Story Time

Introduction

The culture makes the truth sound evil.

Review

This series calls out the hurried tempo of our lives.

And it asks us to invest time with God.

Which in turn aligns our pace and priorities to match the Heavenly Father’s.

This message places a strong emphasis on slowing down so that we can prioritize our time with God.

But we had to put this all in a much broader context.

We looked at the Industrial Revolution and its impact on our fast-paced, technology-driven lives.

And the emphasis it placed on our powers of observation, our ability to determine what’s true based on

• Our five senses
• Our mind
• Our emotions
• Our free will
• Our rationality

In the end, we affirm the superiority of what we see over what God says.

And what is our proof? Technology.

The challenge is that this same technology is destroying us.

We are technologically superior to the generations that preceded us, but spiritually inferior to the generations that preceded us.

This has cost us morally, emotionally and socially.

If we look at this from a biblical perspective, the drive to excel technologically is not a scientific motivation at its core:

But is the fruit of the male ego.

I will return to the passage we looked at last week when examining the masculine influences on the drive for human progress:

Genesis 3:17–19 (ESV): ¹⁷ And to Adam he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; ¹⁸ thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you and you shall eat the plants of the field. ¹⁹ By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

Last week we looked at a book by Nancy R. Pearcy titled: The Toxic War on Masculinity: How Christianity Reconciles the Sexes [Also check out this informative video about her book and the research that supported it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOMOsogXJYU

She says:

“Because of testosterone, men are typically larger, stronger, and faster than women. In general, they are also more physical, more competitive and more risk-taking.”–Nancy R. Pearcy, The Toxic War on Masculinity: How Christianity Reconciles the Sexes, Baker Books: Grand Rapids, 2023, p.18.

Review Briefly:

The Industrial Revolution was a “process of change” that shifted our economy from one based on agriculture and handicrafts to one based on industry and machine manufacturing. (Encyclopedia Britannica).

“Throughout human history, most people lived on family farms or in peasant villages. Productive work was done in the home or its outbuildings. Work was not a matter of the father’s job, it was the family industry. A man worked alongside his wife and children throughout the day.” (Her Emphasis)–Nancy R. Pearcy, The Toxic War on Masculinity: How Christianity Reconciles the Sexes, Baker Books: Grand Rapids, 2023, p.72.

This radically changed after the Industrial Revolution:

“For the first time in American history, men were no longer working alongside their wives and children—with people they loved and had a moral bond with. Instead, they began working as individuals in competition with other men.” -Nancy R. Pearcy, The Toxic War on Masculinity: How Christianity Reconciles the Sexes, Baker Books: Grand Rapids, 2023, p.88.

“Today, we are so used to fathers being out of the home that we no longer realize what a drastic change it was at the time” –Nancy R. Pearcy, The Toxic War on Masculinity: How Christianity Reconciles the Sexes, Baker Books: Grand Rapids, 2023, p.89.

The Impact of the Industrial Revolution on Women

Genesis 3:16 (ESV): ¹⁶ To the woman he said, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you.”

Genesis 1:27 (ESV): ²⁷ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

Genesis 2:7 (ESV): ⁷ then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.

Genesis 2:21–23 (ESV): ²¹ So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. ²² And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. ²³ Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.”

1 Corinthians 11:8–12 (ESV): ⁸ For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. ⁹ Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. ¹⁰ That is why a wife ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels. ¹¹ Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man nor man of woman; ¹² for as woman was made from man, so man is now born of woman. And all things are from God.

Genesis 2:4-25 (ESV): ²⁴ Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. ²⁵ And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

 

© Joshua D. Smith, Ph.D., 2024