Musings of a Snickerdoodle

Rediscovering Scripture's Vision For Women: Fresh Perspectives on Disputed Texts by Lucy Peppiatt is a book that, as the title indicates, attempts to look at Scriptures teachings of God's plan for women.  As you may have guessed, these "fresh" perspectives ultimately attempt to lead the reader to think that Christian women do not need to keep silent in the church, can pastor churches, don't need to submit to their husbands…etc.   I have read some of it outloud to many of my sisters (I have seven sisters) and they were all joining me in criticizing the claims of this book. Let me deal with some of her claims.   First, her view of 1 Corinthians 11.   I find part of her introduction to her interpretation ironic:   "My own research has led me to study these verses in detail and to discover that the more obvious meaning of the text causes consternation and embarrassment among many, and even causes others to question Paul's understanding here....

What is God's purpose for Christian women? Do women have a unique roll to fulfill or is it exactly the same as men's'?  In our Christian circles, which seems to be infected by our feminist focused society, this book is quite a refreshing breath of reaffirmed biblical truth (rather than reaffirmed worldly cultural preference). In her book Eve in Exile: And the Restoration of Femininity,  Rebekah Merkle writes an excellent exhortation to Christian women of our day. There are four sections in the book,  I'll give a description and  perhaps some comments on each one. Section one: Two Distractions.  The chapters within this section deal with two ways that will NOT fix the problem of ascertaining how Christian women can fulfill their purpose in life. I found it fascinating that one of the 'distractions' Merkle critiques is the way some women try to deal with the problem by looking to the past, a particular period of history, the Austen era, for example, a t...