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Society & Culture:Relationships
A Biblical Portrait of Womanhood (Part 3) - Nancy Leigh DeMoss
A Biblical Portrait of Womanhood (Part 1) - Nancy Leigh DeMoss
A Biblical Portrait of Womanhood (Part 2) - Nancy Leigh DeMoss
A Biblical Portrait of Womanhood (Part 3) - Nancy Leigh DeMoss
A Biblical Portrait of Womanhood (Part 4) - Nancy Leigh DeMoss
A Biblical Portrait of Womanhood (Part 5) - Nancy Leigh DeMoss
FamilyLife Today® Radio Transcript
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Responding to Your Husband
Day 3 of 5
Guest: Nancy Leigh DeMoss
From the series: A Biblical Portrait of Womanhood
Bob: A lot of women bristle at the idea of submission, which is talked about in the Bible. In some cases, that's because the concept has been abused or misapplied. Nancy Leigh DeMoss says one reason women bristle is because they haven't wrestled with the concept of surrendering to God and His purposes.
Nancy: Proverbs tells us that the king's heart is in the hand of the Lord, and the Lord turns the heart of that king as the rivers of water. The greatest evidence of how big I believe God is, is my willingness to trust God to work through authority that He's placed in my life and to give Him time to change the heart of that authority.
Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Wednesday, June 18th. Our host is the president of FamilyLife, Dennis Rainey. A lot of women and men struggle with the idea of submission and what that ought to look like in our lives. Stay tuned.
And welcome to FamilyLife Today, thanks for joining us on the Wednesday edition of our broadcast. I was remembering, Dennis, the advertising campaign, that came out in the – oh, the early '70s for the Virginia Slims brand of cigarettes – "You've Come a Long Way, Baby," you remember that jingle?
Dennis: I do.
Bob: And they used to sing in that jingle – "You've come a long way, you've got your own cigarette now, baby, you've come a long, long way," and I remember laughing at that , thinking, "Boy, that's a real sign of progress, huh? When somebody finally has their own brand of cigarette, they've really come a long way.
And yet over the last 30 or 40 years, we have looked at what it means to be a man and what it means to be a woman, it's all been in the context of coming a long way and digging ourselves out of our repressive past into our liberated future.
Dennis: And, of course, in order to do that, a woman has got to roar.
Bob: That's right, that's right.
Dennis: And so between cigarettes and roaring, we have redefined what it means to be a woman, and we're laughing about this here, but you know what? It really is sad. That definition and that roaring has occurred to great harm and detriment within the Christian community as we attempt to raise our daughters and, for that matter, our sons, with a true biblical imprint of God's image in them as male and as female. And with us to help us perhaps counter that culture with a biblical portrait of what it means to be a woman, today on the broadcast, is Nancy Leigh DeMoss.
Nancy is a speaker to women's groups. In fact, she has done that for the past 20 years, and this is a life message for you, isn't it, Nancy?
Nancy: I just consider it an exciting challenge today to help women see that there is so much more that God has for us than perhaps what we've been enjoying.
Bob: Well, and you get to do that every day on your daily radio program, "Revive Our Hearts," which is heard on many of the same stations that carry FamilyLife Today. And you've done it through your writing, through the bestselling book, "Lies Women Believe," the Study Guide, "Seeking Him," the trilogy of books on surrender and holiness and brokenness that you've written and, this fall, you're going to be having an opportunity to challenge women on this very subject at a conference, a national conference you're doing in Chicago that is called True Woman '08." My wife is planning to be there and really looking forward to it.
Let me ask you – as we're talking about this subject of the differences between men and women, you really believe that there is a lot of confusion among Christians, both men and women, on this subject because of the messages we're getting from the culture, right?
Nancy: Well, look around and see the dynamics of our culture are rooted in the twin vices of selfishness and rebellion. Our culture is rooted in self-seeking, self-assertiveness, self-exaltation, selfishness – self-centeredness and rebellion. We dislike authority. We don't want to live under authority and, as women, this has been especially destructive as the feminist movement has built its case on self-seeking, self-assertiveness, and rebellion against authority.
God's Word, on the other hand, teaches us the way of surrender, submission to Christ as Lord, and then to those of human authorities that God places in our lives. Surrender versus rebellion and the way of love – being a giver rather than a taker, not self-seeking but self-denying.
Dennis: Let's look at some important parts of this portrait of what it means to truly biblically feminine, of what God wants you to be as a woman. Where do we begin as we look at this portrait?
Nancy: We talked yesterday about the woman as a responder and the man as an initiator. This becomes obvious to us as we go back again to the Genesis record and see what God designed for the man and for the woman, and then how the man and the woman distorted and perverted that design. God made the man and said to the man, "Here is your responsibility. Have dominion, subdue the earth, rule over it, be the king of the earth." Then God gave to the man a helper, a woman, likewise created in the image of God but different than the man, made to complete him not to compete with him, and said to her, "You are to help him fulfill this responsibility."
Then when we come to the serpent entering the scene, we find the first illustration of role reversal. It's interesting that the serpent comes to the woman. God had given the instruction to the man, but Satan comes to the woman independent of the man and challenges her to take the initiative; to find her declaration of independence. To say, "I will make my own decision, I will be my ...
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