Why Does Theology Matter... For Women?

I've recently been taking a class at the seminary where my husband studies. It's a pretty basic survey of theology and to be honest, I often have a hard time paying attention. The other day, though, I found myself pausing for thought as I was faced with the very basic question, "Why does theology matter?" After some reflection, I came up with my answer, but only to then further ponder the question, "Why does theology matter... for women?"

I don't think it's a ground-breaking statement when I say most women within Christianity don't devote a lot of time to thinking about theology. In a place and age where the average Christian, male or female, struggles to spend significant time in scripture and prayer, reading or studying theology often seems obscure and unnecessary. Throw into that an average women's ministry which focuses primarily on devotionals, family life, and maybe a little counseling, and we start to see why there is a significant dearth of women who put much time or energy towards picking up classic theological works on such daunting topics as revelation or providence. Trust me, I too would much rather pick up a devotional study on hospitality or reconciliation than a stodgy tome on the different views of imputation.

So then, what's the big deal with theology?

As the professor stated at the beginning of my course, theology has to do with the great truths and mysteries of life, all of which center around the knowledge of God. And this knowledge has much to do with our spiritual being and existence. It is the backbone for the process of salvation, the center of our relationship with the Creator, and the foundation of the spiritual comfort he offers. Theology is the cognitive expression of the saints’ collective knowledge of their Father making it an important task if we claim to be his daughters.

The question of theology is not one of whether we like it or even of whether we completely understand it, but one of whether we are striving know to our God. In any relationship, systematic analysis and contemplation of the information provided by the beloved is vital. For example, I cannot know my husband apart from what he reveals to me; I must rely on his desire to communicate about himself for our relationship to be established. Nothing can happen unless he makes himself known to me. However, I also am responsible with what he reveals. If I do not carefully consider what my husband tells me about himself or reflect upon what it says about him, then I am making a truly poor attempt to know and love him. It is my relational responsibility as a wife to have thought about the truths of my husband to such an extent that should somebody ask me about him, I might be able to provide an accurate answer. It would be a shame if when asked about my husband, I answered, “I can’t tell you anything about him. The only way for you to know of him is to have a direct experiential knowledge of him yourself.” Not only would this make no sense at all, it would raise doubts concerning whether I care enough about my husband to have my own understanding of him.

And the analogy goes further. If I never asked or listened to my husband's family or close friends about their understanding of who my husband is, I would be considered an egotistical (insert your word of choice...)! Unless I think they are just absolutely wrong, I am obliged to find out what my beloved's family knows of him. (And even if I think they are completely wrong, I probably need to hear what they have to say if for no better reason than an accurate education on my new family.) I have no right in any relationship to develop my knowledge of the person I love in exclusion from what others have to tell me about their knowledge of the person. I must get to know my husband myself, and I can even have the expectation that I know him better than others, but my relationship to him is not unilateral.

Similarly, if we, the bride of Christ, cannot give answers about God according to what he has revealed about himself in scripture and in recognition of what the saints through the ages have said about him, then we have paid no more attention to him than a wife who cannot clearly answer questions about her husband and has never listened to the stories told by her in-laws. Theology is something integral to what we do as human beings in our desire to know the God who first knew us. Everyone theologizes; the issue is how we do so. Every wife has an opinion about her husband, but that does not necessarily mean it is an accurate opinion. If we truly love Christ, the question is not “if” we should study theology, but “how.” All Christians will have opinions about their God, but will those opinions be according to what our Lord has actually revealed about himself?

And that's just the point. As women, we should be making just as much an effort to know our God as any one else in our life. I was personally deeply convicted when I asked myself the question, "How much effort do I make through the course of my day to know and understand my husband, best friends, parents, siblings, and every other person who is significant to me?" And I don't just flippantly get to know them - I (at least try) to seriously give them my attention and invest in knowing them. I pride myself on being an authority on them in ways others aren't. Can I honestly expect my relationship with the Creator to be any less? God has brought us into his family and told us about himself. As women, let us sit together with our brothers and sisters throughout the ages and learn about Him in order that we may be daughters who know their Father well.


~Hannah

Being Single: Lies and Wrong Ideas

Even if you’ve never seen the above image, you probably know people who have said similar things. Or maybe you’ve said them yourself. It’s tempting, as a single person, to feel this way. But as I encountered the third friend-of-a-friend who was using this image as their Facebook profile picture, I began thinking about just how wrong this message is.

As I approach my 24th birthday, I’ve been giving relationships more thought. In the eyes of the world, I’m still a relationship baby. In the Christian community, I’m middle-aged on the marriage market. It makes sense, therefore, that I vacillate often between being in absolutely no rush to find someone, and being very ready to put my heart out there.

Most single people operate like this; it’s a confusing time, with the sense of endless opportunity. But as my generation of Christian-raised singles grow up, I am feeling the backlash against the expectations of the Christian culture. Most of us have been raised in homes that support young marriage, support commitment, and “settling down.” But we are part of a culture that offers a blinding amount of choice, and the idea that there’s always something better out there. With the internet and globalization, we all have a giddy idea that anything can happen. Anything.

So what does this have to do with the above picture making the Facebook rounds? The problem is that the only people I’ve seen put it up on their profiles are Christians. And yet this idea that a relationship is about finding someone who is amazing enough to challenge your singleness is not Christian. It goes against the very spirit of the Biblical sense of marriage. (I say marriage, and not relationships, because there is very little “dating” in the Bible...mostly you are either single, or you find someone and get married, and there are no long dating relationships or mini-marriages. Another blog post.)

I’m going out on a limb here, because I’m not married. So any married friends who’d like to weigh in, I would love to hear your perspective. But from my relationships with friends, and with family, I cannot believe that dating someone is about finding someone who is perfect in every way. My friends are far from perfect. My family is far from perfect. I am far from perfect. How can I expect a husband to be perfect? But that is part of what makes relationships so beautiful--because we, as Christians, are given the privilege of modeling God’s grace toward us. God does not turn from us though we are imperfect, and we do not turn from each other. We learn to forgive, and to see our own sins.

Of course I am not saying we shouldn’t be discerning when it comes to dating. Of course there are people we are attracted to, and whose personalities complement ours, and who have similar goals. But recently, while I was in L.A., I went to a stand-up club and one of the comics was making jokes about dating, and how the problem with our culture is that we have too many choices. He likened relationships to chocolate, and how with so many choices, the chocolate we end up eating seems only so-so. He was right. We have too many choices. And because there is always something just around the corner that is better, we don’t let ourselves settle into the real work of loving someone because it is good to love, and to love consistently. Even through pain, or disappointment.

While I was at Wheaton College, there was a lot of talk of singleness (naturally, with that many single people crammed together) and whether it was better than being married. The Apostle Paul’s writing in 1 Corinthians was a huge topic of discussion. Is it more godly to be single? Paul calls it a “gift from God” (1 Cor. 7:7), and talks about how single men and women can devote more time and energy toward the church. I had friends who said we should all try to be single, rather than married, because it is clearly more godly.

I agree that singleness is a great gift. But I don’t know if I agree that it is more godly. In Hannah’s previous post, she quoted from a scholar who wrote at length about how men and women reflect God’s image together. I don’t know if you necessarily need to be married for that to happen, but being married is the natural state of humankind. Themes of marriage run throughout the Bible, and illustrations of godly marriage light up its pages. Marriage is a good thing. Being single is a gift, and if we find ourselves single for a long time, or for our whole lives, we have a great and precious (and often difficult) task given to us. But we should never hold up singleness as more holy than marriage.

I was talking recently with my brother Joshua, and he told me about a question and answer session he’d attended with his college pastor. I think his pastor said something very wise, and very helpful. While discussing singleness, and Paul’s 1 Corinthians passage, he began to talk about the gift of singleness, as Paul says it. And Joshua’s pastor said that we should not be worrying about whether or not we have the gift of singleness--whether we should stop dating or opening our heart to love. Because we all have the gift of singleness--everyone who is single has it. The gift is simply that we are single. We are charged to make the most of it, and when we marry, the gift is taken away and replaced with other gifts.

What a beautiful gift we have been given, as single people. We will never again have the time and the freedom to serve God as we can while we are single. But that does not mean we will not serve him just as effectively when we are married, nor does it mean that we have the right to stay single until we are swept off our feet by someone who is absolutely amazing. We have the counter-cultural privilege of choosing, committing, and not looking any further. Our own love is messy and knotted together, and we must expect those we love to return it in kind. But single or married, God does not abandon us to our own imperfect love. And that is a beautiful thing.

~Ruthie