I want to go to one source of why women have been treated as they have been. After church one Sunday, and on the way home, I asked my daughter (then six) what had she learned in Sunday school?  She matter-of-factly replied, “We learned that girls are bad.”

            I knew right away what they had read about Adam and Eve, and the Garden of Eden. I asked her if her teacher had said that women were bad. And she said, “No, but the teacher said Eve ate the apple and made sin.”  I believe that fruit seed of sin has been subconsciously planted in women’s minds and because we are so thoughtful and inward searching, we have been yoked with this undeserved feeling of guilt and unworthiness.

            A lot of people have used the Bible as a source to justify some agenda. An agenda that has prohibited women from maintaining their original and intended position designed by God.   They have made God look like a finger-pointing, punishing old man. I see Him differently. I would like to refer to Genesis, first, because I think it is fundamental to make sure the foundation of the teachings is clear. Without a good foundation, a house will not stand long. The relationship between a man and woman is obviously very important to God. I believe this is so, because it reflects His own relationship with His beloved female half—His Holy Spirit.  His spirit was with Him in the beginning of creation. Genesis 1:2 says, “and the spirit of God was hovering over the water.” His beloved was with Him during the time of creation. Proverbs 3:19-20 refers to this also:   “By Wisdom the Lord laid the earth’s foundations, by understanding He set the heavens in place.”  Proverbs 8: 22-31 gives a more in depth description of Wisdom:  “The Lord brought me forth as the first of His works, before His deeds of old; I was appointed from eternity from the beginning, before the world began, when there were no oceans, I was given birth, when there were no springs abounding with water; before the mountains were settled in place, before the hills, I was given birth, before He made the earth or it’s fields or any of the dust of the world. I was there when he set the heavens in place, when he marked out the horizon on the face of the deep, when He established the clouds above and fixed securely the fountains of the deep, when He gave the sea its boundary so the waters would not overstep His command, and when He marked out the foundations of the earth. Then I was the craftsman at his side. I was filled with delight day after day, rejoicing always in His presence, rejoicing in His whole world and delighting in mankind.”    In Proverbs, God’s Holy Spirit is referred to as Wisdom. In Isaiah 11:2 it states:  “The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him—The Spirit of wisdom and of understanding…”  Because the Holy spirit has always been referred to as ‘His’ spirit, that spirit has taken on a masculine persona.  I believe that to be false, and Christian teachers have done nothing to correct that misinterpretation.  As I said, I believe we reflect on a human scale the divine interactions in Heaven.  God formed his beloved after himself, just as He formed woman as the help mate for man, knowing how helpful and inspirational she would be for him, just as His beloved is for Him.