Dr. Brown Tackles Your Toughest Questions

1. Hello Dr Brown,

   Your show notes asked: “Have I ‘left the Bible’ by having a female pastor on my show?”

   I find this hard to believe, but it might be true. We should help you find it. Perhaps you left the Bible on your dashboard of your car? Since you are always jetting off somewhere, perhaps it’s on seat 87B of a plane?

   I will go away now.

2. Does I Timothy 2:12 put a limit on God such that he can not use women in ministry as teachers or pastors? I think not. I don’t believe that’s what it says.

   Maybe God uses women in ministry to provoke men to go to a higher level.

3. The limit is not on God, the limit is on us. God’s ways are perfect and to show His glory and perfection and to guide us on the path that He desires for us, He places limitation on what we can and cannot do, “Thou shalt not eat of the Tree of knowledge of good and evil” – “Thou shalt love the Lord your God” etc.

4. Let’s suppose that God ordains a minister, a woman, in the knowledge of his will, with signs following such as healings, words given that come true for men, words such that they verify what they have already received which they knew to be of God, and also teach them things from the scripture itself which would encourage them in their relationship with the Lord, would it be wrong for a pastor to invite her to teach or minister in his church?

   Would that be sin?

5. From Smith Wigglesworth, who YHWH used to resurrect over a dozen human being from the dead, here is a quote from this man named the Apostle of faith, “My wife was a great preacher, and although I had no ability to preach, she made up her mind to train me for the ministry. So she would continually make an announcement that I would be the speaker the next Sunday. She said she was sure I could preach if I only tried. When she announced me to speak, this would give me a week of labour and a good deal of sweating. I used to go into the pulpit on Sunday with great boldness, give out my text, say a few words, and then say to the congregation, “If any of you can preach you can have a chance now, for I am finished.”

   Smith Wiggleswoth wife was the leader and preacher of their congregation. Why would YHWH bless his and his wife’s ministry so much if they were living in direct sin for letting a female be their teacher and prophet to their congregation. Smith Wigglesworth even says that his wife trained him for the ministry and he became one of the most Yeshua like disciples of the last two thousand years, casting out demons, healing thousands of documented and undeniable sicknesses and diseases and a dozen dead restored to life again.

   Could it be that the Holy Spirit is not as against females teaching and leading as the modern day men are, could it be that the Holy Spirit will use any vessel, male or female, even a donkey, if need be, if that vessel is fully submissive to the Chief Shepherd, YHWH, for example Deborah the prophet.

   Does not Dr Jack Hayford endorse the female pastor(ess) that was guest on the Line of Fire, does not all her mentors, discern it to be YHWH’s desire for her to pastor and disobedience, would be disobedience to YHWH and her male mentors and church authorities?

   Why would YHWH use the Wigglesworths so dynamically if they are in direct apostacy to the interpretations of fallible men in regard to 1 Timothy 2:12?

6. All I can ask at this point is if you are allowing scripture to speak to you or if you are following human experience? It sound as if you are discarding the Apostle Paul and affirming what is denied in the Word.

   “Could it be that the Holy Spirit is not as against females teaching and leading as the modern day men are…” – Could it be that the Holy Spirit was wrong when He lead Paul to write about teaching in the church? No, absolutely not.

   Also, read the Old Testament and you will find countless cases of men greatly used of God who committed great sin and disobedience in the sight of the Lord.

   Many say that Paul could not be saying what it sounds like he is saying in 1 Timothy 2:12. But they very rarely say what they think he is saying.

7. Benjamin, since you seem to be a serious student of the Word, I’d encourage to read carefully the book by William Webb I referenced earlier in the week, posting your comments here after you do. http://www.amazon.com/Slaves-Women-Homosexuals-Exploring-Hermeneutics/dp/0830815619/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1359871094&sr=8-1&keywords=william+webb

8. Their are few (none) in the Old Testament that YHWH used to resurrect 14 dead human beings plus thousands of miraculous healings, some of the most impossible nature, such as a man with no legs miraculously growing legs and then feet and then toes. In Brazil this actually happened once. YHWH used my mother as His vessel, a man born without feet, was miraculously grown feet and then toes as this simple woman, my mom, prayed over him at his request to be healed.

   Maybe Moses, maybe Elijah, but Smith Wigglesworth has been used by the Spirit of YHWH in ways that one can claim that Yeshua prophecied of under the power of the Spirit, would come those that would do greater works than Yeshua himself had done.

   Certain parts of Paul’s writings say things such as, this is not the practice in the congregations, but my personal thoughts on the issues.

   A few verses before 1 Timothy 2:12, he says in Greek, boulomai (I desire). In 1 Timothy 2:12, he says in Greek, “ouk epitrepo” (I do not permit). The first question is, is this one of those cases, that Paul is speaking of his own personal ways of doing things. As in other places in Paul’s letters, he writes about his ways and how it was not the practice of any of the churches.

   If you want to demand Paul’s way here is the only way, then a few verses earlier he says women should not braid their hair, he says women should not wear pearls and gold and that women should not wear expensive clothes. He also says that women should wear head coverings as it states in writings of Moses in another place.

   There would be more credibility to arguments if it was not a pick what I want from Paul’s writings and leave out what I don’t like from Paul’s writings. Example: Veils for women and a ban on pearls and braided hair on church premises.

   There are countless scholars of Greek that explain 1 Timothy 2:12 to be stating the synagogue setup of the early disciples, the reading of the Writings of Moses as had been done even by Yeshua and the women were in a veiled area in the above or in the rear depending on the architecture of the particular synagogue, if women could be heard through the veil, this would be extremely distracting to the reading of the weekly Torah verses and the teachings on it, with a sensitivity to the leading of the Spirit. An abudance of biblical and Greek scholars hold to this including the female pastor who was on the line of fire a few days ago, who is endorsed by some of the leading ministers in the world such as renowned Dr Jack Hayford.

   I have looked at the Greek texts and I need to look at it some more with prayer and guidance from the Spirit of YHWH.

   Plagerism (to me) is not only quoting someone wrong but quoting someone’s heart wrong. If Paul was here, now, in our world today, what would he say on these issues, for how we proceed when women are prophecying under the power of the Spirit and are being called, they believe, to preach and teach the Gospel to all creation such as Naomi, the pastor on line of fire a few days ago.

   If women are not allowed to be a teacher of Scripture, than are women not allowed to wear braids, pearls, expensive clothes on church premises and be unveiled at any time as was required by Moses’ writings for married women and those praying and prophecying?

   Can you read a teaching from a woman in a book and if you do and accidently learn something, was it a sin for opening the door to possibly learn something. How far does one go in this?

   If your little girl wants her hair braided, are you going to say its a sin because 1 Timothy 2:9, especially if she is on church premises with braided hair? What about pearls and what about gold, what if a female wears gold chain with a gold heart, and then enters the church building? Should she be scolded for disobeying Paul’s wishes from the first century he lived in?

   When was the last time you saw all the married women in a church service with Jewish like veils over their hair? Paul was a Jew who was a Pharisee in a first century Jewish world with a Gentile coverts growing into the fold.

   But if Shaul/Paul lived today, what would the Holy Spirit be leading him to instruct to this world’s believers? This is the heart of Paul I toil the Scriptures to find. It’s like the bracelet WWJD (what would Jesus do). What would Paul do, today?

   The other question is “Is there only absolutes or is there exceptions?

   Even in the Pharisee teachings that Shaul learned under from Rav Gamliel taught that any prophet of YHWH can be used by YHWH to supercede the writings of Moses. Why? YHWH is not limited to do anything, whenever He wants through whomever He wants through an established prophet of YHWH (of course YHWH can not sin etc.).

   So the question still has to be asked if Paul a self named Pharisee, wrote in absolutes only, or are there exceptions, as the Pharisees knew.

   Couple that with his high regard for Phoebe and Priscila and some even argue another female Junias was named among the apostles (not the original 12 of course) and others argue for 2 John, the chosen lady epistle speaking of a real female not a parable. Then their are Deborah the leader of the nation of Israel and Huldah the prophetess female who Josiah the Holy king relied on frequently for the Word of YHWH. Lets not forget Miriam the prophetess and Moses’ sister and worship leader of the whole congregation of Israel. Lets not forget Anna the prophetess either in the NT.

9. I just can’t seem to rightly imagine that a woman such as Marilyn Hickey for example, having to repent one day before the Lord for having been teaching the gospel in countries that have been mainly of Muslim religion.

   I just can’t seem to see her having to repent of teaching about the cross of Christ because she was a woman. I can’t seem to rightly imagine such a thing. Was she wrong to have preached about his resurrection?

   Hasn’t it been the Lord that raised her up to be a witness of him and to go around the globe to tell the good news of God and to minister? Wasn’t it God who did the works of healing by Jesus Christ through faith, the faith that is in him?

10. Eliyahu, if you are still here, may I ask the meaning of your name? My name is of Greek origin and just means “flower lady”, as does Flora. But your name looks as if it might mean “the LORD is God” or something like that. If you don’t mind sharing, I’d like to know. This is completely off-topic, but perhaps Dr Brown will give me some licence here?

11. Eliyahu is Elijah in Hebrew in transliterated in English letters.. Eli means my God. And Yahu means YHWH. My God is YHWH. In Hebrew it looks like this ( אֱלִיָּהוּ.

    Michael (as in Dr Brown) is Mi (who) cha (as) El (God). Who is like God. Here it is Hebrew ( מיכאל.

    Anthea comes from the Greek word, “ἄνθος”, which is a flower. Your name is cool. You have a beautiful name. May YHWH bless your name. As it is written, “A good name is better than great wealth”.

    נבחר שם מעשר רב מכסף ומזהב חן טוב (Proverbs 22:1)

12. It just occured to me that for the reason of the meaning of the name “Michael”, Jesus may be referred to that way.

13. Ive read all the comments and it just occurs to me that people seem to think that its somehow impossible to do what Paul teaches. Im from the UK and both my mother and my grandmother believed that it was wrong for a woman to take authority over men and they wore headcoverings in public prayer up until the day they died. I can also tell you from my own eyes seeing it that it was the same for all of the women in the churches I went to in England and Wales with very few exceptions when I was very small. I can remember women wearing hats in the choir as a little girl of five years of age in the City Temple pentecostal church in Cardiff during their Easter convention and I can remember that same choir ten years later completely hatless. I also don’t think it was any co-incidence that it was around the time that the Charismatic movement from America hit the UK that many of what would be called “old fashioned” practices were thrown out. Please could somebody tell me since when does the Church take its practices and interpretations from the world? How come G0d left his church in complete darkness on this issue and everybody has been misinterpreting Paul for so long with everybody almost without exception all thinking that women should wear head coverings when praying publically from apostolic times until the rise of feminism??

14. And I would also say that just because many Christian women TODAY wear expensive gold jewelry today and expensive clothes and elaborate hairstyles – this does not take away one jot of authority from Pauls teaching that this is not the way a Christian woman should dress. Our beauty is to be based on our inner spirituality not our outward appearance.

15. Thanks Dr. Brown. I will order that book today.
    Thank you.

16. It seems to me that if a great female evangelist were to attend a meeting of mostly men, that she should be aware of the place of men and the place of women as pertaining to authority and leadership and that it would show in how she behaves.

    I would think that she would be subject to the men and whereas it might be the kind of meeting where men may all freely speak their mind concerning a matter (if that is the type of meeting at the time) that she would be subject to the men, not wanting to speak up at all unless the entire group was obviously going in the wrong direction and God was revealing this to her.

    Somehow, God’s empowering women for ministry today can, does, and should fit with the things Paul wrote of to Timothy.

    What Paul wrote to Timothy was for a time and a place yet we may still learn from it today and learn to apply that wisdom which is of God.

    I believe a woman may be invited by a man in charge of a meeting to share what God has done, what she has witnessed, or what she understands about some situation, or has some knowledge about.

    Sometimes people wear their clothing to reveal their bodies instead of cover them and wear jewelry as a distraction and it isn’t good. We still need to take heed to what Paul wrote about this.

17. A belated thank you to Eliyahu for your gracious reply to my query, as I’ve just now read the Line of Fire page.

    I loved the Bible quotation. Many thanks!

18. In regards to another topic that was discussed on this program…

    I agree with Dr. Brown that the day Jesus was crucified is not that important. It is used as an alleged contradiction in the Bible by skeptics. It is important to be able to provide the most Biblical answer to that objection.

    A verse that was not mentioned (in the 1st hour anyway, I have not listened to the 2nd hour yet) was Mat 28:1.

    In the Greek I am told that Mat 28:1 should be translated “After the Sabbaths”. Sabbaths should be plural. The new ISV translation actually translates Mat 28:1 that way.

    It is alleged that most of our English translations have chosen “After the Sabbath” as a translation because of traditions associated with good Friday.

    Mat 28:1 would seem to indicte that was more than one Sabbath between the crucifixion and Sunday morning.

    Disclaimer, I do not know Greek so please check on this for yourself.

    Blessings,
    Peter

19. On comment #9. It remains unclear to me if the claimed ministry you mention is or is not anointed of God in Christ. I’ve been in her assembly and confess confusion over visiting ministers she has allowed to preach on giving them money in order to receive money from faith as a source. There are other questions as well, regarding going to one of her breakfasts to receive direct healing from her, as a surrogate Jesus. I have no malicious feelings, just many many questions on many of the claims and proclamations involved in promotion of ministry over and above discipleship to JC. Why do not the qualifications for eldership include women? Does not Paul claim Eve deceived as an example of what not do entrust?

Comments are closed.