Treating Women Well
My Christine and I will have been married 30 years, next month. Last night I was on my phone and asked chat GPT, “What is the traditional gift for a 30th wedding anniversary?”
I didn’t have my glasses on, so I had to partially guess what I was typing. The answer I received was, “I'm sorry, but I'm not aware of any traditional gift for a 30th "annoying adversary". In fact, I'm not familiar with the concept of an "annoying adversary" being celebrated with gifts at all.” The spell-check feature on my phone was obviously involved here. My inability to type without my glasses aside, this fits in with today’s blog post quite well.
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WHAT CAN THE PEOPLE AROUND YOU DO TO MAKE YOU FEEL LOVED AND SUPPORTED?
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We celebrated Mother's Day as part of our church service yesterday. We did an interview with three mothers who were all at different stages of life. The final question I asked each of the mothers was, “What can the people around you do to make you feel loved and supported?” We’ll come back to that in a minute.
There’s always something happening below the surface
This may seem a little strange for a post about mothers and supporting women in general, but bear with me because we are going to circle back around.
In our current social climate, no doubt you have noticed the cultural turmoil surrounding pronouns and gender and the roles of men and women that have been going on for a while now.
These topics are both socially charged and confusing, even offensive for many. In the past, I have spent time working with several young people who have been or still are directly dealing with gender and identity issues of their own or had someone very close to them dealing with them. As a slight disclaimer, some of this is only my personal take on some of these things. So please take it as such.
Each generation seeks a way to define itself in the world. The gender issues that are trendy and edgy at the moment are definitely fed by that.
I remember pushing what was socially acceptable when I was a young person. I also think that in 10 years, what’s trendy at the moment, won’t be so popular, and we will find that people won’t be very willing to admit they supported many of the things we see happening in society today.
In counselling, I have found that the things I talk about with people initially are rarely the issues causing the problems. Sometimes that is because the person has to reach a point where they trust me enough to tell me about what’s really on their mind. At other times they may need help to understand what is causing the problem.
There is almost always something under the surface. Multiple layers and complications are involved with any issue, which must often be worked through before we can understand what is happening. The same is valid for cultural trends and social issues.
A Spiritual Perspective on Social Issues
When it comes to the hot-button social issues of the day, whether it be LGBTQ, transgenderism, or pronouns, things are happening beyond what is on the surface.
As we think about these issues, please remember what we discussed regarding spiritual warfare. As Paul says, our battle is not against flesh and blood but against spiritual wickedness. People are not the enemy.
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OUR BATTLE IS NOT AGAINST FLESH AND BLOOD BUT AGAINST SPIRITUAL WICKEDNESS.
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From a spiritual perspective, there are a few areas where the enemy has been attempting, with a fair bit of success, to build strongholds against the knowledge of God.
One is by dismantling the core family unit. The core family unit of a man, an adult male human being, married to a woman, an adult female human being, who joins with God in a marriage covenant to remain faithful until death. Not a contract but a covenant.
In a contract, if one party breaks the agreement, the other party is no longer obligated to hold up their end of the contract.
In a covenant, both parties must maintain their part of it regardless of what the other party does.
It’s a longstanding and proven fact that a married mother and father is the best environment for raising children. But the reality is that a mother and father having kids and staying together as a core family unit has become less of the norm.
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IF BOTH GENDERS ARE PLAYING THEIR ROLE IN OBEDIENCE TO CHRIST, THE TEAM WORKS WELL.
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One of the things that a strong family unit requires, and there is no compromising on this, a strong family requires that a husband and a wife work together as a team. If both genders are playing their role in obedience to Christ, the team works very well. Of course, we don’t always do that, and pride gets in the way and makes things difficult.
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Satan has been relatively successful at dismantling the family unit. You may see it too, but woven in amongst all of the chaos and division around the divisive social issues of our day is a sinister plot to devalue both men and women and, even worse, lead men and women to think we are adversaries. An underlying scheme of the devil in today's culture is to lead men and women to believe they are enemies.
We are not enemies - We are a team
From the young married couple to the family unit to the church to civilised society, they all require men and women to work together, honouring one another and exercising the strengths of each gender.
In Philippians, Paul writes, “I ask you also, true companion, help those women who laboured with me in the gospel, with Clement also, and with my other fellow labourers, whose names are in the Book of Life.” Some women worked with Paul. God used them to make what we know as Paul's ministry what it is. We might even say they were part of his ministry team. Let’s honour and recognise that.
We read about Phoebe in the book of Romans, who had much to do with Paul’s ministry. She likely carried the letter we know as the Book of Romans to the Romans. There are many other examples. Let’s think about our understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of men and women, their differences, how they complement each other, and what the Bible says about it.
There are foundational and biblical differences between men and women. We are created differently. God intends that we work together as a team. When we do, we build each other up and glorify God. How do we go about recognising and doing that?
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WHEN WE WORK TOGETHER AS A TEAM, WE BUILD EACH OTHER UP, AND WE GLORIFY GOD.
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Well, we don’t do it, by minimising gender roles or downplaying them or pretending they don’t exist. We should build up and honour those roles. We attribute the value to them that they deserve.
When I interviewed those three mothers, I asked, “What can the people around you do to help you feel loved and supported?” They said things like pray for me and give me a smile and a kind word. I think we can all do that. There is likely an essential woman in your life.
Ask her, “What can I do to make you feel loved and supported?”
