I was so impressed to read the first of a series of articles on chivalry, The Modern Day Gentleman and When Lancelot Comes Riding on Alex and Brett Harris' blog, The Rebelution. Brett has given an insightful look into the reasons for chivalry, how men should act and women should respond. I was even more impressed when I realised that this came from 17 year olds! How encouraging to see the youth of the church fighting against our prevailing culture, both inside and outside of the church. It was a reminder to me that if I want men to take on their biblical role, I need to be encouraging and allowing them to do that. Yes, I could manage to open the door myself, but it sure is nice when someone takes the time and the care to open it for me! It's about trying to have servant attitudes towards each other and about being gracious to each other when we fail to hit the mark as we gently feel away into roles that are so foreign to where society would have us.

Another article had dropped into my email from Crosswalk. Here Judy Carden writes on Becoming a Godly Wife: Invite Chivalry into Your Marriage. I'm not married (yet, she says hoping!) but I think it has lessons for us all. It first reminded of the great harm that the feminist movement has done to women. Good things have come from it, like the vote and being allowed to own property, but the pendulum has swung too far towards actually denigrating the woman's role as a woman in society. This needs to be seen in the light of God's teaching on manhood and womanhood; that God created men and women in his own image and equals before him, but with different roles and responsibilities. That is how God intended us to be, so we need to work at reclaiming that.

So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
Genesis 1:27