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How
were man and woman supposed to relate to each other before sin ruined things?
What did manhood and womanhood look like before sin distorted them into what
we see today?
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Part
of the answer is that man and woman were created in the image of God as male
and female and that they are to enjoy equality of personhood, equality of
dignity, mutual respect, harmony, complementarity, and a unified destiny. But ….this
is only part of the answer.
Do Men and Women Have Unique
Responsibilities?
1.
Within the
equality of personhood and the equality of dignity might there not be some
special responsibilities that man has because he is man and that woman has
because she is woman?
2.
In showing
mutual respect and care, might there not be some special ways that a man is to
respect a woman and special ways that a woman is to respect a man?
3.
Does equality
of personhood and mutuality of respect demand sameness of responsibilities or
even equal access to all responsibilities?
4.
Or did God
intend from the beginning that our equality be expressed differently in the way
we relate to each other as man and woman?
We
shall try to find out
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what the Bible
teaches about this matter of diversity and complementarity.
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and we will
look at the biblical description of manhood and womanhood as God intended them
to be before sin ruined things.
Genesis
1 and 2
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In Genesis 1
Moses tells us how God sovereignly created all things out of nothing and put
them together in an orderly way so that everything serves man.
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Then God
creates man as male and female in his own image, and declares that everything
is very good.
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Genesis 1 both
are created in the image of God.
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Chapter 2
calls for the question: how are manhood and womanhood different?
In
the New Testament Jesus and Paul, when they use the Old Testament to answer
questions about how man and woman should relate to each other, go back to what
things were supposed to be like before the fall. They don't take the messed up
relationships of Genesis 3 and make them normative. They come back to Genesis 2
and talk about how it should have been from the beginning.
Four
observations that begin to answer the question of whether man and woman, in
their equality of personhood, are supposed to have some different
responsibilities.
1. The Man Is Created First-Genesis 2
In
1 Timothy 2:13 the apostle Paul simply says, "Adam was formed first, then
Eve." Why This Order?
- Now why did God create man and woman in this
way? Why did he not create them both simultaneously from the same lump of
clay? Would that not have established their equality of personhood more
clearly? The answer is that he had already established that beyond all
doubt in Genesis 1:27 where it says that both were created in his image.
- The apostle Paul, who was inspired by the Holy
Spirit in his handling of the Scripture did see significance in the man
being created first (1 Timothy 2:13). We do well not to say there is no
meaning in something where an inspired apostle finds significant meaning.
So
the first observation is very significant: man was created first, then the
woman.
2. The Man Is Given the Moral Pattern
- Before woman was created, God came to man in
verse 16 and said, "You may freely 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 die."
- Adam is entrusted with the moral pattern of the
garden and with the primary responsibility of sharing it with Eve and
being accountable for it.
3. The Man Is Interrogated First
- Even though the woman had eaten the forbidden
fruit first, God came to Adam first, not Eve, to hold him accountable for
the failure to live by the pattern he had given.
- Verse 9: "But the Lord God called to the
man, and said to him, 'Where are you?'" Adam, where are you? Verse 11
(still interrogating Adam first): "Who told you that you were naked?
Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?"
- Adam was held Primarily Accountable.
1.
Why would God
come to the man first, and call him to give and account instead of going to the
woman first, especially since she ate the fruit first? The most natural answer
is that God gave to the man a primary responsibility for the moral life of the
garden and therefore man has a primary accountability for the failure to live
by it.
2.
Make no
mistake: God does hold the woman accountable for her actions. She is a
personal, morally accountable being in the very image of God. And what man does
or fails to do relieves her of no personal, individual responsibility to know
and to obey God.
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A
Christian man is obligated to lead his family to the best of his ability . .
. greatest need is for husbands to begin guiding their families…
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God
called him to account first for the failure of disobedience. Therefore even
though man and woman bear equal individual responsibility before God for their
own obedience (that's what it means to be created in his image), nevertheless
in relationship to each other man bears a greater responsibility for leadership
than woman does.
This
is the way God meant it to be before there was any sin in the world:
1.
sinless man,
full of love, in his tender, strong, moral leadership in relation to woman;
2.
and sinless
woman, full of love, in her joyful, responsive support for man's leadership.
3.
No belittling
from the man, no grovelling from the woman.
4.
Two
intelligent, humble, God-entranced beings living out, in beautiful harmony,
their unique and different responsibilities.
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Now Satan
knows that this is a beautiful arrangement.
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He knows that
God's pattern of life is designed for man's good.
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But Satan hates
God and he hates man.
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He is a liar
and a killer from the beginning. And so what does he do?
4. Satan Attacks
the Woman First
Satan assaults
God's pattern by attacking the woman instead of the man. If God means for man to
bear special responsibility for leadership in the garden, then Satan will do
what he can to destroy that pattern.
1.
Why did he
approach the woman in Genesis 3:1?
2.
Why did he
draw her into discussion first and make her the spokesman for the couple?
3.
Why did he
lure her into being the moral guardian of the garden?
4.
Was it because
she was easier prey? Is woman more gullible than man?
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Or
could the answer be: Satan drew the woman in first, and made her the
spokesman and the moral guardian, because that is exactly what should not
have been done?
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In other words Satan spurns the order
that God has established and simply ignores the man and takes up his subtle
battle with the woman. And in doing that, he makes man into exactly what he
wants him to be: a silent, withdrawn, weak, fearful, passive wimp.
And
Satan says, "Now I have created such a confusion of roles they will never
sort this out, and they will never get to the root of the problem."
But
in Genesis 3:17 God goes right to the root of the problem. He says to the man,
"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
other words, "Adam, you were listening when you should have been
leading." God is not confused about what Satan did.
And
he doesn't want us to be confused either.
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He created man
first; he gave him the moral pattern of the garden first;
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he held him
accountable for failure first;
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and he
punished him for falling right in line with God's archenemy when Satan lured
man and woman into a great role reversal at the fall.
What
Should We Do?
This
is not a call to exalt yourself over any woman. This is not a call to domineer,
or belittle, or to put woman in her place. She is, after all, a fellow heir of
God. This is a call to stoop down and to
take the responsibility to be a leader—a servant leader in the various ways
that are appropriate to every different relationship to women.
It's
a call to men
1.
to pray like never
before for help in this tremendous responsibility;
2.
to be in the Word more than we ever have been to
know what God expects;
3.
to plan
and be intentional and thoughtful.
4.
to be
disciplined and ordered in our lives;
5.
to be
tender-hearted and sensitive;
6.
to take the
initiative
7.
to be ready to
lay down our lives in discharging this responsibility to be the leaders God is
calling us to be.
