Christian fundamentalists feeding Into the Toxic Partisanship and driving countries into the Dark Ages… #2

Posted on 2018/02/08 by Guestspeaker

In the United States we not only see that religious groups become endangered. Also the female person seems to be placed in a secondary role. We see the growing tendency by several American citizens to consider the female being as second-class citizen whose place belongs in the kitchen and by her kids. the woman according several man should be subject to a strict social hierarchy. This hierarchy can be observed in every stripe of fundamentalism, from Islamic fundamentalism to Christian fundamentalism and it goes like this:

God/Jesus is the head of the man

Man is the head of the woman, subject only to God

Woman is subjugated to a status which is wholly reliant on having “faith” that her husband will do the right thing because he is specially influenced by God by special decree of the Bible.

Fundamentalist website after website counsels women that if her husband does wrong that the only thing she can do is pray that God will guide him to a different decision, that she is not to disagree with him publicly (or in front of children). She is free (sometimes) to give an opinion, but the ultimate decision is the man’s, because he has special dispensation by God to be in that position. The equal status of women is a threat to this hierarchy, and thus, a threat to God.

According to several writers on the net there is “Anti-intellectualism” at the base of the extremist behaviour of so many evangelicals and for others it is a matter to have everything in control. In order of occupancy of the Oval Office, there is an inverse relationship between the number of Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Methodist, and Baptist presidents of the United States and the percentage of each of those denominations in the broader population. As if that wasn’t embarrassing enough, there are no evangelicals among the current justices of the Supreme Court!

In fact, there aren’t even any Protestants these days!

Dakota O’Leary believes this is why America is seeing so many attacks on women, from trying to pass laws that undermine Roe v. Wade (personhood laws, restrictions on abortions, waiting periods, attempts to push laws to punish abortion doctors, restrictions on being able to get birth control, etc), to going to the trouble of redefining rape as being the woman’s fault, even part of God’s plan, while pushing to give rapists parental rights, to the unfortunate proclamations of Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock, et. The present president of America even boasted that girls love it to receive the male’s attention and being the prey man has to conquer. Nobody called yet to bring him before court for molesting women, though several women came forward with their story and some even with proof what this man had done to them in the past. To no avail…. He seems to be untouchable.

Many (conservative and evangelical) Americans are convinced that women dress in such a way they demand to be played at and to be raped and that babies born of rape are either a penalty for their attitude or are a blessing from God, (that the female body shuts down its reproductive system when a woman is being raped, etc.).

Controlling women’s bodies while at the same time denouncing “big government” is the popular meme of the fundamentalist mind. Women are simply not meant to destroy that Godly hierarchy set up by the Bible, and in their minds if you can control women, you’ve got half the populace conquered for God.

Fundamentalist anti-intellectualism often manifests itself in a sort of “pseudo-intellectualism” by which those with little or no educational background read a few articles or watch a few videos about a particular subject (usually published by their own religious compatriots, particularly about what a scientific theory is and evolution), and consider themselves “educated” because what they read agreed with their worldview, or, if being highly educated, usually get that education in a fundamentalist educational setting. They even go so far to say that scientists forge or falsify research to mislead pepole and to bring them away from God’s Word. They will then take that “evidence” and proceed to use it against empirical evidence that directly contests and even eviscerates the arguments they have carefully set up around what they have read or seen, and the argument invariably ends with ad hominem attacks against reason, facts, and education — because they have no actual evidence outside of the Bible to use to “win” the argument. A favourite tactic is to call the opposition an “atheist” (or a “liberal”) if someone disagrees with their worldview.

Richard John Santorum

By the extremist evangelicals we also may see that education is then “demonized” as being a covert movement to “indoctrinate” the masses in the secular worldview, and thus, part of the forces of Satan. The American attorney, author, and politician Santorum demonstrates this principle admirably. Although he himself is highly educated, with a bachelor’s degree, Master’s degree and JD from Penn State, his Biblical worldview clearly trumps his empirical education and allows him to disregard it as a fly in the ointment in the “light of Biblical truth,” which is, of course, only empirical in that it is in print, in black and white, not empirical that it can actually be proven.

Faith is evidence enough, and reason becomes a threat to faith, thus, reason is from Satan, not God.

A good case in point is the persecution of Copernicus and Galileo by the Catholic Church, regarding the revolution of the Earth around the sun. This old argument, which has been proven in favor of Copernicus and Galileo, has arisen once again to haunt us.

According to a recent National Science Foundation survey, over twenty percent of the respondents believed in the geocentric model popular during the 1500s, that the sun revolves around the earth instead of the other way around. This is old, disproven thinking that comes from the idea that since humanity is God’s creation, naturally, everything revolves around humanity, with humanity at the centre of creation.

Humanity is thus, special. Anything that challenges the idea that humanity is special is thus a threat against God. After all, you can’t feel the earth move, so it must be stationary. You can’t see the stars move (well, you can with a telescope, something called parallax), but you can’t see it with the naked eye, so thus, the earth must be stationary with the sun moving around it.

This is an example of pseudo-intellectualism. You know what you see, but you don’t investigate to see if your assertions are valid under close scrutiny. Fundamentalists cannot afford to indulge in close scrutiny of their ideas, because close scrutiny would most certainly disprove most of what they believe, and they fear, more than anything else, of the erosion of their own faith.

Science In Action — In 1982, forty-four per cent of Americans held strictly creationist views, a statistically insignificant difference from 2012. Furthermore, the percentage of Americans that believe in biological evolution has only increased by four percentage points over the last twenty years.

Susan Jacoby, author of “The Age of American Unreason” and “Freethinkers” sums up the problem of fundamentalist anti-intellectualism succinctly:

This mindless tolerance, which places observable scientific facts, subject to proof, on the same level as unprovable supernatural fantasy, has played a major role in the resurgence of both anti-intellectualism and anti-rationalism.

Copernicus and Galileo were persecuted by the Catholic Church for suggesting that humanity on earth was indeed not the centre of the universe. Copernicus did not suffer much persecution while he was alive, but after he was dead, his hypothesis that the earth revolved around the sun certainly did. Galileo dared to revive Copernicus’ idea, and packaged it in a mock debate between characters in a book he wrote called Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems (Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo) in 1632. The Catholic Church’s militaristic arm, the Inquisition, caught wind of what he had written, and banned his book, and placed Galileo under house arrest.

Now, the Catholic Church’s disagreement with Galileo and Copernicus did not make their ideas less true, which the idea certainly was, and revealed to be true through empirical scientific investigation over a period of years. Instead, the Church deflected the facts as “heresy,” which is something fundamentalists are particularly adept at doing. Ken Ham’s Creation Museum is a testament to this deflection of scientific facts as heresy.

By dismissing evolution as nothing more than a “theory,” (which goes to show pure, deliberate ignorance of what exactly a scientific theory is), we see again the application of the ad hominem attack Christian fundamentalists so love to employ when inconvenient facts get in the way.

The fundamentalists of today are a hardy lot, and they will use anything to win this battle for God — the Bible, which is the ultimate authority, the Constitution, revisionist science textbooks, and revisionist American history (a la David Barton) that “proves” America was a nation founded to be their brand of a “Christian nation.”

Their view of a Christian nation is a very restricted view where there is only place for their Christian conservative doctrinal teachings and where there can only some place for other trinitarian christians as long as they do not go against their views.

Never mind they are not Constitutional scholars. The Constitutional scholars are a threat to them because even though scholars have differing opinions about interpretation of the Constitution, any opinion that differs from the fundamentalist worldview is a direct attack on God. Never mind that the fundamentalist that lives in the general population is not a scientist.

They know better, because the Australian Christian fundamentalist and young Earth creationist living in the United States, Ken Ham and the Bible tell them that there is No Way God would use evolution to create (even though the Bible says nothing on the subject of evolution)

The Bible is black and white. God created the world as it is now in six days, and rested on the seventh.

You will rarely see a fundamentalist in a secular college or university because secular universities and colleges do not agree with their worldview (logically). This is why for the most part they are homeschooled, and go straight from homeschool to fundamentalist universities that teach their worldview.By presenting homeschooling by the parents themselves, who did not receive any educational formation to be a teacher, the kids are squeezed the truth and deprived of sound formation. Opportunities to go to a proper high school or to a good university is taken away. For such children is there only an opening to universities and colleges churned out fundamentalists who are schooled in law, but only an interpretation of law that fits their Biblical worldview. Lawyers or judges who disagree with them, particularly in Supreme Court cases are dismissed ad hominem as “activist lawyers” and “activist judges” (i.e. enemies of God).

This lack of empirical education is changing American society into one that has eroded science education, particularly with their attempts to force the school voucher issue, which is nothing but a bid to get taxpayers to fund fundamentalist education, yet they object to taxpayer funded public education because “secularism” is persecuting them for their beliefs by simply disagreeing with them (because again, nothing they believe is based on empirical evidence).

Jerry Falwell Jr. has ambitious plans to affect life, law and culture in America, and it’s all being germinated at Liberty University, the fundamentalist bastion his father founded. (Source: Americans United)

The lack of empirical education is eroding American society in favour of a “faith based” education that has nothing whatsoever to do with facts that threaten their worldview. Liberty is something they interpret as the freedom to live in a society based solely on their Biblical worldview and does not at all give any liberty to free expression or freedom of thought. Freedom of religion for others in an inclusive society is anathema to them, because such freedom threatens to sideline them to the fringes. Individual liberty does not exist except for them, because they have an inherent distrust of the individual to make reasonable decisions, unless those decisions are based on their interpretation of Scripture. Thus, mainstream Christians are not their brethren; mainstream Christians are simply misinformed individuals who have deluded themselves into believing they are of the family of Christ, and only the clear lens of fundamentalism can see that mainstream Christians have been deceived by the enemy of God which is secular society. In this lies a big problem. They think they have to spread their ‘true religion’ all over the world and consider themselves as the chosen people of God and therefore they also consider themselves as the connected with the Zionists aiming to have peace in the Middle East. Though they do forget that by their refusal to see and understand that Jesus was not his real name, but that is was Jeshua and that he spoke Aramaic and as such used the word “Allah” for “God” plus that in the present day still millions of pepole use that word “Allah” which disgusts those American fundamentalists. And by their action against that word they bring resentment in several believers their heart. Their action against the use of non-english words for “God” gives not only peevishness, but lets many wonder if they belong to the right Christian religion of worse should not become a worshipper of the Only One true God and have to become Jew or Muslim and leave the Christian Trinity doctrine aside. A pity not more by those extremist Christians offended Christians go looking for an alternative Christianity where there is praised the God of Jeshua (Jesus Christ (Allah, the Elohim Hashem Jehovah) and where they still can use their Catholic or protestant Bibles with that word “Allah” in it when it talks about The God.

The extremist fundamentalist Christians say their sole aim is to “obey” God in creating conditions favourable to the return of Christ – and this one thought, this one design drives American foreign policy with Israel (they believe that when the Jews all return to Israel and the 3rd temple is rebuilt that Christ will return, (but not without sacrificing 2/3 of the Jewish people in the process), then all the remaining Jews will become Christians.

American fundamentalists are only interested in Jewish people and Israel insofar as it furthers the return of Jesus Christ. That is all.

Dakota O’Leary is convinced that because fundamentalists are engaged in the idea that they are warriors in a fight for God, (something Christian fundamentalists hold in common with Islamic fundamentalists), and says

they have the sort of mindset that if it came to it (which it has not yet, I do not think), they would not afraid to die for their faith. Proof of this idea was given a disturbing form by a video game “Left Behind: Eternal Forces,” which advocates killing anyone who doesn’t agree with them (i.e. can’t be converted to their idea of Christ):

Katherine Stewart writes

Aimed at conservative Christians, the game’s story line begins in a time after the “rapture”, when fundamentalist dogma contends that Christians will go to heaven. The remaining population on earth must then choose between surrendering to or resisting “the Antichrist”, which the game describes as the “Global Community Peacekeepers” whose objective is the imposition of “one-world government”.

“Part of the object is to kill or convert the opposing forces,”

Simpson said.

This is “antithetical to the Gospel of Jesus Christ,” he said, adding that he was dismayed by the concept in “Eternal Forces” of using prayer to restore a player’s “spirit points” after killing the enemy.

In the game, combatants on one side pause for prayer, intoning, “Praise the Lord”. A player can lose points for “unnecessary killing” but regain them through prayer.

But Simpson counters,

“The idea that you could pray, and the deleterious effects of one’s foul deeds would simply be wiped away, is a horrible thing to be teaching Christian young people here at Christmas time.”

Troy Lyndon, CEO of Left Behind Games Inc., which is promoting the new video, has defended the game as “inspirational entertainment” and said its critics were exaggerating. The game is based on the popular “Left Behind” novels, a Bible-based end-of-the-world-saga that has sold more than 63 million copies.

Dakota O’Leary reacts

Now, while this is a disturbing element, and the Left Behind books have genocidal scenes that seem to justify killing masses of unbelievers because they are incorrigible (not ever going to convert to the fundamentalist mindset), it should be reiterated that fundamentalists are not yet at the point in the US where they want to kill people, so let us not be alarmist. However, that being said, the way some fundamentalists are choosing to portray institutional racism and genocide (as punishment for sin and disbelief) to school age children is disturbing, and it is the belief of this scholar that the elements for radical action portrayed in the video game are there – but would need utter desperation in order to explode into being. It is the opinion of this writer that fundamentalists are not yet this desperate, but attempts to normalize killing for God are disturbing, to say the least. The Guardian had this to say about the subject in May of 2012:

The story of the Amalekites has been used to justify genocide throughout the ages. According to Pennsylvania State University Professor Philip Jenkins, a contributing editor for the American Conservative, the Puritans used this passage when they wanted to get rid of the Native American tribes. Catholics used it against Protestants, Protestants against Catholics.

“In Rwanda in 1994, Hutu preachers invoked King Saul’s memory to justify the total slaughter of their Tutsi neighbors,”

writes Jenkins in his 2011 book, Laying Down the Sword: Why We Can’t Ignore the Bible’s Violent Verses (HarperCollins).

In the fall of 2012, more than 100,000 American public school children, ranging in age from four to 12, were scheduled to receive instruction in the lessons of Saul and the Amalekites in the comfort of their own public school classrooms. The instruction, which features in the second week of a weekly “Bible study” course, came from the Good News Club, an after-school program sponsored by a group called the Child Evangelism Fellowship (CEF). The aim of the CEF is to convert young children to a fundamentalist form of the Christian faith and recruit their peers to the club.

There are now over 3,200 clubs in public elementary schools, up more than sevenfold since the 2001 supreme court decision, Good News Club v Milford Central School, effectively required schools to include such clubs in their after-school programing.

The CEF has been teaching the story of the Amalekites at least since 1973. In its earlier curriculum materials, CEF was euphemistic about the bloodshed, saying simply that “the Amalekites were completely defeated.” In the most recent version of the curriculum, however, the group is quite eager to drive the message home to its elementary school students. The first thing the curriculum makes clear is that if God gives instructions to kill a group of people, you must kill every last one:

You are to go and completely destroy the Amalekites (AM-uh-leck-ites) – people, animals, every living thing. Nothing shall be left.

“That was pretty clear, wasn’t it?” the manual tells the teachers to say to the kids.

Even more important, the Good News Club wants the children to know, the Amalakites were targeted for destruction on account of their religion, or lack of it. The instruction manual reads:

The Amalekites had heard about Israel’s true and living God many years before, but they refused to believe in him. The Amalekites refused to believe in God and God had promised punishment.

The instruction manual goes on to champion obedience in all things. In fact, pretty much every lesson that the Good News Club gives involves reminding children that they must, at all costs, obey. If God tells you to kill nonbelievers, he really wants you to kill them all. No questions asked, no exceptions allowed.

Dakota O’Leary writes

Educating Christian fundamentalists simply doesn’t work. They do not accept any education that is in direct conflict with their worldview. What remains is to educate the rest of the American populace about Christian fundamentalism and dominionism, educating the American populace about the David Bartons of the world, so that when elections occur, an educated populace can reject the infiltration of fundamentalism on the rest of American society, which will, given the right opportunity (usually in a climate of fear like 9/11), erode American democracy entirely and push our nation into the fringes of the world into irrelevance.

Every American should know that Anti-intellectualism – as advocated by large and vocal elements within the Republican Party is dangerous to the future of their nation. but they also should know that those fundamentalist Christians threaten world peace, by their continuous actions against Muslims and against people who use the word “Allah”.

For the future of the States there is also the education danger, by having the students not to see how the world evolves and how everything is related with each other. Students who are protected from “globalist” views and real science will not grow up to be leaders. If the Americans themselves do not take care of providing a sound education to their children and to give them an understanding of other peoples and other languages they shall have to face a downfall of their nation.

**

Dakota O’Leary is a freethinker, and often sassy, scholar of theology and literature. She got her Bachelor of Arts degree in English and Theology from the State University of New York College at Buffalo, and her Master of Arts degree in Theology and Literature from Antioch University-Midwest. Dakota is a co-host of the God Discussion radio show, offering insight to the news stories of the week.

Preceding

Act of Faith held on February 6, 1481

American Christianity no longer resembles its Founder

Christian fundamentalists feeding Into the Toxic Partisanship and driving countries into the Dark Ages… #1

Science, 2013 word of the year, and Scepticism

Additional reading

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Further related

Marriage of Jesus 10 Old and New Covenant

Posted on 2014/06/10 by Marcus Ampe

Divinity Hall, Harvard Divinity School, view from Divinity Avenue (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Harvard Divinity School Professor Karen King agrees that the fragment, written in Coptic, she analysed,

“does not, however, provide evidence that the historical Jesus was married, nor does it prove that he was not married. The earliest reliable historical tradition is completely silent on that. So we’re in the same position we were before it was found. We don’t know if he was married or not.”

In the previous postings I mentioned already that when we look at the accounts of Jesus’ life in the Bible and the many non-religious writings of the early centuries, there is no mention of his marital status, while the accounts do mention Jesus’ mother, father and siblings.

Darrell Bock, a senior research professor of New Testament studies at Dallas Theological Seminar said:

“There’s no indication we have that Jesus was married. One could say the text is silent on Jesus’ marital status because there was nothing to say.”

Bock agreed with the notion that the text fragment shared similarities with the Gnostic Gospels and said the text could be referring to a gnostic rite of marriage but

“it’s a small text with very little context. We don’t know what’s wrapped around it to know what it’s saying.”

King writes:

“the importance of the ‘Gospel of Jesus’ Wife’ lies in supplying a new voice within the diverse chorus of early Christian traditions about Jesus that documents that some Christians depicted Jesus as married.”

In “Marriage of Jesus 8 Wife of Yahweh” and “Marriage of Jesus 9 Reason for a new marriage” I pointed out to the Wife of God, indicating the Book of books speaks about God being married to Israel, but this being spiritually talking about the relationship of Jehovah God with His Chosen People, Israel, or the Israelites, the religious Jews. From the Old Testament text we can understand that Jehovah God cast Israel off as a wife, and that it was impossible for Him to marry her as a “virgin” (Jeremiah 3:1-18; Ezekiel 16; Hosea 2; 3:1-5). We can see what faithless Israel has done and find God giving her the notice or her certificate of divorce and having sent her away because of all her adulteries.

“She saw that for all the adulteries of that faithless one, Israel, I had sent her away with a decree of divorce. Yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear, but she too went and played the whore.” (Jeremiah 3:8 ESV)

“Abraham, Abraham!” So he said, “Here I am.” And He said, “Do not lay your hand on the lad, or do anything to him…” (Photo credit: -Reji)

God had made a promise to Abraham, that his seed would multiply and God would make a people for Him out of his descendants. God always keeps to His promises. One of them, at the beginning of human history,just after the foundation of the earth, was also that He would provide a solution for the sin the first man and woman (the 1° Adam and Eve) committed. There He indicated already His special relationship with the human beings, and planned for a son to whom He would give the throne to restore the paradise and bring to fulfilment the clean and safe Kingdom of God (the 2° Adam).

” And [Psa. 102:25-27 says “Thou, Yahweh/Adonay/Jehovah”], “Lord, in the beginning you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hand. (11) They will be destroyed, but you will remain. And they [i.e., the heavens and earth] will all wear out like an article of clothing. (12) And you will fold them up like a robe, and they will be changed like an article of clothing. But you will stay the same and your years will never end.” (13) But which one of the angels did God ever say [this] about [Psa. 110:1], “You should sit at my right side until I put your enemies [in full subjection] beneath your feet?”” (Heb 1:10-13 AUV)

“So [then], we [Christians] should pay closer attention to the things we have heard, so that we do not drift away from [believing and practicing] them. (2) For if the message spoken through angels proved to be binding [Note: This is a reference to the Law of Moses. See Acts 7:53; Gal. 3:19], and every violation [of it] and disobedience [to it] received a just penalty, (3) how will we escape [punishment] if we neglect such a great salvation? [For it was] first announced [to people] by the Lord and then confirmed to us [i.e., the writer and other Christians] by those who heard Him [i.e., the original apostles]. (4) God also testified, along with those people, by [giving them] both signs and wonders and various miracles, and by [supernatural] gifts distributed [to them] by the Holy Spirit, as He desired. (5) For God did not place the coming inhabited world [Note: “The coming inhabited world” here probably refers to the present Christian age. It was viewed as “coming” from the perspective of Old Testament times], under the control of angels [and] that is the world we are talking about.” (Heb 2:1-5 AUV)

With regards to which of the angelic messengers “emissaries”, none where invited tocome to sit next to God, but His son Jeshua (Jesus Christ), who was first lower than the angels (remember God is, was and always shall be the Most High) was placed higher after his resurrection and invited to come to sit at the right hand of God to become a mediator between God and man. In case Jesus was God he could not be sitting next to himself nor take on the duty of mediator or intermediary. His position as arbitrator for man and woman would be of no value either when he would have been God and the end judge of it all. The third party has to be someone other than the principals who are involved in a transaction. In the Bible is also written that he would hand over the Kingdom of God to his Father. In case he himself is the same person as the Father there is no use nor any possibility to hand over the Kingdom to himself.

But in the text in front of us we hear about the world to come: the New World. The angels are ministering spirits, servants, with no royal dignity; having a subordinate role of serving God. God’s concern is not with angels, but with us, and He accordingly sends those angels or messengers of God, to bring help to those who will inherit salvation.

“And if children, then also lawfully-allotted ones, lawfully-allotted ones surely of God, moreover, lawfully-allotted-with the Anointed One, if- we -wholly suffer-with Him, in order that, we may also be given splendor-with Him.” (Romans 8:17 AS )

In the Old Times God shared His passion with His people, who kept stubborn and did not want to recognise the Promised One, the Christos, or Christ the Messiah. God placed Jesus in a higher position than His angels and by doing this God’s glory becomes Christ’s glory and finally, in measure, our glory also, because in him, Jesus Christ, we can be saved and become part of the Body of Christ. The apostle Paul brings some ‘with’ words in his 8° letter to the Romans (8:1-39), that testify of what we are and what we do jointly with Christ. There it is said the Anointed One should be from-within us, being lawfully-allotted ones, joint-heirs with the Anointed, even when we ourselves still dare to groan inside ourselves, waiting for our adoption, to wit, the ransom of our body, we may find not such an adoption, becoming children of God, but also finding the redemption of the body we still have here on earth. (In this world.)

God did not spare His own son Jeshua, but delivered him up for us all. (Romans 8:32) This Jesus is raised up, and is actually at the right hand of God, and makes intercession for us. (Romans 8:34) In the Old World the angels were in charge.

” Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold, And see the reward of the wicked. (9) For thou, O Jehovah, art my refuge! Thou hast made the Most High thy habitation; (10) There shall no evil befall thee, Neither shall any plague come nigh thy tent. (11) For he will give his angels charge over thee, To keep thee in all thy ways. (12) They shall bear thee up in their hands, Lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.” (Psalm 91:8-12 ASV)

But now God choose a cornerstone in His son, to whom angels already came to minister him in his lifetime (Matthew 4:11; cp Matthew 26:53)

” You made him for a little while lower than the angels; you have crowned him with glory and honor, (8) putting everything in subjection under his feet.” Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. (9) But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.” (Hebrews 2:7-9 ESV)

We all share in flesh and blood, the same as the son of God Jesus Christ partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the evil, the adversary of God. For ages God’s People where thrown through and fro and often did not make a proper choice. Because of His great dissatisfaction god was not inclined any more to keep the bond of His ‘marriage’ with them alone. Too many times the Israelites were ill-disposed to their Creator. They often behaved unlawful and that hurtled the Most High in such a way that He allowed His son to provide a New Covenant, to deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery (Hebrews 2:15).

God renewed His bond or covenant with His son and with the Spiritual Israel, which had to become the Church of God, the Body of Christ where the Nazarene Jeshua (Jesus) would be the cornerstone, to bring the lovers of God close to Him and to put down the adversaries or hostile ones, their necks under his foot.

Besides the heavenly Bride, the transfigured, translated, and risen Church, reigning over the earth with Christ, there is also the earthly bride, Israel, in the flesh, never yet divorced, though for a time separated, from her divine husband, who shall then be reunited to the Lord and be mother Church of the millennial earth, Christianized through her. Note, we ought, as Scripture does, restrict the language drawn from marriage—love to the Bride, the Church as a whole; not use it as individuals in our relation to Christ, as Rome does in the case of her nuns.” { All the Women of the Bible » Chapter 4. Symbolic and Representative Bible Women » The Bride, The Lamb’s Wife}

In his teaching period Jesus explained that some people may prefer to stay single “for the sake of the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 19:12). We should understand that by choosing celibacy to have more time to devote to proclaiming and living out God’s kingdom. They would find earthly responsibilities, such as those that go with marriage and parenting, a hindrance to their kingdom calling. This is similar to the situation of the disciples who were called away from their professions (fishermen, tax collectors, etc.) in order to follow Jesus with singular purpose. As I mentioned earlier such people consider themselves as married to Christ. They have taken Christ as their “bride“, like Jesus preferred to stay single and be the spouse or “wife of God“.

We always should remember that the Old Testament uses a lot of metaphors, and marriage is such one of them. Early Christians also used such metaphors to describe the relationship between celibate believers and Christ. Nuptial imagery is commonly used to describe salvation and heaven in the New Testament; and later Christian martyrs are sometimes called or portrayed as brides of Christ.

In the most difficult book of the bible, the apostle John describes in his vision the marriage scene in which the Bridegroom makes His Bride His wife. The ones who accept Christ as the son of God and their saviour may be glad and rejoice, and give honour now to him they wanted to follow and God raised out of the dead. He, the Lamb of God has now been taken up in heaven where the marriage of the Lamb took place. The ‘new’ wife of God or the wife for us in heaven has made herself ready in the presence of the one who is presented in fine linen, clean and white, like so many women their wedding dress. For the fine linen is the righteousness of saints, the ones who are set-apart from the world. The followers of Christ may become part of the new Israel, the new chosen people of God, though they might have been gentiles, they are now called righteous and also sons and daughters of God. We should know that blessed are they which are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb, Jesus Messiah. We all better listen to the true sayings of God. We best remember what He has done for us and whom He provided for us and how we should worship that only One True God,the Father of Jesus, for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.

“Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready; (8) it was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure”— for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints. (9) And the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” And he said to me, “These are the true words of God.” (10) Then I fell down at his feet to worship him, but he said to me, “You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers who hold to the testimony of Jesus. Worship God.” For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.” (Revelation 19:7-10 ESV )

A woman, of course, only becomes a wife on the completion of her marriage to the man to whom she has been engaged or espoused. In this age of Grace, the church is the affianced Bride of Christ. At the marriage of the Lamb, she becomes His wedded wife (Ephesians 5:22, 23; 2 Corinthians 11:2). { All the Women of the Bible » Chapter 4. Symbolic and Representative Bible Women » The Bride, The Lamb’s Wife}

The “Gospel of Jesus’s Wife,” a papyrus written in Coptic and containing text that refers to Jesus being married, is looking more and more like it is not authentic, research is revealing.

Conclusion

Professor King has devoted much of her scholarly career to making a case that the early church falsely constructed an orthodox understanding of Jesus that minimized the role of women. Back in 2003 she released The Gospel of Mary of Magdala: Jesus and the First Woman Apostle, in which she argued that at least some ancient texts pointed to Mary Magdalene as an apostle. In 2012 she told the writer for Smithsonian: “You’re talking to someone who’s trying to integrate a whole set of ‘heretical’ literature into the standard history.” {It’s Back — The “Gospel of Jesus’s Wife” and the State of Modern Scholarship}

King saying

“it does not make sense that a forger with poor Coptic and scribal skills could also manage to acquire the right kind of papyrus and ink, and leave no ink out of place at the microscopic level.”

in her judgment may be right that “such a combination of bumbling and sophistication seems extremely unlikely” and that the world has a genuine old manuscript. But this does not mean it is a worthy “gospel” fragment or a sacred text.

King said.

“Is Jesus talking about a real wife, or the church, or a sister-wife? Who is the Mary—his mother, his wife, or some other Mary entirely?”

As I tried to explain in these 10 chapters is that we might understand it that when we would like to translate it with “wife” we should understand it to be a “woman” or female person in the bond of covenant-ship of being a pupil or follower of Christ.

What also might be important is that certain conservative ideas about the role of women in church herewith would be contradicted. If the papyrus fragment reflects religious writing copied from earlier texts, perhaps ones in the fourth century, it would speak to early Christian concerns about the role of the family in the early Church, which famously called upon its adherents to put aside family and civic loyalties, King suggests.

“This is not evidence that Jesus was married. We don’t know,”

Professor King originally interpreted the document as a debate about celibacy and had said:

“But early Christians were extremely interested in questions about whether they should be married or be celibate.”

Last month she added:

‘Now when I come back and read the fragment, it seems the major issue being talked about was that Jesus was affirming that wives and mothers can be his disciples,’ she said in an interview earlier this week.

The Harvard Divinity School writes:

If ancient, this tiny, damaged fragment provides tantalizing glimpses into issues about family, discipleship, and marriage that concerned ancient Christians. The main topic of the dialogue between Jesus and his disciples is one that deeply concerned early Christians, who were asked to put loyalty to Jesus before their natal families, as the New Testament gospels show. Christians were talking about themselves as a family, with God the Father, his son Jesus, and members as brothers and sisters. The particular focus in the Gospel of Jesus’s Wife, however, is on women: his mother, Mary, his wife, and a female disciple. The disciples discuss whether Mary is worthy, and Jesus states that “she can be my disciple.” These signs indicate some controversy over whether women who are sexually active (mothers and wives) can be disciples of Jesus. Other early Christian writings defend marriage and reproduction against fellow Christians who think virginity and celibacy are required for all, or who argue that “women are not worthy of life.”

This gospel fragment provides a reason to reconsider what we thought we knew by asking what role claims about Jesus’ marital status played historically in early Christian controversies over marriage, celibacy, and family. The Gospel of Jesus’s Wife makes it possible to say that some early Christians believed that Jesus was married. This conclusion potentially has significant implications for the history of ancient Christian attitudes toward marriage, sexuality, and reproduction.

I agree with professor King that the papyrus may show that there were early Christians for whom …

“sexual union in marriage could be an imitation of God’s creativity and it could be spiritually proper and appropriate.”

For her the so-called ‘Gospel of Jesus’ Wife’ may have been thrown out

“because the ideas it contained flowed so strongly against the ascetic currents of the tides in which Christian practices and understandings of marriage and sexual intercourse were surging.”

This representation of Jesus as a man with earthly passions and needs has not survived in the doctrines of the established churches, which emphasise celibacy and asceticism as a spiritual ideal. We as Christians should remember how Jesus preached equality between man and how we all had to love each other becoming one, united. Men and women equally united in the lord Christ Jesus, having the bride Jesus, him married to spiritual Israel, the Church.

The John papyrus fragment (right) comes from the same anonymous owner as the Gospel of Jesus’s wife and has the same line breaks as a papyrus transcribed in 1924 (shown on left). The papyrus and Gospel of Jesus’s Wife have similar ink and writing styles, suggesting the latter is a fake.

Find in this series:

Marriage of Jesus 1 Mary, John, Judas, Thomas and Brown

Marriage of Jesus 2 Standard writings about Jesus

Marriage of Jesus 3 Listening women

Marriage of Jesus 4 Place of the woman

Marriage of Jesus 5 Papyrus fragment in Egyptian Coptic

Marriage of Jesus 6 Jesus said to them “My wife”

Marriage of Jesus 7 Impaled

Marriage of Jesus 8 Wife of Yahweh

Marriage of Jesus 9 Reason for a new marriage

Marriage of Jesus 10 Old and New Covenant

To be continued with:

The Bride New Jerusalem

Additional reading:

Please find also of interest:

The ‘Gospel of Jesus’s Wife’ is Still as Big a Mystery as Ever
Given that King announced the discovery at a professional conference and immediately made preliminary test results and high-resolution photographs available to the world, it is difficult to know what she could have done differently. Certainly a more somber title—something in Latin perhaps—would have conveyed more nuance and garnered less attention, but getting attention for the discovery and the field was King’s aim. It used to be the case that papyrus discoveries were routinely announced on the front pages of the Times of London, but things have changed. It’s tough out there when you’re not a Kardashian, and a catchy title and clear message can go a long way. It’s rare for scholars to pass up the opportunity to reach a broader audience when the opportunity presents itself, even if that means giving up some precision.

It’s Back — The “Gospel of Jesus’s Wife” and the State of Modern Scholarship

Last week, the Harvard Theological Review released a much-delayed series of articles on the fragment. After a series of investigations undertaken by diverse scholars, the general judgment claimed by Professor King is that the fragment probably is not a forgery — or at least that it dates back to ancient times. The analysis suggested that the fragment dated from about four centuries later than Professor King had first suggested. This would place the fragment, if authentic, in the context of eighth-century Egypt — hundreds of years after the New Testament was written and completed.

The language used by the national media in reporting the story this time reveals the lack of confidence now placed in the fragment. The Boston Globe reported that the tests “have turned up no evidence of modern forgery,” but the reporter had to acknowledge that at least one of the scholars writing in the Harvard Theological Review insisted that the fragment is not only a forgery, but an amateurish effort. The New York Times ran a story that featured a headline announcing that the fragment “is more likely ancient than fake.” Note the uncertainty evident even in the headline.

“The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife? When Sensationalism Masquerades as Scholarship,”
One British newspaper notes that the claims about a married Jesus seem more worthy of fans of Dan Brown’s fictional work, The Da Vinci Code, than “real-life Harvard professors.” If the fragment is authenticated, the existence of this little document will be of interest to historians of the era, but it is insanity to make the claims now running through the media.

“No Evidence of Modern Forgery in Ancient Text Mentioning Jesus’s Wife,”
Specialists said, hypothetically, that a highly skilled modern forger could have obtained the right kind of ink and meticulously applied it to a blank piece of ancient papyrus.

Determining the age of the ink using conventional testing methods would destroy the tiny document, roughly the size of a business card. Groundbreaking work by Columbia University researchers may soon uncover a way to date the ink without harming the fragment, which would offer a more definitive verdict about its authenticity.

‘Gospel of Jesus’s Wife’ likely isn’t a modern forgery, scientists claim
The Vatican has previously said that the document is most likely a modern forgery, but scientists from Columbia University, Harvard, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology say their analysis strongly suggests that it is indeed part of an ancient manuscript and that it wasn’t edited or tampered with. The researchers used micro-Raman and infrared spectroscopy to analyze the composition of the ink, looking for clues as to whether it may have been applied after the original document was damaged.
“There is absolutely no evidence for that,” Timothy Swager, an MIT chemistry professor who worked on the project, tells the New York Times. “It would have been extremely difficult, if not impossible.” The researchers dated the fragment to between the sixth and ninth century AD, noting that it bears a strong resemblance to other texts from that era.

The ‘Gospel of Jesus’s Wife’ Is Real: What Now?
As with all scholarly work on the ancient world, it seems impossible to ever fully resolve disputes over the text and its interpretations. This isn’t the last word on the Gospel of Jesus’s Wife, but it is a fragment of understanding about how early Christians saw their savior.

No Forgery Evidence Seen in “Gospel of Jesus’s Wife” Papyrus
One report in the journal, by epigrapher Leo Depuydt of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, claims grammatical errors dog the text and concludes, “The author of this analysis has not the slightest doubt that the document is a forgery, and not a very good one at that.”

Overall, he suggests that the papyrus was forged from a copy of the ancient Gospel of Thomas text, discovered less than a century ago in Egypt.

King refutes those criticisms in a response in the journal, arguing that the grammar errors are misinterpretations by Depuydt. She also argues that writings similar to the Gospel of Thomas were then prevalent in the eastern Mediterranean, so words from that gospel would not necessarily be a sign of forgery.
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In the journal reports, a chemistry team led by MIT’s Joseph Azzarelli concluded that the age of the papyrus scrap matches that of a verified Gospel of John papyrus from antiquity. The team relied on microspectroscopy of the papyrus, which found the fragment only slightly less oxidized—aged by exposure to air—than the verified gospel.

Likewise, Columbia University’s James Yardley and Alexis Hagadorn looked at the pigments in the ink on the fragment. They found it similar to “lamp black” ink used on other ancient texts.

‘Gospel of Jesus’s Wife’: Doubts Raised About Ancient Text
In an effort to confirm the origins of the papyrus and discover its history, Live Science went searching for more information about Laukamp and his descendents, business partners or friends.

Our findings indicate that Laukamp was a co-owner of the now-defunct ACMB-American Corporation for Milling and Boreworks in Venice, Fla. Documents filed in Sarasota County, Fla., show that Laukamp was based in Germany at the time of his death in 2002 and that a man named René Ernest was named as the representative of his estate in Sarasota County. [Proof of Jesus Christ? 7 Pieces of Evidence Debated]

In an exchange of emails in German, Ernest said that Laukamp did not collect antiquities, did not own this papyrus and, in fact, was living in West Berlin in 1963, so he couldn’t have crossed the Berlin Wall into Potsdam. Laukamp, he said, was a toolmaker and had no interest in old things. In fact, Ernest was astonished to hear that Laukamp’s name had been linked to this papyrus.

Is the ‘Gospel of Jesus’s Wife’ a fake after all? Fresh doubts cast over ancient papyrus that suggested Jesus was married after another in the collection with the Same handwriting is proved to be a forgery
Fresh questions over the authenticity of the ‘Gospel of Jesus’s Wife’ papyrus have been raised after a text from the same collection written in the same handwriting was proved to be a fake, experts say.
Debate over the fragment’s authenticity is set to continue as some will no doubt question these latest findings.
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Additional tests showed that the ink’s chemical composition is consistent with other inks used by the ancient Egyptians, while microscopic imaging found no suspicious ink pooling that critics of the papyrus said was evidence of the ink being applied in more recent times.

At the same time, other papyri from the collection were tested for means of comparison. One of those was a fragment from the canonical Gospel’ of John written in a rare ancient dialect of Coptic known as Lycopolitan. A Lycopolitan version of John, which was first published in 1924, is now available online.
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Many people over the centuries have tried to work out a ‘bloodline’ for possible descendants of Jesus and Mary Magdalene.

Many historians agree that there is no historical, biblical, archaeological or genetic evidence to support the idea.

New clues cast doubt on ‘Gospel of Jesus’ Wife’

Once we started carbon-dating papyrus, forgers started using authentically ancient papyrus. Once we discovered how to identify ancient ink by its chemical composition, forgers started creating precisely the same ink.

Like steroids in sports, it’s safe to assume that the best bad guys are always one step ahead of the science.

And yet, the dating of the papyrus and ink did shift the burden back on to the doubters. And just this past week, they seem to have discovered something as close to proof as we can really expect in cases like this.
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Add to this the fact that the carbon dating of the John papyrus puts it in the seventh to ninth centuries, but Lycopolitan died out as a language sometime before the sixth century. No one wrote anything in Lycopolitan in the period in which this text would have to be dated.
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This forgery was detected not through lab analysis but through good old-fashioned humanities-based detective work. This was Sherlock Holmes, not “CSI.”

‘Gospel of Jesus’s Wife’ Looks More and More Like a Fake

Just recently, Christian Askeland, a research associate with the Institut für Septuaginta-und biblische Textforschung in Wuppertal Germany, revealed new information that casts further doubt on the papyrus’ authenticity. His work is set to be published in the journal Tyndale Bulletin and is currently posted on a blog.

Askeland analyzed a second papyrus that, according to documents published in the Harvard Theological Review, was also purchased by the anonymous owner from Laukamp. It was presented to Harvard as a papyrus believed to be genuine.

This second papyrus, which has writing on two sides, includes text from the Gospel of John — and is a fake, writes Askeland, its lines being copied from a papyrus published in 1924. In addition, the researcher notes this papyrus has similar handwriting and ink to the Gospel of Jesus’s Wife, making it likely that the Jesus’s wife papyrus is also fake. [Proof of Jesus Christ? 7 Pieces of Evidence Debated]

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Centuries-Old Document Stirs Up Jesus Marriage Debate (fox8.com)
A newly revealed, centuries-old papyrus fragment suggests that some early Christians might have believed Jesus was married. The fragment, written in Coptic, a language used by Egyptian Christians, says in part, “Jesus said to them, ‘My wife …”Harvard Divinity School Professor Karen King announced the findings of the 1 1/2- by 3-inch honey-colored fragment on Tuesday in Rome at the International Association for Coptic Studies.
‘Gospel Of Jesus’ Wife’ Papyrus Is Ancient, Not Fake, Experts Say (huffingtonpost.com)
“The main topic of the fragment is to affirm that women who are mothers and wives can be disciples of Jesus — a topic that was hotly debated in early Christianity as celibate virginity increasingly became highly valued,” King, whose specialties include Coptic literature, Gnosticism and women in the Bible, said in a statement Thursday. “This gospel fragment provides a reason to reconsider what we thought we knew by asking what the role claims of Jesus’ marital status played historically in early Christian controversies over marriage, celibacy, and family.”The legible lines on the front of the artifact seem to form a broken conversation between Jesus and his disciples. The fourth line of the text says, “Jesus said to them, my wife.” Line 5 says “… she will be able to be my disciple,” while the line before the “wife” quote has Jesus saying “Mary is worthy of it” and line 7 says, “As for me, I dwell with her in order to …”
The Great Debate: Death and Taxes Matthew 22:15-33 (whatshotn.wordpress.com)
Jesus has boldly claimed authority as Israel’s Messiah by His triumphal entry, His cleansing of the temple, and His possession of the temple for His teaching and healing ministry (Matthew 21:1-17). It is while Jesus is ministering in the temple that His adversaries, the religious elite of Jerusalem choose to challenge Him publicly, demanding that He declare the source of His authority for all He has been doing (Matthew 21:23).
did jesus kill himself (or, maybe, have himself killed)? (unsettledchristianity.com)
Famously, some liberal theologians suggest Jesus only submitted to the cross after his example was wasted on the folk. Or, some suggest he was the first martyr. Neither of this, I think, does justice to what I am going to propose in my new dissertation. If we allow for the moment that devotio means, in its simplest form, “self-sacrifice,” then we can allow for an exploration of suicide as a form of devotio even if the proper term is not used.
The revelation of Jesus that John saw and heard (correctunderstandingofshinchonji.wordpress.com)
The revelation that John saw, heard, and recorded is the revelation of Jesus Christ (Rv 1:1). Anyone who learns this revelation of Jesus is not learning from mere men; he is learning from Jesus and the angels coming in his name (Jn 14:26; Rv 10). This revelation contains prophecies and their fulfillment (Jn 14:29; Rv 21:6). The prophecies record the events of betrayal, destruction, and salvation (2Thes 2:1-3). The fulfillment of Revelation includes battles and the handling down of judgment (Rv 13; Rv 12). Revelation describes the war between God and the devil, and the battle between God’s promised pastor and the pastors of the devil (Rv 12).
Psalm 2 (The coming reign of Jesus on Earth) (disciplesofhope.wordpress.com)
the scenario of Psalm 2:2 shows that the rulers of the earth are aware not just of God but also about Christ his anointed One. It means that the around that time (which will soon come) most people will have the Gospel preached to them as a witness. So there will be some rulers who will try to go against the Gospel teachings.
The Bible backs same-sex couples: Point by point, why conservatives are wrong (salon.com)
If the essence of marriage involves a covenant-keeping relationship of mutual self-giving, then two men or two women can fulfill that purpose as well as a man and a woman can. But is lifelong commitment between two adults sufficient for realizing a Christian basis for marriage? Or is there something unique about heterosexual relationships that prevents same-sex couples from truly illustrating Christ’s love for the church?
The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife ~ A Rogueclassicist Perspective (rogueclassicism.com)
We also saw some things from the Smithsonian, which may have added some gravitas to the story:
- The Inside Story of a Controversial New Text About Jesus (Smithsonian Magazine … very lengthy and interesting)
- What is the Gospel of Jesus’ Wife? (Video … different Gospels brought up)
… and it became apparent that this was connected to a documentary on the subject which was funded by the Smithsonian and which will appear on the Smithsonian Channel later this month.

Marriage of Jesus 6 Jesus said to them “My wife”

Posted on 2014/05/24 by Marcus Ampe

In the text that is coming to be known as the “Gospel of Jesus’ Wife” the Harvard researcher Karen King rightly points out that new items of information about the historical Jesus are not to be expected from it.

Front of the papyrus "the Gospel of Jesus's wife"

A growing number of scholars have denounced the business card-sized papyrus as a fake, with recent op-eds appearing in The Wall Street Journal and on CNN. Meanwhile, Harvard University, which announced the papyrus’ discovery, has fallen silent on the artifact, not responding to requests for comment on new developments suggesting the find is a forgery.

The document has the disciples talking to their master-teacher Jesus introducing questions about, respectively, leadership, the end, and the kingdom of heaven. In the “Gospel of Jesus’ Wife” the abbreviation of Jesus’ name (the nomen sacrum) to =ic takes the same form as in the Thomas examples.

English: Gospel of Thomas or maybe gnostic Gos...

Gospel of Thomas or maybe gnostic Gospel of Peter (see talk page). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

According to my opinion in case the text has been really constructed out of small pieces – words or phrases – culled from the Coptic Gospel of Thomas, in other manuscripts from that Gospel we should find it back. I do find it strange that certain saying where not discovered yet but can cope that new elements can be found which would set sayings 30, 45, 101 and 114 in new contexts. This is most probably the compositional procedure of a modern author who is not a native speaker of Coptic.

Francis Watson has done a line-by-line comparisons of the Gospel of Jesus’ Wife (GJW) and the Gospel of Thomas (GTh) and focused only on the recto side of the fragment that King has transcribed, translated and edited. Underlinings in Coptic texts and English translations highlight identical wording in Thomas and the Gospel of Jesus’ Wife.

He writes:

It will be convenient to take lines 3 and 4 of GJW together:GJW3-4].arna maria~m =mpsa =m moc a [n? ] . . . . . / peje =ic nau ta hime m~=n [] “deny. Mary is n[ot]* worthy of it…” [ ] . . . . . Jesus said to them, “My wife and*… [arna, “deny”, occurs twice in GTh in the injunctive form, marefarna , “let him deny” (GTh 81; 114). {GTh 47.17; 51.5.}

In the second case, the object of renunciation is “the world” (pkocmoc); in the first, the verb is unqualified: “Let the one who has power deny [marefarna]”. While the gap preceding arna in GJW 3 might be filled with the injunctive and pronominal prefixes (maref- or mareC- ), it is unclear how that would make sense when it is the disciples who are speaking, rather than Jesus himself. The primary model for lines 3-4 is GTh 114: GTh 51.18 peje cimwn petroc

GTh 51.19 nau je mare mari ham ei ebol =nhyt=n

GTh 51.20 je =nc hiome =mpsa an =mpwnhpeje =ic

(Simon Peter said / to them, “Let Mary leave us, for women are not worthy of life.” Jesus said …”)

Here the author or compiler of GJW has taken four elements from GTh 114, reversing the order of the third and fourth of them. “Mary” is directly linked to “not worthy of…”, and the intervening reference to “women” now follows the introductory formula, “Jesus said”, where it is changed to “my woman” , = “my wife” (tahime). (hime is one of a number of variant spellings listed under chime in W. E. Crum, A Coptic Dictionary , Oxford: OUP, 1939, 385a. There are also variant spellings of the plural, of which Thomas’s chiome is one.) {The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife: How a fake Gospel-Fragment was composed, Francis Watson, Durham University, U.K, First posted, 20 September 2012 Revised, 26 September, 2012}

After this Jesus speaking either of a woman, the woman, a wife, the wife or his wife, he continues with what we also can find in the Thomas gospel “She will be able to be a disciple to me”. In case Magdalene would have been more than a pupil to him and would have build up a personal relation with him, I doubt if Jesus would use the loanword ma;ytyc meaning “to be or become a disciple”.

The front side of folios 13 and 14 of a Greek papyrus manuscript of the Gospel of Luke containing verses 11:50–12:12 and 13:6-24, P. Chester Beatty I (Gregory-Aland no. P 45 ). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The phrase as a whole is a Coptic equivalent of the Lukan ou0 du/natai ei]nai/ mou maqhth/j (Lk.14.26, cf.vv. 27, 33), which the GTh passage probably echoes. In Luke, however, the Coptic text uses different although synonymous formulations.(=mmns[om etrefrma;ytyc nai (Lk.14.26); =mmns[om etrefswpe nai =mma;ytyc (Lk.14.27); mmns[om =mmof etrefswpe nai =mma;ytyc (Lk.14.33). {The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife: How a fake Gospel-Fragment was composed, Francis Watson, Durham University, U.K, First posted, 20 September 2012 Revised, 26 September, 2012}

The origin of the verbal phrase in GJW 5 appears to lie in GTh 101, along with GJW 1. {The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife: How a fake Gospel-Fragment was composed, Francis Watson, Durham University, U.K, First posted, 20 September 2012 Revised, 26 September, 2012}

“26 « ወደ እኔ የሚመጣ ሁሉ አባቱንና እናቱን፥ ሚስቱንና ልጆቹን፥ ወንድሞቹንና እኅቶቹን፥ የራሱንም ሕይወት እንኳ ከእኔ አብልጦ የሚወድ ከሆነ የእኔ ደቀ መዝሙር ሊሆን አይችልም። 27 የራሱን መስቀል ተሸክሞ የማይከተለኝ፥ የእኔ ደቀ መዝሙር ሊሆን አይችልም።” (Luke 14:26-27 Amharic87)
“እንዲሁም ከእናንተ መካከል ያለውን ሁሉ ለእኔ ሲል ያልተወ ማንም ሰው የእኔ ደቀ መዝሙር መሆን አይችልም። »” (Luke 14:33 Amharic87)

“If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, and wife, and children, and brothers, and sisters, and his own life too, he is unable to be My taught one. “And whoever does not bear his stake and come after Me is unable to be My taught one. (Luke 14:26-27 The Scriptures 1998+)
“So, then, everyone of you who does not give up all that he has, is unable to be My taught one. (Luke 14:33 The Scriptures 1998+)

He who comes to me and does not put aside his father, and his mother, and his brothers, and his sisters, and his wife, and his children, and even his own life, he cannot be a disciple to me. And he who does not take up his cross and follow me, cannot be a disciple to me. For which of you, who wishes to build a tower, does not at first sit down and consider its cost, to see if he has enough to finish it? Lest after he has laid the foundation, he is not able to finish it, and all who see it will mock him, Saying, This man began to build, but he was not able to finish. Or which king, who goes to war to fight against a king equal to him, would not at first reason, whether he is able with ten thousand to meet the one who is coming against him with twenty thousand? And if not, while he is far away from him, sends envoys and seeks peace. So every man of you, who would not leave all his possessions, cannot be a disciple to me. (Luke 14:26-33 Lamsa NT)

Jesus invites everyone to come after him, fathers, mothers, husbands, wives, children, brothers and sisters, and his disciples should know that nobody is excluded to become one of his disciples. Likewise Mary Magdalene gave up her won community and left Magdala to be close to her master, she was accepted as equal to the male disciples, though they did not like it at first. They also had to learn they did have to give up their prejudice against women and should work at their inclination for those Jesus had called.

Jesus his disciples had to learn that their attitude could not stay the same as in the world they were living in. They had to give up their ordinary customs and judgements over people. Mary Magdalene had probably learned what she had to put aside or had to give up, and what she could gain by “giving up the world” to become a ‘full disciple‘ of Jesus. As such she could become as ‘woman’ a ‘wife’ in the Body of Christ. In such a way we could also look at it how the Catholic Church understood it for their priests and monks. They became spouse of Jesus Christ.

I do belief we have to understand the wrong translation of ‘wife’ in this way. I would prefer to use the more correct translation ‘woman’, but those who would prefer to use the word ‘wife’ should see it in that context, Mary Magdalene like other women becoming a ‘wife’ in the Body of Christ, like the sisters in a monastery by their vows found themselves “married to Christ”. It is not a ‘literal’ marriage, or having the female person becoming the sexual partner of Christ, but having the female becoming the spiritual partner of Christ Jesus, like males also should become spiritually connected with Christ, becoming ‘one body’. This is not literally by having sex with Jesus, but being united in thought or spirit. Like Jesus is one with God, we also do have to become one with Jesus and through him also becoming one with God.

Watson writes:

The eight lines of GJW recto are derived from the Coptic GTh, virtually in their entirety, making dependence certain – a highly unusual form of dependence on words more than sense. The compiler has used a “collage” or “patchwork” compositional technique, and this level of dependence on extant pieces of Coptic text is more plausibly attributed to a modern author, with limited facility in Coptic, than to an ancient one. Indeed, the GJW fragment may be designedly incomplete, its lacunae built into it from the outset. It does not seem possible to fill these lacunae with GTh material contiguous to the fragments cited. The impression of modernity is reinforced by the case in line 1 of dependence on the line-division of the one surviving Coptic manuscript, easily accessible in modern printed editions. {The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife: How a fake Gospel-Fragment was composed, Francis Watson, Durham University, U.K, First posted, 20 September 2012 Revised, 26 September, 2012}

When researchers may find some modernity in the material I do hope more energy and time shall be put in further examination. Further investigations and fresh considerations could bring more clarity. But according Watson it seems unlikely that the “Gospel of Jesus’ Wife” will establish itself as a “genuine” product of early gospel writing.

Even if GJW were to be accepted as a 4th century Coptic text, Dr King’s claim that it derives from a Greek original from the 2nd century would be impossible to sustain, along with her attempt to reconstruct an original historical context for it. Where a text is so manifestly dependent on another text in translation, it makes no sense to postulate dependence on an earlier original. {The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife: How a fake Gospel-Fragment was composed, Francis Watson, Durham University, U.K, First posted, 20 September 2012 Revised, 26 September, 2012}

he said with his thanks to Richard Bauckham for emphasizing this point. In Watson’s view, however, a 4th century Coptic origin is equally unlikely.

A modern parallel to the author’s collage technique may be seen in the composition of the Secret Gospel of Mark passages which – as I have argued at length elsewhere – are to be attributed, along with the letter in which they are embedded, to their alleged discoverer, Morton Smith. {Francis Watson, “Beyond Suspicion: On the Authorship of the Mar Saba Letter and the Secret Gospel of Mark”,JTS 61 (2010), 128-70, esp. 139-42, 167-69. See also Stephen C. Carlson, The Gospel Hoax: Morton Smith’s Invention of Secret Mark, Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press, 2005. For the full text of the Clementine letter that incorporates the secret gospel excerpts, see Morton Smith, Clement of Alexandria and the Secret Gospel of Mark, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1973}

As I have shown, Smith’s composition is itself inspired by an explicitly fictional gospel fragment known as the Shred of Nicodemus which features in an otherwise forgotten novel by James M. Hunter, The Mar Saba Mystery (1940). {F. Watson, “Beyond Suspicion”, 161-70}

Both the American scholar and the Canadian novelist create their fake gospel texts from fragments of genuine texts: Mark in the one case, Mark, John and the Old Testament in the other. Perhaps the author of GJW was inspired by the Secret Gospel ’s compositional procedure, which was noted soon after its publication although the correct conclusion was rarely drawn from it.
The Jesus of the Secret Gospel likes to consort naked with young men at night, while seeming hostile to women. {Mar Saba Letter, II.23-III.14; III.14-17 (references are to page and line numbers); see F. Watson, “Beyond Suspicion”,135-36.}

By contrast, the new gospel fragment has Jesus speak disconcertingly of “my wife”. Has this new heterosexual Jesus been created to complement Smith’s homosexual one? {The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife: How a fake Gospel-Fragment was composed, Francis Watson, Durham University, U.K, First posted, 20 September 2012 Revised, 26 September, 2012}

Preceding articles:

Marriage of Jesus 1 Mary, John, Judas, Thomas and Brown

Marriage of Jesus 2 Standard writings about Jesus

Marriage of Jesus 3 Listening women

Marriage of Jesus 4 Place of the woman

Marriage of Jesus 5 Papyrus fragment in Egyptian Coptic

To be followed by:

Marriage of Jesus 7 Impaled

Marriage of Jesus 8 Wife of Yahweh

Marriage of Jesus 9 Reason for a new marriage

Marriage of Jesus 10 Old and New Covenant

Find also:

Oh Look- Harvard Is Pimping ‘The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife’ – It Must Be Easter! (zwingliusredivivus.wordpress.com)
Thanks, Harvard, for devolving to the level of the History Channel and the Discovery Channel and The Discovery Channel Canada and being willing to sensationalize a trinket of modern invention.
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Read the essay here by Leo Depuydt from
Brown University who states what nearly all knew from the beginning, the doc is a forgery.
We’ve seen this movie too many times, esp. around Easter and its a shame that Harvard went to so much trouble going along with it.
New evidence casts doubt on ‘Gospel of Jesus’ Wife’ (religion.blogs.cnn.com)
one of the typographical errors in an online edition of the “Gospel of Thomas” is replicated, uniquely, in the Jesus’ wife fragment.
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Add to this the fact that the carbon dating of the John papyrus puts it in the seventh to ninth centuries, but Lycopolitan died out as a language sometime before the sixth century. No one wrote anything in Lycopolitan in the period in which this text would have to be dated.
Jesus Wife Gospel the Real Thing (writedge.com)
The testing was very thorough, using micro-Raman spectroscopy for determining that the make-up of the ink matched other 1st to 8th century papyri samples, alongside both microscopic and multispectral imaging as well as radiocarbon testing. Having completed the testing, the conclusion was that the fragment is almost certainly a product of early Christians, not a modern forger, according to Harvard Divinity School.Not that this is universally accepted, by any means, because Brown University professor Leo Depuydt, still maintains the document is a forgery, full of what he calls gross grammatical errors, and employing the same words found in the early Christian text discovered in Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in 1945, the so-called Gospel of Thomas. Why people find it so hard to accept that Jesus, if he even existed, could have had a wife seems very odd, because he was only human, after all.
Misogynist Paul, Peter’s Boyfriend, Is the Founder of Christianity! (venitism.blogspot.com)
Historians believe Jesus had a child with Mary Magdalene. In apocryphal texts, Magdalene is portrayed as a visionary and leader of the early movement whom Jesus loved more than he loved the other disciples. Several Gnostic gospels, such as the Gospel of Mary, written in the early 2nd century, see Mary as the special disciple of Jesus who has a deeper understanding of his teachings and is asked to impart this to the other disciples.In Gnostic writings, Magdalene is seen as one of the most important of Jesus’ disciples whom he loved more than the others. The Gnostic Gospel of Philip names Magdalene as Jesus’ companion. Gnostic writings describe tensions and jealousy between Magdalene and other disciples, especially misogynist Peter, boyfriend of Paul.
‘Gospel Of Jesus’ Wife’ Papyrus Is Ancient, Not Fake, Experts Say (huffingtonpost.com)
Although the peer-reviewed paper will now be published in the academic journal and was posted online on Thursday, the criticism is likely to continue. For one, the journal will also run an article by Brown University Egyptology professor Leo Depuydt, who says the fragment is a fake. In the paper, published online Thursday, Depuydt points to grammatical mistakes that he says a native Coptic writer would not make, as well as similarities to another well-known non-canonical biblical text.
Jesus Chooses the Twelve Disciples // Jesus Teaches and Heals (travismikhailblog.wordpress.com)
In these days he went out to the hills to pray; and all night he continued in prayer to God. And when it was day, he called his disciples, and chose from them twelve, whom he named apostles;
The Twelve Days of Christmas Explained (wholesalecostumeclub.com)
As the story goes, from the mid 1500s to the early 1800s Roman Catholics in England had to practice their faith in secrecy. To help the children remember the doctrines of Catholicism and other important facts of the faith, they wrote this carol as a catechism song with each day of Christmas symbolizing a religious reality.
‘Jesus wife’ text no fake – expert (independent.ie)
Brown University professor Leo Depuydt, in an analysis also published by the Harvard Theological Review, was not convinced. He said the text contained grammatical errors that a native Coptic speaker would not make. Prof King suggested that the text was written in an informal style found in other ancient Coptic texts.

Marriage of Jesus 1 Mary, John, Judas, Thomas and Brown

Posted on 2014/05/14 by Marcus Ampe

Talking about marriage the last few years there has often been much controversy if Jesus loved some one other person, a woman (Mary Magdalene/Miriam of Magdala) or a man (John the evangelist) or was even married.

Many organisations, like ours receive several questions about Jesus his marital status. Some may think that it was born of the popularity of Dan Brown’s controversial novel, The Da Vinci Code, but already before that novel was published we got many questions about that issue. Every now and then it comes up again. The Thomas and Judas gospels brought a big amount of letters in our mailbox, followed by the Da Vinci Code and now by the finding of the Jesus ‘ papyrus. Last year the screening on the Flemish National Geographic channel the Gospels of Judas and Mary once more brought tongues loose about those women round Jesus.

Brooklyn Museum – Mary Magdalene at the Feet of Jesus – James Tissot (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In 1896 in Egypt the Gospel of Mary (or the Gospel of Mary Magdalene) a Gnostic version of New Testament events alleged to have taken place, particularly in association with Mary Magdalene, was found. We should be aware that it is probably written in the fifth century and includes three additional works: 1) the Apocryphon of John, 2) the Sophia of Jesus Christ, and 3) the Acts of Peter. These writings were published in Coptic. But there have also been found two additional manuscripts of the Gospel of Mary which are in Greek and date two centuries earlier. Portions of the text in the Gospel of Mary are incomplete.

The Da Vinci Code (which is fiction, so people should remember it is not reality) advocates the thesis that Jesus was in fact married to the woman we know as Mary Magdalene. It even goes so far to tell the reader that they had a child together, and that this “truth” was covered up by the church for self-serving reasons. At one point, to an online religious website Beliefnet survey, 19% of respondents said they believe that Mary Magdalene was in fact Jesus’ wife.

English: Image of the Last Page of the Coptic ...

Image of the Last Page of the Coptic Manuscript of the Gospel of Thomas. The title “peuaggelion pkata Thomas” is at the end. Courtesy of the Institute for Antiquity and Christianity, Claremont Graduate University. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The 114 sayings written in the Coptic Gospel of Thomas, discovered in the Nag Hammadi collection of documents in Egypt in 1945, known as the Gnostic gospels, brings:

“hidden words that the living Jesus spoke and Didymos Judas Thomas wrote them down.” {Gospel of Thomas}

Because Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas uses words like ‘couch’ or ‘bed’, saying a.o.:

“Two will rest on a couch. One will die, one will live.”

There are persons who prefer “bed” to “couch” in the translation, like used in a later section in that the same Coptic text. Those who translate couch to “bed” in Salome’s speech, give her words a sexual aspect since she is a woman, and Jesus a man, yet nothing else in the dialogue implies any sexual element.

Salome asked Christ:

“Who are you, man, that as if you come from unity, you climbed on my couch and ate off my table?”

Marvin Meyer notes that the Coptic is literally “as from one,” but translates it as “as if you are from someone”. Bentley Layton has “like a stranger” as an emendation and notes that it literally means “As for one” Thomas Lambdin leaves it as an ellipsis.

You can question if we have to interpret the Coptic ‘OGA’, literally “one”, to mean unity, as it does in, for instance logion 22, and in other places, where it is used in the “two into one” motif. This fits well with the emendations in the rest of the dialog.

Jesus said to her:

“I am the one who lives from unity. I received that which is my father’s.”

“from that which is integrated. I was given some of the things of my father.” (Layton)

“I am the one who comes from what is whole” (Meyer)

“I am he who exists from the undivided.” (Lambdin)

In the four canonic gospels clearly we can hear Jesus speaking of the unity he has with his Father, with his followers and the unity we do have to have with him, with his followers, and with his Father. There too is indicated we all have to be ‘one’ and have to be “made whole” or have to be “integrated”or “unified”. The union Jesus is talking about has nothing to do with sexual unity or physical oneness between man and wife or between two people in general.

Also in the Gospel of Thomas we can find it is not exactly Salome or the ‘woman’speaking as “woman” or “wife” but as “student” (‘Maqhthes’) as opposed to the other pupils closer to Jesus the ‘disciples‘ and the chosen or selected pupils, the ‘apostles‘. (In many Aramic translations therefore there are clearly different words used to indicate what sort of pupil it is.)

Gospel of Mary, discovered in 1896. P. Oxyrhynchus L 3525, Papyrology Room, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

When people got to read the Gospel of Mary and find in the second part the Sophia of Jesus Christ (3° Century):

Then Son of Man consented with Sophia, his consort, and revealed a great androgynous Light. His masculine name is designated ‘Savior, Begetter of All things’. His feminine name is designated ‘Sophia, All-Begettress’. Some call her ‘Pistis’ (faith). {Eugnostos the Blessed, from chapter III & V from the Nag Hammadi Library}

Some may interpret that also as having the 2° Adam (Christ Jesus) his consort or partner, being his wife Sophia, and making him having even more than one wife, or to have somebody who begot everything from him, or who could generate everything. This making a clear allusion to an other god or goddess in union with the other god (Jesus).

When you consider that the contents suggest Mary Magdalene as the alleged author, it is strange the real Mary of Magdalen, the one from Magdala or Mary Magdalene, would consider herself as a sort of goddess. But here too the writer tells us that she will proclaim to us hidden teachings from Jesus that Peter and the other disciples did not remember (Gospel of Mary 5:7). Lots of research is done on this document also coming to the conclusion that it is clearly not authored by Mary nor that its message would be consistent with the New Testament’s writings. Mysterious statements about God, good and evil, and the afterlife regularly contradict or add additional material than in the New Testament existing narratives.

In these books we may find the underlying false teachings which the Church loved to agree with the Roman rulers to coincide with the Roman and Greek Gods.

Texts like in a vision to John, Jesus saying:

“John, why doubt? Why be afraid? Don’t you know this image? Be not afraid. I am with you (plural) always. I am the Father, The Mother, The Son, I am the incorruptible Purity. {Prologue to the Teaching of the Savior,The Revelation of the Mysteries Hidden in Silence [Those Things that He Taught to John, His Disciple] from The Secret Book of John (The Apocryphon of John), Translated by Stevan Davies}

would like to insinuate that Jesus declares to be the God of the universe. A woman touch may be added:

His self-aware thought (ennoia) came into being. Appearing to him in the effulgence of his light. She stood before him.
…
[This, the first Thought, is the Spirit’s image]
She is the universal womb She is before everything She is: Mother-Father First Man Holy Spirit Thrice Male Thrice Powerful Thrice Named {The Secret Book of John (The Apocryphon of John)}

and Jesus is presented as an androgynous eternal realm, first to arise among the invisible realms.

But when they would look at other places, an other light might be shed again, where it is remembered that the True God can not be seen:

The One cannot be seen For no one can envision it The One is eternal, For it exists forever, The One is inconceivable For no one can comprehend it The One is indescribable For no one can put any words to it.

Most English translations of the Gospel of Thomas in use today were published in the period 1987-1998. Q-Thomas Reader, Kloppenborg, Meyer, Patterson, Steinhauser (1990) and The Gospel of Thomas and Jesus, Patterson, 1993 don’t contain the words ‘man’ or ‘men’ – in spite of the fact that the Coptic word for ‘man’ (rwme) occurs 35 times in the text! That word is instead translated usually as ‘person’, sometimes ‘human being’, etc., but never as ‘man’ or ‘men’. In contrast, the M-P family never translates the Coptic word for ‘woman’ as ‘person’. There is a linguistic rationale sometimes given that the Coptic word rwme corresponds to Greek anthropos, which is said to be gender-neutral, as opposed to anhr/andros, which designates a male.

Mike Grondin says:

The claimed correspondence simply isn’t true, however. Rwme was used to translate both anthropos and anhr/andros in Coptic translations of the Greek NT. Evidently, then, the word rwme included both meanings. Nor can we tell which Greek word lay behind each instance of rwme in the Greek version, for only one instance is extant; in all other cases, we’re guessing. Furthermore, even if everything this rationale assumes were true, it still doesn’t follow that ‘man’ should disappear from Thomas. It hasn’t, after all, disappeared from the Scholar’s Version of the canonical gospels, and even in several parallels to Thomas sayings where the Greek has anthropos, SV has ‘man’ instead of Meyer-Patterson’s ‘person’.{No Man’s Land: The Meyer-Patterson Family of Thomas Translations}

The John papyrus fragment (right) comes from the same anonymous owner as the Gospel of Jesus’s wife and has the same line breaks as a papyrus transcribed in 1924 (shown on left). The papyrus and Gospel of Jesus’s Wife have similar ink and writing styles, suggesting the latter is a fake.

To be continued:

Marriage of Jesus 2 Standard writings about Jesus

Marriage of Jesus 3 Listening women

Marriage of Jesus 4 Place of the woman

Marriage of Jesus 5 Papyrus fragment in Egyptian Coptic

Marriage of Jesus 6 Jesus said to them “My wife”

Marriage of Jesus 7 Impaled

Marriage of Jesus 8 Wife of Yahweh

Marriage of Jesus 9 Reason for a new marriage

Marriage of Jesus 10 Old and New Covenant

Please do find:

In Dutch:

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The Top Six Alternate Gospels and Scriptures (glitternight.com)
Everyone but the most sheltered Christians have known for centuries about the alternate, or apocryphal gospels. The gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were the four canonical or “official” gospels that were accepted by the mainstream church but there were dozens of other gospels with wildly varying versions of the story of Jesus.
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Since the Gospel of Mary has gotten so much attention following the success of Dan Brown’s writings and their screen adaptations I decided to throw a spotlight on the neglected woman named Thecla instead. Thecla supposedly became a follower of the man called “Saint” Paul after hearing him speak in Iconium. In this book Paul is depicted as an advocate of refraining from all sex, even when married, which points to the probable Gnostic origins of The Acts of Thecla.
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The Infancy Gospel of Thomas – I like to refer to this enjoyable book as “The Young Jesus Christ Chronicles”. This banned gospel deals with the infancy and childhood years of Jesus in much greater detail than any of the other gospels, official or otherwise.
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not be confused with The Coptic Gospel of Thomas, which consists of 114 (yes, Rosicrucian conspiracy kooks, 114) sayings attributed to Jesus.
The Forbidden Gospel of Mary Magdalene (humansarefree.com)
For 1,500 years, Mary Magdalene was portrayed, in art and theology, as a prostitute whose life was transformed by Jesus’ forgiveness. This notion, based on Luke 7:38, was the result of an erroneous sermon preached in 591 by Pope Gregory the Great.
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The stain of immorality attached to the figure of Mary Magdalene averted attention away from the significant role she plays in the unfolding of Christ’s teachings. The importance of Mary is especially apparent in Gnostic texts – some among the earliest accounts of Jesus’ ministry – which have been largely suppressed and ignored by Church authorities.
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The Gnostics honoured equally the feminine and masculine aspects of nature, and Prof. Pagels argues Christian Gnostic women enjoyed a far greater degree of social and ecclesiastical equality than their orthodox sisters.
In the Resurrection Mary Magdalene Was the First Person to See Jesus (vineandbranchworldministries.com)
Jesus did not rise and then march into the Temple to confront the religious leaders or Caiaphas; he did not dash to the Praetorium to say to Pilate, “I told you so!”; he did not go stand in the center of Jerusalem to impress the crowd. Instead, Jesus revealed himself only to believers. The first person to see him was a woman who had been healed and forgiven and who tearfully stayed at the cross and followed his body to the tomb. As Jesus demonstrated throughout his life, he responded to those who waited attentively and faithfully. Jesus dissolved the perplexities of the disciples. He dried their tears. He dispelled their doubts. Jesus knows how similar we are to his original disciples, and he does not overpower us either. Even though our faithfulness wavers, Jesus faithfully stays with us.
The Gospel of Judas Revealed (newdawnmagazine.com)
The story of how the Gospel of Judas arrived in the Western world is a fascinating tale. Like many of the so-called Gnostic Gospels, it somehow travelled out of Egypt and arrived in the US with a large price tag. Unlike many manuscripts which vanish sight unseen, luck or providence if you like brought this manuscript not only to light but finally to restoration and publication. In the words of Professor Elaine Pagels, “the discovery of the Gospel of Judas is astonishing.”
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The publication of the Gospel of Judas undertaken by National Geographic is unlikely to disturb the mainstream Christian church. In a recent interview, Monsignor Walter Brandmuller, president of the Vatican’s Committee for Historical Science, called it “a product of religious fantasy,” and went on to say, “There is no campaign, no movement for the rehabilitation of (Judas) the traitor of Jesus.”
‘Gospel of Jesus’s Wife’ Looks More and More Like a Fake (nbcnews.com)
The “Gospel of Jesus’s Wife,” a papyrus written in Coptic and containing text that refers to Jesus being married, is looking more and more like it is not authentic, research is revealing.
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Documents provided by the anonymous owner published in an essay by King recently in Harvard Theological Review say that the Gospel of Jesus’s Wife was purchased from Hans-Ulrich Laukamp in 1999 and he, in turn, obtained it in Potsdam, in what was East Germany, in 1963.

Father counterpart of the mother

Posted on 2014/05/07 by Belgian Biblestudents - Belgische Bijbelstudenten

Today we can see that our society has distorted the ideas about man, woman, relationships between people, matrimony and how humankind has to behave and take care of next generations.

Woman and Man (Alternately, Husband and Wife) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In the old times ‘Marriage‘ was about a sacred union of one man and one woman for life. In today’s society it is more considered as a union which can be taken on for some time, between two people, who do not necessary have to love each other for always, or have to have the opposite gender. For lots of people it may be an arrangement for economical and practical reasons and should not be necessary be taken before having sex with the other person, nor does it have to mean for them they have to stay committed to that one person.

In Genesis 2nd chapter is written:

18 Then Jehovah God said: “It is not good for the man to continue to be alone. I am going to make a helper for him, as a complement of him.”+ (NWT)

18 And Jehovah* God went on to say: “It is not good for the man to continue by himself. I am going to make a helper for him, as a complement* of him.”+ (RefB)

as a complement {Or, “counterpart,” something fitting for him } of him:

(Proverbs 31:11): 11 In her the heart of her owner* has put trust, and there is no gain lacking.+

(1 Corinthians 11:8,9): 8 For man did not come from woman, but woman came from man.+ 9 And what is more, man was not created for the sake of the woman, but woman for the sake of the man.+

(1 Timothy 2:13): 13 For Adam was formed first, then Eve.+

(Genesis 2:22): 22 And Jehovah God built the rib that he had taken from the man into a woman, and he brought her to the man.+

***

The man’s being alone is not good; I will make him a helper to match him. — Gen. 2:18, “Byington.”

In Harmony before Matrimony (1805), James Gillray caricatured a courtship in which the couple sings together from Duets de l’Amour. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Jehovah knows everything there is to know about mankind and marriage. He implanted a sexual need in humans so that they would “be fruitful and become many.” (Genesis 1:28) God understands feelings of loneliness, for prior to creating the first woman, he said the words of today’s text. Jehovah is also fully aware of the joy possible within the bonds of matrimony. (Proverbs 5:15-18) Because of sin and imperfection, no present-day marriage is perfect. Among Jehovah’s servants, however, wedlock can result in true happiness if God’s Word is followed. For instance, consider Paul’s clear counsel on intimate relations in marriage. (1 Corinthians 7:1-5)

7 Now concerning the things about which you wrote, it is better for a man not to touch* a woman; 2 but because of the prevalence of sexual immorality,* let each man have his own wife+ and each woman have her own husband.+ 3 Let the husband give to his wife her due, and let the wife also do likewise to her husband.+ 4 The wife does not have authority over her own body, but her husband does; likewise, the husband does not have authority over his own body, but his wife does. 5 Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent for an appointed time, so that you may devote time to prayer and may come together again, in order that Satan may not keep tempting you for your lack of self-control. 6 However, I say this by way of concession, not as a command. 7 But I wish all men were as I am. Nevertheless, each one has his own gift+ from God, one in this way, another in that way. (1 Corinthians 7:1-7)

It is not Scripturally required that marriage mates limit sexual relations to efforts to produce offspring. Such intimacy can rightly fill emotional and physical needs. But perverted practices certainly do not please God. w12 5/15 1:9, 10

Preceding articles:

Gender roles and Multitasking parents

Father and motherhood

Dignified role for the woman

Having children interferes with work

Dutch version /Nederlandstalige versie: Vader tegenhanger van de moeder

Find more literature:

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Is marriage just a social union? (illustrationstoencourage.wordpress.com)
In God’s eyes, marriage is much more than a mere social arrangement. It is a sacred union between a man and a woman. The Bible says: “From the beginning of creation ‘[God] made them male and female. On this account a man will leave his father and mother, and the two will be one flesh’ . . . Therefore what God yoked together let no man put apart.” *—Mark 10:6-9; Genesis 2:24.

The words, “what God yoked [or, joined] together,” do not mean that marriages are made in heaven. Rather, by pointing to our Creator as the Originator of the marriage arrangement, the Bible emphasizes the seriousness of this union. Couples who see their marriage in that light treat it as a sacred, permanent bond, thus strengthening their determination to make their marriage a success. They further increase their prospects for success when they turn to the Bible for guidance in fulfilling their respective roles as husband and wife.
Real marriage (williamb97.wordpress.com)
David says that we find favor with God when we find a godly wife. God wants people to be married. But married in the way and by the definition that He has set.This is going to sound really harsh and maybe even mean spirited, but all I am doing is clearing the air about what God says about Marriage and Homosexuality. Homosexuals will not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. Think that sounds wrong or that I am being judgmental? Nope, this comes straight from God’s Word
Ask John Calvin: What is a wife for? (annsechrist.wordpress.com)
There was no place for man being the “spiritual” spouse, and women being the “practical” one, created to fulfill a man’s sexual needs, produce children, and manage the home. Though this was a common philosophy of the day andcontains a bit of truth, the Scriptures—and Calvin—so obviously disagreed. A wife is the “inseparable associate of his life,” which must mean she is intelligent, companionable, talented, and fully able to comealongside or “across from” her husband to help him with his mission in life.Part of this mission may be to cuddle in bed, carry his children, cook his meals, and teach his sons and daughters how to spell. But that should not at all detract from the understanding that her mission is to inseparably associate herself with every aspect of his life in which she can prove herself helpful, be it business accounting, back massages, writing letters and making phone calls, editing books, research and writing, understanding and being able to discuss the gospel, buying land, giving to charity, making decisions he would have made when he is absent, and in every way proving herself a help. She should truly be a crown that does not diminish the glory of God in her husband, but causes it to show the brighter. Those are my thoughts, but read Calvin. His opinion is what you really want to hear. It’s a long quote, but hopefully my (added) paragraph breaks will help you to process it! Here it is:
Cohabitating Seniors and the Meaning of Marriage (ezerwoman.wordpress.com)
An increasing number of older men and women are moving in together. But,it appears to me that their rationale is fear-based. Perhaps their spouse has died. They don’t wantto be alone. Financially, it seems practical not to marry and, instead, live together. Perhaps it seems less complicated to keep their business affairs separate for the sake of their children and grandchildren. Perhaps insurance coverage ora life-savings will be better protected if theyjustcohabitate. After all, it isn’t so much about sex as it is companionship and being a couple in a “couple’s world.”So, what isacohabitating senior, especiallyacohabitating Christian senior, saying about marriage?Is marriage all about the joys ofpro-creational sex? Or is it more?Marriage, from a Biblical worldview, is the practice of generational faithfulness. It is the union of one man and one woman with all that they uniquely bring into partnership for the benefit of family and community. In God’s words, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him” (Genesis 2:18 ESV).
A Mother’s Take on Intimacy (mealsdeals31thrills.wordpress.com)
We’ve all heard stories or statistics about how physical intimacy effects men and women differently – usually as a warning to non-married adolescents. But this was not an accident. God did it on purpose.
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God created us women to be organizers, list-makers, Do-ers, Feel-ers, Listeners, Care-takers. He knew we would zero in on those roles that cause us to put others first, so He created man with a strong physical desire to help remind us to enjoy our husbands.
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In case you weren’t aware, it just so happens that the only way to become a mother is through physical intimacy – the very thing our husbands most desire, not from an unhealthy or dirty intention our society has sometimes made it to be, but as a way of expressing the love between one another. (I suppose in this day and age you could argue we have science that can help us, but I’m referring to the first and most natural way, before the science existed.)
Our Home and Environs – Part 1 (sonlightdevotional.org)
One of the greatest needs in the world today is proper home life, in particular, and good human relations, in general.

Life, on a whole (which comes from God), is taken so lightly (from conception to termination) that regard and respect are no longer qualities associated with man dealing with man.
How a wife can defeat her husband. (wretchednetwork.wordpress.com)
It is better to live in a desert land, than with a quarrelsome and fretful woman. (Proverbs 21:19,

Women their education and chances to become a parliamentary

Posted on 2013/11/28 by Marcus Ampe

While in Jerusalem some ultra-Orthodox women may have their growing desire fulfilled to meet the standards of beauty in the secular society that surrounds them – without compromising the religious requirement for modesty, in several Muslim countries women are more and more pushed in the corner, not having any opportunity to have some beauty adjustments or to have their brains filled with more knowledge.

In Israel we do find a third of Jerusalem’s Jewish population belongin to the ultra-Orthodox community, known for its stringent observance of Jewish religious law, or halacha. Its members are strongly committed to preserving tradition, often by remaining separate and distinct from Israel’s secular majority. Many of them demand male-female segregation in public places; are intolerant of exposure of the female body; censor photographs of women in their publications and advertisements; and believe that men should not listen to female singers as this may arouse lustful thoughts.

Second to Israel in its receipt of American foreign aid Mubarak’s corrupt and often brutal rule could survive for 30 years thanks to U.S. taxpayers. There the women a few years ago like in Lebanon could walk freely and have to work hard like their male counterparts. Only 18% of working age Saudi women are part of the workforce in their country where they are not allowed to drive a car. Saudi women earn an estimated $7,156 annually, while Saudi men made around $37,661 on average — one of the widest gaps globally.

Women made up almost half of the workforce last year, and yet were paid only 77 cents for every dollar men made. This wage gap varies considerably among states. Women in Maryland and Vermont, for example, make 85 cents for every dollar men make, while women in Wyoming and Louisiana make closer to 65 cents.

Income inequality is only one of the challenges women face, as is shown in a recent study by the Center for American Progress (CAP). The study, “The State of Women in America: A 50-State Analysis of How Women Are Faring Across the Nation,” examined the challenges facing women throughout the United States by measuring their economic security, prominence in leadership roles and the current status of women’s health issues. 24/7 Wall St. reviewed the states that scored the worst in the country by these measures. {Click here to see which states are the worst for women}

In many countries we see, like in Mali, that Low educational attainment is a major contributor to gender inequality. Although educational attainment is poor among both genders, Malian girls and women are less likely than their male counterparts to be enrolled at each level of education. This disparity worsens at higher levels of education. In addition to a wide gender imbalance, the country has recently had to deal with considerable internal unrest.

In many Islamist countries we can feel the ground shivering by Islamic extremists who took advantage of the instability in those countries where the people did not agree any more with their government. The uprisings or coups are used by the fundamentalist as an easy target to get their dreams spread.

Iran, standing on the 7th place of inequality, received some of the lowest scores in the world for its gender disparities in economic participation. In the country, where in the sixties girls ran in bikini and took on all sorts of high jobs, just 17% of working age women participate today, against the will of the Taliban. Estimated earned incomes differ considerably between both genders, as well, with men earning nearly five times what women do. Politically, the nation is male dominated: Just 3% of members of parliament are women, and men outnumber women in ministerial positions ten to one. A recent report from a U.N. representative noted 30 female presidential candidates were all ruled ineligible for the country’s presidential election due to their gender.

To talk about that inequality in the jurisdiction of a country, standard bearer Malala Yousafzai, who first came to public attention in 2009 after she anonymously wrote an affecting BBC diary about life under the Taliban, came to Brussels to give a voice to all those oppressed women in the world.

This courageous girl was at 15 shot in the head by a Taliban gunman in October 2012 because of her campaign for girls’ education in her country which after Nigeria has the second highest number of unschooled children in the world. As young as 11 Malala began blogging for the BBC’s Urdu site, she brought a convincing voice writing about her ambition to become a doctor, her fears of the Taliban and her determination to not allow the Taliban — or her fear — to prevent her from getting the education she needed to realize her dreams. She got on television, where we could see the Taliban men standing behind at the wall, annoyed but not knowing what they should do. Her television debut in Pakistan was quickly followed with more opportunities to give women a voice in the East. She became a well known figure in Pakistan, but also a target for the Taliban who are totally against the woman having a voice at all.

The attack on her, a shocking act on a child (against Koran teaching) catapulted her to international fame. Today we still can see the damage in her face, caused by that dramatic assault, in which a militant boarded her school bus in Pakistan’s north-western Swat valley and opened fire, wounding two of her school-friends as well.

The attack on Malala exposed not only the dark side of an army unable to provide security but also the abysmal quality of education in Pakistan. Only 2.3 percent of its gross domestic product is allocated to education. Pakistan spends seven times more on its military. According to a recent U.N. study, 5.1 million children are out of school—the second-highest number in the world—and two-thirds of them are female.

Halima Mansour in the Guardian heralds Malala as a young “Pakistani heroine” for her bravery and independence.

“Malala doesn’t want to play to some western-backed or Taliban-loved stereotype. She shows us that there are voices out there, in Pakistan, that need to be heard, if only to help the country find democracy that is for and from the people, all the people.”

Husain Haqqani, Pakistan’s former ambassador to the United States says:

“We have a national lie. Why do we have to tell the truth to the world?”

“The national lie is that the Swat Valley has been liberated from the bad Taliban. Young Malala and her father mess up that narrative.”

Indian schoolchildren pay tribute to Malala

Schoolchildren around the world voiced their support for Malala after she was shot

The Taliban almost made Malala a martyr; they succeeded in making her a symbol.

“Malala was the lone voice in that wilderness,” writes Feryal Gauhar in the local Express Tribune.

“Hers was the voice which made us consider that indeed, there can be alternatives, and there can be resistance to all forms of tyranny. Today, the attempt to silence that voice shall only make her stronger; the blood stains on her school uniform shall only feed the conviction that as long as there is breath and life, there shall be struggle.”

The story of her slow recovery, from delicate surgery at a Pakistani military hospital to further operations and a programme of rehabilitation in the UK, has since been closely tracked by the world’s media. Named one of Time magazine’s most influential people in 2013, put forward for the Nobel Peace Prize and has reportedly secured a $3m (£2m) book contract for her life story.

The memoir she is writing to raise awareness about the 61 million children around the world who are not in school indicates she accepts that unasked-for responsibility as a synonym for courage and a champion for girls everywhere. However Malala concludes her book, her story so far is only just beginning.

Two organizations representing private schools in Pakistan have banned her book, ‘I Am Malala’‎ from more than 40,000 schools across Pakistan. According to them the book is an insult to Islam and shows Malala herself to be nothing more than a tool of the West.

“The federation thought we should review the book, and having reviewed it we came to the decision that the book was not suitable for our children, particularly not our students,”

said the federation’s president, Mirza Kashif.

“Pakistan is an ideological country. That ideology is based on Islam…. In this book are many comments that are contrary to our ideology.”

Once again we see how the Pakistan government is pulled from one site to an other and how it is under Taliban dictatorship. The leaders of an important sector of the Pakistani educational world has chosen to ban Pakistan’s best-known and most loved proponent of education, not just in Pakistan, but all around the world.

Despite the largely secularist policies and intentions of Jinnah, Pakistan is still under the thumb of the holier-than-thou men in beards and turbans, men who always know more than anyone else, even the best educated, who are always closer to God than anyone else, and who reckon they know how to put their fingers on apostasy and unbelief wherever they rear their ugly heads. Even if they don’t raise their heads, the mullas can always make them up.

writes Denis MacEoin of the Algemeiner.

Now after her near-fatal attempt to silence the 15-year-old, she is more dangerous to Pakistan’s status quo than ever before and the Taliban is still trying to get her silenced. The world is willing to give this girl a voice and recognises what she has done for womanhood. For some it is very difficult to understand that gender equality may drive development (rather than the other way round).

Fatima Bhutto for The Guardian wrote on Wednesday 30 October 2013 on Malala Yousafzai’s fearless and still-controversial memoir:

In Arabic, “revolution” is a feminine noun. This is fitting, as without women revolutions are sterile. They have no movement, no life, no sound. Urdu, a distorter of tongues, pilfering as it does from Persian, Hindi, but largely Arabic, uses the masculine word for coup d’etat – inqilab – for revolution, rather than the accurate feminine: thawra. Perhaps that’s why the Taliban were confused. Perhaps that’s why they imagined that shooting a 15-year-old girl would somehow enhance their revolution.

As the newly released 2013 Global Gender Gap Index — which measures gender parity in 136 countries — reminds us, gender equity isn’t simply a matter of equal rights.

From her book we can also see how dangerous it can be when there is no power fairly shared among the provinces of a country. there is not only the deepening ethnic imbalance so profound that only an extraordinary common enemy could distract from it. The burgeoning power of the Taliban in today’s Pakistan should not be much of a surprise to those who understand, as Malala does, the need to redress these ethnic wounds.

After she got got the prestigious Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought she did not leave Belgium to leave it like it was before. Next she continued to speak in the parliament at the congress of the WIP: the Women in Parliaments Global Forum (from 27-29 November 2013). At that meeting is looked at reshaping society through female leadership; female empowerment for peace, security and integrity; impact of elected women in parliaments; fight against corruption; delivering on gender equality; gender studies in academics; and the use of technology and women’s political participation.

The intention of the summit is to consider the position of the woman in our society and how she can play a role in the development of the economical and political field of a country. Those countries bridging the gender gap will also receive awards for their leadership in this important task.

Please do find additional literature:

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Leonard Pitts: Malala Yousafzai’s courage (miamiherald.com)
You may not listen to music or sing. You may not read. You may not leave the house except under certain strict conditions. You may not watch movies or television. You may not aspire. You may not learn.These are the strictures the Taliban seeks to impose upon women and girls in the places it infests, including the Swat Valley in Pakistan. And when she spoke against those strictures, when she gave interviews and wrote a blog asserting her right to learn and to be, Malala Yousafzai made herself a target of those men, one of whom boarded her school bus last October with a gun and asked, “Who is Malala?” None of the girls spoke, but a few glanced toward Malala and the gunman had his answer. He raised his pistol — it was a Colt .45 — and fired three shots. One bullet went through a girl’s hand. Another ended up in a girl’s right arm. And one went through the socket of Malala’s left eye.
Malala, Pakistan, and Israel (algemeiner.com)
She has been given enough prestigious awards to last her several lifetimes, and may well enter the Guinness Book of Records for their sheer number. She has been received by the U.S. President and the Queen of Great Britain, by Prime Ministers, and innumerable dignitaries everywhere. She has spoken to the General Assembly of the United Nations. No matter where she goes, people listen to her. She talks of peace and education, and her message goes deep. Instead of silencing her, the Taliban turned her into a megaphone to trumpet aloud the emptiness of their philosophy.You would think the Pakistanis would love her to bits, and, of course, large numbers of them do. She’s bigger than all the Qawwali singers put together. Her name is everywhere. One day, she could stand for the post of Prime Minister. And God help the Taliban if that day ever dawns.
The creation of a Malala (maheshwarigangadhar.wordpress.com)
The title of the autobiography, I am Malala itself indicates that the main idea is to present people with a photograph of the girl and tell them that she is Malala, with nothing else being revealed. She is the girl who spoke against the Taliban, but not the only girl; a fact that the world has not been enlightened with. Idolising her father, and with an interest in politics, Malala today is the West’s role model of what a young, school-going, oppressed (by Taliban) girl would be, if she ever spoke up and made herself evident to the world. She becomes a commodity through which the West can maintain an argument of international relations with a prosperous outcome and likewise.
Girls’ education in Pakistan – Malala Yousafzai (libraryeuroparl.wordpress.com)
During their brief rule over the SwatValley, the Taliban destroyed more than 400 schools. More than half of these were girls’ schools. They argued that women (and girls) should stay in the home. The European Parliament stated in a 2012 resolution that violent extremism in Pakistan continues to impede the rights of girls. Since the government regained control of the region in 2009, it has rebuilt most of these schools, but there is still high inequality: there are 717 primary schools for boys, but only 425 for girls. Talimand Khan, from a Pakistani think-tank, adds that along with the number of schools, the quality of education has to be improved, too; some Pakistani religious representatives stated in interviews that girls should not receive the same education as boys, but be prepared to become ‘obedient’ wives and mothers.
Inspiration or danger? Private schools in Pakistan ban Malala Yousafzai’s book – The Independent (independent.co.uk)
Yet in Pakistan, the reaction to Malala and her book has been mixed. Many have claimed she has been used by the West for its own interests. The Taliban threatened to attack bookshops that stocked it.Mr Kashif, who said 25 million pupils attended private schools in Pakistan, claimed that in the book Malala had defended the writing of Salman Rushdie on the grounds of free speech and had failed to use the abbreviation PUH – “peace be upon him” – when referring to the prophet Mohamed. He said there was a sense that Malala had not written large parts of the book, because it referred to things that happened before she was born.Observers say the ban comes amid discussions in Pakistan about Malala’s actions. It also follows recent controversy at a celebrated Lahore private school that started teaching sex education.
Education is a right, not a privilege. (laurenradmer.wordpress.com)
The most valuable gift any person can receive is an education. In many African and Asian countries, women are discouraged or even forbidden from obtaining an education, in an attempt to spread male dominance and keep women ignorant. Many of these countries, including Pakistan, impose force and violence against women. According to a documentary created by the Department for International Development titled “Afraid and alone: Violence against women in Pakistan”, a woman in Pakistan is raped every two hours, 4,500 women experienced violence during the first 6 months of 2009, and roughly 1000 women are murdering in “honour killings” each year.
Malala (exploredreamexamine.wordpress.com)
From my perspective, the gender gaps in women’s education Malala discusses are far closer to home than Pakistan is. As a student at an all-girls school that focuses on educating girls, I’m lucky. Girls don’t fall under the radar here as much as in co-ed schools, but are encouraged to take math, science and subjects typically considered to be “male- dominated.” But both in schools and in the workforce in the US, this is still a problem. Women are still paid less in the professional world, even when equally qualified as their male counterparts. Girls still are expected to be “worse” in math and science. Often stereotypes dominate our culture so much, it is hard to remove them.
Women need a voice and a seat at the table (theguardian.com)
This week, the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association UK (CPA) will bring together parliamentarians from around the world to discuss the post-2015 development agenda, with a conference on gender equality and women’s empowerment.Part of CPA’s work is aimed at empowering women leaders. This is about tackling a basic injustice, but it’s also critical to making the best, most informed decisions about poverty.
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While most international leaders are happy to make a broad commitment to gender equality and women’s empowerment, they have been too vague on the detail of what should be done and how. It is imperative that countries commit to specific, measureable outcomes, because, in the words of Hillary Clinton: “What gets measured gets done.”
Why Gender Equality Is Not Just About Equal Rights (theage.com.au)
Women of the world: pack your warmest sweaters, and head immediately to Iceland.According to a newly released report from the World Economic Forum [pdf], Iceland is the No. 1 country in the world for gender equality, for the fifth year in a row. And that equality is helping propel Iceland and its fellow Nordic nations to new economic heights. Turns out, the smaller the gender gap, the more economically competitive the nation. Even when that nation is totally freezing.(The report puts Australia at 24th place on the gender gap index, just below the United States but below Burundi, Cuba and New Zealand. Australia has moved up in the ranking one position from last year, but that’s not so good when compared with the No. 15 ranking achieved in 2006.)
Gender Equality and Equality (aclarioncallforgenderequality.wordpress.com)
he’ and ‘she’ they both have quality,
they both have ability
so we should prefer gender equity and equality….!

Equal?

Posted on 2013/11/05 by Belgian Biblestudents - Belgische Bijbelstudenten

Created in the image of the Originator each human being has the same value and the same rights for God. Only Jesus, who was lower than the angels has been placed higher to become a mediator between man and God. All other creations are under Jesus Christ and should become part of the Body of Christ, fully respecting each other and giving each other equal chances.

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Find also related articles:

Image of God

We all are changed into the same image from glory to glory

Cosmos creator and human destiny

Human Nature: What does the Bible teach?

The Conditionality of Citizenship

Jesus and his God

Parts of the body of Christ

What part of the Body am I?

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Related articles

Equal Partnership Between Men & Women (allboutthefamily.wordpress.com)
Equality doesn’t mean that we are all the same robotic like humans. We each have different personalities, divine natures, but we are equal in nature. No one gender is better than the other. Our Heavenly Father has the same amount of love for all people.
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faith, repentance, baptism, and the gift of the Holy Ghost are requirements for all of God’s children, regardless of gender. The same is true of temple covenants and blessings. Our Father’s work and glory is to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of His children (see Moses 1:39). He loves us all equally, and His greatest gift, the gift of eternal life, is available to all.
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In our marriages and relationships, having an equal partnership is essential. Both members of the couple will bring together their strengths and weaknesses. It is in an equal partnership that will make this relationship work!

Thomas Boston on the Law and the Christian (reformedreader.wordpress.com)
To be delivered from the law as it is the covenant of works, is no more but to be delivered from the covenant of works. And the asserting, that believers are delivered from the law as it is a covenant of works, doth necessarily import, that they are under the law, in some other respects thereto contradistinguished.

Mormon Church Back in Marriage Equality Fight in Hawaii – Advocate.com (prgnewshawaii.com)
Mormon Church Back in Marriage Equality Fight in Hawaii Advocate.com After backing away from fighting marriage equality for a while, the Mormon Church is once again active on this issue, coming out in opposition to the equal marriage bill pending…

IL Bishop: Praying for Marriage Equality Is Blasphemy (bilerico.com)
Thomas Paprocki, the infamously homophobic Catholic bishop of Springfield, Illinois, got his cassock in a bunch earlier this week when he heard that a group of pro-LGBT Catholics planned to pray the rosary for marriage equality inside the city’s cathedral after rallying at the state capitol.As soon as Paprocki got wind of plans by members of the Rainbow Sash Movement to pray for marriage equality before the 5:15 p.m. mass on Tuesday, he issued a statement calling such prayers “blasphemous” and warning that anyone who attempted to enter the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception while wearing a rainbow sash or otherwise identified themselves as a pro-equality Catholic would be blocked from entering and turned away. Anyone who prayed for same-sex marriage inside the cathedral would be asked to leave.

With celebrations, NJ has 1st gay marriages (bigstory.ap.org)
Gov. Chris Christie dropped his fight against gay marriage in New Jersey on Monday, framing the decision in a pragmatic way: No point in fighting a losing battle.Just hours after gay couples began exchanging vows with the blessing of New Jersey’s Supreme Court, Christie announced he was withdrawing his appeal to the high court.

Monday Moments- Thank You (ducc3d.wordpress.com)
I was reminded of the true freedom that comes from the Lord, and the many ways we have become accustomed with living in bondage rather than true freedom. Bondage is anything that hinders us from living up to the potential that God has invested in us.

Stand Up (junosalter.wordpress.com)
Discrimination has been prevalent throughout the world since the genesis of society. In fact, discrimination is a deterrent; that is, people are unable to confidently be themselves due to the prejudiced opinions of others. Jews cowered in claustrophobic confinements because of the genocide that had catalyzed from Hitler and the Nazi Party’s disgust of the Jews. Concentration camps were built where the unluckiest of the Jewish victims were detained, forced to provide manual labor and await their execution. Discrimination brought about fear, suffering, bitterness, and the death of approximately six million Jews. Racism was one of the biggest, most long-lasting types of discrimination in America. African Americans were treated as inferiors, with the majority of society against the idea of African Americans exercising their rights. The Jim Crow laws included an unjust set of rules that enforced racial segregation. The colored were considered, “separate, but equal,” (Plessy V. Fergeuson) but what’s equal about that?

Dizzydaisydoo

This is a big, controversial issue, which really isn’t all that hard to sort out, but it seems to be a breaking point way too often in the modern church.

Are men and women a) equal in the full definition of the word, or b) are they equal with different roles, or c) are they not equal? (okay, it’s definitely not c.) If you think it is, you really need to re-read the Bible.)

The simple answer is a).

We are all created equal, in God’s image, no one person is greater than another (Genesis 1 & 2). When Eve is created from Adam’s rib in Genesis 2:18-25, she is called his helper. In Hebrew, this word is ezer, which is a far more complex word than our modern English concept of helper- rather than being a sidekick or servant, when it is used, ezer usually refers to God…

View original post 1,074 more words

Father and motherhood

Posted on 2013/10/29 by Belgian Biblestudents - Belgische Bijbelstudenten

Necessary population

Fatherhood/Motherhood (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Today many people may not be interested in having children and look down at those who take the time to have some children. Many forget that children represent the future generation. Without any children there will be no continuation of the people. With not enough children there will be not enough working people able to take care of the ones who can not work any more.

Respect, honour, and support for those who want to take care for the next generation is long gone. Although the modern world sends mixed messages about motherhood, the Bible affirms that children are a blessing from God and can be a source of happiness for parents.

³ Look! Sons are an inheritance from Jehovah;+ The fruitage of the belly is a reward.+ ⁴ Like arrows in the hand of a mighty man,*+So are the sons of youth.+ ⁵ Happy is the able-bodied man* that has filled+ his quiver with them. They will not be ashamed,+For they will speak with enemies in the gate. (Psalm 127:3-5)

Yet, the Scriptures are not blind to the realities of motherhood. The Bible records many of its challenges.

Choices to encounter challenges

Depiction of Adam and Eve being cast out from the Garden of Eden

Throughout history men and women had to make their own choices. They could go their own way. The Divine Creator Jehovah God, has given humankind the right to prove that they themselves can manage this world. To make the best out of their life they have to make the right choices.

At the beginning of times the Creator gave the task to the first human beings (Adam and Eve) to multiply themselves. They had to take on the role of father and mother and to bring up children. Their children in turn had to make the choice to follow the commandments of God and creating new life, or to stay on their own and continue their life like they choose themselves.

Whatever choice the human being made, it would have implementations on their own free time and on what they could do in the future. Nothing has changed. As in the early times of men, today those who would like to have children, have to make decisions which shall change their life for ever.

The choice of being with child will be a irreversible choice in life. Choosing for parenting and motherhood have a deep and lasting influence on the life and character of themselves and their children. These decisions can bring large changes in the parents’ life-style, so they need to be made carefully. They include such questions as: Should a mother work outside the home? If yes, how much? Who is to care for the children while the mother is away working? In the end, parents must do what they believe is best for their children and also what is right before God.

Equal in the eyes of God

Man and woman are both created in the image of God and are both equal in the eyes of the Creator. Not one is better than the other. Both have to prove themselves and make themselves worthy to enter the Kingdom of God.

Our society does not like men nor women to be unproductive, and caring for children seems for them something which does not generate money for the society. the pressure from outside can make it very difficult for men and women to choose to have children and to stay at home to take care of them.

Not alone

However, mothers need not feel alone in the struggle to make wise decisions. They can take great comfort in the words of Isaiah 40:11, which indicates that God takes special interest in the needs of mothers with young babies, whom he “will conduct with care.” God manifests such keen interest by providing in the Bible a number of guidelines that can make motherhood enjoyable and successful.

¹¹ Like a shepherd he will shepherd his own drove.+ With his arm he will collect together the lambs;+ and in his bosom he will carry [them].+ Those giving suck he will conduct [with care].+ (Isaiah 40:11)

¹⁰ They will not go hungry,+ neither will they go thirsty,+ nor will parching heat or sun strike them.+ For the One who is having pity* upon them will lead them,+ and by the springs of water he will conduct them.+ (Isaiah 49:10)

Someone to trust

Even those people who did at first did not want to know about God and His family, may trust the Creator that when they change direction and do want to leave this materialist world to foster a more spiritual world, God shall be willing to come to their help.

¹⁶ “The lost* one I shall search for,+ and the dispersed one I shall bring back, and the broken one I shall bandage and the ailing one I shall strengthen, but the fat one+ and the strong one I shall annihilate. I shall feed that one* with judgment.”*+ (Ezekiel 34:16)

Loving incoming money

Today we can see lots of people who love the incoming money and who spend their time not on family matters but pure on leisure. Many grown fat, have become thick, have become gorged. Today we can see that many are defrauding the lowly ones and crushing the poor ones. The Bible warns us for those who wanted to go the path of money and material gain instead of spiritual gain. Those who forsook God, who made them and despised the Rock of their salvation shall have to face, in the near future, the sword of God.

¹⁵ When Jesh′u·run*+ began to grow fat, then he kicked.*+ You have grown fat, you have become thick, you have become gorged.+ So he forsook God,* who made him,+ And despised the Rock*+ of his salvation. (Deuteronomy 32:15)

¹⁶ Therefore the [true] Lord,* Jehovah of armies, will keep sending upon his fat ones a wasting disease,+ and under his glory a burning will keep burning away like the burning of a fire.+ (Isaiah 10:16)

²⁶ And I will make those maltreating you eat their own flesh; and as with the sweet wine they will become drunk with their own blood. And all flesh will have to know that I, Jehovah,+ am your Savior+ and your Repurchaser,+ the Powerful One of Jacob.”+ (Isaiah 49:26)

Needing care, love and ingenuity

Jehovah, the Only One God, knows that children are small, delicate and tender, and that they need the necessary care. Those who want to give that care, not for their own gain or lust, God is willing to help.

² Shepherd+ the flock of God+ in YOUR care, not under compulsion,* but willingly;*+ neither for love of dishonest gain,+ but eagerly; (1 Peter 5:2)

God’s Word says that the person who “is guarding discernment is going to find good.”

⁸ He that is acquiring heart*+ is loving his own soul. He that is guarding discernment is going to find good.+ (Proverbs 19:8)

Children dancing, International Peace Day 2009, Geneva. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Discernment is needed to sort through the unending range of leisure activities, gadgets, and trends that overwhelm mothers and children. Everywhere we are confronted with commercials. Constantly we are being bombarded with new products, better technology, and more services! Economic pressures takes a toll. Modern conveniences come at a cost, so more parents are working. Being part of a mobile society has led many family members to live and work far away from the support system of their extended family and in some cases even far away from their spouse. In many lands popular culture is not helping either, as it often focuses on tearing down institutions that provide a sense of stability, such as marriage and family.

We as Christians can take on the right attitude so that we can cope with those challenges. As a person we do have to determine what is essential and useful to ourself and to those we love. As parents we also should help our children to do the same thing.

Making the changes that are possible

When we are going to have children we should use common sense and sound judgement.

¹⁹ Jehovah himself in wisdom founded the earth.+ He solidly fixed the heavens in discernment.+ ²⁰ By his knowledge the watery deeps* themselves were split apart,+ and the cloudy skies keep dripping down light rain.+ ²¹ My son, may they not get away from your eyes.+ Safeguard practical wisdom and thinking ability,+ ²² and they will prove to be life to your soul+ and charm to your throat.+ ²³ In that case you will walk in security+ on your way, and even your foot will not strike against anything.+ ²⁴ Whenever you lie down you will feel no dread;+ and you will certainly lie down, and your sleep must be pleasurable.+ ²⁵ You will not need to be afraid of any sudden dreadful thing,+ nor of the storm upon the wicked ones, because it is coming.+ ²⁶ For Jehovah himself will prove to be, in effect, your confidence,*+ and he will certainly keep your foot against capture.+ (Proverbs 3: 19-21-26)

If you are currently working outside the home, can your family live on just your husband’s income? To help answer this question, determine how much your actual take-home pay is after subtracting taxes, child care, commuting costs, wardrobe, meals out, and extras. Also, your husband’s income may be taxed at a higher rate if your combined income puts you in a higher income bracket. You may be surprised how little is left over.

Some work fewer hours or closer to home, which may mean less money but more time with the children. If you decide to stop working and if your job has been important to you for your self-worth and sense of accomplishment, think about how you can maintain these important elements while staying home.

Juggling act

Balancing work and home is not easy, but can be done. There are millions of working mothers and a few thousands of fathers who embraced the idea that ‘quality time’ with the children could partly make up for frequent absences — and who have found the idea wanting. Many mothers today say that juggling the stresses of work with the responsibilities of home leaves them overworked, overstrained, and underpaid.

Full-time mothers or full time fathers who stay at home to look after their children say that they have to endure being patronized and downgraded by a society geared to glorifying paid work. In some societies being a housewife is no longer considered an honourable position, so women are pressured to have their own career, even if the extra income is not necessary. To be a houseman is considered even more grave than a housewife by many.

Men escaping their duties

While a growing number of mothers work longer hours, fathers do not always compensate. The Sunday Times of London wrote:

“Britain is a nation of absent fathers, according to new research showing that men spend as little as 15 minutes a day with their children. . . . Many men do not take much pleasure in spending time with their families. . . . By comparison, the British professional mother will spend 90 minutes a day with her children.”

Some husbands complain that their wife finds it difficult to delegate tasks because she insists that everything be done exactly the way she is used to doing it. “Otherwise, you do it wrong,” the husbands say. Obviously, in order to benefit from the cooperation of her husband, a tired housewife may have to be willing to make some concessions as to the way certain household tasks are done. On the other hand, the husband should not use that argument as an excuse to do nothing.

Taking up fatherhood

David Blankenhorn, one of the founders of the National Fatherhood Initiative, which promotes responsible, committed fatherhood, noted that in a 1994 survey of 1,600 U.S. men, 50 percent said that their fathers were emotionally absent during their childhood. Many of today’s fathers do not want to see this pattern repeated.

Fathers who are actively involved with their children can be a wholesome influence. Referring to research published by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, The Toronto Star said that when fathers eat meals with their children, go on outings with them, and help with homework, there are “fewer behaviour problems, higher levels of sociability and a higher level of school performance among children and adolescents.”

The foregoing highlights an arrangement for raising children that is as practical today as when first penned over three thousand years ago. The Originator of the family specifically instructed fathers to be actively involved in raising their children.

¹⁴ On account of this I bend my knees+ to the Father,+ ¹⁵ to whom every family+ in heaven and on earth owes its name,+ ¹⁶ to the end that he may grant YOU according to the riches+ of his glory to be made mighty in the man YOU are inside+ with power through his spirit,+ ¹⁷ to have the Christ dwell through [YOUR] faith in YOUR hearts with* love;+ that YOU may be rooted+ and established on the foundation,+ ¹⁸ in order that YOU may be thoroughly able to grasp mentally+ with all the holy ones what is the breadth and length and height and depth,+ ¹⁹ and to know the love of the Christ+ which surpasses knowledge, that YOU may be filled with all* the fullness+ that God gives. (Ephesians 3:14-19)

⁴ And YOU, fathers, do not be irritating* YOUR children,+ but go on bringing them up+ in the discipline+ and mental-regulating*+ of Jehovah.* (Ephesians 6:4)

Fathers were counselled to inculcate a love for God in the hearts of their children and to speak to them of God’s regulations and commandments. God told them to do this ‘when they sat in their house and when they walked on the road and when they lay down and when they got up.’ (Deuteronomy 6:7).

Shared responsibility

Parenting is a shared responsibility. The Bible admonishes children: “Listen . . . to the discipline of your father, and do not forsake the law of your mother.” (Proverbs 1:8) The role of the father is vital. It includes supporting and respecting the mother and sharing in child-rearing tasks. It also requires spending time reading to and talking with the children. This fills a vital emotional need of children.

Unquestionably, the Bible is the most reliable source of counsel and sound principles for a well-adjusted family. A father who actively provides for the spiritual, emotional, and material needs of his family is fulfilling his God-assigned responsibility.

Find also to read:

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Letters To A Natalist World: Motherhood Is Not The Highest Paid Job In The World (childfreevoices.com)
I know you want parenting to look as appealing as possible, but come on, who do you you think you’re fooling here?If being a parent is so great, then you shouldn’t have to lie about what it is to brag about it. These cutesy-wootsey, natalism-worshipping FaceBook share-fodder pictures with ridiculous captions have got to stop.
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Rebecca Meyer wrote:
It’s funny that people try to say we have kids so that we have something that will “love us unconditionally.” It’s not even accurate. Psychologically, children love Conditionally because they depend on the parent for food, water, shelter, and any other basic survival needs. Infants do not love a parent unconditionally (meaning even if the basic survival needs weren’t met). Unconditional love actually to me comes from relationships mostly not within the family because you don’t feel obligated to love the person like you feel when family members are concerned.
Motherhood!….Part 5 {Whither Womanhood} (purplerays.wordpress.com)
At every turn, motherhood praises are deafening! In songs, poetry and prose, motherhood is cast in gold and eulogized in every culture, race and creed! Little wonder the whole earth is referred to as “Mother Earth”!
As things stand, motherhood seems to be rated above womanhood or regarded as the defining factor and crown of womanhood!
In not-so-liberal cultures, barrenness or, not bearing the ‘right gender’ of children is considered the fault of the woman and enough grounds for dissolving a marriage or desecrating it with impunity!
Many acclaimed preachers and religious teachers tell us that we are here to multiply, increase and fill the earth and where a middle-aged woman is not part of this multiplication equation, she is not fulfilling a Divine ordinance.
Motherhood!…….Part 4 {Children, Honor Fathers and Mothers} (purplerays.wordpress.com)
Generally, mothers are accorded a great deal of love and respect, even above fathers! Maybe because they are one of the first voices and faces the child recognizes; the first teachers; the caring hands that rock the cradle and, as a reward, the hand that rocks the cradle gets the larger dose of love!
Conventionally, daddy provides the comfort and balm but, it is mommy who solicitously applies them and gets noticed more! Cherishing dear mommy is usually the nurturing ground for love and other virtues!
In religion, parent-honor is almost a form of worship! Virtually every religion carves a special top-notch niche for fathers and mothers. The Christian Scriptures encapsulates it all with the Commandment “Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother”!
However, the wrong interpretation of this Commandment has inadvertently worked untold hardship on many a child who struggles to obey it! How is a child to honor a father who has degenerated to a drunkard and drug addict; or a mother who through hot temper, loose tongue and lack of self-discipline torments the household?
How can a child honor and revere parents who roundly abuse themselves and are frequently embroiled in violent quarrels?
Unless the child is also contaminated, he/she can only pay lip-service and empty habitual respect to such parents. The impetus for pure love and heart-felt honor which streams from the soul is lacking! The child simply tags along in make-believe obedience!
God is Jehovah Shammah-God is There! (crosbyp12003.wordpress.com)
Gods wants us to trust him with everything; hear that Everything. Sometimes we can get ahead of a God and think we have the answers. As new covenant believers God lives on the inside of us through the Holy Spirit. God is always with us. He does not turn his back on us to fend for ourselves . God wants to heal msny of us from a false view that he is a God ready to beat you down.
Motherhood (girlinterrupted28.wordpress.com)
What makes a mother?This is a question I find myself asking much too often, practically on a daily basis. Mostly because I wonder if I qualify. If I am a mother. When people ask how many children I have, when I have to fill out a form, when I watch friends struggling with their children or to create children at all…I ask myself. Because I want to be a mother. Because I was a mother.
Is there a “shortage” of single fathers? (dalrock.wordpress.com)
Captain Capitalism found an article on eHarmony titled 15 Reasons to Date a Single Mom. The fifteen reasons boil down to various ways of stating that single moms are easy, they will mother you, and you get to have fun with kids.
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there can be good reasons why a woman might find herself without the father of her children in the household, but the fact that he’s not around isn’t proof of her loyalty; statistically speaking it is more likely than not an indication that she ejected the father from the home. Aside from widows, it is at the very least a red flag which needs to be thoroughly vetted.
Motherhood In The Workplace: I Was Asked to Tone-Down the ‘Mommy Thing’ (tinystepsmommy.com)
I decided to return to work after being home with AD for 20 months. My oldest AL was 8-years-old and my daughter B was only four-months-old. I was still nursing, yet I accepted a job in the corporate office of a franchise company to manage their communications. I wanted to give my “career” a chance. Looking back, I realize I was overwhelmed at home and suffering from a major case of the grass is always greener.
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After our departmental meeting, my new boss pulled me aside and “suggested” that I don’t lead with the “mommy thing.” I was stunned and insulted and embarrassed. I figured she knew what she was talking about. I hadn’t worked in the private sector before. My experience was with not-for-profit organizations, trade associations, or at a newspaper. Again, I ignored my instincts.
Optional Parenthood (ordinarybutloud.wordpress.com)
One of my mother friends finds it strange that out of my handful of closest friends in the world (and she is included on the list) two of them are childless. She thinks it’s strange because a) I’m so devoted to my own parenting; b) my life is seemingly arranged to facilitate parenthood; c) most of the friendships she’s made or maintained have come through her kids and the parents of her kids’ friends. It bears mentioning that this friend is someone I met years and years ago, before either of us had children. It’s not as if we became friends because we are both parents. We were already friends and then we became parents.
The Juggle of Modern Motherhood (childledchaos.me.uk)
My mum first became a mother in the early 1960s. She was 20 when she got married, and a month over 21 when my eldest brother arrived. By her 24th birthday she had three sons, all under three.
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Modern motherhood (and modern parenthood) is so far removed from five decades ago, it really is like comparing chalk and cheese. I can’t imagine how women (and it was almost exclusively women) in the 1960s juggled childcare and housework, let alone adding paid work into the mix.I was a decade older than my mother had been when I had my first child, and had a degree and a career (of sorts) behind me. I was made redundant when I was three months pregnant with our first child, and I applied for work after she was born. I therefore became the default primary carer.

I ‘returned to work’ when my baby was five months old and, as I didn’t breastfeed, this was easy. I had three days a week paid work, leaving four days to concentrate on motherhood, and pretended that it was just perfect that I had the benefits of both work and home. How jolly!

How untrue! Working part-time (or full-time) and being a full-time parent (because if you’re a parent, you are a full-time parent, especially when you’re the primary carer) doesn’t give you the benefits of both; it gives you the downsides of both. Multiplied.
Motherhood= Amazing (arichter0723.wordpress.com)
Ever since I was a little girl, I always wanted to be a mommy. I had many baby dolls and would take care of them as if they were my own. I would pay attention to my mother and what she did for me, so I could be a better mommy to my “babies.” I would read to them, take them on car trips, and put them to bed right next to me. My babies were my everything.

Poverty and conservative role patterns

Posted on 2013/10/28 by Marcus Ampe

In the industrialised countries sometimes we can not help to get the impression that women are still more than once looked at as a lust-object.

Until the second half of the 20th century, women in most societies were denied some of the legal and political rights according to men. It has taken a very long time before women got the right to vote and to have their say in the house, community, village, city, country. In many industrialised countries the women got interesting positions but are not yet equally paid and do have to prove themselves twice as hard than the men. They may be allowed to share their thoughts and may have gained significant legal rights, we still can not neglect that women still do not have equality with men. This is evident at home, at their workplace, and in society in general.

In the 1890s when gender role reversals could be caricaturized, the idea of an aggressive woman who also smoked was considered laughable. In 1929, Edward Bernays proved otherwise when he convinced women to smoke in public during an Easter parade in Manhattan as a show of defiance against male domination. The demonstrators were not aware that a tobacco company was behind the publicity stunt. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The traditional role of man was to work and make money, which would be used by all in the household. The traditional role of the woman was to stay at home, take care of the children, clean the house, and cook. Because society has always associated money with power, the person bringing home the money had the power. The man often made the final decision on all household matters because he had the money. Women were treated like they were property of men, with no voice about their own fate.

In many countries there are still more job offers for men and is it still easier for a man to climb the social ladder. A man can have both a family and a successful career whereas women who want to fulfil themselves as professionals have to sacrifice their personal life in most cases or, if they choose to have a family as well, they are sometimes regarded as bad mothers because they do not allocate 24 hours a day to raising their children.

Our society takes it for granted that the woman should take care for the children. The woman is made to take care of her own personal life and as a mother, she also has to take care of her children´s life. Lots of man still want to keep up their ‘higher position’ and look down at women who want to step onto the ladder of progress and a better position in business. On the other hand others do find the women who stay at home are lazy and are not willing to contribute to the welfare of the family, where the man should be the one who has to decide everything and the wife only has to follow his will. but many of the contemporary society do not see that the person wanting to stay at home to take care of the children and the household should not at all be idle. the important task of bringing up children looks to be one of the most neglected tasks of this age. Women will always be important to society because they bring a sense of love, and emotion, and for this reason at least, society should start considering their situation more carefully.

Lathe operator machining parts for transport planes at the Consolidated Aircraft Corporation plant, Fort Worth, USA (1942). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Our society has to become more aware that there is no superior or inferior person. We are all the same, created in the image of God the Divine Creator, so to consider that women are not as good as men is very wrong. Only to give women lesser roles to play in our society is not showing the full respect the woman deserves. We also should teach children that women can not be inferior just because they’re not men. Typecasting also can be a very dangerous sport. Women can do whatever a man can do and parents should let male and female children swap duties and play with the toys they would like to play with. In case a boy wants to play with puppets or dresses they should allow them, but should never try to impose on those children that because they prefer to play with puppets, that they would be gay.

Lots of gender problems we encounter today are provided by the specific typecasting of women’s and men’s roles, in the previous years. It is our willingness how to look at women and men which is going to decide how people are going to treat others, also those who have a gender complexity or gender questions. The role of women in our society may have changed significantly and positively in the past three decades, but we still may find that girls are pushed by their parents in certain fields of study. Though we must be honest, in countries like Belgium, women do receive many opportunities and are challenged in all sorts of fields which fifty years ago were considered male jobs. A minus point in Belgium is that for several jobs done by women, they are still paid less than men, and that should be corrected.

Child care arrangements for children under age 5 with employed mothers (by income); low income is defined as below 200% of the federal poverty level; source of data: http://mchb.hrsa.gov/mchirc/chusa_04/pages/0310wm.htm (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Women and girls may have many more opportunities and face different challenges today, but often men leave them behind with the children, creating very difficult situations to avoid poverty. When we consider 60% of the average national income and the inability to receive enough income to pay for rent and living costs to be the poverty line than we notice that 14.7% of Belgians live below the poverty line, and that 22% of the women face poverty. Today Belgian industry should shame itself that it is possible that bakeries can ask 2,65€ for a brown loaf of 600 grammes whilst the person is only receiving 822 euros per month for singles and 1,726 euros per month for a couple with two children. Who can live on such a low income when we have to face rents of 750€ to 1200€ for a small flat?
In Belgium, one in seven people have to do with less! Increased energy prices and rising rents and housing affect our purchasing power and especially people with low incomes are there to suffer.

Risk factors for insecurity and poverty include divorce, economic dependence on a ( new ) partner, very low skills, long-term unemployment or weak employment situation, a debt mountain, old age. Retired persons are having it more difficult to cope and are not allowed to earn much extra or they loose their retirement premium. Because women are still living longer than men, they are the worst victim in that poverty range.

That there is still gender inequality we can see at the number of single mothers who take more than 80 % of single-parent families. Female heads of households are at high risk to be below the poverty threshold. After all, they accumulate the problems of struggling families where there is only one breadwinner with the weaker socio – economic position of women and the inefficiency of the social protection, such as inadequate protection of the unpaid care work and too limited compensation for the cost of children.

Married women staying at home form a larger and hidden group under the insecure women. Because of the generalization of the two-earner position the double income has become the average income welfare standard. The shrinking number of working women at home without income or benefit concentrates more and more among the low-skilled women with several children and by parents who made the choice that it is more important to have a spiritual upbringing than a material upbringing. For these women the benefits of a professional job outside the house do not outweigh by the accumulation of work and family responsibilities. Moreover, their lack of education and work experience and their economic dependence on a partner makes them a particularly vulnerable group .

Older single women are affected by the income -based pension. The wage gap against women in the labour market and by an incomplete career as a result of caring for children and relatives, many women receive in retirement hardly the statutory minimum. The fear of not going to receive any allotment making it possible to live properly when retired makes that many women do not want to take on house-duties, and prefer to have their children placed in childcare, while they can create a better and often a more than necessary income for the family.

The legal form that it is not necessary to have the marriage bond of man-woman, but that people can choose either to have a same gender matrimony or a looser living-together or cohabit contract, where people can more easily and legally swap partner, makes the position for the female person even weaker. We only can observe that in the end it seems in most cases the women are left with the children.

In the new-constituent families with the same sex parents, we can find similar questions coming up for whom is going to be the one who takes care for the behavioural education. They also will be looked at by others when one of the partners chooses to take care of the children and to give them special personal love and that extra education the schools are not providing any more.

Photo taken by me as an example of a stay at h...

An example of a stay at home dad and kids. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The number of stay-at-home dads began gradually increasing in the late 20th century, especially in developed Western nations. Though the role is subject to many stereotypes, and men may have difficulties accessing parenting benefits, communities, and services targeted at mothers, it became more socially acceptable by the 2000s, but now it starts loosing interest again because it becomes financially more difficult to survive when there is only one person working in the household.
There are now financial ramifications in deciding whether the mother or father should become the stay-at-home parent. In cases where the woman is the higher-paid parent, it makes more economic sense for her to continue to work while the man takes on the caregiver role.

With the growth of telecommuting, many men are also able to work from home. this made that either the woman or the man can work at home and be there for the children. Differences in parent‘s schedules can also account for some of the stay-at-home dads. Sometimes the father works odd work shifts while the mother has a typical nine-to-five work schedule.
Some retired males who marry a younger woman decide to become stay-at-home dads while their wives work because they want a “second chance” to watch a child grow up in a second or third marriage.

The choice of one of the partners, be it a man or a woman to stay some of the time or most of the time at home, is not looked favourably by the present generation. Those who make such a choice often have to face a very negative attitude from the society around them.

The patronizing attitude taken on by many, makes it difficult for many parents to choose for bringing up their children with the Law of God and getting them to know the Word of God.

Those families who do find it important that their children feel the warmth of a caring family, finding a parent at home when they return from school, receiving that extra information about the Higher Being, are confronted with the negative attitude of our contemporary society for the ancient ‘woman role’ of ‘housewife’, or the contemporary position of ‘houseman’.

It is true that, when we want to be a Christian family, we shall have to make the choice of diving our time between, work, school, leisure time and worship time. This will demand economical sacrifices, but there we should consider what would be the more valuable. Shall the ability to go twice or three times abroad on holiday, having the newest generation of i-phone or tablet, bring happiness?

When we want to be a Christian family should we keep to conservative role patterns? No, Christians also should evolve with time and should be aware of the possibilities they can get to work together as equal partners creating a safe home-ground for their children. They also may look at the Old and New testament examples of how women and men divided their task between each other.

The conservative Christians who do find that women do not have to play any part in decision making and/or in teaching the Word of God, should look better at the many examples given in the Holy Scriptures where women proved a very good asset in the upbringing of children and teaching them the Word of God.

Because that Word of God does not receive enough attention any more in our regions we as parents shall have to make choices and shall have to divide the duties at home to create enough opportunities for both partners to develop professionally well, and to develop as partner and parent, trying to create a place where the Word of God can receive the appropriate place. To succeed in such matter, financial sacrifices shall have to be made, as well as the making of the choice who will spend time at home with the children when. The father as well as the mother should each take some duties in the household and man also shall have to accept that the woman also shall work at the spiritual well-being of the child.

European Parliament stands for human dignity

Dignified role for the woman

Women, conservative evangelicals and their counter-offensive

Connection between women and environmental sustainability

About the poverty our world is facing now you may find:

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Census Says: Women Are Still Getting the Short End of the Stick (US) (feimineach.com)
In 2012, women were statistically much poorer than men. And women that were already poor in 2011 stayed that way.
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one in seven women live in poverty. One in seven. That’s almost 17.8 million women – or 14.5% of the female population. For men, this percentage is lower, at 11%.
Recalibrating the poverty line (blogforarizona.com)
Our definition of poverty, Schwarz says, was calibrated in the 1960s and it’s in need of recalibration. Then, food was a third of an average family’s budget, and the poverty threshold was set at 3 times the cost of an adequate food diet. Today, food is one-sixth of an average family’s budget, but the poverty line is still set at three times the cost of buying food for a family.The poverty line is set at $23,500 for a family of four. According to Schwarz, it should be closer to $41,000.
Who’s Job Is It Anyway? (transnationalplanning.wordpress.com)
how much women were able to thrive in an environment where the men were somewhat “absent”, that is to say, they were not engaged in the affairs that these women were tackling for whatever reasons. Patel & Mitlin stated: “Most of the most powerful women leaders came from among the lower-income and most socially disadvantaged neighborhoods, in part because in these areas the man had given up.” It was amazing to see the role that these women were playing in their communities. Without them, who knows how much worse things would be for their families.
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Perhaps what we need is not a clear demarcation of what each respective gender should be capable of doing but rather the unhindered opportunity for anyone to be able to address a need. This needs to be an approach accepted by both men and women. In a symbiotic relationship, each member does what is necessary because all will benefit from it. No one stands on ceremony and debates or dictates roles. It just gets done.
The disease of poverty is a doctor’s business everywhere (janeparry.wordpress.com)One fifth of Hong Kong’s population lives below the official poverty line. This was set for the first time in September 2013, at 50% of median monthly household income before tax and welfare transfers.Hong Kong has one of the highest per capita GDPs in Asia and ranks 11th globally, yet its Gini coefficient, a measure of income inequality, indicates it has the worst income disparity in the developed world. The announcement of the poverty line and that there are 1.3 million people living below it has been big news in Hong Kong, but it hasn’t generated the sense of righteous outrage that such a statistic should.
The Shocking New Study On American Children In Poverty (davidmixner.com)
In America, 22.5% of our children live below the poverty line. That is also one out of every four children! That comes to 16,400,000 children living without their basic needs of food, shelter, clothes, education, etc being met by our society.
Women, Indigenous Australians identified in poverty report (abc.net.au)A 10-year study has found Australia’s most disadvantaged are more likely to be women, Indigenous, and have health problems.To coincide with national poverty week, researchers at the University of Canberra have released a study which tracked 900 people for a decade, who were identified as marginalised in 2001.
The study found 60 per cent of those identified by the study as marginalised in 2001 had escaped those conditions by 2010.
New Book Shows How to Curb Intergenerational Poverty (prweb.com)A new book, Parent Power: The Key to America’s Prosperity, by Dr. Jack Westman reveals the power parents have to create America’s productive citizens. They also have the power to create social problems in the context of intergenerational poverty.Dr. Westman calls attention to the fact that one-third of children and youth in the United States are failing in some aspect of their lives. The United States is at the top of the list of developed nations in child abuse and neglect and the bottom in educational achievement.
Five children die every day from abuse in the United States. Three million referrals are made to child protective services every year.
When gender inequality is good economics (globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com)
While we know that individuals, economies and societies would benefit from gender parity in the long term, gender inequality is often a perfectly rational choice for individuals in the short term.
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Gender imbalances, and their resulting economic consequences, are still startlingly visible everywhere, from the developed world to emerging markets.

Women, conservative evangelicals and their counter-offensive

Posted on 2013/10/25 by Christadelphians

Many Evangelical Christians today claim that we ought to defer to the tradition of the Church when faced with difficult matters such as the status of homosexuals in the community of faith or the nature of the atonement. We can see a lot of changes in the position of the public against homo couples. In the polls worldwide we can see attitudes have shifted over time. In 1988, the two-thirds of white Americans for example, believed that “sexual relations between two adults of the same sex” was “always wrong,” including 85 percent of born-again Christians. By 2010, both groups began to accept same-sex relationships. Born-again Christians still opposed homosexuality, but they answered the questions the same way non-believers answered in the 1980s. In 2010, two-thirds of evangelicals believed that homosexuality is “always wrong,” compared to just 30 percent of others.

John Piper’s church. Also see here (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Evangelicals may also differ on the role of the women in their community. Most of them affirm male headship in ordaining men only to pastoral ministry, but they also practice male headship in the way that they carry out the other discipleship and teaching ministries of the church. So male headship characterizes both ordained and non-ordained ministries in the church.

In the catholic and Protestant religions we do find that many are convinced that only qualified men are ordained to the pastoral office (hierarchy in principle), and women do not teach Christian doctrine to men (hierarchy in practice). John Piper‘s position:

“Men should bear primary responsibility for Christlike headship and teaching in the church. So it is unbiblical . . . and therefore detrimental, for women to assume this role” (John Piper and Wayne Grudem, “An Overview of Central Concerns: Questions and Answers,” in Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, 60-61).

This hierarchy in both principle and practice reflects a certain interpretation of 1 Timothy 2:12, an interpretation that Douglas Moo advocates in Recovering Biblical Manhood & Womanhood:

“We think 1 Timothy 2:8-15 imposes two restrictions on the ministry of women: they are not to teach Christian doctrine to men and they are not to exercise authority directly over men in the church.”^{{Moo, “What Does It Mean Not to Teach or Have Authority Over Men?,” 180.}}

While most of the young reformed evangelicals are closing ranks around traditional, conservative views of biblical inspiration and authority, some in the emerging church are revising and moving away from the same. One can hardly envision reconciliation on the gender question as long as the two groups continue on these radically divergent trajectories.

John Piper describes practices of Pastor Mark Driscoll who allows women to teach and lead men within the ministries of Mars Hill Church, as “detrimental” to the life of the church. {John Piper and Wayne Grudem, “An Overview of Central Concerns: Questions and Answers,” 61.} Nevertheless, these two men in particular share a basic commitment to complementarian principles and have enough common ground in their shared vision of the gospel to cooperate in endeavors such as “The Gospel Coalition,” a gospel renewal movement that confesses a strong complementarian position.

Priscilla Shirer who’s marriage appears to be just the sort of enlightened partnership that would make feminists cheer, avoids using words like “feminist” or “career woman” to describe herself. She is an evangelical Bible teacher who makes her living by guiding thousands of women through the study of Scripture in her books, videos and weekend conferences — in which she stresses that in a biblical home and church, the man is the head and the woman must submit.
She steers women away from the “feminist activists” who tell women to do their own thing. does a woman has to go out of the house and find a ‘proper’ job to bring more money in the family till? Can the woman make up her own decisions or is tit that she let a man “slow her down,” as she puts it?

For her it is clear that it is an evil demon, called “Satan” who “will do everything in his power to get us to take the lead in our home.” She forgets to see that satan just means any adversary or evil within, and according to the Bible is not a sort of monster which shall bring people into his realm were people shall be tortured for ever.

Molly Worthen writes

Shirer and many conservative Christians believe that the Bible defines gender as a divinely ordained set of desires and duties inherent in each man and woman since the Garden of Eden. Gender is not an act or a choice, but a nonnegotiable gift. To these Christians, the story of Adam and Eve’s creation granted man authority over woman, and they understand the New Testament teachings of Paul and his comrades — in particular, that wives should submit to their husbands — not as cultural relics of the first century but as universal teachings that Christians apply today.

Cover of Women in Ministry: Four Views

In the industrialised countries we see sexual liberation has saturated the general culture and brought most citizens away from the church-institutions, but also away from the Holy Scriptures. Many people took the attitudes and sayings of churches as actions of men of God. They took their conclusions when they saw so many wrong goings by the clergy. In the meantime mainline churches are ordaining women and homosexuals, conservative evangelicals are escalating their counter-offensive.

To critics, “complementarian” is code for sexist patriarchy, a license to keep women muzzled and homebound. Yet spending even five minutes with Priscilla Shirer and her husband suggests that reality is far more complicated — not only at home but also in the new “separate sphere” that this theology has spawned: a subculture of Bible studies, conferences, ministries, religious retreats and literature ranging from Christian fitness books to Christian romance novels, all produced by and for evangelical women.

Molly Worthen writes in the New York times Magazine article Housewives of God.

Those who think the woman may not teach about the Word of God should look at those persons who opened their houses and got people in to listen to them. There we found in the first home-churches active women who not only taught their children but also their servants. The woman of the household was the person teaching becoming the authority. Since the parent is already the authority, as God intended it to be from creation, there should be no problem in women teaching doctrine to their own children. but they had to remember that the husband would always be the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, but he is also subject to his Father, the Only One God. Like Jesus follows his Father, man and woman who say they are followers of Christ Jesus the Messiah, should follow Jesus.

The wives when they are in subjection to their own husbands should not have to bow to every other man and have to follow what they say. those wives also had to follow first the Word of God, like for every body it should be the Law of God which has to be followed in the first instance and than the laws of men as long as they contradict not the Law of God. It is by the right attitude the subjective woman can gain the man. Namely that, if any obey not God’s Word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives.

MInistry in Contemporary Culture – Does Evangelicalism have a Future? (Photo credit: George Fox Evangelical Seminary)

Those discussing the role of the woman in culture and in the church often also claim tradition as a source of authority. But why then do those Christians not take literal translations from the original Scriptures? Should English speaking people not be translating their English Bibles from the LXX since that is what the early church (not to mention the writers of the NT!) considered inspired?

Some of these same Evangelicals boldly proclaim that every book that we have in our canon as Protestants (and onlythe set that we have in our canon) is without error. Again, where does that leave our sisters and brothers from the early Church (or the Eastern Orthodox tradition which uses the LXX)?

writes Garret Menges in Rethinking Scripture.

A brief survey of the history of the LXX raises some questions about the way we view Scripture today. For example, is the LXX inspired Scripture even though it’s a translation of a more original textual tradition? If not, then are the fragments that have made it into our NT inspired? Were the scribes who translated Isaiah, for example, quickly taken up in the Spirit while contemplating how to translate the Hebrew word for “young woman” only to have the Spirit leave them shortly after the translation of that single verse?

To make matters even more complicated, the earliest copies of the Hebrew text we have are those of the Masoretes from the 7th to 11th centuries CE. The Masoretes, being faithful preservers of the oral tradition of the Scriptures that were passed on from generation to generation, decided that it was time their tradition be put on paper and so they transcribed the documents that we use today for the translation of our own English Bibles. The fact that we consider the Masoretic Hebrew text to be the authoritative version of the OT is based on the (not small) assumption that the Hebrew oral tradition was indeed successfully passed down from generation to generation completely untarnished. In fact, modern Christian translators are so committed to this assumption that we overlook the fact that the LXX predates the Masoretic Text (MT) by over 1,000 years! Could it not be argued that even though the LXX is a translation of a more original textual tradition it nevertheless ought to be considered more reliable than the MT simply because of its much earlier date of composition?

Men and women should look into that matter and get to know what the Holy Scriptures can tell them about their positions they do have to take.
They should get to remember where the words came from in what sort of language and how that language was used. Getting to know the proverbs of that language they should get a fluid and organic understanding of what Scripture is to begin with. Many may think lots of fallible and errant human beings were involved in “making up what some consider to be an infallible and/or inerrant group of texts.”

Though we should trust the Higher Being who let His Words to be written down for future generations so that they could learn from it. We should look at Jesus who kept to the Words of his Father and considered Them to be set apart (holy) and inspired, bearing witness to the God many believe was fully revealed in the person of Jesus. but those who take Jesus to be God look over the Words of the Father who calls that Jewish man His son and not Himself. It are doctrines like the Holy Trinity, twisting of the Words of God, church teachings of flat earth a.o. things people did have to believe which undermined the credibility of the Holy Scriptures.

To say it is authoritative means that as a body of believers we are committed to reading the text and rereading it, both devotionally and liturgically, wrestling with it, discussing it over a meal, and maybe even at times disagreeing with it but never, despite all the frustrations it may cause us, doing away with it. In other words, the authority of the Bible is not something it inherently holds but is something we grant it as the Church. The Bible is authoritative because we say it’s authoritative and we need no reason beyond that. And none of this has anything to do with whether or not there are any mistakes in the Bible or if it’s scientifically or historically accurate or if the virgin birth was based on a mistranslation.

Mistranslation or not, people should always go and look what is behind the words, written in black and white,or some also in colour ink. then they would find out that the Bible is not as difficult to read and understand as they first thought. When willingness is there to take the words for what they say, everything shall become clear, and than people will see that the Bible always told the truth and brings a message to believe in, giving us enough indication what to do with our life, how us to behave and which roles we do have to take.

Man can find solutions and guidance for their position and should be aware of the role the Creator had for each of us, men and women.

Please do find:

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Wayne’s World Without Women Pastors (bltnotjustasandwich.com)
Wayne Grudem’s and Barry Asmus’s book may fall into the hands of women who are church leaders, even pastors, in poor nations.
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As we move out from the church and the home we move further from what is fairly clear and explicit to what is more ambiguous and inferential…. When it comes to all the thousands of occupations and professions, with their endlessly varied structures of management, God has chosen not to be specific about which roles men and women should fill…. For this reason we focus (within some limits) on how these roles are carried out rather than which ones are appropriate.
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The godly women portrayed in the Old Testament are always seen as submissive to the leadership of their husbands. In fact Peter sees a pattern in their behavior that Christian wives should imitate, for he says, “For … Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord….”
Dear White Christian Leaders, Don’t Do It. (davidswanson.wordpress.com)
Last week brought disheartening news from white-evangelical-church-world. A well-publicized men’s conference was reported to have used both women and gay people as punchlines to jokes told from the stage. And, in An Open Letter from the Asian American Community to the Evangelical Church, a group of influential Asian American Christians pointed out a bunch of instances of racial stereotyping by different evangelical conferences, publishing houses, and pastors. For those paying attention – and/or on the receiving end of these offensive and marginalizing stereotypes – it seems impossible that these things keep happening. How is it that many Christian leaders of the evangelical-ish variety are continuing with language, images, and assumptions that are so unloving? It’s crazy, right?
Staying Married Is Not About Staying in Love, Part 1 by John Piper (davidandleahweathers.wordpress.com)
what it means for a Married couple to Truly be “One Flesh”, as God commands Marrieds to be in Several places in the Bible, starting in Genesis 2:24. Becoming One Flesh is what we Strive for in our own Marriage. But while we hear lip service paid to it, the high divorce rates, as well as the way we see Marrieds treat each other– even among professing Christian couples – suggest that it is indeed lip service only. Finding an example of a True “One Flesh” union is nearly impossible!
Responding to the Gay Agenda (rethinkingtheology.com)
The first thing you may want to do is to familiarize yourself with the details of the “gay agenda” (click HERE). Then think carefully about the components of it and ask yourself if the society envisioned by the homosexual apologists is the kind of society you want for yourself, for your children and for your grandchildren. Do you want your children and grandchildren to be indoctrinated and recruited into an abnormal, unnatural, immoral lifestyle that is inherently harmful to their health and will not produce grandchildren and great grandchildren for you to enjoy and love? Do you want our churches to be infiltrated by their heretical and damning theology and filthy morals? Do you want to be punished legally for merely disagreeing with them?
New controversies in Evangelical theology (patheos.com)
Evangelicals today are being torn by some major theological controversies. The debate between Calvinists and Wesleyans is getting more and more heated. Then there is a related debate between “Traditionists,” who believe Christians should hold onto the traditions of the historic church (particularly the decisions of the early church councils0 and the “Meliorists,” who reject holding onto traditions and believe the church can get better and better. The Calvinists tend to be Traditionists (who themselves can be divided between “Biblicists” and “Paleo-Conservatives”) and the Wesleyans tend to be Meliorists.
Church History (daltonmoore116.wordpress.com)
The body of Christ suffers when believers are not accountable to each other and when they are not saturated in the Word of God, both inside the church and outside the church. I feel this way because in my opinion so many of the problems that the church faced throughout history, specifically in theology, could have been avoided or handled better if believers were accountable in their walks. Now whether or not this was truly the case I am not sure, but one thing I do know is that time spent in the Word and accountability are crucial in the walk of a Christian and without them problems are inevitable.
“Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (Redesign): A Response to Evangelical Feminism” (graceandphysics.wordpress.com)
“Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (Redesign): A Response to Evangelical Feminism”

This studies the role of the man and woman in a biblical manner: more complementarian, and therefore hierarchical, or egalitarian? I really want to read this book… I have no idea what it will say or what God will show me through it, but yeah. I really want to read this book.
Qumran Pt 2: Why do the Dead Sea Scrolls Matter? (glanier.wordpress.com)
Though scholarship is still unfolding even today regarding the Scrolls’ origins, interpretation, history, etc., we at least have the benefit of over sixty years of perspective to evaluate the findings. That said, the Scrolls can be a bit of a hot-button issue (both in the scholarly world and the church), so I will try to be as balanced and critically sensitive as possible. I will cover three main topics and my standard concluding set of implications:
How the Early Church Sought to Resolve Textual Variants (str.typepad.com)
Dan Wallace of the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts has an interesting article offering evidence that the transmission of the New Testament text wasn’t merely linear—that is, it wasn’t like a child’s game of “Telephone” (or “Chinese Whispers,” for our European friends), where one person tells the next person, and he tells the next, and so on.
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By the middle of the second century, when canon conscientiousness was on the rise, the Christian community regarded the autographs, or at least the earliest copies of the New Testament documents, as important witnesses. They were concerned about the purity of the text with regard to select textual variants. Most likely, this implies that the copying of the manuscripts in the early decades of the Christian faith was not that of strictly linear descent (one copy of another copy of another copy). Rather, there would be times when at least a few scribes would want to check behind their exemplar and look at its exemplar. This would especially occur whenever a disputed reading cropped up. So, there seems to have been a bit of a check on the quality of the transmission of the text from very early on.
Men and Women: Equal yet Different (hillsbiblechurch.org)
Gender is important because God created male and female (Gen. 1:27).
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Some men have either become domineering or passive, whereas some women have become usurping and bought into the lie of a false sense of liberation. The truth is, only the Word of God provides a right understanding of gender. Such an understanding will provide true liberation as men and women function as God designed.

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Conclusion

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Necessary population

Choices to encounter challenges

Equal in the eyes of God

Not alone

Someone to trust

Loving incoming money

Needing care, love and ingenuity

Making the changes that are possible

Juggling act

Men escaping their duties

Taking up fatherhood

Shared responsibility

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