A few months ago (time flies!) I went with friends from the chapel to a one-day women's conference. That was a bit of a stretch for me. As a rule, I'm kind of skeptical of Christian women's events because I usually feel like a foreigner. It's a tribute to my friends (who probably don't read this) that I went at all... because of them.
And I'm glad I did. One of these days I'll pull out my notes and review them. The speaker, whose name escapes me, kept my attention the whole time, explaining Biblical womanhood. Of all the things he said, what stuck with me were comments he made as an aside, a little rabbit trail he followed in response to a question.
Someone brought up the passage in 1 Timothy that says,
But women will be saved through childbearing - if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.
I don't think I've ever heard that addressed convincingly before. Saved through childbearing? His take on it was this.
Obviously, there are many wonderful women who are single and/or childless, and godly. I"m sure he was aware that many of these women can feel alienated at these women's conferences that focus exclusively on being a wife and mother, and he wanted to reassure them. So what does it mean, then?
Though it's not the only way to be a holy and obedient and godly woman, being a wife and mother is the "default" role for Christian women. Therefore, embracing her God-given role of motherhood demonstrates her salvation.
He didn't have time to elaborate on that, but even so I thought that was the most helpful explanation I've ever heard. If you've got a different understanding of it, I'd love to hear it!
2 comments:
Sounds reasonable, but I think too that God uses the circumstances of people's lives to draw them to Him, and for many women a large part of their lives is childbearing, so of course he will use that circumstance.
I also think of it like this - we go through things as we are saved. (are saved, being saved, will be saved - I believe all of these are true simultaneously) So we go through childbearing and we are saved. Like saying I ate ice cream through all of June, except much better!
Yes!
I think what always got me hung up was that grammatically, at least the way it sounds in English, if you read that verse alone it appears that salvation for women is contingent on childbearing - obviously not the case.
And I love the analogy. Mmmmm, ice cream...
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