I’m taking a course called Gender and Sex: Issues in the Ancient Church. It is interesting to look at how women in New Testament are portrayed. If you look at the gospels, women are faithful and determined to serve the Lord while he was ministering. It was Mary and Martha who set a great example more than one time in the text of how to serve and worship Jesus. It was Martha who declared, BEFORE her brother Lazarus was raised from the dead, that Jesus was the Messiah. It was Anna, a little old lady who had waited her whole life to see the promised Messiah, who identified first that Jesus was the Anointed One. It was the women who were faithful at the tomb after Jesus’ horrible crucifixion, yet, Evangelicals and the like have marginalized women’s roles in the Bible.
One can even look at the epistles and see conflict. For we see faithful women also in the epistles. Women like Priscilla and Dorcas and Phoebe. Women who were called by Paul, ministers and disciples. Yet translations have marginalized women so that they wouldn’t have power in the Scriptures. Some would say that Paul told women to be silent in the church and that they should never teach men. Well, some Theologians believe that much of these texts were inserted into the epistles AFTER Paul’s death. An example lies in 1 Corinthians 14:33b-36, where liberal theologians believe an impostor inserted this between 14:33a and 14:37. If you remove these text, you will see that this flows and makes sense. Apparently, many scripture that marginalized women were written during the early days of the church in order to reflect the developing policies of the young church. Much of these scriptures contradicts other teachings in the bible that embrace equality in the church, such as in Acts 2 when Peter quotes Isaiah saying that sons and daughters shall prophesy and that God will pour out His Spirit on ALL flesh. John 1:12 says that all women will have the opportunity to become children of God. Not just the males, but everyone.
Now, what does this all mean? Does it mean that the Bible has errors? I am struggling with this part and the semester is still young. What do you think?
Divine Elements Said:
on July 23, 2008 at 8:31 am
I understand where you are coming from. I took an Old Testament class in college and it almost changed the way that I look at the word of God. Keep in mind though that God created us all and it really doesn’t make sense that He would leave women out. That’s man’s doing.
I struggled with this issue a lot when I first started to study the Bible and I came to the conclusion (maybe it’s the right one, maybe it’s not) that gender issues have been an issue since the beginning of time. That being said, the plan of God still stayed on course. God has no respect of person, He shows no favortism and He uses us all. Even women.