a(Typical) Woman
a(Typical) Woman: Free, Whole, and Called in Christ
By: Abigail Dodds
Chances are we all have different ideas of what it means to be a woman. Trying to define a 'typical' woman is a fool's errand. But the world and church alike try to tell us how to be 'true women.' What do we do when we hear conflicting answers? Abigail Dodds has written an extremely relevant and freeing book, rooted in God's truth, that shows how we can live as God created us to.
Whether you are single or married, a mother or desiring to be, working at an office or in your home, this book is for you. She covers pretty much all of the pressures we face as women to be a certain way, look a certain way, act or feel a certain way, and reminds us that God doesn't call us to be typical, he calls us to be faithful.
I found this to be a solid undertaking in a messy and controversial topic. There are plenty of ways that churches have failed women. Plenty of ways Scripture is mishandled and misused. And of course, plenty of ways our current culture has failed us- selling us a false doctrine of female empowerment that actually does the opposite it advertises.
But we are not without hope, truth, and direction. Dodd is bold yet sensitive. Holding high the Word of God and letting loose the bonds of stereotypes. She tackles the taboo word of 'submission' with tactful, loving, powerful truth.
If you're tired of feeling like less than enough, that you don't measure up to being the 'right' kind of woman, that you're constantly battling against what the world tells you you should to be, read this book. It's not an author on a crusade with an agenda- it's a woman who loves the Lord and desires to be more like Him.
Here's a taste of the truth you will read:
"The nature of being Christian women isn’t based on what we do but on who we are—who he’s made us. The whole world, under the prince of the power of the air, is bent on rejecting how God has made men and women. As Christian women, we need to think long and hard about the direction in which we’re leaning. Are we flirting with a subtle version of the outright rebellion of the world, manifested in discontentedness and small obfuscations of the parts of God’s Word and design that we want to minimize—the parts that simply refuse to be contextualized to the twenty-first century? Or have we cloaked ourselves in a feminine stereotype that leans into legalism and away from the fullness of God’s Word, God’s design, and God’s mission for us? We dare not lean anywhere but deeper into Christ."
"Christians often admonish other Christians to be true or real men and women… But, unintentionally, calling people to be real men and women can send the message that if they don’t behave a certain way, their femaleness or maleness is at stake—that God’s creation of male and female is dependent on our ability to live it out rightly… Our behaviors and attitudes indicate who we bow down to, but they can’t dictate what we are. Only God can do that... What makes real men and women is the fact that God made us men and women, just as what makes us real Christians is that God made us Christians by making us alive in Christ. In both cases, we don’t earn it or achieve it or feel our way to it."
"Am I faithfully obeying God as his child by meeting the genuine needs of others, or am I pursuing self-actualization, self-fulfillment, or selfish ambition apart from him? Our faithfulness first requires a kind of death—death to self and selfish ambition. Yet death leads to life."
"So be encouraged and truly liberated, all you atypical women. God doesn’t ask you to be typical. He calls you to be his. He calls for unequivocal submission and loyalty to himself, and this requirement is the most loving thing he could command of you. A life of obedience to God is the riskiest kind of life that has ever been truly safe. And as he commands our submission to him and his Book and his design, he simultaneously enables it through the limitless power of his saving Son."
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