Knowing this, why do the supposedly enlightened and "woke" people on this site continue to refer to God as he, him, and father? Would it not be more broad-minded and less potentially offensive to simply use the species- and gender-neutral "God," as we do in egalitarian conservative Judaism?
Deut 32:11 Like an eagle that stirs up its nest, that flutters over its young, spreading out its wings, catching them, bearing them on its pinions,
John 4:24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”
Colossians 1:15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.
And the bible instructs how a man is to treat his wife.
Genesis 2:21-24 And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
1 Peter 3:7 Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honour to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.
Ephesians 5:33 However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.
1 Cor 7:3-5 The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.
Ephesians 5:25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her,
Ephesians 5:31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”
Ephesians 5:28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.
1 Thessalonians 4: 3-5 For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God;
1 Cor 11:11 Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man nor man of woman;
Proverbs 5: 18 -19 Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth, a lovely deer, a graceful doe. Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight; be intoxicated always in her love.
Matthew 22:30 For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.
However, in the Tanakh God is given mainly masculine attributes and imagery. B'reshit bara Elohim - "In the beginning God created."[The verb bara (he created) suggests a masculine subject. Elohim is also masculine in form. The most common phrases in the Tanakh are vayomer Eliohim and vayomer "And God said." Genesis 1:26-27 says that the elohim were male and female, and humans were made in their image.
The description is also held to be more masculine in the Talmud, and features as a Father. However, Shekhinah is used to connote God’s presence in the world, the term is grammatically feminine.
In the Kabbalah the wisdom or soul, is conceptualized as female to God's male, but derived from God himself, and longing for reunion. Eleventh-century poet and philosopher Solomon ben Judah ibn Gabirol in his monumental poem Keter Malkhut: “As You created from your majestic splendour a pure light … and called her the Soul … and if she achieves purity, she will laugh on the last day. …” In the mystical teachings of the Kabbalah the sought-after reunion of the soul with God came to be seen as a refraction of a larger drama of reunion between male and female principles within the divine itself. Which is interesting because in Christianity Jesus has the fullness of God, Colossians 1:19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and we too can have the fullness of God.....
Ephesians 3:14-19 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge - that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
officegirl 