In Genesis, for two chapters we are given the account of the creation story. God calls forth the plants, animals etc. and they come into existence. When it got to the turn of man, God said ‘Let us make man in our own image and in our likeness…’. God indeed set out to create a being that would bear his image, his likeness and have dominion over creation. Genesis goes on to state a very important truth that we must bear in mind as we move on. It said ‘… male and female he created them’. This is interesting. It means no single sex owns the rights to the image of God. Not males. Not females. Both men and women equally bear the image of God. Therefore, none of us has the right to claim we are better image bearers of God or we bear God’s image in a greater measure than another person because of our sex. He made us all in his image.

The bible states that God is not a man. ‘Man’ here doesn’t necessarily mean male but human. Jesus also tells us that ‘God is spirit…’. One of the major reasons why God made the two sexes is, reproduction. We are sure of this because the first command God gave to Adam and Eve is to ‘be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth…’. To the best of my knowledge, we are not told anywhere in scripture that spirit beings reproduce. Spirit beings are not sexual beings. So is it right to classify God who is spirit as either male or female?

The Incarnation of Christ

God made men and women in his image and this is a fact that cannot be disputed because it has been emphatically stated in scripture. However, the incarnation of THE WORD, Jesus Christ, poses a bit of a problem for us so far as this topic is concerned. Not only that but the fact that Jesus referred to God while he was on earth as his father. Also, the Bible describes Jesus as the express image of the invisible God, so if Jesus is a male then are we to assume God is a male too? This is what I have to say to that, sex (male and female) only came into existence when God created living things. The Bible describes God as the God who was, who is and who is to come. God existed way before he made anything material. He decided to come down as one of the two sexes and reveal himself to us as the father. That is it. However, how do we understand this truth in light of the already stated fact that women too are made in the image of God?

From the get-go, the Jews knew Jesus was going to be a male because of Old Testament prophecy. Isaiah said ‘unto us, a child is born, unto us, a son is given’. Jesus being a man is a fact that transcends time. For when he died he died as a man when he resurrected he did so as a man. A man who could be touched and felt. He even sat and ate with his disciples when he resurrected. Also, he is God. So we are very confident about the sex of Jesus. Concerning God, the first person of the Trinity, he has revealed himself to us as the Father. This is also a fact that we cannot overlook in this discussion. The Trinity is made up of three distinct personalities and we know that Jesus was incarnated as a man amongst the three. Therefore it is Jesus’ sex (both on earth and in eternity) we are 100% percent sure of. There is no contradiction in the fact that God made both men and women in his image, came down as a man and has revealed himself to us as the father. To state that this is a contradiction is to say God’s entire being can ONLY be expressed as a male. Or that God exhausted his entire nature in his coming to earth as a man. And this is rather a contradiction of what is stated in Genesis regarding God making both men and women in his image and after his likeness.  This tells us that bearing the image of God goes beyond sex and any human classification. To bear God’s image is to literally have his DNA and his imprint on you. Whether you are a man or a woman once you find yourself on this earth you are made in God’s image and likeness. So yes, we are sure of the fact that Jesus is male, God is revealed to us as the father and lastly, both men and women are made in the image of God. This is to say that men get their maleness from God and women get their femaleness from God.

The Idolatry of having a wrong image of God

“People are not allowed to make images of God because he already made images of himself – the Bible Project (Image of God)”

Paul makes a very important statement in his letter to the Corinthians that addresses the topic under discussion. He says in 2 Corinthians 5:16 that ‘Wherefore, henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more’. The new creation realities are in reference to the regenerated spirit, not the flesh. So when a man comes to the saving knowledge of Christ we say he is born again, not his body but his spirit. Therefore, we regard no man after the flesh but we know each man in spirit or we regard each person as spirit. Paul says if in the past we knew Christ after the flesh, we do so no more. Jesus is not a man that we have deified but rather he is God who came down to this earth as a man. There are people who raise who Jesus was on earth above his deity or they simply have little or no regard at all for his deity. Some say he was merely a moral teacher, others see him as a Jewish mythological character and some others see him as an ancient street magician. What a poor way to regard Jesus Christ!

Spoken Word poet Jackie Hill-Perry said ‘we have to understand God rightly to know him intimately’ and I agree with her. We have to endeavor to know God rightly to worship him rightly. Take for example someone who believes God listens to prayers only on Wednesdays. This person would have to wait until it is Wednesday to pray to God because perhaps according to his theology God is asleep for the rest of the week. But we know the truth because we are told in scripture that He who watches over Israel neither sleeps nor slumbers, meaning he is accessible all day every day. You can create a caricature of God and worship it because you are not well-informed and lack revelation of who he truly is. This is idolatry.

Apostle Paul said in Romans 1:23 that some men thought of themselves as wise not knowing they were fools and they changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man, and to birds etc. The first stage of idolatry is to change the image of God into something else. The concept of idolatry is more nuanced than we make it out to be. Most times it is more mental, psychological, intellectual than it is spiritual and physical. For some of us so far as we don’t have a physical object in our rooms that we pray to in earnest spirituality, we assume we don’t engage in idolatry. When your understanding of who God is is far from the truth, however you are still devoted to that false image of God in worship, you are an idolater. We have to know God for who he is and not for what we want him to be or what we wish he was.

I say this because I’ve seen people raise concerns about the place of women in the Christian faith because Jesus came down to the world as a man and the fact that God has revealed himself to us as a father. I’ve also seen some people claim that men are superior to women because they believe men bear God’s image in a greater measure than women. Both groups of people do not take into consideration what is said about men and women being made in the image of God in the book of Genesis. Basically, the first group is trying to create God in their own image. The second is exalting males over females because God came down to earth as a male and has revealed himself to us as a father. By insisting on putting God into a human classification that we belong to and refusing to worship him until it is universally accepted as such, we are saying until God is made in our image, he isn’t worthy of our worship. Until God looks like us, we won’t worship him. That, my friends, is idolatry. It is not God we desire to worship it is our nature.

Exalting yourself above others because of your sex for any reason at all (including the misinterpretation of scripture) is sexism. This too is idolatry. When we do this, we worship our maleness and not God. This kind of thinking is based on a lie that the revelation of God as a father and his incarnation as the Son is a fact that makes men generally superior to women. Paul said, ‘…there is neither male nor female… for we are all one in Christ’. This doesn’t mean that there is no sex/gender in Christ, rather it implies that the unifying factor in Christianity far outweighs the physical, features that may distinguish us.

“And it shall come to pass afterward,
that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh;
your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
your old men shall dream dreams,
and your young men shall see visions.
Even on the male and female servants
in those days, I will pour out my Spirit.” – Joel 2:28

The outpouring of the spirit of God in the last days, as prophesied by Joel, is not limited to men. Two times in this very prophecy Joel tells us that both men and women will experience this. All flesh means all flesh. Does this in any way mean that until this prophecy women were not able to prophesy in scripture? Certainly not. The bible is replete with examples of women operating in the prophetic ministry from the Old Testament even to the new. In this particular write-up, I will talk a lot about women in both the Old and New Testaments who instructed men, prophesied and operated in any of the 5-fold ministries.

In the Old Testament, we see quite a number of prophetesses, amongst them are Prophetess Miriam, Huldah, Deborah and Isaiah’s wife. Deborah was not only a prophetess, she was also a Judge. In the Old Testament, before Israel had kings, judges were ordained by God himself to lead his people. Gideon and Sampson were judges too. Deborah was so influential during her time as a judge that Barak refused to go to war if Deborah wouldn’t go with the army. The story of Deborah is proof that God himself can raise a woman to lead his people. The reason why this point had to be made is that in Paul’s instruction to Timothy, he made reference to an Old Testament reality as the reason why he, under the inspiration of God, prohibits women from having authority and instructing men in the church. The reason he gave was that Eve sinned first, therefore women are to learn in humility and not allowed to exercise authority over men. How is it that Deborah who was in the Old Testament wasn’t affected by this (if we insist that the apostle’s instructions meant women should never exercise authority over men anywhere in the body of Christ)? If indeed Paul meant that because of events that took place in the garden a woman cannot exercise spiritual authority over a man in the church, how is this instruction only being enforced in the New Testament when there were women like Deborah in the Old Testament who had both political and spiritual authority over the whole of Israel?

All these prophetesses mentioned above were in the Old Testament, the question is were there any prophetesses in the New Testament as well? The answer is a resounding YES! Before Jesus’ birth, we read of the 84-year-old prophetess Anna who fasted and prayed for the birth of Christ. Concerning the prophetess Anna, it is written that at the time Jesus was brought to the temple to be presented to the Lord, she walked into the temple and ‘began to give thanks to God and to speak of him to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem’ (Luke 2:38). The prophetess entered the temple and began to speak about God to all who were gathered there. We were not told that anybody shut her up for being a woman. All we know is that a prophetess entered the temple, started thanking God and telling all who were there about him. That could have been a sermon, you know?

Also, we are reliably informed in Acts 21 that Philip the evangelist had 4 daughters who prophesied. We weren’t told whether they were prophetesses or not, all we know is that they could prophesy. So yes, women can prophesy and can operate in the prophetic office as prophetesses. The fact that women can prophesy has never been under contention anyway. However, the point had to be made for the benefit of people who think Paul meant women should keep their mouths completely shut in the church. If that was the case, how are women supposed to prophesy in the church? Looking at the instructions Paul gave concerning how prophecy must be spoken in the church, he expected the entire congregation to be quiet while the person with the prophecy spoke. Therefore if a woman had a prophetic word for the church, that alone afforded her the opportunity to have everyone’s rapt attention while she spoke.

Can women instruct men in the word of God?

Well indeed they can and there is one example of such a woman in the New Testament. Her name is Priscilla. Paul himself stated that he traveled with Priscilla and her husband Aquila. In Romans 16 Paul also salutes the church in their house, meaning the couple had a thriving church in their home. It is recorded in Acts 18 that the couple came across a man who taught diligently the things of the Lord. However, this man, Apollos, didn’t know much as he only knew the baptism of John. Aquila and Priscilla took him unto themselves and ‘expounded unto him the ways of God more perfectly’ (Acts 18:26). Apollos’ ministry grew and he became very influential in Alexandria and it is remarkable to know that at some point in his ministry a woman helped him better understand the things of God. Paul refers to Priscilla and her husband as his fellow workers in Christ Jesus. Indicating that Apollos definitely wasn’t their only student. If they had a church in their house, then they probably taught the word of God to a lot more people. We are admonished by the apostle in Colossians 3:16 to ‘let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom …’. Was this instruction gender-specific? Are men the only ones instructed to let the word dwell in them richly so they can admonish others?

Can a woman have genuine authority over a man in the church?

Again, from the writings of Paul, we can draw the conclusion that women can hold positions in the church. In Romans 16:1 Paul speaks about Phoebe who was a deaconess of the church at Cenchreae. She was a leader in the church and Paul was writing to the Romans to help her in any way they could especially if she asks for their assistance. Paul also made mention of Junia (or Junias in other translations) and stated that this person was highly respected amongst the apostles. Ken Bailey made the point that some scholars believe this person was a woman. According to him:

The word ‘Junia’ in this text was taken to be feminine by Origen of Alexandria, Jerome, Peter Abelard and others.  A Catholic scholar, Bernadette Brooten writes that she was unable to find any Latin commentary on the Book of Romans that has this name as masculine before the late 13^th century.

Some versions of the Bible spell the name as ‘Junias’ implying that this person was a man. Ken Bailey again says:

The difficulty with Stapulensis’s suggestion of ‘Junias’ is that the name Junias is unattested in any Latin or Greek text at any time in history.  The name Junia, however, has been found over 250 times.

Adoniram Judson also states in his essay ‘Women in Ministry’ that:

Yet Chrysostom, who, as a Greek Father, ought to be taken as a high authority, makes this frank and unequivocal comment on the passage; “How great the devotion of this woman is, that she should be counted worthy of the name of an apostle!”

From all that is stated above, it is possible that Junia was a woman and an apostle. This brings to mind another question, can women operate in any of the 5-fold ministries? Because it seems by stating that Junia was a woman then it implies that she was an apostle which is the first of the 5-fold ministries. Have we not already concluded that women can operate in the prophetic office? Are there specific instructions concerning the gender of people permitted to operate in each of the offices? .

It is clear that both men and women are instructed in the great commission to preach the word of God to all creation, the bone of contention, however, is whether women can operate in any of the ministerial offices. The reason is that, by operating in any of these offices, they would definitely exercise authority over men and instruct them in one way or the other hence some Christian denominations are against the ordination of women into any of these ministries. When Paul spoke about the 5-fold ministries he said nothing about the gender of the persons operating in them. Neither did Jesus say anything about the gender of the Christian who is supposed to go into the world and preach the gospel. Some people who believe that women cannot operate in any or some of the offices have no problem with women carrying out the great commission. They do this forgetting that as part of the great commission, we are expected to preach and MAKE DISCIPLES. Making disciples requires authority. One has to exert a certain level of spiritual authority over people he/she is leading. How can a woman make disciples of men without having authority over them?

In Romans 16 Paul makes mention of a number of women who have served the Lord in different capacities. Some I have mentioned above. Tryphena, Tryphosa, and Persis are also mentioned in the same chapter and saluted by the apostle because of their work in the Lord. Also in Philippians 4, we see the Apostle mention the names of two other women, Euodia and Syntyche. He claims they labored with him in the gospel. Had he just said they labored with him, then we could come to the conclusion that they probably labored in different capacities other than direct ministry work of sharing the gospel. But the apostle stated that they labored with him in the gospel together with other laborers whose names are in the book of life. This is a bold reference to direct ministry work. It is very interesting to know that women played a major role in the ministry of Paul as they did in the ministry of Jesus. Jesus had women amongst his disciples too. In Luke 8 we are told that these women who followed Jesus supported his ministry financially from their own purses.

We can also see how Jesus made messengers out of women in his ministry. Firstly, he turned the whole city of Samaria upside down with the woman at the well. This was somebody who was probably despised because of her lifestyle yet Jesus managed to use her to draw the whole city to himself. Does he still use women as evangelists, send them into cities and use them to draw men to himself? Secondly, at the resurrection, we would expect that Jesus would reveal himself to his disciples first. I don’t see it as a mere coincidence for him to appear to the women first. He was literally walking through walls when he resurrected, so he could have just walked into the room where his disciples were hiding. However, he permitted the women to be the first witnesses of his resurrected body. Thereby making them the first messengers of the gospel of the resurrected Christ. Ravi Zacharias said that ‘all of Easter hangs on the testimony of a woman’ and it is true. Jesus did this in a time when a woman’s testimony meant nothing in court. If indeed the created order and Eve sinning first is the reason why women are not allowed to teach men and exercise spiritual authority over them, why did Jesus literally bypass his disciples to reveal his resurrected body to women first?

Very few things about the Christian faith have been contested by skeptics and secular historians than the resurrection of Christ. The Christian faith hangs on the resurrection of Jesus from the grave. This is why Paul said ‘and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain’ (1^st Corinthians 15:14). Jesus went against the created order and the fact that Eve sinned first and revealed himself to women thereby placing the gospel of the resurrected savior in their mouths first. If women were the first to proclaim the message of the resurrected savior, is there any other message in the bible they are not allowed to preach to men?

References:

Ken Bailey – “Women in Ministry – Woodstock Q and A”

Adoniram Judson  – “Women in Ministry”

Hugenberger – “Women in ministry”

Kaiser – “Women in Ministry, commentary on the text”

However, ‘women in ministry’ has always been a controversial subject that has divided the body of Christ to an extent. There are denominations that believe women are not allowed to stand in the pulpit to instruct men publicly. Others see no problem with that. I don’t seek to merely take sides (although my opening paragraph gives my position away). What I seek to do with this write-up is to point out what God’s word says on the matter and I hope I do just that and not let my personal opinions and preferences cloud my judgment.

First of all, this problem arose from the misinterpretation of some portions of the New Testament – specifically the writings of Paul. In two separate passages found in two of his epistles, Paul admonishes the recipients of his letter to make sure the women in the church keep quiet and learn in submission. These two passages can be found in 1 Timothy 2 and 1 Corinthians 14. Due to the instructions, Paul gave in these two passages, some believe that it isn’t scripturally correct for a woman to pastor a church. Before I proceed, I’d like to clarify a few things. The controversy is not necessarily about the prohibition of women from sharing the gospel with people – as that would have been an outright contradiction of the great commission Jesus gave to believers. I believe what is in contention here is whether women should be allowed to pastor a church thereby instructing men in scripture and exercising authority over them.

I will start with the easier of the two texts, 1^st Corinthians 14:33-36. In this passage, Paul states emphatically that women are not permitted to speak in church and that if they would want to learn anything they should ask their husbands at home. The second part of this instruction gives us a hint of the context of the events Paul was addressing. However, this isn’t clear to all so we would still have to delve deeper into the issue. So Paul prohibits women from speaking in church. How can we convince people that the gospel of grace is one built on the foundation of love if there is a verse that seeks to suggest that women as a sexually-defined group of people are not allowed to speak in the church simply because they are women? It is hard to reconcile this notion with the ethos of the New Testament. We don’t need to go far, let’s stay in the book of 1^st Corinthians. In the 11^th chapter of the same book, Paul admonishes women to pray and prophesy with their heads covered. Throughout the book of 1^st Corinthians, we see the apostle speak elaborately on the gifts of the spirit and how they should be administered in the church. The gift of prophecy being one of the most prominent of all the gifts was duly addressed by Paul. He stated that when one person is prophesying, there should be total silence in the church. Since it is already an established fact that women can prophesy in church just like their male counterparts, doesn’t this tell us that they are at liberty to speak in church?

Indeed women are permitted to speak in the church to the hearing of everyone. This doesn’t in any way render Paul’s instructions for women to keep quiet in the church void. What we should be asking ourselves is, what kind of ‘quiet’ was the apostle referring to? Analyzing the text soundly would reveal that the apostle gave the instructions amongst several other instructions that would promote orderliness in church. Hence it is safe to say that he instructed women to be quiet in the instance when their talking was distracting the flow of the church service. It is believed that during service some of the women were fond of asking their husbands questions, seeking further clarifications of what was being taught. Hence the apostle’s instruction that they should ask their husbands at home if they didn’t understand what was being taught. The same Paul who said women should prophesy with their heads covered couldn’t have said in the same book that they are not permitted to prophesy (or speak publicly) in the church. In his essay on ‘Women in Ministry’, Adoniram Judson states that ‘So it seems, at least, for this word “prophesy” in the New Testament “signifies not merely to foretell future events, but to communicate religious truth in general under a Divine inspiration” (vide Hackett on “Acts”, p.49)’. This tells us that women are very much allowed to instruct men in scripture – I will delve into this a little more later on.

The second passage that causes confusion about women in ministry is in 1^st Timothy 2. This is a far more difficult text because it introduces some historical events as the basis of the instructions given by the apostle. Here again, Paul instructs that women should not be allowed to teach nor usurp authority over men. Let’s look at the context in which he makes this statement. So Timothy was head of the church in Ephesus that is why this letter was being addressed to him. If you know anything about the ancient city of Ephesus, you would know that it was a city that was wholly given to idolatry. Specifically the worship of the goddess Artemis. The temple of Artemis was one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world. It is an edifice that took 120 years to build. The temple was supported by 127 columns, each being 65 feet high (roughly 7 stories). Inside the building stood the huge multiple-breasted statue of the goddess. The servants (temple functionaries) of Artemis were mostly women. The men who were allowed to serve in the temple had to be castrated first – basically stripped of their manhood. This gives a bit of a background to the text under consideration. Some of these women had been converted and brought into the church. They were exposed to a system of worship where women exercised undue authority over men. It is believed that it was this particular problem that the apostle sought to address when he said I do not permit a woman to exercise authority over a man. It is worthy of note however that the apostle began this particular passage by stating that ‘let the women LEARN in silence and with all subjection’ (v11). This indicates that he wasn’t against female education and that is very important to this topic. It may appear trivial to us today but we need to understand that in those days women were not allowed to study the word of God. Kenneth Bailey mentions that:

Judith Hauptmann, in her essay on “Images of Women in the Talmud,” notes Rabbi Eliezer’s view that it is better to burn the words of the Torah than to give them to women.

With the passage in 1Timothy 2, the main problem is the fact that Paul makes reference to historical data as the basis for his instructions. He states that the reason he prohibits women from teaching and exercising authority over men is that in the garden, it was the woman that was deceived and not the man. This is interesting. So our quest is to find out why the woman was first deceived and not the man in the garden. Now it was Eve who was deceived first. That is to say that Adam was deceived as well so let’s not get ahead of ourselves and assume that there is a device preinstalled in men that prevents them from falling prey to deception. As a matter of fact in the book of 2Timothy Paul states categorically that there were some men teaching false doctrines, entering into homes of women who were burdened by the guilt of their own sins hence these women fell for their lies (2 Timothy 3:6). We can see that all the Apostle is advocating for is the teaching of sound doctrine. This cannot happen when the one being taught is exhibiting a haughty attitude towards the teacher. That is why he admonishes women to learn in quietness and not usurp authority over their teachers – who were men. This looks very much like the event in the garden where a woman was instructed by her husband and it was her who FIRST sinned. Was Paul admonishing all women to submit to the authority of all men? I doubt that, that is an instruction meant for married people. Paul was admonishing the women in the church to submit to sound teaching by being silent while they learn and not fall prey to deception like Eve did. 2Timothy 3 actually proves that they had already started falling for the lies of heretic male teachers in the city.

The last verse of this chapter talks about women being saved in childbearing. This is a tough one too. If you are familiar with the writings of Paul, you would know that he was vehemently opposed to any teaching that suggested that anybody could be saved in another way other than confessing Jesus. So definitely, he wasn’t saying here that women will obtain salvation in the Lord through childbirth. The word translated as ‘saved’ is ‘sozo’ – which can also mean ‘prosper’, ‘to be in good health’, ‘blessed’ etc. Therefore, we can understand that portion of scripture as Paul saying women shall prosper in childbearing. Why would he say that? Because it is believed there was a false doctrine going around intending to prohibit women from having children or even getting married. Again, we see the apostle address doctrinal issues here.

This is the end of part one of this short series. Do look out for the continuation in the next blog post. Remember to make your contributions and ask your questions in the comment section below.

References:

Ken Bailey – “Women in Ministry – Woodstock Q and A”

Adoniram Judson – “Women in Ministry”

Hugenberger – “Women in ministry”

Kaiser – “Women in Ministry, commentary on text”

One thing that made me even more excited about the movie was the gender rhetoric that undergirded the entire story – in a somewhat subtle manner, yet very profound and powerful. However, that is the same thing that caused all the controversy concerning the movie. Ok, God is portrayed as a woman in The Shack. Do I see anything blasphemous about this? Certainly not! First of all, God isn’t male either. Indeed, anytime we see God manifest in the flesh, he does so in a male body but that doesn’t mean we should assume he is a man. This desiringgod.com article did a good job of establishing the fact that even in scripture God is given so many feminine attributes. You can check it out. We would have to agree on a few things before I proceed.

1. God is not a man, he is a Spirit (according to John 4:24)
2. He created man in his own image, male and female made he them (Genesis 1:27)

It is true that when God decided to come to the earth in a human form as Jesus he was a man (male). So it was when he appeared in the form of 3 men to Abraham. All these are still not enough proof that God is male. We might have gotten accustomed to seeing God appear in the flesh as a man to the extent that we think his portrayal as a woman in a movie is heretic and blasphemous. This is so wrong. If God created man in his own image and made them male and female, appears as a male in the flesh, why can’t he appear as female as well? I’m not saying he is obligated to do that to prove a point or anything. All I’m saying is, women were made in his image too, therefore, his portrayal as a woman in the movie shouldn’t bring about this level of controversy. When Jesus was being baptized in the River Jordan, the Holy Spirit descended on him as a dove. Is this blasphemous and heretic too? Besides, this movie is even a work of fiction to project a certain aspect of God’s character that is predominantly common amongst women, so everybody can chill and just munch on the essential message of the movie.

Now that that is out of the way, back to the movie. In the early parts of the movie, we see the family set off on a trip without the woman of the house. While seeing them off she made a comment that appears casual yet pregnant with so much information. She said to the kids “I have faith in your dad’s mothering skills”. This is by far the most important statement in the entire movie. Through the harsh seasons of our lives, how much faith do we have in God’s mothering skills? Nan made this comment because she wasn’t going to be with her kids on that trip hence they need not worry because their father doubles as a mother. This is a flamboyantly colorful feather in the cap of the man. Did he live up to expectation? We shall find out soon.

On their way, his two older kids begged him to stop by a waterfall. He refused the request initially only to barge at the end. While they stood on a bridge having a closer view of the waterfall, his older kids once again asked him to tell Missy, the little one, the story of the Indian Princess. The waterfall, therefore, appears to be a site he and his elder kids had been before, maybe way before the little one was born. So he goes on to narrate the story. From the story, we find out that there was an Indian Princess, who gave up her life for the sake of her people. The waterfall was therefore created by the ‘Great Spirit’ in memory of the Princess. It is a no-brainer that this Indian Princess is an allusion to Jesus Christ. Once again, we see God portrayed as a woman.

They finally got to their destination and it was a lakeside where other families camped as well. It seemed like a pretty cool and decent place to have a little family vacation. The following morning, the two older kids were on a boat not too far away from the shore and  Missy was by her father drawing with her crayons. All of a sudden, Josh fell off the boat after his sister stood up to get the attention of their father. Mack ran, dived into the water and swam all the way to the boat to save his son. They all came back to the shore only to realize that Missy was gone. She was gone. The police couldn’t find her anywhere. Later they discovered her bloody dress in a shack up the mountain, but her body was not found.

The death of the little girl tore the family apart. Kate withdrew from the rest of the family obviously because she felt it was her fault her little sister died. Josh had also become secretive. Mack also lost faith in God. I must say the little girl is almost the perfect character to die to arouse all the needed emotions and questions that often flood our minds when we go through hard times. She was innocent, sweet and very inquisitive. All these make it hard for anybody to understand why she should die. Or why she should die in such a callous manner.

Not too long after her death, Mack checked his mailbox and found a letter in there from ‘Papa’ inviting him to the Shack up the mountain. He looked but couldn’t find a trail of footsteps in the snow leading either to or away from his mailbox. Which was pretty strange. His family nicknamed God ‘Papa’ so definitely he knew who it was. He decided to honor the invitation and go to the Shack alone although his next door neighbor had wanted to go with him. The Shack was this old dilapidated wooden structure that appeared to have been abandoned for years.

While walking through the woods, he met a young Middle Eastern man who invited him to ‘his house’. All this seemed to happen in a trance because all of a sudden the mountain became a garden with beautiful flowers – especially the path leading to the stranger’s house. Mack arrived at the house only to be introduced to the entire Godhead. Apparently, the Middle Eastern man who led him to his home was Jesus, the Son. And here is another shocker, the other two members of the Trinity were women! How strange it would be to meet the Godhead only to realize two-thirds of the trinity is female. So Papa was a black woman and the Holy Spirit was a slender Asian lady. Mack’s interactions with the Godhead marked his journey to complete healing from the hurt he felt after his daughter died. In one of his earliest interactions, Papa told him ‘after what you have been through, I didn’t think you could handle a father right now’. Papa said this right after Mack questioned her gender. This is another amazing revelation in the movie. God revealed himself to Mack as a mother because he had had a rough childhood experience with his father. Therefore, his perception of who a father is was based on the kind of relationship he had with his earthly father. This is probably why most of us can’t have a great relationship with God because we are seeing him through the lenses of our earthly fathers and those lenses are giving us a poor image of who God is. It is amazing to know that God knows when to be what in our lives. Now when Mack accused God of always abandoning those he claims he loves, especially Jesus on the cross, Papa showed him his nail-pierced wrist. Indicating that while Jesus suffered on the cross, God did too. Which means God shares in our suffering; he understands our pain.

Papa did drop some nuggets in her interaction with Mckenzie. She said “You were created to be loved. Living unloved is like clipping a bird’s wings”. Then she went on to say that ‘this is your flying lessons”. ‘This’ here refers to ‘the Shack’ experience that the Trinity was taking Mckenzie through. The painful experiences are our flying lessons. We need them to first muster the courage to fly and that is how we experience the Love of God.

Mckenzie’s next interaction was with the Spirit of God. They took a walk through a garden where the spirit made a very profound illustration. She showed Mckenzie a twig that was poisonous. Then she mentioned that on its own it is poisonous, but combining it with the nectar from a particular flower produced a substance with incredible healing powers. This goes to show us how both the good and bad times in our lives are meant to come together for a greater good. When we single out the bad times, it may seem our lives are on the rocks, but having a holistic view of our lives – both the bad and the good times – can produce incredible healing anytime we need it.

By far my favorite interaction in the movie was between Mckenzie and ‘Wisdom’. He met Wisdom in a dark cave sitting on her throne. Wisdom told him he was there, in the cave, for judgment. No, not to be judged, but to judge just as he always did throughout his life. The conversation that ensued is probably the most powerful in the movie. It was laden with so much wisdom and offered answers to questions that I have been grappling with for some time now. Why does God allow evil to happen and not do anything about it? Why can’t evil people be condemned to hell immediately to rid humanity of all the hideousness? Wisdom made some profound statements worthy of note. She quizzed, ‘doesn’t the legacy of brokenness go all the way back to Adam?’. Anytime you want to judge somebody, make sure you judge everybody else in human history whose actions had an effect on the said person – all the way to Adam. That is when you can claim to have judged the person justly. The legacy of brokenness indeed goes all the way back to Adam.

The time spent with God was an exercise to heal him of all emotional and psychological pain. So one morning Mckenzie woke up and there stood papa in the doorway. This time not a black woman but an Asian man. Papa said ‘for what we have to do today, you are gonna need a father’. BAM! So you see, God is the complete parent, no wonder he made men and women in his image. His nature couldn’t be revealed in one gender alone. When he wanted to make a being in his image he had to make two of its kind, hence we have men and women, fathers and mothers. The task that day was to get Mckenzie to forgive his daughter’s killer. This exercise required the stern persuasion of a father. That is why Papa chose to reveal himself as a man in this scene. Mckenzie did forgive the killer, pretty much to my amazement.

There is so much I want to say about the movie but time and space are not my best allies now. I learned so much from it. The shack (where Mckenzie found his daughter’s bloody clothes) represents a place of pain yet a place where God is ever present. C.S Lewis said ‘… God shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world’. God is indeed loudest in our pains if only we can pay attention and listen.

This is clearly not worthy of celebration. In fact, I was appalled at this fact when I read it. Those were 60 million lives that could have been but weren’t given the chance. For various reasons women commit abortions. All kinds of women take this decision: married, single, rich, poor, abused etc. I am not outraged at them, but rather the system that allowed this. I am not quite keen on acquiring a tag but if this viewpoint makes me pro-life, then so be it. One thing I know is that nobody can be more pro-life than the fetus. Within a period of 9 months, what started as a clot of blood develops limbs and transforms rapidly into a full-blown human being in the womb. That is pro-life. Nothing can be more indicative of a pro-life stance than growth. Absolutely nothing. Always remember that humanity loses a pro-lifer after each successful abortion.

But it is an issue of choice, they say. It is an issue of what the bearer of the baby says. I’m really not here to debate that, but I just wanted to point out a few things I noticed from the ongoing discussion on social media. From what I know about abortions, especially the ones I have heard about, it was the guys who forced the idea on the ladies. In Lecrae’s song ‘The Good, The Bad, the Ugly’ he recounts how he forced his woman to get an abortion when he was much younger. He stated in the song that the lady went on with the plan because she loved him. But from all indications, he regrets that decision. I remember hearing a story about this macho man in the neighborhood I grew up in running after a lady with a glass of water and some pills in broad daylight. He was literally forcing her to terminate the pregnancy in the full glare of everybody around.

All lives matter; those in womb matter too. The life of a fetus matters no matter who takes the final decision to end it.

My main concern is the misrepresentation of the word of God in the ensuing debate. I couldn’t help but cringe at some opinions which were expressed based on faulty analyses of scripture. Two bible stories emerged in most of the discussions:

1. Onan spilling his seeds (withdrawing while having sex with Tamar)
2. God declaring that he knew Jeremiah before he formed him in his mother’s womb.

Onan’s story is quite an interesting one. He was the second son of Judah. His older brother Er was married to Tamar and he displeased the Lord so he was killed. As their custom was, Tamar was given to Onan to sleep with for her to bear a child to continue the lineage of Er. Onan knowing that the child wouldn’t be counted as his, chose to spill his seed. God killed Onan for what he did. NOTE: God didn’t kill him for merely spilling his seed, but for the implications of this act. Many times I’ve heard people use this story as the basis to condemn masturbation. Masturbation is indeed sexual sin but Onan didn’t masturbate. What he did was a deliberate act to discontinue his brother’s lineage. It is also worthy for us to note that this is the same Judah whose lineage became the tribe of Judah. Both David and Jesus came from this tribe. It is easy to tell why God had a keen interest in the affairs of this family. I can’t tell the exact reason but I am tempted to believe God’s decision to kill Onan had a lot to do with the implications of his actions on the tribe of Judah (According to Gen 38:9).

It is not right to liken what Onan did to masturbation or even abortion. A sperm is not a fetus. Therefore whatever means of birth control a man applies to prevent conception cannot be likened to abortion. Why? Because conception has not taken place yet. The male body is fashioned to naturally dispose of semen once in a while in the sleep of the said man. Is this abortion too? Does this apply to menstruation too? I get what this is all about, though. It is all because some ladies are of the view that any man who takes a stance against abortion is primarily attempting to take away a certain level of freedom from women. Also, there is this assertion that a man’s opinion is worth very little on the topic of abortion. Are we implying that one can only have an opinion on a topic when it directly affects him/her? Do we need to strip the proponent of a contrary view of his right to express it? Doesn’t that imply our assertions are weak in the face of opposition? Nobody’s view should be discredited because of his gender. That is sexism indeed.

The other bible story that has come up in this discussion is the story of Jeremiah. God told Jeremiah:

‘Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth of the womb I sanctified thee and, I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations’

Many have misinterpreted this because they have either misquoted the verse or have truncated it to suit their interpretation. God didn’t say ‘before you were formed in the belly…’ but ‘before I FORMED THEE in the belly…’. What difference does that make? A lot! The understanding that this verse implies God knows each sperm by name and therefore when a man ‘spills his seed’ he has committed abortion is false. God formed Jeremiah in his mother’s womb. God didn’t just know him before that, he ordained Jeremiah way before he formed him in the womb. This means, that verse up there is not about identity or identification but rather predestination. The verse doesn’t mean God knows each sperm by name. It means God knows which one would eventually fertilize the egg and in this case, it was Jeremiah. So before he was a clot of blood, God had already ordained him to be a prophet unto the nations. As simple as that. Therefore abortion is the termination of that which God has formed. As Ravi Zacharias said ‘We can’t talk about human rights without the right to be human’. If your human right terminates another person’s right to be human, how many humans will be left if everybody exercised that right?

There are so many push factors when it comes to abortion for eg. Poverty, stigmatization, unpreparedness etc. It is my hope that we wouldn’t lose sight of the real issue as we go on to fight these factors. Also, there should be counseling and therapy available for women who have already committed abortions. The trauma they go through is unmatched and therefore special care must be given to their psychological health.

We are all fallible. It is natural to want to deal with your mistakes lest they interrupt your plans for the future or because you can’t afford to live with the consequences. But is it right to end a life so you can live yours comfortably? I believe as many of us that read this post should try and answer this question and please share your views with me in the comment session. Thanks.

Often when this topic comes up for discussion, people make reference to the first couple in human history: Adam and Eve. Adam didn’t have the option of choosing a life partner for himself but God ‘recognized’ a lack in Adam’s life and decided to provide a solution for it. Let me veer off a bit to address a pertinent issue here: Eve was not an afterthought! Even the devil wasn’t an afterthought.  I can’t ever come to terms with the fact that God didn’t intend to create Eve initially. Especially when he created the male and female species of every animal and instructed them to be fruitful and multiply. He said that even to birds and fishes. Now, he gave the same instruction to Adam and Eve, which implies that that was his intention all along. How was man supposed to do that if Eve wasn’t created? The question is, why didn’t God create Eve right away? The lion and the lioness were created at the same time, so the lion was never alone. Why did God allow Adam to feel the absence of Eve before creating her? God is sovereign but never have I read in scripture that he abused his sovereignty. So anytime I see him exercise his sovereignty in any part of the bible, I know there is a lesson to learn.

Adam saw creation in its purest state before the fall. If you are impressed by the beauty of nature in our day and age or blown away by the awe-inspiring colorful display of flowers in any garden, I wonder how you would react at the sight of the garden planted by the Gardener himself. Eden had to be the most amazing place on earth at the time. To top it all, Adam had fellowship with God. It isn’t stated in scripture but I don’t doubt he might have had face-to-face encounters with God. So if after all these – the splendor of Eden and fellowship with God – Adam was still considered ‘alone’, by delaying in the creation of Eve, God was just showing off the value of womanhood. It is more like God kept man’s greatest asset away from him so man could feel how empty life would be without her. Then BAM! One day, here she is. Brother man didn’t know what to say upon seeing her. Knowing God and how he communicates to us sometimes, I believe the delay in the creation of Eve was all a set-up to reveal how man is incomplete without his suitable helper (Eve).

Here is the thing, God never told Adam directly that Eve was his life partner. In other words, God didn’t impose Eve on Adam, he just presented her to him. It is Adam who was so blown away by the beauty of Eve that he said passionately ‘… this is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh…’. Nevertheless, it is clear Adam didn’t have options. He didn’t have Evelyn and Eva snooping around his relationship and ready to comfort him anytime he had issues with Eve. Adam didn’t have options, therefore it is logical to conclude God expected him to marry Eve.

Anyway, here are two key lessons from Adam’s story:

1. God will never force you to marry a particular person.

“Errm but God commanded the prophet Hosea to marry a prostitute?” Well, of course he did. But at the end of the day the specific prostitute Hosea married was up to him. God just told him the kind of woman to marry and not which one in particular. In Adam’s case God presented Eve to him. God intended her to be a suitable help to him. However, God never imposed Eve on Adam. But because Adam didn’t have options, the union between Adam and Eve appeared to be an imposition. I believe God hasn’t changed since the incidence in Eden. Often people say ‘oh because Adam blamed God for giving him a woman that led him into sin God won’t force anybody into marrying a specific person’. While it is true that God won’t force you into marrying somebody, the reason stated above is rather a weak one. The main reason why God won’t force you into marrying a particular person is, He will never violate the human will. God will never ever violate the human will in any instance. That is what makes us human beings in the first place: the ability to choose to be what we want to be. If there was ever a reason for God to violate the human will, it wouldn’t be for an ephemeral and a trivial matter as who you marry. Now, a person’s spouse can make or break him/her but that cannot be compared to the salvation of the human soul. If God cannot force every human being to become a Christian, then he surely cannot go against his very nature and force his choices on you. This isn’t a sign of weakness at all, on the contrary, it proves to us that even in his sovereignty God allows us to willingly choose the right path.

2. There is such a thing as the perfect will of God which he has intended for all of us to willingly walk in.

From the story, we hear the thoughts of God concerning the singleness of Adam. God said ‘it is not good for man to be alone, I will make for him a help-meet’. Which means he had a plan for Adam concerning the creation of a suitable helper for him. This is God’s intention. We all know how that story ended but let’s assume Adam rejected Eve and didn’t want to have anything to do with her. Would God have force Eve on Adam? Would God have twisted Adams arms into accepting Eve? God will respect your choice though he has a better option for you. By respecting your choice I don’t mean he will honor it. He just steps back and watches as you make a mess out of yourself. In Jeremiah 8:3 God said ‘And death shall be chosen rather than life…’. Basically, life and death are the options, it is up to you to choose one. Though God would rather you chose life, he won’t impose it on you. If even in the matters of life and death God wouldn’t force you to choose life but rather leave it up to your discretion, why would he force a life partner on you? Nobody stumbles and falls into the will of God. It takes a lot of dying to walk in God’s will. It takes a lot of humility to do that. Until you intentionally ask God to assist you in taking a decision – especially concerning your life partner – do not expect his will to be done automatically in that area of your life.

So the point is made, God won’t force you to marry a particular person even though he has a specific person in mind for you. How then can one get to meet this person? By asking God to direct you to the person or let your paths cross. He can choose to give you directions via whatever medium. It could be prophecy. It could be in a dream. It could appear as a coincidence. Sometimes he will burden your heart with the specifications of a ‘perfect spouse’, so that you set out in search of such a person. Whatever it is, when you ask him about it, he will definitely show up and direct you. I believe God can speak through his servants the prophets concerning your future spouse. As has been discussed already, it doesn’t mean he has imposed the person on you. Just like all other prophecies, you will never get a detailed description of the person. At best you can be told the person’s name, physical features, career etc. just a ‘little something’ to help you identify the person. As you may know already, this is because prophets know in parts and prophesy in parts. There is always an element of mystery about every prophecy. So yes, prophecy can come in to guide you in the process of selecting your spouse. It doesn’t come to bind you and make you stiff-necked. Though a prophetic word has the power to create miracles, most of the times it comes in just to inform you about a future matter. It is up to you to subject your will to it for it to come to pass. When God says you will marry person A or B, it is still up to you to accept it as his perfect will for you or to choose your own path. If you go ahead and marry person G it is all on you.

This is a stern warning to the people – especially the brothers – who can’t woo a woman to save their lives and therefore resort to blackmailing them with so-called revelations and prophecies. Desist from that! If God revealed it to you that she is the one, be honorable enough and don’t go and tell her God said this and that therefore she should give you a chance. That is infantile. Prophecy is not a tool for blackmail. Will you walk into a bank and demand a million dollars because there’s a prophecy concerning an impending wealth hanging over your head? When God says you will be rich, it usually means you will work hard to get there. God promised the Israelites a land flowing with milk and honey. He didn’t tell them about the giants they had to kill to get the milk and honey. Even if there were no giants, they would have had to milk cows to get the milk and rear bees to harvest the honey. There is no such thing as a land flowing with milk and honey in reality. But there is such a thing as a land filled with bees and cattle. When a prophecy comes, often there is a certain amount of work to be done by the person the prophecy is about. God said Sister Belinda is your wife … blessed and highly favored are you among all men bro. Now get up like the confident brother that God expects you to be, step up to Belinda, strike a conversation, start a friendship and develop it into a relationship. Faithful is he who has said it, he is more than able to help you work it out too. Believe in him.

The conclusion of the matter is, God has a perfect will for all of us even concerning the most trivial things in our lives. I once got a prophecy concerning the fact that I have been desiring to grow my beard for so long. I want to be ‘Beard Gang’ so bad! Though I deem it embarrassingly trivial to speak about it openly, guess who cares about it too: Elohim. The one who created over a billion stars in space and knows each one of them by name. God indeed has a perfect will for all of us concerning every area of our lives. Will we humble ourselves and pray about it? He won’t impose it on you but he will guide you to it so you make the choice yourself. Whatever your choice, there is either a blessing or a curse waiting for you. Pray about it and he will definitely intervene and lead you to the right person.

References: Hosea 1, Genesis 1 and 2, 1 Corinthians 13:9.

This scenario is way too familiar. A guy and a girl have sex illegitimately, but the girl is always held responsible or brought before the Pharisaical Court of Justice in public. Somehow we have managed to make sex look like a thing girls give to the satisfaction of the guys that ask for it. Therefore when a guy ‘manages’ to get a lady to sleep with him outside marriage, he is hailed as a champion and the lady is called a slut. Jesus himself had to deal with this very issue. Remember when they brought the adulterous woman to him? The woman was caught in the act of adultery: meaning she was involved with a guy. Of course, the patriarchy in that society was so prominent that the man was left off the hook and the woman was found guilty. Jesus looked on the woman with eyes of love and compassion and not eyes of condemnation. He knew that condemning people would only deepen the scars that the guilt had left in their soul. His aim was to bring redemption. Nothing redeems better than love. So he looked at the woman and told her ‘… neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more’. Jesus didn’t approve of the sexually immoral lifestyle here. He offered the woman a dosage of ‘no-condemnation’ to empower her to stay away from sin. Condemnation leads to guilt; guilt hardens the human heart; a hardened heart is a fertile ground for more sin.

This isn’t Jesus’ only encounter with a sexually immoral woman. At a well in Samaria, he spoke with a woman who had five ex-husbands and was at the time in a relationship with a man who wasn’t her husband. Did Jesus condemn her? Nope. He let his love rain on her to the extent that she was transformed instantly into an evangelist, going about inviting people to come and listen to ‘… a man who told me all I ever did’ – as she put it. That day many Samaritans came to believe Jesus because he chose to be compassionate towards a woman who didn’t deserve it by societal standards.

The double standard of sexual behavior is a moral code that permits sexual promiscuity in men but prohibits women in the same regard. This has deluded many guys into thinking that they can be sexually immoral and at the same time judge girls who are just like them. It doesn’t even make sense. It is like a rapist sentencing another rapist to prison in the court of law. I am all for purity … and yes, it is because the bible says so. Nevertheless, I think the bible isn’t partial in the standards it sets for the children of God (male or female). If we are to make that assertion at all, then it appears that the bible expects greater sexual purity from men than women. In Matthew 5:28 it says that any man who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. The bible says men should stop sleeping with women in their fantasies. Can you see the difference between the sexual standard society sets for men versus that of the bible?

It is hard to go a day without having lustful thoughts, especially when the temptation to do so stalks you every step of the way. Guess what, God in his infinite wisdom wants us to deal with the problem at the roots: the thought-level. Our actions are more premeditated than spontaneous. Which means, once you keep thinking about an activity, it is more likely you will indulge in it when given the opportunity. So if you keep sleeping with women who you are not married to in your mind, the likelihood that you might do it in the physical is extremely high. The truth is, this isn’t what the bible even says. According to the verse I quoted above, once you lustfully fantasize about a woman, it is recorded as adultery. Guys, guard your heart. Watch what you think about. Kill sexual immorality at the roots and don’t cut the leaves and gloat over it just yet.

In Job 31:1 Job said he had made a covenant with his eyes not to look at a woman lustfully. The dude had to literally sign a contract with his eyes lest he lust after a woman. Job is an Old Testament character by the way. If he could do this, we who are enormously empowered by grace should be more than able to do same and even better. Let us be intentional about sexual purity. Let us not treat it like a thing that will fall onto our laps from heaven. Men need to train their hungers. I am not even talking about sexual hungers at this point. Really, you need to train yourself to eat and consume only that which is necessary for growth and development. Your being operates under one law of consumption. This law informs your decisions on everything you let into your system: be it music, movies, books or even conversations. Therefore, if you eat anyhow, everywhere and at any time because there is food, you tend to consume other things with like mentality. So you can sleep with any and every lady who appears appealing to your sight. If she resists engaging in intercourse with you, because you have little control over your fleshly desires you apply force to have your way with her – and that is rape. Train your hungers bro; tame your hungers. Though it is not stated categorically in the Word, I can boldly say that God rarely uses people who have a bad eating habit. Most people God used in the bible were ‘chronic fasters’ who ate to live and didn’t live to eat. Daniel ate greens when he was offered sumptuous royal food and meat. John the Baptist ate locust and wild honey while both of his parents worked in the temple which meant they had an ample supply of meat and food at home. Jesus fasted for 40 days before commencing his ministry. Moses also fasted for 40 days. The 84 year old prophetess Anna vowed not to stop fasting and praying till Jesus was born – and she did get to meet him. Train your hungers bro!

On the flip side, the people who couldn’t train their hungers brought calamity unto themselves and others around them. Adam and Eve were authorized to eat everything in the garden but two fruits. At the end of the day they ate one and that was the root of the sin Jesus had to come to die for. Esau sold his birthright and blessings to his little brother because he couldn’t train his hungers. The Israelites lamented that they were tired of eating manna; hence God sent them an abundant supply of quails. While the meat was still in-between their teeth as they ate, God struck them dead. Amnon raped his own sister Tamar and was murdered because of it. Bro, tame your hungers. As I said, a single law of consumption operates in your being. Therefore the way you eat is sometimes directly related to the level of control you have over your sexual urges. There are two major hungers in every human being: the hunger for food and the hunger for sex. The hunger for food is stronger than the hunger for sex. Therefore if you can master full control over your hunger for food, you are automatically transformed into an intolerant dictator over your hunger for sex. Of course it must be a spiritual activity marked by the reading of the word and prayer – not merely a hunger strike.

Solomon said it is better to have self-control than to conquer a city. Ironically, he married 700 wives coupled with a whopping 300 concubines. David, his father, slept with Bathsheba though she was married and he went on to orchestrate the killing of her husband. Samson was warned against having relations with women from Philistine. He didn’t heed to this warning and that was his undoing. I would like to state emphatically that, contrary to popular belief, the downfall of all these men wasn’t the women, but their lack of self-control. Here we have the wisest man who ever lived; the strongest man who ever lived; and one of the greatest warriors in human history and they all have one thing in common: they couldn’t control their sexual urges. By these three stories, God has illustrated to us that it doesn’t take physical strength, or wisdom, or even battle prowess to have self-control. Only the grace of God can give you complete control over your flesh. The grace is abundant in his presence; intentionally make the effort to dwell there. Pitch a tent; rent a room; chain yourself to a tree… whatever you can, please do it to stay in his presence. Do not rely on your wisdom, strength or battle prowess, if these could do you any good, Solomon, David and Samson wouldn’t have made those mistakes.

He who controls his spirit is mightier than he who conquers a city, as Solomon said. Only a superhero can conquer a city all by himself. Therefore, a man who has self-control is mightier than a superhero.

The reality is, it is not Christianity that is misogynistic, IT IS THE JEWISH CULTURE THEN THAT WAS MISOGYNISTIC. But Christ came to introduce us to a new life which he exemplified by showing the highest form of respect to women. We will delve into this later on. I would like to state this blatantly, one of the oldest acts of feminism is recorded in the bible. The fight for the rights of women started thousands of years ago. It was a very successful one seeing that the laws of Israel had to be amended because a bunch of young ladies who knew their rights, stood up to fight for it.  I speak of the daughters of Zelophehad – all five of them. There are a lot of lessons in their story that present-day feminists can learn. These young girls, upon realizing that they were being denied access to their father’s property after his death (because of their sex)  rose up and went straight to the highest authority of Israel – Moses – to demand what was duly theirs. Moses took the matter to God and God said “What the daughters of Zelophehad are saying is right”. Hence, they received properties amongst the relatives of their father and a new law was established. The point is, they didn’t go accusing Moses of being sexist – seeing that the law was above Moses himself. These ladies didn’t challenge Moses’ authority. They simply made an appeal, yet their actions yielded overwhelming results for them and the many other women like them. This is indeed feminism.

Nevertheless, throughout the bible we see so many instances where women are treated unfairly because of their sex. But let’s not go cherry-picking in the bible. The issue is, it is a bad academic exercise to pinpoint the misfortunes of women in the bible and use it as the foundation to argue out the fact that the bible is misogynistic. That is wrong.

Christianity derives its essence from the life and teachings of Christ. So to determine whether the Christian doctrine in itself is misogynistic, we need to look at the life of Christ and how he treated women. Jesus indeed made a deliberate attempt to go against the status quo set for someone of his status in his relations with women. First and foremost, he allowed his feet to be washed by Mary (a known whore). This is such a big deal considering who Jesus was and his purpose on this earth. Undoubtedly one of the most outstanding events fueled by patriarchy in the bible is the story of the woman who was about to be stoned by an irate mob. Apparently, she was caught committing adultery ‘alone’… all by herself. This is how patriarchal the people were. They didn’t think the man she was in bed with was as guilty as she was so they let him go and decided to stone only her. But Jesus stood up for the rights of this woman and turned the law against the mob. Being convicted by their own conscience and knowledge of the law, they left her alone. Even on the cross, Jesus displayed his love and respect for women. While hanging there, Jesus told his mother ‘woman, behold thy son’ and to John he said ‘behold your mother’. This little gesture implies that Jesus entrusted His mother into the caring arms of John before he died. As a Christian gentleman I am supposed to emulate this lifestyle in every way possible. The gospel of Jesus Christ compels me to respect women and fight for their rights.

One of the most controversial chapters in the bible, so far as sexism and misogyny is concerned is 1 Timothy 2. Militant critics are of the view that Paul’s pastoral letter to Timothy expresses some level of contempt towards women when he commanded them to remain silent and also forbid them to usurp spiritual authority over the men in church. I find people’s assumption that Paul promotes misogyny in this chapter to be very inconsistent with other Pauline writings. The apostle was a leading advocate of gender equality within a culture that was popularly known for its heightened hatred towards women. In Galatians 3, Paul makes it crystal clear that there’s no such thing as male or female in Christ’s family. That is, men and women are of equal importance in the eyes of God. A chunk of the New Testament informs us that Paul actually team-taught alongside various women, commending them with the highest form of respect for breaking their backs for the sake of the Gospel. In his letter to the Corinthians, Paul stated that a husband had NO authority over his own body, but his wife DID and vice-versa. Now, that’s a very heavy pronouncement. This is Paul championing gender equality again by demanding mutual respect between both sexes in marital homes – especially concerning sexual activities. Just in case you missed it, the ‘so-called’ chauvinist, in Romans 16, makes a unique reference to Phoebe a sister in Christ, as a deacon. It was such a big deal in those days, that a woman could be a deacon just like Paul, Timothy and Apollos – who had presiding authorities over churches. Seems like the ‘sexist apostle’ is digging his own grave, right? Be reminded that we are examining these facts in the 1st century context where women were heavily despised!  

We see time and time again that Paul’s teachings were in sharp contrast with the promotion of sexism. What then do we make of Paul’s admonition to Timothy concerning women? 2 Timothy 3:6-7 and 1 Timothy 5:11-13 give us a clue as to what Paul intended to communicate to the people. The women of Ephesus then were deeply associated with paganism before they got converted to Christianity. As a result, they were probably spiritually immature. It then makes sense if Paul wasn’t going to risk anything by putting them on the forefront to promote the Gospel. Moreover, there were false teachers around who were ever ready to pounce on any of these women to teach them false doctrines—the very thing Paul was trying to avoid. In summary, I believe Paul was addressing a specific problem that plagued a specific church (the Church of Ephesus). He wasn’t making a general rule, nevertheless, any other church going through the same problem can apply this solution in their case. So if you should ask me, this ideology that Paul was sexist falls flat because the arguments to support such fallacious ideas do not in any way fit the teachings of the Bible. Proper exegesis reveals to every reader that NO passage in the Bible encourages people to oppress women. Rather the bible encourages wives even to strive hard in economic ventures. The woman in Proverbs 31 is a superhero; she has a stable job and still has her family at heart. This appears impossible in today’s world, but the bible encourages women to work hard in their careers while caring for their families.

I would like to say this quickly. More often than not people call out religious leaders for propagating sexist ideologies in their sermons and opinions expressed on other platforms. But why doesn’t anybody question evolutionism for its sexist ideologies? I honestly want to know how a woman can be a feminist and an evolutionist at the same. Especially because Charles Darwin claims that “… males are more evolutionarily advanced than females”. Which means by nature, men are ahead of their female counterparts intellectually and physically.

While it may seem like a greater portion of scripture records several masculine accomplishments, the Bible does extremely well in capturing equally significant events involving women. God appointed powerful women like Deborah and Esther to lead the Jews during Israel’s dark and spiritually-barren period. Jesus (God in flesh) revealed His true identity as the Savior of the world to the woman at the well, much to his disciple’s chagrin. The most important historical event of this world (the Resurrection of Christ) was revealed FIRST to a group of women. The prophet Isaiah, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, alluded God’s tender love towards His people to that of a MOTHER who comforts HER children. What a powerful positive feminine image! Time and space wouldn’t allow me to prove to you more that the Bible doesn’t oppress women but rather celebrates them. Sexism has never been God-orchestrated because in the beginning, He [God] created human beings—male and female—in His own image to reflect His nature. The Bible, God’s Word, will forever respect the intrinsic worth of both men and women. It is a word that is settled forever.

Written by: Elvis Sampson and Elikplim Sabblah

References: Galatians 3:28, 1 Corinthians 7:4, John 4, Isaiah 66:13, Numbers 27 (Daughters of Zelophehad), 1 Timothy 2.

The family is the oldest human institution and also the seed from which every other institution sprouts. This makes the family a very important body in the society. Among the things that make any institution thrive, the following are paramount: love, respect, hard work, understanding and role-playing. The last of which is my focus in this post.

In a typical Ghanaian home a 100 or more years ago, the father was probably a hunter, the mother was a stay-home mum and the children assist the parent of their gender. It makes perfect sense, if you ask me. In those days, the duties of wives were mainly to provide food, clean, sweep, nurture the children etc. because they were usually not involved in any economic venture. Husbands did all the work to make the family financially sound. Once again, I will say that this makes perfect sense. But times have changed. Women are actively involved in economic ventures now and are raking huge sums of money every month; sometimes even more than their husbands. A husband who is the CEO of a multinational company could be married to a woman who is a medical doctor by profession. The question is, does it mean the duties of wives at home need to be revised?

I believe the roles of both husband and wife should be revised. I know in Marriage Counselling men are advised to lend a helping hand with chores at home. I lean more towards this assertion. I have heard men with my own two ears state emphatically that they will do no such thing. It is like they can’t imagine themselves in the kitchen, whipping up something for the entire family. This brings me to the focus of this post: what exactly do wives expect their husbands to do at home? Women weren’t born with cooking and cleaning genes, men weren’t born with working genes either. This is even more evident in the way women have swarmed the corporate world in the last few decades. There is still much room for improvement though. Back to the question, what do wives expect their husbands to do at home? For most men, it isn’t the idea of doing something around the house that they find repulsive, but the fact that it has to  – of a necessity – be cooking and cleaning.

Socialization is society’s way of programming human beings for life. It is hard to change roles when you were made to think that you are hard-wired to do just that. Nevertheless, it is possible.

A lot of people are of the view that cooking and cleaning are the only chores in every home. This is so wrong! If it takes only cooking and cleaning to maintain the sanity, safety and well-being of family members then I dare say we have belittled what it means to be parents. I don’t ever remember seeing my dad in the kitchen cooking. Does that make him a lazy man who overburdened his wife and kids to work like donkeys? Before you pass any judgment, let me tell you a little story. In the community I grew up in, my dad was arguably one of the most hardworking men around. Not in terms of his job, but chores. You wouldn’t expect a Pharmacist with a very busy schedule as his to do the stuff he did. I grew up in Koforidua and my dad had a garden in front of the house and a farm behind the boys’ quarters. Oh yeh, he put the ‘farmer’ in Pharmacist. He planted maize and cassava. I didn’t quite get it at the time though, but lessons in Agricultural Science in Junior High School revealed that that system of farming was called Mixed Cropping. I was the type of child to throw baby tantrums anytime I was given work to do. That demon has long left me; it was beaten and caned out of me *insert your Amens here*. But one chore that my brother and I couldn’t wait to do was breaking off withered corn stalks after the harvest. We would do this every time in a faux action scene of one of the Chinese movies we used to watch. Kicking and punching at the sinister accomplices of the most evil antagonist standing before us as withered corn stalks. It was fun. Now, that was Koforidua and having a farm at the back of your house was a common practice. When we moved to Tema, guess what the old man did… he made another farm. This time, a smaller one because the soil was sandy and our backyard was smaller. My dad initiated all general cleanings at home. He was brutal towards any of us who appeared reluctant to participate in it. My question is, does such a husband still have to actively work in the kitchen to prove himself a hard-working fellow? Is the kitchen the only place where there is work to be done in the home?

Chores are not gender-specific but honestly there are some chores that come more easy to  people of a particular gender. This is not because of our biological makeup – as some people would be irritated by this if it were so. It is simply by socialization: the way we were brought up. It is very cool and helpful on his part, if the husband cooks in the house. Per the way most of us were brought up, our female counterparts are better cooks than we are. So, which is the more reasonable approach, to get all men to start learning how to cook now or to have them actively involved in the things that require masculine strength at home? The latter is more reasonable. I don’t need to quote any literature to buttress the point that men are physically stronger than women. It is an observable fact. Hence, wouldn’t men be more suited to do the things that their strengths can afford them the luxury of doing? If we are to remove the demarcations and say that since no one is born with a specific gene to do some chores men and women should not specialize, that would wreak havoc in the family. I don’t know about other guys, but I know there is something about the picture of my wife washing her own car I find off. I can’t picture my wife ‘spidermanning’ her way up a ladder to the roof to fix the TV pole because she wants to watch her favorite telenovela. I can’t sit, with folded arms and watch the woman of my life sink a few nails into the spine of a broken door in her bid to fix it. Why should a husband allow his wife’s palms to blister away into hardness because she was weeding with a cutlass while he made supper in the kitchen?  If you didn’t cringe at any of these scenarios, then I must admit there is something wrong with me because I did… and ever so emphatically. It is not even a matter of which chore is demeaning, it is a matter of which one comes easy to whom.

When it comes to gender, I am not conclusive in my views as it is a very touchy subject and a controversial one. You could touch raw nerves by passing a loose comment about women these days – and rightly so. I just wish we would dialogue more and accept that marriage has some dynamics that don’t accommodate stiff rules that cannot be bent or turned to favor both parties every now and then. Plus, what works for one couple may cause a divorce in another. Hence, the two parties involved should sit and decide who does what in the home.