VI. The Church
A New Testament church of the Lord Jesus Christ is an autonomous local congregation of baptized believers, associated by covenant in the faith and fellowship of the gospel; observing the two ordinances of Christ, governed by His laws, exercising the gifts, rights, and privileges invested in them by His Word, and seeking to extend the gospel to the ends of the earth. Each congregation operates under the Lordship of Christ through democratic processes. In such a congregation each member is responsible and accountable to Christ as Lord. Its scriptural officers are pastors and deacons. While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.
The New Testament speaks also of the church as the Body of Christ which includes all of the redeemed of all the ages, believers from every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation.
Matthew 16:15-19; 18:15-20; Acts 2:41-42,47; 5:11-14; 6:3-6; 13:1-3; 14:23,27; 15:1-30; 16:5; 20:28; Romans 1:7; 1 Corinthians 1:2; 3:16; 5:4-5; 7:17; 9:13-14; 12; Ephesians 1:22-23; 2:19-22; 3:8-11,21; 5:22-32; Philippians 1:1; Colossians 1:18; 1 Timothy 2:9-14; 3:1-15; 4:14; Hebrews 11:39-40; 1 Peter 5:1-4; Revelation 2-3; 21:2-3.
Audrey Barrick of The Christian Post reports:
The Rev. Mimi Walker has been serving as co-pastor at Druid Hills Baptist Church with her husband, the Rev. Graham Walker, since 2003. But earlier this month, leaders of the Georgia Baptist Convention recommended cutting ties with the local congregation.
"It seems sad that they decided to go backwards in time," Mimi Walker told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "I'm not sure what the value is of trying to go back in time when women were held in subservience."
Ironically Fundamentalists in their zeal for biblical inerrancy and biblical literalism do not take the bible literally enough---as one of the main verses so often abused to forbid female pastors can also be used to forbid single, childless, divorced and remarried male pastors as well as male pastors with one child or adopted children if the text of the verse is stretched enough. The main verses used against female pastors are:
1 Timothy 2:9-14 (King James Version)
9In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array; 10But (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works. 11Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. 12But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. 13For Adam was first formed, then Eve. 14And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.
1 Timothy 3:1-5 (ESV)
Qualifications for Overseers (Bishops/Elders/Pastors)
3:1 The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. 2 Therefore an overseer [1] must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, [2] sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, 3 not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. 4 He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, 5 for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God's church?
1 Timothy 3:1-5 of course can be used to forbid single, childless, divorced and remarried male pastors as well as male pastors with one child or adopted children---but all of these have been ordained within SBC churches without question. Also notice that in 1 Timothy 2:9-14 it is the author's or authors' opinion that women cannot teach men not God forbidding female pastors. Looking over 1 Timothy 3:1-5 again a lot of men who are pastors now should be disqualified based upon their failure to uphold any and/or all of these qualifications. So why shouldn't/can't females be pastors now if even males can't keep these so-called "Absolute and literal biblical standards?"
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