1. We are all (believers) priests unto God and for God.
2. We are all the temple of the Holy Spirit. He dwells in us, not in a building because the sin that separated us from him has been removed through Jesus’ sacrifice and our belief in Him.
3. God says in the Old Testement speaking of when the new would come (and it is repeated in Hebrews) that no one will have to teach His people from the greatest to the smallest to know God for we will all know Him for he will make us his dwelling.

For these reasons, and I’m sure I could state many more but this is enough, we are to have no more mediator between us and God than Jesus Christ Himself. He IS our mediator, every believer’s, between us and the Father. To place anyone else there is heresy and idolatry. To place oneself between a person and God as their mediator is to usurp a position that belongs to Christ alone and make oneself a “god” to that person. This is blasphemous. You cannot do such a thing according to scripture.

Secondly, it just makes no sense whatsoever that God would make all female believers temples of the Holy Ghost, give us power from the Spirit to proclaim the Good News of the Gospel, make us heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ Jesus, or for Christ to share his throne with us in heaven where he positionally already considers us to be in Himself, and then deny us a voice in the church. It’s beyond arrogance and ignorance. It’s beyond all logic and decency as well to declare women are “equals” in the church and have “equal value” with God and then say we have not the same rights as men. Nonsense, that is anything but equal value to declare such things.

No man, according to scripture, is to be our mediator, our superior, our leader, our master, our priest but God. “No man can have two masters…” “Call no man your teacher, for you have but one teacher and that is God…” etc.

The teaching on men being the priests of their homes is utter heresy. There is no such mandate stated in the Bible anywhere; instead mutual submission with a meaning of becoming one is taught.

We are each and every believer in covenant with God Himself through the Son. We have all the same rights, privileges and standing with God. God sees no gender and it would be ridiculous if He did. I just wish men in leadership in the church would open their eyes and be willing to see how utterly absurd and illogical such doctrines are. Unfortunately, their fleshly nature loves the superior postition they believe they hold because it makes them feel valuable and important. None of us need to be above the other, however, in order to feel valuable and important.

Anyway, the whole Bible from beginning to end is just chalked full of scriptures that fly in the face of such heresies concerning women and their roles in the church and home. I pray such pride in the church will lose, and God’s love, truth, and grace will win out very soon.

God’s equal servant,
Michele E.S.

Jon (87332): Hierarchalist thinking is a sure way to discourage the God-fearing daughter of a single, divorced, or widowed mother from ever getting married if she values her relationship with God. What’s the point of marrying if she’s going to lose her direct connection and has to have a human mediator? Anyone who has ever played “the gossip game” or has had a message relayed to them through a third party knows that the original message always gets messed up somehow. Worse, that message might get deliberately changed or even lost if it conflicts with the mediator/husband’s personal agenda. Not to mention she’d miss that closeness she once had with God. (Ack, who ever thought that someone could find any benefit in being a child of divorce or widowhood? Oh yeah, a widow’s kid could do that.)

1. “Priesthood of the believer” as I was taught it focused primarily on the fact that there is no one between myself and Christ — no intermediary. Christ Himself is the Intermediary between me and God the Father. So… just how does a man get in there between Jesus and a female believer? Hierarchalist thinking seems to me sooner or later to put a male between Christ and every female.

2. Relationally, when defining terms, being a “priest” is contrasted to being a “prophet.” A prophet speaks from God to the people of God (and sometimes to people not of God). A priest intercedes *for* the people to God. Another way to say it is that a prophet is primarily vertically related (from God to the people) while a priest is primarily horizontally related (from the people to God). This is simplistic, but provides a sort of penciled-in picture. My point is this: as priests, women (and men) would naturally be relating to people and speaking to God on the people’s behalf. In short, I don’t see how a distinction can be made between a named “office” of priest/minister and beetween the actions that all women (along with men) are called to perform as “priests” by the Priesthood of the Believer.

I await correction for anything I’ve said in ignorance, which may be all of it for all I know.

Anyway, fascinating thread.

It is antichrist to insist on enforcing these divisions in God’s Kingdom. How often over the centuries have the rich and powerful been shown special favor to the corruption of the churches. But isn’t it God who uses the weak and foolish to confound the world’s elitists? The last shall be first and the first shall be last. So much for the occultic pyramidal caste system!