Tag: Women

Barefoot & Pregnant in the Kitchen

There is a picture in the minds of people about the so-called “Proverbs 31 Woman”. She is quiet, reserved, raises the children, and keeps the home. And maintains a Godly disposition throughout. Frankly, I think this is based on some twisted, idealized Stepford Wife male fantasy… because it is certainly NOT what I read in Proverbs 31.

Seriously. Go read Proverbs 31:10-31. The woman described there is not some wallflower. She might be the single greatest human being to ever walk the face of the earth. Here is my list of her traits as gleaned from a quick reading of the passage:

Skilled in textiles. Skilled in agriculture. Skilled in ranching. Excellent culinary ability. Gifted in administration. Skills of assessment and negotiation. A landowner & trader. Shrewd in business. Multiple philanthropic concerns and activities. Always prepared for the foreseeable. Entrepreneurial. Well-kept and presentable. Known for wisdom. Known for kindness. Deeply observant.

If I gave you this list of skills and abilities and said it was a man no one would bat an eye. But now that we know what credit this verse is giving this superwoman, we can’t help but wonder… what’s left for the man to do? Seems like maybe he’s just a money-earner for the real manager of the household! Men! Learn your place!

Of course I am being facetious. Men have value just as women have value. But I think we cut BOTH genders off at the knees when we minimize one side of the equation. Women should not be artificially suppressed as the aforementioned “little woman”. Nor should men be seen as a human ATM simply providing for the smarter and more capable woman (a trope that shows in popular culture from time-to-time).

I don’t think it’s reasonable for men to expect their wives to have all the skills and abilities of the Proverbs 31 woman (nor it is reasonable for ladies to expect this of themselves)… because she is perfect. None of the rest of us are. But I think what we CAN take from this, is that a wide range of skills can be possessed by either men or women. My wife might have skills A, B, and C, while I have D, E, and F. Another marriage might see the wife with A, C, and F, while the husband has B, D, and E. There are an incredibly wide range of overlapping possibilities here and it’s impossible to apply a template to every marriage. Instead we all bring different strengths into the relationship and our partner will complement us by shoring up our weak side.

We should be working together. Shoulder-to-shoulder in the trenches. God gave men a much-needed partner, not a servant.

Prophecy or Poem?

Psalm 68 has some interesting features. The earth shakes before God (v8). God rescues from death (v20). And the good news is delivered by women (v11). Note the similarities with the death and resurrection of Jesus. Some commenters point out that women celebrating the victory of the king is commonplace (Ex 15:20, 1 Sa 18:6, Jg 11:34), but in each of these cases, the women are greeting the warriors who are returning home. In Psalm 68 the women are sharing the good news THEN the kings run away.

In the same way, the women who went to the tomb were the first people EVER to share the news of the risen Lord!

So was this just poetic language, or was God prompting David’s pen to hint at things to come?

Are Women Entitled to Anything?

Why do this trio of sisters have to go to nomadic Israel’s equivalent of the Supreme Court to get a ruling on whether or not they can have their father’s inheritance? When reading accounts like this it can be easy to wear our modern lenses and wonder what is wrong with these weird, backward, chauvinists! But the fact is that God is trying to communicate with these people in a language they understand. The idea of a “tradwife” has recently gained some favour in the popular culture. It is essentially an embracing of the “homemaker” role. This is a role that was the primary role of women for centuries. And it’s easy to see why1; women tend to be more interested in people, and men tend to be more interested in things2.

This really only started to shift as modern life was made easier through the use of appliances, amenities and inventions. The advent of the vacuum cleaner, the dishwasher, the washing machine, indoor plumbing, and even the furnace have all made housekeeping some factor more streamlined than it was even 50 or 100 years ago, never mind 6000 years ago! The public school system only started in around 1600 and even then didn’t really gain mass tracking until some time in the 1800s.3 And even the advent of things like infant formula have given mothers the ability to be away from their children in a way that simply wasn’t feasible before. Add to that the invention of the birth control pill… and legal, on-demand abortion… and suddenly women had a level of control that they had never before known.

This is the world that we all know. And have know for the last 50+ years.

None of this was true back then. Couples had very little control over reproduction, children were taught and fed at home. Laundry would have been washed on rocks in running water. And keeping the home warm and the children safe meant someone had to be there to do those things. And this naturally fell to women who tend to be more disposed to childcare and so were home anyway. Men were out farming, and ranching, and killing things to eat. And as the workers, men were also expected to be the providers in a way that we tend not to expect in today’s dual-income families.

What does this have to do with today’s passage? Men were expected to provide. Be it father, husbands, or brothers. They were to take care of their families. So daughters would be taken care of by their husbands (and the inheritances of their husband’s fathers). Since men had an explicit duty to care for the women in their lives, the inheritances were given to them. But in this case there are unmarried, brother-less daughters and an inheritance to be given.

And the men in charge don’t know what to do about this. They can’t give this inheritance to… women!? Can they? The horror!

Here we see so clearly how God is trying to bring people along with a slow, steady, progressive revelation. He’s not tearing the whole system down, just redirecting the people’s effort toward something useful. Trying to help them understand Him using a framework they understand. He really is trying to be gracious. But ultimately God rules as we would today in our modern convenience culture. Of course the women can have their father’s inheritance. It is theirs.

So when you feel like God is being unfair toward women, remember that He is trying to bring change about in a hard-hearted people who can’t even stay faithful to the God who freed them from slavery. In some cases they can’t even stay faithful for 24 hours4!

Numbers 27-29 | 067/365

  1. I am not advocating for this role or position. I do not believe it is a necessary part of conservatism, nor do I believe that conservatism is the ideal socio-political position for the Christian to assume. Conservatism is only a good as what is trying to be conserved, and progressivism is only as bad as what it is trying to move toward. ↩︎
  2. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19883140/ ↩︎
  3. 1800s in the US. It would take even longer than that in other parts of the world. https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Elementary_school ↩︎
  4. Numbers 16:41 ↩︎

Give ‘Til It Hurts

Exodus 38:8 says, “Bezalel made the bronze washbasin and its bronze stand from bronze mirrors donated by the women who served at the entrance of the Tabernacle.”

While this may not have blown your hair back in amazement, it’s still interesting to me that the women who served at the Tent of Meeting (we are not sure in what capacity) gave up their mirrors for the construction of the new Tabernacle. As servants who worked at the entrance to the Tabernacle, these women would have been seen by anyone or everyone and so their desire to be presentable was probably fairly high. I know mine would be. Yet, when God put out the call for “bronze” they offered up their mirrors. A sacrificial gift. It would have hurt to give these things up, yet they did so in service of the Lord.

Do we have anything that we would NOT be willing to give up? Are there any things in our life that — though we would never admit it — we value more highly than obedience to God? Would we be willing to hurt for God?

That’s between you and Him, and He already knows your heart.

Exodus 37:1-39:31 | 044/365