By Rick Ashlock

“At the age of eleven, or thereabouts, women acquire a poise and an ability to handle difficult situations which a man, if he is lucky, manages to achieve somewhere in the later seventies.”

P. G. Wodehouse (1881-1975).

If men and women understood each other, the world would be a very different place, indeed. Stand-up comedians would have virtually no material. Sitcoms would cease to exist. The floral and chocolate industries would be wiped out. We would never hear from Oprah or Dr. Phil again. I know, it sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it? Don’t get your hopes up because thousands of years after they were first introduced to each other, they are no closer to mutual understanding than they were “in the beginning.”

In fact, it seems that men and women are actually further apart than they have ever been. Nora Ephron, the lady who gave us Sleepless in Seattle and When Harry Met Sally has observed that “the major concrete achievement of the women's movement of the 1970's was the Dutch treat.” Somehow, I doubt that paying for half of the dates was a primary goal of women like Gloria Steinem. In fact, the attempted liberation of women has resulted in many women finding themselves in relationships that have far fewer rights than they would have had in more traditional marriages.

That’s not to say that there were no valid points in the women’s movement. Many people used to accept the fairness of men being paid more for doing the same job as women because they assumed that men had a family to support and that women were just earning extra income. I was with a fine Christian lady I respect immensely the other day and she mentioned to me that she had learned she was being paid less than a male counterpart for doing the same, if not more, work. The patent injustice she had suffered offended even the neanderthal she was with.

Few things offend me more, however, than people either saying that the Bible is sexist or using the Bible to support sexism. It is easy enough to turn to the Old Testament and see, particularly in the law, separate and unequal statuses conferred to men and women. What is less obvious to both today’s readers and, evidently, the original readers is that with every additional right or privilege given to a man, a responsibility came with it. With the Old Law, God gave women the best possible status in the culture of the day. God loves and values women as much as he does men. In His eyes, men and women are truly equal.

This does not mean that God thinks men and women are identical. God understands the differences between men and women far better than any human could. He shows His love for women in treating them like ladies rather than gentlemen. No where is this more on display than in the relationships Jesus had with women. It is true that women served Jesus by cooking for Him and His disciples. They probably also washed and mended His clothes, cleaned up after His entourage, and prepared His bed when He stayed in their homes. In return, He healed, honored, defended, blessed, and redeemed them. He loved them not for their bodies or even for their minds, but for their souls. And ladies, don’t worry, He paid the full price.

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