The Bible doesn’t degrade women, it elevates them

By Editor | July 3, 2013 |

There is a common notion that women are relegated to a low status in the Bible. This thought is as mistaken as the idea that slavery is justified in the Bible.

The truth of the matter is that the Bible is addressed to the culture of its day. Israel, to whom the Old Testament was addressed, became a nation around 1450-1250 BC. Paganism existed throughout the world, with its mass killings of people groups, slavery and suppression of women, as well as the sacrificial system to pagan deities.
The Bible addressed the culture of the day in a way that the world could understand. The culture was not transported abruptly to a sophisticated system of human ethics and equality. Such a change could neither be understood nor accepted.
Instead, God addressed ethical issues in such a way that pursuit of biblical principles would finally lead to the abolishment of slavery in Christian lands, as well women’s equality. Miraculously, the Bible is not trapped in the culture of the day to which it was originally addressed. It developed the world to a higher standard.
The following is a partial list of the way the Bible elevated the place of women in today’s society and the church.
I Timothy 2:11-12 says that a woman is to learn in silent and full submission. She is not allowed to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to be silent. It is important to remember that women were not educated in the society to which Paul wrote this epistle. Therefore, they were illiterate and not qualified to teach. Paul elevated women by allowing them to sit quietly in the church and learn. In addition, false teachers may well have been using women to flit about from house to house proposing their erroneous views.
A similar problem today is with women who wish to dominate men. Genesis 3:16 anticipates this sin by say, “Your desire shall be for your husband, yet he will dominate you.” In Genesis 4, God told Cain that sin’s “desire shall be for you, but you must master it.” The issue is one of function. The women’s role with her personhood is the issue. Because of sin (Eve was first deceived and desired Adam to lower himself to her disobedience), women would want to dominate and control the function of man. We see this working today in the feminist movement, where women desire to dominate their husbands in an inordinate fashion, just as sin seeks to control mankind.
In Numbers 17 and 36, contrary to custom, Zelophehod’s daughters were permitted to inherit land and choose their own marriage partners.
Throughout Scripture, femininity is seen in the nature of God. God is likened to one giving birth, nourishing and nurturing children, gathering Jerusalem’s children as chicks under the wings of a mother hen, etc.
God created man as male and female. It took both sexes to comprise what God call “man.”
Both Jesus and Paul give women the right to choose divorce and to choose to serve God against the wishes of her husband (I Corinthians 7:10, 13, 15).
Women prominent in business were commended (Proverbs 31, Miriam, Esther, Deborah, Lydia and others).
Women were prominent in the lineage of Jesus (Tamar, Ruth, Rahab and Mary).
Many women are listed in the letters of Paul and Acts as prominent and effective leaders in the churches. Numerous women are listed in Romans 16. Priscilla is named before her husband Aquila.
The first witnesses of Jesus’ resurrection were women. It was illegal in that day for a woman to be a legal witness.
Jesus included women in his ministry, and included some of their names. Women were named as standing by him at his crucifixion.
God hears the prayers of women. (Hannah, among many others, was heard and given a son, Samuel).
This list is brief, and includes little explanation. However, it is evident that the Bible (and Paul) in no way degrade the personhood of women. Scripture elevates womanhood in the face of the day’s culture and laws. In fact, it says in Christ there is neither male nor female, slave or free, in the Kingdom of God.
Complete equality of person is the goal of the church. There is distinction of function (for instance, a woman gives birth) but not of person. We all exercise various gifts on the measure given by God.
The Bible should never be impugned that it is archaic or stuck in an ancient culture. The Bible has delivered us from paganism and established us above the culture of the world.