (from a BCP that has it) and the Litany before the Holy Communion service begins.

I am not accusing you of any heresies, nor have I. Rather, I was concerned by the non-standard terminology you were using, and still are using, which runs the risk of inadvertantly propagating a Christological error that I have no doubt you would reject.

 

You're a modalist?

 

I have gone back to your original statement for this reply. As I read this sentence of yours, I took you to mean that the Holy Spirit reveals truth to Christians directly and not (i.e, He does not reveal truth) by reading the Bible. To this, I replied earlier that the cited verses do not support the statement, and I defended the importance of receiving truth from scripture. But perhaps your sentence structure led me down a rabbit trail? It seem we may have been 'talking past each other' in some respects.

 

Have you not read that Satan was a beautiful archangel who fell because he chose to be jealous of God’s authority, and who convinced a minority of the other angels to join him?

It must be stressed that Satan fell. That is how he became the adversary. At one time, he certainly knew the truth, but of his own volition, since he had free will, decided to reject God and cause destruction instead.

Now, by the time of the Gospels, it appears that John 8:44 indicates that the devil has become deluded on the verge of his defeat; this is seemingly corroborated by his ridiculous attempt to test the faith of Christ, or perhaps, more likely, that test was necessary for God in the economy of salvation to be tempted and Satan was compelled by his own sinful nature into doing it, despite knowing of its futility.

We also have in the Book of Job examples of God restricting or limiting the devil’s power. He is, like us, at the mercy of God, but he experiences the wrath of God, which one incurs when one rejects the infinite love of God. Because God’s love is described in scripture as an all-consuming fire, and thus people who despise God or are unable to receive this love experience it as torturous, firery wrath instead.

 

I think the 'burden of proof' you lay upon me is too high for the situation at hand. Please recall that my first post in this discussion contained the following sentence:
I do not have a problem with women being teachers of Bible principles and truths. I can understand some of the arguments for female deacons. I disagree with all rationales for female priests. I'm not saying it is necessarily sinful, but it is inappropriate and is not God's intent.
You ask me to prove from scripture that a male-only priesthood is 'firmly established' by scripture. But I never contended such to begin with. I contended something less, to wit: I (personally, I might add here) disagree with all rationales for female priests, and ordaining females as priests is (I conclude from the Bible) inappropriate and not God's intent.

In subsequent posts I believe I have successfully shown from the Bible that it is not God's intent, for the male hierarchy and male-only priesthood is consistently shown throughout thousands of years of God's dealings with men. And if it is not God's intent to have female priests, then it follows that it is not appropriate to have them. Is it sinful? I don't go that far. Is it completely outside of God's permissive will? I don't go that far. I don't need to, because I see value in seeking God's best and in adhering to the examples given to us throughout the Bible.

 

Indeed so, this is very good.

 

I'm grateful then that the orthodoxy of my faith is not being impugned simply because we are discussing and trying to explain some difficult theological concepts. Thank you.
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