If you are not aware Abraham was first called Abram and his brother was Lot, the Lot of Sodom and Gamorrah. The first time we really hear of Abram was when hear of his father diying at the age of 205. Next we see him being called by God to be the father of great nations. So doing as God told him he took his wife Sarai and his brother Lot and left to go to Canaan like he was instructed to do. They were traveling to the land where God promised to make Abram the father of "a great nation and make his name great" (Genesis Ch. 12:2). Chapter 12 is where we start to hear Abraham's story. For our purposes in this post, we will be skipping vs. 1-9, we will come back to them soon. We are starting in Genesis Ch. 12:10-20. While traveling where God told them to go they experience a famine in the land. So they need to go to Egypt to survive. As Abram and Sarai were entering Eygpt Abram told his wife that while they were there,they were going to say that she was to be his sister, and not his wife (vs. 10-13) This was because he was afraid that they would see how beautiful she was and want her as his wife and kill him to get her. He even says to do this so "and that my life may be spared for your sake". Okay ladies, he just said, so I don't have to die, I want to deny who you are to me and how specail you are in my life. How many times have we endured this? Maybe our husbands don't wear their rings, or maybe they don't talk about us to other people, or maybe not even introduce us to others. How many times have they maybe not answered our phone calls when they are visiting with their friends. Think of things like this so we can understand what Sarai was feeling at the moment. Now granted, no our husband's lives won't be in risk, but he was still denying what God had put together, instead of trust Him.
So, next they go into Egypt and they are saying she is his sister. Well, the Pharaoh hears about her from his princes (vs. 15). Because the Pharaoh thought she was just a sister, and not a wife, he took her as his wife. When she goes into the Pharaoh's palace to be taken as his wife, it the same as Esther, she hadn't lied with him yet, she was just in the progress of becoming his wife and to be taken to the Pharaoh's bed. Not only did this happen, but ABRAM RECIEVED GIFTS FROM THE PHARAOH FOR SARAI. The Pharaoh wanted to make sure that he treated, who he thought, would be his brother-in-law. Can you imagine Sarai? She followed what her husband said to do. She didn't question him, she didnt' complain, she did as he said, and was now about to become a wife to a man, even though she was married. This would have been sin. She would have commited adultry. She followed her husband. He had asked her to lie and now to go into a marriage with another man. Was this right of Sarai? Should she have stepped out and told her husband No. That this was wrong and she cannot sin, or was she to simply follow as she did? Here is what we can take hope in. God protected Sarai. The Lord placed plagues on the house of the Pharaoh. Egypt will continue to have plagues as we will see later in this book. God revealed to Pharaoh that there was an issue with Sarai and found out that that was not Abram's sister, but his wife. (vs. 19)
After the truth was revealed Abram and his wife were told to leave. God delievered Sarai from having to sin, because of her husband's decisions. We are told to follow our husband's leadership. Whether Sarai was right or not, we do see that she follows her husband, regardless of the consequences to her. Because she was faithful in how God told her to respond to her husband, she was protect and blessed by the Lord. Let me pose some challenges to the women:
If you are single, I would challenge you to follow your fathers. Whether the father in your life is your biological father, your step-father, or an assingment parent, practice following thier leadership, so you can be prepard for following your future husbands.
If you are married, I would challenge you, as well as myself, the follow our husbands, unless he is asking us to sin. I cannot say that Sarai was totally right. I can say that she followed. If your husband is asking you to tell his boss that your he is sick, when in fact he is going fishing, you cannot do that. Your obedience lies with your God. Next is your willingness to follow your husband. This is regardless of our husband's salvation, or their level of intimacy between God or yourselves. Follow him, even if you don't want to or don't agree. Follow him, you will both be blessed from it.
I will be praying for all that read this blog that you may hear what God would have you hear, and not Ashley, and that you will follow His will in your life. Peace be with you.
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Where to begin?
Okay so I was thinking about where to being with this blog. I thought about starting in Proverbs 31 were we get out first juicy information about Godly femininity, or Titus 2 about our womenly mandate, or even with big "submission" word. I thought about it and talked to my husband and I think I am going to start at the very beginning with Eve. Make since right, we are starting, so let's start at the beginning.
To understand what we are as women we need to understand who we are as human beings ans as sinners. So we will start in Genesis Chapter 3. I am going to work from the ESV translation of the bible because I like it the most. It tends to be easier to read, and it is a good translation of the greek bible. I am going to skip the parts that are relevate to our discussion. Here is what it says,
" ...He (the serpent) said to the woman, "Did God actually say, "You shall not eat of any tree in the garden?" and the woman said to the serpent "We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, "You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither sall you touch it, lest you die" But the serpent said to the woman, "YOu will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate,and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked..." Vs 1a-7a
First let's deal with this. We have all heard this story. When we think of this fruit we usually think of a nice shiny apple right? I kind of do at least. Because of this we usually see the apple as a sysmbol of danger or evil in literature. It isn't really a bad thing. We sometimes can miss the point of the tree because we see a piece of fruit. There was noting magical about the fruit. There was absolutly nothing specail about it, except the fact that God told them not to eat it. Do you see? The "magical" part of the fruit that changed Adam and Eve, was the fact that they disobeied God and ate it. The two first human beings were made in God's image. Sinless! When He presented a choice to them, to eat or not to eat, they then did wrong, and then knew what sin was. Another thing that we hear all the time about this story is that men say, "It was Eve's fault that we are the way we are, because she ate the fruit first." Gentelmen, look up again, it says, "and ate, and also gave some to her husband who was WITH HER.." Adam was beside her. He was there, do we ever hear of him jumping in and saying, "Hey snake, we aren't doing that?". He wasn't decieved by Eve and didn't know what he was eating. He was with her and took part of the fruit himself. Sorry guys, not our fault. It's both genders fault!
Okay here is the next section we will deal with, the punishment from God for their sin, the one that affects us all,
"...Because you (the serpent) have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beast of the fields; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring, he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.
To the women he said, "I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing, in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you."
Okay this is our punishment in so many different ways. One we can all say that they were now sinners because they went against God's rules. We all now are born into sin, becuase Adam and Eve gave birth to all of us. So we don't get to be born without sin, and know oh it feels to never sin. Oh but that's not all of our punishment. First, we see that we are going to have some problems with snakes. Right? Well that's what God says. Yes not all women have issues with snakes and yes some women even work with snakes, but are we still caution with them more than any beast of the fields, or livestock? I am! This snake was not just a snake. It was satin. He came to change God's plan. However, we know that God is all knowing and in control of all things. He knew what would happen. Satin didn't change a thing. So when the curse says that the offspring of the women and the snake with bruise each other, it is because we as humans will battle with Satin all the time, and we will win sometimes, and we will fail sometimes. Also we were punished with pain in childbirth. Okay so I have no idea how that feels, not looking forward to it either, but we also have another after effect of this, we have menstrations. That hurts! That sucks, and we have to deal with it most of our lives. We are constantly reminded of the pain to come! Now this next thing is important. "your desire shall be for you husband, and he shall rule over you." The desire that we see here is not a sexual one, but one of control and sin. According to John MacArthur's study bible he says, "Just as the women and her seed will engagein a war with the serpent, i.e,., Satin and his seed (vs 15), because of sin and the cruse, the man and the woman will face struggles in their own relationship. Sin has turned th harmonious system of God-ordained roles into distateful struggles of self-will. Lifelong companions, husband and wives, will need God's help in getting along as a result. The woman's desire will be to lord it over her husband, but the husband will rule by DIVINE design (Ephsians 5:22-25). This interpretation of the curse is based upon the identical Hebrew words and grammar being used in 4:7 (If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you don't not do well, sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it.)to show the conflict man will have with sin as it seeks to rule him."
Women, we are called to fall under the decisions of our husbands, but God made us to not want to do that. Do you see now why the world has it wrong? Because the world doesn't know God, then they don't understand that that frustration that we get, and the "Godgiven" right to be able to be in charge, is from Him. That's why it is so important that we choose the right man to marry, because we HAVE to follow his leadership. Now, in marriage they are one flesh so there is not a disrespect factor here, or one ruling over the other, they are one person. (I will talk about this later).
I hope this has been insightful. I really enjoyed studying it!
To understand what we are as women we need to understand who we are as human beings ans as sinners. So we will start in Genesis Chapter 3. I am going to work from the ESV translation of the bible because I like it the most. It tends to be easier to read, and it is a good translation of the greek bible. I am going to skip the parts that are relevate to our discussion. Here is what it says,
" ...He (the serpent) said to the woman, "Did God actually say, "You shall not eat of any tree in the garden?" and the woman said to the serpent "We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, "You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither sall you touch it, lest you die" But the serpent said to the woman, "YOu will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate,and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked..." Vs 1a-7a
First let's deal with this. We have all heard this story. When we think of this fruit we usually think of a nice shiny apple right? I kind of do at least. Because of this we usually see the apple as a sysmbol of danger or evil in literature. It isn't really a bad thing. We sometimes can miss the point of the tree because we see a piece of fruit. There was noting magical about the fruit. There was absolutly nothing specail about it, except the fact that God told them not to eat it. Do you see? The "magical" part of the fruit that changed Adam and Eve, was the fact that they disobeied God and ate it. The two first human beings were made in God's image. Sinless! When He presented a choice to them, to eat or not to eat, they then did wrong, and then knew what sin was. Another thing that we hear all the time about this story is that men say, "It was Eve's fault that we are the way we are, because she ate the fruit first." Gentelmen, look up again, it says, "and ate, and also gave some to her husband who was WITH HER.." Adam was beside her. He was there, do we ever hear of him jumping in and saying, "Hey snake, we aren't doing that?". He wasn't decieved by Eve and didn't know what he was eating. He was with her and took part of the fruit himself. Sorry guys, not our fault. It's both genders fault!
Okay here is the next section we will deal with, the punishment from God for their sin, the one that affects us all,
"...Because you (the serpent) have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beast of the fields; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring, he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.
To the women he said, "I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing, in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you."
Okay this is our punishment in so many different ways. One we can all say that they were now sinners because they went against God's rules. We all now are born into sin, becuase Adam and Eve gave birth to all of us. So we don't get to be born without sin, and know oh it feels to never sin. Oh but that's not all of our punishment. First, we see that we are going to have some problems with snakes. Right? Well that's what God says. Yes not all women have issues with snakes and yes some women even work with snakes, but are we still caution with them more than any beast of the fields, or livestock? I am! This snake was not just a snake. It was satin. He came to change God's plan. However, we know that God is all knowing and in control of all things. He knew what would happen. Satin didn't change a thing. So when the curse says that the offspring of the women and the snake with bruise each other, it is because we as humans will battle with Satin all the time, and we will win sometimes, and we will fail sometimes. Also we were punished with pain in childbirth. Okay so I have no idea how that feels, not looking forward to it either, but we also have another after effect of this, we have menstrations. That hurts! That sucks, and we have to deal with it most of our lives. We are constantly reminded of the pain to come! Now this next thing is important. "your desire shall be for you husband, and he shall rule over you." The desire that we see here is not a sexual one, but one of control and sin. According to John MacArthur's study bible he says, "Just as the women and her seed will engagein a war with the serpent, i.e,., Satin and his seed (vs 15), because of sin and the cruse, the man and the woman will face struggles in their own relationship. Sin has turned th harmonious system of God-ordained roles into distateful struggles of self-will. Lifelong companions, husband and wives, will need God's help in getting along as a result. The woman's desire will be to lord it over her husband, but the husband will rule by DIVINE design (Ephsians 5:22-25). This interpretation of the curse is based upon the identical Hebrew words and grammar being used in 4:7 (If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you don't not do well, sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it.)to show the conflict man will have with sin as it seeks to rule him."
Women, we are called to fall under the decisions of our husbands, but God made us to not want to do that. Do you see now why the world has it wrong? Because the world doesn't know God, then they don't understand that that frustration that we get, and the "Godgiven" right to be able to be in charge, is from Him. That's why it is so important that we choose the right man to marry, because we HAVE to follow his leadership. Now, in marriage they are one flesh so there is not a disrespect factor here, or one ruling over the other, they are one person. (I will talk about this later).
I hope this has been insightful. I really enjoyed studying it!
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Let's get started
What does it mean to be a women? What were we designed for? We are differently physically from men, is there more then that? What does the bible say about women? Is it relevated to today's world? Where can I find Godly femininity? Is there honor in being a full-time wife and mother? How does our world feel about what the bible calls us to be? I want to show you what God has revealed to me about our Godly roles as women. To show you it is beautiful, amazing and honestly, not popular. Take a journey with me through, both Old and New Testament.
Let me first tell you about me. I am a wife of 1 year, 2 months and 5 days. I love my husband more than anything in this world. He is my main mission. He is my field of interest and work. I find more joy in him then anything else that God has shown me on this earth. Let me be honest, our marriage is not the best. We struggle and fall short to each other all the time, but we don'f place our joy or love in that. We know that if we place our joy and love for each other in each other, we will fail. We place our love and joy in Christ. He can never fail. He will always show us Himself in each other. I grew up in Danville, KY and went to a local church there. I had a strong youth group, and a family that loved God. Unfortiuntely, my life was filled with hurt, pain and loss. My mother had breast cancer that came when I was in fifth grade, and took here life 3 weeks before my graduation. Before she left thought, she taught me what it meant to be a women. When she did leave, she left books, journals, and memories of the proof of the joy in finding your womenhood in Christ.
I went off to college and studied music education. I am now currently an elementary education major with a focus in music. I changed my major becuase I found more joy with young children, and also so that I can use it for my future family. I am now in my 5th year of college. (Yes I know that I am never going to graduate). Before my marriage on Nov. 1, 2008, I started to study to prepare myself for being a wife. Let me tell you, you can't study enough. I read feminist opinons, and christians opinions. Let me tell you, everyone is a little off. LOL! I can only find the true answers in scriptures and also the councel of older women. Some women that I think highly of is Carolyn Mahaney, Nancy Leigh Demoss, Noel Piper, and Elisabeth Elliot. Alot of my believes stem from these women.
I don't have children yet, so I probably won't talk much about being a mother, but I can tell you how NOT to be a wife. LOL! I am good at that. Please know that I am wanting to show you Christ. First and formost, I want you to know that He loves you and there is hope for you. He can help you with anything, and if you ask Him for guidence, then you will see it. I pray that He will use me to his glory to show you the way of true godly femininity. I will tell you things that I have to work on too. This blog is for me too. To remind me and teach me. May God bless this effort, to Him goes all glory and honor.
Let me first tell you about me. I am a wife of 1 year, 2 months and 5 days. I love my husband more than anything in this world. He is my main mission. He is my field of interest and work. I find more joy in him then anything else that God has shown me on this earth. Let me be honest, our marriage is not the best. We struggle and fall short to each other all the time, but we don'f place our joy or love in that. We know that if we place our joy and love for each other in each other, we will fail. We place our love and joy in Christ. He can never fail. He will always show us Himself in each other. I grew up in Danville, KY and went to a local church there. I had a strong youth group, and a family that loved God. Unfortiuntely, my life was filled with hurt, pain and loss. My mother had breast cancer that came when I was in fifth grade, and took here life 3 weeks before my graduation. Before she left thought, she taught me what it meant to be a women. When she did leave, she left books, journals, and memories of the proof of the joy in finding your womenhood in Christ.
I went off to college and studied music education. I am now currently an elementary education major with a focus in music. I changed my major becuase I found more joy with young children, and also so that I can use it for my future family. I am now in my 5th year of college. (Yes I know that I am never going to graduate). Before my marriage on Nov. 1, 2008, I started to study to prepare myself for being a wife. Let me tell you, you can't study enough. I read feminist opinons, and christians opinions. Let me tell you, everyone is a little off. LOL! I can only find the true answers in scriptures and also the councel of older women. Some women that I think highly of is Carolyn Mahaney, Nancy Leigh Demoss, Noel Piper, and Elisabeth Elliot. Alot of my believes stem from these women.
I don't have children yet, so I probably won't talk much about being a mother, but I can tell you how NOT to be a wife. LOL! I am good at that. Please know that I am wanting to show you Christ. First and formost, I want you to know that He loves you and there is hope for you. He can help you with anything, and if you ask Him for guidence, then you will see it. I pray that He will use me to his glory to show you the way of true godly femininity. I will tell you things that I have to work on too. This blog is for me too. To remind me and teach me. May God bless this effort, to Him goes all glory and honor.
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