Tag: God’s purpose

Is the Bible Sexist and Racist? Part 2 – Sexism

If anything, Genesis 2 suggests that men need help, and Eve is to Adam what God is to mankind.

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Racism, sexism and oppression are themes in the story of man’s relations to other men (and women) throughout history. Many people today have the enlightened notion that the Bible perpetuates those old tropes from the Bronze Age and that modern men and women who have progressed by our will to advance know better. But is that really true?

We introduced the question, “what the Bible says about sexism and racism”, in Part I. In this second part in the series, we look at what the Bible reveals to us about sexism. In Part 3, we begin to explore how the Bible addresses racism. In Part 4, we observe what Jesus reveals about sexism, and Part 5 tackles racism through the life of Jesus and what he taught.

Regarding sexism, the Bible first reveals God’s view of the interrelationship of men and women at the very beginning, back before sin entered the world. In Genesis, we are told God created Adam and Eve, the first (or representative) people, and we get a glimpse, there, of what God intended. Genesis gives us critical clues on how God views men and women in their original, intended state.

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Is the Bible Sexist and Racist? Part 1

The Bible has been used to justify racism, sexism and other similar things, but, are those things what the Bible really stands for?

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Many people charge the Bible with being sexist and racist. Whether the Bible is sexist and racist goes to the heart of who the Bible says God is. What does the Bible say about these things? How does the Bible describe men, women, ethnicity, diversity and human life?

Is the Bible accurately portrayed in the media on these issues? Is it accurately understood by the common person? Is the Bible accurately followed by the people who claim the Bible as their guiding light?

These questions are relevant today as Black Lives Matters and women’s marches and gatherings make the news and immigration policy is being debated in the national media in the United States.

How do we value human life? What is the basis for the value of human life?

And what does the Bible really say about these things?

This begins a five part series that looks at the evidence of how God views sexism from a biblical overview and evidence of how God views racism from a biblical overview, followed by the evidence in the Bible of the way Jesus viewed sexism and the evidence in the Bible of the way Jesus viewed racism.

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God’s Purpose is Accomplished – Even When People Reject Him

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Jesus said, “If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have been guilty of sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. Whoever hates me hates my father also. If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin, but now they have seen and hated both me and my father.”  (John 15:22-24)

These words convey a stark reality that is not pleasant to consider. We might assume that Jesus was speaking of the Jews when He spoke these words, but we would be wrong. Jesus was speaking of the “world”. Just before Jesus spoke the words quoted above, He said:

“If the world[1] hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.  If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.” (John 15:18-19)

These are curious things coming from Jesus. The import of what Jesus says here is that the world is ordered in opposition to Jesus and God the Father. And even when people reject Jesus, God’s purpose is fulfilled.

In other places, we see Jesus saying very different things. For instance, Jesus said elsewhere, “God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” (John 3:17) So, we might be confused when we see Jesus implying that he came to hold people accountable for their sins.

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