Gender Neutral, Gender Equity, Pay Equality, Sex Discrimination, Marriage, Bruce Jenner – what do these things have in common? They have all been manipulated, confused, diluted and abused to curry political favor and distract from what God has put in place as the wholesome normative for His creation.
As you read, you will see more scripture from God’s Word than a typical blog, because if you believe that He is and that God is Who He says He is, then His Word should be the final say on gender roles in this world.
Let me first make an observation. Men and women are different – VERY different! We are not the same. We don’t even work the same. Gen 1:27-28 – “God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them; and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’”
We have a responsibility. As humans we have a responsibility just from these two verses. To be male and female. To be mother and father. To be husband and wife. To procreate and be fruitful and multiply. Just from these two verses, there is no “equity/equality” between a man and a woman. What should be between a man and a woman is the worship of their Creator.
I am always confused about a world that wants to promote diversity while demanding some warped sense of sameness between the sexes. We are different for a reason, a very godly reason, for His purpose. My wife completes me because she is different. I can’t do what she does and vice versa. We have two sons because we are different and blessed to be able to fulfill God’s desire for why He made us.
There is nothing I have seen in God’s Word which would limit a woman in her ability or potential. The Proverbs 31 woman is a successful business woman who is in real estate and designs and sells clothing accessories and ensures her family is admired in the community. My own wife is one of my most important accountability partners. I love her so much I am usually prevented from doing things I might normally do out of impulse for fear of disappointing or upsetting her.
Eph 5: 22-31 –”Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body. But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church fnin all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless. So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, because we are members of His body. FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND SHALL BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH.”
I am a boy, so I fully admit I have some difficulty in understanding exactly what these verses are saying to girls. However, I have no doubt what it is saying to me. My wife is to be a girl. My wife is to be a Christian who loves The Lord. I should love her so much I am willing to die for her. I am supposed to die to self for her joy and to point her to Christ, as well as literally be willing to die for her. I do not demand my wife submit to my authority. How she approaches that gender-appropriate role is between her and Christ.
These verses also clearly identify my father and mother as being a man and a woman. They also clearly describe a man and a woman being one together. The way a man and a woman become one flesh is through birth of a child. That child is literally the “one flesh” from the two of them.
This is not a blog to debate barren wombs or blended families or any of those issues. My motivation in this era of removing gender signs from restrooms is to encourage us to celebrate the fact that God created us male and female. We are different for a reason, a specific and beautiful reason.
Nobody I know believes that a man or a woman should earn less than the other for the same job. Today, men can be nurses and women can be doctors. That is wonderful! We should also realize there are things only men can do and things only women can do, because that is how we are fearfully and wonderfully made.
Romans 1 speaks to how God will give people over to their unnatural desires. When people chase the confused desires of their heart instead of the Creator of their heart, they usually end up someplace they were never meant to be. Equality comes from the love of God for His creation and those who pursue Him and the fact we are all members in the Body of Christ.