Some single men in the community have expressed anger at "young widows", saying things like they are growing tired of being fooled by "Jezebels". They are confusing the spiritual enemy with flesh and blood disciples or potential disciples. These single women don't necessarily plan to deceive us any more than you guys plan to run off and leave the community with them.
Are we to be on guard against "young single men" too? After all, we've seen single men get married and then backslide?
Satan uses a technique that we have called the Jezebel spirit to deceive both women and men. He uses the natural appeal of an easy, comfortable, idyllic life, where we have a companion to keep us company, to steer us away from God's will. Marriage appears to offer this, and if it takes us away from all the demands of community living, then it really does make life easy for a while.
The rest of the technique works on the fact that leaders must often make unpopular decisions. So when right decisions threaten our happy little marriages, we husbands cheat on the decisions in order to keep our wives happy, and little by little we become derailed.
Can we blame the wives for having made it difficult for us to stay on the rails, or should we just blame ourselves? After all, if followers were going to applaud each decision we made, there would hardly be a need for a leader in the first place.
Rather than seeing female disciples as potential Jezebels, I think we need to see through the devil's deception and concentrate on loving and leading them instead.
We can question a woman's reason for wanting to join us. Some have openly expressed interest in getting a husband and not in serving Christ. But most of the women coming to us have indicated that they are not husband hunting. We men are the ones who usually bring up the subject. So whose interests really need to be questioned? The Jezebel Spirit may be working through the men more than it is working through the women.
Hopefully all that will change now, as we become more committed to the vision of the Virgin Army. If so, then it will help to keep the women from being derailed by us men.
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