Response to "The Desire to Control."

Do women naturally have a desire to control their husband? According to Genesis 3:16, they do and it happened right after the Fall. When I teach women to not deprive their husbands sexually, they come up with all types of excuses why they shouldn’t have to do this. The majority of these excuses are simply another way to control their husbands.

Here it is, one of Lori's favorite claims: that women desire to control their husbands. The only problem is...it's not based on a shred of truth, biblical or otherwise. No, Genesis 3:16 does not say this. In nearly all translations it says Eve would desire her husband. A couple translations do add the word "control", but the word for "desire" is the same word used to describe the mutual feelings of the lovers in Song of Solomon. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that a desire to manipulate and control is not what the author of Genesis had in mind, and yet Lori pushes this meaning because it fits her agenda. 

       Ironically, Genesis 3:16 is one of the strongest verses against everything Lori teaches, because it declares that men ruling over their wives is part of the curse. In other words, precisely the opposite of what God intended! I could give Lori the benefit of the doubt and assume she just hasn't noticed this, but I don't think I will. 

When I teach women to submit to their husbands, they will come up with all types of exceptions that will allow women to decide that they really don’t need to submit to their husbands in everything as unto Christ.

The "excuses" toward which Lori shows such contempt are actually attempts to understand what the Bible really is saying, rather than trying to make it say what we want. When Paul tells wives to submit to their husbands, he uses the same Greek word he had just used to say that all believers should submit to each other. Mutual submission could not be more clearly taught by the Bible, and yet Lori doesn't like it, so she ignores it. 

When I teach women that God commands them to be silent in the churches, they twist and distort Scripture and then give me all of the reasons why women don’t need to be quiet in the churches.

It is Lori who twists Scripture by refusing to respect it enough to truly study it. When Paul said women should be silent in the churches, he used the Greek word that simply means "converse", even though there were other words for "talk" that implied teaching. Paul was simply addressing the fact that the women in that culture were seldom in public and didn't know not to visit with their friends during the church service. He was saying nothing more than "don't talk during the service," which would apply just as much to the men (the men simply already knew this). That was all Paul was saying, and yet Lori thinks he should have been saying more and has distorted his words for her own agenda. 

When I teach women to be keepers at home, there’s always a huge outcry of why this couldn’t possibly mean that God wants women literally at home raising their own children, after all, the Proverbs 31 woman was a career woman!

There are only two verses in the Bible that even seem to be a command to women to be keepers at home, and the context of both reveals he was simply telling the Christians to follow social customs. Nothing more. In that culture, women were either keepers at home or prostitutes, so of course he told them to be keepers at home. Does Lori need yet another reminder that the Bible wasn't written in America in the 21st century? 

No ifs, ands, or buts. Just obey God! It’s really that simple. Satan’s grand scheme is to cause confusion with women. He wants them to think that God must mean something other that He commands. Stop listening to the enemy of your soul!

This is a perfect summary of Lori's tactics. She tries to scare women out of thinking for themselves and pressure them to mindlessly obey whatever she tells them. As we've seen, if you question her, she accuses you of questioning God. Of course, if she were asked about the verses that appear to condone slavery, or when Jesus seems to say we ought to hate our families, suddenly she would become quite interested in context and the real meaning of the Greek words. But she doesn't truly want to understand or to obey God. She simply has more reverence for the controlling men in her life than for God. 

       And let's not overlook the ultimate irony of declaring that men should have complete, unconditional control of women, but trying to sell us the idea that it is women who desire to have control!  

Link to the original blog: https://thetransformedwife.com/the-desire-to-control/

Response to "The Epidemic of Wives Divorcing."

       Once again, Lori's husband Ken gives Lori a break from her daily writing duties and takes a turn attacking women and blaming them for everything. 

       He begins: 

It is heartbreaking each time I hear of a good Christian man being divorced by his Christian wife. It seems that there is an epidemic of Christian wives being dissatisfied in their marriages or being the cause of blowing up their marriages with selfishness. I venture to say that this blog has saved many marriages already and will continue to do so, Lord willing, as it gets to the heart of the disease of feminism and a woman’s desire to be in control of her man.

"It seems" is hardly the wording you would use if you had done any legitimate research. I have no doubt the perception of someone like Ken is that women are indeed the primary culprit, but in the same way that the "perception" of John Wilkes Booth was that Lincoln was a bad President. I'm certainly not inclined to trust the opinion of either on these subjects. 

       Also, if by "saved many marriages" Ken really means that Lori's blog has turned many relationships with the potential for a fulfilling, satisfying bond between equals into a superficial empty shell based on nothing more than a contrived hierarchy that rules out any true intimacy, then I would be able to agree that Lori's blog has saved marriages. 

       By the way, I also ought to address where he alludes to the supposed desire of women to control their husbands. There is a sick irony in the fact that a man who literally believes he ought to have absolute authority over every detail of his wife's life actually thinks it's women who have a problem with wanting control! 

       Next, he shares his response to a friend named Bob who sought Ken and Lori's help with his marriage. Ken begins by telling Bob the following: 

“Let’s first make sure that you are not the problem, Bob. How are you doing with loving your wife and living with her in an affectionate and understanding way? Let’s have you make a list of the things you can be doing differently and see if showing more grace and trying to meet her at her needs will produce the results you are looking for."

This sounds good, until you remember that Ken and Lori twist definitions whenever it suits them, so that they appear to be reasonable without actually having to be so. Ken is playing lip-service to the idea that the man may be the one at fault, and insists that he must make sure he's living with his wife in an affectionate and understanding way, but I would not put it past Ken to turn around and declare any behavior of the husband "loving" even if it is harsh. He could simply say that it was being done "in the wife's best interest." This is no different from how Ken and Lori condemn abuse but then withhold the right to decide what is and is not actual abuse. How interesting that I can't remember a single instance in which they did declare something to be abuse. 

       I also won't be easily convinced that Ken really believes what he's saying here. After all, this is the man who said in a Facebook comment once, "I am so happy I no longer have to try and chase down my wife's 'needs' as that was so tiresome to watch the mark move regularly because I could never satisfy her." Ken, you need to practice what you preach before we'll take your words seriously. 

       After the first phase of restoring marriage (determining whether the man is the problem), Ken shares the second phase: 

The second phase of trying to restore a marriage comes with asking one’s spouse to do things God’s way in the marriage. Yes, these husbands were instructed to play the “submission card” that is so clearly given to wives in the Word, but to do so while maintaining all of the other principles of Christian love and living at the same time. They could not expect God to bless their marriage if they are not doing their part in it. But part of being in a Christian marriage is to be head and show loving and gracious leadership.

Ken either doesn't know (or doesn't care) that the Bible simply never declares husbands to be the "leader" of their wives. This is an idea in Western thought that originated with the philosopher Aristotle (definitely not a Christian!). Within a century of the formation of the church, many ideas of Greek philosophy infiltrated the church, and suddenly people "found" such ideas in the Bible. But they did not originate with Paul, and a careful reading of his words reveals this. For this reason, it is even less acceptable for a husband to play the "submission card." Wow, I just can't imagine this sort of "privilege" being abused by men! 

Bob set about holding his wife accountable for her temper and angry words spewed at him and the children by simply calling her out on it each time she did it. When she overspent regularly and put the family in a lot of credit card debt, he took the family finances away from her and gave her a generous $1,000 a month allowance as she regularly complained about how “controlling he was.”

Besides the fact that this is manipulative and emotionally abusive behavior (despite Ken's flippant dismissal), let's remember how one-sided it is. Ken and Lori constantly remind us that it is not the job of the wife to change her husband, that she must leave this up to God. Apparently, however, God is not good enough for wives, so their husbands must take the primary role in changing them. None of this, needless to say, is remotely biblical. 

In a men’s group that I am a part of, a young man asked what is he to do if his wife is no longer giving him sex because she complains that he is not loving her well. The main responses he received was that when he gets home each day, he needs to go about chasing down her needs. Give her affection, help with the children so she gets a break, make dinner, give her a foot massage and listen to her. All great things for a loving husband to do but guess what? It is just a short term bandage on the real problem. Many of us found out that no matter what we did, it only kept us on a treadmill of feeling we had to perform in order to be loved. When the degree to which our wife loves us is based on how we performed for her that day or hour, it is doomed to mediocrity and “tit for tat.”

Isn't it disgusting that people like this always use the phrase "giving him sex", as if sex is only for the husband? We should pity these people...likely they are having much worse sex than they could be, with a mindset like that! Seriously, though, it is very telling that Ken and people like him take something like sex that ought to be for the benefit of both spouses, and make it all about the man. And he still thinks he'll convince us that women are the selfish ones! 

       The rest of this paragraph is tricky. I agree that, to a certain extent, it is not good to withhold affection from your spouse if you're not getting from him/her exactly what you want. An ideal marriage is one in which both spouses are doing their best to love the other and be reasonable so that such battles are not necessary. However, the problem I must point out with what Ken is saying here is that he condemns wives for withholding something from their husbands because they're not getting what they want, but he sees no problem with husbands treating their wives however they want unless their wives "submit." In his mind, it is the job of the wife to earn her husband's good treatment and love by being "submissive." She must make the first step, or she has no right to expect him even to be kind to her. But no similar obligation is on the husband. 

So where have things gone so wrong that eight out of ten Christian divorces are initiated by unhappy wives?

Ken and Lori love to quote this statistic, and as far as I can tell, it's true. But, of course, statistics must be interpreted. Ken is sure he knows the answer: that wives are selfish and impossible to please. But, of course, he has no basis for this claim. I discovered an interesting fact in the brief research I did: far more women than men initiate divorce, but the numbers are equal when it comes to non-marital breakups. I don't claim to have enough information to make any definite claims either, but could it be that marriages are more likely to be plagued with the disfunction caused by traditional gender roles? This is further backed up by the fact that women are more likely to be unhappy with their marriages while the men think things are going just fine right up until they go to counseling or a divorce is initiated? Could it be that men benefit disproportionately from such arrangements, while a much greater burden is placed on the wife? This certainly doesn't seem far-fetched to me. And it would shed some light on the statistic. It would be interesting to research further, but for now, let's turn back to Ken. 

Bob, Joe, Fred, Dave, Paul, and John were all divorced by their wife last year, except one did divorce his wife after she left him and the kids for the eighth time and asked for the divorce. Lori and I are heartbroken each time we hear of another wife divorcing her husband and family. That’s right. The children know full well that Mom is the problem. Dad may not be perfect but he was the one trying to keep the marriage together and everything he tried wouldn’t work because his Christian wife had been poisoned by feminism and the appeal of the apple of happiness.

Ken continues using crafty language to paint a picture of innocent husbands victimized by their wives. But, of course, he has no knowledge of the vast amount of individual cases, and the picture he is painting is nothing more than a convenient assumption intended to prove his prejudiced opinion. If I might offer my own opinion, I suspect in at least a large portion of divorces, both spouses are at fault to some extent. That doesn't mean there's never a case in which it is overwhelmingly one spouse or the other, but I doubt those cases are the norm, despite what Ken wants us to think. I don't claim to know, this is just my guess. If Ken is allowed a guess, I am too. 

Would that not be a radical vaccination program for the church if this next Father’s Day your pastor boldly stood up in the pulpit and repented of his fear of women in his church? Where He proclaimed loudly and boldly everything that willful wifely submission looks like and what love, true sacrificial love for a husband should be in Christian marriage? To do this might start a revolution where the church no longer bought into feminism’s lies that it is equality in marriage that is the key to happiness.

As if it wasn't clear before, Ken unambiguously declares here that his idea of the perfect marriage is one that is intentionally unequal. People like this often lie that they believe women are "equal but different." Don't believe them. They believe women are inferior, that God intentionally made them that way, and that men are higher, slightly more divine beings who must be reverenced by the lowly women who should be privileged that the men pay any attention to them at all. Only a narcissist who thinks his audience is a bunch of idiots could seriously try to convince us that equality is a terrible thing and that the only way to have a happy marriage is one in which the wife carries the entire burden of serving her husband, while her husband gets to be the ruler and center of everything. Pretty convenient which side of that arrangement Ken finds himself on! 

       One final point I must make is that I'm confused about the point of this blog. Lori's blog is supposed to be for women, but there seems to be little here for them besides an attempt to blame them for all divorces and scare them into staying married no matter what. It seems much more like a love letter and pat on the back to men, reassuring them that if there is a problem in their marriage, they most likely are not at fault. After all, Ken's "statistics" say so! 

Link to the original blog: https://thetransformedwife.com/an-epidemic-of-christian-wives-divorcing/

Response to "For Women who are Lonely and Bored at Home."

       Lori must have been busy yesterday, because instead of posting a new blog, she reposted an old one from a few years ago. It turned out to be quite an "interesting" one, so I decided it was worth responding to. 

       The blog is made up of a comment from one of Lori's followers, a man named "Trey." I don't recall seeing someone with this name on her Facebook page recently, so perhaps he was one of the vulgar, verbally abusive men who prowled around Lori's page and launched attacks at women who commented, but eventually attacked Lori herself and was finally blocked. 

       Trey apparently was responding to a woman who shared with Lori that she is often lonely and bored being home all day, and asked Lori what to do about it. Trey's response is filled with nuggets of wisdom and great ideas (heavy sarcasm!): 

First of all, have you asked your husbands if they are pleased with your efforts in the home? Have you asked them if there is anything additional that they would like to see done, done better, or done differently? Have you asked them if they have a preference on how you spend your free time? Have you expressed your concerns to them and asked them to help you come up with constructive ways to use that time? This should be your first step and then comply fully with their wishes.

Of course! The patriarchal solution to everything: ask your husband! He obviously has infinite wisdom and the perfect answer to every question you may have. In fact, this saves you the trouble of ever thinking for yourself at all! And also, how could this woman have forgotten that she is not entitled to any free time of her own? If she has any available moment, it simply means she could be doing more to serve her husband. After all, he's not paying her just to sit around doing nothing all day. Oh wait...

If they do not have a preference and leave it up to you, then ask yourself this: What did the Proverbs 31 woman do with her free time? How did she handle her loneliness? Trick question? Yeah, she didn’t really have any free time to be lonely did she? Her time, that started early in the morning before the rest of her household and ended late at night, was spent doing constructive, beneficial, and profitable WORK that benefited her household and brought good and honor to her husband. It also brought honor, praise, value, and blessing upon herself.

Trey, far from the ambiguous type, doubles down on his idea that women literally should not have any time for themselves. It seems to me the Proverbs 31 woman was sane, something that would not be possible if she had no time to herself. Trey doesn't appear to know the difference between women and robots. 

One of the tragedies of this modern era where women have so many modern machines, conveniences, and stores to shop in, is that they have way too much free time and way too many of them sit around idle and waste the time they are given (being lonely), or try and use it up in useless (socializing and shopping just to shop) and other (playing games on phones or computers) wasteful ways. 

Yes, what a tragedy that we have technology! We would be so much better off still churning butter and hanging our clothes on clotheslines and depending on gardens and livestock to survive. The way Trey sees it, the work of taking care of a home is not an end in itself (done for the sake of having food and shelter), but rather, simply a means to the end of keeping women from having any recreational time. The fact that Trey has the free time to write this nonsense tells me he is the one with too much time on his hands! 

Instead of growing their own food for their family, they use the money that their husbands earn to purchase it.

How horrible! Purchasing food at *gasp* a store! 

Instead of growing the flax and cotton that is needed to make the fabric and then making the clothes that their family needs and possibly selling some to others, they use the money that their husbands earn to purchase their clothes and instead of mending something when it gets a hole, they just toss it and buy new replacements.

It's not enough to grow everything you eat. It's not even enough to buy the materials to make clothes. Trey actually thinks wives ought to be growing the plants that will give them the materials out of which to make clothes! At this point, I have to wonder what it is Trey's ideal husband is spending money on, since all of the family's necessities are grown? Perhaps Trey simply wants to be able to spend his money on toys and luxuries and expects his wife to live the life of an indentured servant in order to support his frivolous lifestyle. 

Whereas in decades and centuries past where the woman worked hard all day long at doing these types of beneficial household activities and ended up contributing so much more to the overall support of the household, nowadays, especially for the stay-at-home wife/mom, EVERYTHING is left to the husband to earn and provide for while the wives sit at home idle, suffering with loneliness and complaining that their husbands work too many hours. Is this really God’s plan for a Christian wife that she has so little to do in her home that her biggest problem in life is dealing with loneliness while her husband carries the load virtually all by himself and his reward is a nagging and complaining wife because he works too much?

Isn't it interesting that the same people who criticize wives for staying at home supposedly "idle" while the husband is left to do all the earning and providing, also condemn women who work outside of the home in order to contribute financially to the family. You can't win with these people. There is no right answer, nothing that satisfies them. They will simply oppose women no matter what they do. 

Here is the bottom line regarding your free time, prioritize your efforts (allowing your husband the final say) and continue to focus on these types of beneficial activities until your free time is all being constructively and beneficially used up.

Once again, if it wasn't clear, women should have no time for themselves. They exist entirely to serve their husbands and male children (since Trey also urges female children to begin to be prepared for a life of servitude!). And, of course, he must throw in the caveat that the wife must never make any decision on her own (even when it comes to something like how to spend her own time), but must consult her husband. If Trey is married, I truly wonder if he allows her to go to the bathroom without asking him permission first. Men like this have egos so large that they cannot stand the thought of not having control of every aspect of the life of another person. 

Let’s face it ladies, 90 percent (or more) of the activities for women at the church INCLUDING women’s bible studies are just social events and are just a WASTE of time. Do you want to spend one to two hours a week cleaning the bathrooms or vacuuming the floors at your local church? This would be time well spent but going up there to socialize and gossip with other women? Not so much. I am not saying that you should NEVER attend a function like this to socialize or never have lunch with another Christian woman, etc. but time spent this way should be considered a luxury and kept to a reasonable minimum. 

Bypassing the completely made-up percentage, yes, you read that correctly: Trey is fine with women cleaning bathrooms and vacuuming, but talking to other people? That's not what women were made for! Time spent socializing is not spent cleaning, so it must be "kept to a reasonable minimum." He doesn't say it here, but of course he would define "reasonable minimum" as whatever a woman's husband wants it to be (even if that means none). 

A word of caution, be very careful going out on the internet and/or talking to other women to see how they have interpreted Proverbs 31 (hint: She wasn’t a career woman.) and what they are doing because there is a LOT more wrong out there than what is right. Read Proverbs 31 in the Bible for yourself. Read it over and over until you have it memorized and then meditate on it for as many hours, days or weeks as it takes while praying to God and asking Him to show you what He wants you to do with the time that you have been given. Then, when you think you have an answer, run it by your husband for his final approval and blessing.

This nightmare would not be complete without a message attempting to frighten the reader away from listening to anyone but Trey. Somehow he believes he is the one who decides what is and is not the correct interpretation of Proverbs 31. He tells women to read it for themselves, but he doesn't really mean that they should come to their own understanding of it. He has already told them what it means and saved them the trouble of thinking about it. And, of course, he reminds wives that they must run it by their husbands anyway. And if a woman's husband decides that the real meaning of Proverbs 31 is that he is permitted by God to have multiple wives and lock them all in a shed and demand they bow down and worship him, who is she to tell him he's wrong? 

       And yet, Lori posts this as a comment so good it is "worthy of its own post." Some of this is (almost) shocking, even for Lori. Did she read it, or just copy and paste it and assume it was divinely sanctioned because a man wrote it? 

       Lori has also failed to notice that she hasn't addressed the original problem at all. The blog said nothing except that women aren't allowed to be bored or lonely, or, more accurately, that it doesn't matter if they are. The same amount of care is shown for women as you might have for an old dish rag; it is useful as long as it serves its purpose but it isn't that big of a deal if it gets dirty and ragged and worn out. 

       Needless to say, women who stay at home or work outside of the home both deserve and need free time, and should not be made to feel selfish or idle or wasteful because of it. And they also need social interaction and companionship (especially one whose husband viewa her as chattel...I doubt they're getting much companionship from him!). Any man who loves his wife would be perceptive to these facts and would want her needs to be taken care of, rather than simply demanding she work harder to please him. But, of course, Lori and her followers carefully avoid all of the Bible verses commanding husbands to love their wives! 

       It's a good thing Trey isn't a stay-at-home-wife. He wouldn't last 4 hours.

Link to the original blog: https://thetransformedwife.com/for-women-who-are-lonely-and-bored-at-home/

Response to "All the Reasons Why Women Don't Need to be Silent in the Churches."

       In a strange way, I almost appreciated this blog from The Transformed Wife. Most of Lori's blogs consist of nothing but assertions that whatever she thinks is correct and anyone who disagrees with her is simply wrong...and also hates God. But this time, she actually takes the time to acknowledge and address rebuttals to one of her favorite points: the mandatory silence of women in the church. If she would do more of this, her blog might even be very slightly more tolerable. Except, of course, for the fact that she is simply wrong, even when she attempts to engage in a more reasonable and intellectual discussion. 

       In this blog, she answers several comments that were made on one of those handwritten messages she posts here and there, which contained two of her favorite verses from 1 Corinthians 15 and 1 Timothy 2 about women being forbidden to speak in church or have authority over men. 

       Her first rebuttal: 

Some said those verses were written to rebellious women in the churches back then, uneducated women, or because women were being oppressed and separated from the men. Are any of these true? There certainly are no Bible verses to support these reasons. In fact, in 1 Timothy 2, God goes all the way back to Creation as to why women are to “learn in silence with all subjection.” The first reason is that Adam was created first, therefore, he’s the one God ordained to be in authority. The second reason is that Eve was deceived. This washes away ALL of the cultural excuses why these verses are irrelevant for today.

As for the first half of this paragraph, it is absolutely a historical fact that women were not as well-educated in first-century Israel as the men. It is also a fact that women were segregated from men in public gatherings. Yet, Lori ignorantly dismisses these merely because they are not mentioned directly in the Bible! I suppose she doesn't believe George Washington was real either, since he too was not in the Bible? She doesn't even realize how absurd it would have been for Paul to waste time describing cultural customs to people who already knew all about them. We, however, must be at least somewhat familiar with such things in order to understand certain portions of the Bible. Lori, of course, will have none of this. She prefers we know as little as possible that would help us understand the Bible correctly. 

       As it turns out, when Paul tells women not to speak in church, he chose a very specific word for "speak." There are 30 Greek words he could have used, many indicating giving a speech or teaching. However, he chose the word "laleo", which means "converse." In other words, the women, lacking any experience of being in public, simply did not know how to act and were chatting with each other during the church service. Paul was saying "don't talk during the service!" Nothing more. The men, of course, didn't need to be told this because they already knew not to talk during the service (but they, too, would have been expected not to talk during the service, even though they were...gasp...men!). 

       The irony of Lori's understanding of this verse is that Paul's intent was the complete opposite of what Lori wants it to be! The most radical point he made to the original audience was the fact that he actually allowed women to be in the church service with men, and to learn alongside them! This, not the command not to have conversations, is what would have been shocking to them. Paul would roll over in his grave if he knew his words were being used the way Lori uses them. 

       In the second half of Lori's paragraph, she tries to dismiss the facts of history by pointing out that Paul mentions the creation order and the fact that Eve was deceived. But again, she shows her ignorance. Paul was writing to Timothy, who was dealing with a cult in Ephesus that elevated women above men by teaching, for example, that Eve was created first. He was simply correcting this. The problem with taking these words as an argument for male leadership (and female silence) is that these ideas do not appear in Genesis at all! The fact that Adam was created first in the story says nothing about him being in authority over Eve, since, if we carry this idea to its logical conclusion, the animals would have authority over Adam due to being created even before him! Lori does her best to sound learned and sophisticated, but until she accepts her own ability to think for herself (even though she's...gasp...a woman!) and not simply rely on whatever men tell her, she isn't going to get very far. 

       She continues with another rebuttal: 

Others gave this verse: “And it shall be in the last days says God, ‘That I will pour out My Spirit upon ALL mankind; And your sons and your DAUGHTERS shall prophesy, And your young men shall see [divinely prompted] visions , And your old men shall dream [divinely prompted] dreams ; Even on My bond-servants, both men and WOMEN, I will in those days pour out My Spirit And they shall prophesy” (Acts 2:17‭, ‬18). These were already fulfilled. “Daughters shall prophesy; fulfilled in Anna the prophetess, Luke 2:36, and in the four daughters of Philip, Luke 21:9.” (Matthew Poole’s Commentary). Other commentaries say it is that women and men would be filled with the Holy Spirit but it certainly doesn’t negate the verses about women being silent in the churches.

She doesn't really negate the point being made here. To prophecy is to speak a message given by God. This is exactly the kind of authoritative act Lori does not believe women are permitted to do, but apparently God thinks otherwise. 

“Can’t be right translation as, Anna the prophetess/priestess outside the Temple saw Mary bring Jesus and called him Christ. Isaac’s wife Rebekah was also a prophetess who shows great godly boldness where Isaac was silent. God also told Abraham to listen to his wife Sarah.” The Church was not even established at the time that these women were mentioned in God’s Word. The Apostle Paul is the one who set up the Church and explained in detail how it is to run.

About this third rebuttal, I'll simply say it's tragic that Lori thinks women have less freedom under the New Covenant, after Jesus set us free from the burden of the law! How much of the Gospel does she really understand? 

       Another commenter brought up the Hebrew word for "helper", "ezer", in Genesis (referring to Eve as Adam's helper). She pointed out that it is used only twice to refer to Eve in the Old Testament, but 16 times to refer to God. Ken himself answered this point, but he seems to have misunderstood (to be fair, the commenter herself was also mistaken in thinking "ezer" meant "woman" rather than "helper." Still, Ken displays his ignorance of the actual point by going on about how women are not as strong as God (duh) and that the use of this word does not negate what he thinks is the clear command of the Bible that women be subordinate. The real point, which Ken doesn't even address, is the fact that the word "ezer" cannot mean any sort of subordinate or assistant, unless we are prepared to believe God is our subordinate! 

Lori includes one final rebuttal: 

Finally, there is this verse that women think disqualifies all of these commands for women to be silent in the churches. “But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoureth her head: for that is even all one as if she were shaven” (1 Corinthians 11:5). A few chapters later in 1 Corinthians 14, the Apostle Paul gives clear instructions on how church services are to run. He speaks about men praying, prophesying, and speaking in tongues with an interpreter, then we are given these verses at the end of the exhortation which clearly prove that women are forbidden from prophesying out loud in the church gathering.

She then repeats the handwritten verse from 1 Corinthians 14 about women asking their husbands questions at home rather than in church. Once again, she doesn't really argue against the point being made, but merely doubles down on insisting that two highly specific and conditional verses override all others. Well, she is not convincing. She claims Paul gives instructions for only men to pray, prophesy, and speak in tongues, but the Bible never distinguishes between men and women in this way. She has imposed her own opinions on God. Lori would do well to study the entire Bible for herself instead of limiting herself to 4 or 5 verses that the men in her life have convinced her are the only verses a woman is allowed to deal with. 

        It's been rather entertaining watching Lori and her loyal followers bickering amongst themselves on Facebook about just what kind of speaking women might be allowed in church. Lori thinks women can sing but not say "Amen!" in response to the sermon. Some think it's okay for women to give announcements, others don't think women should utter a sound at all. So much for it being "clear", as Lori claims. And they're all caught up in this instead of reaching people with the Gospel and actually helping people. How sad! 

Link to the original blog: https://thetransformedwife.com/all-the-reasons-why-women-dont-need-to-be-silent-in-the-churches/

Response to "Telling Young Women to Get Married and Have Children is Wrong?"

       Lori is still offended by the article she came across last week (about which she already wrote in another blog). In this blog, she focuses her outrage on the following paragraph from the article: 

“If you hear someone tell you that complementarity means you have to get married, have dozens of babies, be a stay-at-home housewife, clean toilets, completely forego a career, chuck your brain, tolerate abuse, watch Leave It to Beaver reruns, bury your gifts, deny your personality, and bobble-head nod ‘yes’ to everything men say, don’t believe her. That’s a straw (wo)man misrepresentation. It’s not complementarianism. I should know. I’m a complementarian. And I helped coin the term.”

As I mentioned when I covered Lori's previous blog written in response to this article, it's fascinating to me that complementarianism is not extreme enough for Lori. Though there are variations, generally a complementarian is someone who believes that men and women are technically equal in value (though act as though this is not the case) but different in role. They push for women to remain in the home, men to be leaders and protectors, etc. And yet, Lori finds fault even with a complementarian. For this reason, I have begun to refer to Lori's beliefs as "patriarchal." 

       Though I disagree with the complementarian position, I can certainly agree with what the author of the article has written above. It's good to know she doesn't believe women are required to have dozens of babies, turn off their brains, tolerate abuse, etc. But, of course, Lori has a problem with this: 

It sounds like she greatly dislikes biblical womanhood, that’s for sure. What about God commanding young women to marry, bear children, and guide the home and give no occasion for the adversary to speak reproachfully (1 Timothy 5:14)? What about older women teaching younger women to love their children and be keepers at home so they don’t blaspheme the Word of God (Titus 2:3-5)?

Briefly, Lori refuses to accept the fact that these verses are doing the exact opposite of what she thinks: urging Christians to conform to the culture! In Paul's time, women already got married, had children, and were keepers at home. Paul was concerned that the new equality brought by Christianity would compel women to break out of the cultural norms and turn people away from the Gospel because of their socially subversive behavior. That is why Paul also urges slaves to obey their masters. He wasn't endorsing slavery, and neither is he endorsing women being confined to the home. He simply considered the Gospel to be of such importance that it was worth following the social customs of the time (within reason) to avoid turning people off. 

       However, I want to focus on the fact that embedded in this paragraph is one of the key problems we see over and over again from Lori. If we're being generous, we might give her the benefit of the doubt and assume she simply misunderstands; however, it's far more likely that the "misunderstanding" is deliberate. The problem I'm referring to is that Lori takes a message that says "you don't have to do ____" and turns it around to mean "____ is bad." Instances of this are abundant in Lori's writings. For example, when accused of teaching that women's only purpose is to have babies, she retorts that babies are a gift from God! This is beside the point: to say that women don't exist only to have babies is not to say children are bad. It's simply to say that women don't exist only to have babies. But Lori's thinking is far too dogmatic and black-and-white to understand this. 

       Similarly, Lori assumes the woman writing the article hates those things she mentions, such as getting married, having babies, staying at home, etc. But the author did not say there was anything wrong with those things; she simply said it's not as if these are the only things every woman is permitted to do. Of course, there are major problems with some of the other things she mentioned, such as tolerating abuse, but we'll come to those soon. 

Has she ever taught women to be a keeper at home? I seriously doubt it by this comment. She actually seems to mock it.

Again, she is not mocking women who choose to be a keeper at home. She is simply saying that it's okay for a woman to not be a keeper at home. But Lori is so accustomed to harshly telling women that they have only one option and are wrong if they choose any other that she automatically interprets this woman's remarks as having the same tone as her own. She can only comprehend the words of bondage and limitation and does not even recognize the language of liberation. 

Does she believe that mothers at home don’t have a brain? Do only those women who pursue higher education and careers have a brain? It sure seems that this is what she is saying in her quote. I can tell you that I have learned a whole lot more on my own and from godly male preachers of the Word than I ever did in all of my years in the public school system and in the Christian college I attended. There are MANY intelligent women who are home full time with their children!

This is where it just gets weird. Lori is accusing someone else of saying women don't have brains? I'm fairly certain no one has outdone Lori in putting down and devaluing women, or relegated them to tasks that don't require them to think any thoughts other than those of their husbands. This author never came close to suggesting that women don't have brains, and I think Lori knows it. Rather, she was criticizing those who do suggest that women should not think for themselves but should listen uncritically to whatever men say. You know, like Lori does. And yet, Lori, the great opponent of women, shows how intelligent she really believes women to be by pretending to be a defender of women, and expecting everyone to fall for it. 

Who has ever told women to tolerate abuse as Mary claimed? I am accused of this often. I have never written that women should tolerate physical abuse. You see, we must define what abuse means since many women have told me that their husbands abuse them when in fact, they didn’t. If they are being physically abused, they need to call the authorities and seek help. If they are being emotionally or mentally abused, they need to seek out a wise, older, godly woman to receive counsel from. She will be able to tell if it truly is abuse. If it is, she can help her and encourage her in the situation.

Here is an example of why Lori's teachings are so dangerous. She twists reality to be whatever she needs it to be in order to be right. If she alone has the right to determine whether something is abuse, she can pressure women to tolerate it but then turn around and say she never did so because she didn't consider it to be abuse! I might as well say I'm a vegetarian while taking a bite of bacon, and, when confronted, simply say that bacon is a vegetable. This is a tactic of abusers: they twist reality and reserve for themselves the right to decide what is and is not abuse. Lori has admitted before that she does not consider hitting to be abuse. I would very much like to ask Lori what she does consider to be abuse. And I wouldn't be surprised if she were reluctant to give any concrete example, since this would mean she would be unable to dismiss any future instances by saying it isn't abuse. 

I am not sure what is wrong with Leave It to Beaver reruns or any of the old shows that showed a traditional family that Mary somewhat mocked. I love the old shows where decency was normal, wives were home full time caring for their families, and the husbands were working hard to provide. I see nothing wrong with them at all. They are far superior to any shows on the major networks these days.

Again, this shows how completely Lori didn't understand what she read. The author didn't say there's anything wrong with these shows. She simply said that biblical womanhood doesn't mean you must do nothing but watch these shows. I like Star Wars, but imagine if I said you hate Star Wars if you don't watch it 24/7. This is essentially what Lori is saying. 

       And let's not overlook how absurd it is that Lori even thinks it's worth taking the time to defend TV shows during an otherwise serious discussion. She can't resist the opportunity to remind us of her opinion about the current state of television. What a privilege not to have more important things to worry about! 

Lastly, a mother can use her gifts in her home with her children. Her personality can shine forth in her everyday interaction with her husband, children, and those to whom she comes in contact with. 

Lori has craftily composed this paragraph to sound positive, but it is all about restrictions. She is saying a mother should not use her gifts except in the home with her children. Her personality must be tied to her husband and children (and the few other people her husband allows her to see, though too many likely would mean she's not fulfilling her duties at home).  

Yes, a wife should be saying “yes” to her husband on a regular basis. This is what submission looks like, for goodness sake.

This is in response to the sentence in the article that said women are not required to "bobble-head nod ‘yes’ to everything men say." Lori disagrees even with this statement. Without having the guts to say it directly, she declares that women should nod their heads and mindlessly say yes to everything men say. 

       No, despite Lori's claim, this is not what biblical submission looks like. Biblical submission is not hierarchical and has nothing to do with authority at all. It is mutual. It is all about thinking of the needs of and taking care of one another. And it is not something that is required only of women. The essence of this kind of submission is found in verses such as Romans 12:10: "Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves." This is a command to both men and women! "Submission", in fact, likely isn't the best word for the Greek hupotasso anyway. It is frustrating that Lori and others deliberately act as though challenges based on translation from one language to another should be ignored. 

       So, to answer the question in the title of Lori's blog: no, the article does not suggest that getting married and having children is wrong, but that telling women they exist only to do so certainly is wrong. The idea that this is all they exist for is a cultural idea, having been present in a host of societies throughout history. However, the biblical picture is very different; it affirms the equality of men and women and declares both to be equal image-bearers of God, having a far greater purpose than what Lori would like us to think. Lori unjustly paints God as a sexist in order to defend her own outrageous views. She would do well to read Isaiah 5:20: "Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter."


Link to the original blog: https://thetransformedwife.com/telling-young-women-to-get-married-and-have-children-is-wrong/