No Longer Quivering
by John Piper of Desiring God at Church Leaders.com – Why Are Women More Eager Missionaries?
Editor’s note: What? He’s thinking that women have nothing in the way of control and influence over if they’ll be married? What are we? Some low hanging fruit just waiting and dangling on that branch for the first lout to pick us off the tree? I think the idea that more women than men serve in missions has more to do with the fact that women are usually the core of any religious organization, the ones that do the grunt work and already outnumber men by a serious amount, not because guys aren’t getting married.
Let’s start with the observation that many single women in missions would like to be married, not all. Some regard it as a divine calling to serve as a single woman, and they have no intention of even hoping or praying toward marriage. But many would like to serve in missions side by side with a similarly called and devoted husband. It is men who propose marriage. Women have less control over being married than men do—they can always say no, but I mean taking the initiative in a positive way. Therefore, the single missionary woman who would like to be married is not exactly in the same position as a single missionary man who would like to be married.
Elisabeth Elliot told of an interview she had with Gladys Aylward, single missionary to China who died in 1970: The Small Woman: Gladys Aylward is the name of one biography. “Miss Aylward talked to the Lord about her singleness. She was a no-nonsense woman in very direct and straightforward ways and she asked God to call a man from England, send him straight out to China, straight to where she was, and have him propose to her.” I can’t forget the next line. Elisabeth Elliot said, “With a look of even deeper intensity, she shook her little bony finger in my face and said, ‘Elisabeth, I believe God answers prayer. And he called him.’” And here there was a brief pause. She said, “‘He called him, and he never came.’”
QUOTING QUIVERFULL is a regular feature of NLQ – we present the actual words of noted Quiverfull leaders, cultural enforcers and those that seek to keep women submitted to men and ask our readers: What do you think? Agree? Disagree? This is the place to state your opinion. Please, let’s keep it respectful – but at the same time, we encourage readers to examine the ideas of Quiverfull and Spiritual Abuse honestly and thoughtfully.
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