Is the Bible against women?
05/02/09 12:25 Filed in: Bible
One of the many popular perceptions about the Bible is that it is like all other ancient traditions—misogynistic, in other words it presents a view that women are to be despised and trampled on with little or no rights.
Whilst this may be true of many ancient societies, the Bible’s teaching on women was completely counter-cultural. It went against the flow. The gospel writer Luke noticed this too, and in his account of the life of Jesus he highlights the equality of women—nearly every major moment or parable or teaching has a male-female counterpart. For example: an angel appears to Zechariah and then to Mary, the parable of the shepherd searching for the lost sheep is followed by the woman looking for her lost coin, the healing of the demon possessed man is followed by the double healing of the sick woman and the dead girl. It is evident that Jesus had women amongst his wider group of disciples, an unheard of thing for a rabbi to do.
All this is by way of saying that the Bible doesn’t fit with the preconceptions, and over the next few weeks in New Life Fellowship we are going to be looking at lessons God taught some of the remarkable women of the Bible.
What do you know of Sarah? Or Miriam? Or Esther? Or Jochebed? Or Martha? Or what about Gomer?
I suspect that you’ll know quite a bit about some of those, but others perhaps not so much, and even those we do know will surprise us.
We’ve just spent a number of weeks at the end of last year looking at Jacob, and now it’s time to redress the balance somewhat. But what does this have to say to men? Is this a series where the men get to stay at home for a few weeks? Certainly not. It doesn’t matter whether we are looking at men or women or children in the Bible, because at a fundamental level the problems of the human heart are the same whatever gender or age you are.
Not only that, but when we look at the Bible we are never simply using it as a scrapbook full of examples—as if all you did was open its pages, find the person in a similar situation and seek to emulate them. That would be to miss the point in a most colossal way—yet that is how many people, including preachers, use it. No, the Bible is God’s story about his dealing with people, and so we are always looking at God and what we can learn about him in his dealings with people. Since people haven’t really changed that much at the heart level down through the centuries, and since God has no need to change, being completely outside of time, we will find much that is relevant to us today.
So I’d like to invite you, whether male or female, to come along and to hear about these remarkable women, and more importantly their remarkable God. We meet at 10.15 on Sunday mornings in the Day centre off Oliver Plunkett Road.
Whilst this may be true of many ancient societies, the Bible’s teaching on women was completely counter-cultural. It went against the flow. The gospel writer Luke noticed this too, and in his account of the life of Jesus he highlights the equality of women—nearly every major moment or parable or teaching has a male-female counterpart. For example: an angel appears to Zechariah and then to Mary, the parable of the shepherd searching for the lost sheep is followed by the woman looking for her lost coin, the healing of the demon possessed man is followed by the double healing of the sick woman and the dead girl. It is evident that Jesus had women amongst his wider group of disciples, an unheard of thing for a rabbi to do.
All this is by way of saying that the Bible doesn’t fit with the preconceptions, and over the next few weeks in New Life Fellowship we are going to be looking at lessons God taught some of the remarkable women of the Bible.
What do you know of Sarah? Or Miriam? Or Esther? Or Jochebed? Or Martha? Or what about Gomer?
I suspect that you’ll know quite a bit about some of those, but others perhaps not so much, and even those we do know will surprise us.
We’ve just spent a number of weeks at the end of last year looking at Jacob, and now it’s time to redress the balance somewhat. But what does this have to say to men? Is this a series where the men get to stay at home for a few weeks? Certainly not. It doesn’t matter whether we are looking at men or women or children in the Bible, because at a fundamental level the problems of the human heart are the same whatever gender or age you are.
Not only that, but when we look at the Bible we are never simply using it as a scrapbook full of examples—as if all you did was open its pages, find the person in a similar situation and seek to emulate them. That would be to miss the point in a most colossal way—yet that is how many people, including preachers, use it. No, the Bible is God’s story about his dealing with people, and so we are always looking at God and what we can learn about him in his dealings with people. Since people haven’t really changed that much at the heart level down through the centuries, and since God has no need to change, being completely outside of time, we will find much that is relevant to us today.
So I’d like to invite you, whether male or female, to come along and to hear about these remarkable women, and more importantly their remarkable God. We meet at 10.15 on Sunday mornings in the Day centre off Oliver Plunkett Road.