Chapter 3 of The True Woman by Susan Hunt is brought to us graciously by Kimi Harris. Thanks Kimi for the thorough recap!
If you are just joining us, view chapter 1, and chapter 2.
In chapter three, Susan Hunts discusses where we should find our identity. In a culture that talks a lot about self-image and finding our own identity, this is truly an important chapter to consider. How should we define ourselves?
“As a redeemed daughter of the King of kings, the Christian woman has a new identity. Her identity is not determined by her situation nor by her relationships with men, as feminists believe we are saying, but by her Savior. Her concern is not self-image but being an image-bearer of the Lord God. ” pg 62
Her Identity
Our identity is not found in our accomplishments or determined by our human relationships, but instead is found in our Savior and our relationship with Him. This truth is so freeing. We don’t have to find our identity in what we do, who we are married to, who we are friends with, what our interests are, or whether we are a stay at home wife/mother, or go to work. Instead our identity is centered in being a redeemed daughter of the King of Kings. Women have a certain strength, which can also be a weakness.
“Woman’s nurturing strengths generally give us a greater propensity to emotion and sensitivity. Perhaps this is part of the women appear more receptive to the Gospel…But this female strength will become a destructive weakness if our faith is based solely on feeling and excitement rather than on God’s truth. Our experience should be the response to truth rather than the determiner of truth. ”
If we women want to have a strong identity in Christ, then we can’t base it on our ever changing emotions. Instead we need to base it on a thorough understanding of God’s word and His truth. I have often heard it said that women tend to be practical. We like to read books about how to do things, how to organize, how to understand people, how to raise our children, how to bless our husbands. Because of this tendency, some women shy away from “theology”. But what we sometimes don’t realize is that doctrine is very practical! It effects every single decision we make as well as giving the framework for how we view ourselves, our God, our world, and everything in this world and after it.
Understanding God’s sovereignty, a topic that Susan Hunt goes over in this chapter, has personally been one of the most meaningful and important truths for me to understand. Sovereignty is referring to God being in power and in control over everything.
“Without a thorough understanding of God’s sovereign redemptive grace, we will slip into a performance-based mentality that propels the pendulum of our lives toward the frustration of legalism or the looseness of liberalism. Without a grip on grace, we will be form without substance. ”
She outlines three important ways in which God is sovereign- in creation, in providence, and in salvation. I will be giving a very short synopsis of what she goes over, but to keep in mind that these theological topics have many books written about them. View this chapter (and this post) as a springboard for further study. This is a very imperfect introduction, but hopefully it can inspire you to study it more.
In Creation
If we view our beginning as the human race as a result of chaotic chance, than our view of what it means to be a human is going to be pretty depressing. But with the understanding that an all-powerful, loving God created us with His own hands, making us in His own image, and literally breathed life into us, our life will have the purpose and meaning that it should. Knowing that God sovereignly designed us, and gave us life, will affect our outlook on life and ourselves.
In Providence
Providence means to think about , care or prepare for in advance. Calvin wrote “…..let my readers grasp that providence means not that by which God idly observes from heaven what takes place on earth, but that by which, as keeper of the keys, he governs all events. ” The truth that God governs all events helps us deal with all of life’s situations. Nothing can happen out of God’s control. This means that instead of worrying about the future, we can know that God is in control, and will only allow what is best for us to happen. This truth implanted in your heart will bring great peace. It is this truth that allowed me personally to weather the storm of illness and the death of my first daughter. Trusting in a loving God, knowing that He had all things in control, even when I didn’t understand the “why’s”, gave me so much hope and peace when life, in human terms, was pretty bleak. But having a thorough understanding of God’s sovereign providence gives peace in life’s little trials as well.
For example, image that my husband gets caught up in traffic on the way home and is an hour late for supper. Instead of getting upset that my dinner prepared for him will be cold, I can know that God is sovereign and working through even little things like traffic hour for our sanctification and good.
In Salvation
We didn’t earn our salvation. We were dead in our sins, unable to win salvation by our own merits, unable to even see our “deadness” and need for Him. But not only did Christ have to die for our sins, but God also had to open our hard hearts and spiritual eyes to the gospel. Remember when Christ called out Lazarus from the grave? That is a picture of our salvation. We were totally dead in our trespasses and Christ sovereignly called us and gave us life, when we could do nothing for ourselves. God’s sovereignty in salation gives us great humility, because we know we did NOTHING to receive it, but instead it was a gracious gift to us. It also brings great peace, because we know that God choose us before the foundation of the earth and that nothing will thwart his purpose of bringing us safely Home to Heaven. Christ says that he will not lose even one of the sheep that God gave to him. That means that we can rest in peace in the sovereignty of God in regard to our salvation.
A Covenant of Grace
God has made a binding covenant with us of grace. God pours out grace, and then more grace on a very imperfect, often unfaithful, sinful people. He remains faithful, even when we are not. “He relates to us not on the basis of our performance, but on the basis of his provision”. pg 72 From the beginning to the end, the Bible is a story of grace, of God choosing his people and remaining faithful to His covenant to us to the end.
“He is our God-this is our hope. We are His people-this is our identity. He lives among us-this is our joy. These words are trustworthy and true-this is our assurance.”
In this covenant of grace, God sovereignly planned redemption for a sinful, fallen people. Redemption “The dictionary defines redemption as a recovery of something pawned or mortgaged, deliverance upon payment of a ransom, a rescue. The redeem is to recover ownership by paying a specified sum. This presupposes bondage or captivity. ” pg 74 And that’s what we are, a redeemed people. We were complete slaves to sin, and Christ paid the price by dying a painful death on the cross. Christ is the redeemer, through Him we have life! What lavish grace! What wonderful hope for us! What joy for us was bought by such pain for Him. Let us never forget the reason for our spiritual life or become hardened by familiarity to the cross. May the cross ever move us; may we always remember with thankfulness Christ’s sacrifice, and may it always remind us of God’s love for us.
“The true woman is a recipient of redemption. God sets His sovereign affection upon her. He bound Himself to her in covenant faithfulness to be her God. He has redeemed her with His own blood. She is His treasured possession…The folds of unspeakable love…a love that wraps eternal security around us…because we are His treasured possessions. This is the indisputable identity of the true woman” pg. 77
Discussion Questions:
1. How do you define yourself? How did this chapter impact your current view of yourself?
2. What life circumstance does the truth of God’s sovereignty really affect right now in your life? Do you have situations where you have been having a hard time trusting in the wisdom and sovereignty of God? Or, on the flip side, has this doctrine been giving you peace in hard situations?
Thank you for this clear recapitulation of the third chapter that I read with great interest.
Reading books like “Thr true woman” helps me to learn more about God, to study special verses in a focused way - but it has also another important value for me: It reminds me that I depend on God and not on the opinions of other persons.
So I come to answer the first question: How do you define yourself? I am almost 30 years old, and most of my life time I defined myself by the judgements and opinions of others. If they said “She is an intelligent girl and her work is promising” I felt good and I defined myself as intelligent and promising. If they said “She is a dissappointment, she is just second class” I felt like a failure and a looser and life was dark. So my self-image was changing permanently and I spent my whole energy to get good grades at university, to be appreciated by my colleagues and my boss etc.
But when I took my Christian vocation more serious and started to study Scripure I realized two most important things:
1) I am saved and loved by the Lord Jesus Christ. This salvation is a present, I do not deserve it - but He decided to give me His love and His grace - AS A GIFT.
2) Not my boss, not my friends, colleagues etc. determine my value and what I am. I am precious to Him and that is my value.
Recognizing my redemption and saying “yes” to the covenant of grace frees me from the bondages of human slavery. But nevertheless there are many times the old worldly view rises and tries to displace my deep inner joy. Therefore reading books and chapters like this third chapter reminds me of the truths of my life: There is a covenant of grace between me and God, and this covenant should be the cause of joy and the center of our lives.
There are several statements in this chapter that I appreciate. Here are a couple: “The uncomfortable truth is that even though we say we have a Christocentric worldview, when the pressure is on, we often shift to an egocentric view of our situation…” pg. 61 and from the John Calvin quote on pg. 66 “…the Lord has willed it; therefore it must be borne, not only because one may not contend against it, but also because he wills nothing that is not just and expedient.”
Probably all of us who have been or are going through the refining fire can say that there are times when we want to throw our hands in the air and run screaming away, where doesn’t matter just so long as we can get away, forget, and resume a normal life, whatever that is. But when I am tempted to do this, two things come to mind. The first is from when so many went back from following after Jesus after He said that unless they ate His flesh and drank His blood that they had no part in Him. He asked the twelve if they also wanted to go away. Peter said, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” John 6:68
The second is from Psalm 73:25-26 “Whom have I in heaven but You? And there is none upon earth that I desire besides You. My flesh and my heart fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”
Which brings me to another quote from this chapter: “It is the knowledge of His sovereign reign over the world and our lives that makes sense out of what often looks and feels like chaos.” pg. 69 To answer the discussion question, the doctrine of God’s sovereignty gives me great peace. And that’s an understatement.
As far as the first question goes, I define myself as a Christ follower, as imperfect a definition as that can be at times. I am not sure that this chapter impacted my definition of myself except as I identify with what Sono Harris says: “I must be constantly reminded of what I already know.”
On an entirely different subject related to this chapter, on pg. 62, Susan Hunt comments on a quote from Female Piety about how there are more women than men in the church because they are more apt to come under the influence of religion. “But this female strength will become a destructive weakness if our faith is based solely on feeling and excitement rather than on God’s truth. Our experience should be the response to truth rather than the determiner of truth.” This week I watched a Youtube video clip of Oprah Winfrey. She discusses with a man who is apparently important in the New Age movement that God is a feeling, and if you still believe a doctrine or theology of God instead of having the feeling of God, you are wrong.
What is of particular concern is how many Christian women watch Oprah Winfrey every day and listen to what she has to say with non-discriminating attention. We should pray for our sisters, because as it says in II Timothy 4:3-4 “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away fro the truth, and be turned aside to fables.” And the time has come…
Amen, Marliss…good words.
I really appreciated this chapter. The author gets to the foundation of the Christian faith. Thank you, Kimi, for your recap. I so agree with the point you made in your first paragraph under the heading Her Identity. Susan Hunt said, “Her identity is not determined by her situation nor by her relationships with men, as feminists believe we are saying, but by her Savior.” Unfortunately, I think Christian women do at times find their identity in being a wife, mother or keeper of the home. We need to make sure we do not define a true woman by “… what she does, who she is married to, who she is friends with, what her interests are, or whether she is a stay at home wife/mother, or goes to work.” The Christian woman (the true woman) has been justified by the blood of Jesus Christ, is a Christ-follower, has submitted herself to her God and is in the process of being sanctified.
Some highlights of the chapter for me were:
1. The Calvin quote on page 66. Even though I know the truth of this, the Lord continually sends new opportunities for me to walk it out. In particular this part, “…To sum this up: when we are unjustly wounded by men, let us overlook their wickedness (which would but worsen our pain and sharpen our minds to revenge)…” was convicting. I don’t remember consciously thinking about being wounded and that making my pain worse or having revengeful thoughts before. In hindsight, I can see how having brooded over hurts does worsen the pain and can easily lead to wanting to get back at a person.
2. “…he (Joseph) clung to his knowledge about the character of God, and that shaped his own character. Pg. 67
3. “But as King Nebuchadnezzar dramatically learned, whether we can understand it or not, God is sovereign.” Pg. 70
These three highlights have a common thread, trusting God and having a Christocentric focus. Though I would define myself as one who believes in the absolute sovereignty of God, I am daily being sanctified through the circumstances God brings my way. There are times when I have peace in hard situations. At other times I have to earnestly seek God and preach to myself to have the peace that passes all understanding. This sentence from chapter 3, “remember to mount up to God, and learn to believe for certain that whatever our enemy has wickedly committed against us was permitted and sent by God’s just dispensation” is a great admonition to me!