Lona (@lonathecat)
Here’s what makes me wonder about these things:
Typically one who considers themselves to be “woke” or a political “progressive” has a victim mentality worldview where they believe anyone who disagrees with them is “persecuting” them. This seems to be manifesting in you, so I wonder about the lens through which you view the world.
My speculations are not accusations, but you seem to take them that way, so I must not be very far off the target. You seemed to be poised to take offense at anything I say, and you miss the most important parts that are straight from Scripture. Ultimately, my opinion about you does not matter, but you cannot blame me for merely being curious about the motivation behind your seeming offense at my point about God appointing men to be in the spiritual leadership roles in the church and a family. You seem to resent this, but I did not give those standards, God did. My pointing them out seems irksome to you, and I guess I am just low-hanging fruit that you can pick at because you have some frustration with the points I am making.
I bear you no ill will, and if you want to play the victim here, that is strangely similar to the “victim card” play of most people who consider themselves to be on the political left.
I do not know if you’ve been traumatized, but you seem to have some degree of animosity towards what you may consider to be the more misogynistic passages of the bible.
For instance, when the Apostle Paul writes to the Corinthian church:
Women should be silent during the church meetings. It is not proper for them to speak. They should be submissive, just as the law says. If they have any questions, they should ask their husbands at home, for it is improper for women to speak in church meetings. Or do you think God’s word originated with you Corinthians? Are you the only ones to whom it was given? If you claim to be a prophet or think you are spiritual, you should recognize that what I am saying is a command from the Lord himself. But if you do not recognize this, you yourself will not be recognized. [1 Corinthians 14:34-38 NLT]
How does that verse make you feel? Are you outraged? Do you immediately search for verses to show that Paul was off his nut, or can you admit this is also the writing inspired by the Holy Spirit that causes it to be included in the biblical cannon?
What about this verse?
Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting for those who belong to the Lord. [Colossians 3:18 NLT]
Or its corollary verse:
For wives, this means submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For a husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of his body, the church. As the church submits to Christ, so you wives should submit to your husbands in everything. [Ephesians 5:22-24 NLT]
In what ways do you think those commands diminish women? Do you think Paul was not inspired when he penned those verses?
What filter or exception will you try to use to counter such straightforward verses? Is the koine Greek ambiguous? If I search through enough translations will I eventually get to the version that suits you and calms the offense you seem to hold toward these verses?
There are many subversive undercurrents in modern churches which seem to avoid these “unpopular points” and relegate them to the “old ways of thought”. But is God’s Word not timeless? Is there any part of God’s world that we just shouldn’t read because it causes offense?
Jesus was often in a position where He spoke some hard truths to a crowd that was not happy with what he told them. In fact, in the following passage several of those who would have followed Him as disciples turned away because they did not like what He was saying.
From that [time] many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him. Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away? Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life. [John 6:66-68 KJV]
So I ask you point-blank, even as Jesus put this test to the disciples.
Will you also turn away from God because the plain-spoken scriptures offend you? Will you try to twist the words of the Holy Spirit-inspired scripture, because it does not justify your “modernistic mindset”?
If you do, let’s be clear, you are choosing to define the God you serve on your own terms, rather than on His.
When God chose you to be female, it was not to diminish you. When He put partitions between roles, He did not do your gender a disservice.
The God of the Bible sees all beginnings and all ends. That is why prophecy is given. It affirms that the God we serve sees what will be the outcome of the part in which we play, and the role He assigns to us. We are myopic, but He is omniscient.
When you get a clear and real view of the God who wants to reveal Himself to you, you can then trust Him to bring good into your journey. Whatever some meant for evil, God can turn for your good. Read the story of Joseph who had a hard time, but came to this same conclusion. (Genesis 50:20-21)
What I’ve done is brought your positions out into the light and put them up next to scripture. If you don’t like how the reflection looks in the “biblical mirror” the problem is not with what the scripture says, but with what you would rather walk away from and forget.
Because if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like someone looking at his own face in a mirror. For he looks at himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of person he was. But the one who looks intently into the perfect law of freedom and perseveres in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer who works – this person will be blessed in what he does. [James 1:23-25 CSB]
What I want for you is to see those areas where your opinions differ from what the Scripture says. I want you to consider well the implications of choosing your own “opinions” over God’s Word.
I want you to know deep down that the heart of the Heavenly Father is not to bring you harm but to free you from the bondage of the “modern chains” that harm you in your path to finding your purpose and identity in Him.
The beginning of wisdom is coming humbly before God and releasing all of your preconceived notions or pet opinions and saying, “God, I want Your Truth and Yours alone. I surrender my ways and the opinions offered me by the world around me. Only You know what is right. Help me to lean not to my own understanding, but to acknowledge You and seek You, so that my path direction comes from You alone.”
This debate has brought to light what needs to be said. Faith is not mustered or manufactured by our own efforts, but it is surrendering and trusting in God to be good, loving, and just and to keep His Word. If God promises wrath to come, you have to take Him at His Word. God hates the sin and lies that bind us. He calls us to believe Him, and acknowledge Him in all our ways.
Don’t flee into victimhood acting like everyone is persecuting you. That is a coward’s path and I beg you not to take it to gain sympathy and set others against me because I am telling you the truth. I really do care about you more than you know, but the points I am raising makes you uncomfortable. don’t shoot the messenger.
I can see indications that you do identify as a “progressive liberal” because of the enumerated points you take umbrage with.
“Political correctness” has not made people more civil but has chilled free speech. Honesty is more valuable to me than what you want me to think about you because you fear offending the prevailing “modernistic mindset”.
If you hate me, own it. If you don’t like my sex, color, national origin, or political position, don’t be a coward about it, say so, and I will applaud you for your honesty, rather than your pretense. Then when we are both honest we can have a real and meaningful discussion about where our positions come from.
That is what is lost in modern debate. We care more about the audience than about what is really going on in our discussion. I still hate political correctness.
If you are not happy about being a woman that you feel the need to seek complete parity with men, then you do in fact have an identity crisis, but you do not see how you are telegraphing it. A person happy and comfortable with their gender will not seek to envy that of another. You should not resent masculine men, or ascribe them as “toxic” because it makes you uncomfortable.
I do admire your spunk and for not running away from my challenges to you in this debate. I hope you don’t fold and seek a safe space to boil and hurl curses at me, because I am not intimidated by your gender or the “present popularity” of your ideas as running counter to my “historical ones”.
8. Said that men received the greater consequence in the Fall when humanity is equally affected by sin.
This is biblically and demonstrably wrong according to scripture.
Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who did not sin in the likeness of Adam’s transgression. He is a type of the Coming One. [Romans 5:14 CSB]
Does this verse attribute Eve as the transgressor or Adam?
For just as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive. [1 Corinthians 15:22 CSB]
Death comes in Adam’s seed, that is the point of why Jesus had to be born of a virgin. This takes Him out from under Adam’s judgment and He is the prophesied fulfillment of the “seed of a woman” that crushes the head of the “seed of the serpent”. All death, sickness, and illness come through being born with the seed of Adam in all generations. You cannot argue that “death” is not the greater punishment over Eve’s childbirth pains.
9. Declared women in leadership unbiblical when we have examples of women deacons in the Bible.
Women deacons were a ministry to women and not in teaching authority over men. In biblical times there was no “gender confusion” or “gay marriage” so a “husband of one wife” criteria was still decided a “male” role.
10. Implied that I’m ready to do away with the Bible because some of its authors held sexist beliefs.
If you are cherry-picking the parts of scripture you like and dismissing the parts you don’t you are demonstrating you really don’t believe the “All scripture” part of the following verse:
All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, [2 Timothy 3:16 CSB]
Instead, you are in the camp of the following:
For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away [their] ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. [2 Timothy 4:3-4 KJV]
11. Insinuated that I have not thoroughly researched my own beliefs.
The truth is you haven’t. At least not using Scripture for I have easily shown you where your beliefs are running counter to the verses I have cited. You may be seeking others to help you justify your “modernist” opinions, but those you are revealing now are certainly not biblically based.
I have already addressed point 12 above. No need to rehash it. The Clintons championed the works of Saul Alinsky, whose books clearly cited praise for Satan himself. They push “Communism” as if it is a new idea, which in all its precedents has been the cause of mass slaughter and oppressive control. Read real history if you can still find it. I actually lived through it.
13. Claimed that men are more quickly able to recognize evil than women because women are carried away by their “emotions”.
Read American Sniper by Chris Kyle or watch the movie if you are so inclined. In those seconds where it appears to be a nun walking a child down the street in Iraq, how swiftly do you think a male or a female would come to the decision to shoot them while processing all of the emotional turmoil that led up to the necessary kill shot when the “nun” reveals the rocket launcher under the folds of her dress and begins to raise it to kill all the American soldier hiding in the tower? Feelings had to take a backseat to the logic that the evil imminent was masked under the cover of a woman of faith and an innocent child. Chris Kyle’s shot saved a company of American men that day who were fathers and husbands far from home fighting to liberate a country from a brutal dictator who boiled people with a difference of opinion alive in oil drums and had rape rooms as part of his “effective” management of the country. Men in war have to learn to dampen the temptation to follow the impulses of their emotions and operate on strict if/then military logic. They have to decompress when they return from the war theater. They suffer PTSD that takes years to overcome, so yes, if women have a tendency to be more in tune with their emotions, then men are the better fighter psychologically in enduring the real horrors of war.
15. Played the post-modernism card.
Trying to go “academic” on me, I see. Well given the track record the “anti-God, anti-biblical stances” of modern public institutions of higher learning, I am not impressed. Next…
16. Took a shot at women pastors and their stance on abortion right after talking about war and how “there is a time to kill”.
Hmm. Women pastors who are qualified to lead a mixed-gender church congregation in an office that biblically requires them to be the “husbands of one wife”. How does that work out? Are these lesbian pastors play the “husband” role to their “one wife”? Good luck backing that up with the Bible.
Let’s unpack the God who gave the commandment “Thou shalt not kill” [Exodus 20:13] and ask the obvious question of how that comports with Him sending the Israelites into battle to conquer and kill the Canaanite enemies. Quite a lot of killing in a battle, I must say. How about David klonking Goliath with a sling shot and then cutting off his head. Do you reckon he killed Goliath, or was it just a flesh wound? (Perhaps Goliath was one of the “Knight who say Niii!” [inside Monty Python joke.]) Contradiction? I think not. An unfortunate English translation of the Hebrew Chaldean word rāṣaḥ (רָצַח) which means “to murder”. Quite a big difference in any court of law, I must say.
God instituted “capital punishment” in Genesis 9:6, and yes that made it into the New Testament as well in Romans 13:4 “bearing the sword in vain”.
Evil should be resisted and yes sometimes righteously killed when done under a “just authorization”. Enlisted soldiers are not going into a war theater to play “ping-pong” in case that was news to you.
17. Shamed women who get abortions when I can guarantee you yourself have never had to go through a pregnancy. (Unless you are a transman. In that case, maybe you have, and I apologize for speaking to soon.)
Ahh, there we have it. The justification of infanticide, and the audacity to call it a woman’s right. Very revealing. I don’t think you can make that argument biblically, but you are welcome to try. I’m game if you are. And you’ve brought in a “favorite Leftist plug” for transgenderism. How nice. In what afterthought of God did he also create space and tolerance for sexual perversion, I wonder? Can you cite a passage for me? No? Bummer. It sure would’ve helped your arguments.
Saying a woman has a right to snuff a life is a hard sell to one who knows what the scriptures say on the subject of the shedding of innocent blood. A woman’s womb should be the safest place for a child, but you want to allow in the forceps and canula to cut, eviscerate, liquify and the infant’s body parts, merely because it is inconvenient for a woman to carry that life to term. A lot of very precious people would not be alive today if their mothers took that mindset. Yours included. Think that one through a little bit more. Ask God His opinion if you still value it above your own feelings.
18. Gave me love advice on what my “ideal” man should be.
That advice arises from the Scriptures cited, but thank you for giving me the credit as if it was my ideas.
19. And overall, completely ignored my 11 sentences on Ezer to give me a lecture on how I’ve been traumatized, don’t know my own beliefs, and am risking losing my “fear of God” by encouraging women to take positions of leadership.
Fear of God is also recognizing His authority to define right and wrong is greater than your own. If you assert your will over His revealed Word then the assessment is correct. You fear being wrong more than God being right.
You have to come to the place where His Word governs your thinking and you trust His rightness and His goodness by placing your complete faith in that.
But without faith [it is] impossible to please [Him], for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and [that] He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. [Hebrews 11:6 NKJV]
You must choose to put your faith in Him or in your own way. It is a crucial and binary choice.
I am not asking you to adopt my opinions. I am begging you to adopt His and to study the scriptures more and let God’s Holy Spirit guide you into the truth.
My opinion is not worth the two cents to pitch it, but His word is enduring and from everlasting to everlasting.
Before the mountains were brought forth, Or ever You had formed the earth and the world, Even from everlasting to everlasting, You [are] God. [Psalm 90:2 NKJV]
The fear and reverence and prevalence of the Lord is where wisdom begins.
Wisdom [is] the principal thing; [therefore] get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding. [Proverbs 4:7 KJV]
Make it a desperate and primary search.
Tune your ears to wisdom, and concentrate on understanding. Cry out for insight, and ask for understanding. Search for them as you would for silver; seek them like hidden treasures. Then you will understand what it means to fear the LORD, and you will gain knowledge of God. For the LORD grants wisdom! From his mouth come knowledge and understanding. He grants a treasure of common sense to the honest. He is a shield to those who walk with integrity. He guards the paths of the just and protects those who are faithful to him. Then you will understand what is right, just, and fair, and you will find the right way to go. For wisdom will enter your heart, and knowledge will fill you with joy. Wise choices will watch over you. Understanding will keep you safe. Wisdom will save you from evil people, from those whose words are twisted. These men turn from the right way to walk down dark paths. They take pleasure in doing wrong, and they enjoy the twisted ways of evil. Their actions are crooked, and their ways are wrong. [Proverbs 2:2-15 NLT]
Be willing to stand up and even make other people uncomfortable with your questions. Even allow the conflict of a different opinion to draw others out of their “pious” cover and show what they really feel and think. There is nothing wrong in that. People need to be authentic and even question their own beliefs and let them be challenged. If they survive, they are worth keeping. If they don’t, unburden yourself and allow yourselves to find God’s insight.
If you consider yourself to be on the political left, you may be unaccustomed to finding your views challenged. That is an indictment on our Christian culture being cowed by the disapproval of the world, when we should be bold in our proclamations and know the biblical foundations upon which they are built and solid and stand up against the storms.
In Matthew Jesus expounds on this:
Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock. And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it. And it came to pass, when Jesus had ended these sayings, the people were astonished at his doctrine: [Matthew 7:24-28 KJV]
As for choosing a life partner, I am grateful that I have a wife who also studies God’s Word and can keep me accountable to what the scripture says. It keeps me sharp and focused. It keeps me assured of God’s position as we read scripture together and discuss it, and find our oneness and harmony in the roles God has given us, knowing that we are accountable to God, in how we treat each other within those roles. She sharpens me by challenging me to show her the answers to her sincere question in the scripture. She loves God more than me and I love Him more than I love her and that is exactly what allows us to love each other in a better fashion than in our own strength and determination alone.
Because I do care about you Lona, I will challenge you and not let you feel comfortable in beliefs that do not align with God’s Word. You knowing the truth is of far greater importance than me just making you comfortable in the pretense of having a “kind” discussion.
I would still encourage you to find a man who will challenge you and make you sharper and more focused on finding the will of God for your life and not let you compromise by leaning on your own understanding. That man will care for you if he loves God enough to wash you in the water of The Word. even as Chrsit does this for His bride.
Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. [Ephesians 5:25-28 KJV]
God does not let us live in our own dirt, and neither should a husband let his wife believe in unscriptural lies.
I pray you find wisdom, Lona. I pray that you come to the place where you can fully live this verse:
Trust in the LORD with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding; [Proverbs 3:5 NKJV]
God bless you in your seeking.
Brian Stansell (aka O'Brian of the Surface World)
I was born in war.
Fighting from my first breath.
