This past week, the Supreme Court upheld Tennessee’s law, which blocks all transgender medical treatments on those under 18, including puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries. This ruling is an encouraging sign; but it is also a reminder of the torrential flood of polluted messages coming from social media, shouting for the past twenty years that gender identity is fluid, different gender roles are unjust, and same-sex attraction is normal. This entire month our podcast/blog focus is providing help to our boys to withstand the cultural pressure squeezing them into its false, destructive views about masculinity and femininity. This episode might surprise you because it argues that our rising generation of guys needs to understand God’s design not just of their own masculinity—but God’s design of femininity as well.
The Bible teaches that the differences between male and female are not arbitrary or accidental, but intentional. The identity and roles of male and female in Scripture are not interchangeable. They are designed to be different so that they can complete one another. Therefore, you can’t understand masculinity without understanding that we were created to be half of a unit called “man,” which requires womanhood to be complete. Knowing HER strengths are given to cover MY weaknesses, as we PARTNER together helps men live out their calling. For example, when my wife says, “Turn here, watch that car, turn left,” and I am tempted to say, “stop bossing me,” because I feel stupid, I can remember that she was given to me to be my necessary ally; she is just trying to help me, which is her calling. When she stops in front of the mirror when we are running late for church, and asks, “How do I look?” I can conquer my impatience by remembering that she is made to be beautiful and bring beauty into the world. When she is emotionally drained, I can help her by remembering that Eve was the mother of every living thing (Gen 3:20), designed to be a nurturer and recognize that being with her grandchildren, and especially holding her grandbabies, fills her emotional tank.
The biblical teaching of male and female being intentionally created differently and by their union in marriage, completing one another in love, is visibly portrayed in the way their bodies fit together, making love. This biblical view of intentional male/female differences in Genesis 2 is described by the English word complete, from which we get the word complement. (This is different from compliment, to give praise). To complement is to stand beside and fill the weakness of a partner. The biblical understanding of this creation design is called complementarianism. In their book, The Grand Design, Owen Strachen and Gavin Peacock give a good working definition of this creation concept unmistakably taught in Scripture.
“Complementarity (is) the way in which men and women find happiness in owning their God-given identity and filling their God-given roles. Equal in dignity and worth, men and women share much in terms of Christian discipleship. But we are not the same. Unlike what egalitarianism would argue, men and women have different roles to play in life. We thus cannot agree with the idea that men and women alike lead in the home and church, as our egalitarian friends would say. The gospel of grace does not erase sexual difference and role distinctions: the gospel actually opens our eyes to savor the divine design and our God-formed responsibilities.”
Complementarianism is the antidote to the culture’s gender blender attack upon God’s design of male and female. The significance of this design for all of life is so important to God that of the 1189 chapters in the Bible, God took half of the first chapter (after explaining the six days of creation) and all the second chapter to explain how male and female are equal, different, and to relate to one another as God’s image-bearers. That is, they are two persons joined in married love, imaging the loving union of the three Persons of the Godhead who, in love, are one. Perhaps it should not surprise us that Satan is attacking God’s creation design of male and female to complete each other since God chose it to image him. But why do our sons need an explanation of biblical womanhood?
Six Practical Reasons Men Need to Understood God’s Feminine Design
A. So they know what to look for in a wife. The best path to successful marriage is to marry a woman dedicated to pursuing God’s design of womanhood. That seems obvious. When I was looking for a mate during my college years, I decided I was not going to marry a feminist or a woman who had inclinations in that direction. After I fell in love and was thinking of asking a woman to marry me, I said to God, “She is so strong-willed, I don’t know if I am strong enough to lead her.” But I sensed God saying, “Gary, a strong will is a good thing. What matters is that it be submitted to me and committed to the Bible’s teaching of complementarity.” That definitely described Sandy. I also sensed God saying, “Not only that, but I am calling you into ministry. You need a strong, capable partner.” Forty-four years later, she is just as strong-willed, and just as perfect for covering my weaknesses. So, we need to give sons a portrait of the kind of woman they should pursue.
B. Sons need to understand God’s feminine design so they know how to help a female fulfill her potential. Adam was placed in the garden to work it. The Hebrew word, AVAD, means to help those in the garden reach their full potential. This is the concept behind Paul saying to husbands, Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, …so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. I am to die to myself to help her reach her spiritual potential—inner, spiritual beauty. Understanding God’s design of femininity helps me know what that picture of godly womanhood looks like so I can help her reach it. I can’t help her reach a goal I don’t see.
C. Sons need to understand God’s feminine design so they can love a female well. The word used in the command to husbands is AGAPE. This word does not describe a feeling; it describes a relentless commitment to sacrifice whatever is necessary to meet another’s needs. Such love, therefore, requires understanding how God has designed her in ways that are different than he designed men. The first thing a guy learns in marriage is how different his wife’s needs are than his own! For love to reach its greatest fulfillment, it needs to be coupled with discernment of the other’s needs. Perhaps that is why Paul said to the Philippian Christians: My prayer for you is that you may have still more love—a love that is full of knowledge and wise insight (1:9).
D. Sons need to understand God’s feminine design so they know how to partner best with a female. As we’ve seen, manhood is only half of the unit. A guy needs to know how to best partner with women in general and unless called to remain single, how to partner with his wife, when the day of marriage comes. An effective leader of any partnership discerns the strengths of his team members, so he knows how to delegate and maximize the potential of the entire team. Peter has this partnership in mind in the term, joint-heirs, when he writes to husbands, Show honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are joint-heirs of the grace of life (I Pet 3:7). Showing honor to women makes sense when we understand their feminine design; we better realize how their strengths are the very ones we lack, thus how valuable they are!
E. Sons need to understand God’s feminine design so they know how to provide the understanding a female needs. As we saw last week, one of the most important needs of a wife’s heart is to feel understood. Part of fallen male culture is to put down women because of their feelings, or because girls in athletics often place “togetherness” above winning. But deep in a woman’s heart is the longing to feel understood. I believe that is the deepest need of a wife’s heart. I can say I love her, but if she doesn’t feel like I know and understand what is going on in her heart, she won’t feel loved, no matter what I say. Perhaps that is why God led Peter to command, Husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way (Ibid). Giving any female the gift of understanding is enhanced by discovering what God has revealed about her feminine design.
F. Sons need to understand God’s feminine design because a godly woman pursuing God’s creation design will be attacked unmercifully. As we saw last week, God placed Adam in the garden not only to be its gardener, but to be its guardian. Adam was assigned to protect those in the garden, including his wife and kids. He should have protected Eve from Satan’s lies before the fall, and Christian men are called to protect their loved ones from Satan’s lies today. Satan is the ultimate egalitarian, having ascended the Mountain of God “to be like God”—to be on an equal footing with God. Here is a text that most scholars believe describes not just the king of Babylon but the Evil One behind his pride.
How you are fallen from heaven, Lucifer, son of Dawn! How you are cut down to the ground, you who laid the nations low! You said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; above the stars of God I will set my throne on high; I will sit on the mount of assembly… I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.’ But you are brought down to Sheol. (Is 14:12-15).
Satan rebelled against God’s authority structure and tempted Eve with the same sin, “You will be as God, knowing good and evil.” Unfortunately, a godly woman living out the call to godly womanhood will not only be sneered at by the secular culture but by many inside the church. For example, Beth Barr doesn’t hesitate to attack Dorothy Patterson, the wife of Paige Patterson, former president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, for promoting oppressive patriarchy. “She insisted that a divine hierarchy existed in the marriage relationship," writes Barr. Barr continues to demean Patterson for teaching that sinful secular culture “promoted feminism and blurred the boundaries between male and female roles.” (Actually Dorothy Patterson was exactly right.) The rest of Barr’s book, The Making of Biblical Womanhood, attempts to delegitimize the clear teaching of Scripture, with the same tired argument of the past that the Bible’s authors were corrupted by the abusive patriarchy of their culture and NOT speaking God’s Word. Our girls—sisters, daughters, wives--who dare to fly in the face of egalitarian Western culture deserve our praise for their courage and need our support in their stand for biblical truth.
For the above reasons Men Helping Sons Embrace Biblical Manhood, is written to take our sons through a brief study of God’s glorious design of womanhood. The following is a condensed version of Chapter 3. I’ve included the questions in the text to give you a flavor of the interactive nature of the study. Chapter 3 begins:
Discuss: Both. What are some examples in our culture of women being treated as “objects,” rather than precious human beings of infinite value? What are some of the messages sent to young women on TV and in social media about how a woman finds worth?
The Issue of Submission
Scripture is not apologetic about the call of a Christian wife to be submissive to her husband. Paul commanded, Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. The Apostle Peter was equally clear, Wives, be subject to your own husbands…For this is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves, by submitting to their own husbands. Neither does the NT equivocate about the leadership in the household of God, the church, which logically is to follow the same pattern. Paul was clear, I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man 1 Tim 2:12.
It is widely believed in Western culture that these commands prove that Christianity is misogynous—a worldview with prejudice towards women at its core. This accusation brings to mind the words that are often attributed to Mark Twain. “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you in trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.” It is argued that the Bible teaches a system of oppressive patriarchy, which empowers men with the authority to abuse women and generates an unjust, unequal division of power in the home and church. However, this idea that Christianity mistreats women just ain’t so.
To be sure, some men, claiming to follow the Bible, use their positions and power to horribly abuse women. Many wives holding a mistaken view of biblical submission, stay enslaved in codependent relationships with abusive, alcoholic husbands. But such treatment of women is the opposite of what Jesus modeled and what Christianity teaches.
Contrary to the sexism that biblical Christians are often accused of exhibiting, Jesus modeled a revolutionary treatment of women with counter-cultural respect and dignity. From Jesus’ healing of the woman with an issue of blood, to the raising of the widow’s son from the dead, to his protecting of the woman caught in adultery, to his affirmation of the woman who washed his feet with her hair, Jesus was radical in the way he treated women as the full equals of men—having intrinsic value because they, like men, are fully made in God’s image. Such treatment took place in a culture where the Rabbi’s prayer book said, “Blessed art thou who has not made me a woman.” We should also recognize how radically countercultural Jesus’ invitation to Mary to “sit at his feet,” was. The phrase, “sit at the feet of” was a technical term for admitting a student to formal spiritual training. To the Pharisees, this was scandalous. Rabbi Eliezer the Great famously said to his son that he would rather burn the Torah than teach it to a woman.
In contrast, Christianity has always affirmed that women are full members of the body of Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Any discussion of the complementary roles that men and women fill in marriage and in the church must begin by affirming the equal status and value of women with men.
Discuss: Both. Evaluate the feminist argument that a submissive role makes you an inferior person. Does an athlete have less human value than her coach? Does an employee who obeys his boss prove that he thinks he is inferior to the boss? Is a human child less valuable than her parents, since the Bible says to obey them?
The argument that submission proves inferiority is false. Any ordered group of humans has a structure of authority and responsibility. The assignment of different roles to men and women in the home and church household is accompanied by a call to mutual submission. Paul’s passage on roles in marriage is part of the “family codes” found in Ephesians 5. It begins, in verse 21, with: submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. Paul then gives specific instructions about how this submissive spirit works in filling paired relationship roles: to both wives and husbands, both children and parents, both slaves and masters. Deference to each other’s roles is required of all believers. One wise wife who realized the freedom she enjoyed because of God’s gender role design, said, “I define submission as knowing when to duck so that the Lord can hit my husband when he needs it.”
It is out of reverence for Christ that a wife submits to her husband and out of reverence for Christ that a husband denies himself to sacrifice for his wife. The glory of the gospel is that Christ has come to redeem our marriages from the devastation of our sin. That is why a godly husband unreservedly and unashamedly embraces Christ’s command to lead his home and love his wife sacrificially. It is why a godly woman embraces whole-heartedly and without apology her calling to be submissive to her husband. It’s for Jesus’ honor!
Eve’s Creation Reveals Her Design
Here is the outline of the second half of chapter 3 from Men Helping Sons:
- Eve is designed to be a necessary ally. Then the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him” Gen 2:18. The Hebrew word, EZER, which is translated “Helper” sounds demeaning, like a low-wage earner who sweeps the floors. The Hebrew, however, EZER has zero such negative connotation. It is used repeatedly in the Psalms to describe God! For example, consider Psalm 46:1 God is our refuge and strength, a very present EZER in trouble. A better translation of helper fit is necessary ally.
- The essence of femininity is to be a giver of life, a nurturer. The man called his wife’s name, Eve, because she was the mother of all living Gen 3:20.
- A woman is specially gifted to manage her home well. Proverbs 31 portrays an array of feminine gifts that are in this skillset, which are not given to men.
- A woman’s specialty is also beauty. Women are called to be beautiful and bring beauty into the world. After God takes Job's children away from him during his trial, God blesses Job with more children. To emphasize this blessing, Job 42:15 says, And in all the land there were no women so beautiful as Job's daughters. As biblical authors appeal to the male compulsion to be strong to call them to the inner strength of character, biblical writers appeal to women’s innate desire to be beautiful but steer them towards the lasting inner beauty of holiness.
Guys, the women in our lives who pursue Godly womanhood are under assault in our gender-blending culture. Twenty-five years ago, when I saw feminism assaulting my twin daughters, I gave them each a book on their 16th birthday that called them to godly womanhood. One was Let Me Be a Woman by Elisabeth Elliot. The other, equally good, was Fearlessly Feminine by Jani Ortland. I want to close with Jani’s call to our beloved females, because as men we must do everything we can to support them in this call. She writes:
“I am calling us to exult in our God-given femininity. We must welcome His Word and His ways in our lives. We must stop bringing to God OUR vision of what a woman should be, as if he didn’t consider our generation and culture when he penned his eternal message to us. I want to help nurture in us a new joy in being what only we can be—godly women, godly wives, godly mothers. I want to help us reclaim territory we have yielded to the feminist movement as we have watched it flit around us. Let’s stop playing with popular culture and by God’s grace, fearlessly embrace all that He honors in a woman.”
May God help us and our sons support our courageous women.
For Further Prayerful Thought:
- What are some examples from your world that reveal the gender-blending worldview that is undermining God’s design of creation differences between men and women?
- Which arguments for men and young men to understand God’s revealed design of women make the most sense to you?
- What do you think of the Gospel Coalition’s argument by John Piper and the late Tim Keller that egalitarianism is a flat-out denial of the teaching of God’s Word, i.e. that there is no exegetical way to support egalitarianism from Scripture?
