Gender in Everyday Life (Ephesians 5:25-33; 1 Timothy 2:11-15)

Big Idea: Embrace your gender in every area of your life.

I can’t say that many blog posts have changed my life, but one did. It’s a short one written way back in 2011. It’s just 124 words long, but it’s helped me a lot. Here it is:

Run to the tension. I've been teaching our leaders and our whole church to "run to the tension" as they lead and navigate relationships in our church and in our city. When conflict, tension, and difficulty show up, run to it. Face it. Deal with it. Lead through it now, not later. Our instinct is to ignore tension, but ignoring conflict now will only make for a bigger and messier conflict three months from now. We're used to running away from tension because we think the first signs of conflict mean the beginning of the end of a relationship. Not true. Conflict is normal in every relationship and navigating conflict with humility and direct communication makes relationships stronger and healthier. Run to the tension.

I’ve found this to be helpful advice in leadership and in relationships, and also in how we read the Bible. Run to the tension. The Bible contains all kinds of teaching that we find difficult to understand or accept. Run to those passages. Our instinct is to ignore or downplay them, but these are the passages we often need the most. Don’t run away from them; run to them, because they have something important to teach us.

That’s what we’ve been doing in this series. We’ve been looking at the subject of gender. Instead of running away from it, we’ve run to it. If you’re a member and haven’t listened to these sermons, I encourage you to go back and listen to the ones you’ve missed.

Here’s what we’ve seen:

• We’ve seen from Genesis 1 and 2 that men and women have dignity and differences that are designed for our good and our joy.
• We’ve seen from Genesis 3 that sin, not God’s original design, has damaged the relationship between the sexes, and we experience the results every single day.
• Then, last week, we saw from 1 Corinthians 11 that we need to hold on to dignity of women and empower them for ministry without losing the differences between men and women.

Today, we’re going to want to get very practical and ask what this means in three areas of life: marriage, the church, and the world.

Marriage (Ephesians 5:22-33)

I want to look at marriage first because it’s such a great case study of how to get practical. Remember when I said that sin has damaged the relationship between the sexes in very particular ways? Ephesians 5 gives commands that deal specifically with this particular area of fallenness. It has something to say to wives, and then it has something to say to husbands.

A Word to Wives

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. (Ephesians 5:22-24)

Here we have a command and two reasons.

Here’s the command: submit to your husbands. What does submit mean? Here’s what it doesn’t and does mean.

• It doesn’t mean you always agree with him.
• It doesn’t mean that you don’t think for yourself.
• It doesn’t mean that you stop trying to influence or speak truth to your husband.
• It doesn’t mean that you are fearful of him.
• It doesn’t mean that you obey. Paul uses the word submit, not obey.

So what does it mean? It means that you “support, respect, and follow them as to the Lord” (Kevin DeYoung). It means, as John Piper says:

…the disposition to follow a husband’s authority and an inclination to yield to his leadership. It is an attitude that says, “I delight for you to take the initiative in our family. I am glad when you take responsibility for things and lead with love. I don’t flourish when you are passive and I have to make sure the family works.” But the attitude of Christian submission also says, “It grieves me when you venture into sinful acts and want to take me with you. You know I can’t do that. I have no desire to resist you. On the contrary, I flourish most when I can respond creatively and joyfully to your lead; but I can’t follow you into sin, as much as I love to honor your leadership in our marriage. Christ is my King.”

Why? Two reasons. Because of his headship and because of the Lord. The husband-wife relationship is a model of the relationship between Christ and the church. The pattern for relationship is not culture or patriarchy but the gospel. Ultimately, it’s done not to please the husband but to honor the Lord.

There is an analogy between the way she submits to Jesus Christ as Lord of her life and the way she submits to her husband as lord of her home. This is because God has made the husband to be head of his wife just as he has made Christ to be head of the church, which is his body. (James Montgomery Boice)

This submission isn’t demanded by the husband. It’s freely given by the wife as an act of obedience to the Lord.

I want you to notice that this is a reverse of the curse in Genesis 3. Genesis 3:16 describes the effects of sin on the woman: “Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you.” In Jesus, this is reversed. The wife’s desire is no longer contrary to her husband, but she is looking for ways to support and respect her husband.

That’s what it looks like for the wife. But then:

A Word to Husbands

Paul uses 40 Greek words to speak to wives. Now he uses three times as many words to the speak to the husbands. Far greater instruction is given to husbands than to wives in this passage.

You would expect that, having told wives to submit to their husbands, he would know tell husbands to use their authority over their wives. But what does he say instead? One command and then one reason.

Here’s the command: “Husbands, love your wives … let each one of you love his wife as himself” (5:25, 33). Husbands are not commanded to rule over their wives but to love them. Don’t try to dominate her. Love her. Surely there must be a limit on this right? There is. Love her “as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Ephesians 5:25). If you haven’t died for your wife yet, you haven’t reached the limit. Love her like Christ loved the church.

This is where you get a picture of what male headship looks like. It looks like love. As James Montgomery Boice said, “He is to love his wife as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. No woman will have much trouble submitting to a man who loves like that. No good woman will struggle hard against a man who is willing to die for her.”

This is a reverse of the curse. Being a godly husband means that you take initiative to sacrifice for and care for your wife. I appreciate what D.L. Moody once said: “If I wanted to find out whether a man was a Christian, I wouldn’t go to his minister. I would go and ask his wife. We need more Christian life at home. If a man doesn’t treat his wife right, I don’t want to hear him talk about Christianity.”

The reason why God calls husbands to love their wives this way is that God designed your marriage to portray the gospel. A good marriage is an illustration of the relationship between Christ and the church. Your marriage is meant to be a show-and-tell for the gospel.

The whole mess started with a breakdown in the marriage relationship between Adam and Eve. That problem has been solved in the gospel, and in a poetic way, God allows our marriages to portray that gospel. Ray Ortlund says, “Every time a bride and groom stand there and take their vows, they are reenacting the biblical love story, whether they realize it or not.”

Our marriages are not only transformed by the gospel, but they get to portray the gospel.

Church (1 Timothy 2:11-14)

Okay, that’s how gender plays out in marriage. How about the church?

We already covered this a little last week. We need women in the church to use their gifts in both private and public roles. As I said last week, we need women who have the courage of Rahab. We need women like Priscilla in our congregation who can disciple others with good theology. We need partners in ministry like Phoebe, Euodia, and Syntyche. We need the ministry of both men and women within the church.

At the same time, as we talked about last week, we need to hold on to the differences between men and women in the church. We looked at some of that last week. Today I want to highlight a passage in 1 Timothy 2 that speaks to this as well:

Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. (1 Timothy 2:11-14)

As you can imagine, a lot of ink has been spilled on this passage. To do this text justice would take a lot longer than we have. Let me summarize what I think it means.

• First, it begins with what women can and should do. Let women learn. That was not a common idea in that day. Women were not permitted to learn. Some segments of Judaism considered it sinful. Phil Ryken says, “Because a woman is a human being made with a mind in his image, God requires her to learn. It is her responsibility before God to become a student of biblical doctrine.”
• Second, it talks about how women should learn: quietly and with submissiveness. Quietly doesn’t mean silently. It doesn’t mean, as we’ve seen in 1 Corinthians 11, that women can’t pray in public worship. It does mean a “kind of quietness that respects and honors the leadership of the men God has called to oversee the church” (John Piper).
• Then it talks about the kind of role that women should not play: teaching and exercising authority. Again, so much ink has been spilled on this, but I take it to talk about the work of an elder. This is reserved not even for all men but only for certain qualified men.

The reasons Paul gives go back to creation before the Fall, as well as the way Satan twisted the creation order which led to sin. In other words, male leadership isn’t based on culture or the Fall. It’s part of God’s original design.

Putting this together: women should learn and use their gifts, just as men should. But it should be done under the godly leadership of qualified male elders. We’re going to tease out what this looks like in detail, but here’s how one church expressed this conviction:

… all positions of leadership and service are open to women, except for the authoritative teaching and disciplinary role that the Bible, in 1 Timothy 2:12–14, reserves for men … Aside from that function, women are encouraged to seek out all avenues of leadership and service … fully exercising their gifts for the greater benefit of the body of Jesus Christ.

World (1 Timothy 2:15)

Let me summarize what I’ve said so far. In marriage, wives freely submit by supporting, respecting, and following, and husbands love. In the church, both men and women learn and use their gifts, but qualified men who serve as elders.

What about how we live in the world? For this we need to look at one of the hardest verses in the entire New Testament. “Yet she will be saved through childbearing — if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control” (1 Timothy 2:15).

What in the world? There are at least six different views on what this verse means. I wish I had more time to unpack it, but I don’t. Instead, let me tell you what I think Paul is saying.

Here’s what he’s not saying: that all women have to have children. Not every woman will marry; not every woman will be able to have children.

I think what he’s saying, though, is this: one of the amazing things that women can do that men can’t is to have children. Value that! Of course, you can do more than that. Use your gifts. Serve alongside men to fill and cultivate the earth. But embrace your femininity. Men and women, as they serve in the world, should serve as men and women with all the unique ways that we are different. Enjoy and embrace your gender. When a woman embraces being a woman, and lives a life of faith, love, holiness, and self-control, it’s evidence of God’s work.

In other words, don’t check your gender at the door. Men, live all of your life as a godly male. Women, live all of your life as a godly female. Don’t devalue the unique privilege of bearing children.

In marriage, wives submit and husbands love. In church, everyone uses their gifts as godly male elders lead. In the world, we all do God’s good work while embracing our gender. In other words, embrace your gender in every area of your life. As someone has said:

The more distant, transactional, and functional the relationship, the less sexual difference matters. This is one reason why Christians should have no objection to women serving as the heads of corporations, nonprofits, government agencies, and more.

You can serve in all kinds of ways in the world, but in the process — especially in the home and in the church — don’t lose sight of the valuable contribution that you can make as you live out God’s design for your gender.

God made you a man or a woman in his image. He designed your gender for his glory. If you are in Christ, he saved you as a man or a woman. If you have not come to Christ, he wants to embrace and adopt you as a man or woman, dealing with all of your sins and regrets. He intends to use you as a man or a woman for his glory. And you will enjoy new creation forever as a man or woman.

So embrace your gender in every area of life not just for the good of the world, but for the glory of God.