All posts in category Theology

God Believes in Protecting Men!

Great news: God has a protective attitude toward men. I don’t know how you would figure out such a thing from the main drag of Christian culture, but Scripture tells a great story about men’s value to God. Ultimately, this is also great news for everyone–men and women both.

I’m going to kill two birds with one stone, here. First, I will address a bogus theology: “silence of Adam.” This is a theology that declares conclusively that Adam and Eve were side-by-side as the Serpent tempted Eve, which is true according to the meaning of the original translation, but also assumes that Adam stood silent like a piece of wood all during the Serpent’s dialogue with Eve and while she tempted Adam. Let’s look at the recorded story about that:

Genesis 3:6
When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.

That’s an extremely simple description of what happened–which suggests, God gave us all the relevant details, although the “silence of Adam” theology ADDS a “relevant” detail, declaring that Adam allegedly stood there absolutely mute beside Eve the whole time.

If you take Genesis 3:6 at face value, Eve didn’t even say a word to Adam either: she just handed him a piece of fruit without saying a single word. But, when God shows up, he says “because you listened to your wife’s voice.” (Genesis 3:17) It is implicitly clear and indisputable that Eve spoke to Adam–it just wasn’t recorded or shown to us in Genesis 3:6.

Since Eve’s words weren’t recorded in the simple, non-detailed description of events of Genesis 3:6, how can you say with certainty whether Adam stood there like wood, or if they had a loud screaming argument before Eve took the fruit? You can’t!

Moreover, what could Adam have said that Eve didn’t already know?

Genesis 3:1-3
Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden,
but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’”

So what? Adam should have reminded her of what she just said seconds earlier? “Hey Eve, remember what you said twenty seconds ago? Yeah, that.” Really, people? Some people are so desperate for a very feminist “blame men, women are helpless infants” narrative to come up with a proposal that stupid? There’s no way of knowing whether Adam was silent or not, but what sort of words could have made the difference if Eve already JUST SAID exactly the words that should have been as good as anything to dissuade her from eating the fruit?

The argument for the “Silence of Adam” is that poor, poor victim Eve was “merely” deceived (1 Timothy 2:14) and therefore did not know what she was doing, and poor, victim Eve should have been protected by Adam who “knew better,” suggesting that she is less guilty than Adam; the premise that being deceived makes one less guilty is profoundly and gravely mistaken and very obviously does not hold up against the rest of Scripture.

Being deceived is NOT the same as being ignorant. Those are completely different conditions. It is biblical that the condition of ignorance makes an offense less severe (Luke 12:48). Romans 2:14 even states that those who are outwardly ignorant of the law can be justified by their conscience–they are responsive to God’s law that is written in their hearts minus their ignorance. Likewise, Paul states in Acts 17:30 that God even overlooked the ignorance of the Gentiles until time of Christ. The state of deception is COMPLETELY different: The condition of deception is that you have the truth in front of you, from current or past experience, and you trade it for a lie!

2 Corinthians 11:4

But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough.

Countless Scriptures contrast clearly the conditions of deception and ignorance. Hebrews 6:6 clearly tells us that falling away from God is possible after once knowing the truth to the worst consequences. When Jesus preached, he said this about his opponents:

John 8:12-19

12 When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

13 The Pharisees challenged him, “Here you are, appearing as your own witness; your testimony is not valid.”

14 Jesus answered, “Even if I testify on my own behalf, my testimony is valid, for I know where I came from and where I am going. But you have no idea where I come from or where I am going. 15 You judge by human standards; I pass judgment on no one. 16 But if I do judge, my decisions are true, because I am not alone. I stand with the Father, who sent me. 17 In your own Law it is written that the testimony of two witnesses is true. 18 I am one who testifies for myself; my other witness is the Father, who sent me.”

19 Then they asked him, “Where is your father?”

“You do not know me or my Father,” Jesus replied. “If you knew me, you would know my Father also.”

Many times Jesus talks like this about his opponents; that they do not recognize him or that his teaching was true. Yes, in a manner of speaking, they don’t know what they are doing. Scripture also refers to such things as a condition of “blindness,” again, that one cannot recognize the truth when he sees it (2 Peter 1:9, 2 Corinthians 4:3-4, John 9:39, and many more). Does that lessen the punishment, then? Not in the slightest, as Jesus is clear that it is their attachment to sin that makes them reject the truth, NOT IGNORANCE, because the truth is directly in front of them and in the Scriptures that they’d always had. The Gentiles on the other hand were genuinely ignorant and less accountable, and this was demonstrated by the fact that many of them easily let go of their inferior understanding in favor of the truth once they finally received it.

The very case in point, how easily the post-feminist Christian world swallows lies like this is deception that has no excuse. It is not ignorance, because–as I am illustrating–the nature of deception versus ignorance is absolutely all over the Scriptures only to be jettisoned by women who keep trying to find ways of portraying themselves as less accountable or innately less sinful or supreme; it is belief in what their itching ears want to hear. Eve was NOT ignorant, as she was fully aware of God’s decree and the consequences of disobedience, but she wandered away from the truth that she knew for a lie from her temptation.

Moving on, whether Adam spoke or not after the temptation, there’s a reason why the Bible does not say, and why it was never followed up with a comment on Adam’s actions other than that he buckled from Eve’s words: it isn’t relevant. If it was relevant, Scripture would have made a point out of it, just as it did Eve’s unrecorded words.

It’s a theology that is based on words totally put in God’s mouth–that simply cannot be denied. Over-reading Scripture, in general to inject theology at a whim is sinful and dishonors God, let alone a theology that makes up something that isn’t even written!

So now onto the next point, which is an alternative look at this event which I can actually support with Scripture unlike the “Silence of Adam” garbage.

Let’s consider a New Testament reference to Eve’s sin:

1 Timothy 2:12
But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.

13 For Adam was first formed, then Eve.

14 And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.

Let’s take note of verse 14 and really let it digest for a moment.

!!!!!!

Wait, what? Isn’t the Bible otherwise more than clear that BOTH were in the transgression? Didn’t Adam and Eve both sin? Why does Paul say this, as if to suggest that Eve was in “the” transgression, but Adam was (by clear implication) NOT in the transgression?

Well, it’s saying that Adam didn’t sin against Eve, Eve sinned against Adam by way of temptation. And we know how much our sin is compounded when we not only sin ourselves but drag others into sinning.

Mark 9:42
Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea.

This is exactly what Eve did: she caused Adam to sin. The first rebuke ever given to any human being by God in the history of creation began with, “because you listened to your wife.” Eve tempted him and led him to sin: neither the tree in the garden nor the Serpent could push Adam to rebel against God on their own, but only after Eve “was in the transgression” against Adam did he sin. That’s why the fact of “because you listened to your wife” warranted a mention from God–not a mention of “you didn’t say anything to Eve,” not “what are you doing blaming Eve for your actions?”

Is this a reason for Adam to be off the hook for eating the fruit that Eve gave him? Of course not–no one is acquitted of sin because someone else tempted him or her. But the detail is highly significant, as God considered it worth a mention, and so did Paul in 1 Timothy 2:14.

Now if the “Silence of Adam” garbage were actually true, God would surely follow-up somehow on such a significant detail–such a sin against Eve–but forget it, it isn’t there. On the other hand, God’s response to Eve is this:

Genesis 3:16
Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.

And hence, what does Paul reiterate in 1 Timothy 2:12-14? The same conclusion God made: protect men by ensuring that man rules over woman and not vice-versa, because Eve “was in the transgression” toward Adam, NOT the other way around–as Paul reinforces, woman must not “usurp” the authority that God gave man after Eve was “in the transgression” against him after the fall for his protection.

And there you go: all the Scripture lined up in order here without anything missing or added. I have only made a simple conclusion after lining up the Scriptures on the matter and cutting away the godless thinking of false theologies which involve putting words in the mouth of God.

I don’t care who gets red in the face from the sound teaching of Scripture when not a shred of Scripture could possibly be used against my previous claims. But it’s not like God forgot about Eve’s interests when he put Adam in authority in response to this event: how can Adam protect Eve if he himself isn’t protected first? And unfortunately this is so much what we see in the world today: men unprotected, and traditionalists showing up and demanding that men still manage to fulfill notions of male duties.

Praise God, He believes in protecting men! And, such as in cases like Eve, Delilah, Jezebel, and such, He advocates we stand our ground under pressure in our own defense.

3 Comments
by selfdefensiveman on February 26, 2015  •  Permalink
Posted in Theology
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Posted by selfdefensiveman on February 26, 2015

https://selfdefensiveman.com/2015/02/26/god-believes-in-protecting-men/

What Does Scripture Say about the “Oppression of Women”?

“Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” –Gen 3:16

One popular modern theology interprets this as a prophecy of the “gender wars”: essentially, Eve will “desire” to control her husband, while Adam would rule over her, which is to say that Adam would be the (most often) successful one.

This modern-crowd-pleasing proposition refers later to Ephesians 5:22-23 to assert (essentially) that a husband who loves his wife as Christ loved the church does not “rule” over his wife according to the curse (which, according to the claim, is really more of a prophesying of a sinful interaction). For anyone who fears scriptures as a whole, this is profoundly insane.

First and foremost, if someone who “loves” us couldn’t possibly be the same one who “rules over us,” how is it that Christ loves us?

Luke 19:27
“But as for these enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and slaughter them before me.”

These words were spoken by Christ, who does indeed rule over us–and will have slaughtered anyone who opposes his rule–and also loved us enough to sacrifice his flesh for us. To claim that one who loves someone else enough to die for them will not possibly rule over us because “to rule over” is an “unloving” thing to do is calling Christ unloving. Eager acceptance of the newly-popular Genesis 3:16 theology might indicate modern attitudes toward Christ as well.

What is the primary confession of our faith? Is it not “Jesus is Lord“? And the word “Lord,” by definition, being he who rules over us? To claim that to rule is by nature in conflict with loving, then one must claim that either Jesus is not actually our Lord and Master–our ruler–or that Jesus is unloving.
 

Secondly, the agenda in the theology is clear enough: to justify the feminist claims regarding the “oppression of women” that allegedly occurred throughout human history along with some acknowledgement of feminism fundamentally opposing virtually everything said about women in scripture–and all principles associated with them, of course. If God prophesied this (allegedly) profoundly “sinful” phenomenon, He offered absolutely no follow-up as to its solution nor did He hint at the more ideal alternative. And this is the same God who rebuked Israel for a multitude of various offenses to Him, even issues as trivial as tithing (Malachi 3) which Christ calls a “gnat” of an issue relative to others which are “camels” (Matt 23:24). Furthermore, it is quite notable that 1 Peter 5:3 advises elders not to “lord it over” the flock without calling attention to a gender issue, as the potential of elders “lording it over” younger is acknowledged but even still, nothing in scripture to acknowledge any danger of husbands sinfully “lording it over” their wives. The Bible also directly confronts the issue of racism (Exodus 23:9). Personally, I would grant that this could arguably be implied to a certain extent (not to “lord it over” anyone, including wives), but absolutely not to the extent that we could possibly infer that women were particularly oppressed throughout history in such a way that offended God, without Him ever raising even an implied objection to it, let alone a direct one. Then again, Sarah, wife of Abraham, was commended for calling Abraham “Lord” in the New Testament.

Thirdly, therefore, in what context does someone call someone else “Lord” or “Master”? Aren’t these the titles of a ruler by one who is ruled? 1 Peter 3:5 like Sarah, who obeyed Abraham and called him her lord. Genesis 3:16 reads, once again: “Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” The same God who commends Sarah (in the New Testament, as worth noting to some who would erroneously claim that this might make a difference) for calling her husband “lord” and obeying him also does not desire for her husband to “rule over her”?

Fourthly, there is 1 Timothy 2:12-14, in which Paul states that a woman ought not usurp authority over a man in part because Eve was deceived (and “in the transgression”), not Adam. Did Paul reach this conclusion completely on his own, or is his conclusion remarkably in alignment with God’s reaction to Eve’s sin (Gen 3:16) which declared the gender who would be the one carrying authority?
 
Fifthly, as somewhat aforementioned, oftentimes “that was in the Old Testament” is a general-purpose answer for unwanted aspects of culture. Aside from the previously stated points involving New Testament references to the Old, the proposition that God’s “curse” to Eve regarding being ruled by Adam ought to be considered revoked would also make it the only one of God’s curses to cease its application; since we’re under the New Covenant, does that also mean that women no longer experience labor pains as severely, and no one has to work from the ground, and no one returns to dust any longer in addition to God’s (alleged) prophecy to Eve being revoked? Why should only one particular aspect of God’s curse to Adam and Eve be rescinded by the New Covenant while the others remain firmly in place?
 

In short, this is another blatantly intellectually-dishonest but crowd-pleasing theology that carries implications of attitudes not only about marriage, but also about Christ Himself as the loving ruler that he is. Do we not know how to reconcile God’s dictatorship with one who also loves us? What could cause anyone who fears God’s word to accept such an interpretation?

The reality of God’s command, for reasons previously stated, is indeed the bane of feminists’ existence: it is indeed a command to Eve to align her desires for Adam’s rule as a punishment for being more easily deceived. This is why Sarah was commended for obeying her husband and calling him “lord” (1 Peter 3:5), and one of the two reasons why Paul would not permit a woman to usurp authority over a man (1 Timothy 2:12-14). This takes nothing away from Adam’s ability to love Eve any more than Jesus’ rule over mankind takes away from how much he loves us, though the fact frustrates (fundamentally feminist) efforts to put an accusation in God’s mouth against men as a group and embellish Ephesians 5:22-23 to encompass any human definitions of “loving” or “unloving.”

Test yourself to see if Scripture is truly your final authority of the truth: there is no biblical account of the “oppression of women” inasmuch as society committed an evil all throughout the course of human history in God’s sight. Clearly, men sin against women, just as women sin against men, men sin against men, and women sin against women.

12 Comments
by selfdefensiveman on June 30, 2014  •  Permalink
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Posted by selfdefensiveman on June 30, 2014

https://selfdefensiveman.com/2014/06/30/what-does-scripture-say-about-the-oppression-of-women/

God Did not give Adam a “male-specific” curse

Genesis 3

17 And to Adam he said,

“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife
and have eaten of the tree
of which I commanded you,
‘You shall not eat of it,’
cursed is the ground because of you;
in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life;
18 thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you;
and you shall eat the plants of the field.
19 By the sweat of your face
you shall eat bread,
till you return to the ground,
for out of it you were taken;
for you are dust,
and to dust you shall return.”

First and foremost, let’s look at how this passage ends: “for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Yes, Scripture specifies that God was speaking to Adam when He said this, but we can agree that this statement–by itself, at least–applies equally to Eve, right? Now, then, why assume that everything before this statement only applies to Adam? Similarly, verses 22-24 repeatedly refer to “Adam” when they were being applied to both Adam and Eve.

If you insist that “and God said to Adam” is evidence enough that God was speaking ONLY to him, then you have to assert that women never return to dust, since that was “only” said to Adam; women must all be immortal, since God never told Eve that she would die as he did Adam, in that case. That is truly evidence enough that Adam was not given a “male-specific” curse; women’s bodies die and return to dust in a manner that is absolutely no different than the way a man’s body does. There is no way to assert God’s prior statements to Adam only applied to men; quite the contrary, every curse spoken to Adam applies equally to Eve, despite Eve’s punishment being distinctly female-specific.

Secondly, let’s try to apply this very, very literally for a moment, with the assumption that this curse only applies to Adam (except, again, for the comment about “for you are dust, and to dust you shall return”): that would mean that every single male, regardless of age, only eats by literally by working the fields and a woman cannot possibly experience the same pain for her food.

But if a woman is left alone without a man to provide, does the ground yield food for Eve any more nicely than it does for Adam? No. Does EVERY man who eats literally plow the fields to get food? No. Is it completely unheard of for women to work out in the fields in any culture in the history of the world? No (see the book of Ruth if you somehow need a biblical depiction for proof).

If this curse has no effect on women, then what is it, exactly, that causes the Proverbs 31 woman of noble character to be so busy?

Let’s back up this discussion a little bit and try and interpret this passage less literally but insist that it still, somehow, only applies to men. Modern Christianity asserts that this is merely symbolic of a paycheck. But let’s really think about how we made that jump in logic for a moment–and we’ll find that it is but circular logic.

Once again, it is abundantly clear that a good portion of men “work” in various forms–working very hard and productively–to buy food without ever, ever working from the earth. And at the same time, many women DO work the Earth to get food. At any given time, someone in society needs to cultivate the Earth to grow food for all people to eat, while we have other people doing different jobs in (indirect) conjunction with those who literally produce food.

We use money.

Money is the way we avoid the need for absolutely every single person to till soil, grow and cultivate crops. Accountants, for example, may have SEEMED to avoid God’s curse to Adam in the literal sense, but they work hard (putting aside debate as to whether they work exactly AS hard) at an equivalently occupying task related to sustaining a society in which everyone is fed to justify partaking in the crops. Housewives are not the slightest bit different: likewise they work very hard (as scripture commands them, and the Proverbs 31 woman demonstrates), SEEMING to avoid Adam’s curse, but similar to the accountant she contributes heavily toward her husband, who either works the field directly or indirectly helps another man (or woman, as often happens) cultivate those crops for food. Hence, neither the hardworking accountant receiving a paycheck nor the hardworking housewife who helps her husband earn a paycheck have avoided the burden of Adam’s curse. If the curse of having to work the earth only applied to Adam, the Proverbs 31 woman would not be busy, but just as unburdened as Eve in the Garden of Eden.

What is it about Genesis 3:17-19 that effectively says: men and women will both be busy day-to-day, but only Adam works to receive a paycheck? Nothing!

The conclusion is this: the curse was uttered to Adam as something that would apply to both Adam and Eve. Yes, for the most part men would be the ones literally working fields, although the reality that Eve shared in the punishment is the reason that, one way or another,women needed to be just as busy dealing with the cursed ground either just as directly as Adam or indirectly for some other farmers’ work (again, see the Proverbs 31 depiction of a noble wife–astoundingly busy). Now obviously men would get labor jobs of various kinds more often because men are naturally physically stronger, but even still, that did not prevent women from working from the earth altogether. Women without any male providers need to get their own paychecks.

I’m going to change my tone for a moment to make myself excruciatingly clear.

Some argue that the curse allegedly directed solely at Adam has an influence on his nature as a man.
Adam’s physiology did not change because of the curse; he was built as a man, testosterone, muscles and all, BEFORE the fall.

Have cultures across history had a tendency to put men to certain types of work because they considered that the curse to Adam made doing so appropriate? Of course not. A man twice as big and strong as I am is more likely to make a better lumberjack. The “curse to Adam” did not make him that way. If a single woman looks for a husband and fails, she will more than likely discover from firsthand experience that she too experiences the metaphorical “thorns and thistles” of the “curse to Adam” with the same great pain as a man for sure.

What is at stake here? Spiritual bondage upon men, as the world is plenty full of ways to make men feel like their value, especially as men, depends on their paychecks and what they produce, and this is another such attempt.

(For that matter, the money=productivity fallacies of our culture is also probably the reason why parenthood–both motherhood and fatherhood–are undervalued)

There is nothing wrong with suggesting that a man is built and arguably fulfilled by different kinds of work than women because of how God DESIGNED him as a man from the beginning, not because he was cursed to it.

1 Comment
by selfdefensiveman on April 21, 2014  •  Permalink
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Posted by selfdefensiveman on April 21, 2014

https://selfdefensiveman.com/2014/04/21/god-did-not-give-adam-a-male-specific-curse/