Okay, this might sound stupid, but in the bible, it says, men is the glory of God, but women is the glory of man :-X. Thats kinda mean. I mean I know women were made from man, but still, it sounds like women are disgraced, or cursed. What do u think?
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Paul goes on to say:"Nevertheless,in the Lord the woman is not independant of man nor man of woman;for as woman was made from man,so man is now born from woman.And all things are from God".{1st Corithians 11:11}
Woman was originally taken from man and is the perfect,final piece that completes man.She is the glory of man.Man must love ,protect,provide,and cherish the woman,for she is the jewel and crowning glory of his very being.She is not above him or below him but is what completes him,what makes him whole.
St Paul says that the man was to have his head uncovered, since he represented authority, and it is in this respect that he was invested – according to position alone, with the glory of God, of whose image He existed in. The woman on the other hand, was to have her head covered as a sign that she was subject to man in terms of her position in the relationship - defined by her being made from man, and thus she is the glory of the glory of God, merely in terms of position.
This must not be interpreted to mean that woman is inferior to man in any way - St Paul makes this clear in verse 11 as J brought it up – man and woman could do nothing without each other. The only way this verse should be interpreted is simply that woman is simply subject to man in terms of authority in the relationship, as can clearly be seen by verse 3 of the same chapter: 1 Corinthians 11:3 "Now I want you to realize that the …head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.”
Woman is to man, what The Son of God is to The Father.
We know that according to Trinitarian theology, both the Son and Father are co-equal persons of the blessed Trinity, yet when the Son became incarnate, He subjected Himself to the authority of the Father, though He maintained His eternally divine essence.
To interpret 1 Corinthians 11:7 therefore to imply inferiority of women to men, would be to impose that interpretation on the immediate context i.e. verse three, and thus would necessitate that we argue that likewise, Christ is inferior to God – which would be blasphemy.
btw im asking this so i would know for future reference...lol
As far as the relationships of marriage, man and woman are united into one. One of the genders has to be the authoriity figure. If both genders are have this authority, hai ataou ala baadouhom, they will constantly fight about who is right. If niether gender has authority they go astray being lost in the world not knowing where to go next. This is why one has to be the authority figure. Again scociety views the authority figure as having more importance. God does not view it this way. While the man might be the authority figure, the woman helps to create the man. Women can give birth, they help to shape the personalities of the children and even the husband. How many times have you seen your mother help your father to find things in the house? Again both the genders complete each other, niether is complete alone in marriage.
It is our society that places values on certain characteristics. This is not right because our society has feld away from God this is why society does not understand this.
Sorry for the long post, hope this .
God bless you all.
Pray for me.
andrew great post btw
Aaanyhooo, simply said, they are BOTH equal people and God loves both sexes the same. However, one thing to look at is that God created Jesus ( a MAN) and not a woman, our saviour was a MAN not a woman. Also, St-Paul says that '' without man there would be no woman and yet without woman there would be no man'' This simply tells us that God needed Adam to create Eve yet we need women in able for a man to enter the world by birth. So as you can see, NONE are a disgrace it's just a matter of God's will to choose man before a woman but in the end the point is he saved them both by dying on the cross for us ;D.
Hope that helps Dany!!! love u bro.
Your servant in Christ, Kevin
very well said, all of u... good job!!
keep the wisdom coming!
take care and God bless!
God bless
Pray for me
I have read your posting for the first time and have scanned through the replies - some of which do not supprise me.
Correct me if I am wrong, but is your question somehow seeking to clarify the possibility that women and somehow lessor than men in the eyes of God.
Well my answer is simple and I do not need to dig here or there or even resite this or that.
Unlike other faiths, Christianity is for everyone. Our faith does not discriminate. We don't have a heaven for men and a 2nd class carriage for women, and the rest travel 3rd class.
Whenever you read any book including our Bible you must remember that it is a difficult concept for any author to use langauge that covers every possible case and scenario - espacilly when there are many authors covering a long time in history over which to write.
Do you think that our perfect Bible book whould conatin a discepancy as big as that? I don;t think so.
However, your question raises the issue of what is commonly know the "use of langauge". This is something that exists till today. Most common example involves governments that have to create legislation to cover all possible scenarios and how lawyers interput these for their own cases and scenarios. Here in England we have a law to do with accepting Human Rights as defined by our European friends. This means that we need to read ALL of our laws to fit with European Human Rights. However, many of our laws were designed for either single individuals or married people. However as gay (same sex relationships) are very common in Europe and slowly on the increase here, where do these people fit for they are not single nor married. So we now it is a slow and painful exercise gaving to go through individual cases and prove that same sex relationhips are AS married ones. Anyway, you now see hopefully a problem associated with the use of language.
I for one do not believe that your are loved any less.
It seems that your initial concerns have not yet changed despite all the responses given to you; that is no problem ofcourse, though it would be great if you could specifically engage with those responses since many of them addressed the issues you now bring up. For example, in relation to Eve’s being created from Adam’s side, I think Need4Speed gave a brilliant answer in relation to this. He said:
"God created Eve from Adam's side. Not from the head as to signify that women are greater than man, not from the feet as to signify the subordination of women, but from the side to show us that women are an equal gender to men. God created woman from man to show us that they are of equal makeup as man not an alien race. So woman are equaly to man even from the time of creation."
Furthermore, the Church Fathers who are our interpretive tools of the Scriptures (for we do not read the Bible at face value or interpret it as we wish), view the act of woman’s coming into being from the side of Adam, as being symbolic of man and woman’s equality within the union of their relationship as opposed to any sort of inferiority on behalf of the woman. St Augustine states in his City of God 22.17:
“Even in the beginning, when woman was made from a rib in the side of the sleeping man, that had no less a purpose than to symbolize prophetically the union of Christ and his Church. Adam’s sleep was a mystical foreshadowing of Christ;s death, and when his dead body hanging from the cross was pierce by the lance, it was from his side that there issued forth that blood and water that, as we know, signifies the sacraments by which the Church is built up. “Built” is the very word the scripture uses in connection with Eve: “He built the rib into a woman.”…So too St Paul speaks of “building up the body of Christ,” which is his Church. Therefore, woman is as much the creation of God as man is. If she was made from the man, this was to show her oneness with him; and if she was made in the way she was this was to prefigure the oneness of Christ and the Church.”
Adam and Eve thus become typological figures of Christ and the Church, which makes sense since God is our Father, and the Church is our Mother, and so too Adam is our father and Eve our mother in a different sense. Her coming from the side of Adam thus had prophetic significance; not only to prefigure the union between God and The Church, but also their relationship, for as St Augustine noted - just as Christ built His Church (metaphorically speaking) so too in prefiguring this, Eve is said to be “built” from Adam. As St Jerome states:
“The concept of building intends to denote the construction of a great house; consequently Adam’s rib fashioned into a rib, signifies…[according to the Apostles], Christ and the Church, and that is why the Scripture said he [God] “built” a woman from the rib” The priest is supposed to represent Christ, for just as Christ being the High Priest offered His body and blood as a sacrafice for mankind, so too the priest of the Church offers the body and blood of Christ during the liturgy in the form of bread and wine; as Christ was incarnate as a man, it would be inappropriate for a female to take this position. His Holiness Pope Shenouda III has written a book on this issue - it would be great if someone could locate it for you online. This is more just a cultural and social issue. The Church did indeed have deaconesses, and I hear that the position is being revived in the Coptic Church in Egypt; though these deaconesses are not allowed to enter the altar; they mainly help with the communion of women, and other such organizational tasks related to the young ladies, and may even assist with the baptism of female converts. Here is an article on it: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2000/479/spec1.htm
Here’s a good general article concerning the historical position of the deaconess in the Orthodox Church: http://www.angelfire.com/pa/deaconess/ Well I will copy-paste my answer from before and maybe you can tell me why you are not content with it, I may be able to elaborate upon or clarify something for you. To put it simply; interpreting the requirement of the woman to cover her head as a sign of her inferiority to man, would be to conclude that Christ is inferior to God according to the immediate context – this would be blasphemy and hence it cannot be interpreted like this:
St Paul says that the man was to have his head uncovered, since he represented authority, and it is in this respect that he was invested – according to position alone, with the glory of God, of whose image He existed in. The woman on the other hand, was to have her head covered as a sign that she was subject to man in terms of her position in the relationship - defined by her being made from man, and thus she is the glory of the glory of God, merely in terms of position.
This must not be interpreted to mean that woman is inferior to man in any way - St Paul makes this clear in verse 11 – man and woman could do nothing without each other. The only way this verse should be interpreted is that woman is simply subject to man in terms of authority in the relationship, as can clearly be seen by verse 3 of the same chapter: 1 Corinthians 11:3 "Now I want you to realize that the …head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.”
Woman is to man, what The Son of God is to The Father.
We know that according to Trinitarian theology, both the Son and Father are co-equal persons of the blessed Trinity, yet when the Son became incarnate, He subjected Himself to the authority of the Father, though He maintained His eternally divine essence.
To interpret 1 Corinthians 11:7 therefore to imply inferiority of women to men, would be to impose that interpretation on the immediate context i.e. verse three, and thus would necessitate that we argue that likewise, Christ is inferior to God – which would be blasphemy. This is not the Church’s problem ;)
Peace.
I'l try to find them.
God Bless,
pray for me.
I pray that as I approach this answer from an Orthodox position, it might bring clarity to the issue of female 'diaconates'. Research in the Orthodox history has revealed the following:
First of the early women deacons: Sts. Triphena, Phoebe
& Tabitha.
According to Bartholomew 1, Archbishop of Constantinopole, New Rome & Ecumenical Patriach : "As is known, the Ecumenical Patriarchate organized about 15 years ago a special conferencein Rhodes to explore the unique role of women in the Orthodox Church. In 1997 we hosted at the Phanar an inter-Orthodox conference with the participation of women, whom we exhorted to make a thorough examination of this expression of diaknoai. We reminded them at the same time that the institution of deaconesses is an indisputable part of our tradition reaching back to the primitive Church.'
THE DIACONATE & "MINOR ORDERS"
"The apostolic order of deaconesses should be reviewed. It was never altogether abandoned in the Orthodox Church though it has tended to fall into disuse. There is ample evidence, from apostolic times, from the patristic, canonical and liturgical tradition, well into the Byzantine period that this order was held in high honor.
The deaconess was ordained within the sanctuary during the Divine Liturgy with two prayers, she received the Orarion (the deacon's stole) and received Holy Communion at the Altar.
The revival of this ancient order should be envisaged on the basis of the ancient prototypes testified to in many sources and with the prayers found in the Aostolic Constitutions and the ancient Byzantine liturgical books.
The revival of women deacons in the Orthodox Church would emphasize in a special way the dianity of women and give recognition to her contribution to the work of theChurch as a whole."
Ths history of the Church clearly indicates women deacons were ordained ministers of the Orthodox Church, and authorized b y their bishops to engage in a number of different activities which expressed the Church's mission to lead persons to salvation in Christ.
First: Women deacons frequently had a dynamic, evangelical ministry of teaching the Christian faith to others. Because of their gift of discernment, many deaconesses were renowed as spiritual mothers. Their intercession, advice, and guidance were sought by both women & men, even ranking members of the cergy.
Second: A number of women deacons had an evangelical ministry in the area of what would be called today pastoral care & social work. Among their responsibilities, some women deacons devoted their efforts to helping provide food and & shelter for the poor.
Third: Women deacons would also bring Holy Communion to those members of the community who were unable to participate in the Divine Liturgy and would offer prayer and comfort to those in need.
The Apostolic Constitutions tell of church practices both before & after Nicea where the deaconess is mentioned after the deacon and before the subdeacon. The iposition of hands by the bishop is spoken of as the accepted method of making deconesses. A prayer from the Constituion is embodied into someof the modern admission rites:
"Concerning Deaconesses...O Bishop, thou shalt lay thy hands upon her, with the Presbytery and the Deacons and Deaconesses standing by; and thou shalt say: 'Eternal God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Creator of man and woman, that didst fill with the spirit Mary and Deborah, and Anna and Hulda, that didst not disdain that thine only begotten Son should be born of a woman; thou that in the tabernacle of witness and in the temple didst appoint the women guardians of the holy gates: Do thou look on this thy handmaid, which is appointed unto ministry (eis diakonian); and grant unto her the Holy Spirit, and cleanse her froim all pollution of flesh and the spirit, that she may worthily accomplish the work committed unt her, to thy glory and the praise of thy Christ, with whom to thee and the Holy Spirit be glory and worship world without end Amen"
St. John Chrysostom, bishop of Constantinopole, spoke out eloquently against the sins of the emperor and the moral laxity of clergy and laity alike that he was forced to flee into exile. There were 40-deaconesses on the staff of the cathedral of St. Sophia and they helped the bishop to escape. Deaconesses were considered member of the clergy in both civil & ecclesiastical law.
In the Constantinopolitan Rite of the service books of the Eastern Church, the prayer that accompanies the laying on of hands in the ordination of a deaconess runs this:
"O Lord God, who does not reject women who offer themselves in accordance with the divine will to minister in thy holy places, but admittest them into the rank of ministers (leitourgoi). Give the grace of thy Holy Spirit even to this thy handmaid, who desireth to offer herself to thee, and to fulfill the grace of the ministry as thou didst give the grace of thy ministry unto Phoebe..."
I trust that these insights will be helpful to your understanding of Female Deacons in the Orthodox Church.
God's blessings be with you,
Hope this helps God bless.