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Andreas J. Köstenberger

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Herausgeber: Crossway
Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
Sprache: Englisch

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Equipping a New Generation to Live Out God's Design This thorough study of the Bible's teaching on men and women aims to help a new generation of Christians live for Christ in today's world. Moving beyond other treatments that primarily focus on select passages, this winsome volume traces Scripture's overarching pattern related to male-female relationships in both the Old and New Testaments. Those interested in careful discussion rather than caustic debate will discover that God's design is not confining or discriminatory but beautiful, wise, liberating, and good.

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Leseprobe

GOD’S DESIGN

for

MAN

and

WOMAN

A BIBLICAL-THEOLOGICAL SURVEY

ANDREAS J. KÖSTENBERGER AND MARGARET E. KÖSTENBERGER

God’s Design for Man and Woman: A Biblical-Theological Survey

Published by Crossway

1300 Crescent Street

Wheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law. Crossway® is a registered trademark in the United States of America.

Cover design: Erik Maldre

Cover image: Bridgeman Images

First printing 2014

Printed in the United States of America

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. 2011 Text Edition. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked AT are the authors’ translation.

Scripture references marked NLT are from The Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Ill., 60189. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked TNIV are taken from the Holy Bible, Today’s New International Version. TNIV®. Copyright © 2001, 2005 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

All emphases in Scripture quotations have been added by the author.

Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-4335-3699-1ePub ISBN: 978-1-4335-3702-8PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-3700-4Mobipocket ISBN: 978-1-4335-3701-1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Köstenberger, Andreas J., 1957-

God's design for man and woman : a biblical-theological survey / Andreas J. Köstenberger and Margaret E. Köstenberger.

1 online resource.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed.

ISBN 978-1-4335-3700-4 (pdf) – ISBN 978-1-4335-3701-1 (mobi) – ISBN 978-1-4335-3702-8 (epub) – ISBN 978-1-4335-3699-1 (print)

1. Theological anthropology—Biblical teaching. 2. Theological anthropology—Christianity. 3. Men—Biblical teaching. 4. Man (Christian theology) 5. Women—Biblical teaching. 6. Women—Religious aspects—Christianity. 7. Bible—Criticism, interpretation, etc. I. Title.

BS670.5

233—dc23 2014006418

Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

To our children: Lauren, Tahlia, David, and Timothy We love you!

Cover

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Endorsements

Other books by Andreas and Margaret Köstenberger

Title Page

Dedication

List of Tables

Introduction

1 God’s Original Design and Its Corruption (Genesis 1–3)

2 Patriarchs, Kings, Priests, and Prophets (Old Testament)

3 What Did Jesus Do? (Gospels)

4 What Did the Early Church Do? (Acts)

5 Paul’s Message to the Churches (First Ten Letters)

6 Paul’s Legacy (Letters to Timothy and Titus)

7 The Rest of the Story (Other New Testament Teaching)

8 God’s Design Lived Out Today

Appendix 1 The Three Waves: Women’s History Survey

Appendix 2 The Rules of the Game: Hermeneutics and Biblical Theology

Appendix 3 Proceed with Caution: Special Issues in Interpreting Gender Passages

Helpful Resources

General Index

Scripture Index

Download Study Guide

God Marriage and Family

Back Cover

List of Tables

1.1 Basic Contents of Genesis 1–3

1.2 The Term ādām as a Name for the Human Race in Genesis 1–5

1.3 Does the Term “Helper” in Genesis 2:18, 20 Denote Equality?

1.4 Indications of the Man’s Leadership in Genesis 1–3

1.5 Role Reversal at the Fall

1.6 Satan’s Deception of the Woman

1.7 The Serpent’s Strategy (Gen. 3:1–5)

1.8 The Woman’s Misrepresentation

1.9 Parallels between Genesis 3:16 and 4:7

1.10 Departures from God’s Creation Design in Israel’s History Subsequent to the Fall

2.1 Significant Leaders in the Old Testament

2.2 Queens in the Old Testament

2.3 Prophetesses in the Old Testament

2.4 Other Well-Known Women in the Old Testament

3.1 The Twelve

3.2 Couldn’t Jesus Have Chosen Women as Apostles?

3.3 Probably Not. Here’s Why!

3.4 Jesus’s Encounters with Individual Men (except for the Twelve) in the Gospels

3.5 Male Characters in Jesus’s Parables

3.6 Jesus’s Teaching Concerning Men and Women

3.7 Passages on Jesus and Women in the Gospels

3.8 Women in Jesus’s Parables

3.9 Selected Passages on Women in Matthew

3.10 Selected Passages on Women in Mark

3.11 Selected Passages on Women in Luke

3.12 Male-Female Pairs in Luke

3.13 Selected Passages on Women in John

3.14 Observations on Jesus’s Treatment of Women

4.1 The Pauline Circle

4.2 The “We-Passages” in Acts

4.3 Women in Acts

4.4 Male-Female Pairs in Acts

4.5 Men in Paul’s Churches

4.6 Women in Paul’s Churches

4.7 References to Priscilla (Prisca) and Aquila in the New Testament

4.8 Movement of Priscilla and Aquila in New Testament Times

5.1 Paul’s New Creation Theology

5.2 Parallel Statements in Galatians 3:26 and 28

5.3 Paul’s Types of Appeal in 1 Corinthians 11:2–16

5.4 New Testament References to the Authority of Church Leaders

5.5 New Testament References to the Care and Responsibility of Church Leaders

6.1 Purpose and Structure of 1 Timothy

6.2 Framework for Interpreting 1 Timothy 2:12

6.3 The Disputed Meaning of 1 Timothy 2:12

7.1 The Hall of Faith (Hebrews 11)

8.1 New Testament References to Genesis 1–3

8.2 The Biblical Pattern of Male Leadership

8.3 Mentoring Relationships in Scripture

8.4 Male Leadership throughout Scripture

8.5 Biblical Roles and Activities of Men

8.6 Women Making Significant Contributions in Scripture

8.7 Biblical Roles and Activities of Women

A1.1 Major Leaders of Second-Wave Feminism

A2.1 Fallacies in the Interpretation of Gender Passages

A3.1 Hermeneutical Issues Related to Gender Passages in Scripture

Introduction

Following Andreas’s graduation from high school, he went on an extensive tour of southern Europe. On returning home to his native Austria, he opened the door to his family apartment and immediately noticed his parents’ dresser drawers pulled out and in seeming disarray. He stopped. What had happened? Eventually, it dawned on him: the apartment hadn’t been burglarized; his dad had moved out! In a mild state of panic, he called his dad and asked what was going on. Matter-of-factly, his father replied, “I don’t live at home anymore.” Andreas didn’t know what to say. He tried to engage his father in conversation but to no avail. His father had made his decision.

As we all know, a marriage doesn’t break up overnight. Even though Andreas’s parents had been married for over twenty years, as he looked back over the years prior to his father’s leaving the family, he saw that his father had already been absent from the home for many years, not only physically but, more importantly, spiritually. Andreas’s mother had been left to raise him and his younger sister by herself, teaching them responsibility and whatever values she could. And though she strove valiantly to do so, she couldn’t replace his father.

Andreas found himself adrift morally and spiritually during the bulk of his high school and college years. Searching for an anchor for his soul, he eventually found the Lord Jesus Christ. He forgave his dad and entreated his father to have the opportunity to explain to him about salvation and the new life that he could have in Christ. Though his father was not receptive spiritually, in God’s mercy, over time, Andreas grew in his practical understanding of what it means to be a Christian husband and father.

Perhaps it is in these traumatic times that God, in his providence, sows the seeds of a passion for righteous living and the healing found only in Christ. We share this part of Andreas’s story not because we base our beliefs and actions on reactions to our experiences;1 nor do we mean to emotionalize the issues we’re about to discuss. We do so because it illustrates the terrible price we often pay when we fail to live out God’s design for us obediently, by grace, despite the challenges and effects that sin has on us.

Purpose of This Book

We’ve written this book because we’re convinced that it’s vital to wrestle with our identity as men and women for the sake of healthy marriages, families, and churches but, more importantly, for the true expression of the gospel of Jesus Christ in our world. We’re committed to go about exploring the topic with an open mind and to reach out in love and ministry while doing so. What we believe about our identity as man or woman is central to who we are as individuals, couples, and families and how each of us pursues our life calling. It will determine the way in which we act as wife or husband, as parents, as church members, and in the culture as we identify with the God who created us by design as man or woman. Biblical manhood and womanhood is too important a subject not to think through carefully as a Christian.2

While it is undeniable that there’s no current consensus on this issue in the church, the probable reason isn’t that Scripture is inconclusive or conflicted. We don’t believe that God would have left his people without clear guidance on an issue as foundational and important as male-female identity and roles. More likely, there are other reasons. Is it contemporary culture, influenced by various philosophical and theological sets of beliefs, that makes it more difficult for people to grasp the biblical message? Maybe the fact that we’re sinful and unspiritual in our bent has something to do with it. Few naturally like to submit to others; many of us would rather be independent and autonomous. So any teaching like this that calls on certain people to submit to others is a tough sell.

Certainly, the first order of business for any person—male or female—is to trust in the crucified and risen Savior and then to be taught how to grow spiritually as Christ’s follower in the context of a local church. There are many things to learn in the Christian life that are true universally, regardless of whether a person is a man or a woman. But certainly no later than when a couple receives premarital counseling; when a baby is born (male or female); or when we sit down to write a church constitution and bylaws after planting a new church, the question of male-female identity and roles needs to be addressed. To clearly address from Scripture our mission from God as man and woman in partnership, and as individuals, is vital for serious spiritual impact on the world.

God’s Design for Men and Women and Contemporary Culture

Both Andreas and Margaret became Christians in part because they were drawn to Christianity by what they saw in the relationships of the believers they met. Shortly after his conversion to Christ, Andreas remembers Gary and his wife, Ann, and their family, missionaries in his native Austria. Gary’s robust masculinity in “hanging out with the guys,” coupled with his tender gentleness toward Ann and his caring fatherly concern for his boys, left a deep impression on him. Andreas can still recall one evening when Ann threw a birthday party for her husband, asking everyone to go around the room and tell Gary what they appreciated about him. Ann was great at encouraging and affirming her husband, and Gary was a true servant in the way in which he nurtured and ministered to his wife and the entire family. It wasn’t until later when Andreas started reading in the Bible about God’s plan for men and women that he gradually realized that Gary and Ann had consciously been living out the divine design for what it means to be a man and a woman.

The summer before Margaret went to college, a group of young adults invited her to join their college and career group for a weekend trip away to the ocean. She was told to bring a Bible and otherwise just pack for a trip at the beach. Though never having really understood the Bible, she did have one on the shelf in her room. She grabbed the Bible and her bag and headed out for the weekend away. It was a lot of fun and truly enlightening for her. Years later, she recalls how Mark and Kevin, both engaged to be married, were contagious in their love for the Lord and in their desire to be submissive and obedient to God’s plan for them. They led the group in a passionate pursuit of the truths of God, and their confidence and hope in these truths drew Margaret herself to seek after God. After becoming a Christian, she had an immediate desire to make sense of her place in the world as a woman. She visited different churches in the vicinity of Toronto, Canada, where she was living, listened to numerous sermons, read several books on how to grow in her relationship with Christ, and sought out role models. She heard a variety of viewpoints on the topic of biblical manhood and womanhood, but after studying the Bible for herself, she realized that Scripture spoke with a unified voice and she committed herself to living out God’s design for her as a woman.

People in our culture have a great need to see role models of biblical manhood and womanhood that flesh out God’s design for men and women. We don’t need to tell you that our world is in greater ferment on the issue of masculinity and femininity today than when we went to college years ago. Terms such as “transgender,” “gender-fluid,” or “gender-variant” have made their way into the English language, and the past decades have witnessed an increasing trend toward an erosion of marital roles and male-female identity.

Today, many see marriage as little more than a convention, a social contract to be entered largely out of convenience. No longer is marriage viewed as a necessary and healthy relational context for conceiving children, and many women and men are indifferent toward what used to be standard societal expectations. Divorce is rampant, and the sins of fathers and mothers are visited upon their children. Comparatively few are concerned about the biblical teaching on the matter, even in the church.

We’ve entered a post-Christian, pluralistic, postmodern phase in Western culture’s approach to gender roles. But the “new tolerance” of diversity on gender issues raises several important questions.3 Is marriage really best left to subjective social arrangement with no basis in divine truth? Are male-female relationships simply a matter of consensual patterns of relating that are subject to ever-changing societal preferences and values? Is gender merely a social phenomenon as many feminists and others insist?

Or does Scripture provide us with abiding truth based on God’s plan for men and women? Is maleness or femaleness a characteristic with which we are born, an indelible mark of who we are that we can embrace, even celebrate, and live out to the glory of the God who gave it to us in the first place? What if our creation as male or female grounds us in a true and meaningful supernatural reality that we ignore to our loss and peril in both this life and the life to come?

And if so, what is this divine design?

In this book, we’ll take a closer look at what the Bible teaches on the way God designed male-female identity and relationships in order to help us to get closer to this reality.

The Contribution and Method of This Book

We’ve chosen to address the topic by presenting a positive and constructive (and, we hope, winsome) case for what the Bible, carefully interpreted, teaches regarding God’s design for men and women. As you join our guided tour through the biblical landscape, we hope you’ll witness with us the gradual unfolding of God’s plan through Scripture.

This book attempts to fill a gap.4 While there are more popular works touching on God’s design for men and women, few are written from a perspective that traces the thread of manhood and womanhood as it unfolds from Genesis to Revelation.5 Also, many treatments on the topic deal primarily, if not exclusively, with women’s roles.6 Fewer volumes deal with biblical manhood. Even fewer explore men’s and women’s roles jointly. What is missing is an effort to show God’s design in a holistic, comprehensive manner. In utilizing this approach, we’re convinced that God’s plan can only be adequately highlighted as men’s and women’s roles are considered progressively through Scripture and in relation to one another.

Our approach will therefore involve reflection on Scripture as a whole, with the use of what we consider to be the best interpretive work available on various aspects of this subject, in order to help draw connections between different passages and themes in Scripture.7 In performing a biblical-theological survey, we’ll draw our primary cues not from contemporary sensibilities or debates but from the historical setting of the biblical documents, whether the book of Genesis or the book of Ephesians. Also, while we’re of course interested ultimately in applying what we’ve learned from studying Scripture, we’ll at first be primarily concerned with biblical terminology rather than with modern concepts or topics.8

Our goal will be to provide an accessible and helpful tool for serious Bible students and people in the churches. In the process, we’ll be reflecting on the major didactic passages in the Bible on the topic, many of which are in Paul’s letters. We’ll look at the key leadership institutions in the life of Israel (patriarchs, kings, priests) and in the New Testament period (the Twelve, the Pauline circle). We’ll also cull sketches of some important male and female characters from the narrative portions of Scripture in order to give more information about specific individuals and their part in God’s plan (Old Testament historical narratives, the Gospels, the book of Acts).

Perhaps most importantly, we’ve included a fairly full chapter discussing how to apply the biblical teaching on manhood and womanhood (chapter 8). If you’re primarily interested in application, go ahead and dive straight into that last chapter. Then backtrack and read the biblical-theological survey or just use it as a reference. Technically, biblical theology is supposed to be primarily descriptive, so in our survey we focus on giving an accurate presentation of what Scripture actually says (though we try to sprinkle in relevant application points throughout).

Finally, we’ve also chosen to provide appendices on a cultural women’s history survey and on biblical interpretation (general interpretive issues and special issues in interpreting gender-related passages in Scripture), canvassing the context for our study of the biblical teaching on men’s and women’s identities and roles. We’ve included these in the conviction that our method and the context in which we study Scripture matter a great deal. Some of you may want to read these appendices first, if you’re interested in a general introduction to these issues before delving into Scripture; others may want to start with the biblical-theological survey in chapters 1–8 and read the appendices last.9 Lastly, make use of the tables throughout and the Scripture index along with the general index at the back of the book.

On a Personal Note

Speaking personally, we didn’t start out writing this book as a blank slate. Our personal life experiences have highlighted the importance of this study, and since then we have invested in much study of Scripture along with teaching classes on the topic. We’ve approached our subject in the understanding that the Bible, in both Testaments, teaches both male-female partnership and male leadership.10 Working on this book has only deepened this conviction and grounded it even more firmly in Scripture.

While our basic conviction regarding the biblical teaching on our topic hasn’t fundamentally changed, we’ve learned a lot from continuing to search the Scriptures, especially as we’ve connected the different parts of Scripture to one another. For example, we learned something new about the role of Deborah and about the role of Old Testament judges and prophets. We learned more about the teaching on male-female roles in the General Epistles and in the book of Revelation. We’ve also come to understand better where feminists are coming from in their interpretation of certain biblical passages, as we sought to interact with those arguments at various points in the book.

Above all, working on this book together has been a unifying experience in our marriage. It’s deepened our shared conviction regarding God’s design for male-female relationships and led us to be more committed than ever to living it out in our lives individually and jointly in the context of our family and in the church. We’ve also been further impressed by the urgency and priority of mentoring our own daughters and sons in biblical womanhood and manhood as well as passing on these biblical insights to other men and women.

We hope that you see in this book evidence of our personal pilgrimage and wrestling with the texts as well as honest, open, fair, and balanced engagement with significant questions that arise. We offer you our service as guides through the biblical landscape, but we want to make sure that the focus isn’t on the guides but on what we’re about to see—God’s beautiful, wise, and good plan for men and women of all ages, backgrounds, and cultures.

A book such as this one doesn’t get written without the encouragement and support of many others. We’re grateful to God for each other and for the twenty-four years of marriage (and counting!) he’s allowed us to enjoy. We’re grateful also for our family—our two precious girls, Lauren and Tahlia (both now in college), and two precious boys, David and Timothy (homeschooled this year), a constant source of joy, challenge, and opportunity for growth.

Thanks are also due those who read the book in manuscript form prior to publication—endorsers as well as some who offered helpful feedback, especially John Burkett (director of the Writing Center at SEBTS), Sarah Carr, Theresa Bowen, Chuck Bumgardner, Anne Ballou, and Lauren Köstenberger. We’re also grateful for the students in the classes we’ve been privileged to teach jointly on this subject as well as for the brothers and sisters who attended marriage seminars at which we spoke and engaged us in lively discussion. Iron sharpens iron! We’ve used this material repeatedly in the classroom and in small-group settings and are regularly amazed how compelling an open-minded study of Scripture on biblical manhood and womanhood is proving to be.

We’re grateful particularly to Andreas’s one-time research assistant, Alexander Stewart, for transcribing our initial set of classroom lectures that formed the point of departure for this manuscript.

If the quest resonates with you to know more fully what the Bible teaches regarding God’s plan for men and women, then we invite you to join us on this journey—to be all God wants you to be and to discover God’s good, wise, and wonderful design. Certainly God’s plan for women and men—whatever it is—matters, and matters a great deal! Join us as we walk step-by-step through the sacred pages of God’s Word, and may he richly bless you as you seek his will in this crucial area of your life.

_______________

1 If you’re interested in reading the rest of the story of Andreas’s conversion, you can find it in Andreas J. Köstenberger, Excellence: The Character of God and the Pursuit of Scholarly Virtue (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2011), chap. 1.

2 R. Albert Mohler Jr., “A Call for Theological Triage and Christian Maturity,” The Tie 74 (Summer 2006): 2–3, outlines a three-part framework for understanding theological priorities: (1) first-order issues—doctrinal points that distinguish Christians from non-Christians (e.g., the Trinity, orthodox christology); (2) second-order issues—doctrinal points that distinguish Christians from other Christians that render it difficult if not impossible for them to fellowship together in a local church context (e.g., baptism); and (3) third-order issues—doctrinal points over which Christians disagree without rift in local church fellowship (e.g., the timing of the rapture). Mohler (rightly, in our opinion) identifies the “women in ministry” question as a second-order (but not third-order) issue.

3 The allusion is to the important book by D. A. Carson, The Intolerance of Tolerance (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2012). See also the update by the same author, “More Examples of Intolerant Tolerance,” Themelios 37 (November 2012), http://thegospelcoalition.org/themelios/article/more_examples_of_intolerant_tolerance (accessed June 28, 2013).

4 In some ways, this volume is a companion volume to Andreas J. Köstenberger with David W. Jones, God, Marriage, and Family: Rebuilding the Biblical Foundation, 2nd ed. (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2010). While God, Marriage, and Family focuses primarily on recovering the biblical teaching on marriage in today’s culture, the present volume probes the question of our fundamental identity as men and women and our proper, God-ordained roles not just in marriage but also in the church and in society.

5 One book that has exerted considerable influence is the collection of essays in Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: A Response to Evangelical Feminism, ed. John Piper and Wayne Grudem (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1991). See also Mary Kassian, Women, Creation, and the Fall (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1990). A more recent summary of the biblical teaching is Kevin DeYoung, Freedom and Boundaries: A Pastoral Primer on the Role of Women in the Church (Enumclaw, WA: Pleasant Word, 2006). Written from an egalitarian perspective is Ronald W. Pierce, Partners in Marriage and Ministry (Minneapolis: Christians for Biblical Equality, 2011). An attempt to cover the entire sweep of Scripture in a very short amount of space is N. T. Wright, “Women’s Service in the Church: The Biblical Basis,” conference paper for the symposium “Men, Women and the Church,” St. John’s College, Durham, September 4, 2004; though see below the disagreements we register regarding some of his conclusions. See also the popularly written volume by Michael F. Bird, Bourgeois Babes, Bossy Wives, and Bobby Haircuts: A Case for Gender Equality in Ministry, Fresh Perspectives on Women in Ministry (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2014), who says a woman once called him a “patriarchal, androcentric, chauvinistic misogynist” but who now describes himself as “almost-complementarian or nearly-egalitarian.” Among others, he cites as reasons for his change of mind the lack of female worship leaders (and ushers) in his church, the presence of female coworkers in Acts and Paul’s letters, and the similar rationale in 1 Cor. 11:2–16 and 1 Tim. 2:11–14 (leading him to believe both are merely cultural).

6 This is true even for books that have “men and women” in the title or subtitle but discuss mostly passages dealing with women, and men only where they’re inevitably mentioned alongside women (e.g., Genesis 1–3; Eph. 5:21–33).

7 Since this book is written primarily for nonspecialists, we won’t extensively document sources of the various views with which we interact (though we’ll refer to strategic works). For bibliographic information, see the relevant literature such as Wayne Grudem, Evangelical Feminism and Biblical Truth: An Analysis of More Than 100 Disputed Questions (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012).

8 Case in point: equality. While today we’re very concerned about equality, whether pertaining to race, class, or gender, is it really accurate to interpret the statement in Gen. 1:28, for example, that God created humanity male and female, in terms of gender equality? Is this what the ancient author intended to convey, and is this what his original readers would have understood him to communicate? This is a question of biblical theology, in distinction from systematic theology. See further the discussion of biblical theology at the end of appendix 2.

9 If you’re teaching a class on biblical manhood and womanhood, you may want to consider asking your students to read the appendices prior to class. In this way, they’ll be prepared for the discussion of the biblical portion of your class on male-female identities, relationships, and roles.

10 Two decades ago, I wrote in Andreas J. Köstenberger, “Gender Passages in the NT: Hermeneutical Fallacies Critiqued,” Westminster Theological Journal 56 (1994): 259–83, “What is needed is a systematized biblical theology of manhood and womanhood that is based on a careful exegesis of the relevant passages but transcends such exegesis by integrating interpretive insights into a systematic whole” (p. 279). The present volume is a modest step in this direction.

God’s Original Design and Its Corruption

Genesis 1–3

Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female?

Jesus (Matt. 19:4)

“Begin at the beginning,” the King said, very gravely, “and go on till you come to the end: then stop.”

Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

Key Points

1. Genesis 1–3, cited by both Jesus and Paul, provides the foundational biblical teaching on men’s and women’s identities and roles.

2. Genesis 1 makes clear that humanity, male and female, was created in God’s image to rule the earth jointly as God’s representatives.

3. Genesis 2 indicates that men and women have different roles or functions in the fulfillment of God’s creation mandate to humanity to multiply and subdue the earth. The man is ultimately responsible for leading in the marriage and the fulfillment of God’s mandate, while the woman is his partner, his suitable helper. Different functions or roles don’t convey superiority or inferiority.

4. The Old Testament bears witness to several ways in which humanity compromised God’s design for marriage, such as polygamy, divorce, adultery, and homosexuality.

5. Even after the fall, God’s ideal for men and women continues unabated and constitutes the abiding standard for male-female relationships.

At a recent lunch stop at a Cracker Barrel on the way back from a family road trip north to Canada and New York City, we got into one of our lively family discussions. We were reflecting on the Cinderella Broadway performance the girls had just seen. One of our daughters mentioned that this Rogers and Hammerstein musical was a feminist version of the fairy tale. Though we didn’t all agree with this opinion, the topic of male-female roles and identities came up. In the middle of the discussion, our teenage daughter expressed her opinion that men and women are “equal.” She assumed we would all understand what she meant without further elaboration. Trying to tease out her thinking, we asked her in what way she thought women and men are equal since, after all, there are also some obvious differences! “Are there not also unique identities and roles associated with men and women being created unique?,” we asked. Our daughter retorted, “Well, of course, everybody knows that!” Andreas then talked about the man’s responsibility to provide for his family. Our teenage son quickly added that men who let their wives bear the main load of providing for the family are “wimps.” Trying to wrap up our discussion (our food was just about to be served), Andreas pointed out that many people in our culture believe that our male and female roles are simply determined by preferences and personal arrangements and that fewer and fewer people seem to base our male-female identities on the way in which we’ve been created by God.

Creation (Genesis 1–2)

You only have to look at the starry sky or a butterfly’s wings to see that God is a master designer. The psalmist exclaims,

O LORD, our LORD,

how majestic is your name in all the earth!

You have set your glory above the heavens. . . .

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,

the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,

what is man that you are mindful of him,

and the son of man that you care for him?

Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings

and crowned him with glory and honor.

You have given him dominion over the works of your hands;

you have put all things under his feet. (Ps. 8:1–6)

The apostle Paul concurs: “For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made” (Rom. 1:20). God, our creator, has put an indelible imprint on all of his creation, whether the starry skies or his crowning work, the making of man and woman, which the Creator himself pronounced “very good” (Gen. 1:31).

What ought to give cause to much wonder and amazement, however, is also the cause of much consternation. A large part of humanity, in the first (and, sadly, also in the twenty-first) century, has set aside God’s design for men and women. As Paul continues in his epistle to the Romans,

So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal men. . . . Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies. (Rom. 1:20–26)

We see that God’s design, in all of its beauty, wisdom, and goodness, is ignored at great peril. While God loves the man and the woman he has made, judgment awaits those who treat lightly the purpose for his creation. So whether our motive is the love of God or the fear of God, we should strive to rediscover and seek to live in accordance with his divine design.

What, then, is God’s design for men and women? As we will see, an engaging study of what Scripture teaches about God’s plan for males and females from beginning to end provides clear and abundant guidance on the purpose for our gender. We’ll start at the very beginning: the biblical account of creation (Genesis 1–3). This part of the Bible lays the foundation for God’s purpose in creating man and woman unique and different and shows the serious consequences of the fall on the male-female relationship.1

After this, we will begin to engage the important matters of how these truths relate to our lives. We will also cull Israel’s history and demonstrate how the divine ideal continues unabated.2 Later in the book, we will move on to the rest of the story and discover that God’s original plan is abiding, consistent, and missional.

Overview of the Creation Narrative

Before we delve into the teaching of Genesis 1–3 on biblical manhood and womanhood in greater depth, it will be helpful to catch a birds’ eye view of the scriptural narrative of humanity’s creation and fall into sin. The biblical creation story provides us with a wonderful, coherent presentation of God’s creation of the man and the woman according to his divine design.3 In the Genesis story, read as a continual narrative, we move from a general account of God’s creation to a more specific presentation focusing on the male-female relationship and then to the fall. Chapter 2 acts as a necessary link between chapters 1 and 3 and has often been compared to a zoom lens that focuses on the general presentation of creation in chapter 1 in greater detail.

Read as part of a consecutive narrative, Genesis 1 tells the story of God’s creation of the universe, culminating in the creation of humanity as male and female in God’s image (Gen. 1:26–27). Genesis 2, then, goes on to elaborate more specifically on God’s purpose and manner of creating the man and the woman and the divine design expressed in distinct male-female roles: the man is to serve as the leader while the woman has been created to come alongside him as his partner, his suitable helper (vv. 18, 20). We also learn that the fact that God made the man first constitutes a deliberate act and important indication of the man’s primary responsibility to God for the marriage relationship.4

Table 1.1: Basic Contents of Genesis 1–3

Chapter

Description

Genesis 1

God’s creation of the universe generally (including man and woman)

Genesis 2

God’s creation specifically of man and woman in relation to each other (zoom lens)

Genesis 3

Woman’s and man’s transgression of the Creator’s command (the fall)

Looking at Genesis 2 in greater detail, we see that following the creation of the first man, God then makes the woman. God’s purpose for creating the woman is to bring her to the man to alleviate his aloneness, to provide him with companionship, and to enable humankind to fill the earth and to help govern it for God. We see that the woman is the result of a unique creative act of God who fashioned her from a rib of the man, an act that sets her apart from the manner of creation of the animals. The way Scripture tells the story, the woman was created for a special purpose. She was created both from the man and for the man.

Following the dual creation narrative, then, Genesis 3 tells the story of an ominous role reversal at the fall of humanity where the Serpent (Satan) approaches the woman, who leads the man to join her in transgressing their Creator’s command. This turns biblical lines of authority on their head, according to which God rules over the man who is responsible to lead and care for his wife and together with her is given charge of the animal world.5 Consequently, God holds each party accountable and pronounces a series of judgments on the Serpent, the woman, and the man.

Created in God’s Image to Rule the Earth for God (Gen. 1:26–28)

We’ll pick up the creation narrative in chapter 1 at its climax:

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion . . . over all the earth. . . .”

So God created man in his own image,

in the image of God he created him;

male and female he created them.

And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion.” (Gen. 1:26–28)

Strikingly, at the outset of the passage, God emphatically announces his intention to make humanity in his own image.6 In verse 26, he declares his intention and purpose for creating humanity: to have dominion over all the earth as his representatives.7 In verse 27, the narrative switches from prose to poetry, each of the three lines registering an important point: (1) humanity has God as its source; (2) humanity bears resemblance to God; and (3) humanity exists in the plurality of male and female. Verse 28 records God’s blessing of humanity and his mandate for the man and the woman: to be fruitful and multiply and to fill the earth and subdue it.8 Let’s now briefly discuss some of the most salient points in interpreting this important passage.

First, what are we to make of the plural in the divine declaration, “Let us make man,” in verse 26? Is it: (1) a reference to the Trinity? (2) a reference to God and the court of heavenly angels? Or (3) a reference to God’s deliberation within himself? A reference to angels is rendered unlikely by the fact that humanity is made in God’s image, not that of angels. A reference to God’s deliberation within himself is also rather unlikely because in passages such as Genesis 18:17, the first-person singular is used in such instances (“Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?”). Most likely, therefore, the reference is to a plurality within the Godhead (“Let us make man”) issuing in a plurality in humanity, male and female (“male and female he created them”).9

Second, what are we to make of the equally momentous affirmation that God made humanity in his image (Gen. 1:27)? The declaration that humanity bears God’s likeness is startling, awesome, and almost incredible, but what exactly does it mean?10 Scholars debate the specifics.11 Two primary, and not necessarily contradictory, views are: (1) the substantive view, according to which humans share some aspects of the nature of God (intelligence, emotions, etc.); and (2) the functional view, according to which humans act like God in their divinely given role to rule the earth. The immediate context, with the language of dominion and subjugation, suggests that the functional interpretation is primary. Let’s stay close to the text, then, and interpret this passage in the context of the Bible’s overall story line.

On the heels of the statement that God created the man and the woman in his image is God’s foundational mandate for humanity, which is expressed in a series of five imperatives: “And God blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth’” (v. 28). The fact that humanity is said to have been made in God’s image as a plurality (“male and female he created them,” v. 27), along with the plural pronouns “them” at the beginning of verse 28 (“And God blessed them. And God said to them”), indicates that ruling the earth is a joint function of the man and the woman. Humanity is conceived as a plurality.

Understood in this way, verse 28 teaches that the primary means of carrying out humanity’s representative rule is that of procreation. Neither the man nor the woman can fill the earth and subdue it without the other. Fulfilling the mandate to “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it” takes both a man and a woman.12 Being made in God’s image thus involves joint dominion of the earth involving procreation. This truth has abiding relevance. In a day when birthrates drop in the civilized world and when many choose to have fewer or no children at all for lifestyle reasons, and when some countries, in order to curb population growth, limit the number of children a couple may legally produce, Scripture reminds us that procreation is at the very heart of God’s creation purpose and mandate for humanity as male and female.

So what’s the ancient cultural background? Today, when you hear the word image, you may think of a picture or drawing, but in the day when Genesis was written, the term carried a slightly different connotation.13 In the ancient Near East, the image of a ruler commonly represented the potentate’s presence in his kingdom. A ruler’s image thus signified his rule, such as when his or her likeness was minted on a coin. In the case of humans, as the male-female image of God, they symbolize his rule, having been created to reflect his glory to all creation (see Ps. 8:6–8). Neither the angels nor the animals are in charge of creation—humans are, created in God’s image. At the same time, they are to exercise dominion not in an abusive or oppressive manner but as responsible guardians of the earth for God.14

Essentially, therefore, God at creation commissioned humanity to serve as representative rulers of the earth on his behalf. As the sovereign ruler and creator of the universe, God delegated to humanity as male and female the power to rule and to procreate. He put humans on the earth to take care of it for him, requiring them to reproduce as male and female. While there is not yet in the creation narrative any clear indication as to the exact role differentiation between the man and the woman, male headship is suggested by the fact that the name for the man (ādām) in Genesis 1:26–27 (and later in 5:1–2) is the Hebrew name for the race at large.15 Table 1.2 shows how God made hu-man-ity (ādām) male and female, while at the same time the man (ādām) is given primary responsibility for humanity at large.16

Table 1.2: The Term ādām as a Name for the Human Race in Genesis 1–5

The Man’s Leadership in the Marriage and the Wife’s Role as His Suitable Helper (Genesis 2)

We’ve seen that Genesis 1 focuses primarily on the creation of humanity as male and female in God’s image. How does Genesis 2, then, build on and supplement Genesis 1?17 In Genesis 2:4, the narrative returns to the creation of humankind that was mentioned in Genesis 1:26–28, yet provides additional details. Genesis 2:7–8 describes how God forms the man from the dust of the ground, breathes life into him, and places him in the garden of Eden. Genesis 2:15–17 records God’s command to the man to work the garden and his gracious permission for him to eat from every tree except for the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The woman is not present to hear the command (she hasn’t been created yet!), so it’s the man’s responsibility to pass it on to her at a later time.18

In Genesis 2:18 we are given important information regarding God’s purpose for creating the woman and her design in relation to the man: “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit [i.e., suitable] for him.”19 The Creator is about to make a special companion and soul mate for the man. Yet rather than record this creative act immediately, the following verse describes how God brings all the animals to Adam so he can name them. What’s going on here? Most likely, God is leading the man through a process of understanding, helping him to realize that he needs a counterpart, human but different, with whom he shares the image of God and can exercise representative rule through the procreation of offspring. In verse 20, then, the same phrase recurs once again: “no suitable helper was found for him.”

“What’s going on here? Most likely, God is leading the man through a process of understanding . . . that he needs a counterpart, human but different, with whom he shares the image of God and can exercise representative rule through the procreation of offspring.”

After the temporary letdown resulting from the declaration that no suitable helper was found for the man from among the animals, verse 21 narrates how God at last takes action: “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.” It’s not that God couldn’t get it right the first time. Rather, he led the man to see that none of the animals could meet his need for companionship. What is more, we see that the woman’s creation isn’t man’s idea; it’s an act of divine grace. In fact, the man doesn’t contribute anything at all to the entire process. To be sure, he himself was created first, but he has no part in the creation of the woman (except for providing one of his ribs, and even that not by his own choice).

Verse 22 states, “And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.” We’ve already seen that, according to Genesis 1:26–27, God created humanity male and female. Now we see the process by which God fashions the man and the woman: he makes them separately (the man first, then the woman), but for each other. They are products of separate acts of divine creation. The man is formed from the ground, signifying that humanity is part of creation at large; then the woman is created from the man, signifying their close bond.20 The man exclaims, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” (Gen. 2:23), joyfully affirming what God has done in the creation of the woman. And he is given the privilege of assigning the woman a name derived from his own (ish, ishah; Gen. 2:23; cf. 3:20).

We see that the biblical text doesn’t pit the man and the woman against each other but rather presents their union as exceedingly intimate and harmonious. The idea that the genders are locked in an adversarial, antagonistic relationship is utterly foreign to the biblical creation account. To the contrary: Adam and Eve are super-excited! The claim that the man’s headship and the woman’s role as his suitable helper reflect the man’s superiority and the woman’s inferiority is likewise not borne out by the Genesis account. Rather, God’s plan for humanity is one of partnership in which the man, as God-appointed leader, and his wife alongside him jointly represent the Creator by exercising dominion over the earth. In this vein, God places the man in a position of accountability and responsibility to his Creator.

What? I’m Supposed to Be Your “Helper”? (Gen. 2:18, 20)

Before we move on to Genesis 3, let’s take a closer look at the term suitable helper.21 “What?” you may say if you’re a woman reading this. “Am I supposed to be his helper?” What does this phrase mean? To begin with, it may seem obvious, but it is nonetheless important to note that the woman is called the man’s helper; not the other way around. From a fair reading of Genesis 2, it doesn’t seem that male-female roles are reversible. At the same time, the expression clearly conveys that the woman is congenial to the man in a way that none of the animals is (vv. 19–20; cf. v. 23: “bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh”) and that she is God’s perfect provision for him in his need of companionship (v. 18). If you had asked Eve, she probably would have said the same about Adam. He was exactly what she needed!

“The claim that the man’s headship and the woman’s role as his suitable helper reflect the man’s superiority and the woman’s inferiority is likewise not borne out by the Genesis account. Rather, God’s plan for humanity is one of partnership in which the man, as God-appointed leader, and his wife alongside him jointly represent the Creator by exercising dominion over the earth.”

With regard to God’s mandate for humanity to be fruitful and multiply and to fill the earth and subdue it (Gen. 1:28), the woman is shown to be the man’s suitable partner in both procreation (becoming “one flesh” with him, which means more, but not less, than fruitful sexual union; Gen. 2:24) and in the earth’s domestication (Gen. 1:28).22 The woman’s role is distinct from the man’s (in fact, their roles are complementary), yet the contribution of both sexes is absolutely vital. While assigned to the man as his helper and thus placed under his overall care and responsibility, the woman is the man’s partner in ruling the earth for God. This much seems clear from reading the references to the woman as suitable helper in the immediate context, but let’s now look at the phrase itself.

In Genesis 2:18 and 20, the word “helper” (ezer) is used to describe the woman’s role in relation to the man. Many of us women today have trouble seeing ourselves as helpers of the man. Why should we help him? Isn’t this an inferior role? Why shouldn’t he help us? In working this through, it’s helpful to note that the term helper is applied several times throughout the Old Testament to none other than God himself.23 Although God takes on the role of helper only temporarily to come to the aid of a given individual (in contrast to the woman who is said to be the man’s helper permanently), the fact that God can be said to be a helper lends great dignity and value to this role. Since God is clearly not inferior to anyone, whatever the term helper entails, it’s certainly not inferiority.

On the other hand, it wouldn’t be accurate to adduce the scriptural references to God submitting himself to a person as his or her helper as proof that male-female roles are interchangeable.24 In God’s case, being a helper means that he may choose to subordinate himself to humanity to render some kind of assistance. This doesn’t affect his divinity in any way. For the woman to be subordinate to the man (albeit not by her own choice but by God’s creative will) doesn’t alter the fact that she is part of humanity created in God’s image as male and female. Some try to reinterpret the meaning of the word helper in order to remove any notion of subordination because they (erroneously) believe this to be an inferior role, maintaining that God could never be subordinate in role to anyone at any time, but, as mentioned, this is unnecessary.

“The fallacy in the above-stated argument, therefore, is the assumption that subordination necessarily implies personal inferiority. It does not. For children to be entrusted to their parents’ care, for example, doesn’t mean they’re inferior persons. Neither are employees inferior to their bosses because they report to them.”

The argument from God and the woman sharing the term helper also insufficiently recognizes the fact that the woman isn’t directly comparable to God in his essence or variety of roles. Just because the term is applied to both God and the woman doesn’t establish an analogy as to their nature or all of their other roles. Otherwise, to be consistent, the woman would be superior to the man by virtue of being called his helper, since God is most certainly superior to humans! Also, God is our creator and Lord; the woman is not. The fallacy in the above-stated argument, therefore, is the assumption that subordination necessarily implies personal inferiority. It does not. For children to be entrusted to their parents’ care, for example, doesn’t mean they’re inferior persons. Neither are employees inferior to their bosses because they report to them.

An analogy from the Trinity may also help.25 Some reject any form of subordination in the Trinity. But Scripture does seem to affirm such a notion. In John’s Gospel, for example, Jesus states, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30), and later on says, “The Father is greater than I” (John 14:28). John thus presents unity of purpose and subordination side by side.26 Jesus’s prayer in the garden of Gethsemane, “Not my will, but yours be done” (Luke 22:42), likewise illustrates the Son’s submission to the Father without diminishing his inclusion in the plurality of the Godhead in terms of being. The Son’s subordination doesn’t imply personal inferiority. The Trinity illustrates the possibility of two beings forming an intimate oneness, accomplishing their mission by fulfilling distinct, complementary roles (see 1 Cor. 11:3). The Father didn’t die on the cross for our sins; the Son did. Role distinctions within the Godhead don’t imply difference in essential being.

Some contemporary biblical scholars present headship and submission as if they’re merely a result of the fall. However, this fails to account for the fact that the man was exercising dominion prior to the creation of the woman (receiving the divine command, naming the animals, etc.; see table 1.3). What is more, those who interpret the phrase suitable helper as conveying undifferentiated equality fail to observe other indications of male headship in the foundational Genesis account. If the original creation was egalitarian, how do we account for the fact that there are clear indications of the man’s ultimate responsibility for humanity at large? And why is Adam, rather than Eve, contrasted with Christ as the first human being through whom sin entered the world (Rom. 5:12–21), when, according to the Genesis account, it was Eve who sinned first?27 The most likely explanation is that even though Eve sinned first, it was Adam who was held ultimately accountable by God as representing the human race.

Table 1.3: Does the Term “Helper” in Genesis 2:18, 20 Denote Equality?

Claim:

The term helper is applied in Scripture to God; since God is not an inferior being, the term helper doesn’t convey the woman’s inferiority to the man.

Helper means “equal.”

Response:

It’s true that helper is applied to God in Scripture. However, this doesn’t diminish the fact that helper is a subordinate role. It only shows that we must distinguish between a person’s being and his or her role.

God, the creator and Lord of the universe, may choose to take on a subordinate role (temporarily) to help his people. The woman was created by God to come alongside the man (permanently and constitutionally) as his helper.

While suitable connotes the sense “corresponding to” (sometimes translated “fit for”), “helper” doesn’t mean “equal,” but in context suggests a subordinate role.

To conclude, the fact that the woman is called a helper in Genesis 2—just like God is called a helper repeatedly in the Psalms—shows how significant and special the woman’s role toward the man really is. At the same time, claiming that the use of the term helper with regard to the woman requires undifferentiated male-female equality (if not female superiority) fails both logically and theologically.28 The woman was created to meet the man’s need for companionship and to assist him and partner with him in subduing the earth, particularly through procreation. In this regard, the man needs the woman, and the woman needs the man; neither is able to multiply and subdue the earth without the other. The woman comes alongside the man as his companion with whom he procreates children, additional image bearers who join in the task of multiplying, filling the earth, and exercising dominion over it.

Table 1.4: Indications of the Man’s Leadership in Genesis 1–3

Passage in Genesis

Significance

1:27; 5:2

The name for humanity is the same as for the male (

ādām

; see table 1.2).

2:7

God created the man first.

2:15–17

The man is the recipient of the divine command prior to the creation of the woman.

2:15, 19–20