Thank you so much for your thoughts on our conversation last week! They were valuable to me.
This morning while I was preparing for the day, a Scripture came to mind: “The wisdom that is from above is first pure…” When I looked it up, I found the passage at the end of a teaching on taming the tongue. The verses said more than I remembered, and in fact seemed to say everything worth saying on the subject.
Who is wise and understanding among you?
By his good conduct let him show his works
in the meekness of wisdom.
But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts,
do not boast and be false to the truth.
This is not the wisdom that comes down from above,
but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic.
For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist,
there will be disorder and every vile practice.
But the wisdom from above is first pure,
then peaceable,
gentle,
open to reason,
full of mercy and good fruits,
impartial and sincere.
And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace
by those who make peace.
James 3:13-18, ESV
Along with my morning devotions, I like to write in a journal the verse (or verses) that jump out at me the most and this morning it was Ecclesiastes 5:2 “Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter any thing before God: for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth: therefore let thy words be few.” This verse always shouts at me!
Then verse 6 goes like this “Suffer not thy mouth to cause thy flesh to sin; neither say thou before the angel, that it was an error: wherefore should God be angry at thy voice, and destroy the work of thine hands” and that ties in so nicely with Proverbs 14:1 “Every wise woman buildeth her house: but the foolish plucketh it down with her hands.”
❤
He indeed has all wisdom . . . And your right, this fits beautifully with the subject!
I loved these last two posts for their honesty and their look at an extremely pertinent topic!
There are a lot of ways in which us as women are susceptible to error, especially from influence from other women. And the dangers of believing myself spiritual and wise and knowing better than my husband or church.. those are real and terrifying. Sometimes the terror of those things freezes us, and in our zeal to be submissive and compliant we end up just not doing much, and not sharing the true wisdom that God is teaching us. We all have talents, stories, ministries… things that shouldn’t go to waste because of fear.
The danger of believing ourselves wise is terribly real, and we do well to talk about it and constantly check ourselves! But it shouldn’t paralyze us. We need positive teaching, as well. How can we, while living in obedience to the Bible’s teaching on women, minister in the church? What is our role?
Other than matching up a family’s worth of socks. 😉
Yes – fear is not a good alternative! Good thoughts here.
That ‘meekness of wisdom’ phrase gripped me…..if we as women really would share wisdom, insight and truth to the people around us, we will need to deal with our pride. True wisdom does not give itself to pride …..thank you for this follow up to the last post.
Thank you! <3
I don’t want to ever be that woman who thinks she knows and is wiser better than the pastor. But something happened in church yesterday where I felt very humiliated and stupid. I attend a church that doesn’t believe in covering but I cover in obedience to 1 Corinthians 11. Yesterday the sermon was on you guessed it. 1 Corinthians 11. I’m not going into all the pastor said but I felt like a giant arrow was pointing at me saying “This woman is clearly wrong!”
My husband wasn’t with me at church because he was sick but I told him about the sermon so we hope to sit down with our pastor and share about why I wear a headcovering. We plan to, if the Lord wills, share without me teaching my pastor scripture.
I dare not act like my wisdom no matter the topic is much better than my husband’s or my church leaders. I don’t want to be a trouble maker.
Shari, I appreciate these topics and how it gets the ladies( and the occassional gentleman) talking.
I’ve even made some blog friends through your blog?
I get this. The pastors I have known are grateful to hear honest feedback from their congregation, even when it is uncomfortable or we end up agreeing to disagree… especially when in the end, there is a desire to work as a team and learn Christ more fully together.
I like the idea of sharing this conversation with your husband involved.