My anger and rage against the injustice of putting women and men in the handcuffs of gender roles. These strong emotions sit below a surface of pain. Years of deep indoctrination. The heavy burdens of male only leadership and female submission, gender roles. Jesus has compassion on us, and He comes to set the captives free.

A conversation I had on Twitter with Blood ‘n Vinegar.

Blood ‘n Vinegar: I wonder, do complementarian men worry about the risk of pride while holding their views? Don’t get me wrong, I’m complementarian. But for me it’s an exercise in humility. Do men have to check themselves for pride that may creep in as a sinful excess of this biblical position?

Me: From my personal experience, men seem entitled to not listen to women. Men’s voices are more valuable than women’s voices. I’ve written about gender roles a few times. Examining Gender Roles.

Blood ‘n Vinegar: Gender roles are biblical and God-given. Throwing those away because of cultural embarrassment isn’t the way.

She seemed unable or unwilling to listen. I’m not sure what cultural embarrassment means. I am in the process of being set free. I have compassion for myself and others who are wrestling with these topics. I am also frustrated, sad, and angry for the church. Women and men should be leading together. Where she hears the voice of God in gender roles, I am starting to hear the voice of evil.

My church is in the process of loosening the handcuffs, a little at a time. I am both excited and angry for us. Excited that we are receiving more freedom in Christ. Angry that those cuffs may remain on for many in this life that we call a Vale of Tears. Vale of Tears is an expression to describe this world as a scene of pain, trouble, suffering or sorrow. 

In my studies, I have learned that women are free to teach and be of benefit to the whole church. I’m excited that men are free to listen and learn from sisters in Christ. That women are free to be overseers. Women are as free as men to use whatever gifts the Spirit gives them to build up the body of Christ. I am frustrated that many are still bound and unable or unwilling to listen and learn in quiet submission, to women. 

God has more patience than I do, and He will do the work of setting His people free. While I continue to endure the pain of gender roles, I have found a section of the visible church who has been set free from these handcuffs. It is exciting to learn from them, and watch freedom happen. Both in myself, and in others. A little at a time. 

There is a Key to unlocking the cuffs of gender roles. Let them fall to the ground altogether. You can walk away from the handcuffs. Rub your sore, bleeding, tender skin. Watch the red and angry flesh heal. The scars remaining as a visible reminder. Not to go back into a yoke of slavery. For Christ has set you free. The key to unlocking the handcuffs is Christ himself.

In John 4, when Jesus reveals who He is to the Samaritan woman at the well. He sees her. He sees the systematic oppression of “he will rule over you” that has brought her pain and suffering. She has had five husbands, but no authority or autonomy to divorce any of those husbands. In that time, wives were not given a certificate of divorce so that they were free to remarry, because of the hardness of hearts. Jesus does not condemn her as a “sexual sinner”. Rather He sees her poor and oppressed state. The way that she has been treated. The man she is living with seems unwilling to marry her, but he is providing for her.

John 4

13 Jesus said, “Everyone who drinks from this water will get thirsty again. 14 But whoever drinks from the water that I will give him will never get thirsty again. In fact, the water I will give him will become a well of water springing up in him for eternal life.”

15 “Sir,” the woman said to him, “give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and come here to draw water.”

16 “Go call your husband,” he told her, “and come back here.”

17 “I don’t have a husband,” she answered.

“You have correctly said, ‘I don’t have a husband,’ ” Jesus said. 18 “For you’ve had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.”

19 “Sir,” the woman replied, “I see that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews say that the place to worship is in Jerusalem.”

She is more interested in the topic of where to worship God, than in the men who either divorced her or left her a widow. If she was feeling shame, and I don’t see any indication that she was, Jesus is not heaping more shame on her. Rather she seems more excited about meeting a prophet at the well, and she wants to discuss where to worship God, with this prophet. She has already heard about the Messiah, the Savior of the world. She says, “I know that the Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” What a thrilling surprise that He would show up at her well and give her Himself as living water, and explain everything to her. A woman who was despised and rejected by five men, or maybe she was widowed, we are not given enough information about how her marriages ended. But also a woman who is very interested in where to worship God. 

My theory is she already knew she was a sinner, and she was worshipping God with the limited knowledge that she had. She was anticipating that this Messiah she has heard about will explain more to her.

21 Jesus told her, “Believe me, woman, an hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You don’t have to go to a physical location to worship God. God is always with you. By faith in Christ, God’s Holy Spirit dwells in you, and is your spiritual leader. You can worship Him wherever you are. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know. We worship what we do know, because salvation is from the Jews. 23 But an hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and in truth. Yes, the Father wants such people to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and in truth.”

25 The woman said to him, “I know that the Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”

26 Jesus told her, “I, the one speaking to you, am he.”

 

Enter the disciples, who maybe have a low view of women. They don’t understand the full inclusion of women in the New Creation in Christ. Maybe this is the “cultural embarrassment” that Blood ‘n Vinegar was referring to. Our culture has given women more freedom to use whatever gifts they have, and the church has not. The church limits women, and the church cannot agree on what those limits should be. The Spirit does not put limits on the gifts that He gives to men and women. “The Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom.” 2 Corinthians 3:17.

27 Just then his disciples arrived, and they were amazed that he was talking with a woman. Yet no one said, “What do you want? ” or “Why are you talking with her? ”

28 Then the woman left her water jar, went into town, and told the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah? ” 30 They left the town and made their way to him.

31 In the meantime the disciples kept urging him, “Rabbi, eat something.”

32 But he said, “I have food to eat that you don’t know about.”

33 The disciples said to one another, “Could someone have brought him something to eat? ”

34 “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work,” Jesus told them. 35 “Don’t you say, ‘There are still four more months, and then comes the harvest’? Listen to what I’m telling you: Open your eyes and look at the fields, because they are ready for harvest. 36 The reaper is already receiving pay and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that the sower and reaper can rejoice together. 37 For in this case the saying is true: ‘One sows and another reaps.’ 38 I sent you to reap what you didn’t labor for; others have labored, and you have benefited from their labor.”

Some knowledge of Christ had already been sown to the woman, and she was ready for harvest. Jesus the reaper says, “I, the one speaking to you, am he.” She believed and received eternal life. 

The town had already been talking about Jesus. They had a limited knowledge about him.  “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Everything that ever happened to me Could this be the Messiah? ” 30 They left the town and made their way to him. The town does not seem to view the woman as we do, as a sexual sinner, they do not recoil from her. They listen to her.

Marg Mowczko writes about the phrase “everything I ever did” here. “Everything I ever did” says more about Jesus than it does about the woman. 

39 Now many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of what the woman said when she testified, “He told me everything I ever did.” 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. 41 Many more believed because of what he said. 42 And they told the woman, “We no longer believe because of what you said, since we have heard for ourselves and know that this really is the Savior of the world.”

They had heard talk about the Messiah, the Savior of the world. Jesus showed up in their little town, and at their well. He explained everything to a woman, and then to them. The woman was a preacher to the town. They believed that Jesus really is the Savior of the world. That’s the narrative.

Modern day Gender Roles tends to view women as sexual objects for men. The church has over sexualized women. The Samaritan woman, as the sexual sinner, has been read into the narrative. The Billy Graham Rule has become the 14th commandment to gender role churches. To supposedly protect male only leadership and male virtue. You can continue to read scripture through the lens of gender roles if you want to, but you might be missing out on the main point of the text. Those handcuff locks might tighten, and be painful for both men and women.

There are many gender role stories. Chelsea shares her and her husband’s pain here: Finding My Voice (in the wilderness) – Part 2

I don’t know what will happen in the future. More pain? A vale of tears? I would like to see us set free so that men and women can lead together. A healthier way of thinking. A renewed mindset.

The Savior of the world: your sins are forgiven and you are holy for the sake of Christ, crucified and resurrected. Your sins do not belong to you. They belong to Jesus now. Your sins are not counted against you. A mind set on the Spirit.

Jesus as the Living Water: you are the Righteousness of God by faith. Apart from anything that you are doing or not doing. This is how we are worshipping God in Spirit and in truth, in the physical location of our own bodies.

 

 

Related:

Four Attitudes of Jesus that Empower Women by Jill Richardson. I was edified by Jill’s article, and linked it as a companion piece.

 

Woman Redeemed and Commissioned, a new look at the Samaritan woman. By Aaron Hann, “Reversing Gen 3:17, it appears the Samaritan woman, in addition to Christ/Adam, is doing the laboring/harvesting, sowing/reaping, gathering/eating the fruit which really is life eternal. The Samaritan woman is Eve, Zoe, mother of all living and Adam-like farmer/gardener.”

 

The Samaritan Women of Sychar by Marg Mowczko has beautiful and freeing insights into the culture and heart of this misunderstood woman. The East Orthodox Church gave her the title “equal to the apostles”.