Are You Embarrassed?

In Judges 4 Deborah, Barak, and Jael defeat Jabin King of Canaan and his military leader Sisera. Judges 5 is a song celebrating the great victory Israel had over her enemies. Judges 5:1-23 describes the need for deliverance (vs. 6-8) and the rounding up of various tribes to fight (13-23).  So far so good. But then we get to Judges 5:24-31 and God goes off script. First, he says the Jael will be blessed among all the tent dwelling women. Why? She is good with a hammer:

He [Sisera] asked for water and she gave him milk;
she brought him curds in a noble's bowl.
She sent her hand to the tent peg and
her right hand to the workmen's mallet;
she struck Sisera
she crushed his head
she shattered and pierced his temple.
Between her feet he sank,
he fell,
he lay still
between her feet he sank,
he fell
where he sank,
there he fell—dead.

Judges 5:1-23 is a quick paced narrative describing the gathering of troops and the battle. In 24-27 everything slows down. God wants us to stop, bend over, look inside the tent, and see the details. Jael's husband, Heber the Kenite, had a peace treaty with Sisera and Jabin (Judges 4:17). Sisera had probably been in Jael's house many times over the 20 years of oppression (Judges 4:3). But the times of easy money from the Israelites was over. God had raised up a savior. Jabin and Sisera were soundly defeated by Barak and his army (Judges 4:15-16). Sisera fled the battlefield and went to a place of safety: Heber's house. Jael even invites him in and gives him a blanket (Judges 4:18). He was thirsty and needed water. Jael gives him milk. She gives him milk in a noble's bowl (maybe to stroke his ego). She reaches out her hand to the tent peg. In the Middle East women set up tents. Jael was no waif super-model nor a Victorian shrinking violet. My guess is she was bulky and strong. She quietly reaches out to pick up a stray tent peg. Then she gets a mallet. Then she strikes, crushes, shatters, pierces his temple. He dies (understatement?). But before he dies he sinks, falls, lays still, sinks between her feet and falls. Sisera's place of safety became his grave. Jael stands over him in triumph. God wants us to glory in the gruesome death of this general at the hands of a housewife. But do we? Aren't we a little embarrassed by all of this fuss? Did God really need to tell us twice that Jael killed Sisera with a mallet and a tent peg (Judges 4:21, 5:24-27)? Yes, we know Jael is blessed. But do we really accept our blood spattered heroine as an instrument in God's hand?

However, the song, given by the Spirit, does not end there. If it did we could perhaps we could handle it. But the song gets worse. It goes on to mock Sisera's grieving mother.

Out of the window she peered, the mother of Sisera wailed through the lattice: 'Why is his chariot so long in coming? Why tarry the hoofbeats of his chariots?' Her wisest princesses answer, indeed, she answers herself, 'Have they not found and divided the spoil?— A womb or two for every man; spoil of dyed materials for Sisera, spoil of dyed materials embroidered, two pieces of dyed work embroidered for the neck as spoil?' 

Sisera's mother wonders why her son is taking so long to return from the battle. She sits on the balcony watching the horizon for the dust of his chariot (Judges 4:3). "What keeps him?" she asks. We know. He has been nailed to the ground. His head was struck, crushed, shattered, and pierced. He is not coming home. Her maidens answer her concerns with words of encouragement. "Oh, don't worry," they say, "His victory has been so great that he needs days to divide the spoil. No doubt right now he is raping (a womb or two) various Israelite women. He is going to bring home riches beyond measure." But this is false hope and empty words. How long did she wait? When did this mother find out that Sisera was dead? When did she find out that he did not die heroically by an arrow or spear on the battlefield? A woman, an Israelite woman, killed him with tent peg and a mallet. God does not want us to feel sorry for Sisera's mother. We are not to grieve with her. He wants us to rejoice at her grief. He want us to sing a song mocking her.

The song ends with a cry for all of God's enemies to perish just like Sisera:

So may all your enemies perish [like Sisera], O LORD! But your friends be like the sun as he rises in his might. 

Sisera is not a one time event, a strange anomaly in the history of God's work. He is a model for all those who attack God's people and reject God. They will be judged. God's flaming sword will come down and wreak vengeance on those who do not trust Him (II Thess. 1:7-10). The Holy Spirit want us to pray for the enemies of God to be destroyed like Sisera.

In our age of ease, comfort, and tolerance it is easy to be embarrassed by God's Word, especially passages like this. We love Psalm 23, John 3:16 and Galatians 3:28, but our effeminate age is not so fond of passages like Exodus 15:3, II Kings 9:30-37, Mark 9:48, Revelation 2:16 and Judges 5:24-31. God is a God of vengeance and bloodshed. He is not all peace, love, hot chocolate, and marshmallows.  We want a soft God. We want a God who will never threaten us or anyone else. We want a God who does not get angry and kill people. We want a God who has been sanitized and sprayed with Lysol and whose instruments are clean, not covered in blood. We want a tame Lion who is safe, easy to talk about, and will not get us in trouble.

But that is not the God of the Bible. That is not the Jesus of the Bible either. The God of Scripture is the one who signed off on drowning millions of people, including women and children (Genesis 7:21-23).  God killed Saul (I Chron. 10:14).  God wanted a queen to be eaten by dogs and she was (I Kings 21:23 and II Kings 9:36). God cursed Israel with a siege and famine for her disobedience (II Kings 25:2-3). God killed a couple for lying about money and church members for corrupting of the Lord's Supper (Acts 5:10, I Cor. 11:30). God delivers people over to Satan (I Tim. 1:20). Jesus promises to come and kill a modern day Jezebel and her children (Revelation 2:22-23).  God created the lake of burning fire and Jesus will send people there.

God wanted his people to sing this song. He wants us to lift our voices in praise for the tent peg, the hammer, and the grieving mother. Moses loved this God. Joshua served this God. Deborah sang about this God. David delighted in this God. Isaiah saw this God. Paul preached this God. Jesus was the exact representation of this God (Hebrews 1:3). When we get done with Judges 5 what does God want from us? He wants us to worship Him, to glorify His great name, and to love Him more. Do we? Do we love, sing, delight in, and preach the God of Jael, the God who kills men with a tent peg and then writes a song about it?  Do we worship the God of Genesis 7, Judges 5, and Revelation 2? Or are we just embarrassed by Him?

Thin Bodies and Iron Yokes

When Christ and His gospel are preached in all their fullness men and women are set free. They are not set free from rules and obedience. But they are set free from man's rules and they are set free from obedience as the road to salvation. Obedience flows from gratitude for our great salvation, not from a desire to be approved by men. The gospel says that satisfaction has been  made for all our sins. There is nothing we can do, say, think, implement, or learn that will take away our sins. Our sins are freely, completely, taken away in Christ. We now have an easy yoke and light burden. Our King is not a tyrant as men are. He is a our Brother (Hebrews 2:11). We have been freely adopted into His family by our gracious Father. His laws are not burdensome

But bondage is always out there stalking us like a pack of wolves. There are always men rattling chains, but claiming they are keys. They are slave traders promising freedom. They say, "Our yoke is better than Christ's." But we find in the end that their yoke is made of iron and crushes us. We must have our eyes out for those who would bind us.

There are many areas where God's people have been brought into bondage over the years. One of the current yokes is the constant pressure on godly women to be thin and eat healthy. While few churches have it in their bylaws and no one would say it out loud, our women have learned that if you are going to be holy then you must be thin. If you really care about God and your family then you will eat healthy. If you really love your husband then you will make sure you are thin so he wants to have sex. If you really love your children you will lose your pregnancy weight so you can keep up with them after birth. If you really want to be effective for Christ you will be thin so your witness is not hurt by being "overweight." The fruit of the Spirit is no longer peace, joy, and patience but thinness, healthiness, and attractiveness.

The criteria will be different in various church communities. In modern, contemporary church communities it will look one way. In conservative, homeschooling communities it will look another way. In old, established churches it might look another way. But due to the avalanche of advertising and the Internet no community is immune. We daily swim in the world's ocean of ideas. All of us are wet.

Christian culture has bought what the world is selling. Therefore our women are in bondage. What to do?

First, husbands, fathers, and mothers need to plead the shed blood of Christ for putting our daughters and wives in chains. They are insecure. They are ashamed of their bodies, their hair, their nakedness before their husbands, their hips, their stomachs, their pregnancies, their love of food, and how God made them. We have taught them, to our shame, that being thin and hot is more important than peace, joy, patience, and Christ likeness. We have taught them what our Lord never taught, that being thin and healthy is a sign of holiness. We have taught them that they must earn the favor of God. How? They must earn our favor. We have taught them to look down on those who are not thin or healthy. How? We look down on them ourselves. When our daughters put on weight we chide them. When our wives put on weight, are pregnant, or lose that "girlish" figure we stop initiating sex. We have put them in chains. We are preaching a false gospel. Is it any wonder that Christian women are often obsessed by their weight, by food, by exercise, by various alternative medicines, by vaccines (pro or con), by clothes, etc.? Is it any wonder that Christian women are vulnerable to eating disorders, sexual problems, promiscuity, fornication, predatory men, doctrinal heresy, and Fifty Shades of Grey? Is it any wonder that we lose so many of our daughters? Brothers, we have sinned against them. We must repent with tears.

Second, ladies you are daughters of the King. You are complete in Christ (Colossians 2:10).  Has the world put you in chains? Have you added to Christ? Do you believe that you will be "accepted in the Beloved" when you are thin, sexy, and healthy (Ephesians 1:6)? Sisters, repent. The answer is not to try harder. You cannot earn His gift through any amount of exercise.  His favor cannot be earned by thin hips and size 2 jeans. And besides, in the end, all your best efforts will be in vain. Your body will die. It will get old and rot. Your skin will wrinkle and sag. Your eyes will dim. Does that scare you? Do you want to stay thin and young forever? If so, then the world has a hold of your heart. Repent. Do you sit under the yoke of never being quite good enough for your husband? Your father? Your mother? Is there is a lack of freedom in your marriage bed? Are you thin, but still worried about your weight? Are you heavy, but hate your body and wish it was different? Come to Jesus and repent. Of what? Repent of believing the lies of the world, of believing that Christ is not sufficient. This is hard. Repentance always is. But repentance, and only repentance, brings freedom. Christ's yoke is easy and his burden is light (Matthew 11:28-30). Take it and drop the one your father, mother, husband, or the world gave you.

Finally, pastors, we must preach and live the gospel, the glorious, life-giving, gospel of Jesus Christ. The gospel does not bind men like the laws of men. It sets them free. There is deep joy when our people know down in their bones that all of their sins are forgiven in Christ. The foundation for a free church is the cross, not any of our laws, traditions, or health choices. Our men must learn that having holy wives and daughters is far different and far more important than having thin ones.  We must warn and gently rebuke where necessary when a man or woman has bought into the world's view of health and body.  We must remind our flock that their bodies are slowly dying, but their souls are being renewed (II Cor. 4:16).  We must remind them that bodily exercise is of little profit, but godliness is profitable for all things (I Timothy 4:8). Freedom from the laws of men must be preached and modeled.  There are green pastures and clear waters for the sheep of God. We must lead them there by the Word and by our lives.

Individual Rights are Anachronistic

Stephen Clark on why saying that women did not have full rights in traditional societies is historically anachronistic. All is his except what I put in the brackets.

A second historical error [made by feminists] is the view that women have been deprived of full human rights since the beginning of human society and have only won these rights within the past two centuries-since the beginning of movements for women's rights. In the past two centuries women have attained equal access to education; full rights to inherit, own, sell, and control property; full rights of citizenship; and access to most professions with equal compensation. Women may not always be treated equally with men in these areas, but these rights have a fundamental legal and moral recognition. To be sure, women in most societies did not have these "rights" before 1900. However, this is because traditional society made little or no use of the category of "individual rights" for anyone-men or women.  This concept is an aspect of the shift from a society based on relational groupings to a society based on a mass of individuals...Before the advent of technological society, men did not have these "individual rights" either; the structure of traditional society made these rights a meaningless category. Traditional society was based instead on the rights of relational groupings [Think classes, guilds, wealth, family ancestry, etc.] and the position of men and women formed their personal relationships within these groupings. 

Later he adds:

The purpose of this discussion of women's rights is not to assert that women always received better treatment in a traditional society than in technological society. Such comparisons are difficult to make. Rather the key point here is that "individual rights" is an inappropriate category for making historical comparison between the status of women in traditional and technological society.  

It is easy to take a contemporary way of thinking and apply it to all men throughout history. However, this is a grave error.  Our fathers and mothers did not think like we do. If we assume they did we do not really learn to understand them.

The more I read the more convinced I am that the fundamental shift in the last 200 years has been from a society composed of groups that contain individuals who identified with those groups, were loyal to those groups, and lived within the parameters set by those groups to a society that is composed of a mass of individuals who easily cross lines from group to group with little loyalty to anyone but themselves.  I am no longer Peter, husband of Julie, father of Sam, Will, Ben, Calvin, Amelia, Cecily, Elijah, and Bronwyn, son of Jerry Jones, grandson of Nils Jones, a Protestant American Southerner loyal to my country, family and church. Now I am just Peter the isolated. I could be anyone or no one. I have no creed, no country, no family, no political party, no race, and no gender. I am not saying that family or country loyalty is everything. But when we can't even be loyal to the body parts we are born with there is a problem.

Dress, Manners, and the Created Order

Stephen Clark's book Man and Woman in Christ has been an excellent read. Near the end of the book he summarizes his conclusions from his study. One point is that Christians should use cultural expressions to express the role differences between men and women. Most societies throughout history, including Western society, have had ways of distinguishing between men and women and their roles. This was done in many ways, but primarily through different modes of dress and manners. Manners here would include what was done and said between men and women. An example my wife just read me was how in the Civil War South women did not discuss their pregnancies in front of men. When they became visibly pregnant they stopped going out into society as well. Whatever we think of the practice, it was a way of women distinguishing themselves from men.

In our society there has been a breakdown of differences between men and women. (That sentence is like saying the Titanic was a ship that sunk.) There are now coed bathrooms on many colleges, as well as coed dorm rooms. There are women firefighters, policemen, boxers, wrestlers, soldiers, pastors, and football players. Add to this the sexual confusion seen in sodomy, lesbianism, bisexuals, transgender, divorce, and abortion and we see a society that has lost any vision of the distinct, God-ordained differences between men and women. Therefore it is not a surprise that we have tossed aside cultural expressions of those differences. I want to briefly explore how we have done this in dress and manners.

Clothing for men and women has become more uniform. Can you imagine a store with male and female employees requiring their female employees to wear skirts? That thought experiment is enough to show how far we have come. Many movies depict women in pants and military style tank tops just like men wear. Men wear skinny jeans,which are basically yoga pants with buttons. There are clothes that are more feminine or more masculine. But our culture does not demand or expect that. For example, a girl could wear a nice dress to school, but she should just as easily wear a tank top, jeans, and tennis shoes. Her hair could be long or short. Feminine dress has become an individual expression instead of a cultural expectation and norm. Many women dress a certain way, not because they are women, but because it is an expression of their personal desires. That is why a woman can wear a nice dress to church, but go work a man's job, dressed like a man the rest of the week.

But the loss of manners, which distinguish men from women, is more pronounced that the uniformity of dress. Men used to open doors for women, give their seats up for women, wait for women, speak with careful respect to women, avoid certain topics when speaking with women, not lay their hands on women, etc. Men used to be cautious about what they said in front of the ladies. Now we talk to them just like they are one of the guys. Men and woman playing each other in sports would have been unthinkable. Now it is normal. We have completed flattened out the differences between men and women. Do we have any normal, social manners where we distinguish men from women?

There is no Biblical command that says, "Open doors for ladies." However, it is a cultural expression of a Biblical truth: Women and men are different and are to be treated differently. We don't have to necessarily hang on to opening doors for women. Here is the crux though. We have jettisoned our fathers' cultural expressions of role differences without replacing them with new ones. Therefore we are left with little non-verbal language by which we say, "Men and women are different."

There are many people, including some Christians, who do not think there is much of a difference between men and women. They are happy that these walls have been broken down. These people are in rebellion against the created order.

But for those of us who still think men and women were created by God for distinct roles, then cultural expressions of these differences are necessary. Here I offer two suggestions. Dress in a way that says, "I am a man." Or "I am a woman." I am not saying women can't wear pants or jeans. Nor am I saying that men must wear camo. But make sure your dress fits your sex. There is a lot of freedom here. I am not encouraging a return to all women or men wearing the same thing. I am encouraging men and women to wear clothes that distinguish them from the other sex.

Second, we should bring back distinct ways of treating the opposite sex. The men are primarily responsible for this. We should open doors for the ladies, wait to sit until they are seated, not speak of certain things in front of them, smoke our cigars outside, run late night errands instead of sending our wives into the night, rise when they enter the room, protect our ladies physically and spiritually. In short, we should find ways of saying, "Men are different from women." Ladies should let men do this. I find that many ladies hate having a man give up his seat for them. Why? We don't have to do all of these, but for Christians who think men and women are different we need to work at creating a cultural language that defies the egalitarian ethic that dominates the world we live in. It is not enough to preach from the pulpit or write in books that men and women are different. We must embody that truth in our homes, churches, and communities.

The Death of the Cloister

Steven Ozment on how the Reformers went about destroying the idea that a nun was superior to a housewife.

In challenging the celibate ideal, the Protestant critics were particularly concerned to expose the repressive nature of the nunnery, to free nuns from the cloisters, and allow them to rejoin society.

Unlike many modern takes on nunneries, the Reformers viewed them as detrimental to what women were called to do by God and by nature: be wives and mothers.

Also going to the convent did not help women escape male rule. Ozment describes how the monks would often descend upon the nunneries and require the women to do their laundry, cook them food, etc. He noted that most nunneries were run by monks on some level.

Not only did the nunnery offer no safe escape from male rule, it imposed sexual self-denial an created guilt among the unsuccessful, burdens no honorable wife was forced to bear.

One nun, "recalled having watched with horror as sisters in the cloister died uncertain of God's mercy and in fear of his judgment, having failed to find consolation in their vows and religious works."

No propaganda proved more effective in exposing the cloister than the testimony of former nuns, whom the reformers encouraged to write and publish accounts of their lives under vows.

By the end of the Reformation age, "both experience and belief had set Protestants unalterably against the celibate life. To them it contradicted both the Bible and human nature, and created more personal and social problems than it solved; as an alternative vocation to homemaking, the cloister was deemed inhumane and antisocial."

Are Women Teachers Necessary in the Church?

Mrs. Jen Wilkin posted this article over at the TGC website.  It is now several months old, but I thought I would interact with it because it is a pressing issue in the American church and because TGC is large forum for conservative evangelicals. Just to be clear, in this post I am not saying women shouldn't teach publicly.  I am not against women teaching women in Bible studies or women speaking to women at conferences, etc. But Mrs. Jen Wilkin's reasoning is fuzzy at best and bad at worst and therefore she overreaches. 

The theme of the article is that women teachers are absolutely necessary to the well being of the church. Therefore pastors should encourage and promote women teachers. She is arguing that for women to be properly ministered to a public teaching ministry by women to women is "absolutely needful." It is important to keep this in mind. She is not saying women teachers are helpful and can be beneficial in certain situations. She is arguing for the necessity of a full women's ministry of some kind that supplements the ministry of the Word from the pulpit.

There are several problems with the article that I wanted to address.

First, she never defines what she means by "women teachers." Does she mean women speaking at conferences? Does she mean women teaching other women one on one? Does she mean women Bible studies or Sunday school? Does she mean all of these? None of these? Her failure to define what she means by teacher leaves her readers in the dark. As she says, "There is little disagreement among Christians that women can and should teach women." The debate is not about whether women should teach women, but in what context and with what level of authority? She means women opening up the Bible in a public (non-worship) setting in front of other women. But that is never clearly stated. It would have helped if she had defined her terms. 

Second, she moves from women teaching women to women having the "gift of teaching." Here is the whole paragraph:

There is little disagreement among Christians that women can and should teach women. But if the gift of teaching has been given to women, how might a pastor properly value, cultivate, and employ the gifting of women teachers?

Notice the assumption that slipped in between the first sentence and the second sentence. Because women should teach women then women who teach also have the gift of teaching.  Again, we have the problem of definition. What does she mean by gift? Does she mean a spiritual gift along the lines of Romans 12 or I Corinthians 12? Or does she simply mean that some women are better at teaching than others? From this comment it appears that she has at least Ephesians 4:11 in the back of her mind, which means she has the spiritual gift of teaching in mind. Ephesians 4:11 is referring to distinct offices in the church. Is she saying that women should be ordained as teachers? I don't think so. But she is unclear again.

Furthermore, the call by God to do a certain task does not automatically imply spiritual gifting in that area. All Christians teach in some way. Mothers teach children. Fathers teach children. Older men teach younger men. Older women teach younger women. Do all of those who teach automatically have the gift teaching? There are no examples in the NT of women being given the spiritual gift of teaching. We have one command for women to teach other women (Titus 2:4-5), but that does not assume the gift of teaching anymore than the call to show mercy assumes the gift of mercy.  

Women being gifted to teach lays the foundation for her next section. The "You Need Her" section begins with assuming that God has gifted certain women to teach in the church. Here is her quote:

You may be the best preacher on the planet, but God wouldn't have gifted women to teach unless their teaching were absolutely necessary to the spiritual well-being of the women in your church. (emphasis mine)

So here is the logic:
Women are called by God to teach other women publicly.
Therefore women have the gift of teaching.

God would not have gifted women to teach if he did not want them teaching publicly.
Therefore pastors should actively promote women teaching other women in public.

Third, she assumes throughout the "You Need Her" section that a woman opening up God's Word publicly in front of other women is a necessary ingredient for women to learn and grow in the church. This position is hard to defend from the Bible, but the attitude it displays is common among American Christians in general. We assume that the no one can speak to us with true authority unless they have walked in our shoes. The Bible never indicates that public teaching by women is necessary to supplement the public ministry of the Word to women by men. I am not saying women teaching other women publicly is bad, but her pitch is that it is necessary and that pastors should make sure they actively promote women teaching. 

I want to walk through her "You Need Her" section point by point to illustrate the weakness of these arguments. 

First, she states that women need to see other women opening up the Bible so they will take seriously their own abilities to open up the Bible. This is an odd argument. Why would this be the case? Does an African American need to see another African American open up God's Word so that they know they are capable of opening God's Word? Does a thirteen year old boy need another thirteen year old boy to open up God's Word so he can know that he is capable? Where is this taught in the Scriptures? 

Second, she states that women bring a perspective that men cannot bring. There is some truth to this. But that has no bearing on whether or not women teachers are necessary.  Of course, women see the world differently. A truth which men should grateful for. But that does not lead to the necessity of women teaching publicly. Again, where is it taught in the Scriptures that the public ministry of the Word must include everyone's perspective? This is an odd argument, which leads to many of the same questions I have about her first point. Do we need a 70 year old man to preach to the elderly so the perspective of the elderly is heard? 

Third, she says that a woman can bring an authority to other women that a man cannot. This is the weakest of the four mentioned. The argument is that only women can properly speak to the sins of women and get away with it.  However, the Bible never indicates that women are somehow uniquely qualified to minister the word to women publicly. The public preaching of God's Word is adequate to address all the sins in the congregation, including those of women. The reason is simple: there are not different kinds of sins. Sins, such as pride, lust, anger, bitterness, etc. bear different fruit in the lives of men and women, but they all come from the same root. The Scriptures say over and over again that these sins are addressed through the preached word. One could argue here that the need is not for women teachers, but for men who will preach to the sins of women with courage and grace. 

Fourth, she states that a woman teacher will see needs of women that a pastor will not. There is some truth here, but not any truth that would make women teachers necessary.  She immediately discounts the pastor's wife as a valuable tool by stating that women will present their "best selves to ministry wives, but not to female ministry leaders." Why would this be the case? But even if it is, that does not prove her point. Other people in the body of Christ will see the needs of others more clearly than the pastor. But this does not necessitate those other people being on staff and publicly ministering to the Word to people. Scripture does not teach that someone must have first hand account of all the personal needs in the body to be an effective teacher of the Word. 

Why did I write this blog post? Because Mrs. Wilkin's reasoning is the same reasoning used by egalitarians. Reading through the comments you can see that egalitarians liked this line of reasoning and wished she had taken it further. There is almost no Scriptural proof for what she is recommending. There are no examples in the New Testament of women teaching publicly. There are no passages where Paul exhorts Timothy or Titus to make sure women teach women publicly or to implement a women's ministry of any kind. Titus 2:4-5 could imply this, but certainly it is not clear. My point is not that women teaching women publicly is bad. But Mrs. Wilkin's overstates the case with her article. 

So what would I say about women teaching other women? They should do it. They can do it one on one, through Bible studies or in a public setting.  But a women's ministry with women teaching publicly is not an absolutely necessity for any church. Women have ministered to women for centuries without this and they can continue to do so in the coming centuries. Women have grown in Christ for centuries simply through through the preached word. So while women teachers might be beneficial in some scenarios they are not necessary. 

Feminism Kills Girls

Here is an interesting little tidbit from that renowned source of all things liberal, The Huffington Post. A pro-life group in England tried to sue because doctors did sex-selective abortions. The parents chose to abort female babies because they wanted boys.  Many people were upset, including numerous "health" officials in England. One Andrew Lansley said, "Sex selection is illegal and  is morally wrong."  We need to be clear what people are upset about. They are not upset about abortions in general. By at least one poll 70% of those in England support some type of abortion. The health agencies in England are pro-abortion. People are not upset about girls being aborted. There were 196,082 abortions in England in 2011. At least half of these were probably girls. The officials did not try to prosecute those doctors. No, they are upset about girls being aborted instead of boys. But unfortunately for them the Abortion Act of 1967 (this legalized abortion in England) does not prohibit sex selective abortions. A woman can have an abortion if two doctors agree that an abortion is necessary to prevent grave mental injury to a woman. The phrase is a catch all used to cover most abortions in England.  Sex selection is not illegal. So parents can kill all the girls they want so they can have the boys they want. 

Sex selection is the natural outcome of the attitude that promotes abortion to start with: personal freedom and choice, which have been hallmarks of the feminist agenda for decades.  If someone is pro-choice, but opposes sex selective abortions they are hypocrites. If I can kill my baby, why can I not kill the girl so I can have a boy? If I can be pro-choice with the baby, why I can I not be pro-choice with the sex of the baby. So why the outrage? When sex selective abortions are allowed it is the girls who get killed, not the boys. England meet China. China meet England. According to this article by 2020 China will have 35 million extra men. What did Chinese parents do when the could only have one child? They killed the girls and kept the boys.  No matter what feminists say, it would be the same way in England or anywhere else. 

What fruit feminism has wrought! The feminists and those who buy into the feminist agenda by insisting on abortion find themselves throwing their own sex into the grave. Feminism kills girls.  And so what was spoken by the wise man has been fulfilled, "All who hate me [God's wisdom] love death." (Proverbs 8:36)

Also posted at Kuyperian Commentary. 

Duties of a Christian Woman

God, in his wisdom and grace, restricts our lives. The principles of discipleship never change, but the way those principles work themselves out in our daily lives do change.  A fifty-five year old auto mechanic in Texas will work out his discipleship different than a twenty-seven year old Christian business executive in New York City. They will both grow in the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:16-26). However, that fruit will look different in different contexts. So it is with men and women. Our sex restricts us in certain ways, most obviously in the bearing of the children, but in other ways as well.  A woman cannot be a pastor. Why? The Lord decided she would be female.  This is not cruelty on God’s part. It is his grace and mercy.  We can either delight in the restrictions or rebel. 

The normal center for a Christian woman to work out her discipleship to Christ is the home. This does not mean four walls. It means sons and daughters and budgets and menus and child-birth and hospitality and education and scraped knees and prayer with the children and gardens and term papers and soup and movies. A vast majority of the Scriptural commands given specifically to women in the Bible are about the home. A woman therefore is to grow into conformity to Jesus by cheerfully obeying the commands he has given to her in Scripture concerning her specific calling as a woman.  Here are many of the specific commands given to women.

1.   She is to fear the Lord, be discreet, chaste, modest, known for good works, trusting in God, having a gentle and quiet spirit, and not a busybody or idle. ( Proverbs 31:30, I Timothy 2:9-10, I Timothy 5:9-15, Titus 2:3-5, I Peter 3:1-6)

2.   She is to love, respect and submit to her husband and be his helpmeet in his vocation. (Genesis 2:18, Proverbs 31:11-12, Ephesians 5:22 & 33, Titus 2:4, I Peter 3:1-6)

3.   She is to bear children, love children, and raise them to be disciples of Jesus Christ. (Genesis 1:28, 9:1, I Timothy 2:15, 5:10 & 14, Titus 2:4)

4.   She is to keep and manage/rule the home. (Proverbs 14:1, 31:10-31, I Timothy 5:14, Titus 2:5)

5.   She is to show hospitality to the people of God. (I Timothy 5:10)

6.   She is to care for the poor, afflicted, and strangers outside of her home. (Proverbs 31:20, I Timothy 5:10) This means that a woman cannot be entirely family centered. To do so would be to contradict the Scriptures.

7.   The older women should be teaching the younger women. (Titus 2:3)

All of this seems plain enough when one reads the Bible. But men love to make the plain obscure and the straight crooked. Here is what a Christian woman should aim to look like. If a Christian woman does not have these things as her goal, then she is playing the wrong game. 

Of course, there is more a Christian woman should be doing, such as prayer, attending worship, etc. But she should not be striving to do less than what is listed. 

Most Blessed Among Women is Jael

Several thoughts occurred to me as I read the story of Deborah, Barak, and Jael this morning in Judges 4-5.

First, did Jael go against her husband by killing Sisera? It is hard to tell, but in 4:11 Heber has separated himself from the rest of his family. 4:17 says there was peace between Jabin King of Hazor and Heber the Kenite. From this information it appears that Jael killed the man her husband was in league with.

Second, the assassination of Sisera is well planned by Jael. She coaxes Sisera into her tent (4:18) by telling him that he has nothing to fear. He asks for water and she gives him milk (4:19). The song (5:25) tells us that she gave him milk in a lordly bowl (NKJV) or noble’s bowl (ESV). She was appealing to his vanity. She knew exactly what she was doing.

Third, the courage of Jael is easy to overlook. If Sisera awakes she is a dead woman. Was her hand shaking as she picked up the hammer? When her husband returns she might face his wrath.

Fourth, I love the phrase at the end of verse 21, “So he died.” Typical understatement. The man has a tent peg sticking out of his head.  Do you need to check the pulse of man with a tent peg driven through his skull?

Fifth, Jael’s killing of Sisera echoes the promise that the seed of the woman will crush the head of the serpent in Genesis 3:15. There is another man killed by a head wound in Judges as well. In Judges 9:53 a woman throws down a millstone and crushes Abimilech's head. 

Sixth, the song in chapter 5 is more explicit about Jael’s deed than the story. It says she pounded Sisera, pierced his head, split and struck his through his temple (NKJV). My mind wanders to how big the tent peg was. Could it actually have split his head in two? I think our sanitized PG minds miss how violent an act this would have been. 

Finally, is there anything less politically correct than the end of Deborah’s song? Here we have Sisera’s mother sitting at home on the porch rocking in her chair.  She is surrounded by her friends. She is wondering why her son is so long coming home. Her friends say that it is because the victory has been so great that they are still dividing the spoil. But we all know the truth. Her son was killed by a woman, in a tent by a tent peg. His head was split while he slept. His death was not noble. He was a disgrace. He is now buried or burned in a foreign land and will be forever remembered only in these two chapters of Scripture. Aren’t we supposed to feel bad for Sisera’s mom? She has lost a son. Aren’t we supposed to grieve for her? Apparently not. So may all the enemies of God perish (5:31).

Women Converts in Acts 16 & 17

Women play an important role in Acts 16 and 17. First you have Timothy’s mother in 16:1. Then Paul preaches to women in 16:13 and Lydia converts in 16:14. In 17:4 many (or not a few) leading women are converted. Later in 17:12 several “prominent/high standing” women believe. Finally, in 17:34 Damaris converts after Paul’s sermon on Mars Hill. 

What is really fascinating is that all of these women appear to be prominent. Timothy’s mother is married to a Gentile who did not believe. Lydia is the head of her household and appears to be a woman of some standing. Purple fabric was in high demand and expensive. So she was probably well known and wealthy. Paul uses the word “protos” meaning “first or chief” in 17:4 to describe the women converted there. This word is used in 13:50 of the chief men in Antioch. In 17:12 he uses a different word for the women meaning “elegant/beautiful,” “honorable,” “influential,” or “wealthy.” This same word is used in 13:50 to describe the women who drove Paul out of the Antioch of Pisidia.  So these women had enough influence to be a part of the “city council” that decided Paul had to go. Now here in 17:12 women like these being converted to Christ at Berea. And it appears that Damaris was sitting at Mars Hill with the philosophers. I am not sure what this all means, but it is interesting how the Christian faith was brought to these women and what their conversions meant for the early church. It also makes me wonder do our churches focus on evangelizing women enough?