My church has chosen to take the view of allowing women to take on leadership (including eldership and teaching anyone) roles. Here is a quote from a statement I found from my church -

"We believe that the passages of Scripture in which Paul commands that women be silent, not hold any authority over a man, or that elders must be the husband of one wife are not universal commands but rather responses based upon the first century culture of Corinth and the Middle East. With any command given in Scirpture that is not universally applied, a determination must be made as to whether it is a universal command or a cultural and situational one. We believe this to be a situational command."

Of course the biblical passages this quote is referring to are 1 Cor. 14:33-35, 1 Timothy 2:11-12, 1 Tim 3:2, etc. What is your response to this statement?? I think my church has come to the wrong conclusion - but I don't really have all the details as to why. How can I know that this conclusion of the commands being based on the culture is not correct??