3 Views on Women’s Ordination In an effort to better understand the Bible’s teaching on ordination, the church established the Theology of Ordination Study Committee, a group of 106 members commonly referred to by church leaders as TOSC. It was not organized to be proportionately representative of the world church but simply to carry out the two-year study. In a first, special Biblical Research Committees in each of the church’s 13 world divisions contributed to the study process and were represented on TOSC. A main goal of TOSC, which finished its work in June, was to determine whether it could find a consensus on women’s ordination, which it did not. Members split into three camps, known as Position Nos. 1, 2 and 3: Position No. 1 emphasizes the biblical qualifications for ordination as found in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 and the fact that never in the Bible were women ordained as priests, apostles or elders. Therefore, it says, the Adventist Church has no biblical basis to ordain women. Position No. 2 emphasizes the leadership roles of Old and New Testament women such as Deborah, Huldah, and Junia, and biblical passages in Genesis 1, 2 and Galatians 3:26-28 that stress all people are equal in God’s eyes. Therefore, it says, the biblical principle of equality requires the Adventist Church to ordain women to positions of church leadership wherever possible. Position No. 3 supports Position No. 1 in recognizing a biblical pattern of male leadership in Israel and the early Christian church. But it also emphasizes that God made exceptions, such as the case of granting Israel’s desire for a king. It says women’s ordination is a matter of church policy and not a moral imperative and, therefore, the Adventist Church should allow each field to decide whether or not to ordain women. Source adventistreview.org/church-news/adventists-urged-to-study-women%E2%80%99s-ordination-for-themselves
Posted on: Thu, 25 Sep 2014 17:02:13 +0000