Man and Women: A Biblical Perspective on Gender Roles

I must apologize up front for those of you who decided to follow this blog so as to track the progress of a book I proclaimed I was going to wright, and, as it is, still plan to write. That stated, I must make a very important point: any undertaking, of any kind concerning writing and research, is always done with a bit of "haphazardness," in that the ideas and premises of said work will always, and in fact ought to be, changing as new revelations emerge. Thus, I once again am writing to make such a proclamation. Before any significant work can be done with regards to theology and apologetics, I must first make a valiant effort in the field of Biblical Hermeneutics. (If you are not sure what this is, just stay tuned, I plan on not only defining this study, but digesting it as I go along.)

Now, for something new. The title of this post is Man and Women: A Biblical Perspective on Gender Roles. Last week I read to my 7th period World History class, for time permitted such an endeavor, 1 Timothy 2: 9-15, a passage which stipulates specific rules and regulations for women. At the time, I could not tell you why I read it, for such was all I did; I provided no in depth explanation, nor provided any major clarification of its intended meaning. (I know, at this point I look like a pig. Clearly, I have given ammunition to any of the boys who may have viewed women as inferior. I can hear it already, "The bible says women are to be submissive, so, there you have it.) If such was a result, I apologize, but despite the potential negative outcomes, the Lord showed me, but a day later, why I read that passage. Wednesday, after my last class, which is 7th period, one of the students, a female, stayed after and asked me, "Mr. Keys, what is meant by the portion of the passage which asserts, "But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet." What a question, and more importantly, what an opportunity to try and bring clarification to a deep theological question: THIS IS WHY I AM DOING WHAT I AM DOING.

At this point, I pulled out the text I had been reading, and while it took a while for the two of us to get to a logical, and, what I hope was a biblical conclusion, we eventually came to answer, though not in its entirety, the much larger question in need of answering, a question she had not directly asked, but one which ultimately would come to answer her specific question: What specific gender roles exist in the Bible, and when were such roles generated. In trying to answer this question, a number of other questions arouse, and indeed, so did a number of new biblical passages, namely Genesis 3: 16. In the end, we concluded two things.

First, Paul was addressing this statement to a specific group of women with whom Timothy would have interacted with. Paul understood that many of the women in Ephesus were not prepared to teach, and did not have the knowledge with which to lead those around them. This should not be taken to mean, however, that women have no biblical standing upon which they can both teach and lead others. Let us recall what is said in Romans 16: 1-2, "I commend to you our sister Phoebe, who is a servant of the church which is at Cenchrea; that you receive her in the Lord in a manner worthy of the saints, and that you help her in whatever matter she may have need of you; for she herself has also been a helper of many, and of myself as well. Thus, in reading the Word, one must first approach the passage with an understanding of the time period in question, and should have a clear contextual understanding of the versus in question.

Our second conclusion was, and is, a bit more complicated, and while I am still thinking through both the validity of this conclusion, as well as its ultimate ramifications, we came to conclude that God had specific gender roles in mind when he created Eve. In Genesis 2: 18 it states, "Then the LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him." Clearly, Eve was intended to be a help mate to Adam, and while this does not inherently indicate her subjectivity to Adam, it does provide some evidence that God had specific jobs and roles for each gender. As it was, these roles worked in Harmony with one another prior to fall, and as such, no animosity existed between Adam and Eve as it related to their specific roles in the Garden. This changed, however, the moment Eve tuned away from God, and, as Wayne Grudem seems to suggest, towards man. Consequently, God executed his righteous judgment upon them, punishing each according to their specif jobs:


"To the woman He said, "I will greatly multiply Your pain in childbirth, In pain you will bring forth children;Yet your desire will be for your husband, And he will rule over you." Then to Adam He said, "Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, 'You shall not eat from it'; Cursed is the ground because of you; In toil you will eat of it All the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; And you will eat the plants of the field; By the sweat of your face You will eat bread, Till you return to the ground, Because from it you were taken; For you are dust, And to dust you shall return." (Genesis 3: 16-19)

In the end, women would be ruled over by her husband, and she would desire his position. In this way, God seems to have brought disharmony, pain, and strife as it concerned each of the roles already created for each sex, and this obviously meant leadership roles. Again, this does not mean that Eve was unequal to Adam as a human, for let us remember the second greatest commandment to love all as we love ourselves: this means both sexes. Rather, we should understand this to mean that the work given to each sex is different, though not necessarily any less important. According to one theologian, "In Ephesians, Paul notes that the man is the head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the church, and that this was true from the beginning. Actually, the Fall obscured this relationship such that the woman would want to rule over the husband, but that the husband would domineer over her.

My conclusion then seems to be sound; God had always intended for specific roles to exist, but with the fall, those roles were distorted, and as such, Harmony could no longer exist between them. This is not to assume, however, that the relationship cannot be fixed. As is the answer to mankind's sin, so is the answer to this apparent problem: Jesus. "In Redemption, therefore, it is possible, through a relationship with Jesus Christ, to redeem this relationship back to what it was originally supposed to be."