I am currently in a book study right now with a friend and it is already blowing my mind. The book we are studying is called Voices of the True Woman Movement: A Call to Counter-Revolution by Nancy Leigh DeMoss. The title might scream feminist because it did for me, but I assure you it is not like that.
The book has many different contributing writers but the one I am going to share with you is from John Piper. It is his point of view of womanhood and more specifically womanhood in marriage and singleness through the view of the Bible. Since I have been single and am married now, both of his descriptions spoke to me. I am going to share a few passages of the book with you and hope that it speaks to you, whether you are single or married.
Chapter 1 (pages 20-22)
"A Word to the Married
First a word to the married. Paul says in Ephesians 5:22-24 "Wives submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands"
The point here is that marriage is meant to display the covenant-keeping love between Christ and His church. And the way it does this is by men being men and women being women in marriage. These are no more interchangeable than Christ is interchangeable with the church. Men take their cues from Christ as the head, and women take their cues from what the church is called to be in her allegiance to Christ. This is described by Paul in terms of headship and submission. Here are my definitions of headship and submission based on this text:
Headship is the divine calling of a husband to take primary responsibility for Christlike, servant leadership, protection, and provision in the home.
Submission is the divine calling of a wife to honor and affirm her husband's leadership and help carry it through according to her gifts.
The point is that these two, headship and submission, are different. And these difference are absolutely essential by God's design, so that marriage will display, as in the mirror dimly, something of the glory of the sacrificial love of Christ for His bride and the lavish reverence and admiration of the bride for her husband.
A Word to the Singles
One of the reasons he (Paul) was free to celebrate his singleness and call others to join him i it, is that, even though marriage is meant to display the glory of Christ, there are truths about Christ and His Kingdom that shine more clearly through singleness than through marriage. I'll give you three examples:
1.) A life of Christ-exalting singleness bears witness that the family of God grows not be propagation through sexual intercourse but by regeneration through faith in Christ.
2.) A life of Christ-exalting singleness bears witness that relationships in Christ are more permanent, and more precious, than relationships in families.
3.) A life of Christ-exalting bears witness that marriage is temporary, and finally gives way to the relationship to which it was pointing all along: Christ and the church. "
So ends the passage I wanted to share with you all today. I really encourage women to read this book for it is sure challenging me as a woman living in a sinful world.
In Him
