Wednesday, 27 July 2016

THERE'S BEAUTY IN GENDER DIFFERENCE NOT INEQUALITY

Ifeanyi 21:52:00 Daily reflection No comments :

“…male and female he created them.” Genesis 1:27^b(The African Bible)

I welcome you most adorable child of God. I believe you are so tasty for the word of God and that is why you are. God has led you here for a reason, and that reason is to feed you with his word. Today, I shall carry you along as we reflect on verse 27b of the first chapter of Genesis. I have titled this reflection “Why the Gender difference?” let us ask the Holy Spirit to guide us with his light as we make this reflection.

First and foremost, I will like to make this brief linguistic clarifications. The two major words we are interested in this verse are “male” and “female”. I have already explained the connotation of the word “man” as used in the same verse and if you really want to know this you can read the reflection by clicking "In His Image He Made You". Let us continue. The two words as we have them are originally written in Hebrew language and so let us start from the root word. The common Hebrew term for “woman” is ishsha, which may also be translated to be “wife”. We also have the masculine term corresponding to the female name as ish meaning “man”, it can also be used analogously for “husband” alongside with the Hebrew ba’al, “master”, or “lord”.

We now see that in the beginning, God has already made a gender distinction. This does not mean that God introduced hierarchy amongst humanity. It also does not suggest that one gender is higher, more important or valuable than the other. There is need for complementarity. Thus, God created man and woman to complement each other and to foster procreation. Let us not misunderstand God and misinterpret the scripture only to suit us when we want to depose and manipulate another person.

One very important thing I want to emphasis here is the difference in gender, not in terms of equality but in terms of appreciation and understanding. How do you understand your sexuality, child of God? Do you appreciate being what you are? Today we here things like “transgender”, “same-sex”, and all sorts of gender-related anomalies. What could be the cause of these? I am not here to blame or cast aspersion at anybody or group but we should understand the fact that every action has cause and effect. There must be a cause to such misunderstanding of gender and if we do not resolve it on time, there must surely be an inevitable effect. Let us understand ourselves and then enhance a healthy society.

But the fact that you are “straight”, doesn’t mean you are the perfect one. Mind you, do not call yourself righteous because we all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). We should learn to accept our brothers who are in error for it is by love and acceptance that we can bring them to full communion with Christ. It is very important we understand this.

Now let us consider the second question – do you appreciate your gender? My brother, my sister, heaven knows the reason for creating you male or female. Do not think otherwise or curse God for giving you that specific gender. It is true that our society sometimes presents reason for one to rethink and regret one’s gender. But, we have no choice over our gender selection when we are being formed in the womb. Nonetheless, remember, it is not whether you are male or female, it is whether you are of God. In the house of God all these things do not count because there is neither male nor female (Galatians 2:28). I love the way Saint Paul puts it in I Corinthians 11:12 when he says “for as the woman (is) of man, even so (is) the man also by the woman; but all things of God.” Some people try to blame their misfortune on their gender, claiming that their gender prevented them from achieving something in life. That is a barefaced lie. Experience has shown that gender has little or nothing to contribute to one’s success. In fact, our would of today rarely consider gender when it counts successful people. Do not kill yourself over your gender, you are what you are because God wants it so, he wants you to succeed and prosper. So stop relapsing in self-pity and carry yourself as God’s very own. It is important you know this, success doesn’t recognize gender; success only recognize hard work. Hard work that is centred on God brings success.