Scripture Reading
MATTHEW 26:1-13 [NLTse]
When Jesus had finished [telling some parables about the Kingdom of Heaven and His final return], He said to His disciples, 2 “As you know, Passover begins in two days, and the Son of Man will be handed over to be crucified.”
3 At that same time the leading priests and elders were meeting at the residence of Caiaphas, the high priest, 4 plotting how to capture Jesus secretly and kill him. 5 “But not during the Passover celebration,” they agreed, “or the people may riot.”
6 Meanwhile, Jesus was in Bethany at the home of Simon, a man who had previously had leprosy. 7 While He was eating, a woman came in with a beautiful alabaster jar of expensive perfume and poured it over His head. 8 The disciples were indignant when they saw this. “What a waste!” they said. 9 “It could have been sold for a high price and the money given to the poor.”
10 But Jesus, aware of this, replied, “Why criticize this woman for doing such a good thing to Me? 11 You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me. 12 She has poured this perfume on Me to prepare My body for burial. 13 I tell you the truth, wherever the Good News is preached throughout the world, this woman’s deed will be remembered and discussed.”
SERMON – “DOES GOD CARE MORE ABOUT MEN THAN ABOUT WOMEN?”
Twice before, in the 21 years I’ve been your pas-tor have I preached someone else’s words in place of my own here in the Pulpit: I once shared a chapter from a Max Lucado book, and I once read the entire Sermon On the Mount. This morning makes three.
Sheila Gregoire hosts a website called, tolovehonorandvacuum.com. The following are Sheila’s words slightly tweaked by me to make them easier for me to share…
Every now and then I receive an email that makes my heart hurt. Recently I got this one, from a woman who is looking at the Bible, and looking around at her church, and finding herself wondering if God really loves women. In her email she asked me:
So, I have a question that’s going to sound horrible but it’s just honest. Does God care more about men than He does women? I mean God started out making only Adam, and then He made Eve to be Adam’s helper, but only because He decided it wasn’t good for the man to be alone. So then He makes women, who are weaker than men, so they cannot defend themselves. He makes them have all these feelings so they will always care about their men and their children. He makes their most important aspect to be beauty which fades with age and childbearing. The men however, God makes to be strong and to have little to no feelings at all. And He made them to all want women other than the woman they have.
It seems to me that the only time God got mad at King David was when David took another man’s wife, and God compared that to David stealing a lamb, a piece of property! … I mean the whole Bible seems to say these kinds of things. And yet, women tend to be more religious than men! In a world where every religion thinks less of women! Don’t get me wrong, it’s not as though I think God doesn’t care about women, but maybe He just cares less?
I’m glad this woman asked these questions, be-cause I think they are all questions that many women struggle or have struggled with. (And perhaps many men, as well.) Asking questions can feel uncomfortable, but God is big enough to defend Himself! And when we do ask we often grew closer to Him as a result!
So today I’d just like to take each of my email writer’s comments – point by point – and respond.
First, she writes, “He made Adam first,” and in that she seems to be asking, “So is male the preferred gender, the default?”
Actually, if you take Genesis 1 and 2 seriously, perhaps gender didn’t come into humanity until after Eve was created: That is, perhaps Adam was first made genderless (or gender-full, depending on how you want to look at it), and that only after the Lord took Adam’s “rib” to make Eve, only then: “Male and female” He created them.
But even if that’s not entirely accurate, it’s very clear that both male and female are in the image of God. Genesis 1:27 says, ? “So God created man-kind in His Own image, in the image of God He created them; male and female He created them.”
And we see God using feminine imagery to refer to Himself at times, as Jesus uses here in Matthew 23:37: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem: You who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you. How often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.”
The email goes on: “Eve was only made to be Adam’s ‘helper.’”Yes, she was. But the idea of “helper” does not carry the idea of inferiority in the Scriptures. The Hebrew word is “ezer”. “Ezer” is used 21 times in the Old Testament: 16 of those times it’s referring directly to God Himself as being our “helper”! (And God is obviously not inferior to us!)
Another key Genesis gives us to understand the helper/ezer Eve was to be to Adam is the very next word in that passage, suitable: Eve was made to be a suitable helper to Adam. The help woman was to give to the man was the kind of help Adam actually needed in order to accomplish the tasks God had given him; the idea being that Adam couldn’t fulfill all that the Lord has called him to without Eve. (“Partner” is the word some more recent translations have begun using to help make the idea more clear.)
The writer goes on, “And women are weaker than men.” Yes, women are often physically weaker, but women were also created to endure more pain than men and to live longer than men, so it doesn’t make sense that merely being weaker physically means that God made them lesser, inferior…
(Of course, women are susceptible to attack far more than men are. And yet God also created men with one part of their bodies which, if you kick it right, can bring them to their knees howling in pain.)
The email goes on: “God makes women have all these feelings so that they will care about their men and their children.”
Women loving their husbands and their children is a blessing! Yet, what the writer seems to be getting at here is that women too often are martyrs for their husbands and children, caring about them so much that the women are more vulnerable to being taken advantage of and being repeatedly and sometimes emotionally and abusively hurt.
And that’s true. But it’s not the way women were created to be. That’s a part of the curse, in the same way that Adam finding the ground hard to farm is part of the curse.
Genesis 3:16 says: “To the woman [God] said, “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to chil-dren. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”
Now, some versions of the Bible actually mistranslate this verse and give it a really ugly slant. Some translate it to say that “women’s desire will be to control her husband,” but that idea is not in the Hebrew, and that interpretation was never made before 1974, when Bible commentator Susan Foh popularized it.
That being said, the interpretation itself makes no logical sense. In the context of Genesis 3 God is giving a list of curses: 1) You’ll have pain in childbirth; 2) you’ll desire your husband to your own detriment; 3) he will rule over you. If Susan Foh’s translation (which is now widely accepted) is correct then a sin becomes part of a list of curses: You have a curse (pain in childbirth), and then a sin (the woman’s desire to control her husband), followed by a curse (he will rule over you).
The Hebrew, however, points to a straightfor-ward, traditional interpretation: That is, women have loved men and put up with men who treated them sinfully, and women have been subject to that abuse in their quest for love and belonging since the Beginning.
The letter goes on: “God makes a woman’s most important quality to be beauty which fades.”
Women’s beauty is prized far too much in our society. Shoot, women are judged on their beauty! And they judge themselves harshly on it, too!
Yet nowhere does God say that a woman’s most important characteristic is beauty. In fact, the Bible clearly says otherwise. Proverbs 31:30 says, “Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.” Yeah, God never says that beauty is a woman’s most important characteristic. Our culture does, and our culture has been thoroughly shaped by humanities’ Fall into sin…
The email says: “God makes men emotionally strong with little to no feelings.”
I’m not sure this is a benefit! Yes, men do tend to be more compartmentalized, and not as multitasking as women, which means that men can separate work from relationships more. Men do seem to have a harder time, in general, getting in touch with their feelings. And this may appear to be a benefit, since the person who is more emotionally dependent seems at a disadvantage in a relationship, and it can seem as if women are always the ones searching for connection. Yet research shows that those who are able to express their feelings live longer and live more contented lives. And women do tend to have closer relationships than men, especially with their children! So, I think this to each woman’s benefit.
“God made men to want women other than the one they have,” she goes on.
And, it does certainly seem that way: Men don’t seem to be as monogamous as women. Yet research, again, doesn’t necessarily bear this out. One recent large scale international study found that 63% of men and 45% of women reported cheating at least once. But I’ve seen other studies that report women cheating more than men, especially among certain groups (like university-educated women who work outside the home).
In the past men have tended to cheat more, but that may be because they had more opportunity, since they were away from home more and mingling with single women more. Women, who were largely at home may not have had as much chance. But when the chance is greater, as it seems to be with working women, it seems that women cheat just as often, or more…
“The only time God got mad at King David,” she goes on, “was when David stole another man’s wife–and He compared her to a stolen lamb, as though she was property.”
Yes, God did get mad at David for having an affair, and then arranging to have the woman’s hus-band killed. But this wasn’t the only time God got angry with David. In fact, the time that God let His wrath really go was when David got all puffed-up and prideful, counting and boasting in the size of his armies rather than relying on God. And with that the Lord brought massive calamity against all of Israel because of it. (2 Samuel 24)
And, yes, the prophet Nathan did compare Bathsheba to a lamb, but not as though she were “just property”. Nathan compared her to a lamb that was loved, and treasured so much so that it even slept in bed with its master! (I’m not trying to say that women want to be compared to even the most beloved sheep; just making the point that the comparison is not as straightforward as saying that God thought the woman was her husband’s property.)
When looking at marriage in the Old Testament, we need to understand that God permitted things He didn’t agree with. The Israelites lived in a society dominated by men, and where having multiple wives was accepted. The fact that the Hebrew forefathers Abraham and Jacob had multiple wives does not mean that God approved of or wanted that. In fact, God designed humans to be one-man, one-woman creatures. In Genesis 2:24, God says: “That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.”
And in the New Testament we see monogamy being reclaimed. 1 Timothy requires that the leaders of the church be monogamous. Marriage is set up as a beautiful institution between only two people. But that was not how it was seen in the Old Testament, and it is doubtful that much romantic-love existed in that day, as much as we may try to read it into some of the stories. Ancient Israel’s was a very different culture from ours today, and we ought to have compassion for the women of the time who were disre-garded, and for the men of that time who never knew much intimacy. (King David claimed that he felt closer to his best friend, Jonathan, than with any of his wives! It just shows how badly they had gotten marriage wrong from God’s original intentions.)
So, let’s remember that the Old Testament is a description of what happened, not a prescription of what God always wants us to follow…
“And yet, women tend to be more religious than men,” my writer writes.
Yes, women do! I think it’s that “last shall be first, and first shall be last” thing. When you aren’t as strong, you recognize your need for God more. When you are more emotional and relational, you yearn for more intimacy. Ladies: You should be grateful God made you this way!
The email ends, “It’s not like I think He doesn’t care for women, but maybe He just cares less.”
No. I don’t believe that at all. I think the Bible tells us that God loves, adores, prizes, and treasures women! To prove it, let me end with this:
• Do you know to whom God first revealed that Jesus would be born? Mary, His mom, a woman.
• Do you know to whom Jesus first revealed that He was the Son of God? The Samaritan woman at the well.
• Do you know whom Jesus said would be al-ways remembered on account of their devotion to Him? A woman, the one from our reading who poured out the priceless ointment over Jesus’ head.
• Do you know to whom Jesus first revealed Himself after He was raised and had conquered Death? The women who came to His grave.
• Do you know whom Jesus appointed as the first missionary of the gospel? The first person He called to tell everyone He was alive? Mary Magdalene, a woman.
In the culture of Jesus’ day where women’s testimony was not worth as much as men’s, where women were largely ignored and looked down upon, the Lord Jesus went out of His way to honor women and give them key roles in spreading the good news about Him.
Girls, Ladies: God doesn’t care about you less; He has lifted you up and is lifting you up to where society would never let you be apart from Him! Don’t ever let anyone tell you that Jesus doesn’t love women as much as men. It is a lie; it is intended to drive a wedge between you, women, and God and make you feel helpless and hopeless.
Girls; Ladies: Jesus loves you as a woman! Jesus delights in you as a woman! And that is beautiful indeed!