Saying that the Apostle Paul is addressing the Church situation is not the same as saying that nothing he says has any application outside of the Church. But you will have to look at the rest of Scripture to decide.

The Apostle Paul has to say about a wife’s authority over her husband’s body:

The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.

Plainly, Paul knows no absolute rule about women not having authority over men. If a wife has authority over her husband in this matter, how much more a queen or female judge over those in her jurisdiction?

Sorry I can’t be more agreeable but my conscience held captive to the word of God.

1Ti 2:12 But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.

If you use the liberal argument that the context of this verse only applies to the church, then you are saying that the modesty required in v. 9 only applies to the church.

You can also examine all the verses about the husband being the authority, and not the wife. This is way God established the order of things and we should submit to that structure.

It is deniable that God ‘appointed’ her to her office, unless you use a very loose definition of appointment, that would apply to all leaders of all time, since there is no verse showing God appointing her.

John Knox set back the church grievously in his day by refusing to learn this obvious lesson. It is unhappy that we have men today thinking that suicide mission marks them out as masculine.

Don’t know you personally Lance, but I’ve seen enough of it to want to raise the warning flag in response to your post. Take it for what it is worth. It is clear that a woman is not supposed to have political authority in the Church. It is equally clear that there is no problem at all with a woman having civil authority in society. It may happen less often in a normal Biblical society, but there is still nothing wrong with a woman taking such a calling.

Two of the reasons that Deborah was in charge was a) Israel was under affliction (Is 3:12) and b) passive men not fulfilling their roles, causing women to have to take care of things. These are both problems that we have today.

This is probably false.

If I may pose a sort of in-house rebuttal, are we to take from the logic of this assertion that fast, vigorous, “war-like” chanting is less masculine than preaching?

“May women be priests? Clearly not, at least in the special sense. There are no priestesses in Scripture. Why not? Protestants (and also Catholics) *are not clear on why, however*.”

Catholics have written and taught extensively on this subject (the why), and I think offer quite a bit of insight into this matter (even if you disagree with them on other issues). For a quickie: priest=icon of Christ. Christ was a man, therefore a woman cannot be an icon of Christ. For a start in Catholic teaching on this subject, check out “Ordinatio Sacerdotalis” and the references therein, ESPECIALLY ref. 2: “Declaration Inter Insigniores”.

Pertaining to the priest’s role as a guardian and husband, father, etc: Another perspective would put the priest (as icon of Christ) as a husband (to the Church) before the role of guardian. Thus, the priest (icon of The Bridegroom) is espoused to Holy Mother Church (Spotless Bride), offering the semina (word of God) in order that she nourish her children. If there is a woman priest, there will be a same-sex union, which will be sterile. And to those wondering, yes, the Catholic church’s rejection of artificial birth control does play into/flow out of much of this fundamental understanding of the relationship between husband/wife, Christ/Church.

For even more Catholic insight into this debate, check out “Theology of the Body” by John Paul II. This would be a more indirect approach to the specific application of deaconesses as it deals more with the fundamental creation of males and females. But, as you already hinted, bringing women into various ordained roles is directly related to how God created us.