Lately I have been absolutely stunned at the relevance of the book of Genesis in every day life. We have seen that Genesis gives us a proper view of the environment and this week’s big news is the bill that President Obama wants to run through Congress that would amount to the single greatest tax increase in US history. If our legislators would follow the Biblical model this would never happen. Last week we saw how Genesis relates to adultery and sexual sin only to have yet another governor admit to an adulterous affair a few days later. Two weeks ago we tackled the topic of marriage and homosexuality which are in the news nearly every day. And of course the creation-evolution debate also rages about us on a daily basis—from elementary schools to PhD programs to talking heads on the evening news. Furthermore, we have examined how Genesis teaches about the character of God and his sovereign plan for the world. We have seen the first recorded words of Jesus and the foundations for the gospel of Christ. I must confess that this study in Genesis has been more interesting and more applicable than I imagined.

This morning I want to revisit the last two week’s subjects of marriage homosexuality and sexual sin, but go even deeper. There is something that underlies all of these things—the genesis of Gender. God not only created man as male and female, but he also created specific roles for both genders. If we could understand and follow the Creator’s pattern for gender, sexual sin would disappear, domestic violence would be unheard of and our marriages and families would be strong. The genesis of gender doesn’t only affect whether or not I marry a man or a woman, it is the foundation for every relationship in marriage, the family and society.

To start us off, I want to relate some humorous observations on men and women from a Christian book on the topic.

Is it a cat? Is it a woman? Maybe it's both! Why?

1. They do what they want.

2. They rarely listen to you.

3. They're totally unpredictable.

4. They whine when they are not happy.

5. When you want to play, they want to be alone.

6. When you want to be alone, they want to play.

7. They expect you to cater to their every whim.

8. They're moody.

9. They can drive you nuts and cost you an arm and a leg.

10. They leave hair everywhere.

Conclusion: Cats are tiny little women in fur coats.

Is it a dog? Is it a man? Maybe it's both! Why?

1. They lie around all day, sprawled out on the most comfortable piece of furniture in the house.

2. They can hear a package of food opening half a block away, but they can't hear you even when you're in the same room.

3. They leave their toys everywhere.

4. They growl when they are not happy.

5. When you want to play, they want to play.

6. When you want to be left alone, they still want to play.

7. They are great at begging.

8. They will love you forever if you feed them and rub their tummies.

9. They do disgusting things with their mouths and then try to give you a kiss.

10. They can look dumb and lovable all at the same time.

Conclusion: Dogs are tiny little men in fur coats. [i]

Why do we laugh at lists like these? We laugh because we see the truth contained within the humor. These two lists were not intended to demean women or men, but to illustrate the natural differences between the two genders. But we live in a society where these natural, God-created differences are increasingly mocked, denied and where people pretend they do not exist. The walls between male and female are being torn down as we speak.

My premise is that not only did God create gender—a fact that I hope no one here would dispute—but God also created men and women with different roles. God gave men the responsibility and role of headship. Men and women are absolutely equal in their essential value and worth. Both are equally created in the image of God, but they have distinct and different roles to play in God’s economy. God has established an authority structure that has placed men in the leadership role. A secular feminist is as likely to agree with male leadership as a secular scientist would agree to divine creation—it just ain’t gonna happen. Feminists absolutely hate the belief in male headship. Sometimes called patriarchy, feminists believe that patriarchy is the greatest of all possible evils and is responsible for all of society’s problems. For a feminist, the elimination of patriarchy means their salvation and liberation.

As with many things, even the church is following the example of the surrounding culture and has adopted what is called “evangelical feminism.” In many ways evangelical feminism is more dangerous than in-your-face secular feminism because the man-hating type of feminism is easy to spot. On the other hand, evangelical feminism still espouses feminist ideologies but is disguised in Christian clothes. Did God create male and female with their essential equality and differences, or is the only difference between men and women and boys and girls the fact that men have wielded the power for thousands of years and have systematically oppressed women? Did gender begin in the book of Genesis or not? I believe that Scripture teaches the genesis of gender and the genesis of specific roles of authority for men and women.

Over the next two messages I will be giving you ten reasons why male leadership is an inherent part of male-female equality. The outline I will be using is taken from a book called Evangelical Feminism and Biblical Truth by Wayne Grudem. [ii] I don’t think I have ever used someone else’s outline for s sermon, but since this one is so good and I didn’t think I could improve upon it, so I decided to use it this morning. The ten points of the outline are from the book but the rest is my own. Most of these will come straight out of Genesis, but the first one is an exception.

1. The parallel with the Trinity: The equality, differences and unity between men and women reflect the equality, differences and unity in the Trinity. The key verse is 1 Cor. 11:3. Now I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God. Every Christian would agree with the first phrase—the head of every man is Christ. This is a necessary part of what to means to be a Christian—Christ is our ultimate authority and we must live in humble submission to him. The next phrase is the real barn burner—the head of the woman is man. But before we tackle this phrase, look at the last one—the head of Christ is God. Do you agree with this phrase? Is Jesus Christ submissive to the Father? Jesus said that he always did what pleased the Father and that his whole purpose for taking on human form, dying on the cross and rising from the dead was to do the will of his Father.  If I had time I could show you that Jesus always lived his life is submission to the Father. But is Jesus equal to the Father? Jesus is fully divine in every way. Jesus is the eternal, creator and Savior of mankind, so yes, he is fully equal to the Father. We could say that he is equal in essence, that his essential value and worth is equal to the Father, but at the same time, Jesus takes a subordinate role to the Father. He is equal in essence but subordinate in his role. Is that clear? Anyone have a problem with that?

Once we understand the third phrase we can go back to the second—the head of the woman is man. Does this make more sense now? In the same way that the Jesus is equal to the Father but subordinate in role, women are equal in the essential value and worth but were created to be subordinate in their role as women. It is extremely important that we state very clearly from the start—men and women are completely equal in their worth and dignity. Do not let anyone ever tell you differently, but the problem is that we confuse essence with role. Many believe that if one person is in any way submissive to another person, this is wrong and the foundation for oppression. The sticky part of this belief is the fact that there are a million examples of abusive leadership and the sinful oppression of women at the hands of men. Let me ask you a question. If a man abuses a woman, do you think that man believes the woman is of equal worth to him? Absolutely not! Do you see, any abusive relationship or distortion of this doctrine of male headship does not err at the point of subordinate roles for woman but the inferior worth of women. If a man affirms the equal worth of a woman, he could not even conceive of abusing or harming her. In fact, properly understood, male headship is the very best way to protect and love women, not the other way around.

There are abundant examples of relationships where there is equality in essence but subordination in role. Parents and children is a prominent example. We would agree that children are submissive to their parents but they are fully equal in value and worth. I am not suggesting that a husband wife relationship is the same as a parent child relationship, but the issue of roles of authority is the same. What can go wrong in the parent-child relationship? Things can go bad on the parent end—they can either be too permissive or to harsh, but either extreme is an abdication of their God-assigned role. Things can break down on the child end—when a child rebels against his or her parent’s authority, they are violating their God-assigned role.

Let me give you another example. How many of you have ever had a job? How many of you had some sort of boss in your job? Did your boss have authority over you? Were you subordinate in your role? Because you submitted to your boss, did this in any way diminish your essential worth? No, it did not. One of our countries greatest sins was to declare in Article One of our Constitution that blacks were only 3/5^ths of a person.[iii] It’s a deplorable thought that we officially labeled blacks as 40% less valuable, less worthy than light-skinned people. This is what happens when you diminish the essential value of another human being. But it is not only possible, but it is God’s foundation in creation that men and women live in equality of essence and subordination of roles. The employer-employee relationship tells us this is true, the parent-child relationship tells us this is true, and most importantly, the relationships among the Trinity tell us this is true.

I have shown you what happens when we change the equality of essence between men and women—the result is abuse, oppression, domination and violence. The logical conclusion of this devaluing of women is pornography, prostitution, divorce, slavery, rape, abortion, lesbianism, murder, etc. This is an ugly list and these are all things that Christians should be adamantly opposed to, but each of them begins with a devaluing of the essential value of women. All of these societal and moral evils start with a corruption of Creation in Genesis. We haven’t even arrived at the Fall in chapter three and we already can see the effect of rebellion from divine Creation.

We can clearly see what happens when we change the value between men and women but it is not always as obvious what happens when we change roles between them. One of the results is evangelical feminism and liberal theology. There is an organization called Christians for Biblical Equality (CBE). On the surface it sounds good, after all, who isn’t in favor of equality, but the name disguise a serious problem. They essentially hold to evangelical doctrine, but they have concluded that Christians have been misreading the Bible for two-thousand years and that God really did not create any gender differences at all. Every place in the Bible that indicates a difference in created gender roles, people from CBE have some kind of explanation as to why these differences do not actually exist. This group actively promotes what is known as evangelical feminism. All of the following quotes are either from staff members of the CBE or from authors endorsed by CBE.

I think that if you want to in your personal devotions address God as ‘Mother’ I don’t have a problem with that.[iv]

I believe it is important to call God, ‘Mother’ as well as ‘Father’ in public worship.[v]

…there is a good Biblical reason, then, to speak of God as both Father and Mother, both ‘she’ and ‘he’.[vi]

God, our Mother, we thank you that you love us so much to want the best for us. Thank you for trusting us enough to let us do things on our own…Stay near to us and help us to become all that we can be. Amen.[vii]  

We must resist the implication that God is masculine or that Scripture sanctions patriarchy. We may speak of God as Father or as Mother.[viii] (President of CBE)

Do you see how quickly evangelical feminism can denigrate into pagan goddess worship by calling God our mother? But even worse than this is the fact that in order to remove all of the verses on male headship (the rest of which we will cover next week) you end up slicing and dicing the Scriptures leading to the beginning of theological liberalism.

To make sure we get a female perspective on this issue, listen to Mary Kassian, seminary professor, author, wife and mother.

In order to introduce feminist concepts into Christianity, basic beliefs regarding the doctrines of God, man, the church, and the inspiration and authority of the Bible need to be adjusted. Evangelical Christians who accept feminist precepts may appear very close in doctrine and theology to those who do not; but, should they follow feminist precepts to their logical conclusions, the process of time will see them end at a destination far from Evangelicalism. Just like the snow that lies side by side, these two current philosophies of Evangelicalism will melt and flow into separate valleys, rivers, and finally into distant oceans, thousands of miles apart.[ix]

In other words, if we laid our statement of faith next to theirs, we might appear to be in complete agreement, but when you allow for what seems like a small change in our view of gender roles, the logical conclusion is that down the road we will remain evangelicals and they will succumb to theological liberalism.

Evangelical feminism obviously supports the right for women to be ordained as pastors, but this opens up more cans of worms, because EVERY church that has ordained or is moving toward ordaining homosexuals has first voted to ordain women (but not every church that ordains women has ordained homosexuals). Therefore, ordaining women is a necessary cause (i.e. it must be in place) but not a sufficient cause (i.e. it is guaranteed to happen) of ordaining homosexuals.

Albert Mohler writes about this trajectory toward liberalism.

The arguments used in support of the ordination of women require the dismissal or "reinterpretation" of specific biblical texts which disallow women in the teaching office. The same is true of arguments for the ordination of divorced persons--and for homosexuals. I am not accusing all proponents of women's ordination of supporting the ordination of homosexuals. But I am insisting that the basic hermeneutical approach (method of interpreting the Scriptures) behind these arguments has a common core--a relativizing of prohibitive biblical texts in the name of "liberation," whether of women, or divorced persons, or homosexuals.[x]

We get into big trouble if we diminish either the equal worth of women or the different roles between men and women. I think Mohler is implying that if we attempt to “free” ourselves of Biblical constraints we also “free” ourselves of its salvation. If the Bible can mean whatever we want it to mean, then we lose Christ in the process because we explain him away. 

I have ten points in this outline and I only got through the first point. Next week I promise to move more quickly, but I wanted to spend time assuring you of the full equality of women before we look more deeply at their different roles. Moreover, Christ is our chief example of one who though he has equal worth to the Father, has and will be eternally subordinate to him.

In closing, let me leave with a few challenges.

Husbands, are you treating your wives with their full worth and dignity or do you ever treat them like objects or a hired hand?

Children, how do you treat your mom? Do you show proper respect to her?

Brothers, how do you treat your sisters? They are little women and how you treat them will lay a foundation for how you treat all women in the future.

Rich Maurer

June 28, 2009