🌀 Church Fathers vs. the Messiah
Let’s just say it plainly:
Am I suggesting there’s been a consistent, widespread distortion of how Scripture talks about women? A pattern of mistranslation, misinterpretation, and flat-out bias that’s shifted the Church’s understanding of the original design?
Yep. I am.
Because when you read most English Bibles, the message seems straightforward enough: women are to be silent, submissive, and stay in their place.
But then you start digging—into the Hebrew, the Greek, the cultural context—and suddenly the foundation starts to crack.
How did we get so far from what the authors of Scripture actually wrote?
The short answer?
We traded the words of the Messiah for the traditions of men.
And few traditions have shaped our view of women more than those passed down by the “Church Fathers”.
Here’s the irony: Yahusha came to remove the Pharisees’ fence laws. But centuries later, modern Christianity has built new ones — this is a whole different series, but for today we’re talking about women. Different rules, same spirit.
Today we’re asking, whose words are we building on?
Whose voices have shaped our view of womanhood?
And most importantly—
Do they sound anything like our Shepherd?
🧠 The Rise of Church Father Theology
When people think of “church tradition,” they often assume it flows straight from Scripture.
But a massive chunk of what many Christians believe about women didn’t come from the Bible. —It came from the Church Fathers.
And let’s just say… they had opinions.
The early church was deeply shaped by Greco-Roman philosophy and patriarchy—and its influence is painfully obvious in the writings of some of the most celebrated Church Fathers. Let’s look at a few examples:
🚩 Tertullian (c. 155–220 AD) wrote to Christian women:
“You are the devil’s gateway… you are the one who destroyed God’s image in man.” —On the Apparel of Women, Book 1, Chapter 1
Subtle, right?
🚩 Origen (c. 185–253 AD), an ascetic theologian based in Alexandria, leaned heavily into Greek philosophy, and stated thus:
“Men should not sit and listen to a woman… even if she says admirable things, or even saintly things; that is of little consequence, since they come from the mouth of a woman.”
—Fragmentary Commentary on 1 Corinthians english interpretations can be found here
🚩 Augustine (354–430 AD), a heavyweight of Western theology, said that:
“The woman together with her own husband is the image of God… but when she is referred to separately… then she is not the image of God.”
— On the Trinity, Book 12, Chapter 7
“Woman was given to man, woman who was of small intelligence…”
— De Genesi ad Litteram, Book 9, Chapter 5
📝 English translations are limited online, but this quote is widely cited in theological commentary. Available in academic collections like The Works of Saint Augustine
🚩 Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274 AD) writing centuries later in his Summa Theologica, amongst other deroggatory commentary from Mr. Aquinas, he writes:
“Woman is defective and misbegotten…. male seed tends to the production of a perfect likeness in the masculine sex; while the production of woman comes from defect”
So let’s pause and ask:
If this is the foundation of our theology around womanhood, should we really be surprised it doesn’t match Scripture?
These men weren’t writing in a vacuum. They were deeply shaped by a world that valued male superiority and viewed women as spiritually and intellectually inferior.
Not every early leader wrote this way. There were fathers of the church who recognized and supported women. This is where the work of historians like Beth Allison Barr can be helpful. In her book The Making of Biblical Womanhood, Barr traces how cultural ideas of women, from the early church through the Reformation and into modern evangelicalism, has consistently reshaped women’s roles with the louder voices of history which have usually been the ones who absorbed more from Plato than from Paul.
And unfortunately, their interpretations stuck.
Put simply: Much of what we have today is church tradition masquerading as gospel truth. Am I saying that ALL church fathers were wrong? Absolutely not, but I will make the case, they were all human, and other than our Messiah, no human is ever perfect.
This view of women being secondary to men wasn’t fringe.
These are the architects of Christian theology as we know it.
And their views weren’t based on exegesis. They were based on Greek philosophy, and Roman patriarchy.
Now to be fair—these men lived in a cultural context.
They were products of their time.
But that’s the point.
We can’t treat their interpretations as timeless truth when their lenses were fogged by the assumptions of their era. Respect for their contributions? Absolutely. Reverence that overrides Scripture itself? Not so much.
Just because something is old doesn’t mean it’s right.
Here’s the real issue:
Somewhere along the way, their words were elevated as if they held the same weight as Scripture. And their assumptions about women seeped into doctrine, translation choices, and church structure.
You’ve got to approach these writings like a good ol’ cow eating hay:
Chew the grass, spit out the sticks.
Or, if you prefer: don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater—
but definitely check if the bathwater’s been poisoned by Plato.
And while we’re on the subject—please do this with any author I quote as well.
Curiosity, not blind acceptance.
Just because I reference someone doesn’t mean I’m signing off on their entire body of work. You’ve got to use discernment: The only writing I 100% back is my own, and even then I hope you’ll read with a questioning spirit, weighing everything against Scripture.
At the end of the day, it really boils down to the fact that we shouldn’t be building doctrine on tradition.
We should be building it on the Word. And that means going back to the Hebrew and Greek—back to the actual foundation—not just the footnotes.
🐍 If I Were the Serpent…
Let’s play this out for a moment.
If I were the serpent—crafty, cunning, obsessed with undermining the Creator and destroying His image—I wouldn’t need to launch an all-out war with fire and brimstone.
I’d aim lower.
Foundations.
Because if you can fracture the design at its root, the fruit never grows right.
What better way to unravel humanity than to distort the relationship between man and woman—the very image-bearing design Elohiym (God) declared “very good”?
Twist that, and everything else wobbles.
So what would that look like?
- Turn the ezer kenegdo—the strong, essential counterpart—into a subordinate housemaid.
- Rebrand chayil—a word of valor and war—as soft-spoken domesticity.
- Mistranslate, misinterpret, and manipulate Scripture just enough that the lie feels holy.
- And weaponize religion to make women believe that shrinking is sanctified.
Because if the serpent can convince half of humanity that their strength is rebellion, their leadership is pride, and their voice is disobedience…
He doesn’t just silence a woman.
He sabotages generations.
And here’s the enemy’s real genius: once the pendulum swung too far in that direction, a counter-movement was inevitable.
Enter modern feminism.
The kind that rejects the design altogether. That trades hierarchy for hostility. That says, “If I have to be strong, I don’t need a man. I don’t need the Creator’s design. I’ll make my own.”
So now?
We’ve got patriarchy pushing passivity and dominance. Feminism pushing independence and deconstruction. And very few people asking what the original design actually was.
Both sides, miles off course.
But Yahuah (The Lord) doesn’t leave His design buried under centuries of religious rubble.
He sends someone to rebuild it.
And His name? Yahusha. (Jesus)
🕊️ The Blueprint Restored: How the Messiah Reclaimed What We Lost
The world had drifted far from the garden.
By the time Yahusha (Jesus) arrived, Roman patriarchy ruled the land. Rabbinic traditions stacked burdens on men and women. And the serpent’s lies had become cultural law.
But then He came—
Not to reinforce the distortion,
But to restore the design. (See my post on The Women Jesus Discipled here)
And Yahusha didn’t restore it by writing a manifesto.
He did it by walking it out.
👣 He taught women (Luke 10:39)
📣 He commissioned women to proclaim (John 20:17)
💡 He taught revelation through women (John 4)
🫶 He honored their faith (Mark 5:34)
🤝 He included them in His traveling ministry (Luke 8:1–3)
🔥 He entrusted them with news of the resurrection (Matthew 28:10)
Yehusha’s genius was profound, in a culture that viewed women as unreliable witnesses, he flipped the narrative upside-down, by sending them with the most important testimony in humanity- “He is Risen.”
In a culture that silenced, dismissed, and controlled women—Yahusha did the opposite.
So if the Son of Elohiym believed women were capable of learning, proclaiming, serving, leading, and testifying to the resurrection—
Why would we settle for a theology that puts them back in the corner?
Yahusha didn’t come to reinforce a hierarchy.
He came to rebuild a family.
One body. Many parts.
All surrendered. All empowered.
All image-bearers.
🌬 Pentecost Didn’t Pull Punches
If Yahusha restored the blueprint, then Acts 2 was the grand unveiling.
The Ruach Ha’Qodesh (Holy Spirit) fell—not just on the Twelve.
But on all who were gathered.
Men and women.
Young and old.
Servants and free.
And when onlookers marveled at what was happening, Kefa (Peter) stood up and quoted Yo’el (Joel):
“And it shall come to pass in the last days, says Elohiym (God),
I will pour out my Ruach (Spirt) upon all flesh:
and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy…
and on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Ruach; and they shall prophesy.”
– Ma’asiym (Acts) 2:17–18, quoting Yo’el (Joel) 2:28–29, Cepher
🗣 They shall prophesy.
The early called-out-assembly wasn’t confused about whether women had a role. They had already seen it—in Miriam of Migdal, in Priscilla, in Junia, in Philip’s prophesying daughters.
Women weren’t just present.
They were active.
This wasn’t just a cultural fluke or temporary exception.
The Spirit of Elohiym was poured out without prejudice.
Without hierarchy.
Without disclaimers.
Which means:
- If Elohiym called women prophets,
- If He chose them as first witnesses to the resurrection,
- If He entrusted them to teach, correct, and proclaim the gospel…
Then the church’s job isn’t to restrict them.
It’s to receive them.
To make room.
To honor the gifts.
To not quench the Spirit (1 Thess. 5:19–20).
Because when we suppress the image of Elohiym in women, we don’t just diminish them—we distort the Body.
And we miss out on the fullness of what Yahuah (The Lord) intended.
📚 They Got History Twisted—But We’re Not Done Yet
The called-out-assembly wasn’t afraid of women who carried the Word.
They embraced them. Trusted them. Followed them.
It wasn’t Messiah who sidelined women.
It was men—centuries later—who traded the Spirit’s fire for institutional control.
And that’s exactly what we’ve inherited in much of modern theology:
A distorted blueprint.
A spiritual sleight of hand.
Patriarchy parading as righteousness—and feminism reacting in rebellion.
And somehow? We’re still debating if women are “allowed” to speak.
(Spoiler: the tomb was empty and the women were talking.)
So if you’ve ever been told to tone it down, sit it out, or just “support your man’s ministry” from the sidelines— this series is your permission slip. (Signed and sealed in crimson.)
Because restoration isn’t rebellion.
It’s redemption.
The Flocking Farm 
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