A woman must quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness. But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet. For it was Adam who was first created, and then Eve.

If any one bring forward, by way of objection, Deborah (Judges 4:4) and others of the same class, of whom we read that they were at one time appointed by the command of God to govern the people, the answer is easy. Extraordinary acts done by God do not overturn the ordinary rules of government, by which he intended that we should be bound. Accordingly, if women at one time held the office of prophets and teachers, and that too when they were supernaturally called to it by the Spirit of God, He who is above all law might do this; but, being a peculiar case, this is not opposed to the constant and ordinary system of government.

Calvin’s comments here just as a reminder that, although the straightforward teaching of the biblical order of the sexes done on this blog strikes some of our readers as monstrous, it’s boringly normal throughout all Church history. The only way to escape the suppressive egalitarian and feminist ethos permeating the Church today is to fall in love with our fathers and mothers who are long gone, feeding from their generous hands as they lead us back to the precious truths of Scripture.

We won’t bother to tell you all the things we’ve had to cope with in porting the blog’s posts and comments from Movable Type to Type Pad–-both products of the same company, Six Apart. You’d think the two programs would be compatible, right?

Guess again.

So thanks to all of you for your patience as we’ve plodded our way through this minefield.

Sadly, we’re not done yet. As you’ll see, I couldn’t post this comment on our Type Pad blog, so I just set up a new blog with WordPress, pressed the buttons to import all our old posts and comments, and–bingo!–it’s all set! Can you believe it?

For a time, you might want to bookmark our temporary new WordPress site since it’s more dependable than our TypePad site just now.

Let’s celebrate Easter
with the rite
of laughter.
Christ died and rose
and lives.
Laugh like a woman
who holds her first baby.
Our enemy death
will soon be destroyed.
Laugh like a man
who finds he doesn’t have cancer
or does but now there’s a cure.
Christ opened wide the door of heaven.
Laugh like children
at Disneyland’s gates.
This world is owned by God
and He’ll return to rule.
Laugh like a man
who walks away uninjured
from a wreck
in which his car was totaled.
Laugh
as if all the people in the whole world
were invited to a picnic
and then invite them.

-Joe Bayly (from Psalms of My Life)

A nomination for your list of funniest verses in Scripture, from a while back:

2 Samuel 16

5 And when king David came to Bahurim, behold, thence came out a man of the family of the house of Saul, whose name was Shimei, the son of Gera: he came forth, and cursed still as he came.

6 And he cast stones at David, and at all the servants of king David: and all the people and all the mighty men were on his right hand and on his left. 7 And thus said Shimei when he cursed, Come out, come out, thou bloody man, and thou man of Belial:

8 The LORD hath returned upon thee all the blood of the house of Saul, in whose stead thou hast reigned; and the LORD hath delivered the kingdom into the hand of Absalom thy son: and, behold, thou art taken in thy mischief, because thou art a bloody man.

9 Then said Abishai the son of Zeruiah unto the king, Why should this dead dog curse my lord the king? let me go over, I pray thee, and take off his head.

Not at all. It’s a reference to one of the funniest scenes in American fiction.

There are funny books (A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court), there are routinely funny writers (P.G. Wodehouse), and there are insanely funny scenes. Among the funniest scenes in English fiction are the stories in James Thurber’s My Life and Hard Times–especially "The Day the Bed Fell." Nothing beats an insanely funny scene. Sometimes they’re by funny authors. More often, they’re by great authors in the midst of mordant observations of human character. My choice for the funniest scene in recent English literature is this of the upended Toad sitting by his ruined caravan at the side of the road…

The Toad never answered a word, or budged from his seat in the road; so they went to see what was the matter with him. They found him in a sort of a trance, a happy smile on his face, his eyes still fixed on the dusty wake of their destroyer. At intervals he was still heard to murmur `Poop-poop!’

The Rat shook him by the shoulder. `Are you coming to help us, Toad?’ he demanded sternly.

`Glorious, stirring sight!’ murmured Toad, never offering to move. `The poetry of motion! The real way to travel! The only way to travel! Here to-day — in next week to-morrow! Vil-lages skipped, towns and cities jumped — always somebody else’s horizon! O bliss! O poop-poop! O my! O my!’

`O stop being an ass, Toad!’ cried the Mole despairingly.

(Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows)

So, for instance, under "What is feminism," the number of comments given on the main page under the post is 25, but click into the post itself and you’ll find more.

So, for now, until the blog is working again, please actually look at the individual posts to see whether there are new comments. Thanks.

How can you justify seeing a mother away from her home, her children?
Why don’t they respect family values in the West?

Many clergy in the Solomon Islands – which have been wracked by
years of ethnic and political turmoil – have blamed the catastrophe
on people straying from Christian ways.

In Malakera, someone has painted on a smashed water tank the
slogan: "Sin – contributing factor to destruction".

"This is a turning point for everybody. A reminder that God
created the Earth," one young female survivor told smh.com.au
today.

And by the way, in the process of making the transition to this new blog and address, we’ve lost a few comments from a couple posts. We’re sorry for the losses but there was no helping it. Thanks for your understanding.