Male Children 

So the king of Egypt called the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this, and let the male children live?” The midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.” So God dealt well with the midwives. And the people multiplied and grew very strong. And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families. Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, “Every son that is born to the Hebrews you shall cast into the Nile, but you shall let every daughter live.” (Exodus 1: 18 to 22) 

I once heard a lady who was asking a pastor why does the Bible even in Revelation only refer to brothers not sisters? The pastor answered that after being saved, we are all brothers in Christ, male or female. So, you may think of us as male brothers or female brothers. These kinds of questions are not unique. It seems that ever since sin, the knowledge of good and evil, entered the world, people constantly compare or value things subconsciously. Especially, between the opposite sexes of male and female. This is true even after we have been saved. No wonder the lady felt that women had been left out in the Bible. As a matter of fact, the traditional world did value males more than females and treated them differently. That's why the feminist movement first started to break that mold. At any rate, to kill males was a common practice for one country that tried to dominate another in history. So, the cruelty that the Egyptian Pharaoh did to Hebrews to kill their male children was nothing new. That seemed to be an effective way to control the greatly growing population of the Israelites. If not for the midwives, Pharaoh’s plan could prevail. Yet, even though male children were important, the female midwives were also important. Nonetheless, it's not because of males or females but because Israelites were under God's watch since the beginning as described in the Bible below.

Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. (Psalms 127: 1)

Not only for Israelites, the Bible also promises us as below.

For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God's building. (First Corinthians 3: 9)

The Bible continues as apostle Paul described below.

According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw- each one's work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire. (First Corinthians 3: 10 to 15)

God not only built Israel before but also builds us now too. The only difference is that we have Christ as our foundation. Furthermore, we need to know how we should build upon it. We need to be able to differentiate building with the gold, silver and precious stones from building with the wood, hay and straw because the result could be profoundly different. It could mean a reward or being burned up. By looking at what God had done and how Israelites had responded, we may learn how to choose the valuable materials and avoid the distasteful materials in God's view. Emmanuel.

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