Test of Faith. Genesis
God said wives were to be
A. equal to husbands
B. subject to husbands
Lot offered up his daughters to be
A. baptised
B. gang-raped
God used his power to
A. heal the sick children in Sodom and Gomorah
B. burn the children in Sodom and Gomorah
Gn 3:16, 19:6-8, 19:24
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God used his power to
C. Kill the sodomites in Sodom and Gomorrah
Lot's wife was killed by
C. Her own disobedience to God
Ah, but a great number of those you so dismissively
label “sodomites” were infants and children who had their hair and skin burned off their bodies, right?
Disobedience never killed anyone. God killed her. Do you really think it was just to kill a mother and wife for the natural human reaction of turning her head? Seems a tad harsh. But certainly in keeping with the character of the bible god.
What do think about Lot’s actions of offering his daughters to a mob of depraved men to do with as they pleased? Does this not point to fact the bible was written by misogynistic men rather than being the divinely inspired word of the Creator of the Universe?
And do you think it right that wives should be subject to husbands rather than equal partners? Do you think that arrangement will make a happy, fulfilling marriage?
Ephesians 5:22-33 "Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church— for we are members of his body. 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.' This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband."
Wives respect their husbands as they respect God. Husbands love their wives as Christ loved the church. So really, in my opinion, husbands have got the harder task of the 2 - wives have to respect their husbands, but Christ died for the church even after his people had rejected him (unconditional love)!
I see all of that as flowery language to confuse and conceal the fact that when all is said and done wives are to be submissive to husbands. It was written by MEN. To keep women in line. It is long past time for women to reject such nonsense.
If you want me to cut the "flowery language" out I'd be happy to. Here is what I see as the gist of it, and I'm a young woman so I guess my perspective would matter!
Kelsie's paraphrase (the way I see it):
Wives, obey your husbands the same way you would obey God. The husband is over you just as Christ is over the church. Just as the church respects and obeys Christ, the wives should respect and obey their husbands.
Husbands, love your wives as much as Christ loved his church. He died for her, so that she would be righteous like him. He washed her through his word so that she would appear completely blameless in his eyes. In the same way, husbands need to love their wives. They love them even as much as their own body. Everybody loves their own body, no matter how much they grumble - they still eat and sleep and care for themselves, just like Christ takes care of the church. A man leaves his childhood and his old family behind to become one with his wife. Christ did this similarly with the church. Therefore, love your wife as much as you love yourself, and your wife will respect you for it.
First of all, what does it mean to obey God? Which God? There have been thousands. Obey the Ten Commandments? Which version? And if you are going to obey ten of them why not all the commandments? Why not the one that commands a man to chop off the hand of his wife? Or kill witches or homosexuals or brides that can’t prove their virginity?
Why do you need to obey some “God” anyway? Why not think for yourself? Why not do what you think is right? Don’t you think any God worth a darn would rather have people spreading love and kindness because they truly cared about others rather than out of obedience?
Do you think you are less than a man? Let’s turn the tables...why shouldn’t the man obey you?
I would suggest reading the thoughts of women like Elizabeth Cady Stanton:
“The Bible and the Church have been the greatest stumbling blocks in the way of women's emancipation”
“Thus far, women have been the mere echoes of men. Our laws and constitutions, our creeds and codes, and the customs of social life are all of masculine origin. The true woman is as yet a dream of the future.”
The world needs bright young women like yourself to become the “true woman” of the future, not obedient women that defer to another simply because that person has a Y chromosome.
I have found in my experience that guys tend to have more of a leadership trait which means they tend to take lead. I am a natural leader, but when I'm around my boyfriend there's something about the relationship that it just seems more normal to follow his lead. That doesn't mean I just meekly submit to everything he ever says or tells me to do. Like the verse in Ephesians says, he has to love me first like Christ loved the church (I know we're not married but this is the best analogy I can make, I'm still a kid! :-) )
And when I obey God...well, okay, let me start by saying that the 10 Commandments aren't a standard for following God. Jesus came to free us from the law. The point of the 10 Commandments is to show how innately sinful man is - because they cannot keep all 10 always, no matter how hard they try - and to show mankind that they need a Savior. Which would be Jesus in our belief.
And of course when I say obey God, I mean the Christian God. Sorry if that wasn't clear.
So yes, of course people should strive to obey the commandments (all of them not just the 10) because that is usually what is accepted as "right" in society (i.e. in our society we don't let people murder, steal, etc.) But the commandments aren't there to obey God. The law is there to show the sin of man. Jesus came to free us from the law. (These are verses, I'm not sure if you're familiar with these verses, and I don't know the references offhand but if you want I will look them up for you.)
It seems you have a very healthy, happy relationship with your boyfriend. How nice! But my point is that there is a difference between an “organic” relinquishing of power to another out of love and respect and a book commanding a woman submit to a man simply because she is a woman and he is a man. That is plain oppression.
Surely you don’t mean people should strive to obey all the commandments. That of course would require us to kill most teenagers (for cursing a parent), a great percentage of adults (for adultery), millions of homosexuals and spend time taking part in witch hunts and burning those we imagined to be so wicked. And of course there are all kinds of dietary restrictions (no ham sandwiches!), commands of genocide, rules for selling young girls such as yourself as slaves.
So since attempting to “obey” the Old Testament commands/God would land you in prison today, how do you “obey” the New Testament God?
If the teenagers and the adults were obeying the commandments in the first place, we wouldn't have to kill them now would we? :-)
But then of course that goes all back to the Fall...
Interesting little fact I found out. There's a disease that you can get from eating pork which can kill you (trichinellosis). In order to make the pork "clean" enough to it, you either have to hold it at 5 degree level for several days or cook it at above 170 degrees for several hours. The Israelites wouldn't have been able to prevent trichinellosis, so God just told them not to eat pork, thereby getting rid of the problem!
I think with the women respecting their husbands, I think maybe God knows that men have the natural-leader gene (or whatever it is that makes them take charge) and so he just lets it work in the natural order of things. After all, he is the one who made them that way. :-)
Boy, you kind of dismissed the heinously brutal commandments with a little joke there, huh?
Seriously, I am trying to understand what it means to a modern Christian to be “obedient”. We have established that you don’t want to obey many if not most of the commandments as that would force you to kill people. So what does it mean for you to be “obedient” to God?
Good question!
"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind" and "Love your neighbor as yourself".
But isn’t love cheapened if you love out of “obedience”? It seems the atheist who loves because he cares about another is exhibiting a more natural and true love.
I care for God more than I care for anyone or anything else that I know. Just because I obey my parents, does it mean that I am "cheapening" my love for them?
I love God with all my heart (and soul and mind, or at least do my best to!)...that's what makes me write poems and stories and songs about Him, because I love him so much! That's what makes me feel all happy whenever I'm singing, because I'm singing songs for Him! :-) (sorry, I totally just had a girly moment on ya ;-) )
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