At the first Christmas, God was pleased to come through a woman
While there are many who say that women cannot receive from God that which will benefit men as they believe that all wisdom that God has for mankind must come through the agency of a man, may I remind us today that the Wisdom of God – God Himself came into the world through a woman. The vessel that He used that was meant to bring benefit to all of mankind through the good news of the gospel in the face of the Savior, was a lowly servant who was a woman.
There are some today who refuse to accept God’s gift that comes through a woman. Their pride will not allow them to benefit from anything that they believe is beneath them. They practice hardening their hearts because they do not want to see and do not want to hear what originates from a woman. God cannot use a woman to preach and teach the gospel to the church, they say, because God is pleased to limit Himself to only men who by virtue of their maleness are fit to receive God’s special gifts that equip only males as teachers and gentle shepherds of God’s people. To them God’s best is always a man. God’s best is the wisdom of a man. God’s best is the strength of a man. To them God cannot and will not use what is foolish or weak or insignificant, inferior, common or despised. God limits His work through the chosen gender who are the physically and spiritually “strong” ones and God surely sanctions male pride because He created them as first class citizens of the kingdom. Is it not the complementarian message that it is through males alone that God can fully express Himself in wisdom, power and leadership?
But God has a surprise. God does not work that way.
1 Cor 1:27 but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong,
1 Cor 1:28 and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are,
1 Cor 1:29 so that no man may boast before God.
God has selected for Himself the rejected. He has chosen to represent Himself by those who are despised and who are looked down on as insignificant and inferior. God is pleased to use them for His glory.
Those who harbor a pride because of their gender are set up for shame. God will bypass them and use the ones who are considered weak and who have suffered disdain, scorn, contempt and rejection.
Where will you stand this Christmas? Will you lift up the male gender as the privileged ones? Or will you look past what is on the outside and see the precious gift of God that lives within many apparently weak vessels?
God has a gift this season which is available to those who will humbly receive. Will you accept God’s best gift as it is offered to you from those who has been rejected and despised by men? Or will you turn your back on God’s way and follow the way of the proud and the strong by saying that you do not need such a despised vessel to teach you anything?
May the outworking of God’s gifts through His Holy Spirit within all of us be used for the benefit of the body of Christ. May also the joy of this Christmas season find a place in your heart as you grow to love and accept all of the body parts, even the ones who are the least presentable in the body of Christ.
Merry Christmas to everyone who has been such a wonderful support for this Women in Ministry blog. You are much appreciated for the gifts that you bring me through your support and your wonderful comments.
23 thoughts on “At the first Christmas, God was pleased to come through a woman”
“They practice hardening their hearts because they do not want to see and do not want to hear what originates from a woman.”
You are so right, Cheryl! The exception is what I find so astounding, so horrifying. The comp “leaders” of the male gender reject nearly everything any woman has to say, but there is one glaring exception. That is the interpretation of Gen 3:16, which God apparently spoke to a woman. Somehow, they can see their way clear to believing that God told Eve that her desire was to rule her husband, (total hogwash!) but they cannot accept other interpretations that are much more plausible–like for Ephesians 5. It is so clearly a matter of the heart.
If you said that God told you that all women are to call their husbands “master” they would pick that up in a heartbeat. But they refuse to believe anything that has more logical and scripturally supported merit.
It is so sad. How can they handle sharing Heaven with women, when they think women are so beneath them? Do they think they have higher status in Heaven, too? So they won’t have to associate with us? Or do they believe something similar to those groups who think when they get to Heaven they’ll be rewarded with 70 virgins? (Wouldn’t that make it Hell for the virgins?)
Waneta Dawn,
What I have seen with these comps is that they concede salvation as the one area that women are equal to men. Even this concession seems to be a problem so that some of these men need to get past their own gender pride in having a woman in anyway equal to them. I listened to an audio tape quite awhile back of Wayne Grudem preaching on manhood and womanhood (I am 99.9% sure the speaker was Grudem). He said in his message that he would look at his wife sleeping beside him and say over and over about her to himself “You are equal to me. You are equal to me” as if he was trying to convince himself that she was indeed in some way equal to him. But try to make the “equality” as anything more than salvation and woman’s “worth” to God (in her salvation and nothing more) and watch them fight. Women are not really equal. They are only “equally” saved.
I cannot even imagine looking at my sleeping husband and having to tell myself that he is equal to me. The thought that we would be anything other than equal as joint heirs with Christ and both made in the image of God is unthinkable. This mind set produces pride and an arrogant attitude and those who hold this view just cannot see it. It is as if they are blinded by the accepting of such a privileged position.
“To them God’s best is always a man. God’s best is the wisdom of a man. God’s best is the strength of a man. To them God cannot and will not use what is foolish or weak or insignificant, inferior, common or despised. ”
This also works with a seminary education. There is an arrogance and puffed up pride that only scholars can understand and interpret scripture for others. But we know better. It is the Holy Spirit…. if we truly seek Him.
“It is so sad. How can they handle sharing Heaven with women, when they think women are so beneath them? Do they think they have higher status in Heaven, too? So they won’t have to associate with us? ”
Actually, there is an article on CBMW site (don’t have time to search for it right now) that tries to make a case for male authority over wives in heaven. I kid you not. For me, it was the clincher. I had long suspected some Mormonistic leanings over at CBMW but for them to even speculate on such a thing means there is serious heresy over there. If you put this together with their ESS teaching, they are out of the realm of basic orthodox Christianity. They have had to make Jesus Christ a lessor God in order to puff themselves up.
John MacArthur also went on record as saying that there is hierarchy of the male over female in heaven since God created the male and female this way, it must remain this way. When I hear these men speculate this way about heaven and their preeminence in heaven as ruling over women, I shudder. The Bible says that the first will be last and the last will be first. Will those who placed themselves as “first” and “foremost” here on this earth find themselves in a lesser position of honor in heaven? I really don’t know. But I wonder about it.
Most of these men who view maleness as the preferred of God, do not really understand the whole picture of God using a woman to clothe Himself with perfect human flesh and so walk and talk among us. They think it is simply a matter of necessity and the woman was merely a womb to grow in and breasts to be fed by. They do not fathom the personal relationship between Mary and Christ. They do not see that she had anything else of worth to give.
Thank you for your blog Cheryl.
Merry Christmas!
To all my blog friends and faithful commentors, Merry Christmas and have a safe travels if you will be on the road. We are closing our office until the New Year but I will monitor the site as I am able between visiting with family and friends during this special season.
“The Bible says that the first will be last and the last will be first. Will those who placed themselves as “first” and “foremost” here on this earth find themselves in a lesser position of honor in heaven? I really don’t know. But I wonder about it.”
Cheryl,
I understand that to mean that in the Kingdom of God there will be no first and last – that God does as He pleases with each one. (Matt. 20)
As for MacArthur, how in the world does he get around Matt. 22: “Jesus answered them, “How wrong you are! It is because you don’t know the Scriptures or God’s power. For when the dead rise to life, they will be like the angels in heaven and will not marry.”??
Kay,
I supposed that the first and the last may be the same, but then that would have been much plainer if Jesus had said that the first and last will be same. While all will be saved, there does appear to be different rewards and some who think they will have a greater place (greater reward) may be surprised that their ego was too inflated down here.
As far as MacArthur, he truly believes that the male is to rule the female and that pattern supercedes marriage in heaven so that all females will be under all males. That interpretation kind of tells you where his heart is here on this earth 🙁
This might be off-topic, but I thought that it is important that people pray that God will bring about change on these issues in people’s hearts… The change that we want we need to ask God for (provided He put it on our hearts). I think it is important for people to get together with those who feel/think the same way and that they start praying together about all these things (all the “women/ministry” and other issues). It is only when people spend real time in (dare I say serious?) prayer before God (together and as individuals) that any worthwhile change will come. I think the time for prayer is here. That is just what I felt to say. Prayer (alongside the Word) needs to be the basis for our actions – I mean, don’t do something unless you have not prayed about it. But in any way get together with others who are like-minded on a regular basis and pray on these things whatever God put on your heart(s).
SD,
Welcome to my blog! Thanks for your comments. It is always good to encourage one another to pray. I write about this on my blog especially when a complementarian has challenged us and then leaves without answering any questions. I ask people to pray for them because I know that they have read things that have peaked their interest and that a seed has been planted. They are not the enemy. We are not to see other Christians as enemies. And because they are brothers and sisters in Christ, we can and should pray for them. And we can and should pray for each other that the pain that many have had because they have been abused and silenced and stopped from using their gifts, will be healed by our precious Lord and Savior.
I hope you feel free to stick around and read many of the articles here as they should help a lot regarding the egalitarian position.
This seems like an appropriate post to say “have a blessed Christmas everyone.”
We will be in Nashville over the holidays and I don’t know how often I will take time away from all the family fun to stop in here. So if you don’t hear from me, have no fear – I am just escaping the MN cold and blogosphere stress for a couple of weeks.
gengwall,
Have a great Christmas! We are also getting away for some family time, but we chose to go TO the cold instead of away from it. What were we thinking??
Waneta Dawn brought up a good point in one of her recent articles. They speak alot about how the serpent overruled the order that God placed on humans – man was created first, etc – and the serpent basically started the gender role confusion at that point.
Why would God endorse this confusion by going to Mary first to inform her of the upcoming birth? I mean wouldn’t he first wish to go to her ‘authority’ and ‘leader’ to clue him in first? Why would he do this once again at the tomb of Jesus, and appear to women and tell them to go and share the good news?
Are they assuming that God knew this confusion would always be in place, and just what went with it at that point? He figured these important times in our faith’s history needed to break his rules of order, because since we are so screwed up we couldn’t handle it
‘his way’ or something?
Remember the serpent ‘made her the spokesman and the moral guardian because that is exactly what should not have been done’ according to what they teach.
Thank you for this encouragement. Tears were welling up in my eyes as I remembered all the times where my so-called church family also rejected and marginialized me for my insights in these things (essentially, my gifting in the Body). This reaffirms my need to press on in God’s truth of His Word, unswerved by the teachings of fleshly-minded humans and listening to God’s Spirit guide me into His truth.
Merry Christmas!
All right, already!
Somebody say something!
It’s hard to lurk here when you all are so quite! 😉
Thank you for this article. I always thought Christianity was sexist and turned away from it, this article inspired me to not think that way.
Jewel,
Welcome to my blog! Thanks for your comments.
Mara,
It ’tis the season for quietness. I am still away on vacation and will be back sometime in the new year. It is a rare quiet place right now 8)
Jewel,
You’d be surprised what the scriptures really reveal (like I have been) 🙂
Jewel,
Pinklight is very right. Spend some time engaging the Scriptures, and you will be surprised. I know I was, and I grew up in an egalitarian church! But when I engaged Holy Writ for myself (when I was struggling with the complementarian issues others were raising), I saw it for myself, and thank God I did. You’re in a good place here.
“All right, already!
Somebody say something!
It’s hard to lurk here when you all are so quite!”
Mara,
I know what you mean! Haven’t had time to comment myself – husband had a minor surgery right before Christmas, throw in traveling and then my son-in-law’s father died suddenly two days after Christmas…it’s “been”
Jewel,
I don’t think you really have a problem with Christianity, but with those who choose to interpret His Word for their own faulty biased reasons.
If “authorities”, are not in fact really in authority but under THE Authority of God just like those under them, this levels the playing field and equalizes all the parties being addressed. And if everyone is addressed equally as a person in Christ, ultimately is no hierarchy among them.
The only distinctions would be those perceived by someone’s interpretation.
“There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” according to Gal.3:28.
I hope you continue to read Cheryl’s blog.