City Life Starter

THE WORD: I Timothy 5:1-2

1 Do not sharply rebuke an older man, but rather appeal to him as a father, to the younger men as brothers,

2 the older women as mothers, and the younger women as sisters, in all purity.

By Scott Fiddler

According to the recent news reports, the world now knows what those in Hollywood have known for years: Harvey Weinstein is (allegedly) a predatory, serial sexually harassing, sorry excuse for a man. The common denominator for all Weinstein’s alleged conduct is the assumption women are mere objects who exist to be lusted after, used, and disposed of by males for their sexual pleasure.

Now, granted, there is nothing new about the objectification of women. Men have been objectifying women since the Fall of Man. But the advent of television, movies, marketing, and a willing media has ramped up the intensity of the brainwashing that women are merely objects, products, and not persons.

It shouldn’t surprise us then that pagan religions promoted the objectification of women. After all, pagan religion, like all man-made religion, create God in man’s image. Men objectify women, and gods created by men in their image objectify women. For example, Roman pagan religion employed temple prostitution making objectification of women a sacred act. After Emperor Constantine had his miraculous encounter with the true God in 312 A.D. and converted to Christianity he outlawed temple prostitution.

The true God of heaven stands in stark opposition to our culture’s objectification of women, encouraging women to present themselves as persons and not products (I Peter 3:3-4) and requiring men to treat older women as they would their mother, younger women as they would their own sister (I Tim. 5:1-2), and that they be willing to lay down their lives for their wives (Ephesians 5:25-27).

As Christian men, how we treat women sets a standard for the world. That standard was not created by progressive politicians or thoughtful feminists but by the God who created us. If only we would listen.