Commodification of women and children

6 What causes fights and quarrels among you? In my previous letter I wrote that they come from your desires that battle within you. Now I am adding that the enemy encourages and stirs even your good desires towards destructive ends. Women desire to be respected like men: a worthy goal. But the enemy says "children can wait, but if you don't have this job, you'll never be able to afford a house big enough for the kids", twisting compassion; or the enemy stokes your desire for a promotion and career, twisting your sense of service; or otherwise simply ignores mothers, leading to your present depressed state.

Simply not having kids means you can afford a house near your friends and family. It means you can gain recognition at work from taking that promotion and greater responsibility, staying back here and there and even taking an extra course on the side. It means you can serve the local community and inspire others at the front of your church service. It means you can take leadership positions since you are more visible in your community.

But what kind of sick culture have we created where childlessness has become a virtue? Where jobs and wealth take precedence over just about everything? Submit yourselves instead to a godly culture. Resist the devil. Let the men say, enough is enough, let's make raising kids easier, and take joy in the great good that children are. Return to what was said long ago,

"Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with [children]", they "are a heritage from the Lord".
(Psalm 127:3-5)

Egalitarianism

Part of the risk of becoming like the culture around you–to "become like an (ethnic group) to win the (ethnic group)"–is that you can easily take on their destructive values. When it became acceptable to you to adopt a type of feminism that says women can be tough, leaders, risk-takers, and break free from children, you destroyed family. When you pushed marriage and children to after 30 years of age and beyond, you pushed God's heritage out of the way. The women's body is much less fit for children at that age. Even the body collapses: made for children, not having them greatly encourages cancer in their reproductive organs. Who have we won over by this approach? The devil and his destruction?

Instead, Scriptures teach the wisdom of the equality of the Body even while upholding the difference and individuality of each part. The Son submits to the Father, and is not ever less for it, despite enduring the cross. The prophet, or watchman, is like the digestive tract, extracting the nutrients from the good Word, and expelling the lies of the deceptive word. A job often behind the scenes in writing, prayer and reflection, but powerful when required, if often dirty. Few churches accept watchmen for they attract controversy. Mothers are treated similarly, like the dirty clothes they often find themselves washing, taking care of kids, they are treated as the lowest servants who are dirty. Yet like the prophet, they actually perform powerful and vitally necessary functions. Mothers are perhaps currently like the mechanism that folds proteins in cells, necessary for the entire well-being of the body in the construction of the most vital building blocks of the body. I say 'currently' because nobody at the present time appears to know how long strings of amino acids (called polypeptides) fold to create a healthy protein. Thus your mothers go unnoticed, unrecognised, even while providing a vital function.

This is why it may be said that "your gold and silver are corroded"James 5:3, and families are crying out silently. One does not simply preach a sermon series to fix this. Your whole way of life needs examining in light of Scripture.

A dignified body

The older women should teach the younger, and the older men likewise. This cultural teaching is a living sanctification process that the Spirit has always used to mature his Body. While the role of leader has been given to fathers, it has never been good for man to be aloneGenesis 2:18. What this means is that it in order for the family and the body to be healthy and sufficient, a woman is vital. As a culture we elevate the leader, but the best leaders have always been those who have empowered others. Thus credit must be shared. And true empowerment of women is respecting them and learning from them in their role as disciple-makers of the next generation, and matrons who pass on the most godly of culture: hospitality, service, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

But respect and empowerment in this way is not enough. We see the fruit and ease of what life could be like when kids play with other kids, and suddenly living independently doesn't make sense anymore. Children are like the legs of the body, energising the body with fresh youth. But when the kids are stuck on their own, we are reduced to hopping. Instead, we retain dignity and joy when in community, women have other women to care for each other, kids have other kids to spark joy with, and men have other men to share their worries with.