The Biblical Portrait of Women

I recently found an amazing article by John MacArthur on the Biblical portrait of women. Most people assume that the Bible confined women and kept them trapped in the horrible patriarchy, condemned to be inferior to men. It wasn't like that! Here are some excerpts:

The Bible rightly exalts women against cultures that distort, degrade, and debase them. Many in our society tout the sexual and reproductive liberation of women against the supposed oppressive, outmoded strictures of the Bible. I have to ask, “In what way are women truly free? In what way does our culture honor them?” Sure they can vote; sure they have opportunities to compete in the marketplace. But are they really free? Is their dignity and honor intact?

....

From the very first chapter of the Bible, we are taught that women, like men, bear the stamp of God’s own image (Genesis 1:27; 5:1–2)—men and women were created equal. Women play prominent roles in many key biblical narratives. Wives are seen as venerated partners and cherished companions to their husbands, not merely slaves or pieces of household furniture (Genesis 2:20–24; Proverbs 19:14; Ecclesiastes 9:9). At Sinai, God commanded children to honor both father and mother (Exodus 20:12).

....

Yet women are by no means marginalized or relegated to any second-class status. The Bible teaches women are not only equals with men (Galatians 3:28), but are also set apart for special honor (1 Peter 3:7). Husbands are commanded to love their wives sacrificially, as Christ loves the church—even, if necessary, at the cost of their own lives (Ephesians 5:25–31). The Bible acknowledges and celebrates the priceless value of a virtuous woman (Proverbs 12:4; 31:10; 1 Corinthians 11:7).

.....

Meanwhile, modern feminists heap scorn on women who want family and household to be their first priorities; in so doing they disparage the role of motherhood, the one calling that is most uniquely and exclusively feminine. The whole message of feminist egalitarianism is that there is really nothing extraordinary about women.


Check out the entire article at The Biblical Portrait of Women

WFMW - Paper Rewards

If you're anything like me, you have lots and lots of papers that need to be sorted and put away. These papers breed faster than anything else on the planet - you turn away and you're knee deep in them!

I used to have a huge problem with this until I started 50 paper rewards. Basically, for every 50 pieces of paper I throw out I get to buy myself a book or a DVD. I only include paper thrown out, but as you go through your piles you invariably end up filing many pieces of paper.

To keep track, I just have an old train ticket that I keep a tally on. Each train card will hold five or six 'tallies' of 50 papers. When it is full I throw that away - and it too counts as a piece of paper.

I find this system works really well. You can easily 'see' the difference by looking at the tally, even when it seems like there is no difference on your floor. And having a reward at the end keeps motivation up.

This definitely Works for Me!

Check out the rest of the WFMW at Rocks in My Dryer!

What I'm doing this year (I think)

Well, I'm still sorting out what I'm doing for this year because until recently it's all been VERY much up in the air.

I WAS going to be moving out with a friend from school and some of her uni friends whilst my house got knocked down and units built. But my friend's parents are going through a nasty divorce and she wants to be at home for her mother. So no house.

Well, after looking about for a while my Mum called to say that the building won't happen for about another 6 months, so I am going to be staying in my old house. So I have a place to stay, which is the main thing.

Now I have to get my VIT Registration done (Victorian Institute of Teaching) and apply with an agency, preferably before school starts (2 weeks). I'm not looking forwards to it.

I'll then be doing substitute teaching for primary school kids, which will be fun. Other than that, I'll probably spend most of my time reading, at church, at Mary Kay or trying to avoid my friend making not-so-subtle comments about the many virtues of a mutual friend. (As long as she isn't telling him my not-so-many virtues).

So that's the plans for this upcoming year. Of course I've got all the wonderful hopes-and-dreams but it'd be embarrassing to write. So that's the plan.

Frugal Fridays: Getting the Most from eBay

EBay is a great way of getting things for a far cheaper price than you would elsewhere. Most people are familiar with eBay, but for those of you who aren't, it really is very simple. It's an online auction, where you place your bid for an item, and the highest bidder wins.

Here are some basic tips for getting the most from eBay:

1. Set a limit on what you are willing to pay for any item and DON'T GO OVER IT. It will be available again by and by, so don't worry if you don't get it this time.
2. Take postage into account in this price. If the seller does not show postage costs, email them with your postcode. You do NOT want to be slugged with a large postage fee that changes your bargain to the same price as the item in the local store!
3. Try putting 01 cents on the end of your bid. I.E. if I want to buy a book for $1, I type in $1.01, if it's $2 I type in $2.01, etc. This means that if someone else has also bid $2, you get the item, because your bid was bigger. However, you don't pay that one cent, because one cent doesn't exist (unless you pay through PayPal - and really, one cent is not much, so it's worth it).
4. Don't search generally. Look for specific items you need/want in the search tool instead. Search generally and you are guaranteed to find lots of lovely things that you now want. Don't look and you won't be tempted.
   
5. Consider becoming a seller. I haven't done this, but I know a few people who have and they've found it an efficient way of getting rid of clutter and earning some extra cash.

That's it from me for now! I'm about to go off to the library to get books and for their library sale! Yay! More books!

Link

Here's an article that no one should miss, especially if you are interested at all in either education or homeschooling.

Accidental vs On-Purpose Learning

This descibes almost exactly how I feel that education SHOULD be.

Hot

It's about 20 million degrees. So I am very hot and more than slightly grumpy. I would go down to the shops to buy chocolate and/or ice-cream, but, of course, it is even hotter outside than it is inside, so I'm not going to.

I spent today cleaning, which was nice because I like to clean; other people are sane and have air-conditioning, and I get money. So now I am a little bit richer and a whole lot tired and sweaty. It's mostly too hot to read, so I am only very slowly working my way through The Story of God by Robert Winson. It's pretty interesting, but slow reading. I hope to finish it today, but because it is so hot I might not.

Here's hoping that all of my readers are sitting in somewhat more comfortable airconditioned houses!

TV Shows

I absolutely adore House MD. It's hilariously funny, brilliantly acted, and intelligent. If you haven't seen it, go down to your local DVD store and borrow the first season. Alternatively, you could download it. I'm in the midst of the third season right now, and am very impatiently waiting for my computer to stop being so slow.

Other TV shows that are worth watching include:

• Firefly, and its accompanying movie Serenity. Cowboys in outer space, funny, again brilliantly acted, and fascinating story lines, mainly about totalitarian governments, and the small guy beating them at their own game.
• Red Dwarf. A British comedy set in space. Original character include Dave Lister, the last (barely) human alive; Rimmer, a hologram who used to be Lister's roommate, and they hate each other; Cat, an evolved cat; and Holly, a senile computer. Other characters appear (most notably Kryten and Kristine Kochansky) in later seasons.
• Black Books. Another British comedy. Bernard runs a book shop. He hates people in general. Manny is his assistant, and Fran runs the shop next door.

That should keep everyone busy for now!

Frugal Fridays: Your Own Art Gallery

When I was living in Brunswick I had a miniature art gallery on my wall. I only had one room, so there wasn't much space. But at that time I was enamoured with art, so I decided I was going to have much own art gallery on my walls.

Here's how to do it. Go to your local art gallery (for me that would be the NGV, and its accompanying Ian Potter Centre) and pick up 2 copies of any of their leaflets. Occasionally they will have bigger pictures and even posters that you can have for free (I managed to get three full sized posters - one of The Scream by Edvard Munch, and two of Impressionist paintings). Alternatively, you can buy postcards from the gift shop if you want a copy of a specific favourite painting.

Then go home and cut out all of the paintings you like. You have two copies of each leaflet because there will invariably be two wonderful paintings back-to-back of each other. Then take very small amounts of blue-tack and stick up you painting. If you put them all on one wall then you get an art gallery effect which is very pleasing. Whenever my friends came over they would always be drawn to my art gallery wall, and would exclaim over how much they loved such-and-such a piece, and how clever I was to think of this (and yes, it is my idea, I haven't borrowed it like I have many other ideas).

One word of warning. Be careful which wall you put them on, because blue-tack can have adverse effects on walls. When I moved there were little spots where the blue-tack had pulled off the paint. So be careful of that.

Eragon

I short while ago I went to see Eragon. I was looking forwards to it, because I like fantasy. I had read the book and enjoyed it (I'm planning to re-read when the third book comes out - and I'm ignoring the second book until then).

The movie was a disappointment.

The acting was not particularly good (Jeremy Irons and John Malkovich excepted) and the voice of Sapphira (the dragon) was downright annoying. Unlike most modern movies that seem to drag out every skerick of movie that they possibly can, this movie felt really rushed, especially with Brum. How can Eragon be so devestated about Brum's death when the entire thing takes such a short time? The soundtrack was too overt, and also annoyed me. It made potentially moving moments so sappy that they were funny.

Admittedly, the scenery was stunning, and the special effects were good. So I'd advise (if you want to see this movie) to see it at the cinemas to get the full effect of this.

Overall, not as good as it should have been, but okay.

WFMW - Quick Lentils

I'm a vegetarian, so I like my lentils and beans and other such protein souces. The problem is, its a pain to presoak lentils for long enough. I either forget to soak them (which is bad for the digestive system) or I forget I have soaked them and leave them for two or three days, by which time theiy have gone bad (which is a waste).

But i recently discovered how to greatly speed up the soaking process. Put your lentils in your pot, and cover with a few generous squirts of lemon juice. Then add water so that the lentils are covered by about 2 cm of water. Then leave them.

This takes only about an hour, compared with traditional soaking, which takes about 8 hours, sometimes more. Once they have done soaking I stain the lentils, and wash them. Then I continue with the recepie (usually my spicy tomato soup - I love it).

This definately Works for Me. Check out the other WFMW posts at Rocks In My Dryer.

Moping About

At the moment I'm just moping about, not doing anything. And I don't WANT to do anything. I just want to vege. Which is very lazy of me, I know. But I did get a fair amount done yesterday (I finished a scarf, mended my jeans, got a haircut, paid a bill, went shopping, went to two libraries, read a book (The Printer's Devil - Awful), watched a whole lot of DVDs, sorted through my finance folder and a few of my other papers) so I'm taking this morning slowly. Although I do still have a goal list of stuff I want to achieve. Hopefully I'll get all of it done and then some, because I feel as though no matter how mch I get done there is always a whole lot more just waiting for me to sort out.

So I'm going to spend a little time on the internet, and then it's back off to a library (one of the ones I visited yesterday - as 21 items came through for me in less than 2 days, and I can only have 15 items on my card in total, and I already had four books out, I need to go down at least twice - most likely 3 times) and then to generally slob about all day hopefully getting stuff done.

The book I'm reading for today is The Ember's of Heaven. So far it is infinitely inferior to the other book by the same author The Secrets of the Jin-Shei. Hopefully it will pick up, but I'm halfway through so I'm not holding my breath.

What I've been doing

As I mentioned, I've been away from home for a week, and only got home last night. So what (aisde from feeding animals) have I been doing?

• Reading - not as much as I hoped. But I did read Witchfinders, which was both long and non-fic. I started it Wednesday and finished it Sunday. Aside from that I read a few other books, mainly kids books. I plan to do a review of one book, The Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis sometime soon.
• Cleaning. I did three days of it. I would have done four but because of the heat everyone was wrecked.
• Mary Kay. I had a short training session on Thursday an a full day seminar (not Seminar, which is different) on Saturday. It was really inspiring to see all of the women who have done so much with their Mary Kay. One of the ladies who was making large sums of money had 10 children with another on the way!
• Church and Care Group. Church only on Sunday. On Saturday I was at the afore said Mary Kay seminar. Care Group is on a Friday night.
• Watching TV. I was tired and watched WAY to much TV. But I did get some knitting done. (I've nearly finished another scarf.)
• Library. I love libraries. I went to the Glen Eira library to return some items and came out with lots, lots more! Yay!
• Ironing for my Mum. I know she doesn't like it so I did most of the shirts.
  

That's about it though. My house is still a mess - but then I wasn't there to clean it up :P Today will be fairly busy too - I want to go to two libraries and get my haircut and do some mending and some reading.

Hope you've all been well!

Quote

“How can there be too many children? That’s like saying there are too many flowers.”
Mother Teresa