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A Biblical Portrait of Womanhood (Part 4) - 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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A Woman After God's Own Heart
Day 4 of 5
Guest: Nancy Leigh DeMoss
From the series: A Biblical Portrait of Womanhood
Bob: If someone told you, as a woman, that your life should be about servanthood, about serving others, would it cause your back to stiffen a little bit? Here's Nancy Leigh DeMoss.
Nancy: For us, as women, to be willing to give our lives – that's the whole message of the cross – it's a pouring out of my life, it's a laying down of my life, it's being willing to spend and be spent on behalf of others. There is no higher role in the kingdom of God than to be a servant, and we need to lift it back up to its exalted state.
Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Thursday, June 19th. Our host is the president of FamilyLife, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine. When it comes to assuming our responsibilities as men and women, it often means we have to live in a way that doesn't come naturally.
And welcome to FamilyLife Today, thanks for joining us on the Thursday edition. We're looking this week at what the Bible has to say about femininity and how we can understand biblical womanhood by looking at what the Scriptures say about what it means to be truly feminine.
Dennis: And, at this point, I feel like a pastor friend of mine who gave a message on this one time, who held up a sign at the beginning of the sermon that said, "I love women." He walked out and held it up and said, "I am about to teach what the Bible says here, but understand this – I love women." He said, "I'm married to one, and I have daughters, and I have friends." And he just wanted the ladies in the audience to know that this wasn't from a heart of wanting to put down anyone but, indeed, exalt.
And to help us do that here in the studio for a fourth day is Nancy Leigh DeMoss. Nancy, welcome back.
Nancy: Thank you, Dennis.
Dennis: And, Nancy, we've been talking about the picture of what a true woman is and what she does, and we've talked about being a responder, a helper, a cheerleader, and one of the things you talk about in this portrait you've painted is that a woman is a servant. How so? How is she uniquely a servant?
Nancy: You know, Dennis, it's interesting to me that in the New Testament when the Scripture speaks of service being rendered to Jesus while He was here on this earth, that every time that service is rendered by either an angel or by a woman, and there is no question that Scripture teaches that all of us, as believers, are to have servants' hearts, and that we are never more like Jesus than when we're serving.
But I believe there is a distinctive role for those of us as women, as helpers to the men, to be in a serving role. It's interesting that in 1 Timothy, chapter 5, where Paul is talking about what qualifies a widow to be cared for by the church, to have her needs met by the church, she has to have lived a certain kind of life before she was a widow. And in verse 10 of that passage, 1 Timothy, chapter 5, Paul lists the things that must have been true of her while she was a married woman if she is going to qualify as a widow to be cared for by the church. She has to have brought up children, she is to have lodged strangers, provided hospitality, she is to have washed the feet of the saints, served the people of God in practical ways, she is to have relieved the afflicted.
I think we see in this passage a pattern for all of us, as women, whether married or single, that there are roles and ways that we can practically serve those in the body of Christ and those outside the body of Christ, in ways that, by many women, have been considered demeaning or insignificant but when rendered in the name of Christ, they become extremely significant.
Dennis: I like what you're saying here. You're saying that we need to be looking at this list that Paul speaks about here and be training our daughters to have hearts that are enlarged for God to be creating good works on behalf of others.
Nancy: You know, one of my favorite women in the Scripture is a little-known woman known Dorcas who, as you remember, lived in the town of Joppa, and she died, and when she died, all the widows of the town began to weep, because she had spent her life not leading some massive organization, not being a crusader or a campaigner, but she had lived her life making clothes and providing for the physical material needs of the widows in the town. And it's interesting that Peter the Apostle took time out of his busy schedule to come to Joppa to perform a miracle and raise her from the dead and, really, all we're told about her is that her contribution was to minister to the needs of these widows. That was why she was loved, that's why she was appreciated, that was the influence, the impact, the power of her life, was in that serving way.
Dennis: And you're saying that she was uniquely being a woman at that point?
Nancy: She was and, again, not to say – and there is so much emphasis today on men being servants to their wives and to their children – again, this is the heart of Jesus who stooped to wash the feet of his disciples. But, you know, it's politically correct in the evangelical world today for us to talk about men serving their wives and children. But when we begin the talk about wives who are distinctly made by God to be helpers to their husbands, wives coming into the role of servant – well, that kind of rubs the cat the wrong way, and it shouldn't.
Dennis: You mentioned that in one audience you got a standing ovation when speaking to a Christian group, and in another part of the country when you mentioned the same truth, there was a deafening silence.
Nancy: I've had women say to me, and we've heard...
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