We’ve reached the last of the Ten Undeniable Truths of Womanhood:  #10 The Lord’s maidservants bring glory to Christ by their obedience.

Women don’t need to feel like they are glorifying God less by being women.  God is not surprised with how He made us and sometimes He is glorified uniquely by a woman’s obedience.  The extent to which the world’s population is female, that is the very degree to which He desires to receive glory by their obedience.

The number one thing any Christian woman can do is to seek God in order to obey Him.

Only by knowing and doing the will of God will we glorify Him in all we do.  So whether God has gifted you with the freedom of singleness, the joys of marriage, the responsibilities of motherhood, or seasons during which you experience a variety of these things in womanhood, do it well.  Obey God because the Lord’s maidservants bring glory to Christ by their obedience.

Research:

John 15:1 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. 3 You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 4 Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. 5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. 7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. 8 This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples. 9 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10 If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love. 11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit– fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. 17 This is my command: Love each other.

Reflect:

• What does this Scripture say about bearing fruit?
• How does any woman or man bear fruit?
• How does bearing fruit look to God like glory and look to people like a litmus test for discipleship?
• In what ways are love and obedience connected?

Respond:

Are you a man?  Find ways to encourage the women in your life in their God-given callings.  They glorify Christ when they are obedient to Him.  Pray about whether there are any ways you are standing between a woman in your life and her calling from God.  If there are ways you can coach or encourage her in Christ when the journey is hard, it would help her to remain obedient when doubts arise.  Your help to her glorifies Christ because it affirms that His glory is paramount.

Are you a woman?  Be obedient at all times.  To God, certainly!  To the men in your life, show them respect and honor.  Treat them as you would wish to be treated and as brothers in your family.  Are there men in your life who do not know Jesus?  Are there men who disagree with what you’re doing?  Be patient in winning them over.  Culture is stacked against them in many of the same ways it is stacked against you.  God wants you to bear fruit and therefore, ask God to remove any obstacles in the way of fruitful service to Him.  Don’t give in to the traps of the culture.  Obedience to Christ–in spite of opposition–brings Him greater glory.  It’s a greater sacrifice of love.  Keep focused on Him.

Are you a pastor?  Teach about obedience and model it.  If you’re a married pastor, have you openly talked with your wife about her calling from God and taught other married men to do likewise with their wives?  If her obedience to Christ would mean expanding your view of pastors’ wives and their roles; if it would mean pressing into the opposition against her in order to teach all of us how obedience perseveres through trials; if it would mean standing up to men and women in your church who would stand in the way of her obedience to Christ, then are you prepared to walk with her, loving her as Christ loved the Church, and giving yourself up so that she might bring glory to God by her obedience?

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Ten Undeniable Truths of Womanhood:

1. A Christian woman is still a complete woman, even without marriage.
2. No man can teach a woman what is the truth of womanhood, even Christian womanhood.
3. The Bible clearly outlines what womanhood is…and it isn’t always synonymous with motherhood.
4. Once a mother, always a mother.
5. Superwomen don’t exist except in the comics.
6. All women make choices of no return.
7. Biology affirms what the Bible teaches.
8. The Christian woman must learn to artfully balance following Christ while honoring the men in her life.
9. Submission and sacrifice aren’t bad words for women.
10. The Lord’s maidservants bring glory to Christ by their obedience.

Submission and sacrifice are tough topics for women.  A few years ago, I led a weekend retreat for an adult ministry and ended up using the word submission as it appeared in one of the Scriptures we were using for a different purpose.  Though it was totally off-point, a Q&A exploded upon the scene and the word submission expanded into a full-blown discussion.  Submission and Sacrifice are pressure-cooker words and I’d argue that it’s because we begin at the wrong starting point.

Of the Ten Undeniable Truths of Womanhood, Number 9 is ‘Submission and sacrifice aren’t bad words for women.'”

They aren’t bad words for any of us.

But Submission and Sacrifice are too often presented as words of authority and control, of one person’s will ruling over another.

In truth, however, Submission and Sacrifice are words of love. 

That’s what the Scriptures say.

In evangelical Christian circles, a great debate has arisen about the “eternal subordination of the Son (Jesus) to the Father.”  (Translated for real human beings, these evangelical theologians posit that the Father is in control, the Son Jesus always submits, there is a hierarchy where the Father rules, this is the pattern from eternity past, and it will continue into eternity future.  Therefore women should get used to the fact that this pattern means women will be in submission and subordinate to authorities as men for all eternity.)

Personally, I think theirs is a human-derived and grave error, going wrong from a wrong starting point: power.  Subordination, like Submission and Sacrifice, is a word that makes Jesus appear to be in a station beneath that of the Father, and His position that of under the thumb of the Father when nothing could be farther from the Truth.

All of these (Submission, Sacrifice, and Subordination), as words of love, paint a picture of beauty in a relationship of love within the Godhead in which no one is exerting authority or control…as a tug of war…between conflicting wills. 

Instead, there is an excellence and perfection in unity of mind and purpose.  There is a common will and a shared goal.  These words, then, are ancient words of love that existed in the Godhead, words of love indicating a free will to shoulder more of the burden for the sake of the other.  Eternal Sacrifice.

If more of us earned submission by virtue of our love than demanded submission by means of our authority, we’d bear God’s image in far truer resemblance.

While I could write volumes on this and make everyone angry with me, I’d rather let God’s Word speak for itself on the issue of submission, sacrifice, and yes, even subordination.  Think of these words as ancient words of love as you Research, Reflect, and Respond.

Research:

• Genesis 1:26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
• John 1:3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. …10 He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him.
• 1 Corinthians 8:6 yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and we exist for Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through Him.
• Hebrews 2:10 For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to perfect the author of their salvation through sufferings.
• John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. 17 “For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world should be saved through Him.
• John 10:17 The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life– only to take it up again. 18 No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.”…29 “My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. 30 “I and the Father are one.”
• John 15:9 “Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love. 10 “If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments, and abide in His love. 11 “These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full. 12 “This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. 13 “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. 14 “You are My friends, if you do what I command you. 15 “No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.

Reflect: 

• In Creation, who made mankind: Father, Son, or both?  With equal authority?  Equally in practice and outcome?  Who responded to whose will?
• When God sent Jesus to die for the sins of the human world, was the Father condemning Jesus to incarnation and to death apart from the will of the Son?  Whose will was done when Jesus came and when Jesus died?
• Imagine for a moment that the Father sent an unwilling Son to die for us.  Is that a picture of love?  Or a picture of brutality?
• Did the Father sacrifice anything to send Jesus to die?  Who submitted to the Father’s will?
• What is the connection between love and sacrifice and submission?
• Most of our views of subordination come from the world of work or from a power framework.  It’s no wonder we find the concept of subordination a difficult one. One notable exception we can relate to is that of a family.  In a loving family (acknowledging that some of you did not come from ones that fit that description) what kind of relationship would parents have to their children?  What kind of relationship would children have to their parents?  Does this confer an status of a child’s inferiority to one’s parents even into adulthood?  Or is the bond of love–in such a family–a bond that helps adult children to love and care for their parents because their parents loved and cared for them when they were little children?  What ought to make a parent’s treatment of a child adapt as children go from infancy to adulthood?  Did a child’s humanity change or simply mature?  How does a parent feel seeing a child mature into a kind, talented, diligent, considerate, and generous adult?
• Another helpful picture to reframe subordination, submission and sacrifice in terms of love would be a doorway wide enough for only one.  You don’t know what is on the other side of the door.  What would love do?  Lead the way through the one-person opening to protect those behind or would love send the children and women first to see what happens to them?  Leadership doesn’t need to be a power play.  It can be a sacrifice of love.

Respond:

Are you a man?  Look at the way you treat those around you.  Does love characterize your actions?  Do you earn submission by your loving protection of those in your midst?  How do you wield power?  What is your attitude toward power and love?  Which one is a sign of genuine strength?

Are you a woman?  Look at the way you treat those around you.  Does love characterize your actions?  Do you submit to the loving protection of parents, your husband, or those who lead through the one-person opening in the wall for your safety?  If you have children, do you protect your children in that same loving way?  What types of things make you bristle at words like submission, sacrifice and subordination?  Write down your thoughts on: “Those words make me feel like womanhood is _(fill in the blank)_.”  Bring that to the Lord in prayer and ask Him to show you Jesus’ view, in love and truth.

Are you a pastor?  Look at the way you treat those around you.  Does love characterize your actions?  Do you earn submission by your loving protection of those in your midst?  Are you all about power and control?  Would those in positions of responsibility under your authority say that you are all about power and control?  What types of things keep you from pursuing submission, sacrifice and subordination as words of love?  If the Father treated you the way you treat others, would you know the fullness of joy, the freedom of worship as living sacrifice, and the happiness of fruitful service?  Do you lay down your life for the sake of others?

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Ten Undeniable Truths of Womanhood

1. A Christian woman is still a complete woman, even without marriage.
2. No man can teach a woman what is the truth of womanhood, even Christian womanhood.
3. The Bible clearly outlines what womanhood is…and it isn’t always synonymous with motherhood.
4. Once a mother, always a mother.
5. Superwomen don’t exist except in the comics.
6. All women make choices of no return.
7. Biology affirms what the Bible teaches.
8. The Christian woman must learn to artfully balance following Christ while honoring the men in her life.
9. Submission and sacrifice aren’t bad words for women.
10. The Lord’s maidservants bring glory to Christ by their obedience.

Number 8 of the Ten Undeniable Truths of Womanhood is:

The Christian woman must learn to artfully balance following Christ while simultaneously honoring the men in her life.

Tightrope walking may also be called funambulism, but it’s easier said than done and sometimes not much fun in today’s Christian landscape.

Keeping your balance in the Christian life is perhaps more difficult for women than it is for men.  Arguably, womanhood requires keeping a Christian ministry balance in both horizontal (with men) and in vertical (with God) ways.

Every tightrope walker needs a few important things:

1. Maintaining the center
2. Staying focused
3. Footing as friction
4. Balancing tools

* * *

Maintaining the center:  What is our center, or rather, Who?  If you said “Jesus,”  you’re absolutely right.  He is our center.  Everything we do is centered around following Him, obeying Him, and doing His will.  When we’re centered, we’re less likely to be twisted and turned off our narrow way and we are able to walk it without falling.

Staying focused: This another key because distraction and discouragement are two of our adversary’s primary weapons against us.  If Satan cannot discourage us away from the centrality of God’s tasks, our adversary will try to convince us to pay attention to other things, too.  How is it possible to stay focused when so many things in church try to pull us off the tightrope?  Things like politics, other people’s expectations, selfish priorities, and for women (and men), feminism and the reaction against it–they all serve to twist our balance and throw us off kilter.  We spend so much energy fighting each other, we often have little stamina left to actually contend together for the sake of the Gospel.

Footing as friction: It may seem counterintuitive, but the friction we get also serves to give us traction.  It helps us to cling to what the Truth is.  When we have a toehold on the narrow way of Truth, we won’t slip so easily.  In fact, it’s the crags and crevices, the bumpy parts and jagged edges which serve to make it possible to climb.  I think about the two men who recently climbed the 3,000 foot granite cliff on El Capitan in Yosemite National Park using only their hands and feet and a safety rope.  One of the climbers’ mothers was reported to say that theirs is , “[A] deep, abiding, lifelong friendship, built over suffering on the wall together over six years.”  It’s not just folk wisdom that says if a mountain was smooth, you couldn’t climb it.  Without friction we could not walk and we could not run.  With reduced friction, like on sheets of ice, our steps must be smaller and our stride slower to avoid slipping.

Friction, though it makes the work harder in one sense, is the very force that also makes our walk and work possible.

Balancing tools:  For the Christian woman seeking to honor both Christ and the men in her life with their rules of Christian engagement, it’s important to have the necessary balancing tools of the Holy Spirit, the Word of God, and lots of prayer.  The Holy Spirit, close to our heart and our center of faith, uses the full Word of God and lots of prayer to prevent the rotational inertia and angular acceleration which could twist and turn the Christian woman off her walk.  When my husband honors Christ with respect to himself, he is also honoring Christ’s will for me.  Jesus wouldn’t tell my husband something different as my “one-flesh-husband” than what Jesus tells me.  So when we cling to one another in marriage, and we cling to Christ together, I can obey Jesus by obeying what Jesus told my husband.  It takes two feet to stand steady and to walk with purpose.  It’s how we work together in love, and do God’s will in total unity.

Research:

• Proverbs 10:12 Hatred stirs up dissension, but love covers over all wrongs.
• Ephesians 4:29 Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.31 Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.32 Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. 5:1 Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children 2 and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God…21 Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
• Colossians 3:18 Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.  19 Husbands, love your wives and do not be bitter toward them.
• 1 Peter 4:8 Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins.
• John 17:18 As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. 19 For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified. 20 “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: 23 I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. 24 “Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world. 25 “Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. 26 I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”

Reflect:

• How does a focus on dividing the marriage on the issue of headship (between head and not-head) undermine the “one flesh” cause of unity in marriage?
• Take an Oreo and put it under a napkin.  Which led the way, the cookie or the filling?  Or was it the hand that did the important action?  How might this apply to the calling on a woman’s life to submit in marriage and submit to Christ?  How is it possible to do both?
• If my husband and I are of one mind in obeying God, does it really matter (in practice) which one is “the head” leading us both toward obedience?  Or by the hand of God and the headship of Christ, are we both working toward it, individually and together?
• When is it helpful to have one person leading the way and another one willingly following?
• How does a focus on dividing the Church between men and women, leaders and followers, pastors and congregations, authority and submission undermine our ability to work together?
• When we are unified, all of us submitted to Christ, how does that keep us balanced and let all our energies result in balanced forward movement instead of the unsteady side-to-side of a balancing act?
• Try balancing on one foot.  Now try two.  How is the human body designed?  What is the best way to achieve stability?
• Try walking with two feet.  Now try walking with one.  What must happen to the one foot in order to make progress?  It must alter its contact with ….what?

Respond:

Are you a man?  How’s your center?  Is Jesus there?  How’s your balance and your footing?  What about friction: are there any potential stumbling blocks impeding the forward progress of the women in your life with respect to the Gospel and the Kingdom of God?  Or is the friction causing you to cling to the Word for wisdom?  Are you married?  What would it look like to encourage your wife in obedience to Christ and for you to sacrifice for her?

Are you a woman?  How’s your center?  Is Jesus there?  How’s your balance and your footing?  What about friction: are there any ways in which you are perpetuating division by your actions?  Are you married or working toward marriage in the future?  If so, would your spouse or intended say that you are honoring your relationship with him?  Would he say that you are doing God-honoring things and using God-honoring ways in your obedience to Christ?  Is it possible to do all the right things in all the wrong ways?  How might your balancing tool of the Word of God, the Holy Spirit, and prayer help you to maintain your center and watch your life and doctrine closely?

Are you a pastor?  How’s your center?  Is Jesus there?  How’s your balance and your footing?  Where is the friction in your church?  Are there any ways in which you are causing division by your policies, programs, or actions?  How might your views of authority be revised by thinking of your church as requiring both feet for proper balance and forward movement?  How might cutting one foot short be hampering your balance, limiting your stride, and preventing growth of your church?  How might you view friction positively and use it to help your whole congregation climb higher?

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Ten Undeniable Truths of Womanhood:

1. A Christian woman is still a complete woman, even without marriage.
2. No man can teach a woman what is the truth of womanhood, even Christian womanhood.
3. The Bible clearly outlines what womanhood is…and it isn’t always synonymous with motherhood.
4. Once a mother, always a mother.
5. Superwomen don’t exist except in the comics.
6. All women make choices of no return.
7. Biology affirms what the Bible teaches.
8. The Christian woman must learn to artfully balance following Christ while honoring the men in her life.
9. Submission and sacrifice aren’t bad words for women.
10. The Lord’s maidservants bring glory to Christ by their obedience.