Newsletter Contents:

1.  In The Beginning by  Karen K. Davidenko
2.  Divine Connection"  by Barbara Collins
3. What's New on the Web  A list of new material posted on the GWTW Website.
4. Odds and Ends:  Blog, Book Correction, Voting, Podcast and Research Opportunity

A New Relationship Brings a Divine Connection

By Barbara Collins


What a pleasure it was for GWTW to welcome a Christian pastor from a predominantly Muslim country to our Board meeting in August.  When we picked him up from the DFW airport, he insisted on skipping breakfast and catching the main worship time at River of Glory Church here in Plano where our Br. Randy Speed is pastor.  By the way, his wife, Carol, is the co-pastor. 

 

A quick whisper to Br. Randy’s wife, Carol, let him know this pastor from “afar off” had come to the worship service.  At the end of worship, Br. Randy called for the men of the church to come forward and pray for this visiting pastor.  How refreshing it was to see the congregation respond with such enthusiasm with the waving of flags and by putting a large, gleaming silver sword in his upraised hands.  The sword was heavy.  After a few moments, the men came forward to also put their hands on the shaft to keep the sword aloft.

 

What a picture so descriptive of the church throughout the world assisting those in Muslim-dominated countries to hold steady the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God!  What an encouragement this act became to this brother who pastors six churches in his home city and surrounding vicinity.. 

   

 Several years ago, he translated one of the most significant books on women available at that time into his language, The Woman Question by Kenneth Hagin.  Now, he has offered to do the same with the God’s Word to Women book by Katharine Bushnell and has already completed two chapters.  Indri Guatauma, one of the speakers at the AWA Conference from Jakarta, Indonesia, prophesied the GWTW book would go all over the world.  It’s on the way! 

 

At the GWTW Board meeting, August 21-22, he shared about the status of women and the work in his country, bringing us a DVD showing the Body of Christ there.  He told about his experiences, ministry and vision for Pakistan.  We did an interview and put his responses into a podcast which you may access by clicking here

 

According to the culture in Pakistan, he was one whose parents arranged his marriage.  However, he did take the opportunity to pray vigorously before he knew who she would be.  What is so beautiful is that Rose carries a ministry vision similar to his.   Their marriage has brought forth three sons.  As he shared about the status of women, our brother offered no surprises as to the way Muslims think about women.  Pray for him as he undertakes this work of translating God’s Word to Women into his language.  It will be the first of many GWTW translations to set women free from the “enmity” between the serpent’s seed and the woman’s seed.  (Genesis 3:15).  God put that enmity between the two, and He will be the one to remove it.

 

What’s New
on the Web

We want to call your attention to some outstanding new articles that have recently been put up on the website.  You can always find the latest by clicking on "What's New" found at the top of each page.

Dr. Katharine Bushnell, A Brief Sketch of Her Life and Works by Katharine C. Bushnell.  Bushnell condenses a lifetime of service into seventeen action- filled pages.  Written at Shanghai in the 1930s by request of the Editor of the “Biblical Recorder” of Australia, the booklet is long out of print. 

The Queen's Daughters in India  by Katharine Bushnell and Elizabeth Andrew.  This short book reveals how “Christian” England hid behind “Contagious Diseases Acts” and gave government sanction to the sexual “needs” of the British Army stationed in India.  See how young Indian women were held to prostitution by the iron law of military regulation. 

Patriarchy or Gender Equality? The Letter to the Ephesians on Submission, Headship, and Slavery  by Carrie A. Miles.  Is religion responsible for patriarchy or can its roots be found in economic necessity? Is Paul patriarchal or did early Christianity actually repudiate patriarchy? Carrie Miles answers these questions in this fascinating article. Don't miss it!

Walking Free in the Kingdom by Barbara Wentroble. Relationships are critical to our walk as Christians. In this article Barbara discusses the concept of Christian submission. She also shares how God showed her the crying need for women to know the freedom they have in Christ.
 

 

OOOPS,

CORRECTION

NEEDED

In 2004 we republished the book God's Word to Women by Katharine Bushnell making pages and the type larger and easier on the eyes.  It was our first time to publish, and we  learned a lot from the experience.  We proofed the book carefully and eliminated some errors that were found in previous publications, BUT, we made a few typos ourselves.  Most of them don't make any difference but there is one that is vital to the understanding of Genesis 3:16--a critical verse for women. 

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

In Lesson 15 of GWTW, Bushnell discusses the translation problems found in the first section of Genesis 3:16.  Karen mentions this section in her article on Genesis and there is a link to this lesson.  In paragraph 117 (the paragraphs in GWTW are all numbered to make it easy to navigate) Bushnell discusses vowel signs and has the following footnote:

The difference Is, between HaRBeh, AaRBeh, "multiplying I will multiply," and HiRBah AoReB, "hath-caused-to multiply," (or "made great"), a lying-in-wait,"--the verb, a usual preceding Its nominative. The capital letters, alike in both phrases, alone constitute the original text. This participial form, ARB, occurs fourteen times In Joshua and Judges. It in translated "ambush," and "liers-in-wait," or "in ambush." It to possible that we should read, here, "A lyer-in-wait (the subtil serpent) hath increased thy sorrow."

In our edition of God's Word to Women the word HiRBah has a typo in it.  What should have been a small "i" has been capitalized.  We discovered the error a few weeks ago and all books now being shipped have been corrected and have a note in them explaining the correction.  However, those of you who have already purchased a copy need to make the correction yourselves.   The footnote is on page 55.

Lessons 13 through 19 discuss Genesis 3:15-16.  If you have not carefully studied these lessons, you may want consider taking the time to do so.  If Bushnell is correct, and many scholars are now agreeing with her work, the whole flavor of Genesis 3:16 is changed.

The entire text of the book God's Word to Women is found on our website under Online Books.


PODCAST REPORT

The reports from Pastor are now up as podcasts--including his testimony.  Enjoy.  There is a new link to the podcasts from the links column on left side of each web page.  Look for GWTW Podcasts under "Resources."  We  are working to make it possible to download all our podcasts instead of just the last five.  Hope to have it fixed by the end of October.  Until then, you can listen to them all on your Computer even though the downloads are limited to the last five.  Technology!  It's both wonderful and frustrating. 

   
   


In The Beginning . . .

By Karen K. Davidenko

Genesis

In the beginning, there was peace and equality.

The book of Genesis is the main reason I walked away from God many years ago. It then became the reason I came back to Him later as I started to read and learn about what His plan was for the human He created in His image. When I saw it in a new light, God became the magnificent, loving, and amazing Father I somehow always knew was out there. I came to realize He loved women as much as men and expected the same good things from His daughters as His sons.

But, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing the first time I read Genesis. Was God cursing woman? Why would He do that? Was I really a subordinate creature compared to males? If humans were created in His image, then woman was part of the big picture. Why would He cause all women to suffer and tell us that we have to be ruled by man? It was just unbelievable.

Then, at the old age of 40, I really started reading Genesis and found some different takes on the translations. I’m no scholar, but there are many scholars out there. Some other non-scholars might say, “Karen . . . these translators have been doing their job for centuries. Are you really trying to say that they made a mistake? It’s all there in the Kings James, for goodness’ sake!”

Well, that’s one of the problems. Most of our translations come from one translation or some that are similar. And, just as if you would take a document, copy it on a machine, then copy the copy, and so on, things get a little . . . corrupted. I don’t think all the translational “mishaps” were intentional. I’ll give the benefit of the doubt that culture affected translations of some key words. We have many Greek and Hebrew scholars who are now pointing out some unfortunate errors. Katharine Bushnell, an author, medical doctor and scholar of Hebrew and Greek in the late 1800’s writes:

“. . . always remembering that we bow to no authority as final but the Word of God, as illuminated by the Spirit. We will endeavor to interpret the Bible by what the Bible says, not by what men say that it says.”

The Lord created a human in His own image. He never calls this creature “Adam” as if it were a proper name. The word adam is Hebrew for human, mankind. God made adam in His image. He made them male and female and blessed His creation five times over to be fruitful, to multiply, to subdue and replenish the earth, and have dominion over all (Genesis 1:28).This male-female creature, made in the image of God, was the ruler over the earth and proclaimed “good” by the Lord. Then, for reasons unknown, this creation became “not good” when only one human walked in the Garden. God decided it was not good for one person to be alone.

So, in the beginning, there was a created human--male and female. The first named person in history was Eve, the Mother of all living. The human named her, even though he isn’t designated as male until Genesis 2:24 after the woman is taken from his side. After that event, the remaining creature is called
isha which means male. The woman is ishshah. The human was created first, and then a woman was taken from his side; the male was formed first, then the female. The word tsela is always referred to as “rib” in this verse. For some reason, though, it is only translated as “rib” in Genesis. It would seem from the translation that the woman was made from one small piece of the adam, but we know women are much more complicated than that! No, the word tsela is translated everywhere else in the Bible as “side,” or “plank.” She was pulled out and formed from the side of the adam.

When the Lord decided to take (or separate) the woman from the human, He wanted to make a “helper suitable” for the man (Genesis 2:18). Not a “help meet” or a servant, He wanted the man to have a “help” or ezer, the same word David uses to refer to God in the Psalms (Psalm 33:20, Psalm 70:5, and nine more psalms). In that realization, would we then assume the Lord is man’s servant or is in any way subordinate to us? Hardly. The word “suitable” is negdo, or kenegdo, which means, “parallel to,” “before,” or “in front of.”

Dr. Susan Hyatt says in her book, In the Spirit We're Equal, regarding ezer kenegdo: “In Genesis 2:18, the word ‘helpmeet’ does not occur. The Hebrew expression ezer kenegdo appears, meaning ‘one who is the same as the other and who surrounds, protects, aids, helps, supports.’ There is no indication of inferiority or of a secondary position in an hierarchical separation of the male and female ‘spheres’ of responsibility, authority, or social position.”

You all know the story. “Adam” knew he wasn’t supposed to eat from the Tree because God told him so. Yet, according to Genesis 3:6, there they were—Eve with “Adam” right beside her. They both ate. They see they’re naked, and God questions them. God then tells this hapless couple how it’s going to be because of their faux pas, but He never curses them. What does He curse? He curses the serpent, and He curses the ground upon which the man must work. He tells the woman that her teshuqa, mistranslated as “desire,” will be for her husband, and he will rule over her. The man will work the soil for his sustenance.

Now, when women are told they are subservient to men, this verse is thrown at them as proof and nearly every time by a man who has never toiled in any soil for his livelihood--or even thought he should. I believed for a time this was God’s plan for men and women—mostly women as second-class citizens—since I’ve existed in a post-agrarian society. It’s funny how society has never expected men to live up to their “part” of the bargain.

(To read the rest of the article click here.)

(Original Artwork by Karen K. Davidenko)

Exciting opportunity –
YOU
can participate!!

Attention women:  You have the opportunity to participate in some very exciting research that will contribute to helping other women find fulfillment in balancing their motherhood and career roles.  We are seeking female participants with a Christian faith perspective who have completed a Master's, Doctoral, or professional (e.g., medicine, law, teaching, nursing) degree in any field of study and are currently employed with at least one child under the age of 18 years residing in the home.  Participation would involve completing a confidential and anonymous online questionnaire.  If you fit these criteria, we would value your input to our study.  Please send an email to Kerris.L.Oates@biola.edu for complete details on how you can help.  Your participation would be greatly appreciated!
 

Elections in the U.S.
November  7

In the United States women have only had the vote since the 15th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified in 1920--less than 100 years.  In our Fall 2004 Newsletter, which was on the suffrage movement, we stated:

"Although a strong Christian faith motivated most of the women who worked for suffrage, that fact is seldom noted.  Those women believed that God was calling them to the effort and giving them a voice in order that unjust laws could be abolished that discriminated against women.  Also, the suffragists saw a need to legislate against social ills.  Ask yourselves the question, “Where would they stand today?” 

Where do you think they would stand?  Do you really believe that they would be too busy to take the time to vote?  Would they stay home as a protest?   Think about it!

There are still many places in the world where women do not have the right to vote.  It is a long sought and hard earned right.  No matter what country you call home, if you can vote, it is a privilege won through years of struggle.  If the Lord was the one who motivated women to work for suffrage, what would be His word to us?

 

This quarterly  newsletter is available in email format and  online.  We encourage you to forward the newsletter to those you believe would be interested. 

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