Perhaps you’ve heard of the woman entrusted with children at a day care center, who put gas on her own head to kill lice, and then lit up a cigarette.

In his Holy Spirit inspired epistle to the churches in Galatia, in which the Apostle Paul defends Christian liberty, Paul tells his readers, (many of whom are straight out of the spiritual dregs of paganism’s perversions), that they need to mature.  As long as their understanding of the Christian life is immature, they will have to be treated with rules, just like children.  “Now I say, that the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant [is no different than a servant], though he be lord of all; But is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father.”  Galations 4:1-2.  To paraphrase, you may be an heir to be a co-ruler with Christ, but for now you are like a “servant of God and Christ” until you mature.

When Christ’s disciples had spent three years under his tutoring, he recognized their maturity, he said,  “Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you.”  John 15:15.

The bottom line for us is in 1 Corinthians 14:12, “Brethren be not children in understanding. . .but in understanding be new.”

Ephesians 4:15, approaches the same idea from a slightly different angle, “But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into Him in all things.”

As a mature Christian, I feed myself meat.  It’s been a long time since I needed to be spoon-fed mush or breast-fed spiritual milk.

So, as I was reading the Word of God in Leviticus 12:1-5, I discovered a girl baby is considered unclean for twice as long as a boy baby by God.

The boy child is circumcised on the eighth day and then for 33 more days is unclean.  Double these times for a girl.  The woman who has the child is considered unclean twice as long if she has a girl.  Wow!  Even a child which was aborted or miscarried, if its sex could be identified, would make the woman unclean for the same time as a live child.  As the Word says, a woman gives birth to children “in sorrow-in shame.”

Leviticus 12:1-5, reminded me of how the women of Israel had to stay in the Court of the Woman.  (At times their court was called the “Temple Treasury.”) The men were first, were in front of the women at the Temple.

At first secular glance, God (or as they’d say “the God of Israel”) seems to be biased against women.  I knew upon reading the passage that the spiritually immature would look at Leviticus 12:1-5, and mistakenly criticize their Creator as being unfair.  The Spirit, The Word, and life have all shown me God’s attitude.  He is no respecter of persons and from His perspective “there is neither male nor female. . .[we] are all one in Christ Jesus.”  Galations 3:28.  The Law of God is holy, just and good.  (Romans 7:12, also 1 Timothy 1:8), and has a spiritual purpose (Romans 7:14).

That verse in Romans 7, “For we know that the Law is spiritual. . .” is an important foundational truth.  The Law of God has a spiritual purpose and meaning behind it.

So what are the unwritten spiritual truths behind Leviticus 12:1-5, and behind men being first and women being last at the Temple?

My first reaction was to see what the spiritual greats had written about Leviticus 12:1-5 in their commentaries; you know, these large tomes which go verse by verse and expound scholarly wisdom.  The commentaries were mute and confounded by this law of God.  Matthew Henry simply said, he had no idea why God considered female babies unclean for twice as long as males.

The Word suggests, “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally. . .”  (James 1:5)  Yes, ask and thou shalt receive.  We are to live by faith.  What’s not of faith is sin.  “The just shall live by faith.”  Romans 1:17.

“Fine,” I told myself, “I can feed myself by asking the Spirit directly in faith to reveal God’s spiritual truths in Leviticus 12:1-5.”  And the Spirit did, praise His holy name!

This is what I was shown by the Spirit: the double-cleansing of the female reflects a spiritual truth, she is twice as holy once purified and perfected.  When a person who gives life has the fruits of the Spirit (love, a nurturing spirit, peace and kindness), that person has the personality traits that a woman naturally has before sin distorts her.  In other words, a godly woman is very spiritual, because her natural fruits of the Spirit are perfected.  But a fallen woman is the worst that can be.  A woman can be a virgin or a slut, a nurturer or a murderer of the innocent.  She is very good or very evil.  The spiritual potential of women is extreme, greater, so she is cleansed twice as much because when perfected she is truly spiritually twice as spiritual.  The Word tells us several times that the first will be last and the last will be first.

Women are last in the Temple, because they are first in heaven.  The Shekinah (Spirit of God) was considered female by the Israelites.  El Shaddai, the ancient name of God came from the root Shad—which means a woman’s breast.

The fact women have roles to play (like Ruth and Priscilla) in life does not diminish their spirituality, but gives opportunity for the expression of their fruits of the Spirit.

These and other thoughts were “downloaded”—plunked into my head and heart—“revealed” if you prefer the Christian term directly into my heart and mind as I was praying.  I have tried to express it in words.

Wow!  Thank you Lord for answering my prayer!!  I was ecstatic to have the Spirit so obviously reveal all this profoundness, when I had been so baffled by the text.

And then God gave me a second witness soon afterwards from an unexpected source.  I had been led by the Spirit to ask someone on the outside to send me biographical material on Thérèse of Lisieux in order to study the acts of people in the face of being misunderstood by others.

Little did I know that these two quests would complement each other, in that this biographical material would by divine coincidence provide a second witness to the Spirit’s revelation.

Thérèse of Lisieux wrote on p.  140 of her 1895 auto biographical book, Story of a Soul, about how women were kept from so many religious places that were reserved for men.  “Don’t enter there, you will be excommunicated!  Ah!  Poor women, how they are misunderstood!. . .  In heaven, He will show that His thoughts are not men’s thoughts, for then the last will be first.”

The divine coincidence of the Spirit’s revelation followed directly by me reading this passage inspired me.  Of course, I didn’t need a second witness.  What I’d felt dropped into my heart was dramatically clear.  My quest for God’s truths had brought me into a deeper personal relationship with God.  I had yearned for more, and God blessed me with a more mature glance at womanhood.