I believe now, and have always believed, that women should be free to use the gifts the Holy Spirit gives them as the Holy Spirit guides them. The governing principle isn’t gender, it’s “use your freedom in ways that build up the body.”

“Your sons & daughters will prophesy” doesn’t have a caveat: “Unless it’s in church or about the Bible; then it’s just your sons.”

“When a woman prophesies, she wears her authority on her head.” (paraphrase of 1 Cor 11); again, no caveat.

1 Timothy 2 and 1 Corinthians 14 are specific prescriptions for a specific kind of church sickness, one that both Corinth & Ephesus suffered from. You don’t universalize prescriptions, or you make the healthy sick and risk making the sick sicker (if it’s the wrong prescription.)

Wade Burleson has a great post about the question he asked Al Mohler & the other SBC seminary presidents:

I, like most Southern Baptists, believe the Bible is God’s infallible and inerrant Word. What I’ve discovered over the last dozen years is that men in control of the Southern Baptist Convention desire to tell you what the Bible means and don’t like people disagreeing.

There’s nothing wrong with giving others an interpretation of God’s Word. Pastors do it all the time. It’s called exegesis or “a critical explanation or interpretation of a text of Scripture.”

But the Southern Baptist Convention will always be in trouble when there is a demand for conformity on tertiary matters of theology instead of a decision for cooperation around the primary message of the Gospel.

There is a huge difference between believing the Bible is God’s Word and interpreting the Bible as God’s Word.

None of us is God.

God doesn’t stutter when He speaks, but we’re often at a loss when we listen. “He that has ears to hear let him hear,” Jesus said. The problem is us, not God.

If I don’t think I can make a mistake in interpreting God’s Word, then I have a problem with pride. I’ve placed myself in the position of God, telling you that you better believe what I say. God doesn’t like pride, and pride will always lead to a personal fall.

That’s why we all better be humble about telling others what God is saying. We may actually be misunderstanding God’s Word. To believe God’s Word is infallible is a confession of faith in God and God’s Word. But to believe my interpretation of God’s Word is infallible is a confession of faith in myself and my abilities.

So Christians have a simple job as fallible people who follow Jesus Christ.

We are to always make sure we don’t confuse our interpretation with God’s inspiration.