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Thoughts about “A Year of Biblical Womanhood” by Rachel Held Evans

The book by Rachel Evens titled "A Year of Biblical Womanhood" is not out yet but is already causing a stir. I was aware that she was in the process of writing about her experiment to earnestly try and live out literally (in the flat) what the Bible commands of women. Rachel Evens book does not come out until October 30 so I offer the link to Roger Olson's blog where he reviews his advanced copy. This topic of trying to be a "Biblical women" seems to touch on a frustration that many Christian women and men sense. That often the stereotypes of men and women are placed on top of scripture and then told this is what it means to be a Biblical man or women. Thus all real Christian women are "submissive" which is code for meaning something like the man of the house gets to do what he wants when he wants  and all real men are warriors which is code for meaning something like real men hunt.

It seems to me that many Christian men and women are all confused. I have known many Christian women who were terrified that God was not pleased with them. They felt that God was not pleased because they had somehow overstepped their "submissive" role by bring their children to church when the man of the house either did not attend or had stopped attending church. I have also known Christian men who were concerned that they were not mainly enough. They would rather bake homemade bread then hunt or enjoy creating an oil painting then driving a truck through the mud. Seems that we forgot that God blesses the Esasus as well as the Jacobs. These are just a few of the ways that many Christian men and women often seek some clarification. What does it mean to be a follower of Christ and be a man or women?  

I am certainly not suggesting that I have the answer or have reached a place of clarification in my own life. As a man, husband, brother and son who is a follower of Christ I have often found the stereotypical image of a what is often called a "Christian man" wanting. I often wonder if Jesus would even fit into the stereotypical "Christian man". Not that Jesus was a passive whimp. He just seemed to be a man in a different kind of way that often does not fit the mold of the stereotypical "Christian man". Perhaps we Christian men and women might consider Philippians 2:5-8 and its implcations for being a Christian man or women.
 
Philippians 2:5-8
 
Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
 
What do you think?

 

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