TSIYON NEWS

From Eliyahu

 

Women are powerful. They always have been. No, on average they are not physically stronger than men. However, for most of human history, they haven't needed to be. Why not? Because, for most of human history honorable men have used their physical strength to care for and protect women, often even at the cost of their own lives. For one example, on the occasion of escaping a sinking ship the cry of honorable men has been "women and children first!" Even as late as the 20th Century this has been the moral imperative honorable men have followed.

 

Take the famous case of the sinking of the RMS Titanic, April 15, 1912. On seeing the peril the ship was in Captain Smith ordered: "Put the women and children in [the life boats] and lower away." He said this knowing there were not enough life boats on board to accommodate everyone. A small number of men were allowed to board the lifeboats as exceptions, otherwise, only women and children were allowed to board the boats. As a result, 74% of the women were saved, but only 20% of the men survived. As for Captain Smith, he bravely chose to go down with his ship.

 

During the 20th century in the USA the Boy Scouts of America was a training ground teaching boys scouting skills while striving to instill the moral code boys need to learn and practice to grow into honorable men.  In the Boy Scouts of America's Sea Scouting program, "women and children first" was called "the motto of the sea" and was part of the Sea Promise.  Given that women are deemed "equal" to men in the 21st century "the motto of the sea" was dropped in 2020. Apparently, in cases of emergency, women are now allowed to perish in equal or greater numbers with men, with no special consideration from the "evil patriarchy." 

 

As I said above, women are powerful. They always have been. However, their power does not arise from superior physical strength. They have other power that far surpasses physical strength. This power originates in their unique feminine nature that was created by God and cannot be duplicated by man. To start with, women alone have the power to give birth. That is the sacred power of new life, of populating and replenishing the world. This is probably the greatest natural human power in the world. Without this there is no world.

 

Along with the power to give birth the Creator fine-tuned the emotional make-up and physical qualities common to the feminine nature necessary to nurture and raise those little people that issue forth from their own bodies. Men can nurture too, but most will readily admit that the gals are the world champs in this area of life. That is as it should be.

 

When YHWH created man and woman He did so with an order in mind for human society. I'm talking about an interdependent system in which men were equipped for their role in society and women were equipped for their role. God's idea has always been for men and women to harmoniously function together, each working within the male or female nature they were endowed with for the good of one another, the good of their offspring, the good of society as a whole, and of course, thus showing forth the glory of God. Bringing Him into His rightful place in that picture brings in another power, a supernatural power, that can energize both men and women. That is: the power of faith in the Living God.

 

Let me give you an example of heroic women who illustrate this point.

From about the middle of the 1500s forward English translations of the Bible began to be printed. By the early 1600s many English commoners had obtained a printed Bible translation in English, for the first time. This personal Bible access sparked a spiritual revolution that lit the candle of faith and freedom in the world. Some of the common people, upon reading the Bible, saw that the teachings and practices of the state church, the Church of England, did not agree with Scripture. Unsurprisingly, some of these withdrew from the Church to study the Bible and worship together in small groups with other Bible-believers, separate from the Church of England.

These Separatists were persecuted in England. Some fled to Holland where their Bible-based faith met with more toleration. They became known as Pilgrims, because they were forced out of their native land, searching for freedom to worship according to Scripture. By 1617, they found that Holland was not suitable to their faith either. Thus, the congregation decided to emigrate to America.

102 Pilgrims boarded the Mayflower at Plymouth, England, on September 16, 1620. They had high hopes of establishing a place where freedom to worship according to the Bible would be their home. After nearly two months at sea, the Mayflower arrived at what is now Cape Cod in  Massachusetts, in the early morning of November 11, 1620. Unfortunately, this timing did not work out well for them.

The weather was bitterly cold. The men went ashore at their new Plymouth Colony to build homes for their families. All others stayed on the Mayflower anchored in Plymouth harbor. Before long, disease broke out and began to spread rapidly. By this time only two or three one-room houses had been built. Soon a designated house, now a makeshift hospital, was reeking with the smell of the sick and dying. By the time the pneumonic plague was finally over more than half of the Mayflower Pilgrims were lost.

On the plus side, nearly half of the Pilgrims survived, largely due to the labors of some amazing women of faith and courage. Namely, the women who survived the first winter at Plymouth Colony. These women had braved the Atlantic in a small wooden ship, not knowing the future, by pure faith. The risk was worth it to them to go to the New World, so they could worship according to Scripture with their families and like-minded believers. Now they found themselves in a horrific scenario of misery and death, beyond human description. So what did they do?

 

Here is where their feminine superpower of care and nurture, enhanced by feminine wisdom, and energized by the Spirit of the living God, literally saved the colony, and perhaps even the nation that sprang from it. Mind you, this wasn't over in a day. These women endured through months of cold, deprivation, sleeplessness, horror, and unrelenting loss - all while selflessly giving all they had to care for and nurse their deathly-ill brothers and sisters. Such heroes of faith deserve to be named. They are: Eleanor Billington, Elizabeth Hopkins, Mary Brewster and Susanna White. This is what "Girl Power" is really all about!
 

How are women like this possible? Remember, those women were Bible-believers. They looked to the example of the women of faith in Scripture as their role models. Surely, many women who did deeds of amazing faith are to be found in Scripture. One woman of Scripture with whom I am very impressed is David's wife, Abigail. With her my daughter shares her name, Abigail. Tonight Tsiyon is introducing a new live stream feature that Abigail (my daughter) will be hosting, especially for the ladies. Us guys will enjoy this too, as we consider the feminine perspective of the ladies of faith on the panel (It may appear otherwise sometimes, but us guys always want to know what the ladies are thinking). The theme for tonight's stream will be: "Meeting David's Wife Abigail."

 

Join us tonight, April 29, 2024, at Tsiyon.Net, at 8 PM, Central, for this enlightening live stream. What is your opinion of David's wife, Abigail? What qualities and virtues do you see in her? Hers is truly an amazing story, that shows forth the treasures to be found in the faith and wisdom of godly women.

 

In His Name,

 

Eliyahu

Tsiyon.Org

 

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