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Important Question About the Bible
Hi, I know this is a little strange, but I've been struggling with an issue lately and I think you might be the perfect person to help me with it. I've seen you answer questions in a manner that leads me to the conclusion that you are a devout Christian and this is a question I need answered by someone who knows the Bible well.
My question is, does the Bible support the idea that God loves men more than women? Until recently, I never believed that God would favor anyone over anyone else, but around a year or so ago, I learned that it is a semi popular belief that men are more important, more valuable, and more loved by God than women are and it bothers me tremendously.
I know that God created men and women differently for different purposes and that some people misinterpret certain verses as being sexist when they're not, such as Ephesians 5:22-24, 1 Timothy 2:11-12, or 1 Corinthian 14:34-35 and other such verses. I've always heard that there were reasons for these verses that had nothing to do with favoritism towards men. Basically, I've heard that most verses interpreted as being anti-woman were just written to establish the different roles God gives men and women. However, there are other verses that don't seem so easy to explain. Last summer, I found a list someone wrote of Bible verses that appear to support the idea that God might love men considerably more than women. I know this is not helpful, but for the life of me, I can't remember what exactly those verses were. I've tried to find the list again, but I can't seem to do that either. That's why I want someone who is well educated about the Bible to answer this question.
Something else I haven't been able to find is cold hard proof that the Bible supports the idea that men and women are equal in God's eyes. There is Galatians 3:28, but I've heard that this verse doesn't actually mean what people think it does. I know it's stupid to research this kind of thing on the internet, but I have and every time I find a site that tries to disprove the idea that God loves men more than women, this author doesn't seem to have any proof. They seem to just give their opinion on the matter and then men flock to those sites just to try to prove THEIR opinion that God favors men. What's particularly upsetting is that they tend to make better points than people who believe in gender equality do.
It seems to make some men very angry when women want to believe that God loves both genders equally. They don't want Him to love everyone equally, they want Him to love men much more. They tear apart almost every argument anyone makes for gender equality. If someone says that Adam and Eve were both responsible for the fall, they argue and say that Eve single handedly caused the fall and Adam did nothing wrong. If someone says that both men and women were created in the image of God, they argue and say that men were created in the image of God and women were created in the image of men, which makes men seem even more special yet as, if this were true, men would be the only creatures created in God's image and they'd have another creature created in THEIR image. If someone says that God created Eve to prevent Adam from being lonely and created a bit after Adam to let him BECOME lonely so he'd appreciate her more, they argue and say that he created Eve to be Adams slave (so to speak) and created her after him as more evidence that He favors men over women. Men dwell on the fact that women are commanded to submit to their husbands, but ignore the commandments he gives to husbands or reject that those commandments mean what people think they do. I've been told that men are to protect their wives with their lives. That if a husband and wife are in a life and death situation, the husband should sacrifice his life for his wife, but there are people who reject this, saying that "it's not fair to men."
A lot of men get irritated with other men for not understanding the reason God did give men authority over their wives. These men believe that the relationship between a husband and wife should mirror the relationship between Christ and the church. Women are expected to obey their husbands just as the church is expect to obey Christ. Men are expected to sacrifice their lives (if needed) or their well being for their wives just as Christ sacrificed his life for the church and sacrificed his well being at times too by doing things like skipping meals to witness to someone. One man wrote an article about what a Christian marriage should look like. He wrote that while a wife should submit to her husband, a husband should obey the commandment to love his wife as Christ loved the church. He believed this DOES mean that husbands should sacrifice their lives for their wives if needed, but more than that, he theorized that husbands are to love their wives more than wives are to love their husbands. He seemed to believe that since women are not given the same commandment to love their husbands as Christ loved the church, and since God, and therefore Christ, have a greater capacity for love than we do, then Men are to love their wives more than wives are to love their husbands. He also believed that if a man loves his wife as much as he's commanded to, then he will take excellent care of her, protect her, and care more about her wants than his own, making marriage a lot men pro woman the people think it is. But this is the kind of thing that men love to tear apart. They argue that men have authority over their wives because wives are to be their husbands slaves and men are not expected to put their wives' wants or needs ahead of their own because the whole reason women were created were to tend to men's wants and needs.
I know I'm probably making too big of a deal about this, but this is very important to me. I didn't have a great father. He was abusive, selfish, uninvolved, unconcerned, and absent from much of my upbringing. He was a terrible leader for my family. for years, he never went to church with me, my mom, and my sister, and taught me virtually nothing about the Bible. Also, he set an abysmal example of what marriage should look like, which has damaged me for life, and favored my sister greatly over me. Before I accepted Jesus as my Lord and savior, I was told that when I did so, I'd be getting a new, perfect, flawless father who would love me more than my earthly father, or anyone else for that matter ever could. I was in desperate need for a good father and have always taken comfort in knowing I had one in God. So yes, it upsets me more than anyone understands to hear people claim that while God created me as a female, He discriminates against me for being female. It also upsets me to worry that this is never going to end. One men claimed that men will have a more special place in Heaven than women will, which would mean that this feeling of inferiority will never end. Men and women will never be equal, God's favoritism of and special treatment towards men will last for all eternity.
I just want to know the truth. I want to know how God feels about me as a woman. I want to know how he feels about women in comparison to men. I apologize for the length of this question, but if you could help me with this issue, I'd appreciate it more than you could possibly know. Thank you in advance.
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Thank you so much for believing in how well versed I am in The Bible. I am afraid I may have to disappoint you a little in that I have heard not only from books, but various pastors that although
the Bible is the word of God, it is also full of man's interpretations of the Bible. As you have found, it can be disturbing and also there can be doubt that what some religious people are claiming is pretty far off the mark of what God really meant for us to understand and believe. One visiting pastor once told us something about the word "Sin". In archery where you try to hit the bullseye with your arrow, anywhere you hit other than the bullseye is called 'Sin'. Sin truly means to have missed the mark or in relation to Christians, to have misinterpreted or truly missed the point of what God is really saying. Jesus had to speak parables in stories that people could relate to in the day he was walking in a mortal body on earth. In that day, wives were considered property. Just because men believed it didn't mean it was Gods will. Jesus had so many concepts to teach mankind that went against so many of their beliefs that they became angry with him real easily. When I wonder what is important to God for me in todays time, I have asked Him and gotten answers. In fact, my launching point on being able to really hear God talking in my mind to me, was when a visiting Lady minister came to our church to teach us some ways that God speaks to us. Some people are more visual, while others are more into what they hear and so on. God can get messages across to us in ways that work best for us. What I want to do is encourage you to first start as the lady pastor said to us, to exercise that part of our brain that catches the voice of God. It is like a spiritual muscle that requires exercising to get stronger and thats when you have no trouble hearing and can ask a question even internally without speaking and get an immediate answer often. If you are interested in hearing more about the simple exercises, let me know and I'll share in a separate message. The reason I seem to have gone off point and seem to not be answering your question is because I have read enough and as I said, even a few pastors have said that the most important source we have for any spiritual questions is going to the source and of course that would be God. Over time, man kind has messed with the Bible, taking out things that originally were a part of it and changed some things before we got the Bible we have today. It happened when Constantine, a Roman emperor became a Christian. There were many Christian sects around, not one unified belief and so there were many that fought amongst each other. Constantine created the council of Nicaea who decided what stayed in and stayed out of the bible. I can't say all of original writings were burned as we are told. There may have been a handful of books with the original writings. I never took any theology studies or such, only books I've read by theological scholars. And there are a few original books that are so old they may crumble at being touched and are under glass. Or for any scholar to actually look up anything in them is maybe one in decade and they must be extremely careful to not destroy these few books or documents. So there may be some of the original stories that were copied from there but they were not accepted by todays church because we are under the assumption that the Bible is whole and things haven't been changed. I read once that one of the things changed which the few scholars allowed to see these old manuscripts have discovered is that before the council of Nicaea, that the Holy Spirit used to be referred to as a 'She', not a He. It actually makes more sense. Once I read that, it rang as true to me, although I did ask God. When he described man being made in his Image, we have to realize that God took many of his traits and characteristics and put half of them into man and half into woman. So does that mean God has a wife? No. But the Holy Spirit part of God is the entity that already had all the female characteristics. It is said that when God said, let US create the earth, and so on, that it wasn't just what we can relate to as male traits but the female traits that came from God. It is said God or the Sonwere like the architect who came up with the plans but the Holy Spirit part of God is who did the actually creating going by the plans God wrote/spoke out. So it is no wonder that God made females with the ability to create like the Holy Spirit. It is limited in comparison but only females have the ability to create another mortal body for one of Gods souls to come inhabit. A female creates a home out of whatever place she is given to live, she takes separate foods, and puts them together in ways to create meals. This does not mean that men can't have a natural creative bent. It isn't that God favors men above women but that men back in the ages when the Bible that we use today, carefully went over the whole Bible and took out enough positive references to women and changed the Holy Spirit from she to he so that there would be nothing left that could positively show that like Jesus and the Holy Spirit work together as a team, men and woman too are equals. Man is only physically stronger than women and unfortunately that has been used to put together the beliefs we have today. This is why there is no real good documents or sources I can turn you towards to study. And this is why I can't stress enough how important it is that you practice and strengthen your spiritual muscle. It was quite a process for me. I started as a teenager, but it wasn't until I was a Mom with children of my own that God became to test me in ways that I could learn to trust him, I had to learn to trust him more than what I read in the bible because the parts left, were left on purpose because they could be taken many ways or misinterpreted so that today we get the things that you have heard. It was all done on purpose. It is funny/odd that they actually left that passage in Revelations where there is a warning to people to not change or omit anything from the bible. I think it was put in to make sure no one tried to change it back to what it should be in case any surviving manuscripts did exist that they missed finding and destroying.
Heres another thing for you to think about, as far as the male and female attributes, we are told we have an earthly father to give us an idea of the relationship we should have with our Heavenly father. When we are young, that is the first image we get of a father. However the bible says nothing of the fact that we have a mother and that she is also a representation of the God, the nurturing, healing, teaching part. Yes some Dads can do that but for most, it isn't part of their nature. I believe there used to be verses about God in heaven being like our earthly father AND mother but mother is not mentioned. God didn't leave that out, men did. You may think this is all my own opinion too as I have no books or verses to direct you to, but God is telling me that the best thing I can tell you is to allow God to start teaching you what He wants to know. We are told that we may hear things that are not defined in the bible and that it may be the Devil placing such thoughts in our heads. I think that is another terrible warning created by Mankind so that people would not trust when they do truly hear the truth from God. I understand that like being in school with all the grade levels, that souls are like in school as far as what they believe and some are not ready to hear certain things and God is good enough to show us only what we can comprehend, even if its not the full truth but pointing you in the right direction. ONe time in prayer at a ladys retreat GOd told me he had something to tell me but that I wasn't ready yet because I would think I was hearing from the devil. I found in my testing that I believed God sometimes and doubted my ability to hear from him on others. Yeah, my response is equally long but I think at this point, sharing an example of how I doubted God will help you see what I am saying. We were told at a ladys retreat to ask God to give us the name of a person he wanted us to give a message or a word to. We had to spend some quiet time trying to hear. At this point, I had no trouble hearing from God, I just doubted my ability to hear 100% correctly. SO I asked God to give me a person. HE answered SHelly. I was already scared. I was in awe of Shelly. I felt she was so far above me as far as Christian experience, a womans Aglow leader, Womens bible study group leader, and principal of the christian school among other things. Does it have to be her I asked, Yes I heard back. Okay what word do you have for me to share with her? I asked as I was thumbing idly through my bible. "Simplicity." I began to freak out in my mind. I meant a word as in a bible verse God. I didnot literally mean one word. He said, "You asked for what I have for you to share with her, that is it." "But it's one word. I can't go up and tell her just that one word, she'll think I am crazy or stupid." I protested. "You don't have to do it. You asked me, I told you. So I answered. You go share the word if you want." God wasn't going to force me. I fumed for a couple minutes and then in a mental huff I said, "Okay, fine, I'll just go tell her and make a fool of myself for you. I can handle the embarassment." (Remember when Jesus told a story of the man who says Yes LOrd but doesnt do what God said, versus the man who whined and comlained but in the end did what God said and how the latter was the one who no matter how he got there, he did the right thing. I was feeling like that person remembering the verse and comparing myself to it. So I knew I had to follow through. So I walk up to Shelly and tell her God gave me a word for her. SHe saids, okay what is it. "It's literally just one word, not a scripture." She didn't looked confused, just encouraged me, "Okay, that's fine, what is it." "Simplicity." The moment I spoke the word she became so excited I couldn't believe it. "Oh my gosh, In my private time this God, I wrote something in my journal that God told me. You'll never believe it If I just tell you. Wait here while I go get it. She came back and showed me. God had told her she had too much on her plate and that she needed to simplify her life, especially since she was engaged to be married a second time and GOd would leave it to her as to what responsibilities she gave up. So not only did I learn by sharing that I did hear 100% correct from God but in sharing with her, she also learned she had heard for sure correctly from God. I have many such examples in life where God tested me, never scolded me for doubting because it was a process, as long as I learned in the end, that was all He wished for me. No, this example doesnt share what GOd has to say about men and women being equally loved, and that both are equally important and needed to make an effective team, but it does share that we can eventually get to a place where God is the one we turn to and get the truth from. It is all about having a personal relationship with God. We say we do. I did. But I finally realized, hey, I talk to my mom and dad and they talk to me in conversation but I truly didn't have that with God. With conversing missing in our relationship with God, we are left open to be tormented unnecessarily but what we are told is Gods words or wish for us when it may not be. The bible has truths but it also has parts that are now misleading with some of it left out and destroyed. So for you to have peace and know that what God tells you is the truth, no matter that the Bible says differently or seems to be vague on some things, God slowly brought me to a place where I have no fear of people and what they will think, I don't decide to do what I do for God because I am more worried about seeming like a heritic or back slidden to church goers, but like King David, my one desire is to always be pleasing God. In fact on two occasions, God spoke to two different ladies, one not even from my church to tell me, I know this might sound strange but God asked me to tell you something, its that He is still pleased with you. It doesnt make sense to me. Then I told the people that it made perfect sense to me. It was like basking in the praise you get from Mom or Dad when you were taught how to do something and you finally did it right.
As a result of how I have had my life touched in the ways it has been by hearing from Him, I feel like attending church is now like going back to Kindergarten. Not bragging as I know I have a far way to go but its what is talked about in some scriptures like 1 Corinthians 3:1,2 "Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly -- mere infants in Christ. 2 I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. (My belief is that in most congregations, it is geared only for babies and the teachings are there, much like parents train us to do everything from how to go potty, to hold a spoon, ride a bike, how to treat others, etc. It is the basics. I have checked out so many churches and they are all the same. You find maybe 3 people in each who are where I am spiritually in what they hear from God. When I've asked why they still stay, they tell me because God told them to stay there, not for themselves but to be there and be ready to share something with another person so they can learn to trust God and have that personal walk with Him. In that case, they are doing what they should be.
Another verse: Heb 5:12 By now you should have been teachers, but once again you need to be taught the simplest things about what God has said. You need milk instead of solid food. (half the problem is that even church leaders, pastors themselves struggle with the knowledge of hearing from God and moving on from baby stuff to a more advanced part of our walk with God. The basics are important and it is important to have fellowship, thats like kids in a daycare learning how to play nicely with others. Once you know that, its time to move on to higher levels of teaching. I had a pastor not share a sermon one Sunday but admit that he had no idea what to tell us because he wasn't able to hear from God any longer. He said he could once upon a time but everytime he asked God what was wrong, God only said, Go back and do what I told you to do the last time I asked." He said he couldn't remember and looked helpless. I was shocked. What I realized from that is that is Gods way of teaching him something, something I had learned already straight from God. I am not a church leader and God is harder on those who lead others because HE wouldn't want someone to be leading people astray. So while I was given a choice to share that word with Shelly or not, our Pastor may have not fully trusted God or his Ability to hear from God and chose not to do something very important he was told to do. It may have been something that he must do to learn, before he can progress to the next 'grade' level for souls. God doesn't let us pass on to the next grade level like schools do today because they are worried about kids feeling being hurt. God will allow you to stay put at whatever level you are at or progress on as fast as you learn from God and really get it. There is no time limit like a test in which you have to complete or get it. Again, I fear I may not be answering your question but it is what I feel God is telling me to share with you hon. I am hoping that what I have shared gives you hope. It is not an easy or instant answer to your spiritual questions or the one in particular. But I know no better source than going to our Creator to learn and be taught. The church just isn't structured to show us how to advance in our growth as believers. I am closer to God now than I was during the days I attended church. Not saying church is bad, unfortunately it seems to be set up only for , lets call it, stage one in our christian life. The fact that something doesn't make sense to you and hearing such differing opinions means you are where I was at when God knew I was ready to learn to not only hear from him but learn to trust myself that I could hear correctly because sometimes we may hear something we don't want to hear but know its from God. Same as parents tell us to do something or lay down the rules we don't want to hear. Please do write me again with your thoughts of what I've written and if you feel ready to take that next step of spiritual growth to hear and trust God 100%. Only then will you get the answers you seek. If God tells you like he tells me that He can't give me an answer right now because my soul isn't ready yet, then I am content to wait. I certainly don't want the stress of trying to jump from 2nd grade to Senior year of high school and skip all else between.
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