Friday, October 1, 2010

Will we see independence of Indian women in Christendom before Christ return?


Readings: 
Revelation 11:19, 12:1-6, 10; I Corinthians 15:20-26.  Luke 1:39-56

Introduction:
August 15 is Independence Day in India, a land that is Mother to many people, mentalities, religions and languages. Let us remember India and Indian women by our realistically genuine contemplation, of their efforts in the result-oriented church growth and mission magnetism in soul wining in Christendom in equality with men. If it is true of God, then why are you silent about it, come on let us find a way out…?

Homely:
Most cultures, even today, are elusive with regard to women. In Greek mythology, woman was 'Penia', or 'Want'.  Man was ‘Poros’, or 'Fulness' and 'Wealth'.  Plato and Aristotle never included woman into their scheme of human society.  Woman lacked volition and intelligence.  They were certainly not capable of achieving any equilibrium and good.

Indian society has had some shining examples of women all through its history right down to our present days.  But in daily life and in the average family, women are kept as handmaids of their husbands.  The practice of 'Sati', illegal though it is, was based on the idea that a woman formed part of her husband's self.  She had no right to exist apart from her husband.  Why, the number of female feticides performed even today in India is shocking!

Even Hebrew society, though it had some very astounding women on the national scene, 
never actually treated women with the respect that is their due.  Bible text readings speak of great signs and symbols that fill the sky, our horizon.  Signs and symbols are truths about an unseen reality.  Something is being thrown together before our eyes, but unfortunately, 
because of our defective vision, we only see it dimly and in part.

There are many things that strike me in these readings.
First and foremost is the fact that God works through woman for the good of human kind and His universe.  In God's eyes, woman is no less a partner of His than man.  Does this not really puncture our male ego of its sense of greatness and importance?

A second fact is that woman is equally important to man in the fulfillment of Creation, Redemption and Sanctification.  All the readings are about women and God's creative, redemptive and salvific action through them.

A third fact is that woman is pregnant and labouring.  She is crying aloud in the pangs of childbirth.  Even today, the vast majority of them are pregnant and labouring, crying aloud in the pangs and hope of human dignity.

A fourth fact is that although she is considered lowly in our society, God exalts her.  God does great and wondrous things through woman.

A fifth fact is that in God's eyes, man and woman are not competitors.  In God's eyes, both Man and Woman are His partners. Consequently, man and woman are also partners of each other.  To each a task.  To each a fruit.

Do we Christians, at least, realize and foster the dignity of woman as God is showing us through these great signs and symbols?

Where was women placed by God and where are they now?
God took a rib from Adam side (Gen2:21) representing woman suppose to be equal with men in Home, Church and in the ministry. She was a bone not flesh, remember. Significantly, Adam was made from mud but Eva was from a bone. Why did caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man? (Gen2:21) God knew if the man was awake he would have requested or even suggested God to take a tiny bone from his back or from his feet, was not wonderful God caused a deep sleep that he will not knowing what was on His mind. Know the truth and the truth shall set you from the religious prison. (Psa 147:7; John8:32)  
Jesus Birth, death, first it was spoken to Woman Mary (the angel Gabriel was sent by God-Luke1:26)
Jesus resurrection, and ascension was spoken to woman Mary Magdalene (John 20:17)
It was Woman Elizabeth who was first filled with the Holy in the NT (Luke 1:41).

The contrast between God and Christians is that God in His supremacy of sovereignty using women in His mission whereas Christians trying put them in the place where Satan kept them from the beginning by hampering by cumbering in mission of God.

Pandita Ramabai Saraswati (1858-1922)
A strong woman is a woman who is determined to do something others are determined not be done." These words by Marge Piercy describe Pandita Ramabai, a poet, scholar, and champion of the rights of women, has been acclaimed as a "mother of modern India. She was born in Karnataka (South India) in 1858. She was the daughter of a wealthy Brahmin scholar a devout and orthodox Hindu; he scandalized his high-caste friends by teaching his wife and later his daughters to read the Sanskrit classics. She was given the honorific title "Pandita," mistress of wisdom.Soon Ramabai had become the leading advocate for the rights and welfare of women in India, establishing centers for widows and orphans in Poona and later Bombay, where the women were given basic education and training in marketable skills. In 1883, she accepted an invitation by a congregation of Anglican nuns to visit England. Ramabai herself wrestled with her strong aversion to the cultural imperialism of foreign missionaries in India. She was baptized, she received persecutions and pressure from both Hindus and Christians alike was very unfortunate. In later years, she prayed not for the conversion of Hindus but for the conversion of Indian Christians. Pandita Ramabai Saraswati was the greatest woman produced by Modern India and one of the greatest Indians in all history.

She was groaning with pangs of independence of Indian women in Christendom, will we see a breakthrough in the Christian churches and Christian organizations.

Pedagogically, Man pronounce a benediction at the end of the church service  on people in place of God, if man was abominably unholy to the Lord in his personal life and God all his service by unaccepted, will his blessing bestowed on people? No, even God isn’t interested in his prayer. In the same place a woman pronounce a benediction, she is accepted in by God, whose blessing will be bestowed with benefit and profit people? It will be certainly woman but in India charismatic Christian do not believe in it because of their pragmatic superstitiously educated negligence, religious arrogance and power sharing.

Will we see independence of Indian women in Christendom before Christ return? 
Shalom. 
Abel Amirtharaj (www.fea.org.in)

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