Mother’s Day 2023: A Call to Christian Women
The wise woman builds her house, But the foolish tears it down with her own hands.
Proverbs 14:1
Introduction
Imagine with me a beautiful garden filled with lush flowers, vibrant roses, and delicate orchids. Throughout this garden your eyes gravitate toward the colors of the flowers while ignoring what makes this space a garden and not a weed bed. You ignore the brick pavers, the stone walls, and the block beds that guard and protect the flowers. God made men and women like a garden. Men provide, protect, and pioneer. We devote our selves to a purpose and mission. We look out in front of us for adventure and purpose. Men climb mountains to see what’s up there, we fly aluminum cans into space, and carve out gardens in the desert. We are the bricks and stone that separate a flower garden from your neighbor’s untamed weeds. Women on the other hand are the flowers that make a garden “gardeny.” While men build cities, women create cultures. While men build cars, women drive those cars filled with crafts for VBS. When a society submits to God’s order, you see a back yard that looks like Eden. When society rejects God’s order, you see briars and brambles competing to overtake the piles of rock.
Doctrine of Christian Womanhood
When men and women can watch a Marvel superhero movie, men typically like the action sequences while women like the character development. God made women and men different even though we have tremendous overlap. God made both men and women in His image (Genesis 1:27) with equal value, dignity, and worth. However, He made men and women with different natures, motivations, and purposes. God made Adam to tend a garden. God made Eve to tend to Adam (1 Corinthians 11:9). God made men to pioneer, provide, and protect. God made women to nurture, care, and glorify.
Women nurture.
Women use their gifts to serve others. In Proverbs 31, Solomon gives an example of a nurturing woman. She works hard and wakes up early (31:15), investigates her crops like a biologist (31:18), provides for her household like a farmer (31:15), she invests in property like a Wall Street tycoon (31:16). She has a people, her family, and she uses all her gifts to serve her people (e.g., art, accounting, teaching, cooking, gardening, decorating, singing, etc.).
Women edify.
God made women to exemplify wisdom. In proverbs, Solomon portrays wisdom as a lady (Proverbs 8) as well as folly (Proverbs 7). Women tend to instruct in their relationships. It’s usually mother who reminds little Johnny of his manners and its usually the sister who reminds daddy not to litter in the park. Whatever standard you raise a woman in, she embodies and exemplifies that standard for others to follow.
Women glorify.
God made men’s bodies to protect other people and women’s bodies to create other people. All over this planet, men work in the fields and bring home a boring income, but its women who figure out ways to serve and edify her family by making fried chicken. Whenever you go to a Chinese, Italian, or Mexican restaurant, you’re tasting the glory of women in ages past who took simple ingredients and made quesadillas out of it.
For a man ought not to have his head covered, since he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of man. 1 Corinthians 11:7
Man is the glory of God. Woman is the glory of man. Woman is the glory of the glory. And modern society has tried to destroy that glory.
The Destruction of the Feminine
The history of female destruction didn’t begin with the 1960s. It actually began in Genesis 3, when Satan tempted Eve to no longer serve God. Today, we see the destruction of the feminine with disdain for the home, hatred for children, flattening distinctions between men and women, and hatred for beauty.
Churches, instead of preaching the gospel of Christ to all areas of life began preaching the gospel of the culture. In today’s culture, women function as priestesses. We parade women around as the standard of morality when they have a sinful nature. They sin like men sin, which means they need saving like men need saving. But when the standard of morality becomes women instead of Christ, our churches become feminine. Our songs are more relational than missional. You’re more likely to hear songs about walking alone with Jesus than songs about Jesus ruling over this world defeating his enemies. You’re more likely to hear a dozen sermons on why men need to stop looking at porn before you hear one sermon on female sins. This pits men and women against each other. Because churches are now a majority of women, churches water down doctrine so as not to offend. Churches no longer practice church discipline, so the wolves devour the sheep. Emotions are now the standard of love instead of obeying Jesus. Young Christian women attend church looking for a good man to marry but he isn’t there. Church isn’t a place for him. Now, women are unprotected from the wolves they let in.
Feminine Vices
Busybodying.
The Proverbs 31 woman focused her energies on her family. A sign of women not living the Christian life is a preoccupation with others’ families (2 Thessalonians 3:11). Paul warned Timothy not to financially support young widows because they would be tempted to become idle.
At the same time they also learn to be idle, as they go around from house to house; and not merely idle, but also gossips and busybodies, talking about things not proper to mention. 1 Timothy 5:13
God made women to be the glue for her people. But when women have no people, they stick to things they shouldn’t. Instead of teaching their children and grandchildren about Jesus, they become information brokers who know the ins and outs of other’s lives (e.g., women calling and checking up on her call list, moms doom scrolling on facebook, Teenage girls being manipulated by social media).
Gossip and slander.
Another vice for women is when they use their relational gifts to destroy someone else. The obvious way this happens is with simple gossip and chatter. When women plan to serve Sally a meal after her surgery a temptation will be to play piñata with Sally’s reputation. “I can’t make Sally a meal, she never eats what I bring to potlucks.” But the not so obvious way women destroy with their words is through manipulation. When women feel offended, they feel justified in their gossip, slander, backbiting, and assumptions. Men can’t get away with that for long without being considered weak and effeminate. So, ladies stop assuming and start serving. Stop slandering and start encouraging. Stop speaking and start listening. Be the kind of woman who we all want to hear more from, not the woman we all wish would be quiet.
Shame.
God made women’s fashion to glorify her character, not shame her body.
Likewise, I want women to adorn themselves with proper clothing, modestly and discreetly, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly garments, but rather by means of good works, as is proper for women making a claim to godliness. 1 Timothy 2:9–10
Let me also just say, the solution to immodesty isn’t Victorian style burlap sacks. Today, you’re more likely to see a woman dressed in nothing at all or dressed like a sack of potatoes. What secular fashion tells women is you are only as good as you can sell your body. Some women sell their bodies with a buy one get one guarantee while others in burlap sacks. The assumption is women can be sold. Remember, God created women as glory, not a shame. God wants the outer glory of a woman to match the inner glory.
Feminine Virtues
Now, there’s much room for improvement for all Christians in their holiness. So, don’t despair! The grace of Christ restores and heals. I don’t care if you’re a young woman with shame or an older woman with regrets. The mercy of Christ can restore you. Remember Rahab the harlot. Her life before God exemplified everything God was against for women—false worship and cheapening of women’s dignity. After meeting God, she became the mother of Boaz (Mathew 1:5), the grandmother of David, and the great-grandmother of Jesus.
Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good, so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be dishonored. Titus 2:3–5
Workers in the Home
Women should be managers of the household. Each household is a small economy and women are the Chief Executive Officer. Mother’s ensure the fridge has enough food, little Johnny blows his nose when he sneezes, and little Sally has shoes. Modern secularism tells people that it’s the school’s job to educate children, it’s the nurse’s job to take care of the elderly, and it’s the government’s job to feed the poor. The Bible says that the household is the minister of welfare, education, and hospitality. And wives and moms are the CEOs of the home. Just as the board of trustees gives management of a business to a CEO, the husband gives the management of the home to mom. Secular culture lied to women to stop serving their families so they could serve a corporation.
Encouragers for the Home
Modern culture would tell you that a woman working at home is shameful. God says modern culture is idiotic. God tasks women with making their homes an Eden and their households a kingdom. Christian women serving their Christian husbands is one necessary way God redeems the world. Secular society wants you to believe a woman’s place is to serve another woman’s children or another man’s home. Modern society wants women to exchange their crown as queen of the home to climb the corporate ladder for a company that can easily replace you. This isn’t saying Christian women can’t work and be industrious. Notice the Proverbs 31 woman worked in textiles and farming and marketing, but all her work was aligned with the home. Her work served the home instead of the home serving her work. It's not whether moms form their kids spiritually, it’s how they will form them. Moms, train your kids to fight for the truth, not to play by the rules for a system that hates them.
Beauty
The love a woman has for her family smells like cookies, looks like crayon marks on the wall, sounds like belly laughs, and tastes like PB&J. When God blesses the work of a mother’s hands, there’s usually enough to share. Not all people have the luxury of a good mom and wife. But good moms and wives can share the fruit of their hands with those in need. God loves blessing obedience. Part of living by faith involves trusting God will bless your work. And God gives that blessing to enjoy and share with others.
Conclusion
God’s mission is not women, but God’s mission depends on women. Consider Christ’s love for women. God chose an honorable woman, Mary, to be His mother (Luke 1:28). Some of His most loyal supporters were women (Luke 8:1-3). A huddle of women wept at the cross where He died (John 19:25). It was the loyalty of women that led them to be the first witnessed His resurrection (Matthew 28:1-7). The church is not the college roommate of Christ but the bride of Christ (Ephesians 5:23). So, Jesus is not indifferent toward women but has plans for them. This means a Christian woman should be identifiable. Their conduct should embody someone whose sins are forgiven, whose joy is secure, and whose glory is sure.