The Meaning of Womanhood

“I have just received in the mail a magazine containing several pieces on the ordination of women. The authors take a less serious view of the Creation story than I do and base most of their arguments on the competence of women to do the job of a priest or a minister. This is a pretty convincing argument at first glance. The church needs ministers, women make good ones, why not let women be ordained? Fish swim, birds fly, men trap lobsters, robins yank worms out of their safe underground tunnels, cities rise, civilization moves ahead – isn’t it all a part of the great rhythm and harmony of things? I believe the Lord is in charge. I have to believe that even when I think of what the wooden pots mean to the lobsters themselves, and of what the robin’s deadly beak means to the hardworking worm, and of the uncalculated pain and sin of London, or the many places in that city where it is not at all noble and elegant.

The universe moves at the command of God, and men and women are at all times under that command, but distinct from robins and lobsters, they have been given the power to disobey. They are capable of doing a great many things they are not supposed to do. The ability to do them is not a command to do them. It is not even permission. This simple fact, so obvious in the physical realm (we know perfectly well we’re not supposed to smash other people in the face, capable and eager to do so though we may sometimes be), is easily obscured in the intellectual and spiritual realms. We discern in ourselves certain propensities or even gifts and, without thought for possible restrictions, which may be placed upon their use, start wielding them. The results may be far more destructive than smashing somebody in the face. Men and women who have used their minds, their talents, and their genuis to move multitudes to evil have used the minds, talents, and genuis given to them by their Creator. But they have not asked what God has commanded. They have not offered themselves first to Him, trusting His direction for their proper sphere of operation.

So the question of ordination hinges on far more than competence. It cannot be decided on the basis of the church’s need or an individual’s urge or any of the sociological or humanistic arguments put forth by those who seek to liberate. It has to do with things vastly more fundamental and permanent, and the meaning of womanhood is one of these things.

We have something to respond to, something that directs and calls and holds us, and it is in obedience to the command that we will find our full freedom.”

Elizabeth Elliot
from Let Me Be A Woman

(Thanks for sharing, Alyssa!)