So I'm taking a Shakespeare class from the woman who taught my CC class last year. Her daughter loves Shakespeare so her mom's doing this class for free for specific friends this year. It has been awesome so far and we haven't even started a play! So far we've just been studying Shakespeare's life, his language and the time period he lived in. We start Taming of the Shrew in October. So in preparation for that we were given some assignments to study up on this week. One of them was to read the list of scriptures given on Gender Roles/Marriage and Beauty (we're studying Shakespeare with a Christian view). I was really inspired by what I read and I thought I'd share it. I'd really encourage you to look them up yourselves, but I'll just share the main point of each scripture.
Gender Roles and Marriage
- Ephesians 5:22-33 ~ These scriptures tell wives to be submissive to their husbands and tell the husbands to love their wives as much as they love themselves. Make sure to look at the second footnote in verse 33 where it helps to replace reverence with respect.
- Genesis 3:16 ~ This verse talks about a woman's role to have children.
- Proverbs 31:10-31 ~ The first of these scriptures is the one that says "Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies." And the verses that follow describe what qualities a virtuous woman should have and what her duty is to her husband. In verse 30 it mentions beauty. These are really very beautiful scriptures and I would like to add something that I researched. I was curious about the value of rubies so I googled the worth of them compared to other jewels. Rubies are more rare and of more worth than any other jewel. Here's something I cut and pasted comparing rubies to diamonds. "Thus, while a 1-carat ruby is worth twice as much as a 1-carat diamond, a 3-carat ruby of the first quality is worth ten times as much as a diamond of the same description, that is to say, that while a 3-carat brilliant of the first water would be valued at about $16,300, a ruby of the same description would be worth about $160,300. The value of a 5-carat." I thought that was quite fascinating and made me feel very special.
- 1 Corinthians 7:4 ~ My interpretation of this was husband's and wive's responsibility for one another.
- 1 Peter 3:4 ~ It's the inside that counts.
- 1 Samuel 16:7 ~ The world looks at the outside appearance, but the Lord look at the heart.
I also learned something in Sunday School today that was very fascinating and moving. You might already know this, but I've never heard it before. So by the end of the Book of Mormon the Nephites are all destroyed, but the Lamanites aren't. Yeah, the Lamanites are good at the end, but when you add all the years of iniquity that they both went through they seem to be equal. Well in Jacob 2:35, 3:5-7 talk about how the Lamanites are not destroyed because they stay loyal to their wives and the Nephites don't. Sometimes it may seem like women aren't talked about a lot in the scriptures, but if staying loyal to their wives or not is the big tip off for getting destroyed or not, I think just in those few verses it testifies very strongly how precious and important women and marriage is. So there's my inspiring thought for the day. : )
