The western world hates PATRIARCHY and the church ignores it. By this are we sinning?

[Gregorikos]

I wouldn't use the word "patriarchy" to describe it. Instead, the Bible describes it as "male servant-leadership." The abuse of male leadership is male dominance in hierarchy from the top down, whereas full equality of male and female roles isn't biblical either. Instead, both male and female were created fully equal in status before God as completely in his image and likeness. But we are called to the different roles of servant-leader and equal submitter.

This is a popular opinion, but the reality is nobody every heard of "servant leadership" until about 50 years ago. It was first used in a 1970 business essay by Robert K Greenleaf. I don't know if Greenleaf was a believer, but there is no indication he got his material from the Bible.

But his thesis has proven to be a handy resort for preachers wishing to preserve male dominance.... er... servant leadership.... in the church.

 

[Gregorikos]

That's because you don't understand Biblical patriarchy. Nor do I, completely. But I want to better understand it. It's not about power, it's about the God-given responsibilities that men have shunned in favor of sin. Yet, if my intended focus is to better understand the details of Biblical patriarchy... it is a tangent to discuss abortion numbers, the greatest command, misunderstandings about jokes, etc. I'm sure everyone here that has posted are nice people but are not the ones I should be talking to. It's like me trying to get workout tips from a nursing home, or something like that.

In all the discussion so far, no one has mentioned the Bible passage where patriarchy began. If one wishes to understand patriarchy, that ought to be an important resource, no?

Here it is:

To the woman He said,
“I will greatly multiply
Your pain in childbirth,
In pain you shall deliver children;
Yet your desire will be for your husband,
And he shall rule over you.” Genesis 3:16 (NASB 2020)

There was no patriarchy prior to that verse. The man and woman were given the same mandate to have dominion in Genesis 1:28. Then came the fall, and then came patriarchy. Polygamy began 26 verses later, when Lamech took two wives, because he could.

Patriarchy is indeed in the Bible, but so is slavery. They are both relics of the fall of mankind.

 

[Barbara Hollon Jordan]

WW1 was called "The Great War".

Without the Patriarchy there would be no walls for women hang pictures on?

Not!

 

[Barbara Hollon Jordan]

In all the discussion so far, no one has mentioned the Bible passage where patriarchy began. If one wishes to understand patriarchy, that ought to be an important resource, no?

Here it is:

To the woman He said,
“I will greatly multiply
Your pain in childbirth,
In pain you shall deliver children;
Yet your desire will be for your husband,
And he shall rule over you.” Genesis 3:16 (NASB 2020)

There was no patriarchy prior to that verse. The man and woman were given the same mandate to have dominion in Genesis 1:28. Then came the fall, and then came patriarchy. Polygamy began 26 verses later, when Lamech took two wives, because he could.

Patriarchy is indeed in the Bible, but so is slavery. They are both relics of the fall of mankind.

You make some strong points and I have heard them rrommchildhood as my father was a pastor. I saw so many women come to churchmwithout their husbans that there would have hardly beenn church wirhout these faithful moms without their children. So as you wpsee menmlose their spiriitual leadership, you will see all else fall to the wayside. I have only been married half of my adult life and the past 18 years I have been married. Finding a man I would give leadership over my life during those single years was extremely sparce as a Christian.

 

[Ignatius the Kiwi]

In all the discussion so far, no one has mentioned the Bible passage where patriarchy began. If one wishes to understand patriarchy, that ought to be an important resource, no?

Here it is:

To the woman He said,
“I will greatly multiply
Your pain in childbirth,
In pain you shall deliver children;
Yet your desire will be for your husband,
And he shall rule over you.” Genesis 3:16 (NASB 2020)

There was no patriarchy prior to that verse. The man and woman were given the same mandate to have dominion in Genesis 1:28. Then came the fall, and then came patriarchy. Polygamy began 26 verses later, when Lamech took two wives, because he could.

Patriarchy is indeed in the Bible, but so is slavery. They are both relics of the fall of mankind.

Does this not therefore imply that Patriarchy is a valid system? Since the fall has not been reversed and has been the standard practice and pattern of God's people since Abraham?

 

[Gregorikos]

Does this not therefore imply that Patriarchy is a valid system? Since the fall has not been reversed and has been the standard practice and pattern of God's people since Abraham?

Not at all. There was nothing that came upon mankind that day that we embrace as good. We use air conditioning and insecticides, farm implements, anesthesia during childbirth, medicine to treat sickness, and we do all we can to avoid death. Everything that happened that day is bad. It makes no sense to embrace one of them as good while avoiding the rest.

 

[Ignatius the Kiwi]

Not at all. There was nothing that came upon mankind that day that we embrace as good. We use air conditioning and insecticides, farm implements, anesthesia during childbirth, medicine to treat sickness, and we do all we can to avoid death. Everything that happened that day is bad. It makes no sense to embrace one of them as good while avoiding the rest.

I guess we could call the fall not good, at least insofar as the consequences which followed it. Yet when I think about it more and more I realize that if we don't abide by those curses our lives are worse off. If a man doesn't work he becomes lazy and even according to Saint Paul's admonition he should not even eat. Such a man is a wretch and work makes him happier than doing nothing, despite the difficulty and even mediocrity of it all. Women were told by God that their desires are for their husbands and yet despite the pain in childbirth they want to have children.

If Patriarchy is a result of the fall and it is now suddenly in the long history of God's people a bygone thing, when did this change? Not with Christ, he tolerated Patriarchy up until fairly recently it seems. Was this a hidden message of the Gospel we didn't appreciate until the enlightenment?

 

[Philip_B]

The reality is that we do find Patriarchy expressed in both the New and Old Testament. What we are called to ask is if this is prescriptive of how God intends things to be, or is it simply descriptive of the cultural milieu in which the scriptures came to birth and were created.

For most of its life the Church has been an agent of change in society, including, education, public health, and the abolition of slavery. The change in the speed of social change of the last 50 or so years has meant that often we now find the Church not as the leader in social change, but rather as the anchor.

 

[Gregorikos]

If a man doesn't work he becomes lazy and even according to Saint Paul's admonition he should not even eat. Such a man is a wretch and work makes him happier than doing nothing, despite the difficulty and even mediocrity of it all. Women were told by God that their desires are for their husbands and yet despite the pain in childbirth they want to have children.

If Patriarchy is a result of the fall and it is now suddenly in the long history of God's people a bygone thing, when did this change? Not with Christ, he tolerated Patriarchy up until fairly recently it seems. Was this a hidden message of the Gospel we didn't appreciate until the enlightenment?

The problem with that is that work wasn't part of the fall. (Genesis 2:15) No part.of the fall was a good thing.

 

[Gregorikos]

If Patriarchy is a result of the fall and it is now suddenly in the long history of God's people a bygone thing, when did this change? Not with Christ, he tolerated Patriarchy up until fairly recently it seems. Was this a hidden message of the Gospel we didn't appreciate until the enlightenment?

Christ also tolerated human slavery up until fairly recently. That doesn't make it holy.

 

[Ignatius the Kiwi]

Christ also tolerated human slavery up until fairly recently. That doesn't make it holy.

So you're saying God cursed women to live in a condition comparable to chattel slavery?

 

[Ignatius the Kiwi]

The problem with that is that work wasn't part of the fall. (Genesis 2:15) No part.of the fall was a good thing.

The fall itself is bad, yet the consequences of the fall; Having to work. Appear to be a good thing in mitigating our fallen condition.

 

[DamianWarS]

Number of Abortions in US & Worldwide - Number of abortions since 1973

so if no one had abortions since 1973 the world would have 20% more people?

 

[Gregorikos]

The fall itself is bad, yet the consequences of the fall; Having to work. Appear to be a good thing in mitigating our fallen condition.

Again, according to the text, having to work isn't part of the fall. Having the work be hard and miserable- that's part of the fall.

But I'm betting you don't go the Amish route. You do all you can to make work as easy as possible. Indo too. So neither of us embrace the work aspect of the fall.

 

[Gregorikos]

So you're saying God cursed women to live in a condition comparable to chattel slavery?

I didn't say that at all. I said God tolerated slavery just like he tolerated patriarchy. That doesn't make either of them holy.

 

[Ignatius the Kiwi]

Again, according to the text, having to work isn't part of the fall. Having the work be hard and miserable- that's part of the fall.

But I'm betting you don't go the Amish route. You do all you can to make work as easy as possible. Indo too. So neither of us embrace the work aspect of the fall.

I admire the Amish for way of life, like I admire the Monastics for their even harder life and have only learnt as time goes on the benefit of letting things be a bit harder than they are. Giving up conveniences and so on. We'll see how far I can take this year when since part of my goal is extreme fitness. Yet whether I live up to a standard is not what makes it correct.

Rather I would say it's God's word that makes it correct. That men find their fulfillment in work, but to clarify, in hard work especially. This is not a bad thing, even if during the moment we hate the process.

 

[Ignatius the Kiwi]

I didn't say that at all. I said God tolerated slavery just like he tolerated patriarchy. That doesn't make either of them holy.

Well in comparing Patriarchy to slavery I think you inadvertently made the comparison. So if we are really comparing the two I have to disagree with the comparison since it was not part of God's curse for men and women to be owned by one another. Slavery as a condition to men came later. Thus to say because we overcame this later invention of man we can overcome Patriarchy, which seems implied in the curse God laid on women doesn't seem correct to me.

Yet I don't know if I'm calling the curses holy as much as they are the way of natural man. That is it is according to our nature to be as such.

 

[Ohorseman]

Not at all. There was nothing that came upon mankind that day that we embrace as good. We use air conditioning and insecticides, farm implements, anesthesia during childbirth, medicine to treat sickness, and we do all we can to avoid death. Everything that happened that day is bad. It makes no sense to embrace one of them as good while avoiding the rest.

I had a friend whose wife refused pain medication during child birth. She said that she wanted to experience child bearing pains at birth, as God stated in Genesis 3. She believed that if she did not submit to the pain, then she would be rebelling against God... and then her pain would be spread out over the years that followed instead of dealing with it at child birth and that this would be worse for her and maybe even worse for the child. It was an odd choice that she made. But I dared not say so, as it was certainly not my place. In a way, it was profound.

She certainly did not think that what God said is a... relic. Are these things relics? If so, then God's words can become relics? Slavery in the West is a relic. But, it's not gone from this earth. And certainly, we still sweat. Maybe it is often more of a mental sweat, but we sweat no matter how good the AC. Are we hearing whispers or echoes of Satan, "Did God really say...." in our heads here? I'm not sure, brothers and sisters.

 

[OldWiseGuy]

Not!

Hi Barbara! Welcome to the CF.

"Men build houses, women build homes." -OldWiseGuy

 

[OldWiseGuy]

It's not a sin to work to dismantle a system which quenches the God-given potential of half the population.

The Proverbs 31 wife seemed to fulfill her potential, and her husband as well. It's really the perfect example of a productive marriage.