Wimpy Women

As a group of ladies from my church head to the Northern Women's Convention tomorrow, I spotted that Piper has recently been addressing 6,200 women at a similar (albeit larger) conference on The Ultimate Meaning of True Womanhood. The talk looks good. I like his premise - wimpy theology makes wimpy women. Two of the examples he gives of non-wimpy women:

The opposite of a wimpy woman is not a brash, pushy, loud, controlling, sassy, uppity, arrogant Amazon. The opposite of a wimpy woman is 14-year-old Marie Durant, a French Christian in the 17th century who was arrested for being a Protestant and told she could be released if she said one phrase: “I abjure.” Instead, wrote on the wall of her cell, “Resist,” and stayed there 38 years until she died, doing just that (Karl Olsson, Passion, [New York: Harper and Row Publishers, 1963], 116-117).

The opposite of a wimpy woman is Gladys Staines who in 1999, after serving with her husband Graham in India for three decades learned that he and their two sons, Phillip (10) and Timothy (6), had been set on fire and burned alive by the very people they had served for 34 years, said, “I have only one message for the people of India. I’m not bitter. Neither am I angry. Let us burn hatred and spread the flame of Christ’s love.” The opposite of a wimpy woman is her 13-year-old daughter Esther (rightly named!) who said, when asked how she felt about her father’s murder, “I praise the Lord that He found my father worthy to die for Him.”

I appreciate that within context of marriage displaying the glory of Christ and his church (which is primary), Dr Piper addressed how unmarried Christian ladies can display the glory of Christ also.

So as I drive one Brummie grandmother, one ex-schoolteacher widow, one German doctor and myself up to Manchester, despite a ridiculously early start, I'll be giving thanks to God for the glory of Christ displayed in all of them as through non-wimpy theology, looking into God's word, we behold the face of Christ and are being transformed from one degree of glory into another. Praise Him!