Video Transcript: Introduction to a Virtuous Woman

Welcome to this mini course, becoming a virtuous woman of God. I am Dr. Terry  Krause. We're seeing a new definition of woman emerging recently. And  sometimes it gets really confusing. Many of us are just trying to love others and  take care of our families, but we feel as if we are being bombarded by the world. Cultural role models tell us that women are narcissistic, self promoting, loud,  vulgar, masculine, or genderless, and rude. One of the reasons I really wanted  to offer this course is because I've struggled with how to respond to the current  cultural shifts. How do we maintain our identity as Christian women? When  everything seems to want to strip us of our identity as feminine, nurturing, and  female? How do we react to the ridicule of our truly noble roles of wife,  homemaker, and mother? How do we have courage to stand for godly  principles, such as marriage and purity? And how do we exhibit the  characteristics of Christ Jesus to a world that's struggling to find its footing as  many of our ancient institutions are being torn down all around us? This mini  course offers some possible answers. If you choose to, you can complete it in  two weeks, with an investment of just 30 minutes a day. Each day you will watch a short video which is followed by a reflection question that you'll post to a  discussion forum. Proverbs 119:59 tells us the thought on my ways, and I turned my feet to your testimonies. Reflection, is thinking on our ways. The practice of  reflection helps us assess where we are, how we got here, where we want to  go, and how we plan to get there. It gives us the understanding that is critical to  alter our course, and align it more fully with God's path. As we pursue our  rightful inheritance as Daughters of the Almighty King of the universe. It's our  hope that as you walk through the constructs of becoming a virtuous woman of  God, you will gain the insight and courage to pursue wholeness, so that you can stand against the attacks being waged against womanhood. It's always a good  thing before having a chat about important things like this, to make sure  everyone's on the same page. And we do this by defining the purpose of the  discussion, defining the terms we will be using, and then by setting boundaries,  to constrain the conversation and keep ourselves on track. So let's start with the  purpose of this course. This is a first step toward helping women understand  and retain our identity as we become virtuous women of God, while navigating a very confusing and ungodly world system. This course takes a holistic view of  the Christian woman as a spirit and living soul. Within a human physical body.  We have just a handful of terms that we need to define. The word becoming  means a process of change or development. It's the present participle of to  become, become means to come into existence or to begin to be becoming  means to undergo change or development. So it is not what I was. But instead it is the process that gets me to what I'm going to be. When we think of the word  virtuous. We usually think of high moral standards, doing good things acting in  the right way. And this is true according to Merriam Webster Dictionary, but in  the scriptures, both in the New Testament and the Old, we find the word virtuous

carries the idea of strength, power, and courage. In the Old Testament is the  term used for men of valor. It is also having a singular or imminent property or  power, it is potent, effective. The Bible seems to imply that moral excellence is  the basis of courage and miraculous power. Strong's calls it moral excellence or  inherent power, residing in the thing by virtue of its nature. This reminds me of  the virtue or Dynamis The Scriptures say went out from Jesus when He healed  people. In Luke 6:19, we learned that the whole multitude sought to touch  Jesus, because virtue you went out from him and healed them all. In Luke 8:46,  Jesus responds to the touch of the woman with the issue of blood and He says  someone has touched me, I perceive that virtue is gone out of me. So far, we've  looked at the words becoming, and virtuous. Let's look next at the definition of a  biological woman. Genesis 1:26 tells us God said, Let us make man in Our  image, after Our likeness. In Genesis 1:27, we learned that God created (bara)  man in His own image, in the image of God created he had male and female,  created he them. And then we see in Genesis 2:22, that from the rib which the  Lord has taken out from man, he made or crafted (bawnaw) a woman, and he  brought her to the man. So the scripture says God created humans as male and female. And we see evidence of this in our genetic structure. Females have 2x  chromosomes. We inherit an X chromosome from our father, and an X  chromosome from our mother, who can only pass on X chromosomes. Males,  on the other hand, have one X and one Y chromosome, a Y chromosome is  passed from the Father, and an X is passed from the mother. Let's look next at  the term godly. Think boldly or girly. The ly added to a word changes the  meaning to be like or have the qualities of. So a godly woman has the qualities  of or is like God. Last but not least, we're going to look at the word of I know I  know, it seems like it's such a little inconsequential word, right? But it has so  much meaning. The word of or (ek) in the Greek indicates the point of origin  where something came from. So of God means that our life flows from his life.  Just like water is still water, even though it flows into a container. So to put it all  together, this course considers a woman to be born biologically different from a  man. She is in a state of becoming what she will eventually be. In this case,  she's becoming a courageous, strong and godly woman who possesses the life  and qualities or characteristics of God, because these are derived from him.