The bible is not Infallible

Theology
21

The above statement is an olympic gymnastics level of a leap.

You making it seem as if there are only two options, namely, only women are silent or everyone is silent in church. Why is it that the only way you imagine to maintain order in church is just by silencing the women? Women speaking as freely as men will not create any disoder in church given that women have the same capacity for rational/thoughts/intelligibility/consciousness/understanding/reasoning as men. So why does the restriction to be silent in church only apply to women and not to men as well?

22

Okay, there is no leaping involved. Perhaps it’s a language thing. The meaning of this sentence in English is as follows:

A “restriction to be silent” on women in church, means all women. That’s who the restriction applies to. Of all the women in the church, none are allowed to preach and no teaching men.

So when you ask why the restriction doesn’t apply to men as well, in English, that means the same restriction to all the men in the church, which would mean that neither women nor men would be allowed to teach or preach.

That’s what the sentence means. And if that’s not what you’re asking, nobody can guess what you’re asking.

It occurs to me that you might be just winding me up - ha ha good joke. In any case, I’ve reached the limit of my explanatory powers and patience. Also, your thread is derailed. If you want to continue asking it, I recommend a new thread.

1 Like
23

I thought you would get here on your own, dont you get it, Why is the restrictions for women to be silent in church even there to begin with? Have you never wondered why?

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Different question, and with that attitude, every atheist out there is going easily give you the spanking you deserve and send you home crying like a little girl.

Sound like fun?

Always better to admit the truth the moment you perceive it.

25

Okay, since you clearly refusing to answer the question, I want to close this topic of discussion on this post becasue this post is about a diffrent topic of discussion, speciffically, the Bible is not infallible. Everyone is gladly welcomed to continue it on my post were it was being discussed.

26

I’m okay with women speaking in church.

27

Then why did you say this to begin with?

28

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha (keep going)

29

Reverted to your childhood?

Just a suggestion, but forum etiquette holds that no one derail a thread from its OP. It just keeps the riffraff from taking your thread away from you, in a direction you didn’t intend. But forum etiquette also holds that the original poster sort of “owns” the thread, and can take it in whatever direction he cares to. However, if you decide to take it in a completely different direction, nobody who wasn’t involved will know from the thread title.

Best to start a new thread if you’re going in a new direction.

30

The answer is simple and in the Word for all to read.

“But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God. … For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. 9 Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man.” 1 Corinthians 11:3. 8-9

And

“The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own household well, with all dignity, keeping his children submissive, for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church? He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil. Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace, into a snare of the devil.” 1 Timothy 3:1-7

Alone with Titus 1:5–9

“This is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained into order, and appoint elders in every town as I directed you-- if anyone is above reproach, the husband of one wife, and his children are believers and not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination. For an overseer, as God’s steward, must be above reproach. He must not be arrogant or quick-tempered or a drunkard or violent or greedy for gain, but hospitable, a lover of good, self-controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined. 9 He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it.”

An order of spiritual authority and representation. God the Father is the head of Christ. Christ is the head of man. Man is the head of woman.

In this view, “headship” carries the idea of ultimate responsibility, spiritual leadership, and representation before God. Because Christ submits to the Father without being inferior to Him, in this formula a woman’s submission to male headship in the church or home is about functional role, not worth or value.

To show that male leadership is not just a cultural preference but a foundational divine design, the formula appeals to the order of Creation. For Adam was formed first, then Eve.

The qualifications for church elders/pastors require a leader to be “the husband of one wife” and to “manage his own household well.” The formula connects the home and the church: if God designated the husband as the head of the home (Ephesians 5:23), the elder/pastoral authority in the local church reflects that same headship structure. Therefore, spiritual authority over the entire congregation (the “family of God”) is reserved for qualified men to maintain the line of headship established in 1 Corinthians 11. A key component of this formula is that it mirrors the relational structure within the Trinity. Equal in essence, distinct in role: God the Son (Jesus) is 100% equal to God the Father in divine nature, yet during the Incarnation, He submitted to the Father’s authority and mission .

Just as Jesus submitting to the Father does not make Jesus inferior, a woman stepping out of pastoral/elder leadership to align with male headship does not make her inferior in value, gifts, or dignity.

Be blessed, be a blessing, and Jesus is LORD.

Peter

31

Peter, you said the answer was “simple and in the Word for all to read,” but then proceeded to answer a question I did not ask. I asked: if the concern in 1 Corinthians 14 was order, why would silence apply only to women? The devastating irony is that the immediate context answers this before your headship theory ever enters the room: it does not apply only to women. Paul uses the same verb sigaō—“be silent”—for the tongue-speaker without an interpreter in v.28, the prophet who must yield when another receives revelation in v.30, and women in v.34. The chapter is regulating disorderly speech across the congregation. You constructed an entire hierarchy to explain a distinction that the text itself does not even make.

Worse, your interpretation runs directly into 1 Corinthians 11:5, where Paul explicitly discusses women praying and prophesying. Women cannot simultaneously be permitted to pray and prophesy in the assembly and be under an absolute prohibition against speaking there. Whatever 14:34–35 means, therefore, it cannot simply mean “women may not speak because men possess spiritual authority.” And when you quote 11:8–9—woman from man, woman created for man—you stop immediately before Paul says, “Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man, nor is man independent of woman… and everything comes from God” (11:11–12). You quoted the part that serves your hierarchy and omitted Paul’s immediate qualification of it.

Then you move to 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1. Those passages concern qualifications for overseers/elders. They do not explain why women are told to be silent in 1 Corinthians 14, and they certainly do not say, “Therefore all spiritual authority over the congregation belongs to men.” You supplied that conclusion yourself. “Husband of one wife” is mias gynaikos andra—literally a “one-woman man”—language concerning the candidate’s character and marital fidelity. If you insist that every grammatical feature is itself an absolute eligibility law, then you must explain what happens to unmarried or childless candidates when the same passages immediately discuss managing a household and children. You cannot selectively literalize the male wording and then interpret the surrounding qualifications according to principle.

Your largest leap comes next: husband → wife, therefore male → female, therefore pastor → entire congregation. Those are three different relationships, and you have simply merged them. Ephesians 5 discusses marriage. 1 Corinthians 11 discusses man/woman and worship. 1 Timothy 3 discusses overseers. Nowhere does any of those passages state your constructed sentence: “The male pastor stands over every woman in the congregation as the husband stands over his wife.” That is not Scripture. That is your synthesis.

And the Trinity analogy makes the problem worse, not better. You say Christ’s submission proves equal beings may occupy permanent authority/submission relationships, then transfer that structure onto male and female Christians. But Christ’s submission in the incarnation is explicitly connected to His voluntary mission—Philippians 2:6–8 begins with His equality and describes His self-emptying and obedience. Scripture never says, “Women relate to men as Christ relates to the Father.” You created that correspondence and then presented it as though Paul supplied it.

So after all those quotations, my original question remains untouched. You have shown that husbands and wives have relational language, that creation order appears in Paul’s reasoning, and that overseers have qualifications. You have not shown that women alone were silenced for church order, because 1 Corinthians 14 itself shows that they were not. You have not shown that every man possesses spiritual authority over every woman. You have not shown that elder qualifications create a universal male chain of command. And you have not shown that the Trinity establishes male authority over women.

You began by saying the answer was “simple.” It actually is. Read the whole chapter. Paul silences the tongue-speaker. Paul silences the prophet. Paul silences the women in the disputed situation. His stated conclusion is not “men must rule women”; it is: “God is not a God of disorder but of peace” and “everything should be done in a fitting and orderly way” (1 Cor. 14:33, 40).

You brought me a hierarchy. Paul brought us order. Those are not the same argument.

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https://theologicaltouchpoints.com/the-infallibility-of-scripture/#:~:text=Contact-,The%20Infallibility%20of%20Scripture,-Julian%20Stoltzfus

John S. Feinberg, Light in a Dark Place; The Doctrine of Scripture (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2018), 265.
Feinberg, Light in a Dark Place, 273.
The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy (Oakland, CA: The Council, 1978), Article XI.
Stephen T. Davis, The Debate About the Bible (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1977), 23.
The Chicago Statement, Article XI.
The Chicago Statement, Article XII.
John MacArthur, Biblical Doctrine: A Systematic Summary of Bible Truth (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2017), 109.

Worth a perusal and some contemplation.

Shalom.

J.

1 Like
33

The Bible is a collection of many things, one of them being Paul’s letters. If Paul was wrong about something, that doesn’t mean the Bible is lying. All the Bible said is that this is a letter from Paul. Paul said, “women should keep silence in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as even the law says. If there is anything they desire to know, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.” (1 Corinthians 14:34-35). Women do a lot of work in my church. If they aren’t allowed to speak, we’d be in trouble.

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You raise fair points about the Greek structure of 1 Corinthians 14 that deserve a direct answer. To address why many of us see a distinction between women praying/prophesying in chapter 11 and being told to be silent in chapter 14:

In 1 Corinthians 11:5, women are clearly permitted to pray and prophesy. However, in 1 Corinthians 14:29–35, the context shifts to the weighing, testing, and authoritative judging of prophecies. Many scholars (such as D.A. Carson and Wayne Grudem) note that while women exercised verbal spiritual gifts like prophecy, the authoritative evaluation of doctrine and congregation-wide teaching was restricted to the elders/male headship. This aligns with Paul’s appeal to “the Law” in v. 34 and creation order in 1 Timothy 2:12–13.

While sigaō (“be silent”) is indeed applied to tongue-speakers and prophets for immediate decorum, Paul grounds the restriction on women in something broader: appealing to the Law and the order of Creation (1 Cor 11:8–9, 1 Tim 2:13). That is why many of us synthesize these passages: Paul consistently returns to Genesis when laying out structure for the local church. I acknowledge that “husband of one wife” (mias gynaikos andra) focuses on character and fidelity. But when tied to Paul’s explicit statements in 1 Timothy 2–3 and Ephesians 5, the pattern of qualified male elder leadership remains a compelling, cohesive framework across the Epistles.

Be blessed, be a blessing,
Peter

35

Peter, your response is revealing because you have now conceded the very textual evidence that undermines your original argument, yet continue defending the same conclusion by introducing restrictions Paul never explicitly establishes.

You acknowledge that 1 Corinthians 11:5 permits women to pray and prophesy, and that sigaō (“be silent”) applies to tongue-speakers, prophets, and women in 1 Corinthians 14. Excellent. We agree that silence is not exclusively commanded of women. But instead of confronting the implications, you introduce a distinction: women may prophesy, but only men may authoritatively evaluate prophecy.

Where does Paul say that, Peter?

You cite 1 Corinthians 14:29–35. Yet verse 29 states: “Two or three prophets should speak, and the others should weigh carefully what is said.” Paul does not say “male elders,” “husbands,” or “men.” He says “the others.” You have inserted a male-only qualification that the verse itself does not contain. That is not textual demonstration; it is an assumption your interpretation requires.

Worse, verse 35 states: “If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home.” Since when does asking a question to obtain understanding constitute exercising authoritative doctrinal judgment over a congregation? These are distinct activities. If Paul intended to prohibit women from evaluating prophecy, demonstrate how a statement concerning questions establishes that restriction. You cannot simply redefine the conduct described in Scripture to accommodate your conclusion.

You then appeal to “the Law” in verse 34. Which law, precisely? Paul does not identify the passage. You invoke creation order through Genesis and 1 Timothy, but where does Genesis prohibit women from evaluating prophecy? Where does it establish that every man possesses spiritual authority over women? A sequence of creation does not, by itself, establish a prohibition against exercising spiritual gifts. You have asserted the connection without demonstrating it.

Your appeal to Carson and Grudem establishes that your interpretation has scholarly defenders. It does not establish that their interpretation is correct. Their credentials cannot supply a missing textual premise. I asked what Paul teaches, not which scholars agree with your conclusion. Scholarly endorsement is not a substitute for scriptural demonstration.

Furthermore, consider 1 Corinthians 12:10–11, where Paul identifies distinguishing between spirits as a spiritual gift distributed according to the Spirit’s will. He does not restrict that gift to men. Although discerning spirits and evaluating prophecy are not necessarily identical activities, your claim of exclusively male prophetic evaluation requires you to demonstrate where Paul establishes that restriction. You have not done so.

Finally, you concede that mias gynaikos andra concerns character and marital fidelity, yet retreat into a supposed pattern of male elder leadership. But qualified eldership and universal male authority over women are different propositions. Even establishing male-only eldership would not demonstrate that every woman is spiritually subordinate to every man, nor would it automatically prohibit women from participating in congregational discernment. You cannot establish one proposition and pretend you have proven another.

Let us therefore identify precisely what remains unproven:

You have not identified where Paul restricts evaluating prophecy to men. You have not demonstrated that asking questions constitutes authoritative doctrinal judgment. You have not identified a law explicitly establishing your proposed restriction. You have not shown that qualifications for elders create a universal male hierarchy.

Instead, you have assembled passages concerning different relationships, supplied interpretive connections, and presented the resulting framework as though Paul explicitly articulated it.

Peter, the burden is not on me to disprove restrictions you have introduced. The burden is on you to demonstrate that Scripture establishes them.

You began by declaring that the answer was “simple and in the Word for all to read.” Then identifying the actual words that establish your conclusion should present no difficulty whatsoever.

You have supplied your interpretation. I am still waiting for the Scripture that proves it.

And that, Peter, is the difference between reading what Scripture says and requiring Scripture to say what your argument needs.

36

While it is true that Scripture never claims to be written by the “finger” of God, it does claim to be authored by God.

  • 2 Peter 1:21: “No prophecy was ever borne of human impulse; rather, men carried along by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.”

    • The Greek term prophēteia refers to divinely originated revelation communicated through human spokesmen, and the participle pheromenoi (“carried along”) describes the Spirit’s operative agency in the prophetic communication. Peter is contrasting human initiative with divine origination. [1]

  • 2 Tim. 3:16: “Every scripture is inspired by God and useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.”

    • The English word “inspired” translates (poorly) the Greek word theopneustos, which means something more like “breathed-out” by God. This passage identifies the source of Scripture, while 2 Peter 1:21 describes the divine agency operating through its human authors.

Furthermore, the doctrine of infallibility does not apply to the copies or translations of Scripture, for errors can be introduced through copying or translating. It is to the original autographs that infallibility applies; nevertheless, it remains a characteristic of God’s Word wherever that Word is faithfully preserved, transmitted, and communicated.

Footnotes

[1] Prophēteia is not restricted to predicting future events, which is what a modern person tends to think when he hears the word. That is one form of prophecy. Its defining characteristic is its divine origin and authority, not its subject matter. Peter is saying that prophecy does not originate in the prophet’s own interpretation, conception, or initiative, for its ultimate source is God himself.

1 Like
37

Sorry, but you have no idea what you are talking about. The core difference between our positions isn’t a lack of Scripture; it’s a fundamental difference in how we read and synthesize Scripture as a cohesive whole. You are demanding that a single verse explicitly spell out a full systematic theology of authority before you consider it valid. But Scripture rarely operates as an isolated legal manual; Paul wrote letters to churches that shared a broader context, background, and apostolic tradition.

To directly address your key points:

In 1 Corinthians 14:29, when Paul says “the others” (hoi alloi) should weigh what is said, we must read this in light of the immediate context of congregational order and submission (v. 34). Why does Paul transition immediately from weighing prophecy to instructing women to “be in submission, as the law says” and “remain silent?” If Paul intended zero distinction in functional role during this evaluation process, his pivot to creation/law-based submission in verses 34–35 becomes contextually disjointed. The synthesis isn’t an assumption imposed on the text; it is an effort to explain why Paul connects prophecy evaluation with female submission in the exact same passage.

You asked which law Paul refers to. Throughout Paul’s epistles, when he appeals to “the Law” regarding gender roles (e.g., 1 Cor 11:8–9; 1 Tim 2:13), he consistently grounds his argument in the Genesis creation account (Genesis 1–2). Specifically, the sequence of creation and the order established before the Fall. Creation order is not a temporary cultural restriction; it is foundational.

Is isolating 1 Corinthians 14 from 1 Timothy 2, Ephesians 5, and 1 Timothy 3 the best way to understand Paul’s mind? No. 1 Timothy 2:12 explicitly restricts women from teaching or exercising authority over men, grounded in Creation (v. 13). 1 Timothy 3 explicitly outlines elder qualifications as male headship within the local body. 1 Corinthians 14 commands silence and submission in the assembly during the evaluation of gifts.

When we put these together, the picture is consistent: women actively participate in spiritual life and edification (1 Cor 11), but the underlying structure of governing authority and formal doctrinal oversight in the church remains entrusted to qualified men. Pretty simple for those with eyes to see, ears to hear, and a Spirit to understand.

Be blessed.

Peter