In the Kingdom of God, Women Are Fully Human
In the Kingdom of God, Women Are Fully Human
by Larry Wilson
The Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown, has caused many to question anew whether the early and present-day Christian church has taken steps to limit the role of women when Jesus, its founder, did all he could to elevate their status. The Da Vinci Code is an interesting adventure story that is, at best, constructed on very shaky historical evidence. (It is a fiction best seller.) I do not buy any of Brown’s story about an early Church cover-up of a marriage between Jesus and Mary Magdalene, or that there are people today who would try to kill descendents of Jesus and Mary. However, I do believe that leaders of the early Christian Church, as well as many in the Church today, have used sketchy Bible study, traditions, and prejudice to say that the God of the Universe cannot or will not call women to be Pope, bishops, priests, pastors or deacons.
The Bible begins with two creation stories. In the first story, God creates the world in six days. Man is created on the sixth day after all of the other animals. Genesis 1:26-27 states,
“Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.’ So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” Both male and female are created in the “Image of God” – that is what the book says.
Then in the second creation story, Genesis chapter two, Adam is created before all the plants and animals as the one who is to keep the garden. God creates animals and Adam names them, i.e. names their purpose. Cows are for milk and meat, dogs for pets, chickens for eggs and frying, horses for work; but Adam does not have a helpmate after all that creating. Adam and creation are incomplete. From Adam God creates Eve, and Adam says, “Hurray!” Eve not only completes Adam, she is the final crown of creation. There are those who say that Eve is secondary, that she comes after all the animals are named. But Eve names the children; she is the one who gives purpose to the children.
People often treat the Bible as if it is one book – that it has only one view of the world. The truth is that the Bible contains sixty-six books that were not bound together until the invention of the printing press. Sometimes I think that putting them together in one book makes the Bible seem too formidable for many to understand. Most books in the Bible can be read in one sitting and, to best understand them, they should be read that way. I am afraid far too many sermons are preached on an isolated text found from a concordance to back up the sermon topic when careful reading of the chosen passage in context might mean something entirely different. If one is going to speak from Mark’s gospel, he/she should read it in its entirety everyday for a week (it only takes 45 minutes to read Mark aloud) in order to understand what the book has to say before isolating a few verses and calling them “the Gospel.” Reading the Bible by concordance, or by a paragraph here and a paragraph there, as devotional books often do, may only lead us to reinforce our own personal views or those of the devotional author. Opinions concerning the role of women are often based on inadequate Bible study methods such as these.
In the Old Testament, women wield influence. Father Abraham, is persuaded by his jealous wife, Sarah, to send her son Isaac’s half-brother, Ishmael and his mother, Hagar off into the wilderness. Rebekah complains about her son Esau’s wives in Genesis 27:46 when she says, “I am weary of my life because of the Hittite women. If Jacob marries one of the Hittite women such as these, one of the women of the land, what good will my life be to me?” So she convinces her husband, Isaac, to send second son Jacob off to marry her brother’s daughters, Leah and Rachel. The Patriarchs are hen-pecked.
Foreign wives are blamed for many of the troubles that befall the nation of Israel. Judges 3:5-6 (NRSV) states, “..the Israelites lived among the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; 6and they took their daughters as wives for themselves, and their own daughters they gave to their sons; and they worshiped their gods.” These men seem totally incapable of controlling their wives (Perhaps had Jewish women been put in control, Israel could have resisted this terrible falling into idolatry!) Great evil comes upon these foreign wives because Ezra and Nehemiah blame them for Israel falling into the hands of the Babylonians and they instruct the Jewish men saying, “’We have broken faith with our God and have married foreign women from the peoples of the land, but even now there is hope for Israel in spite of this. 3So now let us make a covenant with our God to send away all these wives and their children, according to the counsel of my lord and of those who tremble at the commandment of our God; and let it be done according to the law. 4Take action, for it is your duty, and we are with you; be strong, and do it.’ 5Then Ezra stood up and made the leading priests, the Levites, and all Israel swear that they would do as had been said. So they swore.” Ezra 10:2 – 5 (NRSV) The next verses are a long list of Hebrew names. The final verse says, “44All these had married foreign women, and they sent them away with their children.” (Ezra10:44 NRSV)
Of the 66 books in the Bible, many have much different views of women than Ezra, and Nehemiah. Esther is about a Jewish woman who marries a foreign king and saves her countrymen from death. The book begins with a drunken king who orders his queen to appear before him and his equally drunken subjects, and she refuses. Her refusal causes a great disturbance, not just for the king, but for all men. The logic goes this way, “17For this deed of the queen will be made known to all women, causing them to look with contempt on their husbands, since they will say, ‘King Ahasuerus commanded Queen Vashti to be brought before him, and she did not come.’ 18This very day the noble ladies of Persia and Media who have heard of the queen’s behavior will rebel against the king’s officials, and there will be no end of contempt and wrath! 19If it pleases the king, let a royal order go out from him, and let it be written among the laws of the Persians and the Medes so that it may not be altered, that Vashti is never again to come before King Ahasuerus; and let the king give her royal position to another who is better than she. 20So when the decree made by the king is proclaimed throughout all his kingdom, vast as it is, all women will give honor to their husbands, high and low alike.” Esther 1:17-20 (NRSV) The king then chooses for his queen the beautiful Esther who will control the king to save her people. All who think that there is no women’s lib in the Bible should read this book. It says through story what Nipsy Russell said in rhyme, “America needs men brave and strong and true; but a man that says he’s boss at home, he’ll lie about other things, too.”
Foreign wives do much better in the New Testament. In the genealogy of Jesus, there are only four women mentioned: Tamar , Rehab, Ruth, and the wife of Uriah. Matthew 1:3-16 (NRSV) They are all foreign women with a tarnished sexual history. Tamar’s torrid story is told in Genesis 38, one of only two chapters omitted from Bible from which English school boys were taught. Rehab almost always bears a second name, “the harlot.” Ruth gets a book of her own and although it is almost always read innocently, an understanding of the Hebrew text and its metaphors reveal the seduction of Boaz by Ruth. Ruth 3:7 (NRSV) The wife of Uriah is Bathsheba, and most of us know her in connection with one of David’s many sins. God used foreign women of questionable character to bring about the Christ. The next time you see a foreign woman in trouble, look after her; she could be on a mission from God.
Jesus the Christ, with a diverse linage, really did treat women as equal to men. Jesus spoke to women in public, which is something Rabbis did not do. He spoke to the Samaritan woman at the well- the longest conversation with Jesus recorded in the Bible. This woman leaves Jesus and proclaims His message to all in her town and there is great response. John 4:39 NRSV Many Samaritans from that city believed in Jesus because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I have ever done.” John 4:1-39
A beautiful story of Jesus is recorded in John 7:53-8:11. The story is of the woman caught in adultery. This is a violation of Deuteronomy 22:22 NRSV: “If a man is caught lying with the wife of another man, both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman as well as the woman. So you shall purge the evil from Israel.” The male domination system treated adultery as the ultimate sexual sin because it was the most egregious violation of male property rights over women. Jesus invited the one who was without sin to cast the first stone. As the accusers left, Jesus asked, “Has no one condemned you?” She replied, “No one, sir.” Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more.”
On the Sabbath, in the middle of the synagogue, Jesus healed a woman who had been bowed with spinal disease for 18 years. Women were forbidden to be in the center of the synagogue; only men were allowed there. Jesus, however, called her there and then named her a “daughter of Abraham,” making her equal to the men. Jewish women of the day could only enter relationship with God through relationship with a husband or father. Jesus said that she, herself, is Abraham’s daughter.
There is the story of Jesus at Mary and Martha’s house. Martha complains that Mary will not help with the preparing of the meal; Mary is with the men in the group listening to Jesus. Jesus says that Mary has chosen rightly, giving her equal status with his male disciples.
Those who find Jesus’ tomb empty are women. They are the first to proclaim, “He is risen!” making them the first preachers of the Gospel.
Peter quotes Joel at Pentecost: “1In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. 18Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy.” Acts 2:17 – 18 (NRSV) The spirit of God is poured out on everyone, and all will speak regardless of sex or station; and since Peter considered himself to be living in the last days, I think that we must also.
Since those who seek to limit women will often use a Pauline passage, it is important to note that there are conflicting passages in the known writings of Paul. 1 Corinthians 14:33-35 (NRSV) states, “33for God is a God not of disorder but of peace. (As in all the churches of the saints, 84women should be silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as the law also says. 35If there is anything they desire to know, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.” Conversely, Paul states in Galatians 3:28 (NRSV), “28There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” Paul also mentions many women as partners in the Gospel in Romans 16:1-16 ; among them are sister Phoebe, a deacon of the church at Cenchreae; Prisca, who risked her life for Paul; and Junia, whom he places in a superior role, that of apostle.
The Pastoral Epistles, First and Second Timothy and Titus, claim to be written by Paul but speak of a church structure that most all scholars of the New Testament believe could not have been present during Paul’s lifetime – bishops, elders, and a church structure that includes offices of elderly widows and those who wish to remarry. While this evidence is convincing, the only evidence needed convince me is that the Paul who said, “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” could not have written, “11Let a woman learn in silence with full submission. 12I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent. 13For Adam was formed first, then Eve; 14and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. 15Yet she will be saved through childbearing, provided they continue in faith and love and holiness, with modesty.” 1 Timothy 2:11-15 (NRSV) This is one instance where the early church strove to disenfranchise women. It is a part of the scripture, but it does not reveal the nature of Jesus.
The Kingdom of God is now, and today the risen Jesus is calling women to serve in his church. Marva Dawn is one of the best theologians of our day. When she speaks, it is obvious to those who have experienced the presence of God that He speaks through her. In my experience in my small church there are many women who are called by God to minister. My associate, Rebecca Blake, is as gifted a servant of God as I have ever known. One of my youth, Terran Greene, has a call from God to do mission work, and she has many gifts that will help her in that call. God calls, and always has called, women to ministry. One of the great sins of the church, past and present, is that it has often denied them places to serve.