CONFRONTING THE PATRIARCHY IN THE SCRIPTURE BY PASTOR GREG ELKAN.

There’re two extreme ways people look at the Bible: one is to treat it like an esoteric, magical book of spells and incantations; the other is to treat it as just a mere human book filled with errors and biases of the authors. The Feminist (and LGBTQ) Movement are guilty of the latter. 

The Bible authors had only ONE agenda: salvation through faith in Christ (2Ti 3:15-16; 1Pe 1:11; 2Pe 1:21). They weren’t trying to establish the Jews as a special race (radical Zionist view), justify the right of priests to rule the Jews (JEPD theory), or have an agenda to subjugate women (Feminist view).

The primary ingredient that transforms the Bible reader from viewing it as the writings of ancient patriarchal nomads roaming the Middle East to seeing it as the very word of God is FAITH. Heb 4:2 says, _“For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.”_

When you study the original historical setting of the scriptures through a non-biased mind, you’ll see the beauty and wisdom of God in navigating His will in spite of the hardness of the human heart. 

It’s been established that female suppression is a universal disease of humanity, and the Jews of Moses’ day were no exception; so the Laws Moses gave was meant to protect the Jewish women from _already exiting_ misogynistic practices prevalent in the cultures of that time. 

For example, the “Bill of divorcement” (Dt 24:1-4) which had been turned to a justification for fickle dismissal of wives by the Jews of Jesus’ day was instituted for the opposite reason! Before the Law, a man could just shove the woman out of his house and that was it; Moses protected her by asking the man to give her a written proof of his action so that he can’t accuse her later of adultery if she ended up with another man. (He also forbids any attempt to remarry her – thus forcing him to think real hard before taking that step). 

The Law also placed protection for women from pettily jealous husbands, (Num 5:11-35), gave women the right to inherit lands (Num 27:1-11; 36:1-13), and protected women from lecherous men. All these were in stark contrast to the crass misogyny being practiced by the surrounding Canaanite cultures.

We must concede that the Jews, Moses’ original audience, weren’t Spirit-filled men with regenerated hearts. They were faithless and obstinate, but God had to work in the midst of their unbelief to achieve His own agenda of producing the Messiah for all humanity. And as His will is progressively revealed in scripture, we see His ideal being unveiled: a kingdom where _“There is … neither male nor female (but we all) are all one in Christ Jesus.”_ (Gal 3:28).

AMEN

PASTOR GREG ELKAN.

More Blessings await you today; you’ll not miss them in Jesus’ Name.

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