What God really thinks of women

Was she beautiful.

She was brilliant.

And she was angry with God.

I sat on the lunch table picking up a salad and trying to digest Jan's words. His startlingly teal eyes were stained with frustration with God, mainly because of how she perceived that he felt for women.

“I don't understand God. It seems to be against women. It made us fail. Even our bodies are weaker and this only invites men to abuse us. Throughout the Bible I see how God has used men in powerful ways.

Abraham, Moses, David, you call him; it's always men. And polygamy. How could God allow this? There is so much abuse of women today, ”she continued. “Where is God in all of this? There are so many inequalities and injustices between the way men are treated and the way women are treated. What kind of God does it? I think the bottom line is that God doesn't like women ”.

Jan knew his Bible. She grew up in church, had loving Christian parents, and accepted Christ when she was eight years old. He continued to grow in his little girl's faith and even heard a call to the ministry when she was in junior high. But during her growing years, Jan felt she wasn't good enough. He considered himself inferior to his younger brother and always felt as if his parents favored him.

As is often the case with children, Jan's perception of the earthly father colored his perception of Heavenly Father and the idea of ​​male favoritism became the sieve through which his spiritual interpretations passed.

So what does God really think of women?

For too long I had looked at women in the Bible from the wrong end of the telescope, making them appear too small next to their male counterparts. But God was asking me to be a good student and take a closer look. I asked God how He really felt about women and He showed me through the life of His Son.

When Philip asked Jesus to show him the Father, Jesus replied, "Everyone who has seen me has seen the Father" (John 14: 9). The Hebrew writer describes Jesus as "the exact representation of his being" (Hebrews 1: 3). And while I don't assume I know God's mind, I can understand its character and ways through the ministry of Jesus, his Son.

As I studied, I was struck by Jesus' radical relationship with the women whose lives intersected with his during those thirty-three years that he walked on this earth.

She crossed man-made social, political, racial, and gender boundaries and addressed women with due respect for those who bear the image of God. Man created by God broke man-made rules to free women.

Jesus broke all the rules
Whenever Jesus met a woman, he breaks one of the social rules of his day.

Women were created as co-image bearers of God. But between the Garden of Eden and the Garden of Gethsemane, much has changed. When Jesus gave his first cry in Bethlehem, the women lived in the shadows. For example:

If a woman commits adultery, her husband could kill her because she was his property.
Women were not allowed to speak in public with men. If so, it was assumed that she was having an affair with the man and grounds for divorce.
A rabbi didn't even talk to his wife or daughter in public.
The rabbis would wake up every morning and say a little prayer: "Thank God I am neither a Gentile, a woman nor a slave." How would you like it to be a "good morning, dear?"
Women were not allowed to:

Testify in court, as they were seen as unreliable witnesses.
Mingle with men in social gatherings
Eat with men in a social gathering.
Be polite in the Torah with men.
Sit under the instruction of a rabbi.
Worship with men. They were relegated to a lower level in the Temple of Herod and behind a division in the local synagogues.
Women were not counted as people (i.e. feeding the 5.000 men).

The women divorced on a whim. If she hadn't satisfied him or burned the bread, her husband could have written her a divorce letter.

Women were considered the scum of society and inferior in every way.

But Jesus came to change all of that. He did not speak of injustice; He simply did his ministry by ignoring it.

Jesus showed how precious women are
He taught in places where women would be present: on a hill, along the streets, on the market, near a river, next to a well, and in the women's area of ​​the temple.

His longest recorded conversation throughout the New Testament was with a woman. And as we have seen through the lives of some of the most important women of the New Testament, some of his best students and most daring disciples were women.

Jesus spoke to the Samaritan woman at the well. It was the longest recorded conversation he had had with one person. He was the first person to whom he said it was the Messiah.
Jesus welcomed Mary of Bethany into the classroom to sit at His feet to learn.
Jesus invited Mary Magdalene to join his group of ministers.
Jesus encourages the woman who has recovered from 12 years of bleeding to testify to the presence of all that God has done for her.
Jesus welcomed the sinful woman into a room full of men while anointing her head with perfume.
Jesus called the woman with the cripple from behind a division to receive her healing.
Jesus entrusted the most important message of all history to Mary Magdalene and told her to go and say that he had risen from the dead.

Jesus was willing to risk his reputation to save them. He was willing to go against the grain of religious leaders to free women from centuries of pious oppressive tradition.

He freed women from disease and freed them from spiritual darkness. He took the fearful and forgotten and turned them into faithful and remembered forever. "I tell you the truth," he said, "wherever this gospel is preached throughout the world, what she did will also be said, in memory of her."

And now this brings me to you and me.

Never, my dear, doubt your value as a woman. You were the grand finale of God of all creation, his work that he adores. And Jesus was willing to break the rules to prove it.