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I AM AN 80 YEAR OLD MALE, BORN AGAIN, CHRISTIAN WITH A LOVE FOR JESUS. I DO NOT GET OUT MUCH ANYMORE BUT FIND THAT TELLING PEOPLE ABOUT THE LOVE JESUS HAS FOR THEM IS NOT ONLY WHAT WE ARE SUPPOSED TO DO BUT SOMETHING THAT THE WORLD NEEDS.
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"RESTORATION OF BIBLICAL GENDER ROLES" BY LYNETTE HUGHES
THIS WAS WRITTEN BY A GOOD FRIEND OF MINE AND IS VERY INTERESTING. ENJOY.
RESTORATION OF BIBLICAL GENDER ROLES by
Lynette Hughes
In Jewish law, a woman was not a person; she was chattel (derived from the root word cattle). She was acquired like property. She was entirely at the disposal of her father or of her husband, a possession like a horse, a wagon or household utensils, and only valued as property. She was forbidden to learn the law; to instruct a woman in the law was to cast pearls before swine. Women had no part in the synagogue service; they were shut apart in a section of the synagogue separated by a wall or curtain, or in a second floor balcony, where they could not be seen, and were allowed no part in the service. They were barred from Synagogue worship—a practice that still holds true among Orthodox Jews. Even today Jewish women are forbidden to participate in their own son’s Bar Mitzvah.
It was absolutely forbidden for a woman to teach in a school; she might not even teach the youngest children. When Jewish women in Jesus’ day went out in public their heads were to be covered and their faces veiled so that their features couldn’t be recognized—a custom still enforced in some Arabic countries. Rabbis taught that women were not to be spoken to in the street and that she must walk six paces behind her husband. In Jewish law the right of divorce belonged only to the husband.
We don’t find, in Jesus, any expression of the shabby way in which women were treated in His day. To the contrary, He viewed them as chosen daughters of the Most High God. He always treated women with the utmost respect, honor and dignity. Jesus ignored many of the rules promoting gender inequality in the Old Testament, and for this reason His treatment of women must have seemed radical.
Women may have been locked out of the synagogue but they were welcome wherever Jesus was and whenever He taught. He was as sensitive to the needs of a poor woman who touched the hem of his garment as those of the synagogue ruler whose daughter had just died. Jesus never regarded women as inferior to men. To the contrary, He scandalized his disciples by spending a lunch hour talking to one lone Samaritan woman—a disreputable woman at that! Yet through her evangelism Samaria was opened up to the ministry of Jesus, and later a revival under the preaching of Philip, Peter and John. Women were among His closest friends and followers. He and the disciples depended upon them largely for their support. Women were the last at the cross and the first to the tomb.
Jesus broke with Rabbinic tradition when He not only permitted Mary to hear the Word, but defended her when Martha complained that she was not fulfilling her proper domestic duties in the kitchen. Jesus did not approve her complaint but commented significantly: “Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her” (Luke 10:38–42). In saying this, Jesus affirmed the right of women to hear and learn God’s Word! He refused to limit a woman's role to nurturing her family and cooking.
Jesus, unlike other rabbis of his day, was willing to teach women and include them in his circle of followers. Luke 8: 1-3: “Mary, called Magdalene, Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and many others (feminine form)”; and in Mark 15:40-41: “ Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome……. and also many other women.” These details about the women should caution us against assuming that when we read about “the disciples” of Jesus the text means “men disciples.
In the case of the woman taken in adultery (John 8:1–11), Jesus set himself against not only the male chauvinists of His day but the law of Moses itself. The law called for the stoning of both the man and the woman who were caught in an adulterous act (Lev. 20:10; Deut. 22:22). That only the woman was brought before Him indicates the double standard operative in Jesus’ day. Jesus paid no attention to or confirmed by attitude and action, the common views toward women in His time. And against the cultural norms and religious traditions, He affirmed, healed, and valued them as cherished daughters of God.
From the first two chapters of the Bible we learn that Adam and Eve were created equal in God’s sight. Gen 1:26-28: “26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. 28 Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
Together, God gave both man and woman the task of overseeing and ruling His creation. Both Adam and Eve were given the responsibility to subdue and have dominion over everything on earth. In the Genesis account of creation, there is no sign of inequality between man and woman, He even gave them the same authority and the same name: Adam [Genesis 5:2].
Genesis 2:18 says that God made a ‘helper’ suitable or appropriately matching Adam. The word “helper” ('ezer), when used of a person in the Old Testament, always refers to God (in 29 places) apart from one reference to David. The word “helper,” is not suggesting inferiority and is not to be understood as an expression of submission and service to man; rather, the woman as helper serves God with man. The Holy Spirit is called our helper in John 14:15-18 & 26 & 16:7. Does that make Him inferior to God the Father?
When Eve ate the forbidden fruit and enticed Adam to sin with her, one of the consequences for women was the loss of equality with their husbands, she would now be “ruled by her husband,” instead of ruling together. Genesis 3:16 says, "Unto the woman He said...your desire shall be to your husband, and he shall rule over you." The word ‘desire’ can mean "an attempt to usurp or control." This comment is in the context of God’s cursing Adam and Eve for their disobedience, not God’s original and intended design for the male/female relationship.
Let me paraphrase what God said to Eve when He told her “your desire shall be to your husband, and he shall rule over you.” God was telling Eve, "You will now have a tendency to dominate your husband, and he will have the tendency to act as a tyrant over you." This domination struggle between male and female was a consequence of sin. Both man and woman would now seek the upper hand in marriage, rather than submit one to the other. This was the firing shot for the battle of the sexes to begin.
From that point on, men have used their physical power to dominate their wives and wives have attempted to manipulate and control their husbands with the outcome of conflict for superiority and control… that is not a part of the blessing, but the curse. Now if you are an honest believer, you know we’re no longer under the curse. The consequences of the Fall have been reversed and redeemed by the Cross!
Let’s look up that same word desire in Genesis 4:7: When God did not accept Cain’s offering, Cain was angry, and God said to Cain, “If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it.” God was saying to Cain, “Cain, sin desires to usurp control over you, to dominate you and rule you.”
The marriage relationship of one-sided male rule radically changed to mutual submission after the Cross, the wife submitting to a husband who was commanded to model Christ by loving her sacrificially, even to the point of death (Eph 5:21-33). One-sided male rule converted to mutual submission after the Cross. In no instance did Jesus establish a dominant, hierarchical relationship between men and women. Rather, Jesus came to restore all that was destroyed by the fall of the first man including the marital relationship from its degradation into its original intention and dignity it had before the fall.
Paul writes of the mutuality of men and women in Christ in 1 Corinthians 7:3–5 when he says “The husband must fulfill his duty to his wife, and likewise also the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does; and likewise also the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.” Paul clearly states that the rights of sexual relations between a husband wife are mutual and equal. This countered the ‘sexism’ of the prevailing Jewish and Roman culture that husbands had all the sexual rights over his wife.
In domestic roles of husband and wife in the home, God has established the headship of men, however in the Church there are no distinctions among those who belong to Christ. In Galatians 3:8 Apostle Paul writes “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Both male and female have the same spiritual value, the same righteous standing before the Lord, and the same spiritual blessings and privileges. Prejudice based on a person’s race, social or economic status or sex has no place in the fellowship of Christ’s church. Women are full spiritual equals of believing men.
It is only ‘in Christ’ that the broken relationship between man and woman, as that between God and Man, can fully and permanently be restored to God’s original intent.
