God, Cyndi, and More Gender Roles
a)
A while back I heard this Does God Exist debate on ABC between evangelist Ray Comfort and the "Rational Response Squad". Wasn’t the greatest debate, but at one point something heartbreaking was said. The girl on the RRS was asked what would happen if she was wrong, and God really did exist. She said "I would rather spend eternity in Hell than in Heaven with a megalomaniac and a tyrant (referring to God)". It took my breathe away….
Later that day I was reading a book (The Pleasures of God). In it, it just described God – a God of sacrificial love, a God who Glorifies Himself, and a God who takes great joy in displaying both aspects. I felt something in my heart say "That girl is so blind. This God is Awesome." A couple years ago, a friend of mine was just shocked to hear that I actually believed God is better than sex or drinking (input your non-Christian friends’ idols here: security, success, career, a stable relationship). Nothing compares to Jesus! There is no one like our God.
b)
I do not watch television. However… A very nice person has started uploading episodes of Cyndi Wang’s 2004 tv series "Le Robe De Mariage Des Cieux" or "Heaven’s Wedding Gown" with english subtitles! SO GOOD!!!! As usual, Cyndi gets her yelling-at-boys thing on, and one of the main guys is incredibly creepy. His straightforward and unabashed creepiness is refreshing.
How many tv shows would tolerate such high amounts of creepiness? For example, when Cyndi catches him staring at her, the conversation goes as follows:
Cyndi – What are you staring at?
Dude – I’m looking at your eyes. If you want to win, you must be determined.
What an amazing line!!!!! Taiwanese tv is great.
c)
A friend of mine responded to my thoughts on gender roles. Her feelings are probably shared by most, so here’s my response:
I don’t hate women. I don’t think giving priority to men’s ministry privileges men. My belief is that a focus on men is a valuing of all people equally. But since men are to be the heads of their families and the leaders of the Church, their role is of a special importance. Are you less important? No - in the sense of value or potential kingdom impact or in that God has lovingly put you here on earth and has prepared great things for you to do that He deems necessary
Your first argument is essentially that women were less strategic to reach because they a) had less education, b) had less influence, and c) this would have broken many taboos in Middle Eastern culture.
If anything, this just proves my point more. Jesus LOVED to pick the less likely people to display HIS greatness. Your examples (the Samaritan woman, the Syrophoenician woman, the women of Luke 8, Mary, Mary Magdelene, the woman who washed His feet with her tears) all show that Christ loves to show His greatness through those who society viewed as foolish.
But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. – 1 Cor 1:27
God loves to pick the things that the world hates in order to shame the world. This is demonstrated in His selection of the twelve:
Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus. – Acts 4:13
No one could have cared less about picking people with education and influence or breaking social conventions than Jesus. If anything, it should have delighted Him to display His power through women leadership. And yet He still purposefully assembled a team of male disciples to be the leaders of His Church. This can only point to what is clear in every book of the Bible – men are to be the leaders and the primary focus of ministry.
Your second argument was that Jesus actively ministered to women and children. Again, that just adds strength to my point. That fact eliminates the possibility that Jesus avoided ministry to women and children out of calling or for issues regarding boundaries. Christ was very comfortable ministering to women. And yet He still chose men to build into. Christ drew children to Himself (Luke 18). But He did not make them His focus.
The last argument is the practical side of things. To paraphrase you: a Church that makes men its primary target but is unsuccessful in producing men of great quality would be committing suicide. Perhaps this is true. But I would rather obey God’s Word and, in His Sovereignty, fail, then disobey God and have an impotent, male-less Church like the ones that dominate and plague the Evangelical World today.
A while back I heard this Does God Exist debate on ABC between evangelist Ray Comfort and the "Rational Response Squad". Wasn’t the greatest debate, but at one point something heartbreaking was said. The girl on the RRS was asked what would happen if she was wrong, and God really did exist. She said "I would rather spend eternity in Hell than in Heaven with a megalomaniac and a tyrant (referring to God)". It took my breathe away….
Later that day I was reading a book (The Pleasures of God). In it, it just described God – a God of sacrificial love, a God who Glorifies Himself, and a God who takes great joy in displaying both aspects. I felt something in my heart say "That girl is so blind. This God is Awesome." A couple years ago, a friend of mine was just shocked to hear that I actually believed God is better than sex or drinking (input your non-Christian friends’ idols here: security, success, career, a stable relationship). Nothing compares to Jesus! There is no one like our God.
b)
I do not watch television. However… A very nice person has started uploading episodes of Cyndi Wang’s 2004 tv series "Le Robe De Mariage Des Cieux" or "Heaven’s Wedding Gown" with english subtitles! SO GOOD!!!! As usual, Cyndi gets her yelling-at-boys thing on, and one of the main guys is incredibly creepy. His straightforward and unabashed creepiness is refreshing.
How many tv shows would tolerate such high amounts of creepiness? For example, when Cyndi catches him staring at her, the conversation goes as follows:
Cyndi – What are you staring at?
Dude – I’m looking at your eyes. If you want to win, you must be determined.
What an amazing line!!!!! Taiwanese tv is great.
c)
A friend of mine responded to my thoughts on gender roles. Her feelings are probably shared by most, so here’s my response:
I don’t hate women. I don’t think giving priority to men’s ministry privileges men. My belief is that a focus on men is a valuing of all people equally. But since men are to be the heads of their families and the leaders of the Church, their role is of a special importance. Are you less important? No - in the sense of value or potential kingdom impact or in that God has lovingly put you here on earth and has prepared great things for you to do that He deems necessary
Your first argument is essentially that women were less strategic to reach because they a) had less education, b) had less influence, and c) this would have broken many taboos in Middle Eastern culture.
If anything, this just proves my point more. Jesus LOVED to pick the less likely people to display HIS greatness. Your examples (the Samaritan woman, the Syrophoenician woman, the women of Luke 8, Mary, Mary Magdelene, the woman who washed His feet with her tears) all show that Christ loves to show His greatness through those who society viewed as foolish.
But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. – 1 Cor 1:27
God loves to pick the things that the world hates in order to shame the world. This is demonstrated in His selection of the twelve:
Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus. – Acts 4:13
No one could have cared less about picking people with education and influence or breaking social conventions than Jesus. If anything, it should have delighted Him to display His power through women leadership. And yet He still purposefully assembled a team of male disciples to be the leaders of His Church. This can only point to what is clear in every book of the Bible – men are to be the leaders and the primary focus of ministry.
Your second argument was that Jesus actively ministered to women and children. Again, that just adds strength to my point. That fact eliminates the possibility that Jesus avoided ministry to women and children out of calling or for issues regarding boundaries. Christ was very comfortable ministering to women. And yet He still chose men to build into. Christ drew children to Himself (Luke 18). But He did not make them His focus.
The last argument is the practical side of things. To paraphrase you: a Church that makes men its primary target but is unsuccessful in producing men of great quality would be committing suicide. Perhaps this is true. But I would rather obey God’s Word and, in His Sovereignty, fail, then disobey God and have an impotent, male-less Church like the ones that dominate and plague the Evangelical World today.
posted by Adam @ 7:59 PM
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