The Women of the Bible

That there is a place for women in the purpose of God is most evi­dent throughout the Scriptures. Through quiet and unassuming service, their lives have been as effective and valuable in the eyes of God, as those of more prominent characters. Today, our own lives can be just as effective, in our service as Sisters of Christ, and it is often by observing the histori­cal women of ancient days, that we can draw comfort and daily en­couragement whereby to pattern our own lives.

With this hope in mind, the writer would like to show, through the lessons found in the lives of our former “sisters,” that there is a part that is still our responsibil­ity to carry out. Then, when the Master returns, we, too, can lift up our heads and hold out the fruits of our toil, and receive our just reward.

Eve

Eve was unique from any wom­an who has lived since. No one has ever been the same as she was. She wasn’t born, but was created by the hand of God. She did not come into life as a tiny infant de­pendent on her parents for all her needs; she was created a woman, and her needs supplied by angels.

She did not grow up through a childhood, gradually getting used to life and all its eccentricities ; from the moment she was con­scious, she was there, standing be­fore her husband. From that mo­ment onward, her life began.

What a wonderful way to start off on a clean slate! It is hard for us to imagine the position in which Eve stood, because our minds cannot be attuned to what went on in her mind. You see, Eve had nothing to clear away from her mind. It was pure, clean and, undoubtedly, like that of a sweet innocent child. She had had no previous experiences of any kind. This first sight of her husband, Adam, was her very first experi­ence in her life.

As a creature, made by God, we naturally assume she was lovely. All God’s creation is lovely, until degeneration, and weakness of the flesh, spoils it. In this instance, Adams perhaps expresses a poem of utter delight at the sight of her, “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh : she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.”

And as all brides, even today, who first join their husbands, Eve stepped into a new life. The Gar­den of Eden must have been a beautiful place, such as we cannot visualize. It was Paradise. No one really knows just where it was, and no amount of research has re­vealed the exact location. This is as it should be, for most certainly it was Holy ground—the feet of Angels trod its paths, and the Voice of God echoed through its forests!

The tranquility and utter bliss of a life, like the life which Adam and Eve lived for a short time, can only be compared to the life which awaits the bride of Christ in His Glorious Coming Kingdom.

For Eve, this life would be con­stant pleasure of one delight fol­lowed by another. There would be so many things for her to see, which would be absolutely new to her wondering eyes. That she had an inquiring mind, we cannot doubt, because she was a woman. ALL women have this character­istic! It is not a fault, but rather a facet of character. Anyone can he docile and never turn to the right or left, but what a dull existence ! A person like that would never grow intellectually.

But Eve had intellect. She knew all about the law concerning that tree of knowledge of good and evil. Not, the “tree of knowledge” as is so often misquoted, but the “knowledge of good and evil.” Eve had knowledge, as an innocent child acquires knowledge through alert, and inquiring eyes and ears.

Eve was so good, and pure, that the temptation had to come from someone else, in order to awaken her to the possibility of sin. Her conversation with the serpent is so revealing. The sweet, clean mind of this woman becomes soil­ed by a lie! “Thou shalt not surely die,” and then, “For God doth know that in the day ye eat there of, then your eyes shall be opened and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.”

The beauty of the tree, and the fruit it yielded; the picture which the words of the serpent conjured up in her mind, all added up to a desire within her reasoning and intelligent mind. She also, having had no previous experience of pun­ishment, had no idea of the extent of the wrath of God. She was so soon to learn! For her simple act of disobedience was to change the life of her and her husband from that of bliss into one of fear and hardship, and eventually death.

The order in which God meted out the curses, upon each offender, reveals the important lesson which perhaps, can be taken very seri­ously by all present-day husbands and wives. The serpent was cursed for tempting the innocent ; the woman was cursed for listening, and yielding, to the temptation, and one of the clauses in her pun­ishment was that she would he “subject unto her husband.”

Our loving brother, Paul, ad­joins every sister-wife to he subject unto her husband. How much better it might have been, there­fore, if Eve had merely turned to Adams and asked, “What do you think, dear ?”

But then Adam, too, showed lack in character which is required in a husband. His punishment was “Because thou hast hearkened un­to the voice of thy wife . . .” No husband can listen to the voice of his wife, as against the com­mand of God, at any time. God’s angry voice makes that clear in the placing of this first and fore­most in His reason for the punish­ment !

Sorrowfully, Adam and Eve learned that the wrath of God is a thing to be feared, above all things. Eve’s life was completely changed from then on. As Adam struggled with his own strange dif­ficulties of making a living for himself and his household, outside the Paradise, and in a strange world, so also Eve had to struggle with her own mysteries of the life.

They were pioneers in the most real sense of the word. Not only were they cast out of a paradise into a strange wilderness, from which they had to learn to carve their own existence, but they were pioneers also in mortal life itself. While, obviously, she would enjoy the pleasures of motherhood, on the other hand, Eve had a memory of that other life always in tile back of her mind. Knowing that her own disobedience, and the dis­obedience also of her husband, had been solely responsible for the fact that her sons were growing up in an environment that was to­tally different.

Don’t all mothers want some­thing better for their children ? With grief she would discern the evil characteristics of her eldest son, Cain. His willfulness in doing what pleased him, rather than obeying God’s command in relation to the sacrifice, his jealousy, and temper, would all show up in varying forms before the final ex- – plosion. Every mother learns to know her son, and to read the signs within his nature, long before others do.

So Eve would have sorrow with­in her heart all her days, because she would realize that it was be­cause of her action in listening to the words of the serpent and obey­ing them instead of the command of God, that brought all of it about. Eve would have reason to live the rest of her life in humble, and sorrowful, submission before God. Her cup of sorrow would be brimming when her eldest slew his younger brother, Abel! What mother, amongst us, cannot but feel an aching sympathy for Eve at this awful event.

We do not have to read details — indeed the Scriptures reveal very few—to understand with our hearts the deep sorrow that Eve must have suffered. Looking back upon the original moment of God’s curse put upon her, she could now understand the true meaning of the words, “I will greatly multi­ply thy sorrow, and thy concep­tion.”

Later on, Eve was given another son who, this time, we are given to understand was a comfort to Eve. “For God, bath appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew,” she said. She had to have another son, in order to fulfil the purpose of God, for it was from the seed of Seth that the chosen race eventually pro­ceeded.

God had declared to the serpent that the Seed of the woman was to eventually bruise the serpent fatally. In figurative language, a promise to produce a descendent of the woman who would put away sin for ever. The birth of Seth, therefore, was the beginning of the fulfillment of that promise—or another step in the carefully laid Plan and Purpose of God. Eve still played her part, and the play­ing of it gave her comfort and satisfaction.