Jesus is awesome. But there are so many annoying people in the world and for some reason a lot of these people end up in church leadership. They end up saying really dumb things sometimes and get angry at stuff that is ridiculous. They give the church a bad name and sometimes cause us to get labelled as bigots, misogynists, sexists, homophobes and worse. This is pretty sad when we see just how inclusive Jesus is with people on the fringes.
Jesus was just awesome with women. Jewish society had become
pretty patriarchal by the first century and women were essentially viewed as
the property of men (take a look at the ten commandments: ‘do not covet your
neighbours possessions, his livestock, his wife, his house’ – she’s not even
top of the list!). Jesus consistently acts in such a way as to break this
thinking down. And this was pretty radical for a rabbi. Jesus talked with,
taught, healed, travelled with, praised and discipled women. He took them
seriously, he wanted them to learn and he saw them as important. Luke’s gospel
is particularly big on this. You can’t really see it any other way.
However, when it comes to leadership, it doesn’t seem to
look like Jesus wants women involved. His 12 apostles were all men. On top of
this, Jesus never speaks against the culture of female inferiority, and some
see that as indirectly justifying it. Some have argued that he did this because
women wouldn’t have been taken seriously in that culture. Others have said that
it was because women would have known the scriptures well enough to be a
definitive teacher of Christian doctrine.
But in my experience, people like to jump from narrative to
what they like to call ‘a biblical model’. They read certain stories in the
bible, or certain actions of certain individuals and then decide that those are
moral codes, or examples to follow. They turn them into something that is
prescriptive. This is particularly common for the church described in the book
of Acts. They read about what went on at the beginning of the church’s story and
decide that what Luke is actually doing is outlining a blueprint for all of
church life from there on in. But there actually isn’t much saying that you
should be doing this. To look to the selection of the twelve as a prescriptive
model for leadership is to read into the text something that isn’t there.
In light of the story of Israel before Jesus, to understand
that the very structure of how the nation was understood, it is clear that what
Jesus is doing is a highly symbolic action: he is choosing a new twelve. It is
a subversive act, it is a statement to Israel that he is ushering a new
beginning. This is one of many re-enactments of the Israel story that Jesus
takes into himself and gives new meaning. To do anything else with this is to
treat the bible like a manual. Don’t do that. It’s not a Western book.
So, does this mean that the laws about women in the old testament are nil and void. Did God change his mind, make a mistake or is the old testament mans word not Gods word. Much of the old testament does not seem like the works, words or actions of someone that lives mankind but more like the people of that time. So either God had a change of mind and personality or it's all man made ?
ReplyDeleteAlso, if the old testimant was man made then how can we be sure the New Testimant isn't man made not from God as well ?
ReplyDeleteI was just like the people they had gone to help as missionaries. I came from an abusive family and struggled drifting alone from town to town as a young adult. When people from church realized I wasn't quite like them they didn't want to know me. I wasn't good enough for them. I was the sort of person they help from a distance as a nameless faceless recipeant of their donations or food deeds. But not wanted as one of them. No good enough to join their groups, to sit next to. Don't pretend things have changed. Please don't preach love and acceptance then turn your back on people. You have no idea of the hurt and harm that causes. It creates hurt and hatred not love. Be careful only to preach what you can put into practice.
ReplyDeleteI hate churches and Christianity. They just reinforced that the abuse I received as a child was something to be ashamed of and made me unworthy of belonging and being accepted by them. They made me feel unwanted, unlovable and unacceptable. They caused a lot of hurt and harm to me. I now hate them and everything they stand for including their God.
ReplyDeleteI'm determined to show them I'm not worthless and unlovable and that the abuse that happened to me can be turned around to help others and can turn into something good. I'm going to become someone of value and worth in this world and I'm going to prove I can do it without the help of any church or God. I would never encourage anyone to go to church or turn to God. Its all false. They don't practice what they preach and there is no God. Their false hope, promises and lies cause far more harm, hurt and devastation in the lives of people that have suffered enough.
Anonymous, I probably don't have space here to really tackle all your questions properly, but in terms of reading laws and understanding the thinking involved in the Old Testament: When it comes to Mosaic law in the Torah (and actually moral guidance from Jesus too, to an extent) you can't just look at these as abstract rules that remain timeless and unchanging. This is the same for the Bible in general; God's word is not timeless, but timely and abiding. It was given to certain people at a certain time, and most importantly, for certain reasons. There were real reasons that Moses put these laws in place in light of what was going on in the ancient near eastern world. And there were really good reasons (like suffering under an oppressive Roman Empire) that Jesus told people to turn the other cheek, walk the extra mile etc. To give no consideration to the WHY when it comes to biblical texts is to miss out a huge part of what the text is actually saying, and in the first 5 books of the Old Testament this HUGELY important. It's unhelpful to jump straight from these codes to discussions on objective/subjective morality. In the ancient near eastern world, to put these sorts of laws in place was a MASSIVE step forward in ethics and so although they don't solve the problem (the corruption of the human heart) they work primarily as a preventative to further wrongdoing. They are not the solution in themselves. This is where our ideas about what the bible actually is are so important, and where potentially will begin the most fierce debate. I know a lot of people won't like me saying that the bible is a highly contextual book, but I'm okay with that.
ReplyDeleteHayley M - it sounds like you're frustrated at hypocrisy, but I'm struggling to tie all your arguments together?