Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:03 Good Morning Village Church. Good morning. My name's Michael Fueling. I'm the lead pastor here at the Village Church. If I have not met you, we are in week four of our series When Skeptics Challenge the Bible. So the first week we ask the question, does the Bible condone slavery? Uh, two weeks ago, does the Bible commit genocide or does God commit genocide? Uh, last week is the Bible anti-science. And by the way, is the Bible anti-Science Village Church? The answer is no, not at all. Uh, so to our question this morning, is the Bible anti-women before I say anything at all, gentlemen, can you all give a resounding no to this question on the count of 3, 1, 2, 3, no, in the first service, I had one person respond to that. I don't know. We gotta pray for the 9:00 AM people cuz it's shady. All right. So when it comes to issues like this, I'm, I am, I am pretty well aware that people are coming from all over the spectrum on this issue.
Speaker 0 00:01:10 We have all different sorts of, uh, backgrounds and experiences and churches you grew up in and books you've read, et cetera. And so I'm, I'm pretty well aware that rarely will a single sermon change everybody's mind. Um, and really that's probably not my, my goal this morning. Um, my goal is to invite all of us into the dialogue. Um, I want to open up, um, texts of scripture. Some of them will be easy, some of them will be challenging. And I wanna do this together so that we think biblically no matter where the scriptures lead us, here's the deal. I cannot tell you how many times I have ideas and opinions all the time that I open up the word and the word's like, nope, different direction. One of one of my commitments is to follow the word of God wherever it leads me, because it's God's revelation of his heart, his mind, and his will.
Speaker 0 00:02:06 And of course, I wanna make sure I interpret it correctly. And, and, and so, but this is kind of our collective agreement. As believers in Jesus Christ, we have committed our lives to him and, and, and he's revealed himself in the word. So what we wanna do is just make sure that we are following wherever he takes us. Should you be surprised if modern culture in the Bible don't vibe with each other? No, of course not. All right. So as you open up God's word, here's a question I want you to ask. Really, every time we open up God's word, we should be asking this question. Are the Bible and I on the same page? Uh, if not, is it the Bible's issue? Is it an interpretation issue? Is it a maybe it's a personal issue that I have that I'm, I'm bringing to the table.
Speaker 0 00:03:00 And again, if I could be a broken record, we want to align our mind, our attitudes and emotions and our life to the word of God. Now, I need to make one thing really clear on this subject. When God inspired the scriptures, he did not do so with the intention of impressing first century Romans, who hypersexualized women or 14th century BC Canaanites, who used, sacrificed and pillaged women. And, and this is going to be shocking for some of you. When God inspired the scriptures, he did not do so with the intention of pleasing 21st century progressive Americans.
Speaker 0 00:03:56 Truth is true. God is truth and right, and what he reveals is accurate regardless of the culture we live in, regardless of the belief that we have in our brains. In fact, there's probably not a culture in human history that when it read what the Bible teaches on women, where, where the prevalent spirit of the age agreed with it. So up until about 50 years ago, most cultures on Earth would've said that God's approach to women was too progressive. Within about the last 50 years, the Bible's teaching and women has been seen as too regressive. And within the last couple years, because the Bible does not give a lick about separating sex and gender, it is now seen as an act of violence.
Speaker 0 00:04:50 What do people today like really want the end of the day? And, and I think what most people want is equality. As sadly, in our search for equality without God's word, our culture is losing both masculinity and femininity. And in, in, in the church, we unashamedly champion men and women and we unashamedly champion biblical masculinity for men, not cultural masculinity, biblical masculinity for men. And, and in our church we champion biblical femininity for women. Now already, I might have lost some of you, but that's foundational to how Christians process. But what I wanna do with the rest of our time is, um, I want us to form a biblical theology of women. And, and I think you're gonna start to see why Christians approach the subject of men, women, masculinity, femininity, and marriage fundamentally different than the world. So at the very least, even if you're here and you're like, I'm not a Christian, I don't agree with any of this, take some time and put yourself in the shoes of a Christian so you can begin to understand why we tick the way that we do. I have just six points and I wanna just say again, you're welcome because this went down from a whole lot more to 10, to seven to six, trying to make this as accessible as possible. There are more on the cutting room floor notes than there are in my actual sermon. This deserves probably about three or four months of deep ex expositional teaching. We're gonna do this in about 35 minutes. You're welcome.
Speaker 0 00:06:46 I love you. Number one, to follow Jesus is to be pro woman again. Gentlemen, where are we at on this one? Can I get a name in Amen? Get a little weaker but we're good here to follow. Jesus is to be pro-woman. Genesis 1 27. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God, he created him, male and female, he created them. We could say this backwards, to be against women is to be against the image of God and therefore against God himself. Genesis 1 31 And God saw everything that he had made and behold it was very good. And, and creation, if you'll notice, was not very good until the woman was created. Or better yet, God was not fully represented until woman was made. We're used to Genesis one, but this chapter, culturally speaking thousands of years ago, dropped like a bomb.
Speaker 0 00:08:06 And the reason it did so is cuz you won't find creation narratives that give dignity to women like the Genesis account does. And so when the Jewish people would read this from the very beginning, both man and woman were designated by God as being equal in value, dignity, humanity, and deserving of honor to, to not honor a woman is essentially to dishonor God. So we learned, I think like an invaluable lesson from Genesis one. Let me summarize. There are aspects of a woman's body and soul that uniquely represent the character of God. So let's go deeper, uh, to understand how men and women both reflect the image of God. There is a verse in the New Testament, first Corinthians 11, three. It's actually a very controversial verse and you'll see why in a moment. Uh, I'm gonna start by just showing you a section of the verse and then I'll show you the whole thing.
Speaker 0 00:09:10 First Corinthians 11, three. Here's what it says, but I want you to understand that the head of Christ is God. God is Trinity, which means one God in three persons, the Trinity is the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit in the Bible, Jesus the Son submits to the headship of the Father. Do you see it? Uh, what you also see in scripture is that the Holy Spirit submits both to the Son and to the Father. So I wanna ask some obvious questions. I know you know the answers, but I wanna just make sure they're set. Are Jesus and the Holy Spirit inferior to the Father? No good. Are Jesus and the Holy Spirit less valuable than the Father? No. Is the father's headship and authority over Jesus and the Holy Spirit a symptom of patriarchal inequality in the Godhead? No. Do the sun or spirit get less glory because of the structure?
Speaker 0 00:10:23 No. So good theology, it tells us that the trinity is equal and deity and value, but different in form and function. So far, nothing crazy. Now let's see the rest of the verse. First Corinthians 11, three. But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ. The head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God, the Trinity father's son. And Holy Spirit marriage was designed to mirror the structure of the Trinity on purpose. And so here's the parallel in marriage, you have a husband and you have a wife. And if the Lord wills, you have children in the Trinity, the Son submits to the Father, and the Holy Spirit also submits to the Son and the Father. And in a marriage, Ephesians five makes it very plain. It tells us that the wife submits to her husband and that the children submit both to mom and dad.
Speaker 0 00:11:34 Now I am. This is a whole nother sermon about what this looks like on the ground, is it not? So what many Christians want to do is to say, I'm going to ignore that text. And what I want to con con what I want to say is we don't get to throw things out because they're hard or we don't understand what it means. And so I would, I I would just say every Christian couple should probably work this out and figure out what is the Bible saying and how do we flesh that out? Different sermon, different time. I know you want me to go there, but I'm not. You're welcome. Again, good theology though tells us that men and women are equal in humanity and value, but they are different in form and function. So that, I'm gonna say this again. Whenever you see a family, a marriage, you are watching all over the world, many trinity, everywhere, images that are reflections of the nature, the character, the image of God, and man and woman together reflect the image of God.
Speaker 0 00:12:46 So while culture really does see to redefine a marriage according to all of its whims, Christians see God's design for marriage a little differently. We see it as sacred and unmovable designed at its core, on purpose to reveal our Trinitarian God. So this is one of the reasons that we are passionate about marriage, males, females, masculinity, femininity. Because in all of these, the image of God and the trinity is being revealed. They're unmovable for God, therefore they're unmovable for us. And so again, if there is no God, then marriage is simply a human institution. Male and female masculinity, femininity are simply, purely, exclusively just random accidents of random cultures and really have no moral value whatsoever. But we don't believe that as, but as Christians, we believe there is a God who designed a male and a female and brought them together in marriage to image the Trinity so that God's image in likeness would be all over the face of the earth. Now, we have to note something shouldn't need to be said, but we're gonna say it. Uh, this spiritual headship or authority only applies to marriage. Praise God. Ladies, you are not responsible to be under the spiritual responsibility of random men in the world at your workplace or the government or anything of the sorts. Amen. Amen. Oh geez, Lord Jesus. All right.
Speaker 0 00:14:23 But number two, to image God, women were created different than men on purpose. The fact that the fact that in your brain, some of you might be thinking, oh, he said that is so sad. This is so unbelievably obvious even without God. But Genesis 2 22, Adam sees eve for the very first time he breaks out into poetry. And this is one of my favorite verses in the Bible. And here's what he says. This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. And what Adam does is he names her after her form. He calls her in Hebrew, Isha, which means soft. So connected to femininity is greater levels of softness, compassion, and tenderness resulting from much higher levels of estrogen. As we said last week, it's science <laugh> that's not controversial, that's fact. Now, in contrast, he calls himself the Hebrew word ish, which means strong and connected to masculinity is physical strength and aggression. And sorry, ladies, body hair resulting from much higher levels of testosterone. Its science.
Speaker 0 00:16:19 Men are designed physically for leadership, provision and protection in both a violent and agrarian world. And women are designed physically for childbearing and childrearing and multitasking so that our sons don't kill themselves in the initial years of a child's life. Okay? Is this all that a man and a woman is? No, I'm not. No. Some people hear that say, oh, so that's what you're saying. That's all we're good for. No, but even though we are far more than this, we are not less than this. It, it really is so sad that it's controversial to just identify that there is a hormonal, biological design difference between a male and a female. Let, let me just make this point further. Stats are overwhelming that fathers abandoned children at rates exponentially higher than mothers. Why? Because the woman's design inside and out is fundamentally biologically, hormonally. Different women are uniquely designed to nurture care, sacrifice and sustain life in a way that men are not. I was sitting at dinner this past week with a wife, with a husband, and in the room we're a bunch of kids. All of a sudden there is a cry. And do you know what happens? The dad and I look at each other, the wife immediately moves into motion and runs into the other room. I didn't even have the impulse.
Speaker 2 00:18:07 <laugh>
Speaker 0 00:18:10 The kids were fine.
Speaker 0 00:18:14 God's differences in design are to be cherished, not accidents to be resisted. It's one of the reasons why scripture forbids men dressing like women and women dressing like men. Because in amongst the people of God, we are proud of masculinity, not toxic, cultural masculinity, biblical masculinity. And we're also proud of biblical femininity. We're not ashamed of these things. There's a chapter in the book of Proverbs 31, which if you don't know what you should know about, I want to ask you, I'll open up your Bibles to Proverbs 31. It's, it's a chapter that I think every man and woman should be familiar with because it's written by a woman about women. Man, that's gonna get juicy right there. And, and and, and it's documented by her son, a guy named King Lumal. And King Lei puts in writing advice for millennia from his mother that help us understand what is a godly woman and who should you son not go near.
Speaker 0 00:19:21 And, and, and the woman doesn't just carry babies in her womb, feed them and clothe them. She is way, way more than this. She is strong in wisdom, character, eq, physically and more. Uh, this is a vision for the feminine that I, that I want my wife to continue to pursue. It's a vision of womanhood that I want to set before my daughters godly womanhood. And you're gonna see this, it is not weak, repressed, or trampled. On Proverbs 31 says, uh, 17 says, she dresses herself with strength and she makes her arms strong. Proverbs 31 25 says, the strength and dignity are her clothing. And, and this is one of my favorite lines. And she laughs at the future. She is prepared. She's prepared for financial struggles, personal struggles. She looks to the future and she's like, you've got nothing on me. This woman in all of her femininity, Barts with merchants, overseas workers in the home, makes money and buys property, is compassionate to the poor plans for the future, makes sure that her kids have what they need.
Speaker 0 00:20:32 So much so that other men look at her and they're like, that woman is impressive, probably because she is more successful than they are, that that's not weak. You don't get to read Proverbs 31 and go, Ugh, what a weak, repressed, trampled on godly woman. This woman's awesome. This woman will go toe to toe with you when you don't tell the truth. This woman is not weak. She might be soft, you shy, but she's not weak and consistently in scripture, the godly woman has not exclusive but unique oversight of her home. And she is not ashamed to build a culture in her home. Proverbs 31 27 says, she looks well to the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of iness. Her children rise up and call her, blessed her husband also, and he praises her. Number three, Satan hates women. Genesis three 13. Then the Lord God said to the woman, what is this that you have done? And the woman said, the serpent deceived me and I ate. Satan has deceived women from the beginning in the same way, in exchange for a vision of a better life, they unknowingly sacrificed their marriage and their bodies and their children
Speaker 0 00:22:14 Because of her sin. Eve would have to face the death of her son, able by murder at the hands of her other son, Kane. Her vision for a a better future cost her everything. And this was the trick. State has tricked women into various deceptions. If I can do what a man can do, then I will be equal, then I will be satisfied. If I can do whatever I want to do, then I will be equal and satisfied. If I can get rid of my unborn baby and not have my life inconvenience, then I will be equal and free and powerful. I imagine Jewish women and candidate women handing their babies to be burned on the fires of Malik alive. And and I wonder as I imagine this, did they flinch
Speaker 0 00:23:21 Or did they mute this feminine instinct to protect and to preserve their child? What level of deception must have happened that woman after woman after woman, freely burns their child alive and listens to the cries? Abortion is our modern day child sacrifice. And women are deceived into thinking it is just tissue. And culturally castrated men comply because they have to. But your body and your homo hormones, they weren't designed to accept the lie. You might convince your mind, but your body keeps the score, which is why the catastrophic, emotional and psychological consequences are there. Even if many say they're not. I think this is like, this is a good moment in the message to kind of pull back. And for everybody, men and women, to ask the question, how might Satan have used our current cultural moment to numb my soul to his tactics?
Speaker 0 00:24:29 Number four, sin has made the world a dangerous place for women because of sin. Men have used their physical strength and the tenderness of women to oppress them. Everywhere you go happens in churches, happens throughout history, happens in every country. This is a thing. Historically, this was a universal experience for women unless they were under the protection of a good and strong man. Uh, the first time I, I really came to an understanding of how different the world is for me versus a woman is, I can't remember Brianna if we were engaged or we were dating, but we were walking downtown Chicago and there was a path between where we were and we were going. And there was an alley that if you walk down the alley would be shorter and it was dark out. And I didn't think about this because I don't think about things like that. I'm a dude and she wouldn't walk down the alley. And I was like, what's wrong? And in that moment as she explained it to me, I was like, I have never ever had to think about not walking down an alley. I've got a knife on me. We're all good, right?
Speaker 0 00:25:40 Some of you're shaking your heads, you're a moron. I'm like, I don't disagree. I was raised, I'm the youngest of four boys. I can't know what I did. I don't know, you know, but that was the beginning of my realization that men and women have to live very differently in this world. And connected to that is the sheer strength that goes with being a man in the sheer softness that goes with being a woman, statistically speaking, and the people of God. They were created to be a place where male and female could flourish. And until Yahweh created Israel and the law, the world was a very dangerous place for women and for children. If you're here and you have this impulse to protect women, you have an impulse that women are value and dignified might I suggest to you, the only reason you have that impulse is because God put the dignity of women into Genesis one.
Speaker 0 00:26:40 That that there is not going to be a culture on planet earth unless they are informed by this revelation, the Judeo-Christian ethic that is going to elevate the value, honor, the honor and dignity of a woman, e e even the people now who reject God in the Bible. And they seem to have the residue of these Judeo-Christian values. These came from God and no culture on the planet elevates women to equality with men in the way the Bible does. Period. This is God's gift to humanity and we get to live in the residue of this value broken as it might be. Number five, Jesus', life in ministry beautifully shows God's heart for women and Christians rightly point to the life in the ministry of Jesus to illustrate this. Because if you wanna know how God feels, look no further than Jesus who is fully God.
Speaker 0 00:27:27 So when you look at Christ and you look at the way he treats women, you're getting an insight into God's heart and value for how he treats women. Let's look at three examples. There are so many here and unfortunately again, we don't have a ton of time, so I'm just gonna pick on three and then you can go deeper in your own time. But Jesus's female followers cast off women like Mary Magdalene, who would've been plausibly killed for her sins is elevated to a position of unbelievable responsibility in the life in the ministry of Jesus. It was many of these women who were financially supporting the ministry of Jesus from women called in adultery to prostitutes, to women suffering from affliction. Time and time again, Jesus engages them, empowers them and gives them a greater vision for their life and womanhood. Time and time again.
Speaker 0 00:28:20 Jesus's mother, which I think so much of, uh, of the reason the apostle Paul has so much real estate given to the honor and dignity and the treatment of widows, one of Jesus' very last moves is to make sure that his mother widowed has everything she needs to be taken care of for the rest of her life. When you get to the resurrection accounts, I know most of you're familiar with this, but most people don't understand how significant it was for, for God himself to reveal himself first and foremost to women. Uh, this was a huge cultural statement because as soon as the women were the first to realize that they were the first to herald it, and a woman's testimony was, was not considered viable to be brought into a court of law. And, and what God is saying here is that no, no, no, no, we don't treat women less than men.
Speaker 0 00:29:13 Their voice isn't less than in fact they are equal to, to the point where God's like I am gonna give the absolute privilege to almost make the cultural point that the first people who get to come upon the resurrected Jesus will be women. And the first people to proclaim the gospel that Jesus Christ has been raised from the nut dead is going to be women and Jesus kingdom. Women are not second class citizens, but they have equal value, dignity, and honor. Now, as we say that, I wanna be clear with everything the Bible teaches on subjects like this. And so there is controversy around the subject for reasons. And so here's one important clear detail. So we see in Jesus's ministry that no matter who followed him, men or woman, they all had a role to play. But no one is gonna read the gospels and conclude this, that Jesus appointed women to positions of spiritual authority in ministry because he didn't.
Speaker 0 00:30:17 Now Christians have wrestled through whether this is prescription, meaning this is the pattern forever or whether it's just description. I invite you to wrestle through that. Christians have wrestled through women like Phoebe in Roman 16 power couples like Priscilla and Aquila who were teaching God's word. They brought a palace to faith in Christ, discipled him. And what this means for like children and church leadership in the 21st century, whatever the answer is, it is certainly not a inequality. It is certainly not oppression. No matter how you slice it. If you were to take every woman who interfaced with the ministry of Jesus, they would all tell you that He gave them value, dignity, and equality. And they will not walk away from him as if they held back. He held something back from them that was rightfully theirs. And so you're gonna find this unanimous experience of the elevation, but you guys get to go home with your families and your husbands and wives and kids and your community groups and you can duke that one out for all you want.
Speaker 0 00:31:17 Or if you wanna come talk to me about that afterwards, we can have a good dialogue in that as well. Number six, almost every single controversial text on women, it comes from the apostles. So Jesus, he says the hard stuff on hell and money and judgment and hypocrisy. Like he, he's pretty blunt. But when it comes to issues of women at home in the church, uh, the apostles are all the ones that kind of say some of the hardest things. Um, what's interesting is that as you, you're gonna see this, but as we read through these, um, none of them were controversial to the Jews. In fact, most of the controversy was gonna happen in the gentile female converts. Uh, they were coming from a whole system of ways that the world did things. And when they got into the church, the church did things a little bit differently.
Speaker 0 00:32:08 So there are three primary texts that we haven't dealt with that are pretty controversial. Again, you're welcome. We're not gonna do whole sermons. I'm gonna read them. I'm gonna give a couple thoughts on each. And again, if you want to go deeper into any of these, I'm gonna invite you to do this. But as is our habit at Village Church, we do not want to turn our heads away or act like any text of scripture, isn't there? We wanna walk straight into them and understand them the best we can. All right, the first comes from first Timothy chapter two verses 11 through 13. Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man. Rather she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first than Eve. How many of you wanna be like where I'm at right now, anyone?
Speaker 0 00:33:00 There are four things that we know for sure and what I wanna do is I wanna start to model how you navigate culturally or linguistically challenging tasks. Okay? What do we know? Number one, whatever Paul is referring to is relevant for all churches in all time because it's rooted in creation. Look at verse 13. Whatever he says, his reason for saying it was for Adam was formed first then Eve. Now again, as American Christians, that doesn't make sense to us. For the Jews order was important because God wasn't just intentional in the way he made man and woman, but he was also intentional in communicating via the order with which he made man and woman. Number two, there is a serious enough problem happening with the Gentile women in this Ephesian church that it needs to be addressed by an apostle. This is a big deal.
Speaker 0 00:34:06 This is going to the top of the chain. Like this is going past Timothy, your pastor, and bringing in an apostle to bring down a judgment on a circumstance that's going on. This is a big deal. Number three, women elsewhere were permitted to pray, to sing, to prophesy in church. So we know that we know being quiet or mute or silent is not what he's talking about. But we do know that Paul is saying there's something specific with which you need to be quiet about. Okay, got it. I don't even like the word to be honest. But number four, the women here are told to be quiet with regarding to something specific teaching and exercising authority, which seem to be the same thing here, which are specifically elder responsibilities. And so what we find here is that in the very next chapter, just a few verses later, Paul continues to talk about elders and he starts talking about the qualifications for elders in the church.
Speaker 0 00:35:12 That's one of his big concerns. There are things in the local church that only the elders should do. And so this group of Gentile converts these females were saying, we're gonna start doing those things. And he's saying no with regard to teaching and exercising authority, these are elder responsibilities. You cannot do it. The second text comes from first Corinthians 14, verse 33 to 35. I think this is the most challenging text on just forget about women. Just to interpret correctly, probably in the book of First Corinthians, if I'm being honest, verse 33 says this, as in all the churches of the saints, it's a big word here. The women should keep silent in the churches for they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission. As the law also says, for there is, if there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home for it is shameful for a woman to speak in church stones, tomatoes, I'm the messenger.
Speaker 0 00:36:21 What do we know? Number one, the Corinthians are dealing with utter chaos in their church services. If you notice how orderly this is, God loves order in worship, chaos, and disorder, not so much. In fact, it's not just women who are told to be quiet. As you read through first Corinthians 14, there's a handful of people who are told, be quiet, you be quiet, you be quiet and you be quiet. You're all talking outta turn. This is getting nuts here. Now, number two, it's clear from Paul's reactions that female gentle converts are taking pagan practices and bringing them into the church, one of which is in pagan religions. They had their own version of speaking in tongues. It was chaotic and it was rambling. And they would bring this version of speaking in tongues into the church. There's multiple of these kinds of practices and they didn't know better.
Speaker 0 00:37:29 They're doing what they know. They have ways of access in the spiritual realm that they would bring into the church. And the apostle Paul is like, this is crazy. You're taking pagan practices, you're bringing them into the church. You're all talking at once. This is absolute insanity. Pagan worship was chaotic, disor, disorderly, sexualized, often led by women, while the males were cult priests, sexually subservient depending on the, on the cult. And these ideas are being brought into the church. When you read the book of First Corinthians, there's some sexual brokenness happening because some of this, we'll call it pagan practice and, and theology was being brought into the church. And everything you see in pagan religions is a subversion and reversal of God's design. That's its intent because they're satanic. And origin number three, elsewhere in the book, women are permitted to speak, to pray, to prophesy.
Speaker 0 00:38:21 So you already know, he's not saying you're not allowed to speak because they speak. Now here's the best interpretation I can get. And again, feel free to dig into this one. I think this is one of the hardest ones, not because of what it says about women, because of trying to make sense of it in light of First Corinthians, the entire book, because the context immediately is that of testing prophecies. It appears that the testing of prophecies was the domain of the elders. And these, these women were saying, we have prophecies all the time. We test them where we come to. And they were testing, interpreting, and translating prophecies and tongues in a way that was more pagan oriented. And so the apostle Paul says, listen, I think the interpretation of tongues and prop, we're gonna leave this to the responsibility of qualified elders. The third text, I think it's the easiest and honestly I wanna end on it because I think it's the most encouraging.
Speaker 0 00:39:21 First Peter chapter three, verse seven. Likewise, husbands live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel since they are heirs with you of the grace of life so that your prayers may not be hindered at at first blush. Um, weaker might feel like an insult. It is not, it is actually a compliment because it is a reflection of the design of God on a woman's body. This does not have to do with being emotionally weak. This has to do with being literally statistically physically weaker than men. And the men are told, Hey, live with your wives in a way where you are sensitive to the fact that everywhere they go in this world is dangerous for them. And, and you need to be able to live with them and understand that when they go out into the world, it's not the same as you.
Speaker 0 00:40:17 You need to honor them as physically weaker and provide protection for your wives and your daughters. And then he makes this point. They're, they're heirs with you. They're saved in the same way they're gonna rule over the world than the newer earth with you. Like you're not better than them. Your your co-heirs with them. And then this is the part I love. If you don't do this, God won't listen to your prayers. <laugh>, isn't that great men? If you're gonna treat your wife poorly, then God's gonna say, Nope. If you're not gonna honor her, then nope, I'm not gonna listen to you. Make that thing right. I love that. Let me, lemme just summarize the whole message. God is a kind genius who made men and women differently to image himself and gave us his word to show us how to do it. Satan hates God and you and wants you to become your own God and so deceive you to subvert God's design for your life.
Speaker 0 00:41:26 I have three shorts of what's number one. We don't forbid that, which scripture does not. Clearly forbid, I grew up Roman Catholic. They had a lot of rules and man, I've been around some of you guys and some of you have a lot of rules that the Bible doesn't say, I don't get it. It's sort of a, a passion point of mine. But I I do not want to say no to anything for my daughters or for yours, for my wife, for yours, for our single women and beyond. I I did not wanna say no to anything God says yes to. And I don't want to say yes to anything. God says no to. Both are sin. So as you, as you explore ministry in your local church, ask questions and make sure that if they're in your local church, if there are things that you know, these are reserved for men, make sure they can open up the scriptures and say, here's what the scriptures say, this, this is reserved for men.
Speaker 0 00:42:27 And, and you wanna make sure. Now there's a little bit of advice as you kind of jump into a church. My council would be probably don't try to change the church cuz most churches aren't gonna change that quickly. But learn and ask questions and make sure if there are distinctions that they are, they're biblical. Number two, be gracious as others. Figure this out. When, when people become Christians, you have the entire air of the culture of the prince, of the power of the air in our minds and souls undoing. That is a slow, arduous process. Sometimes we forget how long it took us to get to the place where we're able, we're able to see certain subjects a little more clearly than others. I I think there are some reasons why it is harder for some people to kind of see clearly on multiple issues, particularly this one.
Speaker 0 00:43:21 Here's a few reasons. Some Christians are just more American than biblical. Um, some just just cannot believe that God doesn't define equality of the way they do. They just can't believe it. Um, this is usually a symptom of people who need God to be made in their image rather than realizing they were made in God's image. Some, some Christians, and I think you're gonna see this, are truly desperate for the approval of their non-Christian friends. And they want so badly for God to look good. They will not personally accept positions even if the Bible is clear on it for fear of what their friends might think. In fact, they're, I've talked to many young people where they, they have said, if my friends knew what I believed on an issue, they would never speak to me again. Don't, don't underestimate the social cost of even just statements that men are men and women are women and they're different.
Speaker 0 00:44:22 Uh, I think there's another issue like on semi complex issues. What a lot of Christians have a, a tendency to do is to say, there's just too many opinions I give up. I guess we'll never know. I actually don't think this is one of those issues. I think with a little bit of work you can begin to see really, really clear male, female, masculine, feminine marriage and roles. It's actually not as hard as many people think. Most people struggle to jump into it because they don't know where to start. And that's understandable. Have grace with one another. This is a, it is a semi complex issue, but I I have yet to meet a true pastor or a true Christian who's like, yeah, I don't really wanna know what God actually thinks on that I'm, or I kind of know if I study what it's gonna say, so I'm just gonna avoid it altogether so I don't have to deal with it.
Speaker 0 00:45:08 Maybe, maybe some of those things we think inside, but we don't say them out loud. I think most people really do wanna honor God, who love Jesus. They really do wanna know what the word says. And I just think being gracious in this process is really helpful. Last, so what all image bearers need forgiveness from Maring the image of God we were designed to display, uh, as you consider a theology of woman. There is not a single woman in this room that has lived up to the standard of the Proverbs 31 woman. And there is not a dude in this room who is loved and honored women with dignity to the glory of God in perfectly. Every one of us in this room have misrepresented masculinity and femininity. The image of God imprinted on us in a way that we all need a savior. And, and not only that, but very few of us, without the power of the Holy Spirit and guidance from the word of God know how to be a man and a woman to the glory of God.
Speaker 0 00:46:11 We need help our culture. It's not very helpful. We need the word of God to train us. But before we get that, there are some of you here. You have never trusted in Christ and received the forgiveness that God offers. And I don't care how evil you have been, the blood of Christ can cover any one sin. And his gift to anyone who believes in Jesus Christ is forgiveness of sins. It is the Holy Spirit. It is the promise of redemption. And if you're here today and you've never trusted in Christ, I just wanna ask you, do you believe that Jesus is God, that he died for your sins and your place and that he was raised from the dead? Are are, are you willing to look at him and say, listen, I, I I believe in you. Please forgive me being my savior. And if you were willing to do that today, there's no special words you need to say.
Speaker 0 00:47:04 Tell him you're sorry. Ask him to save you. And God's promises that anybody who calls on the name of Jesus for salvation will be saved. If that's a decision that you wanna make today, um, share it with somebody you came with, come talked to someone up front and we would just love to celebrate with you. But at the end of the day, village Church, we have the privilege to figure out what does it mean to be a man and a woman to the glory of God? And how do we raise our littles and our grandkids and these kids in this church to be men and women to the glory and to the image of God? Amen. Let's pray together. Father, we love you, thankful for your word, a thankful for the cross that covers us and forgives us of our sins. I am thankful for the Holy Spirit who empowers and convicts us and transforms us. You have not left us lacking for anything. So thank you. And as we remember what you have done for us on the cross, would you just fill us with gratitude for what you have done for us? We love you and we pray all of this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.
