How does the Bible describe Weak Women? Strong Women?
By Elizabeth Prata
We need godly examples of women who are strong in godly ways. These women who are strong in the right ways aren’t seen by many. This is either because the culture tries to hide them from us, or because they are truly godly, and thus are doing their work in humble, background ways and don’t seek promotion or limelight.
There are many weak women in Christianity too, and many of these ARE seen.
Weakness: A lack of strength, whether physical or spiritual. Scripture attributes weakness to human sin and foolishness and urges believers to find their true strength in God alone. ~Dictionary of Bible Themes
The weak women I am referring to we see raised up on influential platforms are paper tigers, these are not the actual strong women of God. They are in fact weak women. They use their influence to publicly nurse wounds and have navel-gazing psychology sessions they call Bible lessons. They have confounded the sisterhood with an errant notion of what “strong” means.
But how to tell the difference? Let’s have some biblical clarity on what these terms mean in God’s economy.
“But I do want to say that I have always been strong-willed.” Beth Moore
Weak women give in to what they want, whether God wants it for them or not. Weak women give in to sin. In many of the cases, these weak women want to preach- which is sin.
The Bible declares one type of weak woman:
For among them are those who slip into households and captivate weak women weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses, (2 Timothy 3:6).
The context here is that Paul is writing to Timothy that in the last days difficult times will come. Then Paul lists an astonishing array of sins which will come to characterize the era, including false teachers who insinuate themselves into the church and capture weak women. The false teachers do this because it is a help to satan to have weak women doing his evil bidding. These women are easy to capture.
Different translations of the verse verse also use the words gullible, vulnerable, idle, or silly. What makes these women weak, idle, silly, vulnerable or gullible? SIN.
Titus 1:11 says the same, these false teachers aim directly for these women. In the Titus verse, they do so successfully and “disrupt whole households”.
Warning for Christian women: Sin makes us silly, weak, and vulnerable to false teaching. Repent often!
Barnes’ Notes explains about these weak women who are ‘laden with sins’ – “With so many sins that they seem to be “burdened” with them. The idea is, that they are under the influence of sinful desires and propensities, and hence, are better adapted to the purposes of deceivers“. … Led away with diverse lusts – “With various kinds of passions or desires – epithumias – such as pride, vanity, the love of novelty, or a susceptibility to flattery, so as to make them an easy prey to deceivers.”
Their sin has made their mind weak and their morals corrupt. These weak women have given in to pride, ambition, flattery. I liked Barnes’ note that these weak women are also ensnared by “novelty“. How many religious trends do we see women jumping onto? Blue bracelets, Prayer rugs, Contemplative prayer, Promise Keepers, Purpose Driven, Daniel fasting, Lectio Divina, direct revelation … anything new comes along and these weak women leap onto it as if it’s the Second Coming.
Before I move on to describing a Godly strong woman, I would like to mention that the weak women, especially those in the preaching pack, do two things that are offensive. The first is that rather than ensure their behavior or their worldview is not borne out of sin, these women co-opt God Himself into their sin and assign Him as the cause of it. I am highly offended by this.
Here is one example: Beth Moore said of the early days of her preaching to men, back when she had two young children at home by the way, “I didn’t have some big plan,” Moore said. “I just knew God was calling me to take one step of obedience, and that’s all I’ve been doing ever since.”
Weak women put the onus for their sin onto God. They are so weak they can’t or won’t take responsibility for their choices. They deflect, saying, “oh lil me was content stayin’ at home but God called me into this, who am I to disobey?’ I have seen this excuse from Jennie Allen, Beth Moore, Christine Caine (‘it’s a calling‘), and lots of other women in the pack. They don’t say what’s really going on: “I wanted to preach, so I did.” Weak women give in to their sinful desires. (Genesis 2:18; Genesis 3:16b). Weak women blame and deflect. (Genesis 3:13).
The second offensive thing to me that weak women do is harp on **”abuse”. Abuse would be anything to these weak women, from truly awful sexual abuse, domestic violence, to being ignored in a car (a complaint Beth Moore actually wrote about). Or of not being thanked for wearing flats so the men around her would feel taller. (Another one from Moore).
The **abuse focus is truly a grief to me. It’s awful how these weak women have twisted abuse to their own corrupt ends.
For example, have you noticed a lot of these women claiming to be ‘strong’ are in what’s known as the “Survivor Camp”? They constantly refer to men as abusers or oppressors, and constantly bring up their own abuse or others’. These women who preach & teach sinfully, insinuate that every man sitting in a pew is an abuser just waiting for his moment to become a violent oppressor against innocent women who unhappily meander into his proximity. Sometimes they accuse whole denominations! Beth Moore did.
And Aimee Byrd-
“She admits over and over in writing and interview that her impetus for writing has often been situations in which she feels offended as a woman, slighted, or personally neglected”… her teaching is ungodly: it does not arise from unreserved faith in God’s Word, but from dissatisfaction with her experiences.” By Shane D. Anderson
Rachel Green Miller worries about women who are “belittled…” Oy.
I hope and pray that if any of these Survivor type preaching platformed weak women reading this who are supposedly advocating for the “abused,” that tomorrow when I post what a TRULY strong Christian woman is, they would be embarrassed for their ridiculous and petty complaints.
They are weak females whose basis for ministry rests on a wounded dove cooing weakly in the dirt, or is saturated with nursing old wounds they love to pick over. These women do not base their ministry on the foundation of the transcendent Rock who endured all the abuse, pain, loneliness, neglect, rejection, hatred and reviling there ever was or will be.
No one knows more than Jesus how it feels to experience all those things. Yet packs of women trade on their feelings as wounded snowflakes and exploit their hurts, for what? Attention, fame, power, and/or money.
Weak women are “led away”. It’s easy to give in to sin. It’s hard to subdue one’s sin, mortify it. It’s difficult to keep in the prescribed roles and bounds Jesus has for us. It takes a strong women to resist sin. A weak woman succumbs to them.
Tomorrow: What is a strong woman according to the Bible?
Further Resources:
Owen Strachan: Are Godly Men Weak or Strong?
**RE ‘abuse’: I am aware that true abuse exists. I am quite familiar myself with various kinds of abuse. Quite. I am sensitive to the hurts that various kinds of abuse cause. I know the impacts of true abuse are wide-ranging and long-lasting. I am not dismissing true abuse. I am offended by the USE of abuse as a cover for sin, as an excuse for behavior, or as a merchandising of a ministry.
The reason I don’t speak of the various kinds of abuse I personally have endured, is because it DOESN’T MATTER. It is of no consequence. It doesn’t figure in.
Why? First of all, Jesus took the wrath for anyone who abuses but later comes to faith. Abusers are usually not saved people, who can’t help their lusts. If they are saved people, we need to forgive, and remember that Jesus took ALL the abuse on the cross, including separation from the Father who turned His face away. How does my experience of abuse compare to that?
Secondly, these snowflake ladies turn any little bump in the road into abuse. They have abused the word abuse so that anything that offends them, they claim is abuse. It’s not.
Thirdly, others have suffered much more than me, and not because of another’s sin, which is to be expected in the world, but for the Name. Paul, for example, experienced abuse; physical and spiritual. Stephen was martyred. Silas went to jail with Paul. Mary mother of Jesus endured it. And many others in history. You will see some of them in tomorrow’s post.
So, ladies, let it go. Yes, you were hurt, so are MOST PEOPLE. You’re not special with your pet abuse you carry around. Lay it down at the cross. As Jimmy Buffett said, ‘Breathe in, breathe out, move on’.
