Today’s CBMW’s Gender Blog post is titled What Can Women Do? The post, mostly by Lydia Brownback, excerpts 16 points from a 1995 sermon by John Piper titled A Challenge to Women:
1) That all of your life-in whatever calling-be devoted to the glory of God. That the promises of Christ be trusted so fully that peace and joy and strength fill your soul to overflowing.
2) That this fullness of God overflow in daily acts of love so that people might see your good deeds and give glory to your Father in heaven.
3) That you be women of the Book, who love and study and obey the Bible in every area of its teaching. That meditation on Biblical truth be the source of hope and faith. And that you continue to grow in understanding through all the chapters of your life, never thinking that study and growth are only for others.
4) That you be women of prayer, so that the Word of God would open to you; and the power of faith and holiness would descend upon you; and your spiritual influence would increase at home and at church and in the world.
5) That you be women who have a deep grasp of the sovereign grace of God undergirding all these spiritual processes, that you be deep thinkers about the doctrines of grace, and even deeper lovers and believers of these things.
6) That you be totally committed to ministry, whatever your specific role, that you not fritter your time away on soaps or ladies magazines or aimless hobbies, any more than men should fritter theirs away on excessive sports or aimless diddling in the garage. That you redeem the time for Christ and his Kingdom.
7) That, if you are single, you exploit your singleness to the full in devotion to Christ and not be paralyzed by the desire to be married.
That, if you are married, you creatively and intelligently and sincerely support the leadership of your husband as deeply as obedience to Christ will allow; that you encourage him in his God-appointed role as head; that you influence him spiritually primarily through your fearless tranquility and holiness and prayer.
9) That, if you have children, you accept responsibility with your husband (or alone if necessary) to raise up children who hope in the triumph of God, sharing with him the teaching and discipline of the children, and giving to the children that special nurturing touch and care that you are uniquely fitted to give.
10) That you not assume that secular employment is a greater challenge or a better use of your life than the countless opportunities of service and witness in the home the neighborhood, the community, the church, and the world. That you not only pose the question: Career vs. full time mom? But that you ask as seriously: Full time career vs. freedom for ministry? That you ask: Which would be greater for the Kingdom- to be in the employ of someone telling you what to do to make his business prosper, or to be God’s free agent dreaming your own dream about how your time and your home and your creativity could make God’s business prosper? And that in all this you make your choices not on the basis of secular trends or yuppie lifestyle expectations, but on the basis of what will strengthen the family and advance the cause of Christ.
11) That you step back and (with your husband, if you are married) plan the various forms of your life’s ministry in chapters. Chapters are divided by various things-age, strength, singleness, marriage, employment choices, children at home, children in college, grandchildren, retirement, etc. No chapter has all the joys. Finite life is a series of tradeoffs. Finding God’s will, and living for the glory of Christ to the full in every chapter is what makes it a success, not whether it reads like somebody else’s chapter or whether it has in it what chapter five will have.
12) That you develop a wartime mentality and lifestyle; that you never forget that life is short, that billions of people hang in the balance of heaven and hell every day, that the love of money is spiritual suicide, that the goals of upward mobility (nicer clothes, cars, houses, vacations, food, hobbies) are a poor and dangerous substitute for the goals of living for Christ with all your might, and maximizing your joy in ministry to people’s needs.
13) That in all your relationships with men you seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit in applying the Biblical vision of manhood and womanhood; that you develop a style and demeanor that does justice to the unique role God has given to man to feel responsible for gracious leadership in relation to women-a leadership which involves elements of protection and care and initiative.
14) That you think creatively and with cultural sensitivity (just as he must do) in shaping the style and setting the tone of your interaction with men.
15) That you see Biblical guidelines for what is appropriate and inappropriate for men and women in relation to each other not as arbitrary constraints on freedom but as wise and gracious prescriptions for how to discover the true freedom of God’s ideal of complementarity.
16) That you not measure your potential by the few roles withheld but by the countless roles offered.
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Well I am a bit worried about # 6: how much would ‘excessive sports’ be?
I “is confused”. What’s with the heavy guilt trip placed on women who are going into a career, because they could be ‘ministering’ to other people? Couldn’t that exact statement be applied to men? That they could be working for God, instead of prospering the business of their boss?
What happened to the real Proverbs 31 woman…y’know, the one who ran a business and was praised for it? I guess she just got sliced out of the new more conservative translations. They must now read, “And she never ever left her home or worked at a career, never ever in a MILLION years, she just stayed at home and taught her daughters to be good housekeepers.”
I’m frustrated because a lot of this sermon is awesome and just fine.
If those who read it take #1-5 seriously, I have great hope
Going deeper with God can only bring us closer to truth.
I have two questions about this
1. Piper makes enough money that his wife can be a homemaker. What about women who have to provide health insurance for their families or their husband is laid off, etc. It just seems there are many situations their view does not address which are very common. Not all women work so they can drive SUV’s and live in big houses. That is a myth.
2. Would my mother, who witnessed to and taught scripture to Muslim young men at University, be considered outside of her ‘designed’ role?
3. Would God ever call a woman to any type of ministry that her husband would not agree with?
And I have some related questions:
a) Would Jesus preach this sermon?
b) related to “9) That, if you have children, you accept responsibility with your husband (or alone if necessary)“: Why didn’t either Paul or Peter instruct mothers? Both addressed masters-and-slaves, husbands-and-wives, and FATHERS-and-children (who were to obey parentS)?
c) If a male pastor can preach a biblical sermon as “a challenge to women,” then how much can be cultural beyond what’s in the Bible?
d) Can a woman only teach her son(s) in the home some corresponding 16-point “challenge to men”?
e) And if it’s Biblical that she never preach or teach other men elsewhere, then is it really Biblical for her to parent her own boys that way (especially without biblical instruction explicit and direct from Paul, Peter, or Timothy)?
Peter H, it seems excessive sports are OK for women, just not for men!
But I am interested to see that a comp woman can be “God’s free agent dreaming your own dream about how your time and your home and your creativity could make God’s business prosper”. What has happened here to submission to a husband, or for that matter to the church? Do we really want God’s free agents? But I suppose that “your own dream” is presumed to exclude dreams of preaching (to mixed congregations) or being a church leader.
Priorities in real life.
1. Providing for children.
2. Caring for children
3. Paying health insurance.
4. Making sure the plumbing/internet/heating works.
5. Making sure the car/lawnmower/washing machine works.
Women are limited in gainful employment in the Christian community, (ie can’t teach men,) so if they aren’t musical, they have to be employed elsewhere.
Therefore, women who could teach and write and produce theology must work elsewhere in the daytime, AND take care of the kids, AND pay health insurance, AND fix the plumbing/internet/heating, AND mow the lawn, AND fit in some form of extreme sport AND diddle (Everybody has to diddle, Mr. Piper)
AND complete a degree in theology at night, AND …
then along comes someone who says, “Oh, just write that up as an article, why don’t you – you know -in your spare time. If you would only quit watching all those soap operas, you would have plenty of time to write articles.”
That’s just life, this is the way it is. I don’t mind all that.
What makes this all seem so ridiculous is that someone is sure to tell you that the woman functions under man. God created woman to be lower in function although equal in being.
The ridiculous thing is that many of the women in this forum, both C and E, have children, provide for them and care for them, do whatever diddling is necessary to keep things working, take evening courses, AND work their brains overtime, trying to figure out why it feels as if they are going through life with 50 pound weights tied onto each leg.
And have some people say, “See, I told you so, women DO TO function different from men because this is how they were designed.”
The way I FEEL is that whoever posted that wonderful piece of rhetoric which Wayne has kindly shared with us today, should just … [further comments deleted]
What I feel is that saying these kinds of things causes real people who live real lives enormous pain.
then along comes someone who says, “Oh, just write that up as an article, why don’t you – you know -in your spare time. If you would only quit watching all those soap operas, you would have plenty of time to write articles.”
Seems to me that you have done most of the work already on your blog, Suzanne. I don’t think you are giving yourself enough credit. I don’t know how theology journals work (I studied science). You might get a better reception if you have a corroborator with a PhD if JETS is another “authoritative” culture (like peer reviewed science journals) where the scholarly sheepskin is the price of admission. So you share your research with a willing corroborator and voila- you publish as joint authors.
If it was me, I’d inquire with the profs where you are studying.
Suzanne, You have made some very good points. I can say this because I have been around many very successful large church pastors in my career. Keep in mind, I am talking about the successful (in the world’s eyes) pastors who have been in the same church for a long time. They are the ones everyone listens to and reads their books.
They really do not have a grasp on reality of life at all for the average person. There are always 20 people standing in line to do stuff for them. they don’t have to worry about mundane things like health insurance, being laid off, etc. (I know pastors are fired all the time…I am speaking of the big names…who write all the comp books)And they make a very large salary compared to the average American. They tend to live in nice areas and are in that environment unless they are out speaking where they are treated like royalty.
They cannot fathom the life of a single mom struggling with 3 kids on one income. They understand intellectually but not in reality.
After 10 years or so, one tends to forget the early struggles and gets quite used to the good life. What they don’t realize is how many are struggling in middle age! they cannot fathom this.
The comment about frittering away time with soap operas was very insulting and kind of showed his mindset about women in general. Why not frittering away their time with War and Peace or Adam Smith? Or even blogging! :0)
I gotta tell ya, this is discouraging stuff. I get the intent and all, but I would not want to be married to a woman who was called differently but bound to all that.
Sorry.
Clay,
Thanks so much. I really don’t have a strong feeling about publishing on gender for myself. Not at the moment anyway. It isn’t about that.
It’s about how anyone would feel about being told you don’t function as an equal.
Where is the friendship in that?
Here’s my response, for what it’s worth:
1) Amen
Amen, except for the word “leadership.” A husband should be encouraged to take leadership in those things he ought; same for a wife.
2) Amen
3) Amen
4) Amen
5) Amen
6) Amen, except for the stereotyping and characterizing (what is an “aimless” hobby?).
7) Amen
9) Amen except for the stereotyping of the last part. I would rephrase: “giving to the children the special care that you yourself are uniquely fitted to give.
10) I understand what this is getting at, but strongly reject the false dichotomy between “ministry” and “career!”
The statement, “Which would be greater for the Kingdom- to be in the employ of someone telling you what to do to make his business prosper, or to be God’s free agent dreaming your own dream about how your time and your home and your creativity could make God’s business prosper?” seems influenced by the trend in some circles to view secular employment as the enemy. Who is to say that someone with a business is not about God’s business? Where do we get most of the goods and services we use in this country, except from businesses, whom we help to prosper with our patronage?
11) How can it be possible to “Plan the various forms of your life ministry in chapters?” It’s certainly possible to plan up to a point, with conjecture, but for the most part, I would say that such planning is a waste of time. Christ doesn’t come to us to be ministered to in chapters or predictable forms!
12) Again, this sounds like it comes from one of those organizations which promotes an “us” versus “them” mentality (see my response to #10). This sort of statement, without qualification, also causes the young and impressionable to think they’re not allowed to have a hobby, but hobbies need not be part of “upward mobility!” (What does he/she have against hobbies?) Mine have saved my sanity many times over, enabled me ministry opportunities I never could’ve imagined, and enabled me to use God-given abilities.
13) Talk about a prescription for the battlefield: “be careful where you walk, there are land-mines afoot!” A man should take initiative for his own life regardless of how he “feels.” And certainly he owes his wife protection and care. But if the unspoken exhortation here is, “Don’t ever ruffle a man’s ego,” then this isn’t in line with #s 1, 2, 4, 5, and 6.
To try to apply a “Biblical vision of manhood and womanhood” to each of my relationships seems terribly contrived. Who wants to be second-guessing all the time? We all are called to interact in love and respect due each person for who they are – which includes gender but not “manhood” and “womanhood.”
14) Agreed, except for the “cultural” part – what is “cultural sensitivity, and why do I need it? Leave the word “cultural” out and I think it’s a great statement.
15) I like this except for the gender distinctions. Not that gender distinctions never apply, but they are not defined in this statement, and I sense that the ones intended are not ones that I would completely agree with. Also, what is “God’s ideal of complementarity?” Complementarity is built in; it is not an ideal. It is a fact.
Appropriateness between genders has more to do with personal boundaries, especially sexual, I would think, than anything else. It’s not about finding freedom in complementarity; it’s living out that complementarity by freely relating, in confidence (with proper deference), not in fear, to everyone you meet!
I thank Bonnie for saying pretty much everything I want to say; you’ve saved me some valuable time.
I think that this list suffers from simply being too long. The longer you go, the greater the tendency to say too much and overdo things.
Everyone is having issues with #10, which tells me CBMW should have stopped at #9 while they were ahead. Most of the points are common sense Christian liv anyway, IMHO.
P#10 does make a false dichotomy, as stated, and as Bonnie pointed out. It is a badly worded point, although to give it the benefit, women should place the needs of the people in her family (husband, children, etc.) in front of a desire to have a career if/when the two conflict. Couple that with an admonition not to keep up with the Joneses, I don’t think we should take too much offense.
P#11 amuses me. VERY LITTLE in my life as it is today has come by human planning. And, since God has sent me spinning off into God-knows-where in life, why should I think that I’m in a place to make definite plans now?
P#12-15: yadda yadda yadda…I don’t disagree strongly, but again, things could have been said better.
No one has picked on #16, which I expect more pushback on. If there were any point on which CBMW should have delivered more than a one-liner, this is it. It is human nature to focus on what we do not have, question exceptions, and demand inclusion. On the other hand, we often do so in ignorance of a bigger picture in God’s plan for the universe.
Boundaries exist for just about everything in life, a good many of them by necessity and by God’s design. I’m no pushover in any sense of the word, but I’m okay with that.
Peter h said:
Well I am a bit worried about # 6: how much would ‘excessive sports’ be?
Haha! Whatever the wife says is “excessive.”
Cheers Letitia, that is pretty much how it works in our household! Perhaps there is a bit more allowance if I am actually participating rather than watching on the stupid box.
Here is where I am confused.
I understand that men are to lead in church to reflect the fact that they are the spiritual head of the home.
But who is the head of the home when the mother is single? Can a woman be recognized as the head of the home? And if a single woman were head of her home, then how is the man being leader in church related in anyway to being the head of the home?
But Ligon Duncan says,
Egalitarianism of all sorts (whether it involves the abdication of husbandly, paternal, or parental responsibility and authority) undermines family religion and the cultivation of godliness in the home.
So, does being a single mother also undermine family religion and the cultivation of godliness? Does the single mother tell her children that she is the head of the home, or that she is not the head of the home. This isn’t clear.
Considering some of the other comments, I suppose there is a need for a Council for the Regulation of Television Watching. However, some people don’t watch television in the first place, so this wouldn’t minister to them.
Letitia, I started to comment on #16 but did not want to be contentious!
)
16 reminds of an earlier post that claimed we are to be joyful about being limited in our choices for ministry and roles. As Piper says: look at all the OTHER opportunities! (Such as working in the nursery at church instead of teaching the Hebrew language to male students at seminary?)
I think we are getting to used to being told this and are ignoring it.
Is this post of Denny Burk’s and CJ’s a spoof or for real?
Working the remote requires skill, coordination, and discernment. This person needs to be paying attention and anticipating commercial breaks. While everyone else enjoys the game, this person is working and always aware of what’s on the TV.
…
For those assigned to this task I recommend further reading. I trained my sons-in-law in the art and craft of strategic clickery. One of them, Steve Whitacre (married to my daughter Nicole), has written up these notes and you can read his post here.
Suzanne
Reading the entire post and the post linked to, by his son-in-law, I can only conclude that it is serious.
What soap opera’s? Didn’t know we still had those.
How long ago was this written?
this whole thing reads like a bad version of desiderata. i can hear a deep, omnipotent male voice, like james earl jones, reading this compellingly over swelling snare drum rolls.
ladies, and gents, please move your selves and your children, especially your girl children, to a healthier paradigm. let this one die of complete lack of membership.
peace–
scott
I’ll say this slowly okay, the article by CJ was ‘tongue in cheek’ or to put it another way, there was some humour in it.
IF one read CJ’s post with an open mind then it would be readily apparent.
Thanks for speaking so slowly Glenn.
If men want to watch TV they should dedicate their wives to the service of God. Sort of like a tithe or a bargain. They could offer a part of the wife’s time to God, and then the wife could have a ministry for God, while the man is watching TV, and practicing his clickery.
However, I suspect that women prepare food while men watch TV, and this is called biblical manhood.
This is from the CBMW Christmas day post.
On Christmas Day, turn down the volume on the game long enough to listen to the sound of women talking together in the kitchen.
A biblical man turns down the volume on the TV once on Christmas day to listen to and acknowledge the fact that the women are in the kitchen. This is biblical manhood – the performance of homage to women once a year on Christmas day.
What I have difficulty with is why this is called Christianity.