There is a trend with anemically masculine males on social media to try to flex their manly Christian authority by doing stuff like this:
These sentient abnormalities adopt a pharisaical approach to witness by condemning all kingdom sisters outside of the box as “girl boss,” a term coined by feminists to describe successful/overachieving females in the professional sphere. Whether or not that term applies to matriarchs of large families is unclear.
The problem I have with this performative, fake evangelism is that it’s inherently the same form of godlessness that it postures to condemn.
Mockery of God’s children isn’t the character of Christ.
For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 15 If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other. — Galatians 5:14
Jesus preached humility over hierarchy. Exalting oneself over another is ungodly.
For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted. — Matthew 23:12
The Bible isn’t silent.
To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: 10 “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’
13 “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’
14 “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” — Luke 18:9-14
How does such an abusive approach, especially from a self-styled “pastor,” fulfill Christ’s command through Paul to “build one another up?”
Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.
— Ephesians 4:29
This is a male who not only doesn’t understand women, but this is a male who also doesn’t understand the leadership role to which he has appointed himself. First, he presumes that every woman in the workplace is there without a family and/or simply works for her own self-contentment. No thought is paid as to whether she’s in the workplace due to financial necessity — maybe she’s widowed, maybe her husband is physically unable to work, maybe she has a special needs child and needs to earn more for his or her care, maybe her marriage dissolved through no fault of her own, maybe a number of things happened and the response shouldn’t be an assumption based on a belief rooted in a faith said male isn’t modeling with his behavior.
This is also a male who doesn’t understand God. God absolutely will call women to His service:
Mary of Nazareth was told by the angel Gabriel that she would bear the Christ-child.
Mary Magdalene was the first to witness the risen Christ and instructed her to tell the disciples in a time when women did not have the same standing as men, when women were not believed as men were, and yet the most important information in all of human history was told first to a woman to then go and tell the world. God loves His daughters.
“Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” — John 20:17
Phoebe was commended by Paul to a higher level of service (scholars debate a deacon, diakonos was the Greek translation, although other scholars believe she was elevated to a higher form of service but not officially within the church) and she served as a patron.
God appointed Deborah as a prophetess and judge in Israel who dispensed advice and called out military leader Barak as God had commanded an attack on the oppressor Sisera — who, to fulfill God’s Word, was slain by another woman lifted up to task by God, Jael.
Lydia was a business-minded purple cloth dealer, and a wealthy church-planter. God opened her heart to hear the good news preached by Paul and she and her entire household were baptized. She used her home as a meeting place for Christians.
Priscilla worked alongside her husband in their family business and hosted Paul in their home while also working to church-plant. She was a church matriarch and she and her husband Aquila mentored the preacher Apollos.
Esther, the brave woman who saved her people from Haman’s destruction.
The Bible is full of woman like these, like Anna, like Shiphrah and Puah, Rahab of Jericho, like the Proverbs 31 woman.
Is this pharisaical, self-appointed “pastor” going to make Ruth feel “low-status?” Abigail? Does he presume to know the plans God has for the people he seeks to judge or is he making knee-jerk assessments based on politics and not Scripture? Clearly, he believes the best witness is no witness at all, just a performative caricature of faith that does nothing to soften the hearts he’s discussing, but instead to harden them because a social media “pastor” is more interested in a clout-chasing flex than guarding the hearts of a flock he’s appointed himself to shepherd.
Using myself as an example: I stayed home and homeschooled for the first part of my children’s lives. Despite my Jonah-level resistance to it, it became very clear that God had a plan for our family that involved changing how, and who, works at what. I do not debase myself, or insult the path to which God called me to and equipped me for, by sitting under a the compromised judgment of false shepherds whose own behavior calls into question their Biblical bonafides. Nor should you.
I’ve always told my sons that progressive, godless males are the ones who created inequality between the sexes as their behavior contradicts everything we’ve ever studied in Scripture. Women don’t question their purpose and see their paths clearly when they have the support and leadership of godly men. Godly men don’t make women feel less-than, inferior, and they certainly don’t encourage others, like gossipy teenagers, to “laugh at” or call women they seek to influence “cringe.” They encourage their wives, sisters, friends, and other female family members in Christian love, advice and correction is given in love, they demonstrate the strength of patience, discernment, and their pattern of behavior inspires confidence and security.
I’m always cautious when these false shepherds try peddling this overcompensating, Temu masculinity or hypocritical Christian leadership. If the goal is to drive away nonbelievers or give pause to potential converts, the devil couldn’t be happier with how they’re handling themselves on social media.
Jesus showed us how it’s done. That is the only way.
Amen ❤️🔥
Well said, sister, well said!