Equipping Eve: Biblical Womanhood

Is the church today doing everything it can to provide women a firm foundation of truth in Christ Jesus?

Well, it's true, there's no shortage of candy -coated Bible studies, potluck fellowships available to ladies.

But beyond Sunday morning, are Christian women being properly equipped to stand against the same deceptions that even enticed

Eve in the garden? In an attempt to address the need for trustworthy, biblical resources for women,

No Compromise Radio is happy to introduce Equipping Eve, a ladies -only radio show that seeks to equip women with fruits of truth in an age that's ripe with deception.

My name is Mike Abendroth and I'm pleased to introduce your host, Erin Benzinger, a friend of No Compromise Radio and a woman who wants to see other women equipped with a love for and a knowledge of the truth of God's Word.

Well, hello ladies and welcome to Equipping Eve. I am your host. It's the

New Year. It is 2019. Can you believe it? But at the same time, we don't celebrate when

December 1st rolls around. It's just, I don't know. You have to write a new year on your papers, your documentation, your checks, if you still write checks.

But let me tell you, if you're writing checks in a busy store and you're holding up the line because you're writing your check, it's time to pay with cash.

Okay. Anyway. But you know, it's interesting that we kind of distinguish between these days and it reminded me of kind of a little blurb that I had put up on the

Do Not Be Surprised blog a couple of years ago from a Spurgeon sermon. And so I went and I dug it out and reposted it at DoNotBeSurprised .com

and at Equipping Eve. So if you go to EquippingEve .com, you can click on the blog and check out the post from January 1st.

And I'm actually recording this on January 1st. So this is why we're talking New Year, because it's here, it's in my brain. And Spurgeon says in part, he says, this is the first day of a new year and therefore a solemnly joyous day, though there is no real difference between it and any other day, yet in our mind and thought, it is a marked period, which we regard as one of the milestones set up on the highway of our life.

It is only an imagination that there is any close of one year and beginning of another, and yet it has most fitly all the force of a great fact.

When men cross the line, they find no visible mark. The sea bears no trace of an equatorial belt, and yet mariners know whereabouts they are and they take notice thereof, so that a man can hardly cross the line for the first time without remembering it to the day of his death.

We are crossing the line now. If Jesus has not made us new already, let the new year cause us to think about the great and needful change of conversion.

And if our Lord has begun to make us new and we have somewhat entered into the new world wherein dwelleth righteousness, let us be persuaded by the season to press forward into the center of his new creation, that we may feel full, no, that we may feel to the full all the power of his grace.

Amen. Spurgeon, speaking as only Spurgeon can speak. So go check that out because I just read part of the portion that is posted and of course it's an entire sermon that he preached on New Year's Day in 1885.

So that was a long time ago. So here we are, it's 2019. I hope you all had a joyful Christmas season, time of celebration, however you may do that.

I hope you, you know, if you celebrated the new year, I hope you didn't wake anybody else up in the process.

You know, so here's the thing. I try really hard to be in bed before midnight because seriously,

I, you know, been there done that. I don't need to scream and shout at midnight.

It does nothing for me. So I was sleeping soundly and I was in that nice little sweet spot of sleep when somebody nearby set off fireworks at midnight.

So I was awakened and I was awake for the first many minutes of the new year because, you know, when you're in that sweet spot and you wake up, you're kind of awake for a while.

So it's okay. I'm not taping this in the middle of the night, so I did not get up to record and I'm not cranky anymore, but I was,

I was a little cranky at midnight. I'm not going to lie, full confession. So, um, hopefully your new year's celebration was, uh, neighbor friendly.

I don't think it was any of my neighbors, but it was close enough for me to awaken. Anyway, that's okay.

Not a fan, but it's a new year. Here we are.

What do you, what, what do you talk about to ring in the new year to usher that in? What, how do you set the tone for that?

Well, I'm going to, well,

I thought, ladies, that we would start with a discussion of biblical womanhood.

What does it look like? How has it changed or has it changed?

Well, God's word never changes, does it? But like him, his word is immutable per passages like Isaiah 40 verse 8, first Peter 1, 25.

God's word doesn't change just like its author. God does not change.

And so if we're talking about biblical womanhood, obviously the concept must not change, right? Now, here's the thing, ladies, normally discussions of biblical womanhood, and I'm, I'm using air quotes.

You can't see that, but I'm using air quotes. Usually those discussions make my skin crawl.

To be completely honest, when I see or hear this phrase of biblical womanhood,

I usually cringe. And it's not something that I want to engage in. It's not something

I want to listen to. And it's not because of a rebellious feminist spirit.

It's because I think we're doing it wrong. And I think if we stop and think about it, we'd realize that we're doing it wrong.

Because we're so bound by these stereotypes. You know, it's funny, we want to talk about the way the world has stereotypes and we've got the feminist stereotype and blah, blah, blah, blah.

We have biblical womanhood stereotypes. And so we kind of live and abide by these because they've been around so long.

But we don't even realize where our error is.

And so stay with me. I'm not going feminist crazy here at all. I want us to take a biblical look at biblical womanhood, and I think we're going to take kind of a different approach than perhaps you might expect.

So stay with me. If you're angry at the end of the episode, you can feel free to email me.

But I'll tell you up front, I'm not going to tell you that we should be pastors. I'm not going to tell you that we should be running churches and overturning the

God -ordained roles that God set forth in Genesis. That's just ridiculous. We're not going to do that today.

That's not biblical womanhood. But I think we're doing these discussions wrong often anyway, and so it might behoove us to take a step back and kind of start all over in our approach.

So let's be honest. When you read an article about biblical womanhood or you hear a discussion about biblical womanhood, it probably includes at least one of the following scripture passages.

Proverbs 31, Ephesians 5, and or Titus 2.

Right? Yeah, I'm right. Trust me.

I'm right on this one. I'm not always right, but I'm right on this one. And it's not that these are wrong.

These are good passages for ladies to look at. These are good passages, wait, hear me, for men to look at.

God didn't say, you know, here's the men's Bible and here's the woman's Bible in spite of some of the weird titled

Bibles you might see on the shelves. There's just a Bible for God's people.

So, you know, God didn't say, oh, well, Proverbs 31, only ladies need to read that.

And in fact, I think we mostly misinterpret Proverbs 31, but that's a discussion for another day.

But again, I think we're missing the foundation.

I think we're starting from the wrong place in these discussions. And I think that some of the interpretations you hear of Proverbs 31, for example, is based on that.

So anyway, again, it's not that any of these passages are wrong.

It's just that to pull them out and focus on them alone as the basis of what biblical womanhood is, that's incomplete.

And what it leads to is legalism and a works -based mentality, not in the sense of,

I'm doing this to be saved, but in the sense of, I'm doing this because this is the checklist

I've been given. And I'm doing this because I'm a failure as a Christian woman if I don't check these boxes.

So raise your hand. I can't see if you raise your hand. So I'm raising my hand as I say this.

Raise your hand if you've ever heard a teaching for Proverbs 31 that was basically a checklist of what you should be doing as a truly biblical woman.

Raise your hand. Nod to yourself, whatever, because I'm quite certain that the majority of you ladies have.

You've heard Proverbs 31 taught as this checklist. I've heard it before. I've heard it at wedding showers, which just makes me sad for the bride because it's like, oh, here's what you should do, and you're never going to be able to live up to this all on your own.

Stinks to be you. And I've heard this in other contexts within the church.

In fact, we've actually talked about this in the past. In some of our earliest episodes, we did a couple episodes on Christless checklists and holiness, and I'll link to those at the

Equipping Eve blog. So take a listen to those. But it was kind of based on a teaching that I heard from Proverbs 31 that I just,

I left, and I was just stunned because here it was, you know, an allegedly doctrinally sound church.

The wife of leadership was teaching, but every woman there that day left with a heavy burden, with a

Christless checklist to check off in order to attain her own holiness in her pursuit of biblical womanhood.

So when I hear things like that, I think, biblical womanhood is not a burden.

That would be like saying being a Christian is a burden. It's not. Didn't Jesus say, my yoke is easy, my burden is light?

So biblical womanhood, the Christian life, is not a burden, should not be a burden.

And the pursuit of biblical womanhood, I don't believe, should start in any of the passages that we already mentioned.

Proverbs 31, Titus 2, Ephesians 5, any other of these, you know, only women need to read these passages.

I would argue that biblical womanhood, the pursuit and the understanding of biblical womanhood, starts in Genesis 1.

So turn with me, ladies, to Genesis 1, verse 26. Then God said, let us make man in our image, according to our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.

God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them.

God blessed them, and God said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and rule over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.

So what I want us to think about, ladies, is that I want us to think about the fact that we were created in the image of God.

Yes, I know that woman was taken from man, but mankind was created in the image of God.

And so that gives us inherent value. And I think that's something that we forget.

You know, we talked about that fairly recently in an episode when we were talking about total depravity.

You know, and what does total depravity mean for the Christian? We're so quick to say, oh, I'm just a worthless worm,

I'm the scum that's found in between the little spaces on the bottom of your shoe.

You know, I'm nothing, blah, blah, blah. Well, it's true that we are sinners.

We are sinners by nature. So we are born sinners. The cute little baby who's just minutes old is a sinner.

I fully support that biblical doctrine. And as unsaved individuals, we are depraved.

I mean, we are... total depravity is a thing. But once we're saved by God, we have a whole new wardrobe, right?

We're new creatures, we're new creations in Christ. And so what we talked about in that episode, the total depravity episode, was, you know, we kind of need to be mindful of what we're calling

God's creation here. Yes, we're sinners. We have no inherent righteousness, no righteousness of our own.

It's only on the basis of Christ's righteousness that we have any standing before God.

But not only are we made in the image of God, even as fallen creatures, but if we've been saved, we're now new creations in Christ.

And so we have to go back to Genesis 1 if we want to have a real discussion of biblical womanhood.

Because biblical womanhood finds its foundation in a proper understanding and a proper consciousness of our standing before God.

And I'm talking Christians here, ladies, because a non -Christian doesn't care about biblical womanhood, right? And so mankind, humankind as a rule, holds a different position in the created order than the rest of God's creation.

That's just reality. Isn't it? Turn with me, ladies, to Psalm 8.

Psalm 8. O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth, who have displayed your splendor above the heavens.

From the mouth of infants and nursing babes you have established strength. Because of your adversaries to make the enemy and the revengeful cease.

When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have ordained, what is man that you take thought of him and the son of man that you care for him.

Yet you have made him a little lower than God and you crown him with glory and majesty. You make him to rule over the works of your hands.

You have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens and the fish of the sea, whatever passes through the paths of the seas.

O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth. So, I don't know how often you read the

Psalms, but did any of that sound a little familiar? Flip over to Hebrews 2, it might strike you where you've heard that before.

We see Psalm 8 kind of repeated here in Hebrews 2, don't we?

And so, what is the point of this?

Okay, because this is speaking of mankind. What is man that you remember him? I'm in Hebrews 2 now verse 6, but this is basically

Psalm 8. What is man that you remember him or the son of man that you are concerned about him? You've made him for a little while lower than the angels.

You've crowned him with glory and honor and on and on it goes. And the point that's made, if we look at the context here in Hebrews, we go to verse 9,

Hebrews 2 verse 9, but we do see him who was made for a little while lower than the angels, namely

Jesus, because of the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor, so that by the grace of God, he might taste death for everyone.

So, what are we seeing in this passage? It's like, what is man, God, that you even bother with him?

What is woman, God, that you even bother with her? But when we move on and we see verse 9 and even into verse 10, we see

God's love for mankind in the incarnation of Christ.

Verse 10 says, for it was fitting for him, for whom are all things and through whom are all things and bringing many sons to glory to perfect the author of their salvation through sufferings.

Christ came in the form of man, not an angel, right? So, that does demonstrate

God's regard for mankind. So, we can call ourselves a worthless worm, scum on the bottom of our shoes all we want, but God does think differently.

Now, I'm not going Joel Osteen here where, you know, you're amazing and God can't do without you and God just wants to give you a big fuzzy bear hug and blah, blah, blah.

No, we're sinners. We've sinned against a holy God. We deserve the wrath of God and we abide under his wrath unless we have been saved by Jesus Christ, justified, redeemed by his blood.

But there must be some regard for his creation of man to send Jesus in the form of a man and not in the form of an angel.

The fallen angels, they have no option for redemption. I think years ago,

I heard someone ask, you know, well, what if Satan repented? And I'm like, that wouldn't happen, number one.

I mean, but there's no path of redemption. Jesus Christ came as a man.

And so, there is some sort of inherent value because we are made in the image of God.

And so, that's a pretty lofty position in view of the rest of creation, right? And again, we don't want to use that to wrongly build us up, but we must be mindful of the certain place of mankind in the order of creation.

Man was made in God's image and it was granted that God would provide a way of salvation for mankind.

God told Adam and Eve that in Genesis 3 .15. And so, that's really important.

I'm not trying to give us a high view of man because when we have too high a view of ourselves, then we inevitably have a low view of God.

And then we have a wrong view of salvation. So, that's not where I'm trying to go with that. But I want us to understand,

I want us to start any thinking of biblical womanhood grounded in the fact that woman is created in the image of God.

And because of that, has an inherent value that God saw fit to send his son to provide a way of salvation.

So, we've come that far. And you're thinking, what does that have to do with biblical womanhood?

I mean, shouldn't we be talking about modesty or something like that? Or, you know, don't wear too much jingling jewelry and don't put your hair piled up in a big knot on top of your head.

Shouldn't we maybe be sharing some websites where we can buy some biblically approved clothing or something like that?

They have those, by the way. Some of them are really interesting. And my answer to those questions is no.

No, I don't think a discussion of biblical womanhood is a discussion of modesty. I said it.

I'm not saying that modesty isn't something we should pursue. I'm saying that's not the basis of biblical womanhood.

That's not even a defining factor of biblical womanhood. Because I believe if we can get it right when it comes to this foundation, this foundational understanding, that the rest takes care of itself.

So, we've seen that man and woman is made in the image of God. And hopefully we understand that that truth means something.

It matters. So, I want us to revisit something that we discussed recently, in which we just talked about that total depravity episode.

And in that episode, we made the point that as believers, we're given the new nature. And I think we've talked about this in other contexts as well.

I remember an episode called a whole new wardrobe, just taking clothes with the righteousness of Christ.

And what does that mean? And so, we start with the fact that we're made in God's image.

And that's marred by sin. I want to be really clear on that. But then when we're saved, we're given this whole new wardrobe to wear the righteousness of Christ.

And we put off the old and we put on the new. We know that language, don't we? And we can only do that because of the

Holy Spirit who indwells us at the moment of salvation. And it's a process. Sanctification is a process.

But we are a new creation in Christ at the moment of salvation.

And we're transformed. And every single one of us can attest to that. There was instantly something different when you were saved.

And certain sins probably just went away entirely and you didn't even try.

Others, maybe you struggled with. And as you conquer some sins, new ones show up.

You become aware of new ones because we're never going to be perfect this side of heaven.

But we are all equal at the foot of the cross. Neither slave nor free, Jew nor Gentile, male nor female, right?

And it is in Christ that the sin -marred image is restored. So what

I propose, ladies, is that true biblical womanhood is found in Christ.

It's not found in checking off your Proverbs 31 box. It's not found in how much of a

Titus 2 woman you are. It's not found in how modestly you dress. It's not found in how quiet you are in church.

I'm not saying women should be preaching. I'm just trying to get a little funny here. It's found in Christ.

And any other teaching about biblical womanhood that does not base its foundation in Christ is imposing law.

And you can put all kinds of rules around your life as a woman, but that does not equal biblical womanhood at all.

Now, hear me on this. I feel like I have to say that a lot because I know some people and I know the mindset of certain groups within conservative evangelicalism.

And so I know some of my words are going to be twisted, and that's certainly not my desire, but I can't stop you from doing it.

But hear me on this. I am emphatically not saying that we can't glean much wisdom from studying these typical, you know, women's scriptures of Proverbs 31 if it's properly taught,

Titus 2, Ephesians 5, you know, whatever. But we must never discuss biblical womanhood outside of the context of Christ.

And too often I hear it. Now, some of you might be wondering, you know, something that's really prominent in like the women's

Christian life space is, you know, Bible studies on women throughout the

Bible. And so what do we do with those? Do we disregard those? I don't think so.

I think they can be great if they're studying these women from the

Bible in light of who they were in Christ. Not as a means of giving us someone to compare ourselves to.

Not as a means of giving us a Be Like Ruth checklist. But who is

Ruth in light of her faith in the God of Israel? Who was

Mary, the mother of Jesus, in light of her knowledge of and her faith in her son,

Jesus Christ? Do you see what

I'm saying? Do you understand where I'm going with that? You know, Paul said, imitate me as I imitate

Christ. Our identity in Christ is what draws us into what is commonly known as biblical womanhood.

And when we've been saved and changed by him, our minds are renewed. They're transformed.

And things like modesty or calling as a wife or mother, if we have that calling, not every woman does.

Don't impose it on her. But things like this will grow and conform as we grow and conform to the image of Christ.

Now, we might need discipleship along the way in certain areas. Maybe we're not convicted about our dress right away when we're saved.

Hopefully you are, but you know, if you're dressing inappropriately. Maybe, you know, that's why things like Titus 2 groups, there's so many churches with, you know,

Titus 2 women is the name of the women's group, because there's a discipleship method to that.

The older teaching the younger, and that's not just necessarily older in age, but older in Christ, teaching the younger in Christ.

And those are important. That's important to have that discipleship going back and forth.

But we ought never let our quest for biblical womanhood turn into the task of completing a checklist or just comparing ourselves to others.

You know, trying to turn yourself into the proverbial

Proverbs 31 woman or, you know, Ruth or, you know, whatever.

That's basically akin to seeing someone and what they're posting on Facebook or Pinterest, and you're trying to be just like them, you know, oh, she's totally has a, you know, leave it to be her perfect life.

And I don't, what do I need to do to become that? It's not about the checklists, because there are basics about biblical womanhood that are true across the board for every woman.

And ladies, what I would actually propose is that those basics are true of every

Christian. You know, certain things impact us differently as women.

That's true of every sphere of life, not just Christianity. But it's about what it looks like to be a

Christian first, and then this biblical womanhood stuff, that just kind of comes along with the territory.

Do you desire to model biblical womanhood? Friend, then

I urge you to look to Christ. I encourage you to grow in Him, to grow in His grace,

His truth and His love through faithful study of the word and through prayer. And if you do, and if I do,

I think that we'll find ourselves a lot less weary than when we carried a

Proverbs 31 burden. We're looking so often for a definition of biblical womanhood.

It means this, so that I can fit that definition and check that box. And I've done that. I would argue it's no different than imitating

Christ. I'm not saying Christ was a woman. I'm not going that feminist route. I'm saying the characteristics, the virtues, the calling of a

Christian that filters down into what we have wanted and what we have apparently decided to call biblical womanhood throughout the ages.

I don't know how long that phrase has been around. It's about Christ and looking to Him.

And so if you have in the past been burdened by some of these expectations that you feel you can't meet, let me encourage you, friend, to look to Christ.

Look to Christ. All right, ladies, that's all the time we have for today.

But it's a new year, so we'll be back. And until next time, get in your

Bibles, get on your knees, and get equipped. Thanks for listening. Is the church today doing everything it can to provide women a firm foundation of truth in Christ Jesus?

Well, it's true. There's no shortage of candy -coated Bible studies, potluck fellowships available to ladies.

But beyond Sunday morning, are Christian women being properly equipped to stand against the same deceptions that even enticed

Eve in the garden? In an attempt to address the need for trustworthy biblical resources for women,

No Compromise Radio is happy to introduce Equipping Eve, a ladies -only radio show that seeks to equip women with fruits of truth in an age that's ripe with deception.

My name is Mike Abendroth, and I'm pleased to introduce your host, Erin Benzinger, a friend of No Compromise Radio, and a woman who wants to see other women equipped with a love for and a knowledge of the truth of God's Word.