Excellent post. I love the idea of considering the home to be the context of our warfare. In that light, isn't it interesting that we live in a time when the soldiers who fight our battles are despised? Sure, there may be lipservice to "supporting our troops," but really aren't those guys just a bunch of barbarians? Put a woman on the battlefield, however, and she's lauded for breaking out of the traditional role and proving herself to be every bit as tough as a man. Similarly, a woman who works in the home, submits to her husband and spends the years of her strength and youth bearing and raising children is considered to be weak, naif, dominated. A man, however, who sends his wife out into the workforce and takes on the role of the "stay-at-home-dad" is deemed to be understanding, in-touch, progressive.

So someone challenged me the other day about my view that women should stay home for their work, assuming that men should leave the home to work. They pointed out that it would be even more ideal if both mother and father were to stay at home to work - like Adam and Eve after the curse. So if you really want to be counter-cultural, wouldn't living a more agrarian lifestyle like the Amish be closer to what God intended? So apparently even my idea of what living a patriarchal lifestyle is influenced by modern culture. We can't get away from it! That makes me want to give up trying to please God by how boldly I live differently than modern culture, because I know I can't - I'm a hypocrite! Instead, I will rely on His mercy for us poor miserable sinners, and ask for His grace to provide though I know I don't deserve it.

Michal, keep fighting the good fight, for our fight indeed is within our own minds more than anywhere else. And we must fully devote our intellects to loving God or we are disobeying what Jesus called the greatest commandment.

"Why are you relying on a man to support you while you are bearing and raising babies? Why are you submitting to his ‘father rule’?"

This New Year's Day my husband and I were delighted to find out we are pregnant with our third child. In the next day or so, I started thinking an old lie that I struggled with when we were pregnant with our first and second sons: How is my husband going to provide? Despite the fact that my husband HAS always done so, I still want to take matters in my own hands and be in control.

I have found the only way to be victorious against this particular battle is to call it what it really is: a lack of faith that my Heavenly Father will provide through my husband. Matthew 6:26 speaks directly to my heart here, "Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?"

And aren't my children more precious to Him than to me? Surely the the Father from whom all fatherhood gets its name knows what He is doing. And in that I can rest peacefully.

"Why aren’t you taking advantage of your blessed condition of having been born in an age in which you have the freedom to get an education, make something of yourself, make a difference in the world, and enjoy the opportunities that are available to you today but were unavailable to your grandmother in her day?"

I was just standing at my stove this evening, working on dinner, and thanking God that I'm not where I was a little over a year ago. Fall semester last year is one of the hardest times I've gone through in my life. I was in my first trimester of my first pregnancy (with all that that entails), in school at IU, and still trying to get a handle on what exactly I needed to be doing as wife to my husband (we had been married for 4 months). I've never felt so overwhelmed in my entire life, not even when I was faced with a science fair project in high school! ; )

Standing in my kitchen today, I felt God's peace upon me and an overwhelming gratitude for where He has brought me. By any feminist's measure, I should be exponentially more overwhelmed and tired and discontent now than I was when I was in school and didn't have any children. After all, now I'm in my first trimester preparing for my second child (my first is 8 months old), I'm home ALL the time, and I have not even the modern luxury of a dishwasher to keep at bay the mind-numbing tasks of the home! They would say I'm practically in shackles here.

But, with all sincerity, joyful laughter literally bubbles up inside me when I read those last two sentences. That's because I see something very different! I read: preparing for my second child - oh the wonder! Precious little one, I can't wait to feel your first flutter within me! Home ALL the time - oh joy! There truly is no place like it! And no dishwasher? Well, I won't go so far as to say that I never want one again... BUT as a wise woman once said, "When is one's mind so gloriously free to wander, to explore, to ponder God's goodness?" In shackles? No, quite the contrary: I've never been so free in my life, and Definitely Not when I was in school, GASP, not even in the diversity of IU's campus!

So what AM I free to do, they wonder? Free to wash: floors, dishes, laundry, bathrooms (yup, even the toilet), and best of all, baby bums and grubby little hands, dirtied by tireless crawling. Free to bask in the warmth: of our home, lit up with joyful laughter brought on by the antics of a crawling baby; of my husband who I love with all my heart and whom I desire to help as God intended; of babies, both the growing little one in my womb (little Roo), and the growing bigger one (my koala), head nestled against me as we prepare for a nap. Free to rest: in the peace of knowing that God is GOOD.

All this washed over me as I stood in my kitchen and it brought tears to my eyes. Is my attitude, my frame of mind always like this? Not remotely. But isn't that the joy of it? Seeing God's hand at work? Growth (and pruning) is painful, yes. My time at IU, my first trimester, giving birth, the work of the home, the work of marriage. But then, there's a lull, and sometimes, in that lull, God gives us a glimpse of the bigger picture. And that's what I saw today: a peep at what He is working, in our home and in my soul. Praise Him from whom all blessings flow!

And now, speaking of dishes, I need to get to it!

Thank you for sharing this, dear sister! Your words are such an encouragement! My eyes also are filled with tears. =)

I love Hannah's post, it is soooo true. Right now I am sitting at a computer in the H. B. Wells library, biding time until I return to the business school for a class in accounting. I am bored and wishing I were home doing the dishes. Take that ye feministas. I thank God for the internet that can take some relief off the tremendous boredom that comes with going OUT of the home and finding oneself a career. Bliss for us is INSIDE, hidden, homey, gentle and nurturing, protected. Outside there are ravening wolves ready to swallow us alive with their own lusts.

Dear Fran la Villa,
I struggle with the same things also every day.
But I suppose since we live in a broken world, that is to be expected. Yet Christ has overcome the world!

For me it is an issue of not trusting that God can provide a home and family for me even if I follow a career path now, since I do not have any suitors, shall we say. I love Hannah's post too, and my dreams lie also in becoming a wife and mother and homemaker one day despite what the culture says. But even those desires are of this world, aren't they? In heaven we will neither be married nor be given in marriage. So who am I to know if God has planned these desires that I have for my life. I can only pray and live one day at a time, continually dieing to myself and living to Christ, asking for His grace to teach me to be content with what He has graciously provided, especially for my salvation, lest I continue to set up idols of future marriage in my heart.

"No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it."
1 Corinthians 10:13

Dear Fran,

Thank you for your thoughtful response. Being a single woman in this day and age and a follower of Jesus Christ is not an easy thing. Ideally, you could remain under the protection of a godly father or find a job in church with officers who would take on a father role in your life. Women need protection, and God's design is that we receive this first from our fathers, then from our husbands, as well as from the officers of the church throughout our lives. I will pray for you as you make your way through an often hostile world, pray that God Himself would offer you the protection you need as you live out your calling. I find humming hymns helps me when I am in a godless environment. It almost creates a bubble of safety around me, protecting me and comforting me. There are still some of us who, when living among lawlessness, feel the pangs of Lot, who, according to Peter, had a righteous soul tortured by surrounding rampant sin.

Stephanie, Thank you for these words of wisdom. It is very, very important for single women in the kingdom of God not to think of themselves as "pre-married," but to continually consider themselves as single handmaidens unto the Lord, ready to do His bidding.

mmmm....yes, thank you for that, Anne J.

Indeed, God is not a man -- he is God. Where from this post did you gather that Anne (or the rest of the commenters) think otherwise?

Your comment is silliness, and truly, I'm not sure whether or not to reply. But I'll have a go and see if your response has some meat.

(It's interesting to note that in your comment saying God is not a man, you still use the pronoun "he". Perhaps you can glean from that some truths about male and female.)

God came to dwell in flesh among us as a man, though, did He not? And God is Father. The Holy Spirit is always referred to as He. If you are not willing to admit this "Silliness" (as the things of God will always appear to unbelievers), you are not speaking of the true and living God, who created heaven and earth, and who will judge you for every wicked deed you have ever done or impure thought you have ever entertained, and who is merciful beyond our ability to grasp and is ready to extend salvation to you at this very moment if you humble yourself before Him in faith.

Hello Anonymous! That is an excellent question. What if a woman wants to work outside the home?

First, above all else, she must ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to her the wellspring of her heart out of which this desire comes, and ask God for a will that is relinquished to His purposes. Then she must determine, usually with godly counsel, what the benefits of such work are as well as what the costs are. When doing what we want, we often focus on the benefits and ignore the costs, or pretend they simply aren't there, so that we feel justified in pursuing our desires.

So, even though personally I work part time outside of the home, I often speak of what my husband and children sacrifice in order for me to pursue part time work. A wife must ask her husband how he feels about her work, what he sees as the costs for the family as a whole, and if the benefits outweigh the costs. My husband believes that the energy I devote to ministry/work is well spent, and that our family can live with some unfolded laundry and undusted shelves to give me time to tend to this work. But what if he decided that I needed to stop my outside-of-the-home pursuits, and fold that laundry and dust those shelves? Will I stand on a soapbox of how I deserve to reach my potential outside of the home, how I should pursue "me time" and self-actualization, and how housework is deadening and demeaning, and beneath me and all my talents? God forbid it. Rather, I must daily ask the Holy Spirit to give me humility and a willingness to serve Him in whatever ways He directs me to, and that direction always comes through His reveled Word, and through submission to my husband and to the Titus 2 women who teach me to love my husband and children, to be sensible, pure, a worker at home, kind, and subject to my own husband, all so that the word of God will not be dishonored. I ask God for the grace to be able to hold onto the extra work I do very tenuously, ready to relinquish it if it becomes either an idol in my heart or a detriment to my family.

Ultimately, we KNOW it is God's will for us to keep home and submit to our husbands and raise our children in the love and admonition of the Lord. We must be very, very careful when we add to that weighty list any activities that He has not clearly determined for us to do.

Hope this helps some. These aren't easy questions.

Hello Amaranth,

I am thankful to God for this post, because I have been praying for a May blog topic, and now "Pleasure of Patriarchy, part five" will be a full response to this post. In the meantime, I can say that I was in no way "extolling the virtues of homemaking" in the bit of my writing you quoted (though doing so IS a favorite past time). Rather I was extolling the virtues of authority, submission, and patriarchy--these in direct opposition to self-seeking, follow-your-heart-to-happiness, self-directed living.

Thank you Nicole. May God bless the rest of your duties today as He has this service you've given to us.

Nicole, I have a feeling we're going to end up agreeing to disagree on the matter of a woman's place within the body of Christ. But just some particular observations:

(2 Tim 3:16) "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that all God's people may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." I feel that scripture should be interpreted holistically, and with regard for context and for the culture in which it was written.

"When we lean on our own understanding and care only for doing what is right in our own eyes, we are deceived." True. But when we read scripture and try to apply it to our lives without an understanding of the culture in which it was written, and the audience to which it was written, we are also deceived.

"And it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression (1 Tim 2:14)." Except that when one goes back to the actual passage in Genesis, it was not just the woman who was deceived.

(Genesis 3:6-7): "When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened."

According to that passage, Adam was there. Which means that either he was also deceived, or he was remiss in his duty to protect Eve from deception. Either way, he is not exempt from blame at causing the Fall, and one cannot make the deduction that women are more susceptible to deception than men. That entire passage in Timothy makes me suspicious when viewed next to the rest of the New Testament...especially the passage about women "being saved through childbearing", when the rest of Paul's writings make it abundantly clear that all people are saved through faith in Christ alone.

In Biblical times, a woman's place was in the home, and both the Old and New Testament authors encouraged women to do their duties well, to be good wives and mothers, etc. However, consider that women in those time had no other options. Paul could not encourage women to work outside the home or pursue careers...no more than he could encourage slaves to escape.

(Ephesians 6:5-6): "Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. 6 Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but like slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart."

But I don't believe we are meant to interpret the above passage as God approving of slavery...the rest of scripture contradicts such an interpretation. Conversely, I do not think that God requires all women to be wives, mothers, and homemakers. Jesus warned against following the letter of the law and ignoring its spirit. Many of Jesus' followers were women, and later, many of Paul's most trusted contacts and leaders in the church were also women. Jesus rebuked Martha when she put hospitality and a clean home before listening to his teachings.

When you say that my husband should discipline me, and that he has "headship" over me, what exactly does that mean? How does that apply to everyday life? If dinner was a little late one night because I was working on a difficult piece of writing, should he put me in the corner, like I'm a child and he's my father? Take away privileges? Make me scrub the kitchen floor? I balance my artistic passion and my family as best I can, though heaven knows I'm not perfect at it. I'm asking these questions because I'm honestly confused, and I'm sorry if I'm offending anyone. How is it that my husband knows God's will for me better than I do, simply by virtue of being born a male? Jesus didn't give separate sets of commandments to men and women...he spoke to everyone the same.

Hello Amaranth,

You ask what I think about women in ministry, etc., and my answer must be, "It doesn't matter one hoot." I am, after all, nothing but a piece of grass blowing in a field, here today and tomorrow thrown into the fire (or compost, as in the case of my back yard). My opinion is one little bit of nothing in an internet full to overflowing with millions of little bits of nothing. I wouldn't even be here if my elders and husband hadn't requested it of me. I honestly believe I do more good hanging up the wash on the line with my daughter than I do writing. But, Amaranth, there IS everlasting truth in the Word of God, and truth that *is not limited by cultural constraints.* Our merciful Father in heaven chose when He would send His son and chose every single word to include in Scripture. To take our "evolved" cultural understanding and subordinate His eternal truth to this modern sensibility is blasphemy. To see His Word as immutable and profitable, regardless of the culture which receives it, is to be freed from the shackles of a benighted and ugly age. There is life in His Words and nothing but death and drabness in any ideology that thinks of itself as superior to those Words.

"Are you indeed the woman Amaranth, truly seeking God’s will for you in the body of Christ? Or are you Amaranth, “the proud Pagan . . . with a witch’s blog elsewhere in cyberspace”?"

I am both. Does my being Pagan disqualify me from being a woman who is seeking? My path has been a long and winding one, which is why I don't usually broach the subject in discussions like this. But as I've been called out on it, I'll try to give you a brief idea of who I am and why I'm here.

In high school I became disillusioned with Christianity, and during college, in a long hunt for truth, I explored Wicca, traditional witchcraft, Taoism, Eastern mysticism, and various practices of all of these. But here was the crazy thing...no matter how far I ran, I couldn't get away from God. He pursued me across every religion I tried (and none of them ever fit)...and finally I realized that what I was really looking for was him. Him, beyond every misconception I'd ever had about him...he made it clear to me that nothing on earth, heaven or hell was going to scare him away. It took me a long time to accept that he wasn't going to abandon me, and it's one of the few things I've been sure of on this journey. If I have a spiritual cornerstone, that's it.

I believe in God and I follow his son, though my beliefs are different enough that I cannot in good conscience call myself a Christian. I'm Pagan because it's an umbrella term and it covers where I've been, and I'll not disinherit the steps that have brought me to where I am. I'm not ashamed to be Pagan, and I strive to be something of an advocate for Paganism in a world that often misunderstands them. (Conversely, in conversations with other Pagans, I'm usually the Christian advocate). I'm actually a terrible witch, in the modern sense of the word, as I've never really found spells necessary and thus I've never really "practiced", as it were. I'd be willing to share the url of my witch's blog, but it exists on a Pagan forum that you'd have to sign up for in order to access...not sure if anyone here would want to do that. Ironically, perhaps, a lot of it deals with my walk on the edges of Christianity, trying to understand the doctrine, trying to understand why people believe as they do. I care about the body of Christ, and I really am trying to figure out my place in it...or whether my place really is to stand just outside with my face towards my Pagan brethren, as I've been doing, trying to present an accurate picture of my God to people who might not be willing to listen to a Christian.

I'm here and asking questions because the role of women in the church is part of what drove me away from Christianity in the first place. Maybe some women are born wanting a husband, wanting children, wanting to create a family and a home for them. I was just never one of them. It frustrated me, because when I thought about my future, I thought about traveling, making art and writing stories that would touch people...and apparently, being born female meant that it was not my place to ache for these things. I could not see the justice in God creating me with an adventurous spirit and then demanding that I channel my passion into something that just...wasn't me. So here I am, many years later, with a husband and child I love dearly, in a place that's somewhere between Christian and Pagan, trying to figure out where God is taking me.

I'm not here to mock or belittle anyone's beliefs, nor to dissent for the sake of making trouble. If you'd prefer I not comment anymore, let me know and I won't. I'm just looking for honest dialogue on an issue that's always given me trouble.

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