Jesus is our example: Between women and men, there are no "Equal buts...."
John 5:17-18
But Jesus answered them My Father works till now and I work Because of this the Jews sought the more to kill him because he not only had broken the Sabbath but said also that God was his Father making himself equal with God
By that reasoning, which is correct, all offspring—both female and male offspring—are equal to their parents. That means daughters as well as sons are equal with their fathers. So, why do complementarians teach that female offspring are unequally subjected to the governance of male offspring?
Jesus not only claimed to be equal with God by saying God was his father, but he never amended the Jew’s correct understanding of what that meant. Later, in John 8:28, he made a clear statement claiming to be God.
The text of John 8:28, does not say “I am he.” The “he” in this verse is a translator supplement not found in the original Greek text. When Jesus identified Himself as the “I AM” of the burning bush, he was claiming Jahvistic identity. He was claiming to actually be Jehovah.
Jesus called himself the Son of God, and John 5:17-18 shows the ancient Jews had no such oxymoronic issues as complementarian teachers have with so called degrees of equality, “equal buts….” so to speak, that do not exist. One cannot have equality and hierarchy with someone at the same time. The concepts are mutually exclusive.
God created women and men in his image and commanded both to manage earth’s resources as autonomous equals. It is sin that drives male-governance theology.
News on the 2nd Edition of, Woman this is WAR! Gender, Slavery, and the Evangelical Caste System. The updated 2nd Edition will be published at a date to be announced, with a new cover and under the new title, God and Women: Deconstructing the Christian Caste System. It is currently being published on Substack in a chapter-by-chapter serialized version, with subscribers having exclusive access now.
Jocelyn Andersen challenges the status quo with an often non-traditional and out-of-the-box approach to biblical understanding. She writes and speaks on a variety of subjects including Bible Prophecy, God and Women, and Christian response to domestic violence. Her work has been featured in magazines, newspapers, radio, and television.
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