Ephesians

The Book of Ephesians is addressed to all God's people, not just to men. It is addressed to Jew and Gentile, slave and free, child and adult, women and men.

This was not lost on the women of that day. They taught, preached, and worked side by side with men in telling the saving Gospel of Jesus the Messiah to all who would listen.

Take a few minutes and read Ephesians carefully, slowly, with thought. The magnificence of the Gospel is set forth clearly. Each person needs nothing besides Christ. Each is part of the body of Christ. There is one body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all.

Ephesians 3:10-12 His, (God's) intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to his eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord. In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence.

Not only men can approach God with freedom and confidence, but each Christian, slave or free, Gentile or Jew, man or woman, child or adult. Each Christian is made new in Christ, and Paul exhorts each to take hold of what it means to be a child of light, in unity with every other Christian, within whom God's power is now at work.

Ephesians 4:22-24 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.

After Paul talks more about how a Christian should strive to be kind, compassionate, loving and forgiving, etc. he says: (Ephesians 5:21) "Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ."

This verse is often forgotten in the reading of the following verses. My Dad explained it this way: He and his congregation were building a church in evenings and on weekends. Whoever knew about cement work - that was the person all the rest listened to when they were doing cement work; whoever were the best carpenters - were the ones the rest listened to when they were doing carpentry work; etc.

God gives different gifts to His children, and we should submit to one another accordingly.

Paul goes on to talk about how wives should submit to their husbands and respect them, but not to the point of overthrowing their status as a child of God, able to approach God with freedom and confidence, forgiven as much as any man; a new creation, in Christ, as much as any man. Paul also talks about how husbands should love their wives, but not to the point of following an unbelieving wife into unbelief. Paul is not refuting or going back on all he has said before about each person, in Christ, now, a child of light. He is not breaking the Gospel by attaching a law to it for either the wife or the husband. The Gospel stands free to each and every person. Rather, Paul is making a comparison about the profound mystery of Christ becoming one with His Church as a man and woman become one in marriage.

It is a great travesty that Ephesians 5:22-33 is so often misused, after all the beauty and clarity of the preceding chapters and verses, to take away the equal freedom of Christian women with men, in Christ, and saddle them with the false idea and man-made rule that women cannot teach or preach in our churches or cannot teach men in Bible Classes or Sunday Schools.

The Holy Spirit often gives teaching and preaching and leadership gifts to women, (Romans 12:3-8). Such women should be listened to, out of reverence for Christ.

Galatians

Galatians 3:26-29 So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.

There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.

In the Book of Galatians Paul writes a letter to new Christian churches. Paul has brought Gentiles the good news that Jesus has paid for all their sins on the cross, and has given them heaven, covering them with His perfection. Gentiles had embraced their salvation in Jesus, and formed congregations.

But "important" men had come to their churches and had confused them by telling them they needed to keep some of the Jewish laws especially circumcision along with their faith in the Messiah.

(Christ means Messiah)

Paul's letter to the Gentile congregations adamantly refutes these men and their false teaching. Paul reminds the new Christians that Jesus has provided a complete salvation for everyone, for every Jew and every Gentile, for every slave and every free person, for every woman and every man. All are one in Christ.

There is no law that a person needs to keep to obtain salvation. No law is added on to the free gift of eternal life provided to every person by Jesus.

This fact makes every person equal to every other person, and it precludes some from making rules or laws over others in order to limit or circumscribe their faith, their full salvation, and their freedom from the law in Christ.

A Christian with true faith hates sin and never wants to commit sins any more, though we still are sinners. God demands perfection in obedience to Him. No one can accomplish perfection. No one ever did except Jesus, Who covers us with His righteousness.

Paul reminds the Gentiles that the Jews from of old also knew they were to be saved through the Messiah and not by keeping laws. Galatians 2:15-16 We who are Jews by birth and not sinful Gentiles know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified.

If God calls a woman to teach or preach, if you stand in her way, you are standing in the way of God.

All through history many women have been constrained from answering God's call, usually by men in positions of ecclesiastical power. This needs to end. Women should be able to hold any position in Christian churches that men can hold according to their call. As with men, they can be judged by if they correctly teach and preach the Word of God. They can be disciplined on that basis as well as men.

In Galatians Paul tells the new Christians they should cling to the truth of the Gospel as they had been taught, and not follow these men who really were about something other than the truth of the Gospel. They wanted followers. They wanted to have power over them by holding them to laws, and they wanted to avoid persecution of themselves by compromising the Gospel.

We need to take note of the Book of Galatians, and not follow men who constrain the Gospel, telling us we cannot have this or that position just because we are women. God does not limit us. The only "limitation" should be that we tell the Word of God correctly, carefully and in all truth.

Mary and Martha

Luke 10:38-42 As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, "Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!"

"Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her."

This short account is very familiar to almost every woman. Guests have been invited. The house needs to be straightened up; the food needs to be prepared and served; the guests are to be catered to. Not every woman gets uptight about the preparations. (One friend of mine waited eagerly for her company and expected them to help her get her house cleaned, help her make the beds, and help with food purchase and cooking, etc. She did nothing until they came.) (More power to her!)

However, many women, especially those older, like me, get very worried that they need to make everything as perfect as possible for their guests. Martha was obviously one like us; "worried and upset about many things." We were taught from a young age that women were to take upon themselves the household duties, almost exclusively, and that our expertise at such was a valid judgement upon ourselves.

Jesus was a disrupter of the common ideas about women in his day. He spoke to women. He healed them. And here, he did not discourage Mary but stood up for her.

The early church took Jesus' teachings to heart and women did everything men did in the early church.

I have heard many sermons on this text at church over the years. Almost every pastor invariably turned the story around to admonish women to do their duty in the kitchen. We women used to joke after such a sermon that we had been "Martha-ed" again.

Women need to heed the plain text of this incident in the Bible. "Only one thing is needed." We women need to make it of first importance in our lives to sit at the feet of Jesus and learn the Gospel message of the Bible thoroughly so that, in all we do, in whatever we do, we teach it to others that they also might be saved.

I am not disparaging food preparation, nor any woman, nor what they do in their homes to make it a clean and pleasant place for their families. All those things are commendable. I am averring that women need to make it their first priority to know the Gospel well. The salvation we have in Jesus should be the highest priority in the lives of both women and men.