A little clarification here...
The Bible says we should discern the spirits--it's not so much we're going to try to pick up on invisible vibrations or something as much as --discerning Attitudes.
It actually says we are to
try the spirits, not discern them. The idea being that we test them against something to verify their validity. Question...test them against what? Thanks for asking!
hehe anywho, we're to test them against God's word. If the spirit disagrees with the word, then the Spirit is not God's. The Holy Spirit never leads us contrary to God's Word, and always leads us in accordance with that Word.
Attitudes reflect the heart. No one has a perfect heart. While their head may know the truth, and while they may give that truth in love, after a while of being told they have no idea what they're talking about, they may snap, and be less than kind. Hence, have a bad attitude. An imperfect hearts imperfect response. But the imperfect heart that rests in the truth of God's Word rather than in the feeling of the spirit that tells them what they want to hear, and obeys that Word will stand on much firmer ground than the latter.
The whole gist of it, in a nut shell is the principle of the matter. Christ repeatedly warned the Pharisees that the searched the scriptures trying to live out every word for word, thinking that in that they had eternal life. Christ wanted to give them LIFE. Living water.
The Pharisees problem wasn't the Word, or even their obedience of that Word. It was their motivation behind the obedience. To them, keeping the Law
was salvation. To God, it was to show them how desparately in need of salvation they were, and to point them to believe Him concerning that need. Hence, the O.T. believer believed God in that He would send a Redeemer. He did! Now, the N.T. believer believes God in that His Redeemer paid the price for our sins, was dead, buried and rose again on the third day to the glory of God. And ya know what? We get that from
both the Old and the New Testaments. Living by the Word isn't the problem. Living by the Word with the wrong heart is.
So, then what I see are called "Old Testiment Christians". They want to pour over ancient words and instead of living out the spirit, the LIFE--following a LIVING GOD who is ALIVE and well, try to follow word for word. Instead of getting the whole message, they pick out this and pick out that and try to live by parts of it just like the Pharasees did pouring over the scriptures and not getting Living Water.
Yup. It's called
growth. Each believer will be lead in a different fashion, dependent upon the areas of their lives that the Holy Spirit is working on. They will obey bits and parts, and at times will hold the bits and the parts as more important than others peoples bits and parts as they are simply immature believers. Paul tells the mature believers not to despise them, and the immature believers not to judge the mature by
their limited understandings. Paul even goes further and tells us that we
all know only in part, and are only capable of
telling in part. Bits and parts is God's way of working the image of His Son into our lives.
Do Debrah and Mulda mean nothing to some because Paul's words cancelled out women leaders and prophets for all Old Testiment Christians. 50 percent of the popluation is women and there will be women leaders regardless of Old Testiment Christians who try to apply the scriptures to their lives the way that the Pharisees applied the scriptures to their lives. The only difference between them and the Pharisees is that now they have Paul's additional commands and Jesus' Words, but they still don't appeal to the Living God for wisdom and guidence.
Nope! They are still women used by God to accomplish what the
men refused to accomplish alone. It is not the norm. Yet, whoever said God had to operate in the norm? There were, BTW, consequences for the man's failure to lead. Regardless, Jesus, Paul, and the rest of them spoke in unity concerning the roles of the genders within the body of Christ. Male leadership and authority within the assembly and in the home, along side female submission in both. Male and female equality within the assembly, but differing roles. "If every one were the eyes, then were would be the hearing?"
And I do want to stop here and make a point. You said:
The only difference between them and the Pharisees is that now they have Paul's additional commands and Jesus' Words, but they still don't appeal to the Living God for wisdom and guidence.
Who are the "they" and "them" of which you speak? You seem to be running dangerously close to generalizing the populace of the Body of Christ, when you may actually only be referring to a specific member within that body. You can't judge the whole on the misdeeds of the few.
I do not hold Paul's letters in the New Testiment to be a personal letter to me. Paul's letters aren't commands given to all people. If you notice, he wrote specific letters to each of the churches. He didn't write one standard letter to all the churches because each church had different needs.
Actually, he did. When Paul wrote to the assembly at Corinth, was it simply one assembly at the entire city? Or was it many assemblies in the city? We don't know. We
do know that the letters sent to each city were circulated amongst believers worldwide. They were copied, and resent, reread, recopied and resent. And if those letters are in God's Word to you and I, then we cannot chose to say that they don't apply to us because it wasn't written to us. It was Paul who said, "
ALL[/b] scripture is breathed out by God and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness." Not some.
ALL[/u][/b]. Do you believe what Paul says here?
My point is we have a living God. And the commandments not to Kill and not to Steal--those are commandments. Paul's letters aren't direct commandments to me. Or to the women who organize neighborhood watches, or who organize day care for single moms. There's nothing really wrong with women who are wise and use wisdom to make their world a better place.
Chapter and verse that says this is true please? Because without it, you base your statement upon your feeling. You state it by a spirit you haven't tried. The Spirit will never lead you contrary to the Word. If the Word and the feeling don't agree...which is wrong?
In wisdom women SHOULD let their husband be head of the household -- AND THE REASON for this is that if not, the women WILL carry the whole burden themselves. There's something about life that always turns out and that is if a person consistently does some task, after a while everyone thinks that task is THEIR responsibility. One day the task doesn't get done, that person is in trouble because everyone now thinks it's that person's job to make sure that task gets done. Women can rest and focus on the details that they are good at if there is someone responsible for the household. And there's so much more to it then that. It IS WISE. Wise words given by Paul.
Wise, and God's design for the family. Imagine that. God being wise...
Seriously though, a wise woman can do wonders in her family, and with her husband if she does so under the auspices of God's design. He promises an affect on the husband. Wisdom is using God's truth in God's way.
Jesus has not abandoned us. The WORD is Jesus. He is the WORD. When we live by The Word, we are living by a living God.
I'll ask one last leading question here: How do we live by a living God?
I know that I haven't responded to your question about proof of the Adam/Eve relationship. Well, already have. You simply chose not to believe the Word that was given.
