Gender roles in the Bible

[Kilarin]

Wow, been a busy thread today! No time to respond to all the great stuff.

When I say I'm a 'feminist', I mean nothing more and nothing less than that women hold the same value as men in God's eyes; and that to insist on a 'superior/subservient' structure (whether it be socially, politically, economically, or spiritually) runs contrary to the self-sacrificial nature of God as revealed not only in scripture, but also in Christ Himself.

Hear hear!

What happens when you can't agree on something? I don't think marriage is a democracy. In the end someone has to be the head of the household.

Why not flip a coin? Unless you assume that men always make the best decisions, flipping a coin to solve an impasse would be fair, and just as likely to get you the correct answer as simply insisting that one member of the marriage has the final vote in all disputes.

I don't think it should come to a coin flip very often though. In almost 21 years of marriage my wife and I have fought a LOT over various decisions, but we haven't had to flip a coin yet. Usually there is some way to come to a compromise, or someone is willing to give in.

The idea that someone's interpretation of scripture is the correct one, is one of the very things that drove me out of organized religion.

"interpretation" is a matter of trying to understand what the author intended to communicate. The words didn't get onto the page by magic or by accident; somebody put them there because they thought those words communicated an idea. The goal of interpretation is to understand, as well as possible, what that idea was (and, as a part of that, to understand how certain or uncertain your conclusions are.) Through careful study of words, grammar, theses, history, and so on -- the things I called "structure" or "context" before -- you can develop fairly solid interpretations.

Yes, exactly. I understand Spidey's objection here, because there are certainly people who decide they are right and then refuse to listen to anyone else and are not open to any further study on the topic. It's also annoying when someone decides that anyone who doesn't agree with them is an idiot or a liar.

BUT, if we believe that the Bible actually contains Truth (and it's not much use if it doesn't), then, as Lothar says, it is possible to STUDY, and LEARN, and come to come to correct answers. We aren't perfect, so our answers will not be perfect, but, to borrow a phrase, "The Truth Is Out There"

To clarify, what I'm objecting to is the belief that truth is a moving target and everyone's different interpretation can be correct.

[Spidey]

Flipping a coin is ok if your deciding where to eat, but I’m a firm believer that someone should be in charge simply because of the following:

An emergency…you can’t spend time “working things out” when the house is burning down or there’s a tornado.

My wife and I worked most things out in advance simply by assigning responsibilities.

Just because someone has the last word, doesn’t mean you go about bossing the other around.

[Duper]

Just because someone has the last word, doesn’t mean you go about bossing the other around.

Exactly. Someone Does need to be in charge. There are plenty of things that are shared and many things the other side soley takes care of. (My wife watches over the finances on the whole so I can worry about other things.)

I don't have a lot of time so I have to be rather brief.. been a lot of that lately with me.. to my understanding ..there's that phrase again.. The whole topic above I have to echo flip but i think that "hierarchy" is a bit strong. Demonstrative Illustration is more like it. It shows order and the relationship with Jesus that the church has. (I'll put together something exhaustive later) And this will cause a flap to be sure, but somethings CAN be lifted outta "context" (I use that loosely) not needing a paragraph before and after to support an idea. Jesus did it several times. (have fun with that! )