Glory to God in women
Genesis 1 builds and moves forward with an urgent sense of harmony and strength. Prose remains rough until it reaches the highest achievements of noble creativity of men and women. This paragraph is long and flowing. Rather than artistic balance, the masterpieces of men and women are instead extraordinary feats of literary creativity. Men and women were created for one purpose: to glorify God, reign in His name, and rule the earth. The marriage of Adam and Eve refers to the God who first created them and the God who promised to redeem them after the fall. After the Fall, there was no relationship, so marriage reflected Christ and the Church. In both the Old and New Testaments, divine marriage does not refer to itself—it never finds meaning. The institution of marriage is God's supreme government, and thus marriage represents God's purpose for the world and the church.
Rosaria Butterfield
Bestselling author Rosaria Butterfield busts 5 myths in modern culture about sexuality and spirituality, using God's Word to explain each topic.
Kevin De Jong explains five patterns that lead us to grace or curse:
- Male leadership (also known in the Bible as patriarchy).
- Female goddesses have heroic qualities.
- Divine woman helps man.
- Immoral women tempt men to do bad things, and evil men abuse women.
- Women find meaning, compassion and suffering in the birth and care of children. 1
The power of these five examples lies not only in what they communicate, but also in what they are . The pattern shows edges and direction. He tells us how to live and warns us about the danger of drifting away. The presentation template must be followed accurately, concisely and carefully. Therefore, we must obey God and keep His commandments. If that sounds unpleasant, read on and we'll find out why you reacted the way you did.
Remember, in the Garden of Eden there was a tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The fruit of this tree has no limits, not because it is bad, but because it is a sign of God's love. God's love and His law united, and Adam and Eve were tempted to worship a tree instead of worshiping God. How did Adam misunderstand the meaning of the forbidden tree? Headaches due to lack of physical activity. Genesis 3:4-6 records the tragedy:
The snake said to the woman: You will not die. For God knows that if you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God who knows good and evil. The woman saw that the tree was edible and pleasing to the eye, and that the tree wanted to make a man wise, so she took the fruit and gave it to him. That's how she and her husband who were with her ate.
The important thing is that the woman was deceived. A delusion is simply believing something that is not true. To cheat is to be in the grip of a lie. Catch a snake? The creative system is captured by the snake's blow.
The creative order of biblical leadership describes the biblical practice of responsible, caring, and unselfish male leadership in the home and church. Complementing the husband's leadership role, the wife organizes God's creation under the husband's direction and helps fulfill the mission of creation. Biblical leadership is not an evil that must be eradicated, but God's plan to drive the monsters out of the city. But Adam failed in his biblical leadership; He was not convinced of the danger of someone entering heaven and not following Eve's command to eat the forbidden fruit. The consequences of the Fall were vast and deadly: “Through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and death spread to all men, because all sinned” (Romans 5:12).
The divine way of life determines the order of creation, not culture.
Genesis 1-3 makes clear that God's plan for subjecting wives is good, noble, and life-giving, and that rejection of God's created order – for whatever reason – is a rejection of God's plan. It takes a noble mind and a dark mind to believe that God's plans can be changed with impunity.
These opening chapters of the Bible provide a foundation for studying other Bible stories. Biblical leadership in marriage shows how the wife plays the role of helper. Assistants are not doormats. She is smart and strong, knows how to think and advise her husband. Even if he has a job or profession that contributes to the family, being a helper means that your husband's career takes priority. But we live in a wrong world where men and women abuse the roles given to them. For many Christian women, God's example seems difficult and undesirable, and can even seem dangerous, outdated, and unfair. The problem is not God's example. God's commands are never difficult (1 John 5:3-4). God's commandments reveal God's love. If the problem is not God's will, then what is? The problem is our guilty response to it.
This brings us to how marriage reflects God's creative design:
Wives, submit to your own husbands. The husband is the head of the woman, just as Christ is the head and body of the church and its Savior. Now, as the church submits to Christ, so wives must submit to their husbands in all things. . . . "For this reason a man leaves his parents and is united to his wife, and the two become one flesh." This mystery is very deep, and I say this for the sake of Christ and the Church. But let each of you love his wife as himself, and let women respect their husbands. (Ephesians 5:22-24, 31-33)
In this touching letter to the church at Ephesus, Paul brings together three characteristics that show that a wife's submission to her husband does not mean slavery. First, a wife's submission to a Christian husband belongs to “God” and never contradicts the clear teachings of the Bible. This means that if a husband asks his wife to sin against God's Word, then he is bound to that verse and does not confess it. Second, a wife's submission to her husband is a reflection and expression of the wife's submission to Christ. Paul wrote that husbands are to wives as Christ is to the church. Third, a wife's submission to her husband reflects her respect for the role of men and husbands. A wife must respect her husband even when he fails, and especially when he fails. God will work through the husband to bless his wife and other family members, so any disrespect or refusal to obey will rob you of God's blessings. By accepting the love, direction and guidance of a husband, and then building a home on the foundation of things that glorify God in all things, we see that surrender is not the end point, but the starting point.
The divine way of life determines the order of creation, not culture:
And now I praise you because you remember me in everything and keep the traditions that I bequeathed to you. But I want every man to have the head of Christ, the head of the woman to be her husband, and the head of Christ to be God. . . . Because men were not created from women, but women were created from men. . . . But in God, women are not dependent on men or women; Because men are born from women, just as women are born from men. (1 Corinthians 11:2-3, 8, 11-12)
This verse encourages us to discuss submission and leadership in public worship gatherings when Paul reminds the Corinthians that the mercy God gave in the garden was a morally binding blessing. An example is the Right Life Plan. Therefore, men, women and children should behave according to this pattern in worship. Personalized gifts for women don't get any better than the designs they put in the garden.
Therefore, that we were created according to God's pattern of creation is an expression of what it means to be human, and is an accurate interpretation of the text. Everyone lives under someone's power, influence, or manipulation. Everyone lives under authority, whether it is a sovereign god, personal feelings, or an evil tyrant.
Sewing from a pattern doesn't mean chasing the old cookie-cutter style. The biblical standards that a loving God created for His children are not strict. They expose. What we do with God's scriptures says a lot about who we are.
comment:
- Kevin DeYoung, Preaching Styles of Men and Women in the Church: A Concise, Biblical, and Practical Introduction (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2021), 36-42.
This article is taken from the book Five Lies Against Christianity in Our Time by Rosaria Butterfield .
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