This week, we are starting season 2 of Bible Talk begining with the question, what is a women? Let’s dig in!
Listen along to the episode here or on your favorite podcast app.
What is a woman?
This question has come up more than probably necessary. Or at least been answered in ways…that make you scratch your head. While I have many opinions on the subject of what makes a biological woman, this isn’t about that.
I am a woman, born and raised. I have never questioned that fact, but I have wondered about purpose and place. All I ever wanted was to be a wife and mother. I am a #tradwife. I subscribe to the traditional definition of gender roles in marriage and homemaking. I am also a Christian. I believe Ephesians 5:22 is correct and good advice: Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. You may ask how a female in 2024 can believe such misogynistic drivel. Doesn’t this set women back believing poppycock like this? I believe Ephesians 5:22 because of Ephesians 5:25-28:
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.
See? I am just told to submit. The husbands are given way more direction. It is pretty specific to say love your wife as Christ loved the church. I mean, Christ DIED for the church. That is a lot more responsibility than submission.
But what else does the Bible say about being a woman? Society seems to believe that God wants women to be submissive, domestic beings that are simply there to serve and birth. Is that what the Bible really says? We have to go to the beginning to get a full picture.
“The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” Genesis 2:18
God said Adam doesn’t have so I will make. What a picture that gives us of God. He saw Adam had a need and knew he was the only one who could meet it. There wasn’t anything that was suitable, so he specifically made something new. Eve was a new model, with a completely different creation process. Up until Eve all things God made had been formed out of the ground. Eve was formed from Adam. And just like everything else, Adam named her. Made by God, named by Adam.
Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman for she was taken out of man.” Genesis 2: 22-23
Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living. Genesis 3:20
Woman was made with a purpose. To be a helper. That does make it sound like we are subordinates, only made to help a man. But look at the word used for helper. It is ezer and it literally means one who helps. The interesting thing is that it is used numerous times in the Old Testament. A couple of times in scenarios referring to allies with chariots. Mostly used to talk about God. Read that again. Who used this word? Oh, yeah, it was God himself. God said that Adam needed a helper suitable for him. God used a word that also described himself. Let that sink in.
You are destroyed, O Israel, because you are against me, against your helper. Hosea 13:9
[Moses] said about Judah: Hear, O Lord, the cry of Judah; bring him to his people. With his own hands he defends his cause. Oh, be his help against his foes! Deuteronomy 33:7
There is no one like the God of Jeshurun, who rides on the heavens to help you and on the clouds in his majesty. Deuteronomy 33:26
He is your shield and helper and your glorious sword. Deuteronomy 33:29
We wait in hope for the Lord; he is our help and our shield. Psalm 33:20
Yet I am poor and needy; come quickly to me, O God. You are my help and my deliverer; oh Lord, do not delay. Psalm 70:5
I lift up my eyes to the hills – where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. Psalm 121:1-2
Our help is in the name of the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. Psalm 124:8
So don’t read help as “the” help. Read it more like THE help.
Eve was not God. Nor am I. But womankind was brought into existence by the One who coined the phrase. Doesn’t that give us a hint about how God viewed our role in humanity? Does it sound puny? It sounds pretty mighty to me.
https://jessicareedkraus.substack.com?utm_source=navbar&utm_medium=web
The Return of the Ezer
Recommended Bibles:
(if you purchase via these affiliate links, you will support Bible Talk!)
Check out all Emily’s recommended Bibles, references, and supplies!


