Call Me Blessed: The Emerging Christian Woman

Offers a fresh interpretation of the Scriptures concerning the role of women in the Church and looks at women in the Old and New Testaments

Somehow it isn't nice for Christian women to ask for their rights. We've been told that a lot. But more and more women are finding themselves uncomfortable with their role. Is this what God intended for my life--or is this for man's convenience? What are my rights as a son of God? Are these rights spiritual--undefined and intangible--waiting for heaven, where the true worth of women will have practical application? So far, women have been assigned a position in the church that corresponds to their position in society and ignores their rights as sons of God.

In Galatians we read, "You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus." (3:26) Paul wrote these words to a church wracked by controversy. The problem began when Jewish Christians refused to associate with Gentile Christians. Paul said there must be no distinction between them. But Paul did not leave the issue there. He deliberately broadened the application of equality beyond the immediate question of circumcision. After saying that all believers were sons of God, in the very next sentence Paul wrote, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." (3:28) Paul removed all the barriers that society was accustomed to raising--race, legal condition (slave or free), and sex.

Not one of the issues Paul raised with the first Christians was resolved immediately. At first the church limited the application of equality to Jews and Greeks. It was not until the 1800s that the church recognized slavery as a sin and rebuked brethren who were slave owners. Racial prejudice retained its grip longer and only recently lost respectability among Christians. It is the question of sex that is now reaching the conscience of Christians, and a controversy has begun regarding the role of women. Christian women are claiming their rights as sons of God.

The church is constantly reforming. Jonathan Edwards wrote, "We cannot believe that the church of God is already possess of all that light which God intends to give it; nor that all of Satan's lurking places have been found out." Women are asking the church to test its traditions to see if Satan has had a hand in their formation. We must answer this question: What rights do women have as sons of God in the house of God?