The Worth of a Woman

It's clear that most of the well-known characters in the Bible are men. Pastor Eric Shoemaker says when you start to read your Bible looking for what God says about the worth and value and dignity of women, you may find yourself surprised. But it's interesting that God says it's the seed of the woman. He's going to come from the woman.

And I've just noticed as I've reexamined the storyline of redemption, how many times there are bold, wise, strong, shrewd, brave, courageous women who rescue the line of the seed. This is Family Life Today. Our hosts are Dave and Anne Wilson.

I'm Bob Lapine. You'll find us online at familylifetoday.com. Eric Shoemaker and Elise Fitzpatrick believe it's time for us to take a second look, a long, hard look at what the Bible says about the worth of women.

We'll talk more about that today. Stay with us. And welcome to Family Life Today.

Thanks for joining us. I'm curious, have you, Anne, felt like a second-class Christian because you're a woman? That's a good question. Wow, that's a loaded question.

That is a loaded question. I can't wait to hear her answer. I started in the ministry in 1980, and so there were times that I felt very confused of my role, of my voice, where my place was in the church. And so I'm not sure I felt like a second-class citizen because I knew who I was in Christ, but sometimes in the church, yeah. Yeah, I think I did. Have you observed that as her husband? Oh, yes. I was wondering how honest she was going to be.

Yeah, for sure. Being a strong woman, that's what made it really hard. I kept thinking, should I not be strong?

Should I pretend that I'm not strong? That's where it can really get tricky because I'm not just a naturally submissive. I'm very submissive to Dave. We have a soul mate with you in the studio today, don't we? Yes, I'm so excited. Elise Fitzpatrick is joining us again on Family Life Today. Elise, welcome.

Thank you, Bob. Along with Elise, Eric Shoemaker is here. Eric is a pastor from Iowa, and Elise is an author and a speaker who lives in Southern California. The two of them have worked together on a book called Worthy that's about the value of women, celebrating the value of women. Eric, I should say welcome to you as well. Thank you.

It's good to be here. And Elise, I saw you kind of nodding and moving in like I have felt exactly how Ann has felt. You know, it's funny because in one sense, when I was first saved, and I didn't become a Christian until 1971. When I was first saved, I was actually in a church that ordained women to the pastorate. Although I still sort of felt that there was something more important about getting men to affirm you than women. But then after we left that church, and I've been married for over 45 years, so Phil and I left that church. And went to a more, let's say, reformed sort of a church, then I really felt it. And it was not just that women couldn't like, let's say, teach on a Sunday morning, something like that. It was that they needed to be quiet.

And going to 1 Peter 3, you know, this quiet tone. And so women like us, who have stronger personalities, who are louder, I sort of always felt like I didn't fit in. And then I started reading the old dead guys, you know. And the things that they said about women were shocking to me.

And yet still, I don't think I really took it to heart. Give us an example of what some of the old dead guys shared. Well, you know, we can even talk about rabbis of old who would say, I thank you, God, that I was not born a pagan and that I was not born a woman. And things that even people that I love and really venerate, Luther and Calvin, the kinds of things that they said about women being the source of evil. And the reason that the race has fallen. And how she is by nature nothing other than emotional and a trap.

Those kinds of things, they're still there. And I think that probably, I want to say subconsciously maybe, those things have infiltrated into the life and doctrine of men who read the old dead guys. And so there's a discounting of the voice of a woman.

We need to frame this conversation a little bit, I think, because you guys know family life, we know you. We share common convictions that the Bible has things to say about proper role and function of men and women in the church and in the home. And not everybody agrees with this, but we look at this and say there are certain limited things that the Scriptures would say. A woman in church ought not do these few things. A woman at home should, there should be some deference, some submission to her husband's leadership and authority. You affirm that as you write this book on the value of women, right?

That's correct. So, what we're talking about when we talk about how we ought to think rightly about women in the church and in the home comes with those caveats in place. But sometimes, Eric, those caveats have so controlled the discussion as to kind of go beyond the bounds of what Scripture is saying and say, well, let's push it down even more and let's silence women in places where the Scriptures, we go beyond what the Scriptures say here.

That's right. I think anytime our posture is something's gone wrong in the church or wrong in the culture and we need to recover what the Bible is saying about this, we can begin in a posture of recovery or defense or even going on the offense and we can begin to define everything we think about an issue such as men and women in terms of this is under attack, there's a threat against this. And one of the consequences of that is we begin to fence the law in the sense that the Bible might have these restrictions, instructions, and we draw boundaries around those so that we don't get close to violating those. And what ends up happening is we begin to say to women, you can't do this and this because it might look like this.

And we prevent them from doing things God has called, equipped, and gifted them to do. I think on that note, you think about a woman with a strong personality or something to say and we can begin to be suspicious of them, to automatically suspect she's probably trying to usurp my authority or bring down men or something like that, which can be very unhealthy. And we have obviously many, many incredible women in our churches and ministries all over. And I think a lot of them have felt, I know my wife has felt, like I can't use my gifts, I shouldn't use my gifts, I should not even say something in this meeting because I'm strong and I'm going to say it's strong. And there have been times I've been like, okay, settle it down a little bit.

You know what I'm saying? But it's interesting to watch that, you know, it's totally different in church world and ministry world than it is in the corporate world. And you've seen that and you wrote about it. I'd love to hear your perspective because we've got a man and a woman writing a book on women. And honestly, you think, oh, it's going to be a woman writing this. And Eric, you're part of this.

Why is that and what's your perspective? Well, I've been a pastor for 17 years. And, you know, I came into pastoring with a very strong complementarian theology, like Bob just described. You know, I would affirm in my theology that men and women are ontologically equal.

We're equal in our value and we're equal in our worth. But I think as I thought about the distinct roles God might have for men and women in the church and the home, I overapplied those in some ways that weren't biblical. And it took for me some strong women who I would remind pastors and husbands are a gift to you, some strong women coming and saying, why aren't we able to do this? Or, I don't feel like our women are being given solid theological education.

You know, maybe all the training is for the men and women are being overlooked. Or women coming and saying, I'm confused about where I can speak and how I can have a voice. And even just noticing in my own heart sometimes there's suspicion about a strong woman and her voice and realizing, I don't know why that is, but it is. And so, it's been a journey for me to think afresh about what the Bible says about women and their role in the storyline of Scripture. And so, really for me, oh, just a few years ago, just thinking, you know, it's been a long time since I've examined these issues and thought critically about them.

And then with the rise of the Me Too movement, I think, you know, 20 years ago, as a young knee-jerk conservative, sometimes emphasis on jerk, I would have written off the whole Me Too movement just as, you know, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, you know. These are just women that got hurt and they're angry and trying to burn everything down. And I decided I just need to listen. I need to listen to these stories. And as the Church Too movement began to develop thinking, I need to listen to what these women are saying they're experiencing in the church, and especially with Rachel Den Hollander, you know, she brought down Larry Nassar and exposed so much going on in the gymnastics world. Listening to her speak about how she was received in her church and even lost her church because she was advocating for women who were sexually abused, it just really struck me, and I realized I have a lot to learn and listen to here. And so, I started paying attention to where women showed up in the Bible, and that's sort of the genesis of this book, is I tweeted out a series of women who were the first humans to do certain things.

It turned into an article, and Elise and I then have turned it into a book. And what I've noticed is I've just reexamined the Scriptures looking for where women show up. You know, that first promise of the Messiah, the seed of the woman will crush the head of the serpent. So often I've just looked at that passage and thought, oh, so we're looking for this son, which we are. You know, we're looking for this son that will crush the serpent's head. But it's interesting that God says it's the seed of the woman.

He's going to come from the woman. And I've just noticed as I've reexamined the storyline of redemption, how many times there are bold, wise, strong, shrewd, brave, courageous women who rescue the line of the seed that's promised and preserve that. And so, it's not like in the storyline of the Bible that we have these active men who are the initiators and the saviors and these passive women who are the saved. We have some active women who often take initiative to do brave and courageous things to save God's people and sometimes preserve His Deliverer alive. Elise, how did you and Eric connect?

So, I saw what he was doing on social media, and so we started connecting through social media. And then I saw his article that went up on the 21 firsts, the first time that this promise is given, it's given to a woman. The first time that this name of God is used, it's used by a woman. The first time that this promise, the promise that nothing shall be impossible to God, the first time that that was ever given was given to a barren woman, Sarah.

The first time in the New Covenant when it was given is to a 14-year-old virgin girl named Mary. So, you know, Eric had this list of all of these firsts where women were involved, and it's really quite a shocking list when you begin to think about it. And so then we connected, we had him on our little podcast, and then said, maybe we should do something with this.

And that's how we connected. Has this subject been a burden in your own heart from before reading Eric on social media? Sure, because as Ann said, as women, this is something we have experienced. And even just to the point that when I go into a congregation and all I see is males leading, and again, and we have to say this over and over again, we are not pushing against the ordination of males who are qualified. We're not pushing against that. But we are saying, over half the congregation here is women, and can we have some representation somewhere?

And not only that, but when the sermon is being given, is it primarily sports illustrations? Hey, wait, wait, wait. Sorry, sorry. We just dove way outside the lies. Yeah, he's going to throw a flag on that and call a timeout.

That's a foul. Maybe a few. So, you know, the question is, am I as a woman even acknowledged? Is my gender even acknowledged? And quite honestly, I think as women, we've learned to accommodate ourselves to that so that I'm not shocked when I go into a congregation and see one gender represented and one gender being talked to and about. However, I think it would be a good thing if the men would recognize the fact that more than half of their congregation is not male.

And it's more than half. Here's the tension that I've felt in the church world. And you know, primarily we want to apply this in marriage and family, because that's who we're talking to. But in the church world, because we've all been a part of the church world, I've felt the tension at watching men easily, naturally drift into passivity. And we want to call men to active involvement in spiritual matters, because we know their default is to naturally disengage. And we've seen it happen that if women will say, I'll do that, guys go, great.

I'll go home, watch the game, you do that. And all of a sudden, guys have checked out and it goes badly for us. So, to overcorrect, what we've said is we've got to call men up. And part of the way we call men up is by saying to women, just don't get involved over here. Because if you do, guys are going to go back home.

Well, that's a problem with guys, that's not a problem with women. And at the same time, we are modeling to everybody in the congregation something that I think is not a good, healthy biblical model about what the practice of God's people coming together in worship should look like. It's men and women joining their voices together to worship God.

I think that's exactly right. And I think, you know, some of that depends on what congregation you're in and why shepherding. And so, I'm in the third church that I've been pastoring. And in one of those, I remember we used to have an annual Thanksgiving meal in a service that followed afterwards and we'd have a time of getting up and sharing what blessings we're thankful for over the past year. And my first year or two there, it was almost all women who got up and shared. And the women in the church would complain that the men don't seem very spiritually active. There were men who were.

And I started engaging the men more and inviting them to do more things. And within a few years, it was almost all men that were sharing at that prayer request time. And women were coming to me and saying, this is such a wonderful thing to hear the voices of men giving praise to God in the church. On the other hand, you know, the congregation that I'm in now, I'm responsible for, I'm an associate pastor.

I'm responsible for organizing our services, leading our music, and those sorts of things. And I've started with our liturgy readings, responsive readings. Sometimes women will lead the leader parts of those. And we alternate between men and women reading the scripture reading in the service. And women have commented on how great it is to hear a female voice in the service to the point where they've said now, you know, we were out of town, we visited a church, and it was striking to me that I didn't hear a woman's voice the entire time we were in church. And I think about, you know, the apostle Paul in his instructions in 1 Corinthians where he talks about head coverings. The context of it is he's talking about a woman praying and prophesying in church. And Paul seems to expect that in the local church gathering you're going to hear a woman speaking at some point. So wait, what about keep silent? You know, what's that whole thing? That's a longer discussion. I think my interpretation on that is later on that's where he's saying when there's a prophecy to have it weighed. And I think he's talking about the elders exercising their authority to weigh that prophecy. And they're the ones that are doing that.

And I know there's interpretations all over the place there. So, and you know, as I think about that, I'm a father of five, and so I have four boys and one girl. My daughter's 11 now. And of course, my boys have all been into the Avengers and the Marvel, you know, superhero universe. And I honestly hadn't really noticed that my daughter hadn't been interested in those movies. And then I took her to see Captain Marvel. And she absolutely loved it. You know, we had to go out and buy a poster of Captain Marvel for her room afterwards. And she comes home and she says, I want to watch the rest of the Avengers movies. And I think it was because she saw a woman in that superhero role.

All of a sudden she realized, I'm part of this story. And I think that when young girls, or old women, or females in between, and men too, see a woman participating in the corporate worship of their Lord and Savior on Sunday morning, and when they see women highlighted in the scripture, not just as damsels in distress, but as active gifts of God who carry the story forward, they begin to realize this is my story too. Not in some radical feminist sense that wants to crush men and put them down, but in the sense that God said it's not good for a man to be alone. I will make a helper for him. And I always remind people that when God says it's not good for a man to be alone, I'll make a helper, the only implied deficiency there is in the one that needs help, not in the helper. They wouldn't need a helper if there wasn't something lacking. And so, it's not good for the woman not to be present. She is a necessary ally in this great task that God has given us.

I know that it's been 30 years now, maybe 31. Ann, well, maybe she'll remember this, but I remember I was going to preach on a Sunday at our church about marriage. And I just thought of that verse, it's not good for a man to be alone.

What am I doing doing this alone? There's so many women sitting out there, they're not going to hear a woman's perspective. They're only going to hear me and my sports stories.

You're not going to get over that, are you? And so, I went to Ann, I don't know if she'll remember this, and I just said, you need to join me on this message. And she's like, I don't even know what you're saying. I go, I don't even care. I honestly said that.

Do you remember this? I said, just speak whatever you want to say to what I'm saying. And of course, I want you to see the notes, and we should have prepared. But I just felt she needs to be up there to represent a woman's perspective on this. Because all the women are going to be like, okay, that's great, I'm here for another husband.

Hopefully it's good, but that lack is going to be there. She comes up with me. And I'll never forget, we had a Saturday night service and then three or four on Sunday. And Saturday night, she just sat there like, I don't even know what you're going to do. She's a strong woman.

She's a little upset. Like, you could have at least told me on Tuesday instead of this morning. And I can remember it like yesterday. It was the best marriage message we had ever given, I had ever given, because she did.

She interrupted and said, I actually disagree. Here's how I would say this. And the women are like, it was like Captain Marvel. It was like, I'm up there on that stage.

I'm represented. And I look back now on our legacy at our church, there is rarely a marriage family message given without the man saying, my woman is going to be with me on this. It's something you have modeled at our church.

It's sort of the DNA. Well, I think the walls were going to come down when I sat on the stool beside Dave. And when we were talking about the woman being the helper, I said, I thought, why do I have to be the helper? Where's my helper?

And I think Dave was like, oh, no. And I said, I said, I looked it up in the dictionary, in Webster's dictionary, and it says a helper is a subordinate. Someone important tells them what to do. She's a gopher.

She does the dirty work. And I said, no wonder I hate this word. But then when you go into the Hebrew, then that's why we need to go deeper into the study of what God calls us as women, because we are worthy. I can hear our listeners, some of them drafting the emails in their head that they're getting ready to send to us. And that's fine. I mean, it's good for us to engage in this in a lively way and to be corrected when we need to be corrected. And we're all open to that. But I think the overarching theme of your book, Worthy, and of this conversation is we have to recognize that half of the body of Christ needs to have more opportunity to engage in the life of the church and in the life of the home. And to use our gifts.

Exactly. And we will all benefit from that engagement. I think this is good for us to think about and to interact about, and I'm grateful for the book you guys have written that gives us a chance to dive deep into this. The book is called Worthy, Celebrating the Value of Women by Eric Shoemaker and Elise Fitzpatrick. You can order the book from us online at familylifetoday.com, or you can call to order at 1-800-FL-TODAY. Again, our website is familylifetoday.com.

The phone number to call to order a copy of the book Worthy is 1-800-358-6329. That's 1-800-F as in Family, L as in Life, and then the word Today. You know, this has been a season where a lot of life has been canceled. A lot of jobs have been canceled. We've been living in a time when there's been a lot that has closed down, and that's been hard for many of us. Here at Family Life, we've stayed busy, stayed active. In fact, we've been working extra hard to provide help and hope for marriages and families during this difficult season.

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Make your donation online at FamilyLifeToday.com or call 1-800-FL today, and we'll get a copy of Barbara's book out to you. Thanks again for your support and your generosity during this time. Now, tomorrow we want to talk about what the Bible means when it says a wife is to be a helper to her husband. Is that a term of value and dignity and worth?

How should that idea be understood? Elise Fitzpatrick and Eric Shoemaker are going to join us again tomorrow. Hope you can join us as well. I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, along with our entire broadcast production team. On behalf of our hosts, Dave and Anne Wilson, I'm Bob Lapine. We'll see you back next time for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a production of Family Life of Little Rock, Arkansas, a crew ministry. Help for today. Hope for tomorrow.