Bible Bashing Allie Beth Stuckey | Is Motherhood a Woman's Highest Calling?

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The message of Christianity is that salvation is found in Christ alone, and any who reject

Christ therefore forfeit any hope of salvation, any hope of heaven.

The issue is that humanity is in sin, and the wrath of almighty

God is hanging over our heads. They will hear his words, they will not act upon them, and when the floods of divine judgment, when the fires of wrath come, they will be consumed and they will perish.

God wrapped himself in flesh, condescended and became a man, died on the cross for sin, was resurrected on the third day, has ascended to the right hand of the

Father, where he sits now to make intercession for us. Jesus is saying there is a group of people who will hear his words, they will act upon them, and when the floods of divine judgment come in that final day, their house will stand.

The highest calling for a woman is not motherhood. That is a very high calling. It's a sacred calling,

I think. I mean, we see that biblically. We see how motherhood is talked about, how it's honored, and how multiplying and bearing children is seen continually, consistently throughout scripture as a blessing, but we do not see that this is the highest calling for a woman.

The highest calling for a woman is also the highest calling for a man, and that is to glorify

God. One of the frustrating things about this kind of discussion is the reality that words have different meanings in different contexts.

And so when you think about a word like calling, calling is a very biblical word that has a fairly broad semantic range in the

Bible, and it's a word that can be used to communicate a variety of things. And so what's happened in this discussion is when an individual says that a woman's highest calling is motherhood, what they're doing is they're appealing to the word calling in its specific use as it relates to a particular vocation that an individual might be called to.

So there's a variety of vocations that Christians can be called to, which are their particular and unique way of glorifying

God in the world. So when you're talking about calling, it can be used in the sense of vocation. But then when you're talking about the word calling, it can also be used in the sense of just the generic divine call to the

Christian life that both men and women also are given. So there's a sense in which both men and women are called fundamentally and primarily to glorify

God, but then as it relates to men and women as distinct creatures, as distinct creations of God, they've also been given particular vocations or calling.

And in that framework, what this expression is trying to communicate is that men and women are fundamentally different types of creatures, and they're designed for different types of purposes.

And so when Ali Bastaki comes along in a century and says that, you know, a woman's highest calling is not motherhood, a woman's highest calling is to glorify

God, what she's done is she's equivocated on the meaning of this actual term, calling in this sense.

And instead of understanding the word calling in the plain sense of a vocation as it's designed to be understood, she's then appealing to a different type of calling, which no one in this discussion is actually arguing with.

Now, to think about how this can actually work and to think about why this is such a problem, just consider the idea of the primary calling of a car.

So, you know, if you think about the primary calling of a car, the primary calling of a car is to be driven.

So you might say something along the lines of the highest calling of a car is to be driven. Now, if I were to say something like that, the highest calling of a car is to be driven, and then you have some smart aleck come along and say, no, that's not true.

The highest calling of a car is the same as the highest calling of a truck, which is the same as the highest calling of a plane, which is the same as the highest calling of a boat, which is the same as the highest calling of a train.

The highest calling of a car, boat, truck, plane, train is to glorify

God. What happened there is you have an individual who's come along and equivocated. They're basically saying that there's nothing, like in doing so they're saying there's nothing distinct about the, you know, the ultimate design of a car, the ultimate design of a plane, the ultimate design of a truck, the ultimate design of a boat.

They're saying basically that there's one thing that ties it all together. Their ultimate goal, their ultimate purpose is to glorify

God or to glorify their maker in terms of this analogy. And that's absolutely true.

But then how does a truck glorify God? How does a car glorify God? How does a plane glorify

God primarily, like in terms of its vocation, in terms of what it's actually designed to do? How does a boat glorify

God? How does a train glorify God? Well, if you think about it along those lines, well, a car, its highest calling is to be driven.

So a car isn't a decoration that's intended to just sit there in a rich man's garage, like it's designed to be driven.

That's what it's designed to do. How does a plane glorify God? Well, it glorifies God by fulfilling its highest vocation, right?

So its highest purpose of a plane is to be flown. A boat, what is a boat's highest calling?

Well, certainly it exists to glorify its maker, but how does it do that? Well, a boat does that by floating on the water and transporting people from one place to another.

That's what a boat's designed to do. What about a train? Well, a train glorifies its maker by living up to its highest calling of rolling on tracks, okay?

So a car, you know, its highest calling is to be driven. A plane's highest calling is to be flown.

A boat's highest calling is to float, right? And then a train's highest calling is to roll. Now, like what's happening in this discussion is that you have a person who's appealing to, you know, a generic created feature of all these different types of vehicles in a way that does violence to their very specific design with which they were designed to perform.

And that starts right now. That doesn't start when you get married. That doesn't start when you have kids.

You don't start getting to be obedient. You don't get to start being a member of the household of God, a useful tool or a useful part of the body of Christ or a vessel for glorification and the gospel when you get married or when you have children.

There's a lot of things that are going on when individuals in general are reacting to the statement a woman's highest calling is to have children.

So there's different types of positions in the broader evangelical world as it relates to just men and women's purpose in general and the place of marriage and the place of children within that framework.

And you have different camps. And so you have a patriarchal camp and you have soft complementarian camp and what might be described as kind of a hard complementarian camp.

But it seems like as you're listening to Allie Bestuckey, she occupies this soft complementarian kind of camp in general.

And what's characteristic of that camp is that individuals who take up this position, they believe that marriage and children are basically optional, basically optional.

So God may call some couples to marriage and children and God may not call other couples to marriage or individuals to marriage and children.

And so in the soft complementarian kind of world, marriage and children are viewed as basically almost completely optional pursuits that an individual may pursue if, you know, they may word it in a charismatic way if they feel led.

So they may think about it along those lines. But there isn't any sense in which individuals should own this command that God has given to the human race, be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it.

So in that kind of framework, then if you were to say, you know, a woman's highest calling is motherhood, then the natural thing that comes to your mind at that point is to say, well, what about women who can't have kids or don't want to have kids, right?

So what about the woman who doesn't want to have kids or can't have kids? And then what about the woman who isn't married yet?

You know, she's unwillingly single or doesn't want to be married because she feels like God has something else for her.

So in that kind of framework, then what you do is like you're basically thinking primarily through the lens of sensitivity to that kind of person in that kind of individual.

But then what you have to do is you do have to take a step back a little bit and insert some kind of logic and some sort of reason into this discussion and insert like the actual

Bible, like what the Bible actually says about this kind of discussion. So I made an appeal to an example of a car.

So a car's highest calling is to be driven. Now, it might be that God, according to His good design, according to His good purposes, because sin has entered into the world, it may be that certain cars are broken and they can't drive.

Does that mean that that car is no longer a car? Well, no, I mean, everyone can understand that a car is a car even if it doesn't live up to its ultimate design as a particular type of vehicle, namely a car, right?

So there might be any number of ways in which all vehicles can glorify God, like whether a car, whether a truck, whether a plane, whether a boat.

There might be any number of ways in which all of those vehicles can glorify God beyond their particular designed function.

But a car, its ultimate calling is to drive. That's the point. Now, when you look at a car who can't drive because it's broken in some way, so like a barren woman in that way, that doesn't mean, so just because you have a car that can't drive, that doesn't mean that there's not an obvious and created purpose that God has for cars in general, which is to drive.

In a similar way, just because you have a car that's sitting on a car lot that hasn't been bought by an owner, so think about a marriage parallel there, a car that's sitting on a car lot that hasn't been bought by an owner, just because that car exists and it hasn't been purchased yet, so it can drive, right?

It can drive. It just hasn't been given an opportunity yet by being bought by an owner.

In that kind of framework, that doesn't mean then that the car's ultimate purpose is not still to drive.

And so when you're thinking about this kind of discussion, what's happening is you have Ali Bastaki who is basically trying to protect individuals who are not in a situation, like if they're in a car in that scenario where they're able to drive, she's trying to protect them from the reality that they may be created for a particular design and purpose by basically appealing to this more primary purpose that everyone has been called to.

And as we said, this is just an exercise in muddying the water. So Genesis tells us it's not good for a man to be alone, but God would make a helper suitable to him, right?

So it's not good for a man to be alone. He needs a woman. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians that man is not made for woman, but woman is made for man.

And so when you think about the difference between soft complementarians and patriarchal camp, it's at these very purposes.

So woman is not made to be an independent creature who is just independent off on her own, fulfilling her design, just fulfilling her own unique calling that's unrelated to any men in general.

Woman was a creature who's created by God designed to be a helper for man. And then you ask, well, what is her primary job to help him to do?

Well, her primary job is to help him to fill the earth full of people, right? So God blessed mankind.

He said, be fruitful and multiply. That's the first stated command that God gives to the human race. Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it.

Man, it's not good for man to be alone. He's not going to be able to live up to that creative purpose and that design on his own.

So he needs his corresponding helper who's going to help him be faithful to God's created purpose for him.

So woman is taken from man, created for man. And everyone knows this. I mean, this is why the Bible says the barren woman is never satisfied.

This is why women experience intense grief over the reality of the fact that they can't do the primary purpose that God has designed for women as a distinct creature from man to do.

So this is why the barren woman was never satisfied. This is why Hannah prays to God with tears, begging him to allow her to have a son in order that she may glorify him.

So she didn't want a son just for her own sake. She wanted to glorify her maker by fulfilling the primary design that he had for mother.

I mean, a woman's biology testifies to the reality that she's made for reproduction. She has a monthly cycle that is intended to remind her that she's made to reproduce.

That's what her biology is telling her every day. Not only is her biology telling, she has desires to couple with a man that are inescapable.

There's very few women that exist in the world who are able to turn off those desires for companionship.

They may reject marriage. They may reject children. But what they end up doing is they end up being inextricably pulled towards relationships with people that are going to fulfill those created purposes that God has given to them.

If they don't have kids, they're going to end up getting a dog or something like that who is going to scratch those itches that those women have that they can't escape, essentially.

So that's the point. That starts right now. So whether you are single, whether you're dating, whether you're engaged, whether you're married, whether you have children or not, your life starts right now.

I actually think it is a trick of the devil to overemphasize marriage and childbearing so much that you think that you can't be the fullest expression of a

Christian right now. See, this is one of those things that the self -complementarian world is incessantly harping on.

So at the very point in which our culture is actively hostile to the idea of marriage and children, you have a culture that is screaming at Christians and basically telling them that marriage is entirely optional, that kids are entirely optional.

If you want to save the planet, don't get married, don't have children. Marriage is boring. It's blah.

It's outdated. It's an outdated institution that's only going to end in divorce and everything else.

So you have a culture that is just actively hostile to marriage. It's trying to redefine marriage. That's what the culture is trying to do at every single point, and it's totally hostile to children.

So we're living in a culture right now that wants to kill children, that's trying to replace children with pets. We are living in a culture where people, like people with actual brains in their head, seem to think that they need to be included in Mother's Day celebrations because they have dogs.

So you're living in a culture right now that just despises humans. They despise humanity. They want to kill humanity.

So the primary assaults that Satan is making at this very point are assaults on marriage and assaults on children.

So what you have in this complementarian world is you have Christians whose sympathies are entirely lining up with the exact same spirit of the age at these exact same points.

So you have individuals in the Gospel Coalition, all these like the celibate gay

Christian movement. So you have all these individuals who are incessantly platforming these barren people who are going to lecture

Christians over and over again about the idolatry of marriage, the idolatry of the family.

So at the very moment where Satan is actively trying to destroy marriage and children, you have unthinking

Christians who are coming along in an attempt. I think with Allie Bastoki, I think her attempt is to do something good.

I think she's responding in a mama bear kind of way, trying to protect these women who are unable to get married or unable to have children.

She wants to be sympathetic towards them, and she wants to respond to a possible distortion that they may feel that if somehow they can't get married or if somehow they can't have kids, that somehow fundamentally they're just a defective person, might as well not exist, might as well not even be around.

And so the issue, though, with all of that is absolutely.

I mean, I agree with what she's saying. If a woman is barren, she can't have kids. That doesn't mean that she can't be a

Christian. She has a fundamental primary calling to her Maker. She has a calling as a Christian.

And you know what? She also, like many women who are in that kind of situation, they have these mothering instincts, and I would encourage them to adopt.

I mean, there's nothing to stop them from adopting, getting married and adopting, and not trying to enact those mothering instincts on their pets, but to raise a generation of kids.

There's plenty of people who need to be adopted. They can use those same mothering impulses that they have to do what

God did for His people and adopt people who are not biologically His children and bring them into His family and give them the blessings of marriage and family and that kind of way.

So here's the point, though. The point here is just to say that at the exact moment that our society is making this assault on marriage and children, what you have is you have

Christians who unthinkingly come along and basically they're ceding way too much ground here in an attempt to be kind to individuals who may be unwillingly single or may not be able to have children.

They may be barren at that point. And I just think it's entirely the wrong move. I think it's just not the right move.

What we need to be doing is we need to be encouraging

Christians to realize that all these things the Bible says it's not good for a man to be alone.

The biggest attacks right now are not just the attacks of traditional Christians who are overemphasizing the points of marriage and children.

I mean, just open your eyes, look around the world, and you'll see that delayed marriages are on the rise. Instead of getting married, couples are waiting until their mid to late 30s to get married because they're all about different priorities than God actually has.

So if you actually look at the world that actually exists in this moment right now, one of the things you're going to find is the biggest attacks right now are attacks on marriage, and the biggest attacks are attacks on children.

And the best thing that we can do as Christians is to regain this sense that God designed men and women differently for different purposes and different functions.

And the better we can understand those designs, the better off we'll actually be. And so the hope is not going to be found in trying to be sensitive towards everyone who may be experiencing certain consequences of life in a fallen world that are beyond their control.

The best thing we can do is to train a generation of people to think that marriage and family are central to God's purposes for the world.

And that's not just a pragmatic consideration. That's based on what the text is actually saying. The Bible says it's not good for man to be alone.

What we need to do is we need to re -look at the Bible and look at what it's actually saying and center the things that it's actually centering.

And if you look at biology, you look at the reality. Men and women are made to couple.

They want to couple. They have bodily cycles that are drawing them towards coupling. They are inescapably made according to a particular design.

And the more that we fight that design, the more that we're feeding into the lies of the enemy. So we think that maybe the path forward is going to be found in being sensitive towards people who are not able to fully live up to God's obvious design for the human race.

But really all that you're doing is you're just giving the kind of individual who is self -focused, career -focused, focused on worldly things, irredeemably selfish.

You're just giving them all the ammunition they need. And obviously God has purposes for Christians beyond just the purpose of bearing children.

But as you read through the Bible, one of the things you're going to find is that that's front and center and God's unique design for women.

And it would do us well not to deny the obvious realities that are right before our eyes. This has been another episode of Bible Bashed.

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