I guess I will be the one to knock the hornets nest off the branch here
The very first commandment given by God was not one of the 10 commandments.
It was... "be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth" - Gen 1:28; ( Gen 9:7; after Noah and the Ark)
In Gen 3:16; God says there will be pain in childbirth, and you will bring forth children.
Yet... your desire will be for your husband... and he will rule over you. (how's that for sexist?)
It was so important that if a man died without having children, it was his brothers responsibility
to marry his widow and have children for him (thus carrying on the family name). Matt 22:24; Mark 12:19;
Luke 20:28;
2 Cor 12:14; says children aren't responsible for making sure their parents are saved, but parents are responsible
for making sure their children are saved. ( Eph 6:4; Col 3:21; )
1 Tim 2:15; says women will be preserved through the bearing of children... (if they continue in faith, love... )
In Bible times, women were not permitted to own anything really. They could not own a household, or estate
or even land. If they had no husband, and no sons for these things to get passed onto... they usually lost
everything. (Ruth is a good example of this).
In the Bible... women or sometimes regarded a little lower than men.
In 1 Cor 14:34-35; it says women are not allowed to be speakers in the church, but if they
want to learn anything learn it from their husbands.
1 Tim 2:11-12; says a woman must learn in quiet submissiveness. A woman is not allowed to be
in a position of authority over a man.
1 Tim 5:8; says that a man who doesn't provide for his own family... has denied the faith and is worse than
an unbeliever.
God made men and women differently. Not just physically, but psychologically and emotionally.
God made men to be providers and protectors. The consensus of Bible times was God made women
primarily to make children.
The Bible doesn't say women can't work.... indeed many women in the Bible worked.
Many were involved in ministry. (But rarely in a position over men),
But still God commanded us to multiply and have children. I can tell you as the father of four children...
it is work!!! (and I wasn't even the stay at home mom). Raising children is probably the hardest job in
the world. (this is coming from an ex-fireman).
So then... it isn't working that's an issue with many women. It's getting paid for the work.
Being a stay at home mom doesn't pay real well. However putting children in daycare and
pre-school isn't cheap either. Usually the mom has to have a pretty good job paying quite
a bit above minimum wage in order for childcare to work out.
If you have two or three children it costs a small fortune for pre-school and child care.
Kids are expensive. That take up a lot of time. They keep women from being independent and free.
If you have a good husband he will help as much as possible in the raising of children. (at least he should).
Which comes back to either... I don't want to have children. Or perhaps the father can take care of the
children while the mother works.
This is a very sore subject these days. But generally men get paid more than women. (is that fair?)
Men tend to be disciplinarians. Women tend to be more nurturing and well... frankly "maternal".
(Woman have breasts to feed children, men don't).
If you never intend on having children, it isn't that big of an issue.
But if you are having children... who is raising them? Atheists in the school?
Violent video games? Sexually explicit television? Innuendo laced meme's and texting?
Grandma who already raised her children? But is stuck raising the grand-children because
mom needs freedom.
Children today have lost the ability to respect, to communicate, to be responsible, and even
to know how to work hard. Many of today's young people feel like they are entitled to everything.
I feel this is mostly due to a lack of real parenting.
So now that I've put myself out there... let the knives are arrows fly. I don't necessarily agree
with everything I just mentioned (unequal pay for example). But is is a fact of life nontheless.
I agree, well said. I think most Christian men I've met agree with you when reminded of this position, but they feel
scared in a anti-male world to speak up. They feel they will be labeled a sexist.
Perhaps I'm steering this thread in a slightly different direction(but I don't think so), if so feel free to grab
the steering wheel and put us back on course LORDKnows.
I'm reminded of how the women's rights movement has gotten hijacked by the enemy and seems to be misguided.
Don't get me wrong, I believe men and women are equal and joint heirs with Christ to the riches of God, but we have
different roles. One is not better than the other, just different.
Just like the left hand isn't better than the right hand, it is different and we work best with a left hand and and right hand
as they work together just as they were made. The hand isn't better than the foot, or vice versa, they are different and
we are better for having hands and feet(not all hands or all feet) working together to help us be productive. Sure the
hands can show that they too are strong and we can walk on our hands. And sure the feet can show that they
have dexterity and we can write or play the piano with our feet, but that is not what they were designed for.
The same is the case with men and woman. If God wanted us to have interchangeable roles, why make male
and female? He could have just made us all one sex(gender) and we could have sexual reproductions
with anyone, but in His infinite wisdom God made one human being, and then split us into two parts. He
made Eve from the rib of Adam and this is why in marriage Jesus says the two shall become one flesh.
In marriage we get reconnected to be the one flesh that we were in the beginning.
One flesh with two different but complimentary parts. Men and women are made to complete each other which means that
males inherently lack something that women have, and women inherently lack somethings that men have.
If a women being made to be in tuned with her emotions, smarter than men due to their female intuition and
ability to use both sides of their brains, changes to be like a task oriented man, laser focused man, she is robbing that man
of a much needed opposite part of him that he needs to complete himself. Its like the left hand trying to be
like the right hand because it feels left out, why do I need two right hands?
And this next one might be far out their but since B-A-C dropped the hornets nest, I might as well stomp on it
and get these hornets going. When you first hear this you will say He's crazy, then after listening you might
think, well there might be a point here. So even with women's right to vote. Ok hear me out. So I was thinking,
it may be very difficult for us Americans to understand this but other places in the world there is more of
a corporate or family sense of decision making. So in our individualistic, "let me do what I want to do," USA,
its difficult for many to understand. So what if each family voted as a whole for one candiate? The kids are under
18 so they don't get a vote, which leaves just the man of the household (with the guidance of his wife of course)
to cast a vote to represent the best interest of the family. What is the point of both the husband and the wife
voting for two different candidates when they are in the same household. Jousha 24:15 reads, "But if
serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve,
whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose
land you are living.
But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD." Joshua didn't say, I vote
to serve God but my wives vote is for Baal, and the kids votes for King whats his name, etc.
He voted for his full family when the clans of Israel gathered to vote in that moment.
The splitting up of the votes actually brings division and promotes individualism and the thinking of
what is best for me, instead of what is best for my family and trusting the leadership in the family.
I do feel bad for women because society puts too much pressure on them to do it all. Society pressures
women to be feminine and sexy and look attractive all the time, now that might not seem too bad, but
on top of that woman are tasked with also being physically strong like men, being forced to play sports
to prove to the boys that they are strong too. Being encouraged to drop the doll babies and the cooking
and home economics classes to take up computer programming and business classes to prove to the guys
that they too can make it in the business world.
I don't have any doubt in my mind that women can do just about anything a guy can do. That is not a question.
My thought is should they pursue that? I have yet to come across a guy in my personal life who was jealous
because women got the privilege of giving child birth or had the privilege of breast feeding, or wearing skirts. Mary, the mother of
Jesus was highly favored and what an honor to give birth to Jesus. Yet even though many straight(oppose to trans gendered)
guys are content with just being a guy, many women have this pressure on them not only to be
feminine, but to be masculine and they need to also wear the pants, and do everything a guy can do as well to prove something.
This is happening right now in our country with a push for women to go into active combat roles in the military. They are also pushing for women
to be included to register for selective service, so in the event the draft was re-instated women(mothers, wives, daughters) would
also be drafted and pulled from their children to serve in combat.
Society forgets that as Christian men, we value women. We love them and honor them and want to keep them safe. If men are
going out to battle as it has always been. It is not because women are not able to fight, but because we want to keep our wives
and daughters safe and out of harms way. The same when a guy opens a door for a lady. Many ladies use to take this
as a sign of respect and chivalry, but nowadays some women feel insulted and their response is, "I can't get my own door."
They respond this way because they think the action of the guy is because they are of less value, but it is actually the total
opposite, because the value of a woman is so high and precious we as men want to protect women, we want to open the door
for you, we want to go to war why you are safe at home, we want to work and provide when you are in the comfortable
air conditioning at home. It would be analogous to Jesus telling us that He loves us so much that we is willing to come
and die in our place, and us responding to Jesus, "So you think I'm weak? Don't die for my sins, I can die for my own sins.
I'm just as able as you are." As twisted as that sounds that is how the enemy(devil) wants to twist the gender roles in our
society trying to have women do it all (have the best of male and female qualities) while most men are just comfortable being men.
When women try to do it all, they burn themselves out.
When women try to do it all, they rob men of meeting the specific voids that men have that God designed women to meet.
Remember we(men) need a lot of help. Which is why God said, "The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him." Genesis 2:18. Women are made to help men, because we need a lot of help, and men want to protect the
valuable helper that God has given us.
When women try to do it all children suffer.
And when women try to do it all God's design is not follow. Let us trust the master architect. He didn't err on this one.
