Dear Friends and Patrons,

So many Christian women are living under the curse of Genesis 3:16, mainly because so much of the church teaches the model of women's submission to male headship.

The truth is that women are to live in the Biblical truth of gender equality found both in the Creation (as opposed to the Fall) and in the New Creation provided by Our Lord Jesus Christ. That is to say, we are to function, not according to gender as the church would have us believe, but according to our God-given gifts, talents, and callings, as God would have us do under the Lordship of Christ and the leading of His Holy Spirit.

To get it right, we must know and obey what Jesus taught in word and deed--and what he didn't teach--about men and women. And He taught that women are equal with men in terms of substance and value, function and responsibility, privilege and authority. Nowhere did He teach a gender hierarchy requiring women to submit to men. In fact, correctly interpreted, both Genesis and Paul teach God's will of equality of men and women. Yet so many Christians live in the model of the Fall and a faulty misinterpretation of Paul's writings.

Although it has become trendy in some sectors for women to serve in public ministry (under the covering of a man), marriage and the home remain strongholds of female subjugation. The crux of the heresy is bound up primarily in two concepts known as "headship" and "submission." This fallacy propagated by the church--which SHOULD be the greatest Voice of Truth--is that men rule and women serve. But this is the pattern predicted as a result of the Fall, not the model of relationship prescribed by God in His Word!

When Paul speaks of male headship, he uses the word kephale which NEVER refers to one having rulership or priority over another. Had he wanted to imply male rulership over woman, he would have used the word archon.

When Paul speaks of female submission, he uses the word hupotasso, which does not imply obedience, but, in the cultural and literary culture, to identification of the wife with the husband, forming a new social unit. This concept agrees with the Genesis command to leave parents and cleave to one another, creating a new social unit. Had Paul been prescribing female obedience to the male, he would have chosen the word hupakouo.

For the sake of people everywhere and for the sake of the Gospel, we have an obligation to get it right--to throw off the lies of human tradition and walk out the truth that Jesus Christ died and rose again to give us.

Holding forth the Word of Life and Truth in the power of the Holy Spirit is God's commission on my and Eddie's life. We are to help our fellow believers to Think Biblically--to get The Message right, that the church might be strong in the Lord and well able to carry out the Great Commission. A part of getting The Message right is getting The Message right about men and women.

This is why I come to you unashamedly from time to time requesting partnership and prayer in carrying out this commission. And I remain grateful—as do all those who benefit from my obedience to Him.