What Is A Woman? Part 3
What Is A Woman? Part 3
In my last 2 blog posts on What Is A Woman?, I discussed the status of women in Bible times, and in cultures that Christianity did not touch. Then in contrast, I showed the high value God places on women throughout the Bible. This post is going to discuss the basic principle that male and female roles are created differently by God. I specifically want to focus on how God made men and women to have complementary roles. What God has called us women to is a high calling, and a beautiful and admirable role.
We must begin by saying that although the Bible clearly teaches that though God created two distinct genders (as we saw in my last post), He gives each equal worth in His eyes, while at the same time uniquely gifting them for different roles in this world. They are complimentary to each other. There are some things men are called to do and are able to do better than women. There are some things that women are called to do and are able to do better than men. There are some things that both genders can do equally well and are both called to do. There are some things that only men can do, and some things that only women can do. This is a beautiful thing, and not something to be scorned. We should rather embrace it wholeheartedly. Women should not covet those things that men are uniquely made to do, and men should not covet those things that women are uniquely made to do. We need to surrender to God’s good plan. Indeed to covet a role we are not given is sin. We are commanded in Exodus 20:17 to not covet. This commandment is confirmed in the New Testament in I Corinthians 6:10 when it says that the covetous will not inherit the kingdom of God, and in Luke 12:15 when Jesus tells us to be on guard against every form of greed.
To dismiss the unique roles that God has gifted males and females has a disastrous impact on society. In 1991, in the book Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, the authors have this insightful comment to make that is even more applicable to our modern day culture than it was in 1991: “The tendency today is to stress equality of men and women by minimizing the unique significance of our maleness or femaleness. But this depreciation of male and female personhood is a great loss. It is taking a tremendous toll on generations of young men and women who do not know what it means to be a man or a woman. Confusion over the meaning of sexual personhood today is epidemic. The consequence of this confusion is not a free and happy harmony among gender-free persons relating on the basis of abstract competencies. The consequence rather is more divorce, more homosexuality, more sexual abuse, more promiscuity, more social awkwardness, and more emotional distress and suicide that come with a loss of God given identity.” We certainly see this daily in our society!
The authors go on to give us this encouragement about finding answers in the bible: “…the Bible does not leave us in ignorance about the meaning of masculine and feminine personhood. God has not placed in us an all pervasive and all conditioning dimension of personhood and then hidden the meaning of our identity from us. He has shown us in Scripture the beauty of manhood and womanhood in complementary harmony. He has shown us the distortions and even horrors that sin has made of fallen manhood and womanhood. And He has shown us the way of redemption and healing through Christ. …Our understanding is that the Bible reveals the nature of masculinity and femininity by describing diverse responsibilities in creation, not convention… In the Bible, differentiated roles for men and women are never traced back to the fall of man and woman into sin. Rather, the foundation of this differentiation is traced back to the way things were in Eden before sin warped our relationships. Differentiated roles were corrupted, not created by the fall. They were created by God.” (page 33-35)
How wonderful that God does not leave us in the dark to stumble and try to find the meaning of our intimate personhood on our own! He cares for us, and wants to shepherd us and give us joy, and life abundant. (John 10:10-11) Let us look at some Scriptures that show us that the different roles of men and women come from God’s original design for us, and not the world that sin has corrupted.
Here is the account of woman’s creation by God. Before these verses, Adam and all of the animals had been created, and Adam was given command to cultivate the garden. This was before sin entered the world. Genesis 2:20-24 “And the man gave names to all the cattle, and to the birds of the sky, and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh at that place. And the Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man. And the man said, ‘This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.”
I Corinthians 11:8-9 is in the context of Paul teaching on men’s authority over women: “For man does not originate from woman, but woman from man; for indeed man was not created for the woman’s sake, but woman for the man’s sake.”
In Ephesians 5:22-33 when Paul is giving instructions on how wives and husbands are to relate to one another, vs 24 of Genesis 2 (see above) is quoted as a basis for the husbands loving their wives sacrificially and the wives voluntarily putting themselves under their husband’s leadership.
I Timothy 2:11-14 “But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet. For it was Adam who was first created, and then Eve. And it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman being quite deceived fell into transgression.”
We see from these verses that the roles for men and women that He gives us in the Bible were created from the beginning by the Creator Himself. The words I have written are hard to take if you are steeped in secular culture, and not in the Bible. I encourage you to open your heart to the truth that God gives us in His word, the Bible, in order that you might be blessed and have joy and peace.
Here is a song that beautifully sums up the fact that God made us and we should joyfully honor His handiwork and plan: I Am Not My Own (Official Lyric Video) - Keith & Kristyn Getty, Skye Peterson - YouTube
In my next installment of this blog series, I will begin to discuss what biblical femininity looks like in daily life, and we will see how the groundwork I have laid helps us understand women’s God given roles.
Verse to memorize in response: I John 4:16.
For questions or comments, you can contact me at candice@anastasihome.com