John Fischer The Catch

Returning Respect to the Women in My Life — Part 2

I have to admit something that’s not easy to say out loud: for years, I thought knowing the Bible was enough.

I could quote verses. I could explain doctrines. I could argue my point. On paper, I looked like a man of faith. But in practice? My life didn’t line up. My respect for women was inconsistent. My love for others was shallow. My obedience to God was assumed, but not anything you could track.

The truth is, I was storing God’s Word in my head — but not in my heart. And when it stays in the head, transformation never happens.

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A Confession to Women and a Call to Men of Faith

To the women in my life — and in the Body of Christ — I owe you something.

A confession.
And a promise.

For too long, I lived in my head. I thought respect was something I could agree with in theory but ignore in practice. I saw the inequality, the silence, the hurt — and I explained it away with theology, culture, or fear.

I saw strong women sit down when they were called upon to stand up, and I did nothing.

I stayed in my head — because the heart cost too much.

It’s easier to quote a verse than live out the gospel it points to. Easier to protect systems than to question them. Easier to hold onto comfort than to love courageously.

But the truth is: when I stayed in my head, I missed my relationship with God.

I missed intimacy with Him.

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In returning respect back to women, one first wonders where it went. Who or what caused respect to diminish among women? How far back do you have to go to find a time or place where women were respected? How about Eve before the fall? For too long, within many evangelical spaces, women have borne the weight of judgments—spoken and unspoken—rooted in traditional male thinking rather than the Spirit of Christ. In the church, a lot of the loss of respect for women can go back to Paul and his admonitions for women to be silent in the church and to his teaching on the hierarchy of men as the head of women as Christ is the head of the church. What makes this balanced, however, is the fact that Paul also teaches about the equality of men and women, and the fact that the headship he speaks about is the purposeful emptying of oneself in humble service as Christ came not to be ministered unto but to minister and give his life up for those he serves. It’s the opposite of power from above and domination.

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