God’s Kingdom Women – Identity in Christ

 Women in the Kingdom of God – Identity

 Introduction

Welcome to the fifth commentary in a series on God’s kingdom women. I hope you have been giving considerable thought to these discussions. If you have not examined these issues before, I hope you will search the Scriptures and pray that the Holy Spirit will help you understand how important this is.

We are seeking to answer some serious questions. We have covered the first three:
1. If men are superior to women, then why doesn’t God say so in his word?
2. If men are in charge, then why have women gotten the blame historically?
3. If men desire to rule by privilege and domination, then why did Jesus become a servant?
4. If men are essentially equal to women, then why are women still forbidden to serve in leadership positions?
5. If men are effective leaders, then why is there still so much abuse in the church and the home?

In this post we answer the question: If men are essentially equal to women, then why are women still forbidden to serve in leadership positions?

For the church to say on the one hand that women are equal to men, but then deny them the same opportunities that men have solely based on gender is philosophically inconsistent. A woman’s identity is centered in Christ the same as a man’s. Women should not be forbidden to preach the gospel just because they are female. Truth belongs to women as well as men. They may freely speak it. Women should not be treated as subservient beings with lesser identities than men at home or in the church.

The following story illustrates what happens when men’s achievements are valued more than women’s.

Mona and Paul – Loss of Identity (personhood)

Mona looked around the room. It had been her home for over forty years. Could she leave this home and start over? She contemplated a possible future life as a single woman again. She would have her own identity back. She could make decisions without always having to check with someone else. Her husband had made many mistakes in judgment over the years, but she had to support his decisions without questioning him.

She would be free of the daily pain of the cognitive dissonance as she played her “role” as the perfect submissive wife. At times she thought she was living in the twilight zone. Those were the times when she knew she was right, but he told her she couldn’t be because it was not what he thought. Of course, he claimed to be always right so something must be the matter with her. Her self-esteem dwindled to nearly nothing.

But there were trade-offs if she left Paul, she would also be leaving her family. She would not be there to help her daughter, thinking of remarriage, to make a wiser decision. How could she help her granddaughters choose men more carefully?  How could she help them escape the slow death of their unique beings as they became subsumed under the men they married?

Death may sound like a harsh word, but forty years before this when she married, she killed Mona Schmidt. She became Mrs. Paul Gordon forsaking her old identity and melding her entire being around her husband. She would submit to his way of life. His family would be her family, her own family becoming of lesser importance. She would give Paul children who would all be named Gordon. She would do everything in her power to promote his career while setting aside any dreams of a vocation outside of the home for herself. She was told that marriage and family was the only way of fulfillment for women. A woman’s worth was measured in how satisfied her husband was. After all, the bible said that this was what a true Christian marriage was, didn’t it?

How often had Paul told her, “A man gets his identity in his work. A woman gets her identity in her husband.” So Mona put her whole life into meeting all of Paul’s needs. She believed that she was obeying God and felt spiritually mature. When other families had problems, Paul proudly proclaimed that his marriage was as nearly a perfect one as any couple could have. His wife and children were all obedient and happy. Paul really believed that he was following biblical injunctions to keep his wife under his rule. He was the spiritual authority in the home and Mona was not allowed to question his judgment.

Paul was a good provider and Mona’s life was full as she took care of all of her domestic responsibilities. When the family attended church, they appeared to be a model family. Their patriarchal church had separate spheres for men and women. Paul attended the men’s meetings and Mona helped out in the kitchen or nursery. She put on every appearance of the sanctified Christian wife even as all the other women did.

Mona felt lonelier than ever. She had no one to share her hurts with. Convinced by her husband that she was wrong most of the time she did not think anyone would even be interested in talking to her. She doubted her own worthiness. She survived on a day-to-day basis by counting her blessings of a nice home, good health, and a happy husband and children.

She was too busy to stop and think that one day it would have to change. One day one of her main reasons for being would disappear as the children grew up and left home for careers and families of their own. She would only have Paul to take care of. Would he find more things for her to do? What would she do with her spare time?

One of the things that really hurt was when a female business associate would show up. Paul treated the woman with great respect and interacted with her in a friendly way commensurate with her position. In effect, he was treating the business partner as an equal. Mona asked Paul about this, and he accused her of not trusting him. He thought Mona was implying that there might be an affair going on. Mona said “No. That’s not it. I just wondered why you listened to her suggestions but not mine.” Paul reminded Mona that her job was to be the helpmeet at home. He did not see his double standard. He was clearly demonstrating through his actions that his wife was not on the same level as the other women he knew. This hurt Mona terribly, and she could see no way out. Ironically, he told her that since those women were not Christians, he was not treating them as he did her. This added to Mona’s confusion as she wondered if non-Christian women were somehow more valuable than Christian women.

Mona thought that perhaps she could find fulfillment by finding a way to give to others by getting a part time job, but Paul said that Christian wives did not work outside of the home. “Why aren’t you happy?” he asked. “You only have me to take care of now.” But that was the problem. Household duties did not take up the whole day. Soon Martha was bored. She had been a straight-A student in college. She longed for a mental challenge but was told that women were not to seek those things. Most of the women at church were not as educated as she was, so she didn’t even have a woman friend to have deep, challenging conversations with.

The loneliness increased. One day Mona decided to lighten up her life a bit with a glass of wine. She had not been a drinker, but the wine helped her to enjoy the routine vacuuming, doing laundry, and cooking. She did not learn for several years, after it was too late, that she had inherited a predisposition to addiction to alcohol. Soon she did not want to undertake any activity without a little “help”. Paul became angry and told her to get some counseling. Of course, her never went with her because he didn’t need counseling. Everything was her fault; he never thought for one minute that he may, even unintentionally, have had something to do with her depression.

Mona sought help at a treatment center, but when she came home after several weeks, she was just as bored as ever. Her problems had not been resolved. She was thankful that God blessed her by taking away the need for alcohol, but no one helped her with the cause of her drinking. While she was in the treatment center, Paul told everyone about Mona’s failings. Only one person wrote to her while she was there. This person told her that she needed to be a better wife so as not to give a bad name to Christ.

She spent much time in prayer. She was determined to be a better Christian wife when she went home. Paul was happy that he had “his wife back”. By wife, he meant of course Mrs. Paul Gordon, the woman who met his needs 24-7-365 without complaining. Mona began to envy her single women friends who had so much freedom, not just physically but emotionally and spiritually as well.

Mona weighed the consequences of going away. She realized that she could not revive Mona Schmidt. She decided to leave Mona Schmidt buried. She had no way of knowing when she took her vow of “obedience” that it really meant giving up her own identity and be subsumed under another. Because of the teaching of the church that she and Paul attended she had no way of knowing that she had any other choice. And after all, she did say “for better or for worse.” She decided to count her blessings and be grateful for her home and family. She knew that unless Paul changed, she would go to her grave without having a chance to use her God-given gifts for anyone else. Her whole reason for being was only to serve him. She longed to find a ministry where she could follow Christ using the gifts the Holy Spirit had given her, but Paul insisted that her only calling in life was to be his wife.

Mona tried to get Paul to understand how she felt, but he had been taking her for granted for forty years. Since he never went with her to the counselor, he could not see her viewpoint. He could not understand why she was depressed. He took her to visit the minister who pointedly explained that if she was unhappy, it was because she hadn’t been submissive enough. He told her that she was suffering from a guilty conscience and needed to give up her foolish idea of identity apart from her husband. True joy, he said, would return when she fulfilled her proper job as the subordinate wife. The minister claimed that his admonishment came straight from the word of God. Mona must realize that God had given her a Christian husband and respect the fact that Paul as head of the household must always be respected and obeyed.

But did God’s word describe marriage as that?

 Since she had more time on her hands, Mona began to read and study the bible. She searched and searched but could not find any place in the Scriptures where God said that men were superior to women. She could not find any instructions on marriage that matched the vows that she had taken on her wedding day. In fact, she found many verses that were the opposite to their patriarchal church teaching. She realized that both she and Paul had been fed a traditional teaching that just wouldn’t stand up to what God really said.

Mona realized that church leadership was at fault, at least in part, for Paul’s thinking. Because the minister taught that men must rule in their homes, Paul believed he was doing what God wanted. Mona was caught in a bad place. When she tried to hint that maybe women might have more worth than just as wives, Paul told her she misread the bible. How could she, a woman, possibly understand God’s word the way he as man could? As usual, she questioned her own thinking rather than Paul.

Today, Mona remains with Paul. She will not break her wedding vows, because she desires to be blameless before God. Not only that but she was used to getting the blame for everything, so she didn’t want to leave and get the blame for the failed marriage. She also realized that if she left Paul she would not be there if God should show him his errors. She did not want to hurt him. He really was a good man, though mistaken, and a good provider. She prayed constantly that God would work a miracle and Paul would again treat her like he treated other women or even like Mona Schmidt, the woman he married.

And so, in our series we see that efforts to show that men are inherently superior to women from the Scriptures have shown that their arguments are:

Biblically Inconclusive
Historically Inaccurate,
Theologically Incoherent,
Philosophically Inconsistent, and
Ethically Irresponsible.

I am respectfully asking those who believe that there is a hierarchy in the church to reexamine their ideas. They will find that God has always called and gifted women for service in his kingdom even in leadership positions.