The Woman Being Deceived

Those of you who know me are probably familiar with one of my favorite statements: “Men are logical; women are emotion.” Since I have been eye-witness to a plethora of male decisions that were completely illogical, just hearing that statement tends to make me ... well ... emotional.

(You’ll have to come up with a really logical argument to convince me that egotism, pride, stubbornness, and greed­­for which men are famous­­are not emotional.)

I was ripe for "Why Not Women," a book that brings real insight into some of Paul´s statements about women, among other things. I´m sure everyone is pretty familiar with the one passage that I found particularly interesting.

"Let the woman learn in silence ... but I suffer not a woman to teach ... but the woman being deceived ..."

The (male) author´s (very logical) argument is that Paul was speaking here of one particular woman who was deceived (as Eve had been) and was spreading heresy. Paul´s solution to the problem was, "Sit down, shut up, and learn the truth." (He was a little nicer in his ways of speaking than I am.)

That passage inspires me to consider the question, "Are women more easily deceived than are men?"

A year or so ago, my mother received an email purporting to be from the IRS, stating something to the effect that she was due a refund based on her current-year tax information, and if she would click on a certain link and enter certain information (namely, credit card information) her refund would be issued to her. If she had been deceived by that email, would it have been because she was a woman? Certainly not! I am a woman, too, and I wasn´t taken in for one millisecond. Because I am a woman? No! Because I know truth. I know enough truth about tax matters and about the IRS to know that they would never send out such an email.

The same is true of spiritual things. It is not our gender that protects us from deception, but knowledge of the truth.

That having been said, I will add the sad fact that I know a good many women, some of whom have been believers since before I was born, who are good deception-bait.

Because.

They haven´t got a clue what the Bible says.

They believe everybody who comes along and writes a book or an article about some passage of scripture and manages to sound good. They aren´t even aware that the writer´s interpretation of that scripture (and, sad to say, sometimes scripture isn´t even the basis for the writing) is completely contrary to what a dozen other passages say, because they aren´t aware those passages exist!

It is true that knowledge can puff people up­­particularly when they are not doers of what they know. On the other hand, there is only one solution to ignorance, and it isn´t becoming male.

If you don´t want to believe a lie, learn the truth.

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