Friday: Further Study
He who remembered His mother when He was hanging in agony upon the cross; who appeared to the weeping women and made them His messengers to spread the first glad tidings of a risen Saviour-He is woman’s best friend today and is ready to aid her in all the relations of life.
-Ellen G. White, The Adventist Home, p. 204.
The Lord has a work for women as well as for men.
Image © Sally Weimer from GoodSalt.com
They may take their places in His work at this crisis, and He will work through them. If they are imbued with a sense of their duty, and labor under the influence of the Holy Spirit, they will have just the self-possession required for this time. The Saviour will reflect upon these self-sacrificing women the light of His countenance, and will give them a power that exceeds that of men. They can do in families a work that men cannot do, a work that reaches the inner life. They can come close to the hearts of those whom men cannot reach. Their labor is needed.
-Ellen G. White, Evangelism, pp. 464,465.
Discussion Questions:
- One of the most interesting aspects of the Gospels, including Luke, has to do with the role of women in regard to the resurrection of Jesus. All the Gospel stories have women as the first ones to see the risen Christ and to proclaim His resurrection to others. Biblical apologists have been able to use this fact to help affirm the reality of the bodily resurrection of Jesus, which some people deny or question. Why is the role of women here so important? Because if, as some claim, the stories of Jesus’ resurrection were fabricated by the authors, why would they have put women, who weren’t highly regarded in that society, as the first ones to see and to proclaim Jesus? If they were making up stories in order to try to get people at that time to believe, why use women as opposed to men? Discuss.
- In a society that didn’t always recognize the dignity of women, Jesus recognized the status that belongs to them in God’s creative order as children of God. Women as well as men are made in God’s image and equal in His sight. At the same time, however equal before God, men and women are not the same. How can we affirm the equality of men and women before God and yet, at the same time, affirm and acknowledge the differences?
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Question #2! He created them in our image! Does this mean that maybe, just maybe, it takes male and female to truly express "our" image? Can we see in male and female a more complete picture of God!?
Your comment is SOO true and enriching! How did They make man in Their image? God the Father and God the Son are 2 independent persons, yet ONE God.... It even puzzles angels, and that is why in 1 Cor 11, one of the reasons for the hierarchy given is for the angels to contemplate and learn how a man who thinks very differently from a woman, can actually live together, and become ONE! There are a million lessons we can draw from this revelation, let me just enumerate a few:
1. Christ, fully God, yet He declares I do the will of My Father... women FULLY MEN, yet they choose to obey their husbands in the LORD.
2. When Eve drifted from her husband and wanted 'to be like God' higher than even her husband, she descended lower, into sin - BUT Christ, who as we are told in Phil. 2:5 did not grasp His divinity, but in descending, He has been HIGHLY exalted. The devil on the other hand, whose example Eve followed Is. 14:12, when he wanted to ascend he was brought down.
3. The word 'authority over' 1 Cor 11 then begins to make GOOD sense even for women... God has AUTHORITY OVER Christ, yet they love each other and are ONE. Man has AUTHORITY OVER the woman, he must needs love her as Christ loves the church, and even much more: as his own body. Eph. 5 25-27.
And Many more.... Men, let's LOVE our women, and in return, they women, learn to emulate the example of Christ, FULLY GOD, yet submissive to the Father.
"Lord how shall I best serve and glorify Thy name in the earth? How shall I conduct my life to make Thy name a praise in the earth, and lead others to love, serve, and honor Thee? Let me only desire and choose Thy Will. Let the words and example of my redeemeder be the light and strength of my heart. While I follow and trust in Him, He will not leave me to parish. He shall be the crown of my rejoicing." Review and Harold Aug. 10, 1886.
May the words of my heart, and the meditation of my mind be acceptable to You, my God. Amen.
Affirming the quality of men and women before God: I think you have to ask yourself, what does God hold as the most precious thing on this earth? "A child", a child is the most precious gift God can give! As God separated the Levites as His special people; so God has separated women. God loved all 12 tribes; still at the same time acknowledging the difference between them and the Levites. To accomplish what Christ Jesus has started, we must teach each and every child from the womb.