Ask Her What She Thinks

Sometimes encouragement from the bible comes in unexpected ways, and this time it was very unexpected in Genesis 24. My church, North Pointe, is reading the bible through in a year chronologically. So we read a few chapters in Genesis, we read Job, and now we are back in Genesis, reading things through as they occurred long, long ago.

Well, as you may know, the church doesn't always have a good reputation in its treatment of women. This is historically as well as currently true. I won't comment here about the rightness or wrongness of how the church has perceived, portrayed and treated women. But I will talk a little bit about how women have been perceived, portrayed and treated by the church in my very, very limited experience - most of that experience is as a non-Christian.

My own belief, and the belief of those non-Christians who influenced me, was that the church is not kind nor fair towards women. My first memories of actually experiencing/seeing this were of an uncle of mine. He accepted Jesus Christ as his Saviour when he was a young adult and was run over by his own tractor. That was before I was born and he and my aunt (devoutly Catholic from a very young age) became Christians and joined the Baptist church.

As a child, I was fascinated by uncle's ability to speak very fast Pig Latin. But I felt uncomfortable with how he spoke to my aunt. It seemed to me he thought of her as a possession and would sometimes refer to her as if her desires, her needs, her feelings were of little or no consequence. Sometimes the things he said and the jokes he made did not seem funny to me at all. My aunt's sisters and brothers never had much regard for my uncle and often spoke of his being "a very difficult man".

Nevertheless, my aunt and uncles had three beautiful children of their own and adopted a beautiful child they had fostered for years. As my uncle got older, he seemed to mellow quite a bit and in hindsight perhaps much of his manner towards women was more common in that generation. Regardless, though, I think he might be mortified to think that these things I heard and observed caused me to form a very negative view of the church, the Bible, and people who referred to themselves as Christians.

This world view of the church that I developed as a child was further reinforced when I went to his daughter's wedding in my early 20's. The ceremony was downright offensive to women in my view. I don't remember details, I simply remember that the "submitting" seemed to be very one-sided.

When I became a Christian, I went to church and had the most amazing experience of overhearing a young man thanking an older man for something, and just thinking about their conversation now brings tears to my eyes. I had not realized that men could be so loving in their conversation or in their hearts. I was incredibly moved and am still whenever I meet a man who is not wussy, but instead manly yet meek. Do you know what I mean?

Anyway, I began reading the bible, and I prepared myself to become like my aunt. I knew I was a Christian, and they were the only Christian examples I knew of in my life, so I thought this would have to be. And indeed, the Old Testament is filled with horrific stories of how women were treated and rules that came from God that just did not seem at all fair or with favour towards women. Honestly, coming to grips with some of the stuff I read was pretty tough.

The New Testament did not seemed at best to marginally improve things much at first reading. Popping out at me were Paul's instructions to the new church about women remaining silent and not holding any position such as elder or deacon, and certainly not a teacher of men (forgive me and correct me if my paraphrasing here is incorrect). Women still seemed to be held in low regard all the way around. And frankly, you may find that many Christian churches follow many of these instructions to this day.

So, I was born again, but born into "the church" that did not yet seem female friendly to me. Certainly my world view of the church at the time played into that.

It is now 4.5 years later, and my church is reading through the Bible in a year chronologically. Each time I start at the beginning of the Old Testament, I mentally sigh at the thought of reading yet again of many ways in which women were not treated well.

But this time, I got a little treat in Genesis 24. The setting is this. Abraham sent one of his servant's to find a wife for his son Isaac. The Lord, through the servant, selects Rebekah by a series of conditions she meets by giving water to the servant and water to his camels at a well near Abraham's brother's home. The servant is invited into Rebekah's parents' home, and he tells the family of his mission to find a wife for Isaac, and how clear it was that the Lord had chosen Rebekah. The family acknowledged that the Lord had sent him and so gave Rebekah to Isaac. The next morning, however, the servant wanted to take off right away to get Isaac's bride back to him. But when he requested to be sent back, Rebekah's family protested, and the following conversation occurred:

"Then they had supper, and the servant and the men with him stayed there overnight. But early the next morning, he said, 'Send me back to my master.' 'But we want Rebekah to stay at least ten days,' her brother and mother said. 'Then she can go.' But he said, 'Don't hinder my return. The Lord has made my mission successful, and I want to report back to my master.' 'Well,' they said, 'we'll call Rebekah and ask her what she thinks.' So they called Rebekah. 'Are you willing to go with this man?' they asked her.
Genesis 24:54-57

Well, I have to tell you that I find it very encouraging to have finally "seen" this passage. In this day and age there are still many who don't care to ask what women think. I am not sure, however, that God endorses that. I look forward to a year of discovery in the Bible once again.