Fitz Files Fail

These are your hypocrisies: You want the Bible to be your standard for marriage but you don't use the Bible for your standard on teaching for women in ministry. I know this straight from the Bible you quote.

Fitz flunks the text

Here's the real crunch Margaret: 'Seeing as the Bible seems to be the only reference point you recognise … I feel I must cite St. Paul's advice in 1 Timothy 2:12; Ephesians 5:22; and 1 Corinthians 11:3-10'.

Fitz, if you were a student in one of my (Spencer Gear's) courses at Bible College and gave your expositions of these three passages as you have done here, you would fail the exam. You didn't come up to the standard because you, an atheist,could not achieve …

• Proper exegesis of the texts. You cherry picked verses, allegedly against female teachers, without exposition. FAIL !
• Your citation of 1 Cor 11:3-10 includes both husband and wife who prophesy (vv 3-4). Prophecy cannot happen without words and you didn't explain what headship means and how women can prophesy in the public gathering of the church. FAIL !
• Eph 5:22-23, 'For wives, this means submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For a husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of the church'. What on earth does that have to do with women in ministry? Again, it requires you to expound the meaning of headship. You didn't. FAIL !
• 1 Tim 2:12 has caused angst among Bible scholars for 2,000 years because of the unusual word for authority, authentein, used only this one time in the entire New Testament. It has the connotation 'to domineer' and in context probably reflects the role of women in promoting errors of the false teachers in Ephesus, where Timothy was located. You provided none of this information. FITZ FAILS !

Elsewhere the Apostle Paul affirmed the ministry of teaching by men and women. See 1 Cor 14:26 and Colossians 3:16-17. There was none of this information in your article. Seems to me you deliberately set out to denigrate Margaret Court's view of Scripture, her alleged hypocrisy in supporting heterosexual marriage while violating the Bible's view of women as teachers.

Fitz forgot fundamentals

The Christian faith is built on every-member ministry. It was declared on the Day of Pentecost: 'In the last days,' God says, 'I will pour out my Spirit upon all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your young men will see visions, and your old men will dream dreams. In those days I will pour out my Spirit even on my servants-men and women alike-and they will prophesy (Acts 2:17-18).

The same Apostle Paul who wrote the words in 1 Corinthians, Ephesians and Timothy also wrote Galatians 3:28, 'There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus'.

He also wrote: 'The human body has many parts, but the many parts make up one whole body. So it is with the body of Christ' (1 Cor 12:12).

Jesus' death and resurrection broke down the former barriers for women.

Your deconstructionist, reader-response interpretation

Would you want me to read your article the way you interpret Margaret Court's statements? She stated she loves homosexuals and has them in her church. Your assessment is that Margaret is 'a homophobic zealot'. Margaret stated clearly what she meant. Fitz twisted this in true deconstructionist, reader-response style.