Page 101 - Sarah's Children

Paul is NOT teaching here on male/female relationships. He is teaching on
inheritance. He is not talking of government, nor the exercise of gifts. He is in no way
advocating the abolition of gender roles as established by God. This is not the context
of his teaching. Paul did teach on these subjects, but not in this passage of scripture.

Over and over in this day people are pointing to this scripture and saying, “see, it
says right here that in Christ there is neither male nor female.” They declare, “ We
can cast off all this talk about man being the head of woman. Since there is neither
male nor female we are all free to hear from God and have Him alone as our head.”

How very appealing this is to those who loathe submission. How very appealing it
is to those who want to determine their own way. Yet these people do violence to the
scriptures by taking these words out of context. They violate what is stated in other
passages that are clearly speaking about governmental order.

One of the scriptures that is overthrown by taking this scripture out of context is,
“But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the man is
the head of a woman, and God is the head of Christ” (I Corinthians 11:3). If we were
to interpret the meaning of this snippet of a verse from Galatians as people insist,
then we would have to rewrite I Corinthians. It might be better rendered in this
manner, “But I want you to know that Christ is the head of every man, and Christ is
the head of every woman, and God is the head of Christ.” But this is not what it says,
is it?

Again, I will reiterate, if we come looking for something in scriptures to support a
certain prejudice that we have, we will find it. However, if we look only for truth
without regard to how it personally affects us, we will indeed find truth, and Yahweh
will give us the grace to walk in it. If we look simply for the truth of God’s
governmental order, we will find it everywhere.

Most of the arguments against maintaining the gender roles established by God and
spoken through the mouth of His prophets, are based upon fairness, or rather, the
apparent lack of it. It seems unfair for a woman, who undeniably has the ability to
hear the voice of God, to submit herself to man. Often these men are less sensitive
spiritually than their wives or daughters. However, even in this case the scripture is
clear, the government of God still stands.

If a woman who is resistant to these matters will be honest in examining this issue,
she will recognize that her reluctance to agree with the testimony of scripture has
more to do with fear than any other reason. Fear causes women to reject the
authority of their husbands. Fear also causes men to reject the authority of Christ.
Questions that arise out of fear are asked, such as: “What if he doesn’t consider my