When the church talk of wives submitting to husbands, they tend to quote Paul and Peter, the writers of Eph 5:21-24 and 1 Peter 3:1 respectively.
So, to see what these apostles meant with submission, we could look at how they lived, and compare that to their words.
Artwork of Peter preaching, which he sometimes did in defiance of authorities.
How Paul lived out submission Read the rest of this entry »
The Bible calls wives “the weaker vessel” in a sentence to instruct husbands. Many people, including me, have discussed what the text mean, going deep into New Testament Greek in some cases. Today, let us ditch the Greek for now, and look at the plain meaning of the text.
To get this plain meaning, see what is ordered in this sentence: Read the rest of this entry »
A recent viral blog article starts with the question: “Do you know how much more attractive debt-free virgins (without tattoos) are to young men?” It also features this meme:
(I wonder if the blogger made sure the pretty young woman in her meme meets these three qualifications, but I digress.) Neither tattoos nor debt is centrally important in her article, and even virginity is only an example of what the writer is really on about. Read the rest of this entry »
I originally planned to do this series as three posts. I now realize point 7 needs its own post. The point I try to make is that the assertion Grudem made in this point is completely unsupported, that everything under the header is a red herring. To do that, I need to quote Grudem extensively, to prove I do not leave out the significant part of his argument. Before giving the mic over to Grudem, so to speak, I will show a similar argument:
“The Derickson brothers were born to be house painters: The Derickson brothers vandalized houses of immigrants by painting swear words on them. [Newspaper quote on the Derickson brothers being caught for vandalizing houses with spray paint.] The judge sentenced them to community service. [Another newspaper’s quote on what the judge decided.] The newspaper uses the word ‘fitting’ to describe what the judge said of their punishment. Fitting means [quote from Webster’s Dictionary]. This shows us that the spray painting was a perversion of their God-given purpose to paint houses, house painting was not new to them.”
The problem in the previous paragraph, as you can see, is that not a single shred of evidence is given that the Derickson brothers were indeed born to be house painters. Plenty of evidence is given of their crimes and the sentences they got, none that house painting was their life purpose prior to the crimes. Even if every quote is accurate, it would not prove the header. With that in mind, read Grudem’s argument, or lack of it, while remembering the header of his list (“Ten Reasons Showing Male Headship in Marriage Before the Fall”), and of point seven. Read the rest of this entry »
I heard denouncements of the song before I ever heard it:
“This is a terrible and unladylike attitude.”
“It is not who God made women to be.”
The denouncements came from Christian™ ultra-conservatives. When I heard the song itself, I was surprised: If this song replaced the word “woman” with the word “Christian, and originally appeared on a Christian album1, nobody would have complained. (The writer, Helen Reddy, told that her words was divinely inspired – and I believe it.) Read the rest of this entry »
4. …God named the human race “Man,” not “Woman.”… (Gen. 5:1-2):
In the Hebrew text, the word … ’ådåm… is by no means a gender-neutral term… (Genesis 2:5,7, 8, 15, 16, 18, 19 (twice), 20 (twice, 22, 23, 25; 3:8, 9, 12, 17, 20, 21; 4:1, 25; 5:1)…
It does give a hint of male leadership, which God suggested in choosing this name….
Reading the same text with pink glasses
(To understand this argument, we have to know that people give meanings to words,things they understand when they hear it. An aggressive atheist, when hearing the word ‘God’, may hear: “That fictional character who is blamed for a lot of Old Testament deaths and the Crusades.” Another person, from a religious home, may think: “The One who is angry with all my sin and wants to punish me.” The problem is not the word “God”, but how people understand it.)
God named the human race “Man.” Then, the male sinfully appropriated the name for himself, calling the woman by other names. By the time Genesis was written, this sinful way of thinking about the term ’ådåm was established to such a degree that, writing in Hebrew, God used the word ’ådåm in two ways: The way God intended (for the whole race) and the meaning that sinful men gave the word: As a word for males.
On the other hand, the female was named “life causer”. (The meaning of Eve.) This gives a hint of female leadership: We die in Adam, but get life in Eve.
Stripping away the biases Read the rest of this entry »
At the start of March, I started a planned 3-piece series on the justifications Grudem uses for male headship before the fall. By now, everyone expected me to post parts 2 and 3 too.
Sadly, I am having serious computer problems, which make it impossible for me to get things done on the Internet. I got a new laptop and the thing gobbles up Internet data. I got a limited amount of data per month. Nowadays, whenever I get on the Internet, my computer eats all my data while I hardly use any of it surfing. So far, no solutions worked yet.
The Grudem articles are written, offline. But even formatting them in WordPress take time on the Internet.
I am sitting in a coffee shop with free wifi to post this.
