Thank you for your blessings! I do believe that my brothers and sisters in Christ who are complementarians deserve my love and respect and I do desire to treat them this way every opportunity I have whether I agree with them or not on this secondary issue.

Cheryl, I had no idea these people actually threatened you with hell! Good heavens, that and the fact that they hide their faces after doing so makes them outright cowards! I guess I’m just so used to kind complimentarians; there are a few I know and love and some I revere as wonderful Christian writers. Both of these (the writers and the ones I’ve spoken to) are kind people who have proven to me that they respect my position, do NOT believe I’m in any danger of hell, and believe what they do because they honestly interpret the Bible this way, and not because they have an agenda against women (as so many others do). We don’t believe each other is going to hell because we know not only that we’re all human and open to error, but also that our motives are pure and we are operating under the desire and wish to obey God.

I’m sorry you’ve had such bad experience! Certainly there are some people like that out there (I call them “patriocentrists”, a word that a lady I know quite appropriately christened them with) and they’d do well to guard their hearts more properly.

Blessings to you for handling them in a far more Christian way than I could!

The problem with these complementarians refusing to correct me is that if one believes that a person is living in unrepentant sin and continues to practice that sin, then the person is not showing themselves to be a believer. This is what CBMW believes. They have publicly stated that the issue of women in ministry is not a side issue but an issue affecting the gospel of Jesus. I have also been told that if I do not repent of the “sin” of teaching the bible to men then my salvation is in question and if I continue to practice this “sin” that I will go to hell. If that is truly the case, then can they agree to disagree with me? If I believed that these men were being so deceived that they were on their way to hell, I would want to witness to them and persuade them of the truth. It just isn’t loving to believe that someone is going to be lost for believing a doctrine different than yours but refuse to correct them. This is my main point. If the differences is significant and attached to one’s salvation there can be no “agree to disagree” between the two.

on the other hand, it might actually be a sign of respect for them not to debate with you. They may know the Scripture exhorting people to reveal sin, but they probably also know that we are all human and therefore our interpretations of the Bible are open to the possibility of error. If they are not power mongers, then they would not be obsessed with correcting you. Perhaps that’s their reason.

Romans 8
38For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,

39Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

We are not under law, it’s just more bondage from man or mankind.

“They are unsure, though, if a woman who continues to “disobey” God by teaching men will go to hell or not.”

The above phrase sounds just like the JW’s…a Cult! We as believers are to Contend for the Faith and preach the Gospel of Christ FULLY to ALL, That’s what my bible said!

What about the woman at the well, after speaking with Jesus she went back an preached to her town about Christ and many were saved! You don’t hear Jesus saying and NEVER did he say “Hold on a second let me get a man to do this because women are not allowed to teach!”

I hope this helps you Cathy. My name is Michael an I’m here to help you anyway I can because your my sister in the faith.

I am on the road on a ministry trip so I don’t have the page number, etc, but the documentation that it is CBMW’s belief that it is a sin for women to teach men is from their book Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. They say that women are restricted by God from two things - teaching biblical doctrine to men and having authority over men in the church.

In personal email conversations that I have had with CBMW, they have confirmed that God’s restrictions against these two things is a “law” that forbids godly Christian women from teaching correct biblical doctrine to men. They say that to disobey this “law” is sinning against God. They are unsure, though, if a woman who continues to “disobey” God by teaching men will go to hell or not. I was told that if a woman continued in disobedience that this called into question whether she was even saved and if she died in this state that she would go to hell. According to them, if a woman was a true Christian, she would repent of this “sin” and would therefore not go to hell.

I hope that helps.

Can you site documentation for the CBMW’s beliefe that it is “sin” for women to teach men? I am struggling with this issus myself.

I am gaining insight from your site.

Thanks,

Cathy

I do not have a full list of the churches/denominations that ordain women but below are links to a couple of denominations that are good examples of those who hold to the inerrancy of scripture and are not off into doctrinal error.

The first two links below are for the Christian Reformed Church. The first link is regarding their beliefs and the second their position on women.

http://www.crcna.org/pages/beliefs.cfm

http://www.crcna.org/pages/positions_women_office.cfm

These next two links are for the Evangelical Covenant Church with the first link below their affirmations regarding the word of God, etc and the next link their position on women in ministry.

http://www.covchurch.org/affirmations

http://www.covchurch.org/ministry/departmental-ministries/women-in-ministry

I think that these two denominations are good examples of churches that hold tightly to God’s word. There are also many others including my own denomination. I hope that helps you out in your forum discussion. Once again, thanks for the kind remarks!

Cheryl