God’s Word to Women: 100 Bible Studies On Woman’s Place
In The Divine Economy (pdf)
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged God's Word to Women, Katharine Bushnell |
LESSON 77.
SEX BIAS INFLUENCES TRANSLATORS.
616. It is well known that when a man gets lost on the prairie, he begins to go round in a circle; it is suggested that one side (the right, generally), being stronger than the other, he pulls unconsciously with greater strength upon the corresponding guiding rein of his horse. Just so does the translator; he pulls unconsciously on the strong side of preconception or self-interest. This may not be intended, but it is none the less inevitable to the uninspired hand. For this reason, neither class nor sex should have an exclusive right to set forth the meaning of the original text… What wonder that all versions, having for all time been made by men, should disclose the fact that, on the woman question, they all travel more or less in a circle, in accordance with sex bias, hindering the freedom and progress of women, since (in times past more than at present), the self interest of man led him to suppose that woman served God best as his own undeveloped subordinate?
…
619. Luther once said: “No gown worse becomes a woman than to be wise.” Luther only held the prevailing views of his day as regards women. Such men could not easily perceive when Scripture expressed a different thought on the subject. Proverbs 14:1 says, in Hebrew, “The wisdom of woman buildeth her house,” but not being able to appreciate the advantages of female education, men rendered it: “Every wise woman buildeth her house,” that is, the woman who devotes herself to housewifely duties is pronounced “wise.” But this is not the thought; rather, wisdom itself, in woman, will build her own (not her husband’s) house,¾ elevate her to a place of honor. Every time there has been an opportunity for the use of option in translation, use has been made of that option, by this or that man of learning, to build up one sex and to depreciate the other, and so the result, through the ages, has been cumulative, and that without actual intention.
LESSON 49.
OUR FAITH MUST REPOSE IN THE ORIGINAL TEXT.
371. We have called attention to some of these misinterpretations, as well as mistranslations of the Bible, as to women. But a certain type of mind is sure to reason: “What am I to believe, then? And whom am I to believe?”¾as though it were ever intended that our faith should rest in human beings,¾uninspired, as these translators are, as well! Let us hope, however, that the majority of those who will read these Lessons will rather say, “We must never rest until we have seen to it that a sufficiently large number of young women are kept in training in the sacred languages, so that women can always command a hearing, as to the precise meaning of such passages in the Bible as relate to the interests of women specially. Thus only will women’s temporal and spiritual interests receive their due consideration.” Better, far better, that we should doubt every translator of the Bible than to doubt the inspiration of St. Paul’s utterances about women; and the justice of God towards women: or, above all, to doubt that “Christ hath redeemed us” (women) “from the curse of the law” (Galatians 3:13).
372. Recalling Dean Payne-Smith’s words about Bible interpreters, “Men never do understand anything unless already in their minds they have some kindred ideas,” it is not worth our while to complain that men have not always seen truths that had no special application to their needs, either in interpreting or in translating the Bible; we merely wish to point out wherein there is need of changes. Supposing women only had translated the Bible from age to age, is there a likelihood that men would have rested content with the outcome? Therefore, our brothers have no good reason to complain if, while conceding that men have done the best they could alone, we assert that they did not do the best that could have been done. The work would have been of a much higher order had they first helped women to learn the sacred languages, (instead of putting obstacles in their way), and then, have given them a place by their side on translation committees.
373. The same writer says, again: “A bad translation of this book [the Bible] exercises a depressing influence upon a nation’s advance in civilization: a good translation is one of the great levers in the nation’s rise.” We believe that the very reason why we see so large a proportion of the women of Christendom, in our day, given over to fashion and folly, is precisely because they have never been given a proper and dignified work in the advancement of God’s kingdom,¾since the first century of the Christian Church. And the true value of woman’s powers will never be known so long as her self-respect is destroyed by teaching her that she rests under God’s curse, and is bound to remain in perpetual subordination to her husband, even when he happens to be a fool or scamp; and this is what the Church unconsciously teaches in its sweeping assertions as to woman’s “subordination” to her husband,¾never pausing to define (even if this were true), what sort of a husband is entitled to act as her superior and ruler.
Posted in GWTW Lesson77 | Tagged 371, 372, 373, 616, 619, Lesson 77, Lesson 78 |
LESSON 47.
CONCLUDING REMARKS ON THE HEADSHIP OF THE HUSBAND.
354. If the headship of the husband, then, does not imply government by the husband, why is the wife exhorted to “be in subjection” to her husband, rather then the husband to the wife? Because the real meaning of the word “subjection” refers, not to servility, but to conciliation. Where wrong exists, or is supposed to exist, the Christian method is always to exhort the wronged one to efforts to keep the peace, if possible, until the wrongdoer learns the better way. Read 1 Peter 2:18-23 for light on this point: note the transition to 3:1, especially the word “likewise.” The “subjection” urged is toward a wayward, not Christian, husband. So the Apostle Paul, in Ephesians, fifth chapter, exhorts the wife, who is the one likely to suffer wrong, to one set of duties, summed up in the word “subjection;” and the husband to another set of duties, because he is the one inclined to oppress. The husband is to show that love which gives itself for the good of another.
355. But the expositor wrongly interprets Paul’s intention, in the use of the word “subjection.” Let us illustrate: In China, for centuries past, mothers have felt compelled to bind the feet of their girls in order to prepare them for the matrimonial market. This custom is now yielding before the humane influences of the Christian religion, and mothers, with the support of the men of their families, refuse to bind the feet of their daughters, and often unbind their own. But the problem of having free feet is one thing to the daughter, whose feet have never been bound, and quite another to the mother, whose feet have been bound for years. The reason is, that the very bandages which have so weakened and crippled the feet, have, in the course of time, become an essential support to the weakened members; so that, when the woman medical missionary unbinds the feet of the Chinese mother, she must remove the old bandages, and then put on fresh bandages,¾this time, binding each individual toe to its individual splint,¾only until it can go free of all support.
356. Now this latter is a process of binding, but it is done with an opposite view to the original foot binding. It looks to the restoration of lost freedom, while the old process aggressively deprived of freedom. It is, moreover, in the very nature of things, a process wholly unsuitable to the girl whose feet have never been bound. Would it be fair, now, or truthful, because of this temporary device, looking to eventual complete freedom, which the doctor adopts, to represent the woman doctor as favorable to foot binding? Yet, precisely after this manner has St. Paul been misrepresented by those wiling to justify male rule. They ignore Paul’s declared object; they are silent as to Paul’s clear utterances elsewhere, as to “the glorious liberty of the children of God;” they disdain the guards Paul puts about his words, and pervert his meaning.
357. Such words as, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor free, male nor female,” convey small authority to their minds; but because Paul has twice reminded the wife that her husband is her “head” (“support,” see par. 282), therefore would these expositors permanently rebind upon women the very burdens of oppression which Paul would remove from their bowed backs. This false representation of the Apostle’s intention has led many people into irreverent ridicule of the Bible and Paul; and the perverters of Paul’s meaning are responsible for this. Paul does not speak as an “old bachelor,” but as the mouthpiece of God. Nor is he labouring under the blight of rabbinical training. Paul speaks under the influence of the Holy Spirit, and can be easily understood, with the Spirit’s help, by those who care to understand him rightly. Any other representation of his words is irreverent.
358. The Apostle, then, realizing the difficulties under a pagan government, and under civil laws unjust to women, first declares that within the Church bandages of oppression must be removed, but that the bond of matrimony must be carefully conserved (“Let marriage be held in honor of all”); wives must be patient; and husbands be used as individual splints to each broken and crushed woman. The revolutionary ethics of a Christ-like love would shortly accomplish all the rest. Like his Master, Paul came “to proclaim liberty to the captive,” by his Gospel message,¾not to proclaim captivity to the captive. Paul’s goal for women, as much as for men, is “the glorious liberty of the children of God,” and he declares it in many ways, again and again; and when once that goal has been attained by women, the method is obsolete and meaningless. In Christian lands, in real Christian homes, special injunctions upon the wife to “be in subjection” to her husband, are out of place,¾the method has accomplished its work; oppression is gone; the liberty is wrought out.
359. Let us turn now to Ephesians, fifth chapter in the R.V.Verse 22 reads, “Wives [be in subjection] unto your own husbands, as unto the lord.” Note first that the words we bracket are not in the original. The duty is the same one that was already laid upon all Christians by verse 21, and this does not design to extend the duties of the wife to indefinite proportions, but to limit them. The form is equivalent to Colossians 3:18, concerning the same set of duties, “as is fit in the Lord.” Subjection, to Paul’s mind, could go beyond what is “fit.” For when false brethren came to him and gave him bad counsel, he declares, “to whom we gave place by subjection, no, not for an hour.” Yes, this Apostle who taught all believers to “be in subjection” one to another, as did Peter also (1 Peter 5:5), declares even of Peter, “I withstood him to his face, because he was to be blamed,” (Galatians 2:3-5, 11). An unqualified subjection of one to another has never been enjoined upon man or woman Christian by the Bible.
360. Very different is Milton’s teaching from the Apostle Paul’s, to women:
“To whom thus Eve, with perfect beauty adorn’d:
‘My author and disposer, what thou bidd’st
Unargued I obey: so God ordains;
God is thy law, thou mine; to know no more
Is woman’s happiest knowledge, and her praise.’”
Such teaching as this puts man in the very place of God. It is the spirit of Antichrist who “sitteth in the temple of God, setting himself forth as God” (2 Thessalonians 2:4 R. V.). It also teaches woman that most hateful of all sins to God, idolatry.
361. If the Apostle does not especially enjoin “subjection” on husbands, as such, it is because he has occasion to set forth more important duties on his part. Verse 23 of this passage in Ephesians tells him that, like his Lord, he is to be to his wife, “the savior of the body.” How free and chaste Paul intends her to be! Verse 25 teaches an utter self-renunciation, like Christ’s, for her sake. Verse 26, that by his own cleansed and sanctified fleshly nature, he is to “sanctify and cleanse” his wife’s body, so as to be prepared in the end to present her spotless (verse 27) to Christ,¾free from all moral injury by his conduct. Verse 28 teaches him to love his wife as he loves his own body, i.e., to nourish and cherish her. The opposite conduct¾the oppression of lust¾is to hate her. Verse 31: He (not she) is to forsake all others, and to cleave to her alone. (See pars. 45-64.)
362. Woman’s only century, in the Christian Church, was during apostolic days, and a little while thereafter. Prof. Ramsay, in his valuable book, The Church in the Roman Empire, states: “The Universal and Catholic type of Christianity became confirmed in its dislike of the prominence and the public ministration of woman. The dislike became abhorrence, and there is every probability that the dislike is as old as the first century, and was intensified to abhorrence before the middle of the second century.” With the growth of this abhorrence, we may rest assured that every conceivable effort would be made to find a warrant for silencing and subordinating women; and the “Judaizer” was at hand to point the method of torturing and twisting Scripture, especially Paul’s words, into teaching the same. Here we have, in a few words, the history of that “tortuous special pleading” which enables conclusions to seem to be drawn from arguments presented by Paul; arguments which, if rightly read, and interpreted by unbiased minds, would lead to very different opinions of the Apostle Paul and his teachings on the “woman question.”
Posted in GWTW Lesson47 |
LESSON 87.
ADVICE FOR EMERGENCY.
708. Turn to 1 Corinthians 7. This chapter has been used by the Church to combat the false teaching of the superior holiness of celibacy, to that extent that its natural sense is difficult to grasp. Paul did not have sacerdotal celibacy in mind when he wrote it, but he did have a tribulation in mind, as verses 29-31 and other verses prove.
Three of the Gospels (Matthew 24:19; Mark 13:17; Luke 21:23) record a warning of Christ’s, that no woman should be found pregnant or with little children when that Day came; and the fact that every account of Christ’s prophecy of this period repeats this “woe,” proves that the warning had taken deep hold on the hearts of the disciples. Nothing could be more natural to suppose than that the Corinthians had asked Paul in their letter some question like this: “If our wives are not to bear children, in view of the coming tribulation, shall we not separate altogether, husbands from wives?” (Read par. 111).
709. Paul’s advice is suited to an emergency, but not intended for permanent conditions. This letter was written in A.D. 57, and sore tribulation began in A.D. 64 by the martyrdom of the Roman church (see Lessons 41, 42), and persecutions throughout the Roman Empire; and in the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. (See also Luke 23:29). Expecting this tribulation under Rome, who knew but that it might prove to be the great tribulation?
Verse 1. Paul’s answer to this unrecorded question is, that it is well for a person to have no intimate relations with his wife (the word translated “woman” is also the ordinary word for wife).
Verse 2. But he does not recommend an actual separation, “because of fornications.” The A. V. does not render this accurately. There is no such word as “avoid” here. Corinth was an exceedingly wicked city. Profane history says that every other house was one for prostitution. There were over a thousand “religious” slave-prostitutes kept at the Temple of Venus in that city. Pagan religion and fornication went together, in worship. Men recently converted from a paganism which made a virtue of fornication, if thrown out of homes by the break-up of their domestic relations, from very loneliness might backslide into these corrupt conditions. So each man should keep his home and wife, each woman her husband. Or, if this did not happen, separated wives and husbands might become estranged, and remarry without Scriptural grounds for divorce; and this would amount to fornication.
710. Verse 3. The expression “due benevolence” has been given the same vile translation, “duty of marriage” of Exodus 21:10. See our notes, pars. 603-606 in refutation of any such sense. Such a meaning, here, would make Paul teach, between these two verses, “It is good not to do so, but nevertheless be sure to do so.” It would not only put verse 1 at variance with verse 2, but also at variance more or less, in spirit at least, with the teachings of verses 5 (as we shall presently explain), 7, 8, 11, 26, 27, 29, 32, 34, 37, 38, and 40. In fact, it makes of the chapter a mass of contradictions. All Paul means by this verse is that the husband should continue to minister to his wife by performing his usual duties of support, protection, and heavy tasks about the home; and that the wife should continue her domestic ministrations. This is “due” from each to the other. It is doubtful whether “benevolence” belongs to the original text.
Verse 4 speaks of the power of restraint, not of self-indulgence, in view of the teaching of continence for an emergency, of verse one. The one can exert this over the other.
711. Verse 5. Dean Alford, in another passage (Mark 10:19), shows that the word rendered “defraud” is equivalent to “covet.” This “coveting” in the marriage relation brings about the defrauding of time that should go to prayer, and the “incontinency” spoken of at the end of the verse. Sexual union must be of mutual consent “as to time.” The expositors who make out that Paul is speaking of incontinent continence, lend themselves to cheap sophistry. The word “fasting” here is probably an unauthorized addition to the original text.
Verse 7. “His proper gift.” If this meant, as is taught, “the gift of continence,” then we must believe that Paul taught that other men had from the Lord “the proper gift of incontinence!” (See par. 703).
Verse 9. See Lesson 86. “Cannot,” here, is a corrupt rendering; the original says “do not.” Guilty couples should get married.
712. Verses 12-16 teach that the matter of absolute avoidance of the matrimonial relation, in case one is married to an unbeliever, or else divorce, is not to be enjoined. There is but one cause for divorce, at least, as Christ taught; and the date of the approaching tribulation was too uncertain to found such rigid teaching as this upon it. This was emergency advice to believing couples expecting at any moment, what however might not occur for many years, ¾the close of the age and its attendant tribulation.
Verses 20, 24. The teaching of these verses has been much abused,¾for instance, to teach a slave that he should not struggle for his freedom. There is excellent reason for believing rather that Paul would direct attention to our one calling of eminence, our “high calling in Christ Jesus,” and teach us at all cost to abide in that calling, and do nothing which would mar our title to that high calling.
Verses 21 and 23 show that Paul did not instruct slaves to be contented with slavery.
Verse 25. Answers to another question from Corinth begin here, and the answers are somewhat obscure. Evidently the question relates to virgin persons of both sexes, as shown by verses 26, 27; the word “virgin” is applied to males in Revelation 14:4. In verse 28 the word is used in its more common female sense.
Verses 26-35. Paul makes it clear that he is not talking of what is “right” and “wrong” in the ordinary sense, but what is wise, or less wise, in the emergencies of the time.
713. Verse 36. The sense is obscure. Most expositors think it refers to fathers disposing of their virgin daughters. Others think that it refers to a man disposing of his virginity in marriage, because he is getting older, than the usual time for marriage. My own belief is that Paul is speaking of affianced young men, and their duty towards their betrothed virgins. If marriage is delayed so long that he feels he is not treating her right in the matter (in those days it was a reproach to a maiden to remain long unmarried), then “let them marry.”
Verse 37. The word “nevertheless” is misleading, as though showing a contrast. The Greek word should have been given its usual rendering¾“But the young man who has deliberately made up his mind not to marry, and with whom there is no (such) need to marry (as spoken of in the previous verse,¾on account of his betrothed), and has decided to keep his virginity (under the present stress of the times), does well not to marry.” This I believe to be Paul’s teaching.
Verse 38. Dr. Adam Clarke calls attention to the many ancient authorities who read, here, not “giveth her in marriage,” but merely “marries,” and “does not marry.” Note that the word “her” in the Bible is italicized; it does not occur in the original. “He that marries doeth well, and he that marries not doeth better.”
714. As to that expression “giveth” in relation to the marriage of a woman: Such an expression occurs nowhere in the entire Greek N. T. The O. T. sometimes uses the word “give” of a woman’s marriage. She is often “given” or “sold” to a husband in the O. T. but no such idea is conveyed by any expression used of the marriage of a woman in the N. T. This is an English importation into both the A. V. and the R. V., because we have not two words which distinguish between the male and the female part in marriage, such as the Greek has.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged 1 Corinthians 7, God's Word to Women, Katharine Bushnell, Lesson 87 |
621. I think we find another case of prejudiced translation in Isaiah 3:12. The word translated “children” in this verse in Isaiah, is a plural masculine participle of the verb “to glean,” “abuse,” “practice.” It is translated “glean” in Leviticus 19:10, Deuteronomy 24:21, Judges 20:45, and Jeremiah 6:9. The word has no translation such as “children” anywhere else in the Bible, and it occurs 21 times. Another word altogether is used for “children,” and “child,” in verses 4 and 5 of this same chapter; the sense seems to have been fixed by the supposed context, to correspond with “women.” As to the word translated “women”: Two words, without the rabbinical vowel “points,” are exactly alike. One is pronounced nosh-im and the other na-shim. In appearance the only difference is a slight mark under the first letter of the Hebrew word na-shim. The first word means “exactors;” the one with a vowel mark under the initial letter means “women.” The entire decision, therefore, as to whether the word means one or the other depends upon OPTION. Those who pointed the word, evidently thought the nation could sink no lower than to pass under women rulers, and then translated the word “children” to match it. Commentators frequently call attention to the alternate reading. See Adam Clarke on the passage. The Septuagint translates: “As for my people, tax-gatherers (praktores) glean them, and exactors (apaitountes) rule over them.”
622. There seems little in the context to support the translation “children” and “women.” But study the context as regards the other reading. After complaining of the “gleaners,” (that is, “tax-gatherers”) and “extortioners,” they are threatened in the following language: “The Lord standeth up to plead and standeth up to judge the people. The Lord will enter into judgement with the elders of His people, and the princes (“rulers,” masculine, not feminine gender), thereof for ye have eaten up the vineyard (the conduct of extortionate tax-gatherers), and the spoil of the poor is in your houses. What mean ye that ye crush (R. V.) my people, and grind the faces of the poor?” Because of this context, we believe that OPTION took the wrong turn when it decided to translate this verse as it stands in our English version; and that this translation would have had a strong showing up of its sophistries, had educated women been on the last Revision Committee.
Posted in GWTW Lesson77 | Tagged 621, 622, God's Word to Women, Isa 3:12, Isaiah 3:12, Katharine Bushnell, Lesson 77, women rulers |
LESSON 78.
SEX BIAS INFLUENCES TRANSLATORS.
(Continued.)
623. Before we proceed to exhibit other places in the O. T. in which an unusual meaning has been put upon a word that would not have been put upon the same word had it not specially related to woman, we must explain: Words in the Hebrew language are more difficult to set forth after this fashion, to those who do not understand the language, because of the great variety of uses to which a word can be put. The same form may do duty as a noun, a verb, an adjective, an adverb and even a preposition.
624. Next we will consider the Hebrew word cha-yil (HEB), which occurs 242 times in the Old Testament. It is translated “army” and “war” 58 times; “host” and “forces” 43 times; “might” or “power” 16 times; “goods,” “riches,” “substance” and “wealth” in all 31 times; “band of soldiers,” “band of men,” “company,” and “train” once each; “activity” once; “valor” 28 times; “strength” 11 times: these are all noun forms. The word is often translated as an adjective or adverb. It is translated “valiant” and “valiantly” 35 times; “strong” 6 times; “able” 4 times; “worthily” once and “worthy” once. We have now given you the complete list of the various renderings of this word excepting four instances in which the word is used in describing a woman. Please review the list, and get the usage of the word clearly in mind before proceeding further.
625. Now we will take the first of these four remaining cases, relating to women: Ruth, the Moabitess, was a woman of courage and decision of character. In her loyalty to her dead husband’s mother, she refused to turn back and re-marry in her own land, but forsook her country and kindred to accompany her mother-in-law to a (to her) foreign land, and undertook there, to keep them both from starvation by the labour of her hands. Boaz, who afterwards married her, said to her: “All the city of my people doth know that thou art a woman of cha-yil,” (Ruth 3:11). Now considering the girl’s courage and devotion, how should this word have been translated? You have the list of meanings before you, and are quite competent to form an opinion. How would “thou art an able woman” or “thou art a woman of courage” do? The Septuagint Greek says, “Thou art a woman of power” (dunamis).
626. But it almost looks as though our English translators took no care, as to the precise language here. The circumstances, when Boaz spoke the words, were peculiar, but not improper in Israel; but man was praising a woman, and “of course” here is a reference to her reputation for chastity, and so it is translated, “thou art a virtuous woman.” But glance over the various meanings given to this word elsewhere. Not once has it reference to any other moral characteristic than that of strength or force. What courage this foreign girl had shown in supporting her mother-in-law!
627. Now for the next mistranslation of this word, because it relates to woman. The last chapter of Proverbs describes an ideal woman for a wife. The description is a mother’s, to her son. It is quite different from the average man’s ideal of woman at her best. But the Bible describes her, in the language of Lemuel’s mother, as a woman whose “price is far above rubies:. Here are some of her striking characteristics: “She is like the merchants’ ships, she bringeth her food from afar.” “She considereth a field and buyeth it.” “She girdeth her loins with strength, and strengtheneth her arms.” “Strength and honor are her clothing.” Surely this must be a “strong-minded” woman who is praised here.
628. Three times over the “strength” of this woman of Proverbs is referred to. Each line of the description speaks of efficiency. She is praised in turn for general goodness and trustworthiness, energy, efficiency, enterprise, far-sightedness, early-rising, business capacity, gardening, muscular strength, weaving, benevolence, fore-thought, embroidery work, elegant clothes for herself, tailoring for her husband, honor, wisdom, kindness, piety. But, as it happens, no definite reference is made to her purity, or to her faithfulness to her husband in the marriage relation.
629. Now what one word would best sum up such a character? The precise original expression is the same as in the verse we have quoted from Ruth,¾“A woman of cha-yil.” We must suppose that the translators hastily concluded that they knew, without looking closely at the original, what sort of a woman a mother ought to recommend to her son for a wife, and so they translated: “Who can find a virtuous woman?” That represents the undoubted sentiments of the translators; but it does not represent the teaching of the original text. “Virtue” is of priceless value to woman, to be sure; but her duty to her husband is not her only duty; all her life cannot be summed up in that one moral quality.
630. “But,” someone will reply, “virtue is often used in the sense of a summing up of all moral characteristics.” That may be; but it would not be so understood by the common folk, in this connection, and the Bible is supposed to be translated for them. The vast majority, reading this verse, would suppose the word “virtue” to refer to the woman’s chastity. The Septuagint translates here (“Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in Askelon,” lest the study of the sacred tongues be prohibited to woman!), “A masculine woman . . . more valuable is she than very costly stones.”[5]
And finally, the description of this ideal woman is summed up in the 29th verse, in the words: “Many daughters have done cha-yil, but thou excellest them all. “Worthily,” “valiantly,” are the only translations that we have in any other part of the Bible for this word, when used as an adverb. But after the same careless manner, the word is here translated “virtuously.” We suppose there was an instinctive distaste, disrelish, for showing that the Bible praised, in the inspired words of a woman writer, a “strong” woman, for doing “valiantly.”
631. Now for the fourth instance of the mistranslation of this word: Proverbs 12:4 reads, in the original, “A woman of cha-yil is a crown to her husband,” and there is no doubt that she is here again praised for her strength of character. But the English reads, “A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband.” Doubtless such a woman is a crown to her husband, but women prefer to know what the Bible says, rather than to be merely reminded of a favorite axiom among men. Here again, the Septuagint translates, “masculine.”
632. “But,” an objector will say “ ‘virtuous’ comes from the Latin word vir, which means ‘man’, and why is it not the proper word to use here, ¾in the sense of ‘manly’, ‘strong’?” Because “virtue,” while it has this literal sense, is not used to describe “manliness” in English, but “morality” in general, among men: and when used of woman, it is understood to refer to morality of one sort, more particularly, which happens not to be referred to in these extended descriptions in the quotations from Proverbs. If the translator had thought that this word “virtue,” or the word “virtuously” were likely to be understood in their literal sense by women,¾“manly” and “manfully,” who can believe that he would ever have employed those words here?
633. Virtue is a quality of great importance to women, and had they been more clearly taught from pulpit, and by a more careful translation of such passages as we have been considering, the obligation laid upon them in the Bible, to be strong, in body, mind and spirit; if these theologians themselves had learned this from the Bible, women would have been far better equipped to guard their virtue,¾since the ruin of girls is usually due to weak character and general unfitness to cope with the world. To sum up: This Hebrew word, cha-yil, used over 200 times in the Hebrew Bible, signifies “force,” “strength,” “ability.” But in every instance where it relates to women, and nowhere else, isit translated “virtue,” i.e. “chastity.”
Posted in GWTW Lesson78 | Tagged God's Word to Women, Katharine Bushnell, Proverbs 12:4, Proverbs 31, Ruth 3:11 |
619. Luther once said: “No gown worse becomes a woman than to be wise.” Luther only held the prevailing views of his day as regards women. Such men could not easily perceive when Scripture expressed a different thought on the subject. Proverbs 14:1 says, in Hebrew, “The wisdom of woman buildeth her house,” but not being able to appreciate the advantages of female education, men rendered it: “Every wise woman buildeth her house,” that is, the woman who devotes herself to housewifely duties is pronounced “wise.” But this is not the thought; rather, wisdom itself, in woman, will build her own (not her husband’s) house,¾ elevate her to a place of honor. Every time there has been an opportunity for the use of option in translation, use has been made of that option, by this or that man of learning, to build up one sex and to depreciate the other, and so the result, through the ages, has been cumulative, and that without actual intention.
Posted in GWTW Lesson77 | Tagged Proverbs 14:1, wisdom |
299. The Old Testament sense in which “to be in subjection” is sometimes used, is highly suggestive and instructive. Psalm 62:1 reads in the English, “truly my soul waiteth upon God; from Him cometh my salvation.” At verse 5 of the same Psalm, we read: “My soul, wait thou only upon God.” In Psalm 37:7 we find the words: “Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him.” The words “wait” in the first passages, and the word “rest” in the last are all three represented in the Greek version by the single word hupotasso, “be in subjection,” while the literal sense of the Hebrew original word is “be silent unto.” Compare this with 1 Peter 3:1,2, where wives are exhorted to win unbelieving husbands by “subjection.” Surely Peter is not here exhorting wives to blindly obey unbelievers, for if heathen, they would at once remand them back to the worship of the gods; if Jews, back to Judaism. Rather, they are to win them away from these by their “manner of life,” “without the word,”–actions speaking louder than words. “Coupled with fear,”–such fear of God as would cause these women, so gentle, quite and patient in daily life, to be as adamant in their truth to God; and the husbands so overawed by their quite maintenance of principle, whereas they are so ready to yield to their husbands when principle is not involved, that the husbands dare not try to compel their wives to violate conscience, and thus are themselves gradually led into the Christian faith.
Where “subjection” is spoken of as a woman’s duty, without further immediate specification, it has been too readily assumed that this means subjection to a husband. But many women even from Apostolic days, and certainly an increasing large proportion of women in latter days, have no husbands. In both 1 Corinthians 14:34, “let them be in subjection”; and in 1 Timothy 2:11, “learn in all subjection,” this O. T. idea of waiting on God, or the thought of a spirit of humility towards God, may be all that is intended.
Posted in GWTW Lesson38 | Tagged 299, Lesson 38, subjection, submission |
LESSON 69.
THE FOUNDING OF A CHRISTIAN FAMILY.
Concluded.
544. Hagar’s son is past fourteen, and Sarah demands that she and her son go elsewhere to live. Abraham demurs, but God commands him to comply. Nor were Hagar and Ishmael sent away without due provision for their support (Genesis 25:6), though Hagar gave herself up, for the moment, to needless despair, in which the Lord met and comforted her (Genesis 21:14-21). It was hard for Hagar to bear, for being a mere slave, she was not to be held responsible for having borne a child; but now, at any rate, she was emancipated. The setting of wrong conditions to rights made undeserved but unavoidable suffering for Hagar.
545. God cannot always elect,¾that is, select¾persons who are ideal, for they cannot be found. He takes faulty ones, but those capable of development. Such was the condition in which he found Abraham and Sarah. It is simply ludicrous to read some of the attempts that have been made by blundering expositors to explain away all the wrong things Abraham did: “Abraham’s venture was not from laxity as to the sanctity of marriage, or as to his duty to protect his wife: it was from a presumptuous confidence in the wonderful assistance of God,”¾thus speaks Lange’s Commentary. Such men, in their strained efforts to make Abraham appear ideal from the day God called him, leave no place for that most valuable and much-needed lesson, as to the wonderful transformation of character which the grace of God can bring about in the faultiest person who will submit to God’s authority, as Abraham began to do when he left his home in Chaldea.
546. The character of Abraham changed greatly under the moulding influence of divine grace, but we will not occupy the space to describe this transformation, for the reason that, as women, we are more interested in the character of Sarah, who, we hold, has been greatly belittled by the same commentators who will not admit that Abraham ever had many faults. Her character underwent a transformation quite as wonderful as Abraham’s. Think what she was, as the servile female who went, apparently without protest, into the harems of Pharaoh and Abimelech, not knowing that she could ever come out undefiled; accepting polygamy weakly, if not happily. Like almost any Oriental woman of today, her husband’s wish seemed as law, even when it bade her do that which was immoral, and which she may have utterly detested to do. She makes no complaint, but obeys.
547. Now study her character a little later, when she wakes up to resent the way she had been treated by Abraham in the matter of Hagar. She accuses Abraham as in the wrong, and appeals to God to judge between them. There were reasons why she might have been very cowardly at this moment, for Hagar was in the ascendancy just then, and was making the most of her position. Sarah might have reasoned: “I must not offend Abraham now, while Hagar seems so much more in his favor because of the boy.” Doubtless Hagar counted on such a compromise. But Sarah was courageous, and met the situation boldly, calling upon Abraham to defend her in refusing Hagar the right to be a concubine, or a second wife, in the family,¾for Sarah had yielded to the provisions of Hammurabi’s Code on purpose to prevent this. (See par. 537).
548. Then follows the later scene. Ishmael is older now, and Sarah demands that the last vestige of the semblance of polygamy be cleaned out of the household. If she again called on Jehovah to judge between her and Abraham, we do not know, but we do know that when she made the demand, God told Abraham to obey what Sarah said, and it was done. If Abraham improved in character and saw the hatefulness of mixed marriage relations in the sight of God, it was under the joint training of God and Sarah. And later, after the old man had lost Sarah, and mourned deeply, her loss, he married one Keturah (Genesis 25:1). But though the word “concubine” is used in the sixth verse of this chapter, since Abraham did not marry Keturah until after Sarah’s death, the word is not used in its ordinary sense, for, too, Hagar never bore this relation to Abraham.
549. But to return to Sarah: How are we to account for this development of such force of character, as that she has become quite “imperious”? Men usually do not like “imperiousness” in women; they think it “unwomanly” and they criticize Sarah because of this trait. But was it not of God’s own planting and development, in Sarah’s case? God called her “Mine Anointed” and God uses no idle words. He anointed her to be the Prince of the tribe, for God gives no empty titles. God commanded Abraham to cease calling her Sarai: “As for Sarai they wife, thou shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah (prince) shall her name be,”¾Genesis 17:15. The older form “Sarai” meant the same as “Sarah” in Chaldea, but it did not in Canaan, hence the change. Sarah means “prince.” We do not say “princess,” for the reason that the–“ss” has been used as rather a wifely termination among us, signifying the rank of the husband. Abraham was not called “Prince” by God. His name was changed from Abram to Abraham, “father of a multitude.” Sarah was constituted by God a ruler, in her own right; she, not Abraham, was the anointed ruler of the tribe. Not because she was a woman, ¾not at all for that reason; but because she had better views than Abraham on the subject of social purity, and probably on other subjects.[3]
550. God had laid His hand upon a previously pagan family, to make of them a Christian household. He began by checking sensual tendencies in Abraham, taught him the benefits of monogamy, and respect for his wife; wrought upon his instincts of fatherhood, and taught him to aspire to have a progeny that would bless the world, because of its excellencies. Furthermore, in receiving a special revelation as to the right course of dealing with spurious matrimonial relations (Genesis 21:12), Abraham must have learned the lesson that the headship or leadership in a household turned not upon sex, but upon which one, husband or wife, know best what to do. As for Sarah, He taught her He was her Protector and Deliverer from peril; trained her in self-respect; restored her to her place as the recipient of His promises when she had yielded it to another to secure a child for her husband; named her the Prince of her tribe, and anointed her for the office. We have shown that the oldest and most inveterate faults of man are the love of ruling and sensuality. Abraham’s training was to correct these. Sarah’s training was in dignity, authority and self-respect; and both in faith.
551. We may not do more than merely refer briefly to what a source of misfortune to the Israelites, God’s people, the descendants of Ishmael always were. The Bible recurs to this again and again. The lesson of it all was summed up by Paul in the words: “He who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the free woman was by promise . . . as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now” (Galatians 4:23, 29).
552. Abraham, in his waiting for the son of Sarah, became a notable instance (cited in Hebrews 6:12) of “them who through faith and patience inherit the promises.” But few expositors have paused to consider the part of Sarah in the fulfillment of these same promises. She laughed at the possibility, when she first heard the promise, and made a remark (Genesis 18:12) which was given a sensuous turn in our translation, which is open to criticism. The expression is one common in the Orient today among women, and refers wholly to the “pleasure” of having a child, very much desired, as the angel’s own words show, for it puts the expression into plain words. “Wherefore did Sarah laugh, saying, Shall I of a surety bear a child, which am old?” Sarah was very old; she had also been barren all her lifetime. By faith Abraham waited patiently to receive the promise. Through faith Sarah rose above her age and her infirmity as well, and became, before the eyes of Abraham, the living embodiment of those promises fulfilled. “Through faith also Sarah herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged Him faithful Who had promised,”¾Hebrews 11:11. Abraham had the faith to expect and receive a child; Sarah, the faith to expect and conceive a child.
Posted in GWTW Lesson69 | Tagged Abraham and Sarah, Hagar and Sarah |
LESSON 68.
THE FOUNDING OF A CHRISTIAN FAMILY.
(Continued.)
537. The legal requirements of King Hammurabi which Sarah obeyed read: “If a man has married a wife, and she has not granted him children, that woman has gone [shall go] to her fate [is to be divorced], if her father-in-law has returned him the dowry that that man brought to the house of his father-in-law,” etc. (par. 168). Par. 138 of the same Code describes the conditions under which a man may “put away his bride who has not borne him children.” Par. 144 says: “He shall not take a concubine” if his wife “has given a maid to her husband;” and Par. 146 says, if “she has given a maid to her husband and she has borne him children [and] that maid has made [should make] herself equal with her mistress,” the mistress may reduce her to servitude again, but may not sell her. This is surely wonderful confirmation that Sarah’s treatment of this whole matter, up to the time of Isaac’s weaning, was precisely in accord with the legal provisions and customs by which the country was governed. But when Isaac was weaned, she took another course, and God, by express revelation to Abraham, confirmed her new departure as in the line of His will.
538. It is worthwhile for us to pause long enough to call attention to these very unjust and humiliating laws, as relates to women, engraven on that stone which records the Code of Hammurabi, especially as that very Code is being commended by rationalists of the present time as more enlightened and more humane than the Mosaic Code,¾which latter is often represented as a mere attempt to imitate the excellencies of the older Code. But women will prefer the Code of Moses, when once they enlighten themselves as to the vastly superior marriage laws of the latter. (See Additional Note at the end of this lesson.)
539. Sarah did go through the form of asking Abraham to bear a son by Hagar, but the act should be judged by the fact that a man had legal right to divorce a childless wife, and she was now past seventy-five years of age. That Sarah had had reason to fear divorcement seems certain, because when Hagar became arrogant in her treatment of Sarah, the latter accuses Abraham of being himself to blame for Hagar’s conduct, in the words: “My wrong be upon thee.” The Septuagint gives the idea conveyed by the words as, “I am wronged by thee.” Sarah is opening her eyes in new self-respect; she tells Abraham he had no right to have ever brought Hagar¾the price of her humiliation¾into the family; and then to have so conducted himself as to have created in her the fear of being divorced, through no fault of her own, but merely because she had not fulfilled for him the promises of God, that he should have a son. This is what we understand by her expression, and she adds: “The Lord judge between me and thee,” declaring her confidence that her position was just in God’s sight.
540. And Abraham yielded, which he would not have done so readily had he not felt she was right. Then Sarah did the only thing allowable under the law; she attempted to discipline Hagar, and return her to the position of a handmaiden. Sarah was not willing that her household should be polygamous; the law cut Abraham off from the right of a concubine in the family, since Sarah had given him her maid to bear a child for Sarah (see par. 537). But Hagar would be nothing less than a wife, so she left the house, doubtless thinking Abraham, for the sake of his only child, would divorce Sarah and take her back in Sarah’s place. Sarah made no effort to keep the child, so far as we know, which the law allowed.
541. The situation was hard for both Sarah and Hagar. Through fear that law and custom would set her adrift, because a childless wife, she had yielded to the requirements of Hammurabi’s legislative enactments, and provided a maid by whom to secure a son for Abraham; and Hagar had taken advantage of Sarah’s humiliated position,¾to assume the position in the family of another wife. Now Sarah begins to think, and that, on the laws by which women are governed; and she charges upon Abraham with the words: “I am wronged of THEE . . . God judge between me and thee.” Doubtless Abraham, like many another man, wished his wife would stop dwelling upon the injustice of the laws which govern women; and quit accusing him of wrong, if he merely observed them.
542. Sarah’s attempts to obey custom and law had borne heavily upon a poor woman slave, too; and at first Sarah perhaps did not see this; she “dealt hardly,” that is, sternly¾not likely abusively¾with Hagar, to reduce her to her former position in the family; but Hagar fled with her child, rather than become a subordinate again. As God protected Sarah, when Abraham left her in peril in the harems of Pharaoh and Abimelech, so now He appears for the protection of Hagar’s interests (Genesis16:7-13). He gives her promises as to her progeny, but, encumbered as she is with her own and Abraham’s child, as well as far from her own native land, God tells her to return and submit as a servant to Sarah. God certainly knew Sarah would not ill-use her; and Hagar had a right to shelter and support, since the child was Abraham’s to support. The lesson for women to learn, from Sarah’s conduct in seeking a son for Abraham by such a method, is this: Women who have superior advantages cannot yield to enactments that are unjust to themselves without bringing greater injustice upon other women in less fortunate circumstances. Sarah yielded to a wrong to herself as a childless wife; the result was a worse wrong to Hagar.
543. And furthermore, a wrong position of affairs can seldom be put right without suffering to the innocent, or at least without causing more suffering to others than really deserved. The further incidents show this. When Isaac was weaned, a feast was given, at which Sarah saw Hagar’s son “playing.” Some suppose we must understand this to mean “mocking,” and so the A.V. translates (Genesis 21:9). This is not necessary. Sarah was neither angered nor jealous of a rival’s child. Had this been the case, it is impossible that God should have endorsed, as He did, her conduct that day. Sarah had advanced greatly in character by this time, for we are told that “through faith Sarah received strength to conceive seed” (Hebrews 11:11), and this implies no mean state of grace, for a woman barren from youth, and now past ninety. Sarah had become so enlightened that she revolted at any appearance of polygamy in her household, where Isaac was to be brought up,¾for he had been given them to train for a very definite and holy purpose. Such surroundings were neither wholesome for Isaac nor Ishmael.
Additional Note: The Code of Hammurabi.
Beginning with Lesson 71, we discussed the Mosaic laws, which at best were not ideal. But they were far superior to Hammurabi’s in dealing with women. As an illustration we name the following:
Paragraphs 117 and 119 of Hammurabi’s Code provide for the selling of wives and daughters for debt.
Par. 132 reads: “If the finger has been pointed at the wife of a man because of another man, and she has not been taken in lying with another man, for her husband’s sake she shall throw herself into the water.” Contrast with this the much-slandered Trial of Jealousy (Numbers 5), which allowed the suspected wife the protection of the Tabernacle until by voluntary confession, or an express miracle of God the suspected unchastity was revealed (if it ever was revealed by miracle¾see pars. 585, 586). Exodus 21:22-25 provides that when, under certain circumstances, a woman is injured by a man, the penalty is “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,” etc., that is, a woman’s eye was worth what a man’s was; the sexes were to be held of equal value. But under similar conditions, Hammurabi provides that the injurer was to pay (whatever the injury short of death) 10 shekels of silver to the woman’s father; and in case of the woman’s death, then a daughter of the murderer was to be put to death (Par. 209).
This shows how completely daughters were reckoned as the chattels of their father’s; and there was an express provision for sisters to become the property of brothers, after the father’s death, in Hammurabi’s Code, and these brothers could sell them for concubines.
A wife who became afflicted with disease could not be divorced, according to Hammurabi, but the husband could bring another wife into the house. Presently we shall show that, although polygamy prevailed to some extent among the Israelites, the Mosaic law did not provide for it, though garbled translations of one or two passages in our English and other versions seem to point the other way.
When rationalists contend for the superiority of Hammurabi’s Code over Moses’ we may feel sure that they are ignorant of their Bibles, whatever they may know of Hammurabi.
Posted in GWTW Lesson68 | Tagged Abraham and Sarah, Hagar and Sarah, Hammurabi Code, Mosaic Law |
LESSON 67.
THE FOUNDING OF A CHRISTIAN FAMILY.
(Continued.)
528. But to return to that first household of faith: With all Abraham’s wishes and prayers, as to a prospective heir, he had no mind to take any risk of his life to preserve Sarah, his wife. Before ever He obeyed God, and left his own kindred with Sarah, he put her under bonds to represent herself as merely his sister, to save his own life from all risk (Genesis 12:13), although, as his wife, she had already taken the risk of her own life for Abraham’s sake and for the sake of children,¾the risk that every woman takes who marries.
529. Sarah, at this period, lacked self-respect; and Abraham had insufficient respect for her. He had also, as yet, little faith in God, who, since He had sent them forth to a distant land, would have protected them both. We wonder if Abraham would have represented himself as her “natural protector?” We think so; for he says: “Say, I pray thee, thou art my sister: that it may be well with me for thy sake” (Genesis 12:13). In other words, “Please, Sarah, protect me from all risk to my life, in order that your ‘natural protector’ may survive to protect you.” The “protector” was protected by his wife, and he survived, at the risk of the loss of both wife and heir. See Genesis 12 and 20. We see something of this sort of “protection” in our own day. God was Sarah’s only protector; women would do well to learn that “cursed is the man that trusteth in man” (Jeremiah 17:5), but “they that trust in the Lord shall be like Mount Zion, which cannot be removed, but abideth forever.”
530. Sarah ought not to have agreed to such an arrangement with Abraham, and she would not have done it later in life,¾if we read her character aright, in its unfolding. But not knowing any better, God protected her, and incidentally to that protection, she was given as high a name as could be bestowed upon a human being¾“messiah,” “anointed”¾given to Sarah who lived ages before the great Messiah. 1 Chronicles 16:22 and Psalm 105:15 read, “Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm.” The Hebrew-form “mine-anointed” is generally taken as plural (“mine anointed ones,” as it is translated in the R. V.), but nevertheless it has special application to Sarah and Rebekah. To Sarah, since it was regarding her that God gave commandment to Abimelech, and said, “I suffered thee not to touch her” (Genesis 20:6). And to Rebekah, included with Isaac, in a later Abimelech’s[1] command not to touch them, given doubtless under God’s pressure (Genesis 26:11). Of no other persons is the same word spoken by God, at this early period in history.
531. Before God answered Abraham’s real, but as yet selfish desires, and gave him a son, He had one more lesson to teach him, by a not trivial operation upon a man of ninety-nine (Genesis 17:11), though not decrepit, as a man of those years would be in our day. It was likewise to be performed upon every male of his household; and after that operation, not before, they were in covenant relations with God. This was the act of circumcision. In Abraham’s case, at least. “It was the fit symbol of that removal of the old man, and that renewal of nature which qualified Abraham to be the parent of the holy seed” (Murphy). It is significant that whereas other nations and peoples have practiced and taught the circumcision of women also, this was not required by God, nor ever practiced among the Jews, among whom it signified entrance into covenant relations with God. The reason is not far to seek: long previously to this time woman had been entered into God’s covenant, as progenitress of the coming Christ, in His declaration: “I will put enmity between thee [Satan] and the woman; and between thy seed and her Seed; it shall bruise they head, and thou shalt bruise his heel” (Genesis 3:15).
532. Rebekah, Rachel, Leah, even Rahab and Ruth, not to mention other women of blood foreign to the descendants of Abraham, enter, without ceremony, into the list of ancestors of Jesus Christ. But no male enters that list, save on two conditions: (1) He must be a descendant of Abraham, and (2), like Abraham himself, must have passed through that mysterious ceremony which signified “putting off the body of the sins of the flesh” (Col. 2:11).
533. For an additional explanation of this exemption of women, we go back to the first chapters of Genesis, and what we have emphasized at the beginning. The sins longest indulged have the most tyranny over us. Adam desired to be “as God.” Ambition and lust first of human sins controlled the human race, ambition to rule finding an entrance through Adam, and lust, in addition, through descendants of Cain. Before Abraham could become the father of a chosen race, these sins needed to be extirpated from his character.
534. We have shown the special dealings as to sensuality with Abraham, to perfect his character. Now as to his domineering qualities: He had only pagan ideas of marriage at first, and by this time only scraps of that early dignity of womanhood remained. Without scruple, though a worshipper, of a sort, of the true God, he let Sarah be taken into Pharaoh’s harem (Genesis12:14-20). Doubtless he thought those promises of an abundant seed could be as well fulfilled through any other woman; the promise had been made to him, and he did not think it included Sarah, or he could hardly have been so easy about disposing of her. And more than this, Abraham seems to have thought her his chattel. Making no effort to rescue her from captivity in Pharaoh’s harem, he “received many presents” in exchange for her; for Pharao“entreated Abram well for her sake; and he had sheep, and oxen, and he-asses, and menservants, and maidservants, and she-asses, and camels . . . And Abram went up out of Egypt . . . very rich.” And all this at the cost of Sarah’s moral well-being and risk of virtue, until Pharaoh restored her to him (Genesis 12:16; 13:1).
535. It was here probably at Sarah’s cost that Hagar was obtained; and Hagar was a source of sorrow to the family, and of grievous sin. A childless wife, in the Orient, is set aside after a few years; and the only means of escape from such a fate must be obtained by the childless wife herself; because she could not present her lord with an heir, she must present him with a woman servant who could bear him an heir,¾to be reckoned as the lawful wife’s child. Books on the “Duties of Women,” among the Chinese are embellished with instances of such wifely devotion as this, which is reckoned to be exceedingly “womanly.”[2] The same is the case in India. One of the most vivid accounts of the ceremony, from a native standpoint, will be found under the title, Uma Himavutee, in a book by Mrs. Flora Annie Steel, called In The Permanent Way. Every woman who wishes to understand Sarah should read it.
536. Much has been said in depreciation of Sarah’s character because she gave Hagar her maid to Abraham (Genesis 16:2). We now know that the land of Canaan was, at this time, a dependency of the land from whence they came, the entire region being governed by Hammurabi (Amraphel, of Genesis 14:1). In 1901 a stone slab was discovered at Sura, upon which is engraved his code of laws. He ruled in the days of Abraham over all Mesopotamia, from the mouth of the rivers Tigris and Euphrates to the Mediterranean Coast, and Sarah but yielded to the requirements of the laws of her country in that which she did.
Posted in GWTW Lesson67 | Tagged Abraham and Sarah |
303. To sum up: It seems clear that Jesus Christ MEANT WHAT HE SAID in the words, “No one CAN serve two masters.” It amounts to an impossibility, and God never demands the impossible. Mutual respect, honor, humility, meekness, forbearance, and the yielding of one’s preferences, are incumbent upon all believers, to be exercised under all circumstances short of making allegiance with man such as one owes to God only. Sarah made a greater declaration than her limited intelligence in that age could have fully grasped, but God ordered Abraham to act in accordance with its inexorable law: “The SON of the bondwoman shall not inherit with the son of the free woman.” Let us pass over the circumstances that led to that decision in the Household of Faith,–and an utterance on Sarah’s part that has been misunderstood and misjudged, but we have not space to enter into it now,–and learn the lesson of the words themselves. God establishes no covenant relations with one in bondage. Moses words to Pharaoh knew no variation: “Thus saith the Lord, Let my people go, that they may SERVE ME.” They could not BOTH serve the Egyptians as bondsmen, and God. “No one CAN serve two masters.” God would not take them into full covenant relations with Himself until they were FREE. It is so today. Thousands of Christians, held in bondage by human companions, are crying out for a clearer realization of covenant relations with God, and God’s demand is ever the same: “Let my people go, that they may serve me.” God may remember His covenant with our fathers, but nevertheless we are NEVER in full covenant relations with Him until FREE. And this applies to women as well as men. The freedom or bondage of the mother, moreover, both Sarah and St. Paul declare, shall determine the status of the son. No son of a bondwoman, because of her spirit in him, can, as such, enter into full covenant relations with God. Fathers of sons, who hold their wives in sensual bondage, doom those sons to a personal sensual bondage. It is God’s own law then, that one sex cannot get free and the other sex remain in bondage. It is impossible to understand the enormous extent to which all Christendom has been morally crippled in its progress by the attempt to keep the female sex in bondage, especially to the husband’s sensuality.
305….
they would have, rather, the recently uttered sayings of our Lord, standing out to their minds with startling clearness, because so unlike their Gentile teachings: “The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them: and they that exercise authority over them are called benefactors, But ye shall not be so.” They were not to look upon this exercise of authority as a benevolent thing, but quite the contrary. “No one can serve two masters,” then how could a woman “serve” her husband and her God? And how could her husband be a “benefactor” to her, while exercising authority over her? “Be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your Master, even Christ . . . Neither be ye called Masters: for one is your Master, even Christ. But he that is the greatest among you shall be your servant. And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased.” What a totally different sense have such words as these! And these are the teachings which would be much in the mind and thought of those early Christians, because so recently uttered by their Divine Master.
Posted in GWTW Lesson39 | Tagged 303, 305 |
LESSON 39.
MUST WOMEN OBEY?
300. The word “obedience,” hupakoe, is quite different from the word “subjection.” Its corresponding verb, from which it comes, is hupakouo, and means literally, “to listen to,” with the derived sense of “to obey.” It has always been translated “obey” in the New Testament excepting at one place, Acts 12:13, where Rhoda comes “to listen to” Peter’s knocking. This word has been used nowhere in respect to the wife’s duty to her husband, with one safe exception, in an illustration. In 1 Peter 3:6 the Apostle points women to the example of Sarah, who “obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord,” or “Sir,” as the same is often translated (Matthew 13:27; John 12:21, etc.). So did Jacob call Esau “lord,” though it was God’s revealed will that Jacob should hold the place of superiority; and Aaron called Moses, his younger brother, “lord,” and Moses called the striving Egyptians “lords” (Genesis 33:8,14; Exodus 32:22; Acts 7:26). There was a rabbinical saying which Peter may have known and quoted, here: “The wife of Abraham reverenced him and called him lord.” It is to be noted that Peter’s admonition is “subjection;” his illustration is subjection carried to the point of obedience. When giving a pattern for incitement we are very apt to take an extreme case, “Be unworldly; as Francis of Assisi, a wealthy young man, who renounced all his inheritance, and lived on alms.” By these words the spirit of Francis is the point urged, not the literal copying of his acts. So with Peter’s words here. And that spirit becomes all Christians alike. “In honor preferring one another.”
301. As far as Abraham and Sarah are concerned, we are left in no doubt as to this relation of obedience and respect being mutual and reciprocal; God commanded Abraham to call Sarah by the very respectful name of “Princess,” Genesis 17:15; and the strongest passage in the Bible seeming to enjoin obedience, as between husband and wife, is at Genesis 21:12, “And God said unto Abraham. . . . in all that Sarah saith unto thee, obey her voice.” The Hebrew verb used here, translated into the English, “hearken unto,” is the same word translated “obey” at Genesis 22:18. It means “to listen to,” as does the Greek word “to obey,” but it has been translated “obey” in 89 places in the Old Testament, and carries the sense “obey” as proved by the context, in scores of other places, just as it does in this passage, concerning which there is no doubt that Abraham was to obey in what Sarah told him to do,–“Cast out the bondwoman and her child.”
302. The question naturally is asked: “But in the unique relation existing within the marriage bond, is not the wife bound to unquestioning obedience?” We do not so read the Bible. Turn to Leviticus 20:18, where exists a commandment to prevent unhygienic conduct within the marriage relation. There is no question here but that God held both man and woman equally responsible for trampling upon this hygienic law; and this could not have been the case had the wife been bound to unquestioning obedience to her husband in this matter. In both the Greek and the Catholic Church, we understand that in the marriage service the conditions laid upon the bride and bridegroom are identical. In the United States the word “obey” is seldom used in the marriage ceremony. If, under the Mosaic law, the obligations and responsibilities of the matrimonial relation were identical for man and woman, as the passage cited from Leviticus seems to prove, it is exceedingly difficult to believe that the Gospel message is meant to place women on a lower plane of moral responsibility than the Mosaic law did. (See more on this subject in paragraphs 110, 111.)
303. To sum up: It seems clear that Jesus Christ MEANT WHAT HE SAID in the words, “No one CAN serve two masters.” It amounts to an impossibility, and God never demands the impossible. Mutual respect, honor, humility, meekness, forbearance, and the yielding of one’s preferences, are incumbent upon all believers, to be exercised under all circumstances short of making allegiance with man such as one owes to God only. Sarah made a greater declaration than her limited intelligence in that age could have fully grasped, but God ordered Abraham to act in accordance with its inexorable law: “The SON of the bondwoman shall not inherit with the son of the free woman.” Let us pass over the circumstances that led to that decision in the Household of Faith,–and an utterance on Sarah’s part that has been misunderstood and misjudged, but we have not space to enter into it now,–and learn the lesson of the words themselves. God establishes no covenant relations with one in bondage. Moses words to Pharaoh knew no variation: “Thus saith the Lord, Let my people go, that they may SERVE ME.” They could not BOTH serve the Egyptians as bondsmen, and God. “No one CAN serve two masters.” God would not take them into full covenant relations with Himself until they were FREE. It is so today. Thousands of Christians, held in bondage by human companions, are crying out for a clearer realization of covenant relations with God, and God’s demand is ever the same: “Let my people go, that they may serve me.” God may remember His covenant with our fathers, but nevertheless we are NEVER in full covenant relations with Him until FREE. And this applies to women as well as men. The freedom or bondage of the mother, moreover, both Sarah and St. Paul declare, shall determine the status of the son. No son of a bondwoman, because of her spirit in him, can, as such, enter into full covenant relations with God. Fathers of sons, who hold their wives in sensual bondage, doom those sons to a personal sensual bondage. It is God’s own law then, that one sex cannot get free and the other sex remain in bondage. It is impossible to understand the enormous extent to which all Christendom has been morally crippled in its progress by the attempt to keep the female sex in bondage, especially to the husband’s sensuality.
304. Let us remind ourselves again that when the women of apostolic times, who labored with Paul in the Gospel, either listened to, read, or taught others from the text, Genesis 3:16, they must have understood and taught it as meaning, “Thou art turning away to thy husband, and he will rule over thee,”–for this is the reading of the Septuagint version, which they universally used, and this is the way early Church Fathers invariably quote the verse. These women would not have read, “Thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.” Now without this verse, translated as we have it, and used as an index to Paul’s meaning when he talks on the “woman question,” we may well inquire how these women would have interpreted his words. What sense would Paul’s language about women have conveyed to women who had not been taught “the curse of Eve?” To women who never knew that Genesis taught (?) that God subordinated woman to man at the time of the Fall? To women who had never heard that the Bible taught the wife to obey the husband, because Eve brought sin into the world? Or to a woman who had never heard that, according to the Bible, her “desire” must be under her husband’s control? Such was the condition of mind of the Gentile women, at least, who heard Paul’s letters read. They knew that their heathen religions taught that woman was her husband’s subordinate. But they did not have this teaching from Genesis 3:16, and if not from there, then they found it nowhere in the Old Testament. How differently they must, therefore, have construed Paul’s language!
305. In place of such teachings as this about woman’s “desire,” they would have, rather, the recently uttered sayings of our Lord, standing out to their minds with startling clearness, because so unlike their Gentile teachings: “The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them: and they that exercise authority over them are called benefactors, But ye shall not be so.” They were not to look upon this exercise of authority as a benevolent thing, but quite the contrary. “No one can serve two masters,” then how could a woman “serve” her husband and her God? And how could her husband be a “benefactor” to her, while exercising authority over her? “Be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your Master, even Christ . . . Neither be ye called Masters: for one is your Master, even Christ. But he that is the greatest among you shall be your servant. And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased.” What a totally different sense have such words as these! And these are the teachings which would be much in the mind and thought of those early Christians, because so recently uttered by their Divine Master.
Posted in GWTW Lesson39 | Tagged calling him Lord", hupakoe, hupakouo, Sarah "obeyed Abraham |
290. But are we not to obey Christ? Yes, most certainly; obey Him because He is God, because He is King of kings; and these a husband is not, and he should not usurp Christ’s prerogatives. Christ said: “Be not ye called Rabbi: for ONE is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren.”. . . “Neither be ye called masters; for ONE is your Master, even Christ.” Woman’s spiritual Head is also her King; and so is man’s spiritual Head. But woman’s matrimonial head is not her king,–he is only a fellow-disciple and fellow-servant of the King; and the King has laid down His rules as to the conduct of fellow-disciples towards one another: “Ye know that the princes [rulers] of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them. But it shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister: and whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant” (see Matthew 20:25; Luke 22:25).
291. When the Word says, “the husband is the head of the wife,” by the pen of St. Paul, it merely states a fact; those where the conditions under which women lived at that time. The husband was, in those days, the head of the wife simply because he held the superior place. In days when a man could divorce his wife “for every cause” (Matthew 19:3; and even Christ’s own disciples demurred when Christ declared this was not right), there could be no doubt that women were compelled to be ignorant, inferior and very cheap. The rabbis taught that it was lawful for a man to divorce his wife if she even burned his food. Hence the Apostle says: “Be a head, as Christ is a Head of the Church,–to help your wife upward to your own level,”–for it is only as man imitates Christ in his conduct that he can remain in the Body of which Christ is Head. Therefore the woman should “imitate” (1 Corinthians 11:1, R. V.) St. Paul, and the others in worship. And the man has certain duties to perform toward his wife which are analogous to what Christ purposes to do for His Church, for its elevation, until it shall “reign in life with Christ Jesus.” This is the headship of the husband that Paul speaks of. He would never encourage the husband to imitate Adam and Antichrist in trying to be “as God,” to woman, and to interfere with Christ’s authority over His own servant,–woman.
Posted in GWTW Lesson37 | Tagged 1 Cor 11:1, headship of the husband, Luke 22:25, Matthew 19:3, Matthew 20:25 |
283. “Head” (kephale), in the N. T. is used in the same way as “head” (rosh) in the O. T. for “chief,” in speaking of Christ as the “head of the corner” in six different passages; but these are quotations of, or references to, Psalm 118:22, “The stone which the builders refused is become the head of the corner.” The head or cornerstone gave support to the entire building and was usually of immense size for this purpose; it also bound the sides of a building together. So Christ is the support of His church, and binds its members together into one (Ephesians 4:15-16; Colossians 2:19).
284. We have shown (pars. 248-250) that St. Paul is not teaching the subordination of wife to husband, in 1 Corinthians 11:3-16, unless it be implied in the one phrase, “of a wife the husband is a head;” and we waived the discussion of this symbolism until the present time. As we have already said, the only other place where it is stated that the husband is head of the wife, is Ephesians 5:23, and there we are told in what sense he is head,–as Christ also is Head of the Church” (R. V.). Christ is the cornerstone of the church,–its support, Builder. For Christ is no mere stone; He lives, and Christians are represented by St. Paul as growing “up into Him in all things, which is the Head, even Christ” (Ephesians 4:15). And Colossians 2:19 describes Christ as “the Head, from which all the Body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered, and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God.” Neither of these two passages refers to Christ’s government. They represent Him as the support, nourisher and builder of the Body, its Savior.
285. But Ephesians 1:22 does speak of Christ’s Headship as a reign. God “hath put in subjection all things under His feet” (R. V.); and the preceding verse informs us that this means that all “principalities and powers” are put under Him. But where is His church? The opening verses of the next chapter tells us. We have been quickened, and raised up with Christ. The Church is not, therefore, under His feet, in this headship of governments; it is designed that the Church share His rule,–Revelation 1:6; 3:21; 20:4, etc. We are taught that God gave Him “to be Head over all things to the Church.” He is God’s gift “to the Church” that we might share His headship over all things; as Dean Alford says here: “He possesses nothing for Himself . . . but all things for His Church, which is in innermost reality Himself,”–speaking, of course, of the mystical Body.
Posted in GWTW Lesson37 | Tagged 1 Cor 11:3-16, Col 2:19, Eph 1:22, Eph 4:15, Eph 4:15-16, Eph 5:23, headship of the husband, kephale, Psalm 118:22 |
289. No teaching of the New Testament has ever been more cunningly perverted than this concerning the “headship” of the husband. Does Christ jealously keep the Church from rising into His power: or does He say, “Behold I give you power?” Does He say, “This is My throne, keep away!” to the Church; or does He say, “To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with Me on My throne?” Christ’s delight and His constant exhortation is for us to share His throne-life with him. If we fall short, it certainly is not because He has ever shut the door to our attainment of it. He is not jealous of His own exaltation; He only secured it (for He had it before He came to earth), in such a manner that He might bring it within our grasp also.
Posted in GWTW Lesson37 | Tagged God's Word to Women, headship of the husband, Katharine Bushnell |
LESSON 37.
HEADSHIP IN THE NEW TESTAMENT.
282. The “head” in the symbolic language of the Revelation (where alone it is used in pure symbolism in the N. T., aside from the headship of Christ and of the husband), does not signify rule. The red dragon has diadems on his seven heads to signify rule (Revelation 12:3); the Beast has diadems on his horns (not on his heads) to signify rule (Revelation 13:1); the diadem, not the head, is a symbol of rule in these instances. The heads in each case signify divisions; the diadems, rule. The teaching is that all divisions of rule unite in the dragon, and in the Beast, in turn; they obtain universal sovereignty. In Revelation 17:9, 10, we read: “The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth: and they are seven kings” (R. V.). This refers to the Beast and the Scarlet Woman on the Beast. Here the symbolism is support. Seven mountains support the foundation of this great city, and seven kings support her rule (Revelation 17:18). The Woman rules these “heads;” they do not rule her.
283. “Head” (kephale), in the N. T. is used in the same way as “head” (rosh) in the O. T. for “chief,” in speaking of Christ as the “head of the corner” in six different passages; but these are quotations of, or references to, Psalm 118:22, “The stone which the builders refused is become the head of the corner.” The head or cornerstone gave support to the entire building and was usually of immense size for this purpose; it also bound the sides of a building together. So Christ is the support of His church, and binds its members together into one (Ephesians 4:15-16; Colossians 2:19).
284. We have shown (pars. 248-250) that St. Paul is not teaching the subordination of wife to husband, in 1 Corinthians 11:3-16, unless it be implied in the one phrase, “of a wife the husband is a head;” and we waived the discussion of this symbolism until the present time. As we have already said, the only other place where it is stated that the husband is head of the wife, is Ephesians 5:23, and there we are told in what sense he is head,–as Christ also is Head of the Church” (R. V.). Christ is the cornerstone of the church,–its support, Builder. For Christ is no mere stone; He lives, and Christians are represented by St. Paul as growing “up into Him in all things, which is the Head, even Christ” (Ephesians 4:15). And Colossians 2:19 describes Christ as “the Head, from which all the Body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered, and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God.” Neither of these two passages refers to Christ’s government. They represent Him as the support, nourisher and builder of the Body, its Savior.
285. But Ephesians 1:22 does speak of Christ’s Headship as a reign. God “hath put in subjection all things under His feet” (R. V.); and the preceding verse informs us that this means that all “principalities and powers” are put under Him. But where is His church? The opening verses of the next chapter tells us. We have been quickened, and raised up with Christ. The Church is not, therefore, under His feet, in this headship of governments; it is designed that the Church share His rule,–Revelation 1:6; 3:21; 20:4, etc. We are taught that God gave Him “to be Head over all things to the Church.” He is God’s gift “to the Church” that we might share His headship over all things; as Dean Alford says here: “He possesses nothing for Himself . . . but all things for His Church, which is in innermost reality Himself,”–speaking, of course, of the mystical Body.
286. Christ began to found that Church when He said, “Tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem until ye be endued with power from on high,” then, “Go ye into all the world “. . . preach . . . teach . . . baptize.” (See Luke, Mark and Matthew). Men and women listened to the command; women tarried and got the power as well as men (Acts 2:3-4); but men said: “No! Paul teaches that woman is merely a symbol of the Church; man a symbol of Christ. Therefore woman must not preach; must not teach; nor have power, or she will destroy the symbol.” Symbol of a strange church this! Woman with no message for the world; no converts to baptize; veiled like Judaism; stripped of power.
287. I have a friend, who belongs to a sect which teaches these things. A devout niece who belonged to the same sect confided in this lady that the Spirit often moved upon her with such power, in meetings, that she did not know how to refrain from speaking out; it was like a “fire in her bones.” Her aunt could but advice her, “We ought to obey God rather than men.” Following her aunt’s advice, the next time the Spirit constrained her she did speak out. Sitting far at the back, her husband by her side, the “brethren” sitting with downcast eyes, thought that her husband had spoken so thrillingly. They allowed themselves to be moved mightily by the message; and had an unusually “melting time,” that morning. Then, after meeting, they learned that a woman had done this! In consequence, this “symbol of a church,” who happened to be quite like a church “twice dead and plucked up by the roots,” was driven out of the sect.
288. No church can long survive the silencing of its women. The church which silences women will be found to silence the Holy Spirit. A sect, or sex, or race which attempts a monopoly of the Spirit’s voice and power, will find that the Holy Spirit will flee far from it. Woman is destined to have a very large share in the preaching of God’s messages, and in bringing souls to Christ, for did not God promise, long ages ago, as regards woman, that her seed should bruise the Serpents head?
289. No teaching of the New Testament has ever been more cunningly perverted than this concerning the “headship” of the husband. Does Christ jealously keep the Church from rising into His power: or does He say, “Behold I give you power?” Does He say, “This is My throne, keep away!” to the Church; or does He say, “To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with Me on My throne?” Christ’s delight and His constant exhortation is for us to share His throne-life with him. If we fall short, it certainly is not because He has ever shut the door to our attainment of it. He is not jealous of His own exaltation; He only secured it (for He had it before He came to earth), in such a manner that He might bring it within our grasp also.
290. But are we not to obey Christ? Yes, most certainly; obey Him because He is God, because He is King of kings; and these a husband is not, and he should not usurp Christ’s prerogatives. Christ said: “Be not ye called Rabbi: for ONE is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren.”. . . “Neither be ye called masters; for ONE is your Master, even Christ.” Woman’s spiritual Head is also her King; and so is man’s spiritual Head. But woman’s matrimonial head is not her king,–he is only a fellow-disciple and fellow-servant of the King; and the King has laid down His rules as to the conduct of fellow-disciples towards one another: “Ye know that the princes [rulers] of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them. But it shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister: and whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant” (see Matthew 20:25; Luke 22:25).
291. When the Word says, “the husband is the head of the wife,” by the pen of St. Paul, it merely states a fact; those where the conditions under which women lived at that time. The husband was, in those days, the head of the wife simply because he held the superior place. In days when a man could divorce his wife “for every cause” (Matthew 19:3; and even Christ’s own disciples demurred when Christ declared this was not right), there could be no doubt that women were compelled to be ignorant, inferior and very cheap. The rabbis taught that it was lawful for a man to divorce his wife if she even burned his food. Hence the Apostle says: “Be a head, as Christ is a Head of the Church,–to help your wife upward to your own level,”–for it is only as man imitates Christ in his conduct that he can remain in the Body of which Christ is Head. Therefore the woman should “imitate” (1 Corinthians 11:1, R. V.) St. Paul, and the others in worship. And the man has certain duties to perform toward his wife which are analogous to what Christ purposes to do for His Church, for its elevation, until it shall “reign in life with Christ Jesus.” This is the headship of the husband that Paul speaks of. He would never encourage the husband to imitate Adam and Antichrist in trying to be “as God,” to woman, and to interfere with Christ’s authority over His own servant,–woman.
Posted in GWTW Lesson37 | Tagged 1 Cor 11:3-16, Acts 2:3-4, Col 2:19, Eph 1:22, Eph 4:15, Eph 4:15-16, Eph 5:23, God's Word to Women, Katharine Bushnell, kephale, Luke 22:25, Matthew 19:3, Matthew 20:25, Psalm 118:22, Rev 13:1, Rev 17:18, Rev 17:9-10, Revelation 12 |
189. The Apostle Paul speaks twice, in his first Epistle to the Corinthians, concerning the public ministry of women, in 1 Corinthians 11:3-16, and 14:29-40. We shall treat of the second utterance, as the simpler, first. Please read these two passages in turn, and note that they occur in the same letter, and if the writer was not interrupted, he wrote the second in the next breath after the first, that is, one could not have been written more than fifteen minutes or a half hour after the other. This point is important. Next note that if St. Paul veiled women he did not silence women, for, according to this interpretation he ordered them to veil only when prophesying or praying, not at other times; so that, if they were silenced they were left unveiled, so far as Scripture teaches. Yet the general idea and teaching is that Paul both veiled and silenced women.
Posted in GWTW Lesson25 | Tagged 1 Cor 11, 1 Cor 14, 189 |
LESSON 25.
SHALL WOMEN KEEP SILENCE?
189. The Apostle Paul speaks twice, in his first Epistle to the Corinthians, concerning the public ministry of women, in 1 Corinthians 11:3-16, and 14:29-40. We shall treat of the second utterance, as the simpler, first. Please read these two passages in turn, and note that they occur in the same letter, and if the writer was not interrupted, he wrote the second in the next breath after the first, that is, one could not have been written more than fifteen minutes or a half hour after the other. This point is important. Next note that if St. Paul veiled women he did not silence women, for, according to this interpretation he ordered them to veil only when prophesying or praying, not at other times; so that, if they were silenced they were left unveiled, so far as Scripture teaches. Yet the general idea and teaching is that Paul both veiled and silenced women.
190. Now turn to the second passage: Fix your attention, for a moment, on verses 31-36. Does it not seem strange that unless Paul means “all,” he should have repeated “all” three times over? It is probable that the women far outnumbered the men in these early churches, held in the homes of the people,[4] for they have usually outnumbered the men throughout Church history even since meetings have been held in public churches. Now if only a small fraction of the attendants (the mature men released from business so that they could be at home meetings), were allowed to prophesy (Paul says nothing about mere Sunday meetings), then why did the Apostle say, “Ye may all prophesy, one by one, that all may learn, and all may be comforted?”
191. Again, at verse 34 he says, “It is not permitted . . . as also saith the law.” Who did not permit it? Where was it not permitted? The O. T. says absolutely nothing from Genesis to Malachi to forbid women to speak. No “law” can be found anywhere in the Bible forbidding women to speak in public, unless it be this one only utterance here by St. Paul. And besides, we know perfectly that the O. T. permitted women to speak in public (Numbers 27:1-7), and Jesus Christ did also, without rebuke, Luke 8:47, 11:27, 13:13.
192. What is actually known about the situation which occasioned the writing of this Epistle to the Corinthians? We gather from the Epistle itself that the Corinthian Christians had written Paul a letter (7:1) and he is answering it. There were divisions among them (1:11). He had enemies at Corinth, who disputed his right to be called an Apostle (9:1), and criticized him and his companions for leading about a woman with them (9:5) and he declares that “we” have as much right to do it as “the other apostles, and the brethren of the Lord, and Cephas.” Who was this woman? Doubtless Priscilla, who with Aquila her husband had left Corinth, in company with the Apostle, shortly before (Acts 18:18), the woman whom Paul mentions before her husband. He actually dares to put this woman’s “head” on behind! How that would scandalize the proprieties of modern theology! She was, all are bound to agree, a very able person, and well known to: “all the churches of the Gentiles” (Romans 16:4), and how could that be if she was altogether silenced and veiled? Paul was probably writing this very Epistle in her home at Ephesus (1 Corinthians 16:19). Here we have the proper setting for these words addressed to the Corinthians.
193. Aquila was a Jew of Pontus in Asia Minor, converted to Christ, and his wife probably also a native of Asia Minor (Acts 18:2). Here women were held in great honor, as Professor W.M. Ramsay of Aberdeen University clearly shows in his valuable books, The Church in the Roman Empire, and The Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia. This woman would expect to take her position as on a perfect equality with her husband, and the attempt to do so on her part would at once arouse the ire of the Palestinian Jews who pursued Paul wherever he went, the so called “Judaizers,” bent on winning the Church back to Judaism. We believe this is what stirred up the “woman question” at Corinth, and led to Paul’s two famous utterances in the Epistle.
194. Says Prof. Ramsay: “The honors and influence which belonged to women in the cities of Asia Minor form one of the most remarkable features in the history of the country. In all periods the evidence runs on the same lines. On the border between fable and history we find the Amazons. The best authenticated cases of Mutterrect[5] belong to Asia Minor. Under the Roman Empire we find women magistrates, presidents at games, and loaded with honors. The custom of the country influenced even the Jews, who at least in one case appointed a woman at Smyrna to the position of archisyna-gogus” (“ruler of the synagogue”). Again he says: “Among the Asian Jews, women took an unusually prominent place.” But later, when Priscilla was at Corinth, she was in a totally different atmosphere, as regards the position of woman. Here, all she did would be subject to severe criticism by the “Judaizers,” and by the Jews, who must have hated her for having instructed Apollos so well that he was converting many of their number to Christianity (Acts 18:26,28, and 19:1); and St. Paul could not have given a woman such prominence under any circumstances without angering the Jews, for the latter (of a later date at least, and probably by this time), forbade that women should even learn the Scriptures, much less teach them.
195. For candid scholars admit that, according to the best manuscript authority Acts 18:26 should read as in the R.V.(not as in the A.V.) that is Priscilla and Aquila expounded” unto Apollos the Way of God; and Dean Alford says. “There are certain indications that he himself (Aquila) was rather the ready and zealous patron than the teacher; and this latter work, or a great share of it, seems to have belonged to his wife, Prisca or Priscilla. She is ever named with him, even in Acts 18:26, where the instruction of Apollos is described.” When first met with, and comparative strangers to St. Paul and Luke, the husband is mentioned first, according to usual custom (Acts18:2), but quickly the order changes: after eighteen months’ acquaintance (Acts 18:11) Priscilla is mentioned first (Acts 18:18,26; Romans 16:3; 2 Timothy 4:19) with a single exception (1 Corinthians 16:19 ).
196. We are not accustomed to look to German sources for broad-minded statements as regards women, therefore we the more readily turn in that direction for a statement as to Priscilla’s position in the Apostolic Church. Prof. Harnack of Berlin says, “In any case she must have been associated with and more distinguished than her husband. That is verified from Acts 18:26 and Rom 16:3, convincingly. For according to the former passage not only Aquila, but she also instructed Apollos. One is allowed to infer from it that she was the chief instructor; otherwise she would scarcely have been mentioned. And in the Roman Epistle Paul calls her and Aquila not the latter only his ‘fellow-laborers in Christ Jesus.’ This expression, not so very frequently employed by Paul, signifies much. By its use Priscilla and Aquila are legitimized official Evangelists and Teachers. Paul adds, moreover the following: ‘Who for my life laid down their own necks; unto whom not only I give thanks, but also all the churches of the Gentiles.‘ To what heroic service the first half of this clause refers we unfortunately know not. From the second part it follows that the Christian activity of the couple was genuinely ecumenical work. Why ‘all the churches of the Gentiles’ were obliged to thank Priscilla and Aquila Paul does not say.” Then Dr. Harnack adds in a footnote, quoting the views of Origen and Chrysostom as in accord with his own, “That the thanks of the Gentile churches relate only to the fact that Priscilla and Aquila saved the life of the Apostle is to me not probable.”
(To be continued.)
[4] The meetings of the Corinthian Church were probably held in the house of Gaius (1 Cor. 1:14; Rom. 16:23).
[5] Matriarchy, see pars. 53ff.
Posted in GWTW Lesson25 | Tagged 1 Cor 11, God's Word to Women, I Cor 14, Katharine Bushnell, Priscilla |
816. We believe the word “woman” is used in Revelation 12 in precisely the same sense as in Genesis 3:15, 16. On the contrary, most expositors teach that the woman is the visible Church; and the man child is the invisible, real, or spiritual Church; so we will examine this teaching: This vision of John’s¾of the woman¾is followed by chapters that relate to the Lord’s second coming. But St. Paul tells us that Christ will not come “except there come a falling away first” (2 Thessalonians 2:3). This means that the visible Church will be fallen away from Christ, it will be in spiritual darkness. But this woman is represented as “clothed with the sun,” and that, just about the time of the Lord’s return. She surely does not represent that fallen Laodicean Church, which is “wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked” (Revelation 3:17). “Clothed with the sun,” means clothed with Christ, “the sun of righteousness.”
Posted in GWTW Lesson98 | Tagged 2 Thes 2:3, Gen 3:15, Gen 3:16, Rev 3:17, Revelation 12 |
823. We are driven to the conclusion that, just as the covenant promise of Genesis 3:15 was fulfilled to a literal woman, up to a certain extent, in the birth of Jesus Christ of a virgin (no human male having any part in its realization), so will it be to the end. As Christ was born of a literal woman, so will this man child be born of that sex. The beginning of the fulfillment was to one woman; but it seems more likely that the filling out to the full of the terms of that great covenant will be to many of that sex,¾a body of women.
824. Since the only actual interpretation of prophecy must come after, not before its fulfillment, we can only form a conjecture as to the meaning of these things. Since the sign John saw was “in heaven,” the events seem to refer to the spiritual world. The agony and travail of the Woman seem to signify some great spiritual travail of soul into which women will be plunged just before the Lord’s second coming; and as a result a large body of men (the man child), of exceptional holiness and devotion will rise; this will be that bringing forth of a man child. The entire sign relates to spiritual transaction; and the man child will be the spiritual, not the physical, seed of the woman.
…
827. The “childbearing” of Revelation 12 is that same “childbearing” of 1 Timothy 2:15, of which the Apostle Paul speaks prophetically, in connection with those words about the formation of woman after man, in the spiritual sense. He says of woman: “She shall be saved through the childbearing [R. V.], if they continue in charity and holiness with sobriety.” We have elsewhere spoken of the partial fulfillments of this prophecy (par. 209), but now we come to its completion, in the special protection and care of Almighty God, when the world is in the throes of the Great Tribulation. Because Woman has brought forth that man child who will, with Michael’s help, cast Satan down to the earth (12:13), Woman will be borne away into “the wilderness” beyond his power of avenging himself further on her.
Posted in GWTW Lesson99 | Tagged 1 Tim 2:15, 823, 824, 827, God's Word to Women, Katharine Bushnell, Lesson 99, Revelation 12, the childbearing |
LESSON 98.
THE “GREAT SIGN.”
810. The student will now be prepared for an exhibition of the complete fulfillment of God’s promise that the seed of the woman should crush the Serpent’s head. The revelation of that greater fulfillment will be found in John’s vision of events attendant upon the Lord’s second coming¾Revelation 12. But the last verse of chapter 11 should be joined with it. John saw that the Temple of God was opened in heaven, “And there was seen in His temple the ark of His testament.” This last word is the same one which is translated in other places “covenant;” so we will read it “covenant” here,¾“The ark of His covenant.” God wishes all in heaven to witness that He remembers His covenant; He opens the temple in heaven,¾that is, the inner sanctuary of it,¾so that all can see into the very “holy of holies,” see the ark in it, to be reminded of a certain covenant. The twelfth chapter must, then, show the fulfillment of that certain covenant,¾or, at least, the beginning of its fulfillment.
811. We must discover what, precisely, that covenant means.
(1) The first thing mentioned in chapter twelve is “a great sign” (R. V.),¾so we decide that the covenant it represents must be some “great covenant,” or promise (verse 1).
(2) The principal figure in the “sign” is a woman.
(3) The chapter tells us about “that old Serpent, called the devil and Satan” (v. 9).
(4) Whose chief characteristics are that he is a “deceiver,” and a persecutor of both the “woman” and the “seed” of the woman (verses 9, 13, 17).
(5) We are told, also, that she bore “a man child” (part of her seed) who was caught up to God and His throne (v. 5); and Satan, “was cast out into the earth,” and after persecuting the woman until she was rescued from him (verses 6, 14), he turned upon “the remnant of her seed” (v. 17).
812. Now need we call attention to how vividly this “great sign” portrays a fulfillment, in outline, of that greatest covenant promise God ever made, in words He addressed neither to man nor woman directly, but to that same “old Serpent” the devil and Satan, the last time but this that he was mentioned in Scripture as the “Serpent” when He said,¾“I will put enmity between thee and the woman; and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel” (Genesis 3:15)? Furthermore, God said to that “old Serpent” at that time: “Upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life.” In Ephesians 2:2, Satan is called “the prince of the power of the air,” but from the time this war takes place “in heaven” he holds that place of exaltation, or erection, no longer. He is “cast down to the earth,” or ground, never to rise again (verse 9). Here we see, then, an outline of the fulfillment of “that promise, of which the whole of the rest of Scripture is but the record of the gradual stages of its fulfillment,”¾a fulfillment which, when these events of the closing chapters of the Revelation take place, will leave nothing undone that can give it greater fulfillment.
813. How completely the terms of the sign meet those of the covenant! We have the “woman;” the “enmity;” the “deceiver;” the “Serpent,” his head bruised in war; himself driven down to “eat the dust of the earth,” and the seed which was snatched up to heaven, with the “remnant,” or remainder of her seed suffering still from the Serpent’s enmity; and then follows in the succeeding chapters a description of that time of the Great Tribulation, “as travail upon a woman with child” (1 Thessalonians 5:3)¾filling out to the full, even in its spiritual completion, the words, “In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children” (Genesis 3:16).
814. Some would hold that the promise of Genesis 3:15 was completely fulfilled in the birth, death and resurrection of Christ, followed by His ascent to sit “on the right hand of God,” on His throne. But like all prophecy which has had, as yet, only partial fulfillment, the details do not fit, in all particulars, to the complete prophecy. The head of Satan, as we have already said, was not at once crushed at the time Christ rose, victorious. Christ is still “expecting till His enemies be made His footstool.” This chapter twelve, then, tells about the enmity between the Serpent and the woman; of a victory won 1900 years ago by Christ, her Seed, “caught up to God and His throne,” yet typical of the woman’s seed that is yet to be caught up to God and His throne; and her persecution, and that of the “remnant of her seed,” by that same Serpent. Chapter thirteen tells us more details about the enmity between the Serpent and “the remnant” of the woman’s seed, the persecution of her seed by Satan’s seed¾Antichrist and the False Prophet. Chapter fifteen shows us further details of the woman’s seed escaped to heaven, and standing on the “sea mingled with fire.”
Posted in GWTW Lesson98 | Tagged 810, 811, 812, 813, 814, God's Word to Women, Katharine Bushnell, Revelation 12 |
807. Dean Payne-Smith speaks of this wonderful passage, Genesis 3:15, as “that promise, of which the whole of the rest of Scripture is but the record of the gradual stages of its fulfillment.” But though Jesus Christ has conquered death, by rising from the grave, the enmity still continues; the conflict is still on. Christ is seated at the right hand of God; nevertheless “we see not yet all things put under his feet” (Hebrews 2:8), for He sits “on the right hand of God; from henceforth expecting till His enemies be made His footstool” (Hebrews 10:12-13).
…
809. Such being the facts¾and who can dispute them?¾have we not every reason for thinking that God would provide, in prophecy, some vision which would exhibit not a partial, a typical, but a final, complete fulfillment of that Great Promise that He had made regarding woman and her seed?
810. The student will now be prepared for an exhibition of the complete fulfillment of God’s promise that the seed of the woman should crush the Serpent’s head. The revelation of that greater fulfillment will be found in John’s vision of events attendant upon the Lord’s second coming¾Revelation 12. But the last verse of chapter 11 should be joined with it. John saw that the Temple of God was opened in heaven, “And there was seen in His temple the ark of His testament.” This last word is the same one which is translated in other places “covenant;” so we will read it “covenant” here,¾“The ark of His covenant.” God wishes all in heaven to witness that He remembers His covenant; He opens the temple in heaven,¾that is, the inner sanctuary of it,¾so that all can see into the very “holy of holies,” see the ark in it, to be reminded of a certain covenant. The twelfth chapter must, then, show the fulfillment of that certain covenant,¾or, at least, the beginning of its fulfillment.
Posted in GWTW Lesson97, GWTW Lesson98 | Tagged 807, 809, 810, covenant, Genesis 3:15, Lesson 97, Lesson 98, Revelation 12 |
799. Scripture prediction, or prophecy, as it is popularly called, is not merely sacred history written beforehand. That which is prophesied generally relates to events which take place with increasing accuracy as to the details described in the prophecy, in succeeding epochs of human history, until the details are filled out to the full. Providence designs that we shall only grasp the chief features of the description before the fulfillment,¾and that, for two main purposes: First, that we may recognize, as the events take place, that the Bible prophecy is inspired,¾is the promulgation of One who knows the future as well as the past, and so our faith in Him be cultivated (John 14:29); and second, that when we see the event predicted about to come to pass, we may regulate our conduct to suit it (Luke 21:20-21), and prepare for what is coming.
Posted in GWTW Lesson97 | Tagged 799, Lesson 97, prophecy |
803. Like a great stone into a calm sea, Satan hurled his social disorder into this world. A billow of the sea does not push the water from one shore to the other; it merely lends its motion to the water just in front of its progress. And a wave, if uninterrupted, does not change its general features. So with the billow of social disorder. It did not die with the individuals who first felt its force. They died, but it rolled on to succeeding generations carrying ever with it the same social characteristics. God and His prophets have been watching the course of that billow from the first, and from time to time telling us about it and opposing fresh obstacles to its progress; but ever it is the same old billow, yet acting upon fresh individuals.
…
806. We have described the billow as a wrecking force of evil. But with it is its enemy, the contending force of good,¾the seed of the woman,¾pre-eminently, her great Seed, Jesus Christ. But not only is it prophesied that her seed should be at enmity with Satan, but WOMAN HERSELF shall wage war with Satan. So from the beginning of evil we have the promise of good; even that greatest of all promises, “I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.”
807. Dean Payne-Smith speaks of this wonderful passage, Genesis 3:15, as “that promise, of which the whole of the rest of Scripture is but the record of the gradual stages of its fulfillment.” But though Jesus Christ has conquered death, by rising from the grave, the enmity still continues; the conflict is still on. Christ is seated at the right hand of God; nevertheless “we see not yet all things put under his feet” (Hebrews 2:8), for He sits “on the right hand of God; from henceforth expecting till His enemies be made His footstool” (Hebrews 10:12-13).
808. The same writer speaks thus concerning this “primeval promise made to the woman in the hour of the first great earthly sorrow: From that day onward one purpose, and one only, is ever kept in view in God’s dealings with His fallen creatures. The promise was that man, worsted in his first encounter with his spiritual adversary, should crush the adversary’s head by means of one of the same nature as himself, emphatically the woman’s seed. That promise contained in outline the whole of prophecy. Of that promise the Gospel is the one fulfillment. From the day on which Eve was comforted by it, all God’s dealings in grace;¾for the Bible has nothing to do with God’s dealings except as they belong to the covenant of grace; it is not a book of natural religion, but of supernatural;¾but all God’s dealings with man in grace, which are the proper object-matter of the Bible, relate to the performance of that promise.”
809. Such being the facts¾and who can dispute them?¾have we not every reason for thinking that God would provide, in prophecy, some vision which would exhibit not a partial, a typical, but a final, complete fulfillment of that Great Promise that He had made regarding woman and her seed?
Posted in GWTW Lesson97 | Tagged 803, 806, 807, 808, 809, God's Word to Women, Katharine Bushnell, Lesson 97, prophecy |
791. But woman will emerge¾in fact, is now emerging¾from obscurity. It is amazing that certain men most insistent on the doctrine that Christ is coming soon, are blindly zealous in delaying that coming as much as possible, by hindering the emancipation of woman, and her ministry in the Gospel. They refuse to see that the express order of development in Christ’s kingdom on earth was given by Christ Himself in the two parables of the Kingdom; and by the Apostle Paul in the symbol, “Adam was first formed, then Eve” (1 Timothy 2:13).
see also “she shall be saved through the child-bearing” (YLT)
Posted in GWTW Lesson96 | Tagged 1 Tim 2:13, 791 |
802. Let us seek for a clearer understanding of this matter: All Scripture is, in one sense or another, the account of a great struggle between right and wrong, or, more properly speaking, between beings arrayed on the side of right and wrong. We are to be instructed which is the right and which is the wrong side. Let us go back, then, to the time when there was no such struggle involving the human family. In imagination we stand, now, on the very edge of human history, in God’s great calm, when He had just made the world, and pronounced all His creatures “very good.” Presently the calm is broken, first by a mere ripple on God’s great ocean of calm, at the edge where we stand. Then occurs the entrance of Satan into the Garden. Then comes sin in humanity (Genesis 3:6), and now it is more than a ripple. Next, an opposing force of good strikes against the wave, tossing it yet higher,¾that is Eve’s confession, and denunciation of the Deceiver. Thus the war begins,¾for God puts enmity between Satan and the woman, and between the “seed” of each. Like a great billow, rushing in an ever-widening circle, onward to the end of time, ever with increasing violence, the strife rages, social right and social wrong in fierce conflict. This was in Christ’s mind that day that the disciples asked Him these questions.
see also Eve’s Choice and Adam’s. Move over “TRADITION”: the ultimate “log and splinter” deflection EXPOSED!
Posted in GWTW Lesson97 | Tagged 802, Lesson 97 |
799. Scripture prediction, or prophecy, as it is popularly called, is not merely sacred history written beforehand. That which is prophesied generally relates to events which take place with increasing accuracy as to the details described in the prophecy, in succeeding epochs of human history, until the details are filled out to the full. Providence designs that we shall only grasp the chief features of the description before the fulfillment,¾and that, for two main purposes: First, that we may recognize, as the events take place, that the Bible prophecy is inspired,¾is the promulgation of One who knows the future as well as the past, and so our faith in Him be cultivated (John 14:29); and second, that when we see the event predicted about to come to pass, we may regulate our conduct to suit it (Luke 21:20-21), and prepare for what is coming.
800. Before ever visiting Jerusalem, we made a study in certain books of its general features. But when we visited the place, we recognized that our imagination had failed to form a correct picture of it. Nevertheless that previous study proved most useful, for it enabled us to understand much that we saw without explanation. After we saw, we recognized the accuracy of the descriptions; and we were able to understand where we were without a guide. So with prophecy: It has been given to us to study in the present and put to use in the future. Therefore we need not understand it fully until it is fulfilled, though it is a matter of no small importance that we study it. Someone has said, “The only certain interpretation of Scripture prophecy is its fulfillment.”
801. The voice of God is, in its very nature, prophetic. He is not conditioned by time and space, like ourselves. Yet when He speaks we scarcely know how to understand His meaning until we have replies to questions relating to time and space. When will this occur, where will it occur, and how long a time will it occupy?¾and kindred questions at once spring to our lips. Take as an illustration the Lord’s great prophecy of Matthew 24. His disciples asked three questions: (1) “Tell us when these things shall be,” (2) “What shall be the sign of Thy coming, and (3) of the end of the world?” As to the Lord’s answer, many have professed to be able to dissect it into three sets of answers, as relating to the three questions asked. But who is satisfied with the dissection? The Lord’s reply to the questions is prophetic; and since such predictions relate to events due, with increasing accuracy, at stated periods of time, and not generally to one period, the prediction baffles dissection after this manner. Expositors talk of this as the “pregnant” nature of prophecy. Each fulfillment is but a type of a yet future and more accurate fulfillment, until the prophecy has been, in very truth, filled out to the full.
Posted in GWTW Lesson97 | Tagged 799, 800, 801, Bible, God's Word to Women, Katharine Bushnell, Lesson 97, prophecy |
Join Us:
Translation Tool
Please Note
Pages
Categories
- 1Tim
- Genesis
- GWTW Lesson 1
- GWTW Lesson 2
- GWTW Lesson 3
- GWTW Lesson 4
- GWTW Lesson 5
- GWTW Lesson 6
- GWTW Lesson 7
- GWTW Lesson 8
- GWTW Lesson 9
- GWTW Lesson10
- GWTW Lesson11
- GWTW Lesson12
- GWTW Lesson13
- GWTW Lesson14
- GWTW Lesson15
- GWTW Lesson16
- GWTW Lesson17
- GWTW Lesson18
- GWTW Lesson19
- GWTW Lesson20
- GWTW Lesson21
- GWTW Lesson22
- GWTW Lesson23
- GWTW Lesson25
- GWTW Lesson37
- GWTW Lesson38
- GWTW Lesson39
- GWTW Lesson43
- GWTW Lesson45
- GWTW Lesson47
- GWTW Lesson50
- GWTW Lesson51
- GWTW Lesson52
- GWTW Lesson53
- GWTW Lesson67
- GWTW Lesson68
- GWTW Lesson69
- GWTW Lesson77
- GWTW Lesson78
- GWTW Lesson95
- GWTW Lesson96
- GWTW Lesson97
- GWTW Lesson98
- GWTW Lesson99
- Related points from several lessons- collected
- Uncategorized
Buy a Book
-
Recent Posts
- “God’s Word to Women” by Katharine Bushnell
- SEX BIAS INFLUENCES TRANSLATORS
- More on “The Headship of the Husband”
- Is sexual gluttony and coercion in Christian marriage validated by 1 Cor. 7 ?
- Isaiah 3:12- “the nation could sink no lower than to pass under women rulers”???
- SEX BIAS INFLUENCES TRANSLATORS
- The wisdom of woman buildeth her house
- “subjection”/”submission” is REST/”wait upon the LORD”!
- The Maturing of Sarah
- THE FOUNDING OF A CHRISTIAN FAMILY (Concluded)
- THE FOUNDING OF A CHRISTIAN FAMILY (continued)
- THE FOUNDING OF A CHRISTIAN FAMILY.
- All Christendom has been morally crippled in its progress by the attempt to keep the female sex in bondage
- MUST WOMEN OBEY?
- This is the headship of the husband that Paul speaks of!
-
- 110,419 hits
Recent Comments
God's Word to Women 