Have you ever wondered “does God use women in his plan for the future?” History has told us that we should be a quiet wife, having kids and cleaning house. Once that is done, maybe we can go gossip with our friends or go shopping. If the Bible helped form Western culture and, historically, Western culture seems to imply that women should be pretty wives but not leaders, does that mean the Bible tells women to let men be in charge and women should just be passive? No, the Bible actually has a lot of strong women that God used to save his people or lead his church.
A simple but powerful book
My parents gave me Real Women Of The Bible by Dr. Paul Kelm for Christmas this past year. It tackles the question of if women are important to God. You have to admit that most of the Bible is about men. The ancient world was led by men. Women leaders are known for being so uncommon, therefore news-worthy, or were erased from written record, like Hatshepsut of Egypt. Dr. Kelm takes a look at some of the women mentioned in the Bible and why they were important enough to be mentioned in ancient history. Women like Eve, Sarah (Abraham’s wife), and Ruth are known names for many Christians. Do you know who Mariam, Deborah, Hannah, or Shiphrah and Puah were?
Eve is famous for being the person who brought sin into the world. Yet she was also the mother of all humans.
Abraham is known for his deep faith, but Sarah tried to speed up God’s plan (by giving her servant to her husband) and later laughed at God saying the 80 year old would get pregnant. Yet her son was the line God’s son was born from. Mariam was the older sister of Moses. While still a child, she followed baby Moses on the dangerous river and the slave girl spoke to the princess about her baby brother’s safety. Years later she supported her brothers as they confronted the king of Egypt about letting thousands of slaves be free. Mariam is recorded as leading the newly freed nation in a song of praise after passing through the Red Sea.
Shiphrah and Puah were midwives to the slave Israelites in Egypt. When the king ordered them to kill all the boys born to the slaves, these midwives refused and lied to the king, for which God blessed them. Deborah was a Judge of Israel in the book of Judges. She was a wife, but her husband is barely mentioned in the two chapters written about her. A prophetess and Judge, she summoned the commander of Israel’s army to fight, but he wouldn’t fight unless she was there with him to assure him of God’s favor. Although he led the army, God used Deborah to give her people the courage to fight.
Normal woman are useful too.
Ruth was not an Israelite. She was a wife of an Israelite. We know nothing about her birth family, just that she was from Moab. When her husband and his brother died, their widowed mother decided to be a widow in her own country. She planned to leave her two daughters-in-law in Moab, probably with their families, and travel alone back to her homeland. One daughter-in-law cried as she left, but Ruth refused to return to her mother’s house. Ruth and the people in this story aren’t incredibly rich or leaders. Boaz is a landowner, so he must be somewhat wealthy, but he’s a town elder, not a king or prince. Ruth was a loving woman who sacrificed her own comfort to take care of her mother-in-law. Her marriage to Boaz wasn’t even a great love story like modern romances. The true love story was between mother and daughter with a deep trust in God. Her quiet service, obedience, and love of family was rewarded by a marriage and children, all while taking care of her mother-in-law. God used that simple story in his plan because Ruth was the great-grandmother of King David.
Hannah is another one I mentioned of the twenty women from the Bible that this book talks about. She was a wife, a barren wife that couldn’t have children. She prayed to God for a child, vowing to give him back to God if she gave birth. God gave her a son and that son grew up to be Samuel, the priest who helped set up the monarchy of their kingdom. He was the priest that guided King Saul and King David and one of the most famous prophets of the Bible.
Does God use women of the Bible?
Of course! These women were put in situations that God could use them to help others in their everyday life. Eve was made by hand to be the mother of all humans. Sarah was the wife of a wealthy man who had doubts, but gave birth to a miraculous baby. Mariam was a slave girl who grew up to support the man who led the slaves out of Egypt. She was helping her brother and her people, but will always be remembered. A few midwives that did their jobs of delivering babies instead of killing them will also be remembered forever in history. Deborah knew that what she was doing was amazing. She was the only Judge that was a woman and the only Judge that was also a prophet.
Ruth didn’t do anything amazing, in her mind. What we see as amazing, self-sacrificing love and faith, she saw as taking care of her beloved mother-in-law. Hard things happened and she got blessed, but she could not have known that her great grandson would be the second king of Israel or that her distant descendant would be God himself in Jesus. Hannah as well would not have known how important her part would be in the Bible or that her desperate prayer for a son would be an example of prayer to thousands of people three thousand years later.
This book is well written with a powerful message.
The author sets each woman in the context in the Bible and the social context she lived in to show how amazing each woman’s courage was in her day. Each chapter ends with discussion questions to get us thinking and shows it all with enough humor to make it light reading with a simple but clear message. God can use women in ways we can’t see and probably will never understand.
This book is published by Time of Grace Ministries and is not yet available on Amazon. This is the link for the e-book if you’d rather while the other links are for the paperback book.
A GREAT Christian resource
Time of Grace is a modern Christian ministry trying to simplify difficult concepts in modern culture based on the Bible. This book tackles the popular idea that the Christian church minimizes women and that they aren’t important to God. other books tackle things like chemical addiction, sex to a Christian, mental health, and other things that most churches shy away from. Sorry about going on a tangent, but I think this website with written Bible studies or video sermons is great at answering tough questions in easy to understand ways backed by the Bible itself. If you’ve got any questions on how to respond to others or struggling with questions yourself, I highly recommend that you check this website out.
