Masculaphobia: Fear Of Men

Remember when MTV was a legitimate news source? Me neither.

2016 will go down as a year when a lot of stuff happened, pretty much like every year in history. I have a more comprehensive post upcoming but I want to look at one issue specifically. Along with being a year when a seemingly unusual number of celebrities died, mostly either directly from drug abuse or as a result of drug/alcohol abuse (see 2016 Is Not Killing People) and there might have been an important election that got people riled up or something, it is also the year that should be remembered as the launch of the war on gender. Not the gender wars but the war on gender itself. It is a war that has been festering for a long time with the lead up in decades of feminism and the gradual embrace of homosexual behavior but in 2016 the simmering guerrilla war broke into all out war. National Geographic devoted a cover to a young boy who is being abused by his parents by being encouraged to act out on a confusion about gender. The University of Kansas is jumping on the pin wearing bandwagon and "will now offer students, staff and visitors the choice of wearing “gender inclusive” buttons identifying their preferred gender pronouns, in order to help promote a “welcoming environment” on campus". This is the reasoning....

The buttons, which read, “He/Him/His,” “She/Her/Hers” or “They/Them/Theirs” are part of a year-long effort on behalf of the KU library’s “You Belong Here” marketing campaign touting the school as warm, welcoming, and tolerant.

“Because gender is, itself, fluid and up to the individual, each person has the right to identify their own pronouns, and we encourage you to ask before assuming someone’s gender,” a sign in the library above the available buttons reads, according to local media.

The library signs go on to explain that “misgendering” someone “can be hurtful” and lead to emotional distress as that person contemplates their ultimate exclusion from modern society, or struggle with “invalidation” of their life choices.

Ah. Let me reassure the ladies at the University of Kansas that if I am on campus you will not a need a pin to identify which gender I "identify with". This sort of empty-headed nonsensical rhetoric is what passes for deep and nuanced intellectualism on America's campuses, which is a big reason why you should stay as far away from them as possible unless you have no other choice.

Gender, which is the most critical and fundamental biological fact that distinguished human beings and the most basic building block of human society, is now seen as a means of oppressing people. Let that sink in for a moment. Gender is not "fluid", in fact it is the least fluid thing there is outside of the basic reality of our shared humanity. My gender is not "up to me" anymore than being a human being or being white or who my parents are is up to me.

In his post Feathering the Frosting On With A Canoe Paddle, Doug Wilson makes an interesting observation amid a general discussion of the grotesque sin of encouraging children to change their genders. The whole thing is great but what I really liked was this comparison between the common Islamic fear of female sexuality and the Western fear of male sexuality, emphasis added:

But the secularist wants to protest right at the outset that what they are celebrating has to be distinguished from the genital mutilation that other cultures practice—you know, the backward kinds of culture. For example, in such backwater Muslim societies, girls are often forced to undergo female genital mutilation (FGM). This has been done to upwards of 200 million people. The World Health Organization defines it as “the partial or total removal of the external female genitalia, or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons.”

The emphasis there is mine, for the simple reason that “non-medical reasons” include the West’s fear of masculine sexuality, just as Islam fears feminine sexuality. Non-medical reasons would include our culture’s  current lunatic warp spasm.

That is actually pretty accurate. Islam is terrified of women. Theirs is not a simple recognition of the differences in role and biology of men and women but an actual fear and loathing of femininity combined with an all too often primitive and violent posture toward women. 

Our culture is terrified of men, at least men who look and act in ways that are traditionally understood to be masculine. While not as overt as the violence of "female circumcision", the attempt to emasculate and mutilate men to transform them into something less threatening is just as real. Whether it is the cultural effort to paint men, and especially dads, as imbeciles barely tolerated by their wives and children or the subtle but powerful ways men are pushed out of the workforce or the endless assault on men acting like men and preferring that women act like women, somehow men, at least white men, have been ironically painted as the enemy of civilization and a far greater danger to civil society than Islamic terrorists. All men are potential rapists and all notions of masculine sexuality contribute to the "rape culture".

Even in the church this is true. In many circles of the church the idea of masculine sexuality is seen as something to be avoided and there is nothing much more horrifying than the outdated notion that God intended men to be the leaders of home and church. Church pews are often dominated by women, increasingly without a man present, and the same is true in a lot of pulpits.

It is certainly true that in Western civilization a lot of bad stuff can be attributed to white males but it is just as true that all of the great stuff is also attributed to white males. For every Hitler there is a Beethoven, a DaVinci, a Michelangelo, a Shakespeare. Western civilization has been dominated by white men, for good and for ill, but I would argue that for all of the many faults and weaknesses of Western civilization it is still preferable by a wide margin to any other civilization that does or has existed on a large scale.

You don't need to be afraid of men. Most of us are just trying to get by, to care for our families and to maybe make our communities and country a little better place. We make mistakes but we also built the greatest civilization the world has known. So please stop trying to make us into something we are not. If you ask us nicely we might even pick up that heavy box for you.

Repost: Headcovering: Now More Than Ever

About a year ago I posted this little essay on the topic of headcovering. Given the absolute trainwreck that is happening in our culture, headcovering seems like a pretty minor topic. Don't we have bigger fish to fry? I would argue that we will never be truly faithful in the big stuff if we neglect the "small" stuff. I say "small" because nothing recorded in Scripture is small or minor. As we observe our cultural crashing down around us, it is more important than ever that we stand firmly on Scripture. It will increasingly set us apart as peculiar and "out of step" but that is how we should have been all along. So here is my post from last year, maybe you will find it interesting.

As an aside here are a couple of fairly recent posts from others on the topic of headcovering:

Should Single Women Wear Head Coverings?

Why I Love To Wear A Head Covering
-------

Now I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I delivered them to you. But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God. Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head, but every wife who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head, since it is the same as if her head were shaven. For if a wife will not cover her head, then she should cut her hair short. But since it is disgraceful for a wife to cut off her hair or shave her head, let her cover her head. For a man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God, but woman is the glory of man. For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. That is why a wife ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels. Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man nor man of woman; for as woman was made from man, so man is now born of woman. And all things are from God. Judge for yourselves: is it proper for a wife to pray to God with her head uncovered? Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears long hair it is a disgrace for him, but if a woman has long hair, it is her glory? For her hair is given to her for a covering. If anyone is inclined to be contentious, we have no such practice, nor do the churches of God. (1 Corinthians 11:2-16)

This is a weird passage for a lot of Christians, one that makes a lot of people uncomfortable. It deals with a couple of awkward issues, like submission and a command to wear something on your head. You can see this awkwardness in the general way that it is treated in most sermons when the pastor comes to this passage and generally skips past it as fast as he can, The typical treatment of these verses is to dismiss them based on an alleged, unspoken cultural question that really has no bearing on the church today in our enlightened age. In general it is dismissed as a quaint, kind of confusing cultural relic that has no place in our modern church.

I would argue just the opposite. My wife has covered for many years, even when she was the only person in a gathering who did so. The practice kind of was in vogue in some circles a few years back and I blogged a bit about it but seems to have cooled off. Here in 2015 I am hoping to revive this conversation because if ever there was a time when the church needed it, it is now. I am not going to go back through and review the arguments for an actual covering versus long hair or a covering being replaced by a wedding ring, I have posts on those topics already if you are interested.

A covering is more than just an external sign of a submissive heart, although it is not less than that, The covering is also a quiet act of subversion against the culture that tells us that gender, like race, is whatever you want it to be, whatever you feel like at that moment. The covering reminds us that God intentionally made man and He intentionally made woman, He made them in a specific way and order and He made them to be distinct, interdependent and complementary. The two genders and how God designed them to relate with one another is integral to God's design for humanity and even for His plan of salvation. When we read the opening of the Gospel according to Matthew we see the genealogy of Jesus Christ, generation after generation. When we see the curse in Genesis 3 we also see the promise that would be fulfilled in Christ Jesus through the seed of the woman. When we see the promise to Abraham we know that it is fulfilled in the children of the union between man and woman. The covering is a critical, external symbol of recognition of the pivotal place of gender. Absolutely the heart is even more critical in this equation but you simply cannot negate the external sign commanded in Scripture, just as Christians are called to actually be baptized in water as an external sign of an inward reality.

As I said, the covering is a subversive statement today, a counter-cultural act that quietly witnesses to and stands in defiance of the prevailing culture. The culture says "be whatever you want to be, feel free to mutilate the canvas of your flesh". The cover says "I am a daughter of the Most High, made as a woman in His image and by His design and for His glory". The culture says "Men and women are indistinguishable and interchangeable" , the covering says "I am unique and irreplaceable as a woman and I have no desire to be a man". A woman with a covered head leaves no doubt as to the nature of men and women and her embrace of how God has made her. A husband blessed to have a wife at his side with a covering is a witness to the complementary nature of the genders and a recognition of his own incompleteness apart from his spouse. I don't want a woman who looks and acts like a man, I want a woman who is "a helper fit for him" (Gen 2:18).

The culture wars are over and the religious right lost. The casual immorality and confusion we see all around us speaks this truth loud and clear. Now is the time for the quiet way of the cross, a way that does not shout or seek power but also does not seek to hide or accommodate. Rather than seeking to blend in through capitulation or fighting for the last vestiges of political coercive power, we instead can follow a third way of quiet subversion via witness. The covering is an ancient symbol but one that carries with it powerful ramifications and a similarly powerful witness without saying a word. It says to the world that no matter what the nonsensical, ignorant chattering heads on The View or the writers of People magazine have to say, God has already spoken definitively on the question of men and women.

Sometimes the ancient practices are the best response to the modern errors.

The Institutional Mindset and Gender Roles

There are some conversations that keep coming around and around so I blog about them again and again. Reformed theology used to be one of those but I haven't bothered in a while because it has been hashed over so many times that it just wore me out and the Arminian answers are just so awful. So now I write about things like non-violence which also gets a visceral reaction and of course gender. Today was one of those gender days and as usual the discussion has gone around in circles, circles based on whether we should examine what Scripture says to inform our decisions on application or whether we should look to see what Scripture doesn't say to override what it does. I know that is a loaded and smarmy statement. 

One of the common arguments against the historical and I would say glaringly clear teaching on gender in the Bible is the notion that Paul is addressing an issue in the culture of the day, making concessions or teaching for pragmatic reasons or dealing with some specific problem. The accuracy of this is pretty easy to ascertain by simply reading what Paul wrote. What is Paul's reasoning for his teaching on gender (emphasis mine)?

I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. (1 Tim 2:12-14)

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.

(Eph 5:22-24)

But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God. (1 Cor 11:3)

For a man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God, but woman is the glory of man. For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. (1 Cor 11:7-9)

So we have the creation order. We have the relationship between Christ and the church. We have man as the glory of God but women as the glory of man. An image of male headship that is not incidental or cultural but intentional. God could have created Adam and Eve simultaneously but He did not. He made Adam, declared him incomplete and in need of a helper and created Eve out of Adam. There is a very explicit pattern here that is repeated in 1 Corinthians 11:7-9 and it deals with the order and method of creation.

So what we have to work with is sufficient to inform our interpretation and application but what we don't have is almost as important. No hint of the culture of that day. No suggestion of pragmatic reasoning. Nothing that implies that this is something only for this time and place, having no universal application. I have said this all before but many who find the Biblical teaching on gender odious and embarrassing in our enlightened era simply refuse to accept it.

Here is what is so troubling about this to me. Because we can't get past our institutional religious setting we think that "If you ain't a pastor, you ain't nothing". The only service and leadership in the church that matters is "preaching". Ironically "preaching" as we understand it doesn't even appear in Scripture so we have elevated an extra-biblical practice to a position of overwhelming prominence and in doing so have diminished every other calling in the church and especially diminished the calling of wives and mothers. This is true even among those who, on the surface, reject institutional religion but still can't let go of that need for ecclesiastical recognition.

Being a mother and raising children. Caring for the home. Submitting to a husband who is often an idiot but needs your support anyway. Those are infinitely more important and difficult than preparing and delivering a 45 minute sermon once a week that no one will remember next month anyway. The church should be doing everything in our power to support and encourage our sisters in this noble endeavor. Instead we subtly look down on them and say they are not good enough. You need a career! You must be allowed to "preach"! You must be granted a religious title! Being a mother and wife is hard enough without piling on extra expectations. The simple fact of human beings is that we cannot do it all. We are not made to do it all. There are 24 hours in a day and about a third of them we need to sleep. There are only a limited number of years to bear children. We exist in time and space so if you are in location A doing activity Y you cannot also be in location B doing activity Z. We should encourage wives in what they already have on their plates instead of piling on more. 

Being a mom and wife is stressful enough without making our sisters feel like they are not doing enough. If you care about women, care enough to affirm and support their calling as women and quit trying to make them into something that God never intended regardless of what the culture around us might say.

My least popular blog series! Back by absolutely no demand whatsoever!

Had an interesting discussion today on Facebook on the issue of gender and realized I didn't have my series on patriarchy in one place anywhere so I thought I would put all of the links together. Almost nothing I have written has gotten quite the same negative response as this series (other than perhaps non-resistance) but far from being dissuaded I think this is a topic where I have come to an even more firm position. It is unpopular especially among the house church/organic church crowd but I gthink it is the most consistent. Anyway here are all of the links in order for your perusal and almost certain torch-and-pitchfork comments.

Biblical Patriarchy: Introduction

Biblical Patriarchy: Defining the Issue

Biblical Patriarchy: Old Testament

Biblical Patriarchy: New Testament

Biblical Patriarchy: Common Objections

Biblical Patriarchy: A Conclusion 

plus a special bonus entry on "mutual submission"!

Mutual Submission?

 

 

 

 

Book Review: Family Shepherds

One of the greatest threats to the church is found right in the homes of many Christians in the form of fathers who are either not equipped or not inclined to lead their families. As befits the seriousness of the issue, there are many books being published calling on men to step up in their homes. Voddie Baucham’s latest book, Family Shepherds, is the latest entry and comes with Voddie’s particular brand of hard hitting teaching. Like other books he was written, Family Driven Faith and What He Must Be…If He Wants to Marry My Daughter, Family Shepherds comes at this issue from a decidedly old school and counter-cultural approach. Voddie makes no apology for highlighting the unique calling of men as leaders in the home, a stance that is drawn directly from the Bible although it is also rarely addressed even in the church. Family Shepherds is a solid addition to this conversation and comes at the issue with more emphasis on the writings of Paul than the pontifications of Dr. Spock.

This is a very good book, especially for those who are less familiar with the topic and haven’t read much of Voddie’s prior writing. Some of the material will be repetitive if you are familiar with his prior writings and the positions of the Family Integrated Church movement. In places the material felt vaguely like something I have read from him several times over and it takes some patience and time to get to the point of the book because the background material takes so long. Again, if this is your first exposure to this information it may not seem as tedious and the information certainly is valuable but I could have stood to have less background information and more of the meat that is found in the second half of the book. Once I got to the second half of the book, the information became more applicable and the reading more enjoyable.

As with all books, there are weak spots and the most glaring is in Voddie’s reliance on the institutionalized church model. Reading chapter 13, Church Membership, was almost physically painful. When he states (on the opening line of the chapter and elsewhere): “Church membership is the most important aspect of lifestyle evaluation”, that strikes me as an entirely unserious and counter-productive statement. Of all the lifestyle qualifiers of a man, whether he is a “member” of a local church (a “healthy” church of course which means a church that is doctrinally compatible with what Voddie holds to) is one of the least important. A man who is a member of a church is not more likely to be a family shepherd than one who is not and since church membership as we understand doesn't appear in the Bible, it is hardly appropriate in a book calling on a return to a Biblical understanding of fatherhood. In other places Voddie inserts other cultural understandings of leadership in the church (like assuming that Acts 6 is speaking of deacons). When he focuses on the home and the unique, irreplaceable role of fathers the book is very strong but in places where he strays into ecclesiology his arguments lose a lot of their strength.

All in all this is an important and valuable addition to the conversation regarding fathers as the spiritual head of their households. If you are familiar with the literature in this genre, I doubt you will find much that is innovative but Voddie as always delivers his message forcefully, persuasively and unapologetically. Virtually every man in the church that I know needs a spiritual swift kick in the pants and that sort of jarring is Voddie’s forte. This is a book that fathers, elders, new husbands and young men considering marriage would all benefit from.

(This was also the first book I purchased for and read in its entirety on my Kindle Fire and I enjoyed the experience, esp. the ability to book mark and highlight sections with ease!)

Mutual Submission?

One of the most popular buzz phrases in the gender discussion is “mutual submission”. I see it all the time and it is often laid down as a conversation stopper, a trump card of sort. The notion of "mutual submission", a fairly recent invention, is based primarily on a single passage of Scripture, Ephesians 5:21, that allegedly commands all Christians to submit, without distinction or definition, to one another. That is a bold claim and one that bears examination. If it is true, then centuries of gender relationships in the church and home are out of step with the Bible. If it is false, as I will assert, then what we are seeing today is an attempt to subvert the teaching of Scripture and replacing it with a culturally palatable sidestepping of a crucial relationship.

(More after the break)

Biblical Patriarchy: A Conclusion

So after all of those lengthy posts, what exactly is my point? It is pretty simple. God created men and women differently and likewise has called them to function differently. As it relates to gender the Scriptural evidence is crystal clear and overwhelming. God has called men to sacrificial and loving leadership as the head of the home and as servants in the church. God has not called men to abuse their headship or even to focus on authority or making their wives submit. The submission of a wife to her husband is an act of obedience on the part of the woman and the sacrificial love of a husband for his wife is not predicated on her submission to her. Likewise a woman’s submission to her husband is not based on how much her husband loves her but rather how much she loves Christ.

I am a big boy. I know that there is not a single man who has ever loved his wife the way that Christ loves the church. In our sinful, finite existence it is by definition impossible. I also recognize that I especially fall far short of the mark here, both in loving my wife and in leading the family. Here’s the rub. Our perceived failures don’t give us license to rewrite the Word. We are called to roles by God and in spite of our failings the calling remains the same. The problem is not in the Scriptures, it is with us.

Taking this a step further. The failures of male headship in the church are caused by the weakness and failings of men, not with the underlying principles that are so clearly laid out for us in Scripture. The failure of Biblical male servant leadership in the church and in the home shouldn't lead us to teach our daughters to assume the roles reserved for men, it should cause us to redouble our efforts to raise our sons to be godly, humble and loving leaders in the church and home. In other words we as parents need to raise our sons to embrace loving, sacrificial Biblical headship in the home and male servant leadership the church and we need likewise to raise our daughters to seek husbands who understand, embrace and seek out their God ordained role in the church and family.

As the church we likewise need to mentor young men to be the men they should be in the home and family and provide examples for them to follow. Instead of age based segregation in the church, putting "young adults" in one class and "senior saints" in another, we should encourage the different generations to mingle and form friendships. A 65 year old brother may not be up to speed on the latest smartphones or who the coolest contemporary Christian music groups are but he has knowledge that is timeless and precious and all too often ignored and lost with each passing generation. How often are couples who have been married 40 or 50 years encouraged to form bonds with newly married couples? We don’t need to recreate the gender wheel with every couple, we have already been given timeless wisdom in the Word and invaluable experience in the older generations of Christians. Anyhoo, off my soapbox….

Have we culturally outgrown the old fashioned gender roles we see in the Bible or have we abandoned those important doctrines in favor of modern sensibilities? It strikes me that when we have a disparity between what we see in Scripture and our current cultural norms, the Bible should win out. This is true in places like sexual immorality and propitiation as well as in gender roles. Our culture today is hardly superior to that of the first century. Men and women have not fundamentally changed and the world is still in the grips of sin. Every effort to conform the Scriptures to the whims of the culture has ended disastrously.

Male headship, patriarchy, whatever you want to call it, is not merely a social construct of the ancient world that we have outgrown. It is deeply tied into the entirety of Biblical revelation from Genesis up to the image of the church as the Bride of Christ. While the term and the idea have been hijacked by some in the so-called "patriarchy movement" that doesn't mean that the underlying idea of male headship in the home and church, demonstrated by humble and loving servant leadership, should be discarded in favor of a more socially acceptable egalitarianism. Our standard is always the Word of God and the consistent theme throughout Scripture is of different and complementary roles for men and women that are established in Genesis, demonstrated in the Old Testament and reinforced strongly in the New Testament. What is acceptable to the culture, what is pragmatic, what is equitable is irrelevant to those who follow Christ.

A quick word regarding the so-called “Biblical Patriarchy movement”. I am not a part of this movement, nor do I seek to be part of any other “movement” whether it be homeschooling, Reformed theology, house church, headcovering, etc. The danger of so any “movements” in the church is that they often elevate secondary doctrines to positions of preeminence and likewise divide the church. I experienced and participated in that with Reformed theology and in doing so likely alienated many fellow believers. While I believe that Reformed theology, i.e. the Five Points and the Five Solas, is an accurate summarization of the soteriological message of the Bible, it is not the Gospel no matter what Charles Spurgeon said.

I hold to a patriarchal position because I think the Scriptures clearly present this as God’s plan and intent in the design of human beings, the family and the church but I do not impose it as a barrier to fellowship or cooperation. I think that the various types of gender egalitarianism are in error but I also think that infant baptism is an error (you can replace infant baptism with dispensationalism, arminianism, etc.). That doesn’t mean that I reject fellowship with those who differ from me. I find it disingenuous to acknowledge someone as a fellow believer in Christ in words but to reject their fellowship and cooperation in Kingdom work in deeds. Nor do I seek to be an evangelist for patriarchy (or believers baptism or Calvinism or….). My intent in this series was and always has been to present a counter-voice to those who push for egalitarianism and the blurring of Biblical gender roles, a movement that is prevalent in the simple church crowd and a position that I say unapologetically is an error. I am not at all interested in using secondary, important to be sure but secondary, issues as a wedge between believers. I have tried very hard to avoid bashing or slandering those who disagree with me on this issue even as I recognize that some who are advocates of patriarchy have not done the same. Of course as I mentioned there is undeniably plenty of vitriol, slander, ugliness and half-truths on the other side of this position as well. Wherever that sort of unpleasantness crops up, whether from people I agree with or disagree with, it is unscriptural and damaging to the unity and witness of the Body of Christ. There is plenty of work to be done for the Kingdom without expending so much of it tearing into those we should be laboring alongside of. Patriarchy, complementarianism, male servant headship, whatever you call it, is important and needs to be given a fair hearing in the church but it is also not the Gospel and never will be. I hope if nothing else that this series has given you cause to think or rethink your position and that it spurs you onto greater love, greater sacrifice and greater service in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Biblical Patriarchy: Common Objections

There are quite a few people who reject the position I have laid out in the previous posts. I have not compiled a comprehensive list of them nor am I going to take their arguments apart piece by piece. What I am going to do is put forth a few of the general arguments I have seen from the opposing position and demonstrate why I don’t find them compelling.

The Galatians 3 argument

I have often seen Galatians 3: 28 offered as a counterpoint to the explicit passages regarding gender relations and roles. Here is the passage in question in the surrounding context.

But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on 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. And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise. (Galatians 3:25-29)

So isn’t Paul saying that there is no difference between men and women in Christ? Well yes and no. Paul is not speaking of gender at all, he is saying that in Christ salvation is for all. Just as he is not saying that when a slave becomes a Christian he is freed from this earthly master (in fact he says that servants should obey their masters in Ephesians 6: 5-8) or that a Greek who is saved becomes a Jew, he is likewise not saying anything about gender relations here.

This is another example of why context is so important. You cannot read Galatians 3:28 in a vacuum, you need to see the whole thing so you can understand what Paul is saying and why what he is saying here is not that in Christ there is no difference in function between men and women, it is that the saving message of the cross is universal and doesn’t apply only to the rich, the Jew, men, etc. but that salvation comes to all people. Galatians 3:28 is perfectly compatible with what Paul and Peter say elsewhere regarding gender.

The cultural argument

Another argument is made that the writings of Paul and Peter regarding gender are merely reflective of the prevailing culture of the time they were writing. The customs of ancient times don’t apply to us today, we have advanced beyond that. Just as we use email and cell phones instead of papyrus, we should likewise dump the anachronistic gender roles we see in the New Testament.

Here is the problem with that. There are actually a couple of big problems. First, when Paul especially speaks about gender roles and boundaries, he never appeals to the culture of the day and in fact he typically is speaking of universal principles. We see this most pointedly in his appeal to the creation order and the Fall. The realities of those events are timeless. The second is that you can make that same argument about all sorts of precepts in the Bible. Maybe women don’t need to dress modestly, maybe stealing isn’t all that bad, maybe loving our neighbors is outdated, maybe marriage is overrated? You can see the problem here. What the Bible is speaking of are universal and timeless truths. There is nothing in what Paul and Peter wrote regarding gender that would be tied to the culture of the day and therefore no longer be applicable. In fact I would suggest that egalitarianism more of a capitulation to the prevailing culture than complementarianism is a throwback to an ancient culture.

The denying the one who is equipped argument

But, some might say, my wife is a great leader! She is a wonderful teacher! Why would God equip her in that way and then deny her the ability to function with those talents? That doesn’t make any sense!

I get where that argument is coming from. My wife is a very good public speaker. She has spoken to much larger audiences than I ever have and is quite good at it. That really isn’t the point. The point has to do with obedience and calling, not perceived ability. Just because we think someone is “good at” something doesn’t override what Scripture teaches.

God has given people talents that can be used to accumulate a great deal of wealth. Does that mean that they should pursue monetary gain? God has given people the ability to lie convincingly. Does that mean they should lie to others? Of course not and likewise while some women have a gift when it comes to teaching and serving, that doesn’t mean their perceived abilities should trump Scriptural prohibitions. There is plenty of work to be done in discipling other women and raising and caring for children and that is just as important as teaching men. Perhaps we should ignore the culture around us that devalues women “just” raising children and focus on obedience as a sign of our love for Christ? I would go so far as to say that we have plenty of talented teachers in the church but what we really need are godly women who embrace raising their children and helping younger women learn how to also be good wives and mothers. All of the teaching and leadership in the church is not worth very much if the home and family are unsound.

The separate is inherently unequal argument, i.e. women are second class citizens in the church

This viewpoint makes an interesting point, one that is familiar in our culture. If men and women are relegated to certain roles, that is inherently discriminatory. They would argue that no matter how you slice it, different is unequal. Most of us recognize this principle in areas like racial segregation where “separate but equal” has been declared to be intrinsically discriminatory. It is an argument that resonates with us, especially in America with our history of racial discrimination.

Here is the big problem with this argument. You and I don’t get to decide what is “fair” or what is “equal”. What is truly “fair” is that we all spend an eternity in hell. For those who are saved, bought by the blood of Christ and adopted into the family of God, the Word of God is our standard. Not the culture. Not our personal opinions. Not what is fair or equitable. The Word.

The mindset that sees any barrier to how women serve and function in the home is ironically the same mindset that sees titles and functions as key to the church. If women can’t be pastors or elders they are being treated unfairly. Jesus taught over and over that the greatest among us are the humble servants, not the “leaders”. In many ways, a woman who graciously submits to the leadership of her husband is far more godly than the man who has a title like “Pastor” or “Doctor” in front of his name and a slew of initials after it. I think many Christians fall into the trap of equating “institutional church” with “complementarian gender roles” and chuck the good with the bad.

Examples of women that appear to be fulfilling male roles

There are a couple of places where we see examples of women allegedly fulfilling roles that I have argued are restricted to men. These can seem, at first blush, to be compelling arguments against the patriarchal position I have laid out. When you dig a little deeper and look at them in context, they are far less convincing. For example:

On the next day we departed and came to Caesarea, and we entered the house of Philip the evangelist, who was one of the seven, and stayed with him. He had four unmarried daughters, who prophesied. (Acts 21:8-9)

This makes sense in light of the passage in 1 Corinthians 11 that speaks of women praying and prophesying (1 Corinthians 11:5). Clearly women prophesied. I find it somewhat amusing that the same people who try to use this passage to support egalitarianism are often the same people who reject headcovering. But I digress. What else do we know about these women? Not a whole lot, this is the only mention of them although Joel prophesied about women prophesying on the day of Pentecost in Joel 2:28 when he wrote that “your sons and your daughters shall prophesy”. The question we need to raise here is not just what does Luke say about the daughters of Philip but also what does he not say. He doesn’t say when or how often these daughters prophesied. Was it in the gathering of the church? Maybe, maybe not. I am not convinced that prophesying (along with headcovering) is something restricted to the gathered church. We know that they were unmarried so they didn’t have husbands obviously. Who did they prophesy to and what did they prophesy about? We don’t know. Is this something normative or are these daughters unique? Again we don’t know but I am pretty sure I have not heard anyone, male or female, prophesying in the sense of a prophetic utterance. What we know about this event is pretty scarce and what we don’t know is quite vast. I cannot see that a brief blurb about unmarried daughters prophesying without a touch of context to explain it should override the multiple, lengthy and explicit New Testament passages that deal with gender relations in the church and home. I certainly don’t discount that God can and has used women as vehicles for prophesy but I likewise don’t see that contradicting what Paul and Peter taught.

Then there is this one:

Now a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus. He was an eloquent man, competent in the Scriptures. He had been instructed in the way of the Lord. And being fervent in spirit, he spoke and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus, though he knew only the baptism of John. He began to speak boldly in the synagogue, but when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him and explained to him the way of God more accurately. (Acts 18:24-26)

What do we know about this? We know that both Priscilla and her husband Aquila took Apollos aside and explained “the way of God more accurately”. That is about all we know. So doesn’t this seem to violate 1 Timothy 2:12? Not necessarily. First, we note that both Priscilla and her husband took Apollos aside. We also note that they corrected him after taking him apparently out of the public eye in the synagogue. So in this event was Priscilla somehow exercising authority over Apollos? We certainly cannot be sure since we are given neither the content of the conversation nor are we presented with this event with an accompanying judgment call as to its appropriateness. Any suggestion that this event trumps the explicit gender passages relies on mere conjecture and that is always a poor hermeneutic.

As I mentioned, this list is not and was not intended to be comprehensive. These are just some examples of the objections to patriarchy and headship I have run into. I would welcome the chance to interact with any other Scripturally based arguments against complementarianism.

My final post will be a summary of Biblical patriarchy, what it is and is not and with a quick word regarding the “patriarchy movement”.

Biblical Patriarchy: New Testament

←←←← If this is your idea of Biblical submission, you are missing the point!
-----

Whew, now we are to the New Testament and no doubt patriarchy and male headship will be washed away here. Patriarchy is soooooo Old Testament. Paul and Peter, with NOW membership cards in their togas, will set things straight!

Um, actually no. The doctrine of patriarchy is mentioned more and more specifically by Paul and Peter under the New Covenant than it is under the Old. Let me say that again. Under the New Covenant that Paul and Peter understood and wrote about, the patriarchal relationship between the genders are reinforced and expanded.

As a quick aside re: gender and men & women in the church. Men all too often, pointing at myself first and foremost, fail their wives in two key ways: we don’t love them as Christ loved the church and we don’t lead in the church and the home as we are called to. One of the greatest weaknesses in the church are men who are either mainly passive, willing to defer leadership and servanthood to the women in a local body or worse yet men who are completely absent. Visit a sampling of local church gathering this Sunday and you will see a preponderance of women. Many of those women will be serving while many men are watching, at least the men that bothered to meet with the church. I understand why men are disinterested in passively watching a performance but that is not an excuse to abdicate our calling. We should be calling men to man up and function as they are called to as men, not encouraging women to fill in the gaps that men have left.

It is my goal in this series and in this post in particular to call Christian men to account, starting with my own doorstep, for our abdication of the great calling God has placed on us. I don’t place the blame for passive men in the church at the feet of feminism or the culture or on overbearing women. There is some of that to be sure but the greatest blame needs to be laid squarely at the feet of men, the regular guy Christian who is content to let someone else do the work of ministry in the local church and is likewise quite happy to let women lead in the basic functions of service in the local church. Generations of men in the church have turned the church gathering into a spectator sport, both on Sunday morning and during the rest of the week. The first step in curing this is a proper understanding of gender and patriarchy in the Bible and then teaching, admonishing and if needed rebuking men for failing to be the servant leaders we are called to be.

When it comes to gender and patriarchy in the New Testament, there are several pretty obvious places to go. Those verses, taken in context, are the strongest arguments for my position and as such are the most assailed by those who disagree. It is worth noting that much of the argument between complementarians and egalitarians consists of debates over the explicit passages regarding gender roles in the church, with egalitarians attempting to argue that these passages cannot possibly mean what they say. It is my contention and I plan to demonstrate that these verses, coupled with some less obvious but supportive Scriptures, solidify without a doubt Biblical patriarchy as I have laid it out. We might as well start with the most obvious section, found in the fifth chapter of Paul’s letter to the church in Ephesus….

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. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 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. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband. (Ephesians 5:22-33)

Wives relate to husbands as the church relates to Christ. He is the Bridegroom, we are the Bride. The use of male and female terminology here is not accidental because Paul compares the way that Christ-church and husbands-wives relate. The church of course should submit to Christ as the single Head of the entire Body. If Christ is the head of the church and Paul likens the relationship between husbands and wives to that the way that Christ and the Church relate, does it not follow that husbands are the head of the family which includes their wives? It does and that is precisely what Paul is saying. If you are seeking to dismiss that as a primitive cultural anachronism that we have outgrown, would you likewise argue that we have “outgrown” our need to submit to Christ as the church in all things? I should hope not but we need to be very careful when we pick and choose which doctrines we discard as culturally irrelevant, especially when they are integral to and intertwined with other doctrines that are related and that we assume are timeless. To reiterate, Christ relates to the church as husbands are to relate to their wives and the converse is true that wives relate to their husbands as the church relates to Christ.

This is something important to point out. Paul is not placing conditions on these commands. Paul is not saying nor implying that wives should submit to their husbands only if their husbands love them sufficiently nor is Paul saying or implying that husbands should love their wives as long as their wife submits to them. In other words, you can’t get out of this command by placing conditions on it that don’t exist in the text. Christ loved the church before the church even knew His name and husbands are to love their wives and wives are to submit to their husbands without qualification. I will come back to this again a little later because it is so important to understanding the relationship between men and women.

Moving on, Paul writes a similar admonition to the church in Colossae regarding the husband-wife relationship…

Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them. Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged. Slaves, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not by way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord. Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. For the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done, and there is no partiality. (Colossians 3:18-25)

Paul is reiterating much of what we see in Ephesians 5. I included much of the rest of the chapter because what we see here is interesting. The commands are one-sided. Husbands love your wives. Period. Not love them when they submit, just love them as Christ loved us while we were yet sinners (Romans 5:8). Likewise wives are to submit to their husbands in obedience to Christ. We again do not see a command here for husbands to make their wives submit. That makes sense. Coerced obedience of your wife is not submission and it is not Biblical. You might able to control your wife through domination and intimidation but a wife can only submit willingly as an act of obedience to Christ. What does that mean? Wives should willingly submit to their husbands because of their love for Christ. When a wife submits to her husband she is serving the Lord Christ. I would argue that when a wife refuses to submit she is not serving Christ but instead serving herself and her own desires. Likewise, when a husband fails to love his wife, he is selfishly serving his own desires and not honoring and obeying Christ.

Another place Paul speaks of this issue is in his letter to the church in Corinth (if you are keeping score at home, that is three different churches where he has addressed this issue in his writings in a uniform, patriarchal manner). The first half of 1 Corinthians 11 speaks of male headship in the marriage relationship followed by the most extensive treatment of the Lord’s Supper outside of the Gospels. It strikes me as odd that many people are dismissive of one half of this chapter but not the other half. In the first half of 1 Corinthians 11, Paul is speaking of headcoverings, a topic I have addressed many times but my point here goes deeper than the external act of obedience, as important as that as. I want to look instead at the underlying doctrine. In other words why does Paul tell women to cover their heads? Is it a cultural issue? Not at all although that is how it is often dismissed. Paul appeals instead to the marriage relationship which parallels his teachings in Ephesians 5:22-33 and Colossians 3:18-25. Here is the text….

Now I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I delivered them to you. But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God. Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head, but every wife who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head, since it is the same as if her head were shaven. For if a wife will not cover her head, then she should cut her hair short. But since it is disgraceful for a wife to cut off her hair or shave her head, let her cover her head. For a man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God, but woman is the glory of man. For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. That is why a wife ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels. Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man nor man of woman; for as woman was made from man, so man is now born of woman. And all things are from God. Judge for yourselves: is it proper for a wife to pray to God with her head uncovered? Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears long hair it is a disgrace for him, but if a woman has long hair, it is her glory? For her hair is given to her for a covering. If anyone is inclined to be contentious, we have no such practice, nor do the churches of God. (1 Corinthians 11:2-16)

Christ is the head of man. Husbands are the head of the wife. God is the head of Christ. I don’t see much ambiguity in that relationship. Paul appeals again here back to Genesis, so apparently Paul doesn’t see Genesis 1-11 as mere allegory but rather he sees the creation account and the fall as pivotal to understanding gender roles and relationships. Paul says that man is the glory of God and that woman is the glory of man because of the manner and order of Creation (referencing back to my prior post on Genesis and the creation order). Woman was created from man, not the other way around and that was intentional and foundational to any understanding of the genders.

So to recap. Wives submit to your husbands. Husbands love your wives. Husbands don’t demonstrate love for their wives by abdicating their calling as men and leaving everything up to their wives.

There are more specific verses regarding male headship in the church and family. In the midst of 1 Corinthians 14, Paul’s most comprehensive admonishment of how the church should meet, comes three very strongly worded verses, verses that get sort of short shrift among those who embrace the rest of this chapter as our guidepost for how the church should meet. I like to think that in this respect I am more consistent that many of my brothers and sisters. 1 Corinthians 14 is applicable for the church for all time. That means that when the church gathers, all of the brothers should be welcome and expected to participate. Likewise when the church gathers, there are certain differences in how men and women function in that gathering. After speaking about all of the brothers in the church coming to the gathering with something to share, Paul writes….

For God is not a God of confusion but of peace. As in all the churches of the saints, the women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says. If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church. (1 Corinthians 14:33-35)

Hmmmm. Perhaps Paul was mistaken here? Perhaps not. Women are to be in submission, which as we have seen means that a wife willingly submits to her husband, not that a husband should make his wife submit (because that by definition is not submission!). You can dance around this all you like but when you look at what Paul is saying, in context and without trying to make excuses, it is pretty clear. When the church gathers, women are to remain silent, i.e. they are not permitted to speak. In fact, if they want to learn anything they should ask their husbands. At home. You can reject that as cultural or specific to Corinth if you choose but consistency demands that you drop your arguments in favor of a participatory church meeting that are derived from this passage. There is far more explicit instruction regarding women in the church than there is about participatory meetings. Likewise for my complementarian brothers. If you are going to use 1 Corinthians 14:33-35 to prevent women from teaching, you have to take the rest of the chapter as universal and timeless as well and open up your church gatherings for all of the brothers to participate as led by the Spirit. Consistent interpretation please!

Paul is not done. His admonishment in 1 Corinthians 14:33-35 is not a random, unsupported text. Paul clarifies and reinforces this teaching in a different letter, this one to Timothy….

I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet she will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control. (1 Timothy 2:12-15)

Again we see the same teaching here that we saw in 1 Corinthians 14:33-35. This parallel passage to 1 Corinthians 14 appeals again to the creation order and the fall. 1 Tim 2: 12-15 fits with 1 Corinthians 11: 2-16 which likewise links to 1 Corinthians 14:33-35. Paul is eminently consistent in his teaching, if only we would be as consistent in our interpretation and application!

Some have tried to undermine what Paul is saying by appealing to 1 Timothy 2:15? I will admit that verse 15 is confusing. Does that change what Paul is saying? Not at all. The fact that because verse 15 is hard to understand doesn’t at all change the very clear and unambiguous teaching of Paul in the preceding verses. We don’t reject other passages because of confusing or difficult interpretations around them. Again the consistent hermeneutical principle here is that the explicit passages should be used to help interpret the less explicit. Paul links a woman’s holiness and self-control with her not exercising authority over men or teaching them. I am not sure enough about the child bearing part to speak dogmatically about it, but I am certain about the not teaching or having authority over men portion.

Peter has an interesting take on this whole subject. It again reinforces what Paul has written but he gives us an interesting expansion of the idea of patriarchy….

Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, when they see your respectful and pure conduct. Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear—but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious. For this is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves, by submitting to their own husbands, as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord. And you are her children, if you do good and do not fear anything that is frightening. Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered. (1 Peter 3:1-7)

Women influence and lead through their conduct and their submission. The measure of a godly woman is not how fashionable she dresses or her education level, it is her conduct, her holiness and her submission to her husband.

This is sounding like a broken record. Wives be subject to your husbands, husbands be understanding, honoring and loving toward your wives. Ephesus, Corinth, Colossae. Letters to the church, letters to Timothy. Paul and Peter. On and on. This doctrine is one of the most frequent and consistent in the entire Bible. Men and women are equal positionally in Christ but are called and equipped to function differently in both the home and the church.

So what are women supposed to do? Women have a precious and vitally important calling, at least as important as the calling of men, and one that is neglected and maligned. Paul speaks of it when he wrote to Titus….

Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled. (Titus 2:3-5)

Women need to teach and disciple other women and care for the home which includes raising children. When it comes to women discipling other women, there is a reason why this is so important. For all sorts of reasons, men and women should not be in overly intimate relationships outside of marriage. Ever. Without that sort of open and intimate relationship, it is impossible for Christians to grow. So older and more mature women are called to disciple younger/less mature women just as older men should disciple younger men (Titus 2: 2; 6-8). Disciple to what end? To overthrow the male dominated patriarchal system of the church!? No. They are to “teach what is good”, which Paul defines as: to love their husbands and children, be self-controlled and pure, not drinking too much wine, to care for the home, be kind to others and submit to their husbands. Why should they do all of this? Because by not being these sorts of wives, they revile the Word of God. Let me repeat. A woman who does not submit to her husband reviles the Word of God. Not my words, these are the words of Paul. That is a serious charge but one that is supported by this text and others. Likewise a husband who doesn’t love and honor his wife also reviles the Word of God. This is serious stuff and something we dismiss at our own peril. Again, at the risk of being repetitious this obedience of submission/love is not conditional on being submitted to or being loved. We do what we are called to do to be faithful to the One who is always faithful, not as a tit for tat exchange with our spouse.

So hang on a second. There is a lot here that quotes Paul and some that quotes Peter. What about Jesus? Didn’t Jesus respect women? What about Mary Magdelene, or the woman at the well, or the woman who anointed His feet? What about them? Nothing I have written is undone by that. Jesus loved women. Paul loved women. Peter loved women. I love women as sisters in Christ and want nothing more for them than to be blessed by carrying out what God has intended for them. Nothing that Jesus did or taught in any way undermines what Paul or Peter taught and I believe what I am claiming in this series is both in harmony with the teachings of Christ, Paul and Peter and faithful to their intent. Peter followed Christ throughout His earthly ministry. Paul was a specially appointed apostle and eyewitness of Christ. God entrusted so much of what we know about Christ, about the Gospel, about the church, to the hands of these men. Paul and Peter are not contradicting Christ in anything they say and are speaking on His behalf when they wrote 1 Corinthians 11, 1 Corinthians 14, Ephesians 5, 1 Peter 3 and Titus 2.

Can I be blunt? What is commonly called egalitarianism, i.e. that men and women are the same not only positionally but functionally, at its core is an attempt to discount what the Scriptures say. Paul couldn’t have meant that. Peter couldn’t have meant that. There must be a different interpretation, one that I find more palatable. It is a classic example of our culture and the Scriptures clashing.

Now having said all of that, a word or three of caution is in order. Men are given many examples to follow in the New Testament and none of them are men who abuse power.

Patriarchy in the New Testament is not about control

It is not about power

It is not about authority over women

It is about calling and responsibility and submitting to the authority of Christ and the calling He has called men and women to. Note that in Ephesians 5, we don’t read that men are to make their wives submit to them nor are they called to exercise authority or control over them. Wives are to submit to their husbands as an act of obedience to God, not as an act of obedience to their husbands just as husbands are to love their wives as an emulation of Christ loving the church. If your view of Biblical patriarchy focuses on control, authority and power you are far more misguided than the most staunch egalitarian.

Next up (not until next week probably), a short post looking at some of the most common and most compelling objections to patriarchy and my response to them.

Biblical Patriarchy: Old Testament

Any discussion of gender roles from a Christian perspective necessarily has to start…at the beginning, with Genesis. Let me say up front that if you hold to an allegorical view of the first 11 chapters of Genesis and deny the historicity of a literal Adam and Eve, this whole argument is going to be unpersuasive (and you have some bigger issues to overcome than gender roles). If however you hold to a literal Adam and Eve and the entirety of the creation account and the fall, read on.

The New Testament later will be shown to come back to the Creation account multiple times and the writers take positions that are directly related to the creation of man and then woman. Two major events that drive gender relations occur here and they are pivotal to the rest of the Biblical story of gender. First is the creation order and the way man and woman are created. God creates man from the dust of the ground….

then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed.(Genesis 2:7-8)

God creates man first and then puts him into the garden that God Himself has planted. After God creates man, He created woman, not from the dust of the earth but from the man….

Then the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” Now out of the ground the LORD God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said,
“This at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called Woman,
because she was taken out of Man.” (Genesis 2:18-23)

Adam was made intentionally incomplete so woman was made as a helper for him, a helper that was different and, to borrow from that great theologian Jerry Mcguire, in doing so He completed Adam. As the New Testament will later affirm, God made woman for man, not man for woman (1 Cor 11:9 ). The order here is not an accident as we will see later in the New Testament. God created man and then woman and made woman for man and not the other way around.

That was the first part of the story, what comes next explains an awful lot of what we see around us and also gives us an important milestone in gender relationships. The fall is the most important even in the Bible until the cross. As we know, God decreed that they could eat anything they wanted in the entire garden, with one exception:

The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” (Genesis 2:15-17)

There is something vitally important to note here. This command occurs in Genesis 2: 15-17, before God creates woman. So how did the woman know not to eat of the tree? Her husband Adam must have told her. God saw fit to reveal this commandment to the man He created and then created a woman, who was bound by the same rule. Everyone knows what happens next….

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. (Genesis 3:1-7)

God left it to Adam to lead in the first family of man and to instruct his wife to not eat of the tree. As far as the Bible records, God never specifically spoke this warning to Eve, only to Adam who then passed it on to Eve. Eve in turn was deceived by the serpent and Adam took of the fruit given to him by Eve and they both ate.

And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.” He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” (Genesis 3:8-13)

God calls out to the man and converses with him until Adam attempts to throw Eve under the bus.

Their disobedience of course displeases God (although it did not surprise Him) and God proclaims the curse but also the promise:

To the woman he said, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.”

And to Adam he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”(Genesis 3:16-19)

It is important at this point to say that there is blame for both Adam and Eve here but the way it is laid out is instructive. God chastises Eve for listening to the serpent and then He chastises Adam for listening to his wife instead of God. God doesn't mention the serpent at all when speaking to Adam. I think what we are seeing here is the first example of a man failing to exercise headship over his wife. Adam should have told his wife not to eat the fruit and refused to eat it himself. He did not and the rest of human history unfolds the way it does because of that failure to lead on the part of Adam.

So the curse is two-fold. First for the woman God is angered because she listened to the serpent instead of her husband and as a result childbirth will be painful and her husband will rule over her and she will desire him. This curse is still in effect (unless you want to argue that child birth is no longer painful). For the man, God is angry that he listened to Eve instead of God. As a result man is cursed to struggle to coax food from the ground. No longer will food be readily available but it will require the sweat of his brow to obtain.

Is this just a description of an event? Clearly not because the ramifications of this event run throughout the Bible. The order of creation, the means of creation, the events of the Fall and the curse are every bit as applicable to the way we look at families and the church as the doctrine of sin is to the way we understand humanity and the cross. God is not merely observing that child birth is going to hurt and that women will be ruled by their husbands and that men will coax food from the ground by the sweat of their brow, He is decreeing it. Note He says “I will multiply your pain” not “I happened to notice that child birth is painful”. He says “because you listened to your wife” that the ground is cursed. Is Genesis 3 merely descriptive? Not hardly.

I think I could stop here and move on to the New Testament but there is a lot more to cover. Because of the size and scope of the Old Testament and the nature of a blog, this is going to be something of an overview rather than an in-depth examination.

It is an undeniable fact that God primarily used men, flawed men for certain but men nonetheless, as His prophets and the leaders of His people in the Old Testament. God made His covenant with Abram, not Sarai. God commanded Noah to build the ark, not Noah's wife. God used Moses to lead His people out of Egypt, not Miriam. God made David the King, not his wives. God revealed the coming of His New Covenant to Jeremiah and used Isaiah to prophesy of the Suffering Servant, the Prince of Peace. Samuel, Aaron, Elijah, Malachi, Nehemiah, Ezekiel, Amos, on and on, God is often described (and describes Himself) as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. God used men as His primary vessel for revelation. That is irrefutable.

That doesn’t of course mean that God never used women in the Old Testament, just that He primarily, normally and overwhelmingly, used men as prophets, priests and kings and that women often functioned and served differently. As one example, when God proclaimed judgment on His people, one of the condemnations was especially pertinent to this conversation:

My people—infants are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, your guides mislead you and they have swallowed up the course of your paths. (Isaiah 3:12)

It doesn’t sound as if God was too keen on men abdicating their leadership to women. I imagine He looks at the general passivity of men in the church and is similarly displeased when men step aside and leave their responsibilities to their wives. This leadership role is not one that is reserved to the corporate “people” which under the Old Covenant would be the Jewish nation and under the New Covenant would be Jew and gentile alike who have been regenerated and adopted into the family of God. It is also something we see in the family. Fathers are called to pass on the teachings of God to their children (Psalm 78: 5; Joshua 4: 21-24). Fathers were called to slaughter the Passover lamb in Egypt (Exodus 12:3) on behalf of their family. From start to finish the Old Testament is patriarchal.

Having said that, Christians are under the New Covenant so the question at hand: does the New Testament perpetuate the patriarchy system or overturn it? I will argue that not only does it not overturn it, it actually is even more overt.

Next up the New Testament…

Some good conversation on patriarchy

Alan Knox linked to my first two posts on patriarchy and there is an interesting discussion brewing you should check out. I am hopeful that some of that conversation will find its way over here!

There is also are some not so helpful comments, specifically the first two that make the predictable and slanderous link between patriarchy and spousal abuse, child abuse, sex trafficking of children, abortion and incest. Seriously. I half expect to find the police at my house when I get home because if I hold to patriarchy I must be some sort of monstrous abuser of women and children. That is odd because I know quite a few people who hold to a variety of patriarchal positions and all of them seem to be nice folks. Who knew that they were involved in human trafficking?

I have seen this sort of linkage before. Some argue against homeschooling because some families that are already abusive use homeschooling as cover, so therefore all homeschooling families are suspect. Case in point, see here. I wonder if women and children are abused in non-patriarchal homes?

Last time I checked, this was still in effect:

“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor." (Exodus 20:16)

Biblical Patriarchy: Defining the Issue

At its most basic, patriarchy is the recognition that God has created men and women with different and complementary roles and that in that glorious design God has called men to servant leadership in the home and in the church. Because of this there are some things that God lays on men as their calling, a calling that is unique to men and not something that can or should be assumed or deferred to women, partly because doing so impedes a woman’s ability to function as God has intended but primarily because God has called men, and men specifically, to these tasks. That means that while there are things that a woman perhaps is able to do, many of those functions are things that they ought not do.

Examining this issue is tough in 2011. For most of western history, this topic was not really in question. Trying to tread lightly here but the egalitarian outcry is something of a modern invention, even in my lifetime. Patriarchy has fallen on hard times and I blame much of that for the culture around us, a culture that has impacted the way the church views this doctrine. For example, look at how the term is commonly defined in our culture. Merriam-Webster defines patriarchy as:

1: social organization marked by the supremacy of the father in the clan or family, the legal dependence of wives and children, and the reckoning of descent and inheritance in the male line; broadly : control by men of a disproportionately large share of power

That definition is faulty for our purposes because it is describing patriarchy in an entirely secular and cultural sense. Note also the subtle negative terminology: “supremacy”, “legal dependence”, “control” and “disproportionately large share of power”. Even in what is on the surface an innocuous definition of an ancient word demonstrates a bias against it. Arguing about the definition of patriarchy as defined and rejected by the prevailing culture is not my goal here.

I am fully capable and perhaps overly willing to attack feminism in our culture but our concern here is not for a political, “culture war” conversation but an examination of Scripture. So for purposes of this study, I am going to try to restrict my argument to the text of Scripture and not throw in examples of the pernicious impact of feminism on our culture. Oops, see how easy that was!

From a Scriptural sense, patriarchy as I said above is a recognition that God intentionally, purposefully and for His own gory created men and women differently and in a complementary manner so that men and women are necessarily incomplete. As a result and for His own glory in Creation God from the very beginning of the Bible and throughout the Old and New Testaments and under both the Old and New Covenants has called men and women to different functions and restricted men and more often if we are honest women from certain functions in the church and in the home.

So what does that mean? When we step away from books and blogs, how is this lived out? What does it look like? Holding as I do to a non-traditional view of the church means that I see the home/church role distinctions as less distinct and also see the concept of leadership in the church quite differently. I don’t see elders as men selected from the local body to make all of the decisions, decisions that everyone else just needs to suck it up and obey. Elders in the local church, as I see them and believe the Bible depicts them, are men who have demonstrated wisdom and humility over time through service and the manner of their lives. The local church turns to these men for leadership because they have already demonstrated by their lives that they are men to be followed and deferred to, not because of the title they hold but because of the life they live.

To put it more simply, we follow men who are elders because they have demonstrated that we should emulate them and respect their maturity, not because simply because of the title they hold or even worse because they have been hired for the task. When decisions are made in the church, they should be made by consensus but deference should be given to those who are elders because by definition they are men we should imitate and respect for their maturity. That doesn’t mean that women have no voice or cannot serve but it manifests itself differently (more on this in the post on the New Testament evidence for patriarchy). All Christians are equal in the eyes of Christ and all should serve but not all are recognized as elders. As Paul eloquently wrote in Romans 12: 4-8 and 1 Corinthians 12: 14-26, the church is made up of different and complementary parts. A foot doesn’t act like an ear and a wrist doesn’t act like a nose but all of them work in different ways and are necessary for a healthy body Likewise in the church we function in different ways but all work together when the Body is healthy. God has called men to lead in general and more specifically to functions like teaching and equipping other men, something that is specifically prohibited to women (who are called to a similar function with children and other women) Again, more on this in a later post.

In the home, patriarchy is more overt. The Bible is quite clear about the roles and relationships in the family and it is even more obvious in the New Testament than the Old, which seems counter-intuitive. What is most important here is that God calls fathers to lead in the family by working to support his family and by teaching his children. That is not something that can be deferred to wives. I know there are some people who operate their family differently and I don’t condemn them for that but that doesn’t change what I believe is the best and the intended roles within the family.

I recognize that there are lots of assertions in this post and not much Scripture, that is intentional. The next two posts will look at the Scriptural basis for these sweeping assertions because that is where we separate opinion from doctrine.

Biblical Patriarchy: Introduction

In Defense of Patriarchy

I have a confession to make. Make sure you are sitting down.

I am an unabashed, unapologetic and frankly enthusiastic advocate for patriarchy.

That admission is one that is frowned upon in many Christian circles, especially in those I find myself running in more these days. Patriarchy, while a perfectly good word, has been hijacked to become a pejorative term to describe some sort of perversion of the doctrine, a sort of religious Archie Bunker that is an ogre and tyrant who abuses his wife and family while sitting around the house in a stained undershirt watching the ballgame. Even many of those who would hold to a patriarchal position avoid the term because it has been hijacked by those who oppose the position. For purposes of this brief blog series I will use patriarchy, male headship and complementarianism as synonymous although I will tend to use patriarchy more often if for no other reason than it annoys people.

At the outset, there are a few things I need to say. My position on this topic is not one that I seek to use to break fellowship with other believers over. I recognize that not everyone is convinced as I am regarding this position and that while I advocate for this stance, I try not to disparage those who differ. There are grades and shades to this issue and I have yet to meet the person who embodies a perfect relationship between the genders so I have no interest in slandering brothers and sisters who come down on this position differently than I do. Unfortunately I find that is not always reciprocated. While some people, like Bobby Auner, are honestly and humbly thinking through their position in a helpful way, there are a troubling number of voices that not only don't hold to this position, they actively seek to undermine patriarchy and in doing so go beyond making their case from Scripture and instead make spurious claims and personal attacks. You don't have to look very far to find people who make dubious links between male headship and spousal/child abuse, whether of spiritual nature or more disturbing physical and or sexual abuse. I also find that there aren’t many voices that advocate for patriarchy among the simple church crowd, so I am merely putting forth my position as an alternate voice. A monopoly view on a position is every bit as myopic in the simple church as it is in the institutional church and I have written before about my concerns with throwing the baby out with the institutional bathwater.

A lot of people who come across my blog are those who are seeking a simpler, more Biblically based model of the church gathering whether you call that house church, organic church, simple church or some other manifestation of that idea. Within this movement, full of wonderful people that I love there are many who hold to a non-complementarian/patriarchal view of gender and some do so with a great deal of vigor. My intent is to provide a counter-view, one that says that there is nothing whatsoever incompatible with a simple/organic/house church model that also embraces Biblical male headship and gender roles. I am going to try to keep my tone positive and focus on why I hold to this position without slandering or attacking those who don't and I would ask you to keep that in mind when you comment.

Another important clarification. Issues of gender and their relative relations in the home and church need to be understood as functional, not positional. What that means is that positionally all Christians are in Christ, all saved the same way and all equally children of God by adoption. By functionally what I mean is that we do not all function the same way. Case in point, I don't bear children. That doesn't mean that I am getting the short end of the stick because believe me I don't want to bear children but it does mean that we function differently and we do so purposefully. God made men and women wonderfully and intentionally different and complementary and that makes life a lot more interesting!

My plan is to post a series including an attempt to define the issue at hand and then start with a post looking at gender and patriarchy in the Old Testament, one looking at the same topic in the New Testament, a response to common objections, and a summary of what I believe the Bible teaches. I of course reserve the right to add to that list depending on the direction my thoughts progress and the comments take us.

Note on commenting:

If you want to jump into the conversation, I would certainly encourage you to do so! I would however ask a couple of things from you. I am very interested in what you have to say on this topic but I am not terrible interested in a giant “cut and paste” of something someone else wrote or just pasting hyperlinks to something someone else wrote. As I work through this topic, I would encourage you to do so as well. Certainly there is an abundance of useful material on the web that runs the gamut of positions on this topic but I am more interested in interacting with you and not with what someone else wrote that you are quoting. I am taking the unusual step of saying up front that comments that consist primarily of something you copied and pasted from elsewhere or just a hyperlink will be rejected in moderation. If you happen to read this and have published a book on the topic, that is great but saying “I addressed this in my book” is likewise not adding to the conversation. Dueling hyperlinks, “buy my book” or “cutting and pasting” is not permitted. Period. Otherwise the floor here will be open as always.