"I desire that the men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting; in like manner, also that the women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with propriety and moderation, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or costly clothing, but, which is proper for women professing godliness, with good works. Let a woman learn in silence with submission. And I do not permit a woman to teach or to have any authority over a man, but to be in silence. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression. Nevertheless, she will be saved in childbearing if they continue in faith, love, and holiness with self control."
Uhhhh....what are you talking about??
I’m reading a passage from the Bible..I Timothy 2: 9-15
The Bible?? That doesn’t sound like something from the Bible that sounds like something from some chauvinistic pig!!
(smiling) You think so huh? Well..I’m sure a lot of ‘chauvinistic pigs’ throughout history have recited this same passage a time or two in their lives, as a matter of fact, here’s another one that may sound even wilder..
Let your women keep silent in the churches; for they are not permitted to speak; but they are to be submissive, as the law also says, And if they want to learn something, let them ask their own husbands at home; for it is shameful for women to speak in church. I Corinthians 14:34-35
Whoaa, whoaaa now! Now I’m down with God and all, but you gotta admit..that’s so blatantly prejudice and biased toward promoting and sustaining male dominance..do you REALLY think God is partial like that??
What do you mean partial?
I mean, do you really think that the Almighty God, the Creator, would make such a biased distinction between men and women??
Well..actually I don’t think God favors one soul over another.
There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for ye ALL are one in Christ Jesus. – Galatians 3:28
Well then if you know that God is impartial, why would you want to believe that passage about women not even being able to speak in church when it obviously contradicts that other Scripture??
Because I believe that the Bible is the complete, inerrant Word of God and I don’t see it as a contradiction at all.
C’mon now!! Don’t just shut off your mind and act like a zombied out clone like so many of those other Bible crazies who have swallowed the Kool-Aid!!! THINK about it!! That doesn’t sound crazy to you??
I dunno…I guess that Scripture about a woman’s role in the church doesn’t ‘bother’ me because first of all..I’m not a woman. So since I don’t have to deal with the repercussions of what that Scripture really means, I’m not tripping about it as much as I would if I was a woman. Does that make sense?
Yeah..that’s real. But you still can’t overlook the fact that it screams of some of that ‘good ol boy- let’s keep the status quo by putting some stuff in the Bible to keep the women down so we can continue our stranglehold over the world’- type overtones.
I can see why you’d say that..but even though I’m not a woman like you, I DO understand that that Scripture goes a lot deeper than just what’s going on inside of a man made building that people refer to as the ‘church’.
Huhh??
When you research that passage in I Timothy as well as the passage in I Corinthians, you have to look at the full context of what was going on at the time. When Paul was writing that first letter to the newly forming church at Corinth, he knew how it was going down in the Greek city of Corinth.
How was it going down?
They had all kind of pagan gods, idol worshippers and the most prominent edifice on the acropolis (high city about 2,000 feet used for defense and worship) was a temple to Aphrodite.
Aphrodite? Aphrodite was the Greek goddess of love.
Hmph..you already know how it was going down then!!. They had these priestesses who were really just ‘religious’ prostitutes that lived in the temple and came down to the city in the evenings to serve it on up to the men and visitors..whoever wanted some.
Well..you know..to each his own.
Yeah..but since they had such a large element of these morally corrupt citizens of Corinth who had joined the church of Christ, Paul knew that a lot of their morally corrupt ways that they had accepted as a society was trying to creep into the church. So instead of making it an issue, he just laid down the law of how it should go.
Yeah..but that was waay back then..it’s not like that today. People who go to church, go to worship God, they ain’t trying to sell their bodies.
Hmph….you must ain’t been to {INSERT YOUR LOCAL CHURCH KNOWN FOR HAVING THE WOMEN IN THE MOST REVEALING CLOTHES NAME HERE]?
No, I haven’t.
I went to that church with my cousin one Sunday and I almost thought I was at a club. I saw the top of so many thongs and so many women walking around with some tight fitting clothes on..I had trouble concentrating on the service.
See..that’s just where YOUR mind is at! If you focus on the Lord and keep yo mind out the gutter, you won’t have to worry about all that.
Well, I don’t know about you..but I don’t go to church to look at women, I go to learn more about the Lord and praise and worship Him. But I’m still a man, and some of these women gotta know that they’re attracting a lot of attention to themselves by the stuff they wear. I really do believe a lot of them are in church with an ulterior motive of ‘catching’ a man.
What’s wrong with dating a man from church?
Nothing..I mean you should want to date a person of your faith..but let’s keep it real now, THAT is not what we go to church for, we go for Him..and God already knows what you look like naked, He ain’t trying to see yo thong during 11 oclock service.
You sound like one of those old school dudes, like my grandfather. He’s all stuck up on that ‘women shouldn’t be in a pulpit’ and ‘women shouldn’t wear pants’ and all that stuff. C’mon now..you gotta get past that archaic and close minded mentality. Women are people too, just like men. We love the Lord and we want to praise His name, and I know some of my BEST Bible teachers have been women! So you can’t tell me that that’s what God says, cuz I don’t believe it. If anything it’s what Paul said and he’s just a man!!
I can understand how you’d feel that way..but have you ever considered it from the deeper perspective of God’s intended purpose for man and woman?
Oh..so now you go jump on the ‘it’s all Eve’s fault cuz she bit the apple first’ bandwagon?
Naw..cuz first of all, the Scripture doesn’t say it was an apple, it just calls it the forbidden fruit..it could a been a kiwi or something.
Whatever it was, all women in history can not be held responsible for what one woman ate thousands of years ago!!! That is some complete BULLSH%T!!!
Do you believe in the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ?
Yes I do!!
Who do you think crucified Jesus?
The Romans crucified Jesus.
Mmmhmm..and who else?
Well..it was the Jewish council that sent Him to be executed.
Okay..Jews, Romans…who else?
What do you mean who else?
I mean, you’re still leaving out a lot of folks who played their equal part in sending Jesus to the cross.
I dunno..I guess all the other people who were part of the decision.
That’s what you’re missing…the crux of Christianity, and the basis of the faith, is that we ALL put Jesus up there on that cross. My hands and your hands are just as bloody as the Romans, the Jews, because it was because of our sin that He did what He did…and don’t ever fool yourself either, He didn’t HAVE to do it, He did it because He loves each and every one of us and He wanted us to have a Way to the Father. Because when you go through the original law, that ‘old school’ Torah, which is the first 5 books of the Bible (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) you will see that God is a perfect and just God. He is so perfect, that He cannot stand the sight of sin. So whenever any of His children committed a sin, there had to be a blood sacrifice to atone for it. Something had to die, a lamb a goat, SOMEthing. And it couldn’t just be any kind of animal either, it had to be a clean and spotless animal, unblemished. So when you think about a blood sacrifice that atones, or ‘covers up’ our sin, that’s what Jesus is..He’s our Mediator to God. When you confess His name and follow the path that He prescribed for us to follow in the Bible..that’s your covering to go before the Lord. So in that sense..I can’t FEEL ya on worrying about why what one person did thousands of years ago, would affect me today. Cuz I wasn’t Adam, but I have no problem recognizing the fact of original sin. And because of Adam’s transgression, I was born with a sinful nature. Even when I first popped out of my mother’s womb, and I hadn’t even had a thought yet, that sin nature was already inside of me because I’m a son of Adam.
Well..at least you recognize that it wasn’t all Eve’s fault..Adam played a part too.
Adam didn’t just ‘play a part’, Eve might have been the fuse, after Satan had started the spark, but the bomb didn’t drop until Adam disobeyed God and bit the fruit. The final responsibility rested on Adam and Adam alone. Because before that happened, our bodies were made to live forever..we weren’t doomed to a mortal death until sin crept in through disobedience. When you read the 3rd Chapter of Genesis, after it all went down, Satan tempted Eve, Eve ate it, then went and had her husband eat it and after Adam got his eat on, and his eyes were opened. They weren’t even having sex before all that happened. I still have a problem understanding how a man and woman can walk around each other day butt naked and not even THINKING about hooking up,( but that’s just one of my issues that the Lord is working on me with.) So when you read on in the chapter, you’ll see God laying down the punishment for each culprit in the crime. He started with the snake, then He told the woman and the stiffest penalty, He saved for last and gave to the man.
Then to Adam He said, “Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, “You shall not eat of it”’ Cursed is the ground for your sake; in told you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; For dust you are and to dust you shall return. Genesis 3:17-19
The verdict was in…God gave Adam the death penalty.
Death? He didn’t die right then! He went on to have children and everything!
Yeah..but before then, man was going to live forever, that’s why they call that whole incidence, the Fall of Man.
So what does all that have to do with women being able to talk, let alone preach, in church today??
Well..I just used that to let you know that because of the Fall, and Adam’s Original Sin, we are born with a sin nature that at some point needs to be atoned, so that we can reconcile with God. You can’t get past that Blood of the Lamb..you gotta have it mane.
I already told you, I BELIEVE in Jesus and His sacrifice, I’m just not with this macho set tripping that religion and society imposes on me and they use the Bible to support the reason why!! I can’t serve a God who treats me as a second class citizen..the Lord I know is down for EVERYBODY.
On a spiritual level..this is true. But you can’t deny the fact that God made order amidst chaos. He spoke the earth into existence and everything in it, including us. And for everything we have in this world, God decreed a natural order, and of this man is the head over the entire earth, animals included.
Hmph! Isn’t that conveniently placed in the Bible..that is..it’s good if you’re a man!
Look, whatever issues you have against men, let that be with men. But once you come across something in God’s Word that just doesn’t ‘feel right’ to you, you need to ask yourself if the rebellion is all because of pride and vanity. Because right before the Lord gave Adam the death penalty, He broke Eve off a piece too..
To the woman He said: “I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception, in pain you shall bring forth children; Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you. – Genesis 3:16
I don’t understand that part about ‘your desire shall be for your husband’??
It’s not about a sexual desire, I got this from The MacArthur Study Bible notes for this verse:" Because of sin and the curse, the man and the woman will face struggles in their own relationship. Sin has turned the harmonious system of God ordained roles into distasteful struggles of self will. Lifelong companions, husbands and wives will need God’s help in getting along as a result. The woman’s desire will be to lord it over her husband, but the husband will rule by divine design. (see Eph 5:22-25)"
Why does anybody have to ‘rule’ over anybody? Why can’t we all just be who we are??
Have you ever been in any type of team sport or group organization?
Yeah.
Did it have a leader?
Some..but some things we just did by democratic process..everybody gets a vote.
That sounds good..but marriages are usually just two people (unless you in to that OTHER kinda stuff)..so who’s supposed to make that decision in case of a tie?
Flip for it! He get his way one time and I’ll get mine the next! It’s not that hard you know.
Are you married?
What does that have to do with anything??
I was just asking..cuz if you were, I’d be curious to meet your husband and see what kinda fellow he was.
Just because I’m not married doesn’t mean I can’t voice my opinion!
No..it doesn’t. I’m just telling you that there are some things in the Bible that ALL of us don’t like, or that we wish we could ignore and act like it wasn’t there. There’s over 600 Levitical laws that the children of Israel had to follow..break even just ONE and something had to shed some blood. But because of Jesus, we have our sacrifice..and if you’re a person who believes, then you’re going to continue to strive toward being obedient. Salvation through Christ is not a static position..we are not ‘saved’ but rather we are being saved. We move from glory to glory..even if this doesn’t quite feel right to you..just pray on it and meditate on His Word. God will meet you at your level of understanding. Don’t let one thing keep you from striving to grow closer to Him.
I have no problem with God, and to be honest with you..if I had a husband who was a Godly man, that I trusted and respected for being a man of the Word and walking the walk of a Christian man? I wouldn’t have any problem submitting to him. But I ain’t about to let no ignant n’ga who’s out doing God knows what whenever he’s out with his boys, just think he go run home and do me any kind of way just because he’s a man and I’m a woman!!
I can understand that..that’s why women have that desire to lord over their husband in them, it puts more heat on the man to stand up and be the man of God and leader of the family like he’s supposed to be.
How did you know all of this??
Well..I’m married..and not too long after we got married..my wife and I started going through.
Going through?
Yeah..going through some thangs. And now that I sit back and think about it..we were going through thangs even before we got married, it’s just that we had learned to live around our differences and we fooled ourselves into thinking everything was okay. But as the marriage matured, those same issues and problems started creeping back into our relationship, and before I knew it..they were some full blown issues that had us tripping with each other. Having long heated conversations, writing letters full of pain, anger and frustration to each other..living in the same house, but living as strangers instead of as companions. And after awhile, I finally just got tired of that sh’t. Life is too short to spend it miserably married. Maybe we had just miscalculated what we wanted out of our relationship and we need to reshuffle the deck and get a divorce? All kind of stuff will start running through your mind. But I recognized that we were having a struggle of wills. Instead of communicating with each other, we had both barricaded ourselves in our own forts and we were bunkered down for the long haul. After awhile, that sh’t got old. Sometimes I wanted to just grab my wife neck and shake her so hard that she looked like a bobble head doll and make her submit to my will.
That sounds horrible?!!
Yeah..I guess it does, especially if you haven’t been through anything like that before. But I just THOUGHT it, I didn’t DO it..but don’t think it can’t get worse than that, cuz that’s not even the tip of the iceberg when you consider all of the domestic violence that goes on every day across America. But it all came down to a battle of wills, and I’m so stubborn and headstrong, I KNEW somebody had to lose this battle and it wasn’t about to be ME!!
Yeah..most men are ignant like that.
But that’s about the time that I started reading my Bible everyday..I had a thirst..I had to KNOW what the Word said about what I was dealing with, because from all my years of growing up, there is always one verse that my grandmother used to tell us ALL the time that stuck in my mind:
Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your path. – Proverbs 3:5-6
So what happened with you and your wife?
We continued to live around each other so to speak, but as I got deeper into that Word and it started to work inside of me, I started moving.
Moving? You moved out the house?
No, I started moving toward the Lord and His Way. When you read and study that Bible with a teachable heart, it will start to infuse into your heart..not all of a sudden (at least not for me), but kinda like a slow drip IV..drip..drip..it gets into your blood and you just start changing. And once it started happening to me, I looked around and noticed that my wife was moving too.
That sounds kinda..I dunno..spooky.
I know!! But the wild thing is, the closer we moved toward the Lord and His will, the more harmonious we became in our marriage. Instead of everything being a competition, with a tally sheet, ‘I did this, so you gotta do that..’, we started to rely on each other. So just like God instructed, we became one flesh.
Awww…that’s so sweet.
Yeah..and it’s all because of Jesus..and I thank Him everyday for laying it down for us like He did, because if it wasn’t for Him, my wife and I wouldn’t have found the strength to forgive each other for our past wrongs and move on.
(sniff) I think I’m gonna cry..that’s so beautiful.
You don’t have to cry..you should be smiling, the Lord is good ALL the time mane!! He sent me the wife that I needed to have to grow into the man that God intended for me to be. Yes sirrree..Tracy has definitely opened doors for D.
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Wazzup everybody!!! (CHEEZIN) It’s good to be back, I’ve been going through some thangs, but even when I don’t post on servinemup.com, don’t EVER think I’m not grinding furiously with my pen. Writing fiction has started to make a me a little..crazy (I hear voices!!)..but I’m go be alright. From talking to other more experienced writers, as long as I don’t start having conversations with myself while staring in the mirror, I’m still sane. At least, I am so far…hopefully all of you are too! :)
