Reforming the Feminine ContentPart 2: The Ideal Mars Hill Woman…
…Finds Her Identity and Security in Christ.
In part 1 of this series, we discussed the need for women to confess their sin and be honest about their struggles. Instead, the norm in most churches is that the majority of us wear plastic smiles each Sunday, hoping that no one will notice what’s really going on in our hearts. But what do we do with this sin we confess? How does repentance take place? And how can we possibly forgive those who have committed heinous acts against us? In a word, the gospel.
Many of us have looked on the gospel, understanding that Christ paid the penalty for our sin by His death on the cross so that we might be forgiven and have a right relationship with God. But a lot of us stopped looking on it, meditating on it, and valuing it after we first came to know Christ. We mistakenly think that the gospel is needed only early on in our relationship with God. The thinking goes that at some point, I understood the gospel and now I need to move on to focus on other Christian doctrine and moral commands. Once again, the Apostle Paul clears up this wrong kind of thinking with his frank words to the church at Galatia.
Galatians 3:3 (ESV) - Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?
(or “by human effort” in the NIV)
Paul warns us from thinking that while we needed the Spirit at the day of our salvation, we can accomplish the rest of our Christian life with our own human effort. I don’t want to review the whole of the gospel here. In fact, I envision a target audience reading this who well understand the gospel and their need for a Savior. Rather, I hope to emphasize that we don’t ever graduate past a need to meditate on the gospel.
In my experience, Christian women tend to fall into one of two patterns of wrong thinking. The first group of women have developed their idea of the Ideal Christian Woman, using their own talents and giftedness as the model. Then they secretly admire themselves because they keep this standard and subtly pressure their Christian sisters to maintain their standard of the Ideal Christian Woman. The second group of women have developed their idea of the Ideal Christian Woman not from their own strengths but from the Christian sisters they know that seem to have it all together. This second group of women keeps trying and failing to fully live up to this standard and feel constant frustration and condemnation within themselves because of it.
Because so many of the women at Mars Hill are in their child-bearing years, the issues of fertility, child birth, and child rearing are the places Satan seems to attack us most concerning the gospel. We have wonderful single women who must stand by and watch their biological clock ticking. They hear the satanic lie whispered daily in their ear-”you’re not anything until you have a child. Your life is meaningless until you give birth.” There are infertile couples and couples who have miscarried. Satan lies to them, “You don’t deserve a baby. You miscarried because you weren’t disciplined enough to carry a healthy baby to full term.” Women with children hear, “a really godly mom would have succeeded at breast feeding.” Or “you had to have that emergency c-section because you didn’t take care of yourself well during pregnancy.” Christian moms (and would be moms) can be the worst at comparing themselves in an attempt to find their worth and identity in their children. As a mom who had a c-section and a less than stellar record breast-feeding, I admit to feeling threatened at times by moms who succeed at drug-free births with breasts over-flowing with milk. One friend who had her children at home shared that she no longer feels free to talk about those experiences with other moms because so many ladies seemed threatened by her story. Why can’t Christian women share their stories or hear the story of others without feeling constant tension to compare themselves or find their value in how well they succeeded?
What is it about the gospel that protects us from the shame and condemnation of such comparisons? Like Paul, we acknowledge honestly the extent of our sin. As Paul says, “I am the chief of sinners.” Then we look at the cross and realize, “there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). Anyone who thinks they can earn God’s favor by breast feeding well (or whatever issue) or that they lose God’s favor if they don’t, needs to review the gospel. They need to drink deeply of God’s grace to us and must constantly interpret the rest of life in light of that grace. In light of the cross, we find our identity NOT in our talents or giftedness and not in how we compare to Jane Doe Christian. Instead, we find our identity in Jesus-after all, before the creation of the world, God determined that you and I would reflect God’s image in Christ (Romans 8:29). But note Christ’s warning in John 15:5 -
I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.
What is our identity in Jesus? Well, He is the Head and we are His Body. He is the Vine and we are His branches. We are supernaturally connected to Him and desperately dependent on Him for any hope of fruitful ministry at church, home, or the workplace. The Ideal Mars Hill Woman realizes that having begun her walk of faith through the Spirit, she is still utterly dependent upon God for any hope of future obedience. She gets her nourishment for daily living from the Vine in light of the gospel and not from any false sense of personal ability–for apart from Him, she can do nothing.
I just wanted to comment on the whole concept of the “Ideal Marshill Woman”. I think that you are going the right way as far as a woman who looks at her sins, ect but the Ideal woman concept its self sort of puts us on the wrong track as far as what is the thing we as women should shoot for.
Its great you are addressing the whole, issue. But the ideal “woman” is Christ. (But as a female of coarse. Heh.)
Too often we “compare our insides to others outsides”, to borrow a phrase Dr. Jill Hubbard, who regularly speaks on New Life Radio, a Christian counseling show, once said. And that of coarse will never do. Because God gave each of us strengths and gifts and weaknesses. So that we can work together as a part of the Body or whole. Helping each other out.
There are somethings that come easy to me, that are hard for others,and vica versa. When we try to shoot for some Ideal we will always fall short. Because that is usually some unmoving cardboard cut out that will never be unflappable or crave chocolate, that time of the month, or have a bad hair day.
(On a side note, when Pastor Driscoll said we were living under the curse, I thought of my hair and said I know.)
God did indeed make us women to need an example to follow. And that should have been our mothers. In times past, the mothers would instruct thier daughters, not only everything they would need to know to run thier own houses and care for thier families, but be loving wives for thier husbands. And most of all what it meant to be a woman and give them the care and affection that only women can give each other.
Tis sad that so many women havent had that loving caring mother to be there for her, to show her the way, and to just love her. God made each of us with a Mother shaped hole, a father shaped hole and a Jesus shaped hole in our hearts.
Oprah has sort of been a surrogate mother, to alot of women, but she falls far short of what Jesus would have for us. I respect the fact that she does try to uplift women, but its always towards work or independance or self reliance.
What I’m hoping before long, is that we get some Godly Titus 2 women that will be there to mentor the younger women, so we dont have these ghostly wisps of what a woman ought to look like or shadows of feminity floating around. But solid, real people that are Jesus with skin on.
Marshill has been like a balm to me. Helping to restore the feminity and embrace the fact I am a woman. Im so happy and gratified that we are trying to restore the womanly roles sited in the Bible with out the mindlessness and passivity that is often associated with the typical “June Cleaver” TV mom.
(I must confess, that although I was as close to a feminist with out being one, and would have gladly given a well placed kick with my steel toed work boots, to any one that brought up the phrase, “A womans place is in the kitchen”, I have a sort of fondness for June. She was always there for her family. Even if her character does have some frayed cardboard edges. ^_^)
I have been reading some of the posts here on the board. I love how thoughtful, and Christ-centered they are. Not to mention fun and light-hearted. I appreciate what you all have shared.
Thanks for your comments, Sarah. The Ideal Mars Hill Woman title is meant to be tongue in cheek. Watch for future articles that will clarify our need to find our identity in Christ.
I appreciate the tongue in cheek reference to the ideal MH woman, and how your articles are bringing us into focus with who we *really* should be measuring ourselves to: Christ.
I have appreciated Mars Hill’s emphasis on applying theology practically to our lives, but sometimes we can take a good thing and turn it into an idol if we worship the practical application of something more than Christ.
We women can be so hard on each other - sometimes intentionally to make ourselves feel better about our choices, and sometimes unintentionally when we do not think of others before ourselves.
Breaking all this down into our inevitable sin and need for the gospel is a good reminder that we are all equal in our sin, depravity, and need for redemption. I pray we will learn to build one another up and encourage the women around us, rather than boast in our own choices and accomplishments.