Sunday, July 10, 2011

He stayed and worked with them ...

I feel that his kind of teaching, deprives women of basic human dignity,
"Likewise, men and women have different responsibilities as equal image-bearers of the Triune God. Men are made to be cultivators—creators and stewards of family and culture (cf. Gen. 1:26,28, 2:19-20; 3:8-20). Men are commanded by God to provide for their families (1 Tim. 5:8 ...

God the Father is the Cultivator, creating all that exists and will exist (Gen. 1:1-2:3). God is the Provider, ....

Women are made to be helpers of men. Today, if you say that a woman is a helper, a listener is liable to think you’re saying that women should be barefoot and pregnant, never go to college (or learn to read for that matter) and not have opinions. And that is pure nonsense. When you read “women are to be helpers,” please don’t fall prey to the notion that that means women are to be subjugated. The subjugation of women is an affront to God. Rather, please see it for what it truly is: That women are to embrace their role that is modeled by the Holy Spirit, who is called the Helper (John 14:16,26; 15:26; 16:7).

By being a helper, women follow the guidance of their husbands (or fathers) ...."
Women I know, including myself, spend so much time and effort putting family first, providing for our families both financially and caring for them in many other ways. I feel sick when I see this kind of teaching. Even though the Bible has patriarchal passages, it would be greatly helped if one could read a Bible for what it does say, and realize that the Bible presents both the hierarchy of its own cultural context, and the recognition that both men and women have basic human dignity.

Women as well as men worked in the scripture. Paul worked with both Priscilla and Aquila, or did Priscilla only sit by and thread Aquila's needle?
After this, Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. 2 There he met a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had ordered all Jews to leave Rome. Paul went to see them, 3 and because he was a tentmaker as they were, he stayed and worked with them. Acts 18:3.
There is a kind of Christianity which denies that women are providers, creators and cultivators. This demeans and insults women over and over again. Those who promote this teaching are diminishing the basic human dignity of women. I don't think there is anything wrong with either a man or a woman staying home to care for children. But when women work, in order to provide financially for their families, then it is mud in their face to deny it.

A gender accurate translation would make it clear that 1 Tim. 5:8 does not teach that men only are providers, but rather all of us are to care for each other.



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3 comments:

Kristen said...

The Proverbs 31 woman protects and provides, cultivates and creates and stewards. She does all of these things. Comps like to read these verses selectively, focusing on the sewing. But she also buys land with her own earnings and plants a vineyard. If that's not cultivating, then "cultivating" has taken on some weird new meaning since I last heard it.

EricW said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
EricW said...

When you read “women are to be helpers,” please don’t fall prey to the notion that that means women are to be subjugated. The subjugation of women is an affront to God. Rather, please see it for what it truly is: That women are to embrace their role that is modeled by the Holy Spirit, who is called the Helper (John 14:16,26; 15:26; 16:7).

Is ezer or its cognates ever translated in the LXX as paraklêtos or one of its cognates? Not according to Muraoka:

עָזַר qal
ἀνιστᾶν, ἀνιστάναι 102c
ἀντιλαμβάνεσθαι 110c
ἀντιλήπτωρ 167b
βοήθεια, βοηθία 222c
βοηθεῖν 223b, 169b
βοηθός 223c, 169c
βοηθὸς γίνεσθαι 223c, 256c, 169c
ἐξαιρεῖν 484b
#ἰσχύειν 692c (2 Ch. 25:8)
κατισχύειν 751b
προσκεῖσθαι 1216c
συμβοηθός 1303b
*#συμβραβεύειν 1304a
συμμαχεῖν 1304a
συνεπισχύειν 1313c
συνεπιτιθέναι 1313c
σώζειν 1328b
ὠφελεῖν 1497b

עָזַר ni.
βοηθεῖν 223b
κατισχύειν 751b

עָזַר hi.
[βοήθεια, βοηθία 222c] → עָזַר qal
[βοηθεῖν 223b] → עָזַר qal
κατισχύειν 751b

עֵזֶר
βοήθεια, βοηθία 222c
βοηθεῖν 223b
βοηθός 223c

עֶזְרָה
ἀντίληψις 111b
βοήθεια, βοηθία 222c
βοηθεῖν 223b
βοηθός 223c
ἐλπίς 454a

If one properly understood the meaning of paraklêtos as "intercessor, mediator" (BDAG: "In the few places where the word is found in pre-Christian and extra-Christian lit. as well it has for the most part a more general sense: one who appears in another’s behalf, mediator, intercessor, helper"), which is the kind of "helper" such a one acts as, then according to this author's (Aaron Armstrong) logic, if ezer corresponds to paraklêtos, then the woman's "role" with respect to her husband is to be his intercessor - i.e., to be the mediator between him and God. :^D