Who to please?

My quiet time this morning took me to Galatians 1:7-10

 ⁶I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— ⁷ not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. ⁸But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. ⁹As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received let him be accursed.
 ¹⁰For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.

Here's a question every preacher-teacher must ask himself - Am I distorting the gospel to suit my congregation? Now, I take it that 'distorting the gospel' can be safely applied to any part of God's word and that none of it is open to distortion in order to please men & women, and so when I was faced with preparing to preach from 1 Corinthians 14, and the section about women in church, it was initially very tempting to find a way around what the apostle teaches there. But when you look at the bigger context of the passage - at chapter 11, and the meaning of Christ's submission to the Father - then what appears to be a really big problem becomes a wonderful possibility for imitating Christ. Men are to be servant leaders - laying down their lives for their wives and for the church. Loving the church and their wives with no thought for themselves, but always and only seeking the good of others. And if men did this, would women find it so hard not to follow Christ's example of humility and accept loving, considerate, Christ-like leadership?

This is, of course, completely counter-cultural. We've been bombarded with some fairly extreme feminism for 50 years - feminism which, at times, has been filled with hatred to men and demeaning of men (though it has to be admitted, that the reaction against men's inappropriate subjugation of women was understandable - indeed right. It's just that the pendulum always swings too far in reactionary movements).

But then the whole of the gospel is counter-cultural. The world encourages us to elevate our self-worth and pride. The gospel says, 'humble yourself and admit your sinful rebellion'. The world offers no forgiveness, because it has no basis for moral right or wrong and no source of mercy to deal with guilt. The gospel offers infinite mercy and forgivenss from a loving heavenly Father and a self-sacrificing Son.

Since this gospel is such a glorious, life-giving, freeing, hope-filled, divine gospel, I know who I shall try to please!