On to a better way

I know, I should just move on to a different topic, but this one is on my mind, and while it's on my mind, I suppose it's bound to end up on Sandpiper's Thoughts.

I know there are those who argue that the complementarian role of men and woman described in Ephesians that I quoted on Monday and Tuesday is not demeaning to women. I disagree, for these reasons:

• There is a impossible to deny result of women being told to be submissive to men, and that is that it creates a barrier between women and God. If I am told that my discernment of God's will for my life is only correct if my husband agrees, and that I must place my own beliefs in that area below those of my husband, then I am being told that my husband is better able to determine God's will than I am.
• If I am to bury my own judgment below that of my husband then I am being told that I am less able to make decisions than he is.
• If this attitude of women being submissive to men is followed in a family, then the children learn that their mother is somewhat "less" than their father.

I believe that God created us all unique -- a beautiful, one-of-a-kind creation of God. Isn't that amazing? Since I believe that, then it is impossible for me to believe that my skills and gifts can be determined just by my gender. I believe that I am different from my husband, and that I have different skills and gifts from God, but he (God) didn't give them to me based on my femaleness. I can't believe that they are less (or more) than anyone else's.

I don't believe that God would create commands which are demeaning. I do believe that the view of this passage that wives today are commanded to be submissive to men is demeaning, so therefore, I don't believe that it is a command of God. Instead, I believe that this letter was written to a particular church in a particular time in order to move them to a better way of living.

The way of life defined in this passage is not the ideal, but it may have been closer to that than what was happening in Ephesus. God, creating and transforming us to become that which he created us to be, and to live with each other in a way that reflects Christ. He was moving the people of Ephesus closer to that ideal. Why would we think he would stop at that point? Why wouldn't he continue to teach us and to transform us, re-creating us in his image.