A Blessed New Year to All!
In December 2021, we completed a series on Women in the Medieval Era. It took nearly two years, but we journeyed from Genovefa (423 – 502) and moved through approximately ten centuries to Angela Merici (1474?-1540) We could have easily spent two more years looking at the lives of the remarkable women that we skipped over! I hope you will continue reading about women from the Middle Ages.
It is time to move on to a new series – Black Women in History. I have been wanting to start a series on black women for a long time. I believe that God is telling me that this is the time. One of the main reasons I wrote a series on Medieval Women was to show just from the sheer numbers of remarkable women, that women are as capable as men in all of the things that are important in life including Spiritual, Social and Intellectual matters.[1] I hoped that by the time that people who were skeptical about women’s abilities were done reading the series on Medieval women they would have changed their minds. I also hoped that they could see that our identity in Christ is what matters. Your standing with God is based on your obedience to Him not on your maleness or femaleness or cultural background, including skin color. The Holy Spirit gives spiritual gifts to all Christians (I Corinthians 12) and women through history have responded in faithfulness to their callings. So now I would like to address the issue of social justice by telling the stories of remarkable black women.
I don’t have all the answers to the problems of the world, but I do know this – we must learn to see the truth that in the church “there is neither Jew (Read “white”) or Gentile (read “black”), neither slave (read “poor”) or free (read “wealthy”), nor is there male and female (self-explanatory), for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise (read “we are all equal members of the family of God.”) Galatians 28-29. God forgive us if we say we follow Christ and don’t do this.
In this new series, beginning in two weeks, I hope to demonstrate that black women are among the most faithful, creative, intelligent, successful, and steadfast followers of Christ in the world. I have a long list of American women, and it is still growing as I add names of women from other parts of the world. In this series you will encounter professors, scientists, businesswomen, philanthropists, doctors, nurses, activists, advocates, judges, athletes, pilots, politicians, Nobel prize winners, actors, inventors, firefighters, missionaries, preachers, writers, librarians, and important leaders. And I’m still adding on.
I pray that you will have a very blessed New Year. May we be a part of making life better this year for all people!
[1] Obviously, I left our “physical”, but this does not mean that bigger and stronger physically is superior or more important. It just means it is different. Men can do some jobs women can’t. But on the other hand, only women get to have the babies. Only women have the privilege of bringing new lives into the world. Physical differences are just too obvious. There’s no argument here. You’ve heard the saying, “It’s what’s inside that counts!” And inside we are all equal.
One Response
Amen