John MacArthur’s recent sermon in response to women as Teachers has stirred much displeasure and unrest in some, and also agreement for others. MacArthur’s name has been in the spotlight in recent weeks because of some comments about well-known women leaders in the church. Instead of apologizing or listening with empathy (eg., like Jesus did), he has doubled-down and defended his position using the Bible.
Here’s an excerpt of his newest sermon:
“Eve got out from the protection of Adam, she was vulnerable, she was deceived, …He sinned because he couldn’t live without her. She had become everything to him. When the roles are reversed, the women are deceived, bad things happen, the men are made weak, worse things happen. The whole human race went down with Adam. You tamper with this order, chaos is unending. … Adam was not deceived, Eve was deceived. If we stay in the order that God has designed us everybody flourishes.”
I squirm to be the one with the voice to say it, but THIS IS A LIE. Men aren’t weaker because of women. In fact, according to the biblical creation poem, men are made whole when given a woman. Genesis says “it wasn’t good for man to be alone.” (Genesis 2:18) God saw he needed a helper. Eve was CREATED BY GOD. How can we listen to and nod in agreement to a man who relegates a woman’s existence as “inherently evil?” Genesis 1 not only shows women are created by God, but made in His image! “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” (Genesis 1:27) God himself exists in Fullness within a relationship (the Trinity), and so do we. We are better together.
The centerpiece of thoughts like “I am worthless” or “I have no value” or “I’m not worth anything” is SHAME. Some of us have experienced so much shame these declarations have become self-mantras. We then tack our list of failures onto these beliefs:
“I’m worthless because I’ve had an abortion.”
“I hate myself because I can’t stop looking at porn.”
“I am trash because I am not skinny enough”
If my deepest truth is worthlessness, then I will always strive to cover my shame. I believe many leaders struggle with worthless feelings, so they teach a self-centered “gospel” falsely. Self-discipline, facades of “rightness,” performing and behavior modification will never save us and make us feel whole. Yet, some preachers teach us this is how we become “holy,” how we redeem our wrongness and make it right.
Women in particular struggle with hatred of self, and sermons and teachings like this in the church teach women that hating our self is some form of agreement with a God who sees this evil in me. Many of us believe God sees us as failures, utterly lost, broken and depraved. But what does He really see?
But all human beings- even women!- have inherent value because we’re made in His image. Our value and worth is NOT dependent on us, then! Our value is not determined by what anyone thinks of me- not even the preacher on stage. My value is not determined by what I think of myself.
God didn’t meet us by Lording over us and condemning us from some magical cloud asking us to “act right.” My God became HUMAN! That must mean something significant about humanity. God has never had a low view of humanity, because He knows the truth. He made us before we were “duped,” before we believed the lies in our own minds or the lies someone else has fed to us. God- who IS good- created people, and he called humans “very good” in the Garden (Genesis 1:31). When Jesus was born, He didn’t become like us. We were made to be like HIM! Humanness was part of the godhead before creation!
That means when He made me, I was made very good. I’m always “very good” because I am a reflection of the image of God. This gives me value. And it gives other people value. It gives men and women EQUAL value. Jesus as flesh embodies this truth for us.
As a parent, I would never tell Giana “the truth about you is there’s nothing good about you. You are terrible and utterly depraved. You have always been and will always be worthless.” Wouldn’t that make me a terrible parent? YET- the church teaches people this- and defends it using some “hand selected verses.” Father God has never made this declaration about humanity because He’d likewise be saying that about himself.
We should tell people this is the ultimate truth of their existence. We believe the Gospel —- Ephesians 2: 4-10 “But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
HUMANS HAVE ALWAYS HAD VALUE. Before we could even know or realize or even exist, God saw our value. It literally says we are HIS HANDIWORK in Ephesians.
My goodness is not earned because of my gender. I am not disqualified because of my behavior- nor was Eve! We are fully known and fully loved because of God’s character- rich in mercy, love and grace. We are called to be the same Merciful, Graceful Love to others.
In fact, if we’re going to base this all on Eve as MacArthur did, then let’s look at the whole story through Genesis 3. Even after God knew about her “sin,” he made a covering for her shame (Genesis 3:21). I SEE REDEMPTION IN THAT. God Himself shed blood to cover Adam and Eve’s nakedness and shame. If that’s not a picture of Jesus, what is?
God didn’t pronounce Eve as evil, or curse her- He only cursed the snake (Genesis 3:14). In fact, God said Adam and Eve became like Him now, knowing good from evil (Genesis 3:22)
Then God showed them MERCY by sending them out of the Garden of Eden, so they wouldn’t live forever to see the playing out of good and evil. God didn’t discipline them by banishing them from Eden, He provided for them in Love so their suffering wouldn’t be eternal.
Furthermore, if you believe in the redemptive story of Jesus, his resurrection made all things new! Men AND Women are free from the curse of sin and death in Christ. So how can we believe there’s a superior gender? MacArthur’s teaching is a manipulative twist on the whole story of the Scripture, proof-texting at it’s finest to derive a defense and use the Words of Love to justify hate speech and marginalizing people. MacArthur is using the most powerful form of religious abuse- shame. Period.
“Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.“ Romans 8:1 There is no room for shame when we are at the feet of Jesus.
DISCLAIMER: Let me be clear: I am not criticizing the personhood of MacArthur. I believe he, too, is made in God’s image. But as teachers, we are held at the highest standard, and his teachings misalign the truth of Christ.