HOLD UP!! BUT WHAT ABOUT GENISIS? Aren’t men decreed by God to “rule over his wife”? "In the beginning, Adam and Eve lived in perfect harmony with each other, God, and all of Creation. “The Fall” took place once Eve was deceived and committed the first sin. It instituted a plethora of consequences—a deteriorating creation, death, separation from God, rampant sin, and the dominance of men over women (“a man will rule over his wife…[Gen. 3:16]”). Since this change is part of the curse, we must conclude that male domination or gender hierarchy was NOT part of God’s original plan and did not exist between Adam and Eve prior to the fall, since it is an explicitly new development existing because of sin. The Good News of the Gospel is that Christ, came and died to restore all of us, men and women alike, to God’s original design. “If Christ has become a curse for us (Galatians 3:13), then that curse of inequality is undone in Him.” --Phyllis Trible, Biblical Scholar God reveals the terms of His ideal plan in Genesis 1:26-28. Keep in mind that the word “man” here is not synonymous with male, but mankind and humanity.Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” Notice that God commands BOTH Adam and Eve to rule the earth and over all creation. God didn’t say, “Adam, you are to rule and Eve, well, you can go do some dishes, maybe fold a little laundry…” They were both called to rule, complementing each other, supporting each other, serving each other, sacrificing for the other, and deferring to each other. The implications of the fall, that mankind would be stuck with a sinful nature, indicates the stronger would inevitably exploit and dominate the weaker and more vulnerable. This is not exclusive to gender, but hierarchies also developed between races, the wealthy and poor, the powerful and the weak, etc. When God declares that “a man will rule over his wife,” in Genesis 3:16, it’s important to make the distinction between description and prescription, between what will happen and what should happen. All sorts of horrible consequences came about because of the fall: death, separation from God, murder, rape, incest, oppression, abuse, perversion, etc. None of these are God-ordained, but the unfortunate consequence of free will. And all of which, Christ came to redeem. He bore the curse of the fall, took it upon himself to free us from lives of sin and restore humanity to God’s original design, a relationship with our Creator and spiritual equality among His people. We won’t come fully into that until Christ returns, but it begins now. If this kind of marital relationship, far from being divinely ordered, is the product of sin and the curse, then it is to be avoided rather than commended…Just as we are no longer alienated from God through Jesus’ death on the cross, we are no longer under the curse that creates the dysfunctional hierarchies between races, socio-economic classes, and the sexes. Yet, we are hesitant to claim and live out humanity’s original calling that Christ paved the way back to… -- John Temple Bristow, New Testament scholar" I firmly believe that women are not only just as capable as men but are also called to preach, disciple, teach, and lead in the same way men are. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a woman preaching instead of or alongside a man.God doesn’t discriminate! On the race, many if not all of us women have been asked to lead/preach/speak/share our testimonies at one point or another. I’m going to go on a limb here and say we did just as great of a job as the wonderful men on our squad did when they preached or lead groups. “Let a woman learn in silence with all submission. And I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man, but to be in silence. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression.”–Paul,1 Timothy 2:11-12 “Paul’s letters are already difficult to interpret because they are like listening to one side of a telephone conversation, but faulty translations only further complicate our understanding of his words. There are a few key words that areconveniently mistranslated in 1 Timothy 2: 11-15. Hesuchios/Hesuchia: Traditionalists normally translate this word as “silence” (at least in passages concerning women), but the word in all other places is translated as “peacefulness” “peaceable” or “quietness.” The word does not carry the meaning of literal silence or absence of speech, but of an atmosphere or presence for learning to take place. Strong’s Greek Dictionary defines hesuchios/hesuchias as “properly, keeping one’s seat,” “stillness” “undisturbing,” and “peaceable.” When Paul has ‘absence of speech’ in mind, he uses the term “sigao.” The same word is used just nine verses earlier and is translated as “peaceable,” (1 Tim 21-2). Hesuchios/hesuchia is translated as quiet/quietness in 1 Thess. 4:11, 2 Thess. 3:12, 1 Peter 3:4. None of these verses are about silence, as in the literal absence of speech, but a tranquilquietness or peaceable presence/environment.