This
post is part of a series examining the “strange woman” doctrine.
The
concept of a “strange woman” is an unofficial
doctrine**
held by some Independent Fundamental Baptists concerning sexually
abused girls: They become human garbage and things to be used, to be
dispensed with in whatever way is convenient to those who have charge
over them. Note that many doctrines in a high demand group are not
formally documented but become part of the oral tradition or the
hidden
curriculum**
of their culture and are often more powerful rules than the formally
stated ones.
Ron
Williams of Hephzibah House offers a very lengthy sermon about this
insidiously taught doctrine causing pastors confront occurrences of
sexual abuse in their congregations and in educational settings.
(Full sermon transcript available HERE.
Audio available HERE.)
Discernment is only for people like Ron
Where would we be without him and people like him to pass on wisdom? (Cough, sputter, cough, gag)
So it isn't necessarily a Strange Woman topic, but I thought it was worth noting Williams duplicity here. Essentially, the only people who have discernment, I suppose, are people like him. Everyone else misses the point. Only Ron gets to decide who was right and did well and who blew it. And that seems completely arbitrary.
™
QUOTE:
Part I, God's
Providence?
For
a believer, everything, EVERYTHING, is providential. That’s why
Paul, writing later in the New Testament, Romans chapter 8 verse 28
says “all things work together for good.”
[
. . .]
I
believe God wanted him to have Leah and not Rachel! Here’s this
servant looking at flesh and feelings and emotional are involved
here, when in fact he wanted him to have the more spiritual of these
two sisters and that was clearly Leah.
There is nothing in Scripture at this
point indicating that either girl was in error or was dishonorable.
God turning Laban's self-serving trick and betrayal into honor for
Leah by giving her children. Rachel had no part in the deception.
If anything, Leah was deceptive for her complicit actions in the
deception, though she had no free choice to do decline her father's
wishes in that society, save for risking death. Williams has no
basis for drawing this conclusion from the context of the Biblical
canon narrative.
™
QUOTE:
Part II, Jacob's
Spiritual Low Point at Shechem
So now as we read this story we see
him ending up at Shechem and out first question really ought to be
“well now Jacob, why are you here at Shechem? You’re supposed to
be back at Bethel, the house of God. That’s where you belong.
You’re not supposed to be here a Shechem.”
As
siginificant as Jacob was to God's plan to raise up a nation from his
progeny, if God wanted Jacob to remain at Bethel, would He not have
intervened? He'd done it in the past. He opened a vision of heaven
for him and renamed Jacob Israel.
™
QUOTE:
Part II, Far Country Disease
See a person that’s content with
God, content with family, content with home, content with what
they’ve been taught is not going to go out curiosity seeking how do
the Pagans of this world live. Because that’s dangerous. But rather
she would have been content to stay at home, she would have been
content to be a separated person. . . . But Dinah didn’t, as she
went out to see the daughters of the land, she should have known that
we live in a world filled with sin. And believe me, we do.
