The Inverse statement on Biblical Womanhood and Manhood

(Guest post by LaCigol. Guest posts are not the opinion of the blog owner.)

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1) Creation, masculinity and femininity

1.1 Male neediness of a woman is not because of the fall, but God-ordained. A world without women was called “not good” (Gen 2:18) while the same was never said of a world without men.

1.2 God makes man from dust, (Gen 2:7) and turns the dust into something higher. God makes woman from man, (Gen 2:22) and turns the man into something higher.

1.3 Eve is called a helper,(Gen 2:18,20) as God is called the helper (Deu 33:7; Ps 33:20) of needy men. Strength, aide, rescuer, and strong ally are other ways to understand the word helper. This denotes that woman is superior to man as God is superior to him.

1.4 Eve sins by deception (1 Ti 2:14), while Adam is the deliberate sinner (1 Ti 2:14; Rom 5:14-19). God has mercy on non-deliberate sin (1 Ti 1:13), but the world is cursed and sin enters it through Adam (Gen 3:17; Rom 5:15-19), with his deliberate sin.

1.5 This sin introduced distortions in the male/female relationship:

1.5.1 In marriage, the humble, thankful submission of man to his strong benefactor, the woman, is replaced by a desire to rule over her.(Gen 3:16) And the wife’s intelligent, willing strength (Proverbs 31) is replaced with a doormat attitude or domination.

1.5.1 In the church, sin inclines men to love power and usurp women’s godly roles of strength and leadership. (Matt. 20:25) Sin inclines both genders to be passive and leave their own roles unfulfilled.

2) Biblical manhood and womanhood – the outworking of this in Scripture

2.1 God has given spiritual authority to crush Satan to Eve and her offspring, but not to Adam. (Gen 3:15) Satan did not lose the battle in the old Testament, when some forms of service in the church was restricted to males(Lev 6:29, 7:6), but only in the new Testament (Rom 16:20; Rev 20:10) with it’s priesthood of believers (1Pe 2:9), including female believers.

2.2 Both Old and New Testaments affirm the dispensability of men, and the indispensability of women. Examples was God sending Adam from the garden, not Eve as the Lord still wanted her(Gen 3:23); God’s asking for the sacrifice of male lambs – not female – for sacrifices, as he knew the value of females to the stock(Ex 34:19); calling men to battles where they may be killed and very seldom calling woman; giving the death penalty for male homosexual acts and not female(Lev 18:22); Jesus having a female, but not a male human as parent(Mat 1:18-20); all of Jesus’ harshest sayings being aimed at men (for example Mat 3:7 and Mat 23:13-29); Jesus (male) dies because God loves the church he calls his bride (female)(Joh 3:16, 3:29). The sacrificial love of Christ for his bride is a love men should mirror, for their wives. (Eph 5:25)

2.3 The sinful nature we all share enters a child through the male gene.(Rom 5:15-19) Jesus was sinless,(2Co 5:21) as he only had a female human parent.(Matt 1:20) This extends to the church, where sin enters through having male spiritual leaders. It also extends to the home, which is why people are blamed in scripture for listening to their fathers. (Luk 11:48; 1 Pe 1:18)

2.4 The first apostles (the requirements for an apostle being someone who saw Jesus, and received a commission from Him) was Mary Magdalene and other women(Mat28:7), called to tell the disciples that He has risen. Likewise, the female apostle Junia in the Bible is called “of note” or “outstanding”.(Rom. 16:7)

2.5 Wisdom is feminine(Pro 1:20), which is another reason why God desires female leadership in the home (Gen 21:12b), church (Luk. 2:36-38, Rom 16:1-2, Rom 16:7), and public (Jdg 4:4) spheres.

2.6 Both genders are the image (Gen 1:26-27) and glory (Ps. 8:5, 2Co 3:18) of God, but women have a double portion of glory. She is not only God’s glory, but also man’s.(1Co 11:7) This gives men the responsibility of giving glory to their wives.

2.7 While men are called to love their wifes with a Christlike, perfect love (Eph 5:25), the bible does not directly tell wifes to love husbands. It only tells older women – those whose passion may have waned through the years – to indirectly tell the younger ones to do so, (Tit 2:4) and then without any strong words about this love having to be Christlike.

2.8 Being a servant makes you great in the Bible. (Mat 20:27; 23:11, Mar 10:44, ) As women are more often made to follow servanthood roles, it follows that women are greater than men.

2.9 Receiving children in God’s name is a way to receive Christ.(Mat 18:5) As the majority of people who spend time with children are women, woman often receive Christ in that way. Motherhood is also a route to salvation,(1Tim 2:15) while fatherhood is not.

2.10 In short, from man alone not being good in Genesis 2, up to the last chapter of Revelation which calls the church the bride, (Rev. 22:17) the moral, spiritual, and relational superiority of women is affirmed all through scripture. This superiority does not affect the equality of the inheritance of salvation that both male and female believers receive in Christ. (Gal 3:28)

3) Biblical manhood and womanhood – the outworking of this in society

3.1 Following Christ is more important for a woman than raising children successfully (Luk 11:27-28) It is also more important than housekeeping. (Luk 10:38-42) Doing battle – both spiritually against Satan, and physical- is ordained by God for women. (Gen 3:15; Jdg 4:9, Eph 6:10-13)

3.2 Higher education is part of the role that God ordained for women, not men. God calls women to learn (1 Ti 2:11) but not to share their learning with men.(1 Ti 2:12) .

3.3 Men, on the other hand, should build a relationship with their children and raise them (Eph 6:4, 1Th 2:11), something which can hardly be done without staying at home with them.

3.4 Even when the man stay at home, the ruling of households is a role given to women, (1 Ti 5:14) and the man, the one who is not good when alone,(Gen 2:18) is second in command to the leadership of his strong rescuer.

3.5 Women are called to be financial providers. (1Ti 5:16 )

3.6 The failures when men try to lead is evident for all to see: Failed and unhappy marriages, male-led churches without God’s power, war and banana republics.

3.7 In a world where men sinfully tied women to tasks not ordained by the Lord, God often had to use males for godly work. Christ’s followers included males. (Luk 8:1-2) Even today, God will sometimes use a man as vessel when a qualified woman is not available.(2Ti 2:21)

3.8 Men should not despair when hearing of the female-centredness of God’s plan, as God also made them in His image,(Gen 1:26-27) and they share equally in the gift of salvation(Gal. 3:28), if they rejoice in and willingly submit to his plans. These plans include the plan of thankfully submitting (Heb 13:17) to their rescuers, both God who rescued them from sin, (Jas 4:7) and women, who rescued them from loneliness (Gen 2:18) and is the enemy of Satan, watching over the souls of men ( Gen 3:15a, Heb 13:17).