Prohibition of women from positions of power by the early Church.

Council of Laodicea. 352 c.e. Woman were forbidden from the priesthood. They were also prohibited from presiding (exercise control) over Churches. The Council decided that "One ought not to establish in the Church women called overseers" (presbutidas) "women must not approach the altar."

Fourth Synod of Carthage. 398 c.e. " A woman, however learned and Holy, may not presume to teach men in an assembly".………." A woman may not Baptise."

Council of Chalcedon. 451 c.e. Canon 15 of the council states. "No woman under 40 years of age is to be ordained as a deacon and then only after close scrutiny."

The way women were treated in biblical times was severely restricted within the culture of the day. The early practices of the Church treated women as inferior beings early in the 1^st century c.e. This led to an almost complete suppression of women in later centuries. Both the Church and the government of the day reduced the status of women to the inferior standard of the Jewish, Roman, and Greek societies of the time, and this has continued right up to modern times, until the rise of the feminist movement.

Paul, the author of 1Timothy restricts the role of women to minor tasks within the Church, therefore many believe that women must not be considered eligible for ordination even today.

Paul of 1. Corinthians. 11:3-15. Read all verses but pay attention to verse 3, Man is head over women. Verse 7, and it is only man who is made in God's image, [not woman.] Verse 9, woman was created for man.

Paul’s statement in 1 Corinthians 14:34-35, is clear and unambiguous (clearly defined) limiting all women’s speech during service, therefore if women are not allowed to speak, then they obviously cannot be pastors, ministers, or priests.

Verse 34, women are to keep silent, they are not permitted to speak and they are to be submissive. Verse 35b it is shameful for women to speak in church.

Ephesians. 5:22-33. Wives are to submit to their husbands.

Collossians. 3:18. Wives to submit to their own husband.

1 Timothy. 2:9, 11, 12, 14, Women adorn themselves with shamefacedness. Let the women learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. Eve was Sinful, Adam was blameless. These are Paul’s words from the bible, not mine.

Liberal theologians today regard 1 and 2 Timothy as late forgeries, they also believe that 1 Corinthian 14:34b-35 has been inserted into the original writings by an unknown person at an unknown date, because they state that Paul’s statement is in contradiction to historical evidence, and therefore cannot be considered authoritive. If this is the case then one has to ask, how many other verses of the New Testament are a fake? Jim Lee.