Telling the Truth

Guest (Male): The role of women in society, the family, and even the church has been widely debated for hundreds of years. So, what does a Christian view of this hotly debated topic look like? That's what Jill Briscoe takes a look at today on Telling the Truth. So, stay tuned.

We want to help you grow strong in your faith as you conquer temptation by sending you Triumph over Temptation, a powerful four-message series by Stuart and Jill Briscoe. We'll send you a copy of Triumph over Temptation as thanks for your gift today to help continue Stuart and Jill's legacy of helping others experience life in Christ.

So call today to request your copy of Triumph over Temptation: 1-800-889-5388. That's 1-800-889-5388, or you can give online at tellingthetruth.org. Now, here's Jill's message, A Christian View of Women.

Jill Briscoe: Now today, we're going to talk about Christian viewpoints, a Christian view of women. And there is no subject more charged with passion than the relation between the sexes. In one way or another, it lies behind most of the poetry, most of the crime, most of the sublimity, most of the cruelty, most of the ecstasy, and most of the boredom in all of our lives.

I know by personal experience that I can get shot at from every direction, every side of the argument. Now what is the Christian view of women? Well, you can't ask that question without asking what was Christ's view of women? Surely that is the Christian view of women.

What were women doing in his day or what weren't they doing? They were inferior to men. They were considered the deceiver rather than the deceived. And that's very important, we'll come back to that. The deceiver rather than the deceived.

The legal rights were nil. Their father or husband could arbitrarily exercise without her consent against her will a deal whereby she could be sold off as a servant plus concubine, all under religious sanction, like a piece of property, which she was.

If she seasoned the stew in a way that her ruler, her husband as he was called, her ruler didn't like, he could divorce her. If she had a loud voice and people next door could hear her, she could be divorced. I wonder how many of us would still be married today, all be in the soup, huh?

The divorce laws were very definitely tilted against the woman. And it's in the context of divorce and remarriage that we get the first glimpse of what the Lord Jesus Christ feels about women. In Mark chapter 10, he is answering the Pharisee's question about marriage and divorce.

And he says, taking them back to Genesis 1 and 2, that at the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. God made man, male man, female man. Adam is the word for man. Adam, male Adam, female Adam. God made at the beginning of creation, he created a woman.

Now listen, a woman is a piece of divine creation, and you don't treat her like dirt. God doesn't appreciate it. Jesus, who was God, doesn't appreciate it. Now I got a label on me, made in Genesis, made by him. And that gives me a good feeling, a sense of worth. I'm worth something. God created me.

And not only did he create me, he took so much trouble over it. A friend of mine who is a gynecologist in this fellowship told me that before a baby reaches five months in the womb, a five-month fetus, it has 300,000 eggs if it's a woman baby. 300,000 eggs ready to go, not even born yet. The creator took so much trouble over us.

In a little baby's brain, a little tiny brain in the womb, it has a lot of little electrical wires linking up all the impulses. And if you took them out and you made them stretch from where I'm standing to the moon and back, you'd have it, all of that in a baby's brain before it's even born.

God created us. He took so much trouble. I've knit you together, he says in Psalm 139, I've woven you, I've embroidered you. Everything you are, your color, your creed, he's painted you with the colors of your culture. It's all there.

So God says, I made you, quality control all over our life. But not only are we physically incredible, which shows us our worth from the hand of the creator, but we are made in his image. Two sexes, both men and women, born in the divine image. And what does this mean? What does it mean that we are like God?

Well, God is a Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. There is fellowship, there is unity, there is oneness. Male and female are meant to reflect oneness, fellowship, unity, harmony. That's how we're like him.

We're made like him in the fact that we are a personal being. We have being. That's how we're like God. God is a rational, free, personal, moral being; so are we. God made us in his image to be godly, godlike, reflect him, his mirror image. That's the reason we're here.

What is the whole purpose of man, male and female? That we might bring glory to God and enjoy him forever. Isn't that right? Bring glory to God. That's why he made us, that we might reflect who he is in his character. Be godlike, like Jesus if you wish. That's the reason we're here.

And of course, that's not a duty—the whole duty of man—it's a joy. It's a joy. So God created man, male and female, and he looked at man who he made first, and he said it's no good, he needs an equal. He needs a counterpart. He needs one parallel to, he needs a mirror image. And you all know the rest of the story. He administered the first anesthetic known to man, and he takes a little rib.

Prime rib snuggled down happily inside her rib cage. It was warm, cozy, and dark inside Adam, and all the other ribs were fast asleep. And she liked being there so near Adam's heart. Somehow it felt just right. And then suddenly the world seemed to spin, and there was a deafening noise as the flesh above her was severed.

And prime rib screamed, and all the other little ribs in the cage woke up. And then she saw him, Omnipotence. He was smiling at her in the strangest sort of way. Prime rib, he said ever so gently, I've chosen you for a special task. I want you to help Adam. How? she said.

Well, you've been a help already, but you'll be more of a blessing outside his body. Have you noticed you're in a cage down there? Wouldn't you like to be free? Free? Outside? What's that? she gasped. What's the purpose of my existence outside of him? I'll die. Severed from him, I'll simply feel like a useless spare rib.

I don't know if I want to get out of my cage. Adam will be certainly conscious of something missing, but who said about you being independent? You'll be interdependent, said Omnipotence. He'll be sure that there's something gone, it would be you, his prime rib. And when I bring you together again, you'll both be complete, and you'll both be satisfied. Will you come?

Prime rib thought long and hard. To be to Adam more than she was now. Take me, Omnipotence, she began. But her words were lost as he laughed out loud, and prime rib thought she'd never in her life heard anything as delightful as that sound. It filled the universe.

And Omnipotence cupped the little rib in his hand and breathed upon her, and glory filled her soul. It was finished. She was a manness. And the Lord closed up Adam's flesh and brought her to the man, and the man said literally, "This at last," or in our vernacular, "Yes!"

"This is now bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man." Now, I don't know if you believe all that or not. That's how it was more or less, so the Bible says, and I believe it. If Omnipotence is omnipotent, he can make anything, no problem.

He can make a woman out of a stone, a worm, even a piece of cake. But he didn't make us out of a worm, and he didn't make us out of a piece of cake. He made us out of a piece of Adam himself. Bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh. And deemed it important to tell us so.

And I like to think of women being taken not from Adam's head to rule over him, or his feet to be trampled underfoot, but from his side, near his heart, to be loved, nurtured, a mirror image of himself.

And I can hear Eve saying to him, "Mirror image thou to me, sweet compatibility. Differences in shape, in thought, bring completeness as they ought. Thou my precious counterpart, made for thee from nearby heart."

So woman was created by God after his image, and she was created equal. This is a powerful statement in Genesis chapter 1 of the equality between men and women in the eyes of God. Now some people say, "Jill, I object to that. Women were made for men, and so the scripture says. They were made a helper, which sounds as if it's quite not as important as the one who is helped."

And yet the word "helper" in the Hebrew is in Deuteronomy 33:7 and other places used for the Holy Spirit or for the helper of Israel. It is a name used for God himself. She was a suitable or ideal partner, a companion parallel to, counterpart, mirror image. She was equal.

Guest (Male): You're listening to Telling the Truth, the ministry of Stuart and Jill Briscoe. Today, Jill is helping you understand what a biblical Christian view of women looks like. We'll hear more of that in just a moment.

Temptation is nothing new. It's been around since the dawn of mankind, and it's not going anywhere as long as we're on this earth. You'll face temptation every day, but sometimes moment by moment. So we want to send you a special resource to help you stand strong in God's word when temptation does come along.

It's a four-message series from Stuart and Jill Briscoe called Triumph over Temptation. And they created it to help you not only conquer temptation but to grow stronger in your faith as you do.

This series will give you powerful biblical tools to defeat sinful desires and encourage you with the truth that every temptation to do wrong is also an opportunity to do right. We'll send you Triumph over Temptation as our thanks for your gift today to help continue sharing the life-changing truth of God's word with people across the globe through the resources and teaching of Telling the Truth.

So call today to request your copy of this resource: 1-800-889-5388. That's 1-800-889-5388, or you can give online at tellingthetruth.org. Now, let's return to Jill's teaching.

Jill Briscoe: And then you say, "But women was made from man, and the argument goes how can you say women are equal when man was made first and woman was made second? The order of creation bespeaks subordinating women." FF Bruce, in his narrative on Genesis 1, says there is no question of priority, let alone of superiority, that arises here.

The priority of the man in the creation narrative does not bespeak his superiority. Any suggestion to this effect might be answered by the counter-argument: the last made crowns the work. Women can't be inferior because they're made second because Adam was made second to dust and animals, which following that line of thinking puts him in a position of being inferior to them.

We could argue that woman is superior to man because we were made from a rib and you were made from dust. But we wouldn't do that. We wouldn't do it because men and women are equal. Women are men are equal. Man, male and female, made in the image of God.

What was woman supposed to do with all this equality, you might argue? Everything the man did? Look, the question here isn't about who dug the garden and who cleaned up after the animals. That's not the question. The question is shared accountability, shared responsibility.

For what? For the creation, for procreation, for glory to God. That's the responsibility of both male and female equally. God blessed them and told them, "Fill the earth, subdue it, you are masters," not master, "of the fish, the birds, and all the animals."

Man and woman were to rule, regent, and reproduce. Women were to rule. Women were to regent. Women were to reproduce with her counterpart and for God. Women were not to rule or regent over man; man was not to rule or regent over woman. They were both to rule and regent over the creation.

Together they would walk with him in the cool of the day. Together they would work for him in the heat of the day. Together they would perfectly match their talents and gifts and all that they were so that together in partnership, heirs together of all that God had given them in this unspoiled creation, they could do their work with joy to the glory of the Lord.

They were equal, but they were different. Equal but different. And when I say that, I don't mean that different means one is better and one is worse. Different means different. And when I say they were different, as Jesus said in Mark chapter 10, he made them male and female. And as Stuart said, this speaks of their sexuality.

Now everybody knows we're different; even little children know that. I heard a cute story of a little girl asking her mom how she was born. And her mom said, "The stork brought you to the house." She said, "Well, how were you born, mom?" She said, "The stork brought me." And the little girl said, "And grandma?" and she said, "Yes, the stork brought grandma."

So the little girl went to school the next day and said, "I can't believe this. We haven't had a normal birth in our family for three generations." Little girl knew very well that they were equal but different with little boys. Equal but different.

So in Paradise Park, a woman had no problem with her image, with her worth. She knew who she was. She knew what she was supposed to do, and she was doing it to the glory of God. Woman's identity was revealed in creation, but a woman's identity was obscured by the fall.

There was a snake in Eve's garden and she knew it not. A snake in the form of the evil one who is out to ruin humankind. And women's deception began. And prime rib was deceived into thinking she had been better off in her rib cage than in her relationship cage.

"Why shouldn't you escape," said the snake, "and be your own person? After all, that's what Omnipotence had in mind in the first place, wasn't it? Didn't he say he'd make you like him? Well, he's his own God. He does his own thing. Surely if you did the same, it would please him."

"Why shouldn't you plug up the hole in Adam's heart? What about your heart?" he hissed. "Why waste time worrying about his needs? What about your needs?" he continued. And prime rib lay very still, and creation quieted, listening for her answer.

She took the hand Omnipotence had fashioned from her little piece of bone and plucked the piece of forbidden fruit. She placed it between the lips Omnipotence had framed to praise him and absorbed into her system the poisons of independence, selfishness, and death. And Jesus prepared to leave for Bethlehem.

Oh, the power of a rib. Through the snake, an alliance sprang upon a lamb and tore it to bloody shreds, and two beautiful elk locked horns in mortal combat, and a cat began to play with a mouse. And Eve went to find Adam, and the angels were appalled. Surely Adam would refuse the fruit? After all, Adam was so strong. Look at all he had going for him.

But Omnipotence sighed because he knew what Adam was about to do and he'd known all along. And yet knowing, he still took his little piece of bone and his handful of dust and gave them the dignity of personhood and freedom of choice. Knowing their rejection, he had planned for their redemption. And sin came, and what a mess. What a mess.

Guest (Male): You're listening to Telling the Truth. Jill Briscoe will be right back with the conclusion of today's teaching. We all struggle at times with sinful desires and selfish motives. And when you do, you must remember that every temptation to do wrong is also an opportunity to do right.

That's the empowering truth Stuart and Jill Briscoe wanted you to grasp when they created their four-message series, Triumph over Temptation. This series will equip you with powerful biblical truth to help you triumph over temptation and grow your faith in the process.

Triumph over Temptation is our thanks for your gift to keep sharing the teaching and resources of Telling the Truth with so many people around the world. Generous friends like you keep broadcasts like this one going, reaching others with God's healing love so they can experience life in Christ and find strength to carry on with courage.

So if you haven't given before, consider a gift today to help keep God's word going out around the world to you and many others. And remember to request your copy of Triumph over Temptation when you call and give. Just call 1-800-889-5388. 1-800-889-5388, or you can give online when you visit tellingthetruth.org. Now, here's Jill with some final words for today.

Jill Briscoe: And a woman's destiny was written for her in that moment. In Genesis 3:14-24, you can read about that. Everything was affected: what men thought about women, what women thought about men, how men treated women, how women treated men, how both of them treated God. All of it was affected. And the blame game began.

"The woman you gave me, she made me do it," said the man. "The devil made me do it," said the woman. Heard that one, haven't we? And death came into life and bondage into liberty, and mistrust and hostility and hatred into love. And suffering and subjection was the woman's lot.

Men would dominate. John Stott says headship at that point degenerated into domination. And history attests to it. In the patriarchy in the Old Testament and in the New Testament and in the post-apostolic age and in the world of which we have a part today, it's still there. It's still there.

Now at this point, it all depends whether you think that little verse in Genesis 3, where it says that the woman would have pain in childbirth and the man would rule over the woman, if you think it is prescriptive or descriptive. On that will lay your viewpoint of what a Christian woman can be and do.

If you think it's prescriptive, you would take the position of authority and headship and rulership of the man. Of hierarchy: of man, wife, child, dog if you like. If you think that it's descriptive, then you will believe that what happened in redemption rolled back the effect of the fall and that man's headship is to be realized in the word "source": equal, servants offering their gifts to each other, partnership.

It all depends whether you think it's God's prescription for what women did or description of what would happen. I take the descriptive point of view. I believe that God looked down through history and said, "This is what's going to happen now," and this is what did happen.

However, the side of the church that has taken the other point of view has been guilty often of accusing Eve of being the deceiver instead of the deceived, and I want to mention that right now. Let me quote from an early church father, Tertullian by name, speaking of Eve or women.

"You are the devil's gateway. You are the unsealer of the forbidden tree. You are the first deserter of the divine law. You are she who persuaded him whom the devil was not valiant enough to attack. You destroyed so easily God's image. On account of your punishment, that is death, even the Son of God had to die."

Now if you think of women as the deceiver, if you think of women as the curse, then you're not going to invite her to teach Sunday school, are you? And you're certainly not going to make a place for her in the leadership of the church. She needs to be under headship so she doesn't deceive any more men, etc., etc.

So that's the two points of view. And yet we are all equally bad. "As in Adam all die," not as in Eve, it says. We are both equally responsible. The woman took the initiative, but both ate the fruit. Both are in the same fallen state, and it's wrong to suggest woman is more or less sinful than man. She was deceived; Adam sinned with his eyes wide open.

"As in Adam all die, but as in Christ shall all be made alive." We are all equally judged, but we are equally saved. Mirror image spoiled by sin, mourn I what you might have been. Sin has caused me hide in shame, to put on others my own blame. Oh, make my broken image new and tell me what I need to do.

When the risen Christ has come into my heart to make it home, he in me will change my life, and whether single or a wife will help my soul thy likeness bear, so my lost world may see you there. And right in the middle of that chapter when everything was a mess, God came forth with his promise of redemption.

The seed of the woman will bruise the serpent's head. And he cursed not the woman and not the man and not their children, but the snake. He cursed the snake. That's what he did.

Guest (Male): That was Jill Briscoe on Telling the Truth. Before we go, we want to remind you when you give to continue Stuart and Jill's legacy of sharing God's word through Telling the Truth broadcasts like this one, we'll say thanks with the Briscoes' four-message series, Triumph over Temptation.

These encouraging messages will help you defeat temptation and grow in your faith as you do. So please request your copy when you call and give: 1-800-889-5388. 1-800-889-5388, or you can give online when you visit tellingthetruth.org.

Thanks for being with us today on Telling the Truth. Be sure to come back tomorrow for the second part of Jill's message, A Christian View of Women. See you then.