As I wrote yesterday, I love reading, thinking about, studying, and discussing the Bible. That doesn’t mean I love all of it; there are parts that are boring (like Numbers). There are parts that are confusing (like some of Romans). And then, there are questions that have no answers, like, why aren’t there any female angels mentioned in the Bible? Female angels are everywhere in the culture, often in store windows or on Christmas trees or in art, but there are no female angels in the Bible. If you are the kind of person who believes in angels – and I am, although I don’t know what they actually are – this should be something to wonder about. Either there are no female angels, which would be odd, or they are purposely excluded by the writers of Scripture.
Or consider Romans 16. In this chapter, the Apostle Paul ends his letter with greetings to dozens of people, and in particular to one deacon and two apostles. The deacon is Phoebe, and the apostles are Andronicus and Junia, who, he writes, are prominent among the apostles. Junia was written about as female until the late 13th century until a guy named Aegidius of Rome changed it to Junias, and it is believed that it became common to call her “him” some time after the Reformation. This was finally rectified in the late 20th century. The change to the masculine was done purposefully; the men of the church could not accept that woman, who was a follower of Jesus before Paul, could be a “prominent” apostle.
When misogyny is central to the way you live, though, everything you do works towards denigrating women. It is not just foolish to not ordain women, it goes against everything Jesus stood for and taught. Women were integral to the work that Jesus did; for example, He used the home of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus as a home base when He was in Jerusalem. Luke 10:38 says, “Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village (Bethany), where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home.” Her home. All of this nonsense we read in the Bible about women keeping silent in church or being submissive to their husbands or being saved through childbirth is man-made, not God-made. Misogyny is a theological and human heresy. So just stop. Treating people as inferior is not of God. It is, and has always been, evil.
Prayer – Holy God, You have made all of us in Your image. Help us to live that way. Amen.
Today’s art is by Donna Bellas.