And God Built Woman

By Rebekah McGhee

God designed women for a specific purpose, and He intended that purpose to help us thrive.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jul 27, 2014
• ISBN: 9781483534527

Book preview

9781483534527

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Carbon monoxide is a colorless, odorless, tasteless gas which is quite toxic to human beings when inhaled in high concentrations. The danger of carbon monoxide is precisely that it is colorless, odorless, and tasteless, and if a person is exposed to a high enough concentration, it is likely to induce sleep. I have firsthand knowledge of that fact since, as a child, I suffered from carbon monoxide poisoning due to a poorly installed water heater. Only by the grace of God did I wake up after falling asleep on the bathroom floor, and eventually, my mother and I were able to get outside and breathe fresh air.

Much like carbon monoxide, an insidious way of thinking has crept into numerous churches today, and instead of running for fresh air, many people have been lulled to sleep. Part of the reason for the debilitating slumber which plagues so many is that we have been deceived into believing that we may each interpret the Bible for ourselves, and that your interpretation is just as valid as my interpretation even if the two interpretations are radically different. The enemy knows us well and if he can’t get us to believe that every religion is valid, then he’ll try and get us to believe that each of us can decide for ourselves what is being communicated through the Bible.

Anyone who knows me knows that I’ve said this before, but I think it bears repeating (and repeating and repeating and repeating)—there is only One who has the right to interpret the Bible and tell us what it is saying, and that One is the Author. Paul wrote about the fact that there is one Spirit, and it is through the Spirit of God that we have been given the wisdom of God and the mind of Jesus.

We do, however, speak wisdom among the mature. But this isn’t a wisdom of this present world, or of the rulers of this present world—those same rulers who are being done away with. No: we speak God’s hidden wisdom in a mystery. This is the wisdom God prepared ahead of time, before the world began, for our glory.

None of the rulers of this present age knew about this wisdom. If they had, you see, they wouldn’t have crucified the Lord of glory. But, as the Bible says,

Human eyes have never seen,

Human ears have never heard,

It’s never entered human hearts:

All that God has now prepared

For those who truly love Him.

—and that’s what God has revealed to us through the spirit! The spirit, you see, searches everything, yes, even the depths of God. Think of it this way: who knows what is really going on inside a person, except the spirit of the person which is inside them? Well, it’s like that with God. Nobody knows what is going on inside God except God’s spirit. And we haven’t received the spirit of the world, but the spirit that comes from God, so that we can know the things that have been given to us by God.

That, then, is what we speak. We don’t use words we’ve been taught by human wisdom, but words we’ve been taught by the spirit, interpreting spiritual things to spiritual people.

Someone living at the merely human level doesn’t accept the things of God’s spirit. They are foolishness to such people, you see, and they can’t understand them because they need to be discerned spiritually. But spiritual people discern everything, while nobody else can discern the truth about them! For Who has known the mind of the Lord, so as to instruct him? But we have the mind of the Messiah.

1 Corinthians 2:6-16

No one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God, and it is His Spirit who dwells within those who belong to God. Paul also wrote that there is but one Spirit, and through the Spirit we have access to God.

For we all were baptized into one body, by one spirit—whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free—and we were all given one spirit to drink.

1 Corinthians 12:13

Through Him, you see, we both have access to the father in the one spirit. There is one body and one spirit; you were, after all, called to one hope which goes with your call.

Ephesians 2:18; 4:4

So if there is only one Spirit, there will not be endless and varied interpretations of the Bible. There will be one truth and one truth only. Granted, that truth may be expressed in almost limitless ways, but the underlying truth will be the same. For example, some people grasp the orderliness of God through the precision of mathematics and numbers. Others grasp His orderliness through the way certain animals behave, such as certain species of birds which always return to the same geographical location to nest. Still others grasp God’s orderliness through the symmetry of a Bach composition. All those things speak to different people in different ways, but the truth is always the same—God is a God of order and not chaos.

In the same way, when we read a passage of the Bible, there will always be something about God and His truth that is being communicated. We are not free to tell Him what He’s saying, we need to be listening so that the Spirit may share the mind of God with us.

Very few truths of the Bible have been more misunderstood and misinterpreted than what is written about women. Some say the Bible was written by misogynistic pigs. Others claim that it is the first truly feminist document. Extremists from both camps have used various passages of scripture in an attempt to support their arguments. However, I believe that a breath of fresh air is long overdue, particularly when it comes to hearing what God is communicating about what it means to be a woman.

Genesis chapters 1 and 2 give us the account of God creating Adam and Eve. The first mention of there being two separate and distinct beings is Genesis 1:27.

And God created man in His image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

Genesis 1:27

The Hebrew word for female (n’kehvah) comes from a root word (nakav) which is often translated as to bore, to perforate, to pierce. If you recall, God took one of Adam’s ribs, in effect boring into him, or perforating him, and created Eve.¹ It’s also interesting that the word carries the connotation of piercing because Mary was told by Simeon that a sword would pierce her soul²...but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Did you know that Adam gave his wife two names? Before the Fall, when she was first presented to him, he gave her the name Woman.

Then the man said,

"This one at last

Is bone of my bones

And flesh of my flesh.

This one shall be called Woman,

For from man was she taken."

Genesis 2:23

It wasn’t until after the Fall that Adam called his wife Eve, or in Hebrew, Chavah.

Translations of the Bible into English sometimes get a little bit confusing because they treat certain Hebrew words as interchangeable. That might be true in some cases, but I think it’s often better to translate word for word. Two Hebrew words are commonly translated into English as man—ish and adam. The only verses in the first two chapters of Genesis where the word ish appears are Genesis 2:23-24. Things gets really interesting when you look at how the word adam is used in the first five chapters of Genesis. In most cases, the word is actually haadam, or the man. Adam alone is used in Genesis 1:26; Genesis 3:17, 21; Genesis 5:1-5. Genesis 1:26 and Genesis 5:2 are fascinating and unique because the word is definitely adam, but the implication in Genesis 5:2 is clearly that both male and female are being referenced.

This is the record of Adam’s line.—When God created man, He made him in the likeness of God...

Genesis 5:1

If all human beings are being referenced in Genesis 5:1, then it stands to reason that God is also referencing all human beings in Genesis 1:26 and not just the male portion. Genesis 3:17, 21, and Genesis 5:1, 3-5 are all referring to one single individual, not the entire human population, so adam became a proper name as well as being a descriptive name for all humans, not just males.

The reason I bring all this up is because it plays a very important role in understanding what is, quite possibly, the most controversial seven verses in the entire Bible. Many people cite these verses as the reason why they could never accept Christianity. If we take a look at what is being said, however, I think we’ll see that the traditional (and even the not-so-traditional) interpretations might be missing something by not fully grasping the truth of Genesis.

In the same way the women, too, should clothe themselves decently, being modest and sensible about it. They should not go in for elaborate hairstyles, or gold, or pearls, or expensive clothes. Instead, as is appropriate for women who profess to be godly, they should adorn themselves with good works. They must study undisturbed, in full submission to God. I’m not saying that women should teach men, or try to dictate to them; rather, that they should be left undisturbed. Adam was created first, you see, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived, and fell into trespass. She will, however, be kept safe through the process of childbirth, if she continues in faith, love, and holiness with prudence.

1 Timothy 2:9-15

I’m sure that every one of you has those verses on your refrigerator, right? Yeah, me, too. Admittedly, however, I’m beginning to wonder if we should have them on our refrigerators, on our bathroom mirrors, in our closets, and most especially, emblazoned on our hearts and minds. These verses are not an invective against women, and they aren’t a justification for telling women over the millennia that they have nothing to offer society but their wombs. On the contrary, by writing his instruction this way, Paul isn’t telling women to sit down and shut up, he’s telling