Rethinking - a woman's place

I follow a blog called ASBO Jesus and this latest post made me smile

We see other religions and cultures and often criticise the way that they treat females.  And yet I can’t help feeling that Christians are not altogether blameless in this area.  We can quote scripture verses to back up our theories and in a way blame the Bible for our stance.  We say that after the fall God said that women would be subject to the males.  But thinking about it a bit more, does this not imply that before the fall that was not the case?  It was never God’s intention for it to be that way.  God sent His Son Jesus as a way of reversing the effects of the fall so surely that would also imply that after Jesus (the Christian movement in other words) things should be reversed also.  And yet much of the organised church today still makes a difference between the roles of men and women (although much of it is more open to change nowadays). 

We look at the story of Mary and Martha and see it as a lesson in being too busy to make time to sit at the Lord’s feet.  If that is all we see in this story then I think we miss a very important point.  At that time it was just not acceptable for women to sit at the feet of a teacher and listen.  That prerogative was only for the men.  A woman’s place was indeed ‘in the kitchen’, out of sight, in a place where they could serve the men.  But Jesus said that it was good that Mary was there listening to what He was saying.  It was almost as though He was not just telling Martha that but also showing the disciples that His message was for everyone as equals.  Jesus went out of His way to speak to the Samaritan woman, an absolute ‘no-no’ for any respectable Jewish man.  Time and time again He showed that women were (and are) just as important as men in every aspect of life.  The first message to be given about the good news of His resurrection was given to a woman to deliver to the disciples.  You could say that it was a woman who preached the very first gospel message.

Men and women are indeed different in their make-up, interests and abilities.  This is not about some women’s lib hysteria but what is important is equal opportunities for those who wish to serve God in whichever way they feel God is leading them.  I personally was fortunate in my younger days to belong to The Salvation Army where women are treated as equal – the founder William Booth is noted for saying ‘My best men are women!’  It’s time for Christians to stop pointing the finger at others and realise that they are not without guilt themselves.  If Christians really lived this truth then maybe other spheres of life would be influenced and changed.  And we should stop interpreting the Bible in such a way just to confirm our own sometimes blinkered viewpoints.  All this rethinking drives me back to the Bible, especially the words and actions of Jesus and try to see what the message is really about.  Maybe that’s why He has led so many out of the organised structure of church so that we no longer have any false loyalties that hinder us from seeing deeper into the truths of scripture.