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....

I think it was the cover of this book that really caught my attention.  It shows a girl with her face scribbled out. Sick of Me: From Transparency to Transformation by Whitney Capps attacks the current fad, in American Christianity, of presenting ourselves to each other in all our weakness. Of course, Capps doesn't think that admitting our faults is a bad thing, the problem is that we don't want to change. We are happy in staying in our unchanged, broken state, and ironically, using it as a springboard for glorying in ourselves rather than in Jesus Christ.  As the author states, "The Christian life is never meant to make people think more or better of me.   The goal is for me to look more like Christ, and, should people happen to notice me in the process, for them to think more of Jesus.   " But that of course, is not biblical and it is not godly.   This book addresses that quite well.   If we are truly convicted about something, we won't feel com...

Lies Women Believe by Nancy Demoss Wolgemuth is a book that goes through various lies that women believe about reality and counters them.  Dealing specifically with many of the lies women believe about God, themselves, sin, priorities, sexuality, marriage, children, emotions and circumstances, this book is designed as a gentle, but firm exhortation to wake women up to see the truth. I get the impression that many of the women's writings of today cater to women's excuses, unbelief and overall selfishness. We don't need to build up our self-love, "the truth is that we do love ourselves" , we need to learn to deny ourselves.   "Our most common malady is not having a low view [of] ourselves, but having a low view of God." I also loved how the author pointed out that the thought, "I can't help the way I am" because of - fill in the blank-,   is a lie.   She uses Eve as an example: it was not Eve's circumstances that accounted...

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...