We know how this ends

I've been involved in a discussion on a blog post Paul’s Admonition To Women and it has been instructive to see how easy it can be for people to explain away inconvenient text. I would encourage you to stop over and take a gander, maybe make a comment or two. What I have found is that amidst all of the flowery rhetoric, the scriptures are noticeable by their absence.

It always starts with that old, old question: Did God really mean to say that?

And we know from thousands of years of experience where that old, old question leads...

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God actually say, 'You shall not eat of any tree in the garden'?" And the woman said to the serpent, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, 'You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.'" But the serpent said to the woman, "You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. (Gen 3:1-6)