What is the Woman Saying: Lessons From Biblical Women

By Dane Miller

Women have often been relegated to the sidelines, and their importance in society downplayed. However, contrary to what many believe, this is far from the true biblical way that God intended. In scripture, women's impact and significance are immeasurable, and we have much to learn from them. Their stories bring life to the pages of the Bible and showcase the full extent of God's love for humanity. The power of woman cannot be denied.  

 

"At the heart of understanding the role of a woman is understanding the purpose of her coming into existence. The help meet role of the woman is powerful and perfect. Given this, my view of a complete woman is one who mixes the Holy Spirit and faith with all aspects of God's word to gain direction for her life and others. This is what will make her great like the many prominent women of the Bible." —Dane Miller

 

In What is the Woman Saying? Lessons from Biblical Women, Miller puts the spotlight on various biblical women to show the modern Christian woman how important and powerful she can be if she allows God to lead her. What these biblical women have said in words and deeds will transform your life. You will long to know what it means to be like them, holy and upright before God, influencing everything you touch for the better.

 

If you are serious about growing in favor with God, What is the Woman Saying? Lessons from Biblical Women is an essential book for your library. It is written in a reflective style which will help you:  

1. immerse yourself in stories about these amazing biblical figures,  
2. gain advice from 15 extraordinary biblical women, 
3. build husband and wife relationships via workbook type exercises and questions,  
4. learn how to better please God by comparing yourself to holy women, and 
5. make yourself successful in daily Christian living through 7 essential techniques. 

These pages will take you on a journey of self-discovery that leads beyond the literal, physical world. Inside, you'll find the tools to strengthen your Christianity and achieve a real spiritual awakening.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dane Miller
• Release date: Aug 13, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393598527

Book preview

Chapter 1 -

The Role of the First Woman

The ultimate starting point in a discussion about women of the Bible is to examine the first woman, Eve. She is the mother of all women and her role was clearly defined. You see, in the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, He gave both Adam and Eve dominion over the animal kingdom.  

The Word Creates and the Word Blesses

When I survey the goodness of God’s creation, I see thousands of fishes, insects, birds, animals, various types of plants, the mountains and valleys, rivers, all seasons in their fullness, the expansive sky and stars above, the sun and moon standing in their splendor and the intricate design of the human body. All this complexity and magnificence speaks to me about the greatness and glory of our God. Only divine design could have put together the cosmos in this well-ordered whole. Scientists want you to believe that random matter and energy simply collided to form the universe. But how can chaos come together to create complexity? No Big Bang Theory created all of this. So how did the Almighty God do it?

God stepped out of eternity and into time to form the earth. He created life by speaking it into existence.

Genesis 1:3 And God said, Let there be light, and there was light. (KJV)

The Authority to Create

God manifested physical things into being by simply saying the words. When He spoke, the abyss which was once without form, was void and full of darkness, brought forth life.

God created the waters and the land first, then gave them instructions to birth various forms of life (Genesis 1:13, 20, 24). The sea got its command to bring forth living creatures abundantly. The earth got its command to birth life in the form of grass, fruit trees, and animals. After God created this beautiful place we call earth, He appointed custodians to manage it. And when God set about creating man He said, Let us create man. For the fruit trees, animals, and fishes, their origin came from the earth and waters, but our origin was from God Himself when He gave us a living soul via His breath (Genesis 2:7). Not only did we come from God, we were formed in the image and likeness of God. Because of this, we have also been given power in our tongues.

We are truly His children and are birthed from His spiritual bowels. So, when we attempt to speak things into being, we are not just acting on the authority of our mouths only, but also our heavenly authority as children of the Creator.

God created man to have dominion over His handiwork. Man’s role (and by man, I mean both male and female) was to multiply himself in the earth and have dominion over[1] it. Man was given the mandate to work and establish himself in God’s creation as chief authority. But you'll notice something significant in Genesis 1:28. The first thing God did was to bless them, then He told them to go forth and increase. This pattern is also repeated in Genesis 1:22[2] before the fishes were instructed to increase and in Genesis 9:1[3] after Noah and his sons stepped off the Ark unto dry ground and were mandated to multiply.

There is a clear pattern here. When God is equipping men and animals to cause increase, He first blesses them. You cannot expand God's kingdom or the substance of His creation without first getting His verbal blessing. Some people believe the blessing is in the physical increase they tangibly see, but that is not so. The real blessing is in the verbal blessing God pronounces on our lives beforehand. To put it another way, the blessing is in the blessing. Once that verbal blessing is there, all other physical increases will come. Again, this highlights the power of what we say and how it can influence. With words, God created the world and blessed those in it to have dominion, multiply and rule it. In the same vein, our mouths are not insignificant and have tremendous power to create and bless.

A Woman is Needed

Man, being now blessed and accountable for the earth, needed to execute God's instructions. Even though the Father created everything good, there was still an issue. God created all this splendor and called it good, but there was something missing: the woman was not yet created.

Before God made Eve, He got man to desire and see the need for a help meet. God brought all the animals to Adam to be named, so Adam would have seen animals like a lion and a lioness, a bull and a cow, a rooster and a hen. He would have seen the similarities and the differences. Imagine the thousands of animals Adam had to name, and each one had a suitable helper. Getting into Adam’s mind here, I believe he must have thought, How come the animals which I have to rule over have support for each other, but I don’t? This exercise of naming the animals not only awoke Adam’s consciousness to the need for a helper, but also kindled his desire for one. That yearning would have put him in a place to better value the presence and help of Eve when God presented her to him.

Now that man had a longing for his helper, let’s see how God introduced her.

Genesis 2:18 And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. (KJV)

It was of paramount importance for the right help to be positioned at the side of the man. Not behind him, nor in front of him, but right at his side to balance him and support him. Having a suitable helper for Adam was so important that God repeated the same statement a second time in Genesis 2:20!

So, why did God call His creation good with this key element missing? That’s because, there is a difference between being good and being complete. It might have been good, but not complete. It is comparable to developing a very good engine for a car, but you don’t have the tires or the frame or interior of the vehicle designed yet. The engine might be extraordinary, but in terms of the end product, the car is far from being complete.

Things are described as incomplete when parts are missing; incomplete is when something cannot fully function without including another component. God’s creation was wonderfully good, but incomplete without including a woman to support the man. It was like God was saying, I am saving the best for last, Adam, the introduction of your help meet, the woman.

What Is a Help Meet?

At the heart of understanding the role of a woman is understanding the purpose of her coming into existence. A common description of a help meet for the man is that the woman is suitable for the man to be his support and help. While all this is good, the meaning of help meet for him goes beyond this. Applying exegesis[4] to the original Hebrew words reveals a deeper meaning to this phrase.

In Hebrew, the word help meet is derived from the following two words ezer (pronounced ay-zer) and k’enegdo. Ezer is a rich word which is typically translated to mean help. However, some biblical scholars assign a more complex meaning. Rabbi David Freedman explains that ezer is a combination of the two roots which mean to rescue and to be strong respectively. The interpretation to help, therefore, is a merger of the two concepts.[5]

The word appears 21 times in the Bible: twice to describe Eve as helper, three times regarding helping or not rendering help to others, and sixteen times to reference God as our helper. Help can come as something simple, or something major which needs serious God-given intervention. The help that a woman must provide to a man falls into both categories, minor and major. At the highest level, she must be ready to come to his aid and rescue him with strong saving help. By this I mean being a prayer intercessor and petitioning God on his behalf, in addition to offering advice and support where and when needed. She must also be willing to contribute simple things such as what would be required as part of the daily life.

K’enegdo is normally translated meet for or fit for, and it only appears once in the entire Bible. This makes it difficult to fully understand its meaning since we don’t have any other reference to draw from. However, we can speculate by looking at related words. Diana Webb, in her book Forgotten Women of God, discusses the word neged which means against. In this context, against suggests the idea of opposite and even in front of. Taking all of this into consideration, Webb concluded that kenegdo is like when you look at yourself in a mirror.[6]

So, Eve was supposed to be ‘fit for’ but also opposite to Adam. That’s why from a physical standpoint there are differences between the man and the woman. God wanted to add balance. Consider that the woman’s hair is naturally long while his is short, he is flat-chested while she has breasts, one has genitalia that is external and the other internal, the man seeds the child and the woman conceives the child.

It's fascinating how K’enegdo can also represent in front of him. It is like the woman and the man are standing looking directly at each other. This allows the woman to get a clear view of her spouse to scrutinize him, to make sure he is well attired, strong and healthy and, above all, adorned spiritually. Standing in this position also facilitates seeing anything which might be approaching him from behind. The man also has this view. This makes both partners take on a 360-degree panoramic view of their environment, thus making them more formidable together.

The help meet role of the woman is powerful and perfect. Women should feel proud and empowered by this magnificent responsibility which God has entrusted to them. As the Bible declares, the greatest among us are the ones who serve others.[7] Adam got his wonderful companion in a wife, and God knitted them together in marriage as one.[8] As the United States military would say, Two is One, and One is None.

Additionally, Adam found favor just by having a wife. As the word of God declares, he who finds a wife finds what is good and receives favor from the LORD (Proverbs 18:22). Oh, what heavenly bliss! Adam got his help meet (Ezer K’enegdo) to support him, then got more favor from the Lord with Eve as his wife. And don’t forget God verbally blessed them both to execute His mandate on the earth to multiply and increase. Without a doubt, the inclusion of the woman moved humanity to a better place.

The New Family Structure

Unfortunately, that better place was altered when the devil came into the picture. The devil arrived to do what he does best, to steal, kill and destroy. He tricked Eve and Adam into disobeying God’s instruction, thereby causing sin to enter the world. Both the man and his wife became knowledgeable about sin because they ate from the forbidden tree of good and evil. This chain of events set in motion a new direction from God regarding how a man and a woman must work in connection with each other. 

Genesis 3:16 Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow, thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. (KJV)

God was saying, Eve, you took it upon yourself to make decisions without consulting your partner, Adam. I placed both of you to work together in a partnership, but you adopted a mindset of a sole proprietorship and abused your power. Even when I daily visited in the cool of the afternoon you didn’t consult me before making your decision. You have broken my commandments and for this there are consequences. And there will always be consequences to breaking my commandments. That joint commission you have as peers will now be adjusted regarding equal responsibility.

God retained Eve’s womanly support (help meet) but adjusted the chain of command. Instantly, a new organizational structure replaced the former. The levels of authority now went from God to man to woman.[9] An additional layer, with a new reporting relationship, was added and now the woman must answer to the man as he was given charge over her.

In our modern-day society, this family structure (as ordained by God) is eroding and being replaced by all other kinds of family types. Alternative lifestyles and varying family types are now considered normal. These family types are ungodly because they are not in alignment with His word. They are misaligned and at their core are individualistic because those styles are self-seeking, self-sufficient, and self-promoting. Each member feels they can do as they please. This is not what God desires, and neither should you. Embrace your role and please your God because operating otherwise will mean that you will be operating outside the parameters of God's law. But if you submit yourself to God's design, you will maximize your potential, and maximizing potential leads to maximizing purpose.

For our family lives to become better we must get back to the first principles, as God has established in His original structure. No entity can survive or thrive without a hierarchy where one person is ultimately accountable. Even the heavenly host has a hierarchy where God the Father is head and Jesus and the Holy Ghost give support. In the military, there is a Commander-in-Chief, organizations have a CEO or Chairman, and countries are governed by Presidents and Prime Ministers. In the animal kingdom there are classifications and ranks. God also said that the sun and moon and stars will have rule over the day and night (Genesis 1:18). All this just adds support to show that the institutions which are setup by God have structure and a hierarchical order to them. And the same can be said of the nuclear family with the husband as head.

CONCLUSION

Women should not get so caught up with the cares of life that they forget or neglect their husbands in this reporting relationship. It is so easy in today’s world to channel energies to children, career advancement, or working in the church, that this crucial duty is neglected.

To the woman reading this, I want to remind you of who you are, and that you must define your role according to God's standards. You are an individual created in the image of God who cannot help but follow God’s word. As a result, you are to subject yourself to it, and by extension your husband’s authority. You are creator and co-creator with him, and you bring life to your environment by what you say in words and in deeds. You are strong, and with that strength you strengthen your husband and family. Because you are also opposite to him, your support comes in the form of suggesting alternative approaches and solutions to the challenges which come your way. You are meant to complement him and inject balance in your union. Through prayer and Godly wisdom, you rescue your spouse from himself and others around him. Your presence acts as the backbone to your marital relationship and every endeavor you and your spouse touch together prospers because you are a blessing.

When I think about the length and breadth of the woman’s roles and responsibilities, I cannot help but think she has a lot on her plate. Especially with today’s society producing absentee men who place added burdens. I encourage you not to give up and resign your responsibilities. I encourage you to press on in faith. Don’t give up, nor give in, and don’t get weary in doing good because you will reap heavenly rewards if you faint not[10].

Therefore, powerful woman of God, take courage and step boldly into the high office God has called you to. Remember, He equips those