A Biblical Portrait of Womanhood (Part 2) - Nancy Leigh DeMoss

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A Biblical Portrait of Womanhood (Part 1) - Nancy Leigh DeMoss
A Biblical Portrait of Womanhood (Part 2) - Nancy Leigh DeMoss
A Biblical Portrait of Womanhood (Part 3) - Nancy Leigh DeMoss
A Biblical Portrait of Womanhood (Part 4) - Nancy Leigh DeMoss
A Biblical Portrait of Womanhood (Part 5) - Nancy Leigh DeMoss

FamilyLife Today® Radio Transcript

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Living God's Design for Your Life

Day 2 of 5

Guest: Nancy Leigh DeMoss

From the series: A Biblical Portrait of Womanhood

Bob: What does womanhood look like biblically at home? Here is Nancy Leigh DeMoss.

Nancy: Scripture talks about a woman as reverencing her husband, honoring him, lifting him up; a woman who loves her husband, loves her children. Proverbs speaks of the importance of a woman having the quality of discretion. I think so many of these come back to the fact that God made us, as women, to be responders and to allow the men to be the initiators that God created them to be.

Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Tuesday, June 17th. Our host is the president of FamilyLife, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine. What are the core character qualities that define biblical womanhood? We'll talk about that today, stay tuned.

And welcome to FamilyLife Today, thanks for joining us on the Tuesday edition. I remember when I was growing up, back then the "CBS Evening News" was hosted by Walter Cronkite – remember – Walter Cronkite, and over on NBC it was Chet Huntley and David Brinkley, and I don't remember who was on ABC and neither does anybody else because nobody was even watching ABC. And so the executives over at ABC, I think it was Fred Silverman at the time, decided he was going to have two anchors, kind of like Huntley-Brinkley. One of them was going to be Harry Reasoner, and the other Barbara Walters. And for the first time, America was going to be asked to get their evening news from a woman. There was a lot of discussion – was America ready to have a woman as a nightly news anchor?

And, you know, we look at that now from the perspective of more than 30 years, and it's almost laughable. I heard somebody the other day saying that most of the cable news anchors are women today, and we don't think anything of it. And yet back then we were asking a lot of questions about what is the essence of manhood, what is the essence of womanhood? And, frankly, even though we'd look back at having a female news anchor being revolutionary, and we'd laugh about that today, I still think there is a lot of confusion in our culture today about what's at the essence of manhood, and what's at the essence of womanhood?

Dennis: And because of the cultural shift, there has been a shift in the Christian community. Unfortunately, we have lost our biblical moorings, our anchor point in the Scripture, and I fear that we're raising a generation of daughters and, for that matter, sons, who do not know what it means to be a woman or to be a man.

And that's why we're committing these broadcasts just to helping women truly have a good grasp of what it means, biblically speaking, to be a woman. And with us in the studio to help us here on a second day is Nancy Leigh DeMoss – Nancy, welcome back.

Nancy: Thank you.

Dennis: Nancy has spoken to women's groups for more than 20 years, and I think it's fair to say, Nancy, that this is a life message for you – defining what it means and painting a portrait of femininity, is that right?

Nancy: Well, God certainly has given me a heart to glorify Him, as a woman, and that means that there are issues that have to be wrestled with.

Bob: Yes, and you spend time wrestling with this issues on your daily radio program, "Revive Our Hearts," which many of our listeners are familiar with because it's heard on some of the stations that also carry FamilyLife Today. You have also written a number of books including a bestselling book called "Lies Women Believe." There is a new book out called "Lies Young Women Believe." You've written a study guide called "Seeking Him," and our listeners may not know that you're going to be hosting a national conference in Chicago coming up in October.

It's called True Woman '08, and you're going to be speaking there along with Joni Eareckson Tada and Janet Parshall and, Dennis, your wife, Barbara is going to be there, Karen Loritts is going to be speaking as well – Pastor John Piper is going to be speaking to the ladies, and there is already a lot of excitement about this conference. In fact, it's starting to fill up. So if our listeners are interested in attending the True Woman '08 conference, they should go to our website, FamilyLife.com, and click where it says "Today's Broadcast" on the right side of the screen, and they'll find a link to the True Woman website, and they can get registered online and plan to attend the conference.

Let me ask you about this issue of masculinity and femininity. Does the Bible give us insight into why God created us differently? Why He created us male and female?

Nancy: Well, actually, God answers that question for us in His Word, thankfully. And we find, if we go back to the Genesis record, that God made the man first, God created the man in His image, unlike all that had preceded man, unlike the animals or the plants or the seas, the waters. God looked at the man and said, "It's not good." It's not good that the man should be alone.

And then it is interesting to me that God sent Adam on a little hunt to find, if he could, a completer for himself. Adam failed in that attempt. There was no completer for him, and then I think Adam realized that God was the one who had to provide his completion. God was the one who had to provide that which would complement him. And then, as we know, God put the man to sleep …

Bob: And I don't know this, but I bet he snored like crazy during that nap.

Nancy: Probably, probably.

Bob: Just guessing on that.

Dennis: You think?

Bob: I just am guessing he was in a deep sleep and was sawing some mean logs....