Defining Biblical Masculinity & Femininity

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Defining Biblical Masculinity & Femininity

September 5, 2021

This week on the Sunday Series, Bryce and I begin a new series on gender roles as defined by the creation order in the bible. Gender is thought to be a social construct that changes with society/culture. Biblically we know that our gender, and the gender roles inherent in each gender, are defined by God alone and not mankind. Gender does not change and Gender roles do not change. God has told us what these things are and how we ought to think about them. The human mind is spectacular but not spectacular enough to undo the things God has already put into us. The weeks following, Bryce and I will continue to walk through biblical gender roles and how Christians ought to think about them based on various passages in the bible. Thanks so much for listening, we hope it glorifies God and edifies you!

Key Texts: Genesis 1:26-27, 2:15-25; 1 Corinthians 11:3, 7-9

Eric Conn's Podcast is great to listen to for biblical masculinity/femininity : https://open.spotify.com/show/3g6JOGWFPQAEbaQlmIaCwp?si=c5778811911e42fa

Articles with studies and statistics of women depressed in the work force

* https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2014/11/21/women-with-workplace-power-are-more-depressed-men-not-so-much/

* https://hrexecutive.com/hres-number-of-the-day-depression-among-working-women/

* https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/02/190225192140.htm -> THIS ONE IS VERY IMPORTANT

My guest joining me this week on the Sunday series is my brother Bryce. Bryce is getting his undergraduate degree in philosophy and hopes to get his MDiv. from a seminary after he completes his undergrad. He hopes to be a pastor shepherding Gods people one day.

Website: forthekingpodcast.com

Contact: forthekingpodcast@gmail.com

Transcript

(music) Welcome to the For The King Podcast. In Mark 15, verse 2, Jesus is before Pilate and Pilate's interrogating him to see if he finds any guilt in this man that the Jews have brought before him. And he asks Jesus a stupid question.

So obvious. He says, "Are you king of the Jews?" And Jesus says, "You have said so." What a beast! Yeah, so yeah, Jesus is the king and this is the For The King Podcast where Jesus is recognized as king. He is overseeing all this through his word because this podcast is founded on God's word.

We want it to be biblically sound from God's word that we have in the scriptures and we want to glorify him. So we recognize Jesus as king, but uh oh, news flash, he's also your king. If you're listening to this, if you're a Christian, he's your king.

If you are not a Christian, he's the king. He can't escape it. He's just the king.

So that's what this podcast is about. Thanks for tuning in. I'm sure that whisper sounded really creepy on the other line.

I know, I'm curious when we go back through and hear it what that sounds like. It might be a little cringy, but I was trying to, it was trying, I was trying to be epic, but if it's cringy then so be it. Let it be so.

Okay, so this week I got my brother again per usual on the Sunday series where we just go into different theological topics and as you have seen this past Wednesday, I uploaded a interview with an author of a book. His name was Zach Garris, the author of Masculine Christianity. So go listen to last, this past Wednesday's episode.

I guess I would upload it the, let's see, August 1st, August 1st, sorry, I'm sorry, September 1st, my bad. September 1st would be the upload date for that. So go check out my episode from September 1st with Zach Garris.

And in that episode, we walk through his book about Masculine Christianity, about what it means for Christianity to be masculine. What is the masculine forms of Christianity? How is biblical masculinity laid out in the Bible? So that's what his book's about. And we, when I had the interview, I wanted to start this Sunday into a series about biblical masculinity, biblical femininity.

So Bryce and I are going to walk through a lot of these things we've been learning from Eric Kahn's podcast. So go check that out. It's called the Hardman podcast, where Eric Kahn walks through some biblical concepts in his own way on his podcast.

So that's on my website. If you want to go check out that, on the resources tab, you can go down and one of the podcasts I put in there is a good resources, his podcast, and then also check out Zach Garris's, you know, material, his book, goodbye's book, biblical masculinity. And his website is awesome.

Yeah, knowing, resource. Yeah, go to knowing scripture.com. It's a really good website. And as you guys will see on, on Wednesday's podcast, he's a real cool guy.

He's really smart, really intelligible, well spoken, just very faithful brother in Christ. So we were happy to do an interview with him. And now Bryce and I are going to do a Sunday series for, I don't know how long we're going to do it.

We're just starting it, but just unraveling practical Christianity, the theology of man, this is anthropology. This would fall under the broad heading and theology of anthropology. So that's what we're doing.

The study of man, what is man like? Well, we know he's sinful. We know all these other things, totally depraved, you know, made in the image of God, all these kind of things. And a part of that is, well, what's mankind like? Well, there's male, there's male and there's female.

That's what we're like. So we're going to unpack those, these biblical concepts because the Bible deals a lot with what men and women are like. Okay.

So this week we want to just do a real quick episode. Nothing crazy, defining man and defining woman. And where we get the basis for this, as we get the basis for a lot of our theology, you know, we must go to the beginning, the Genesis, the origin story of mankind, anthropology, the study of ancient man.

And where we get this information from is Genesis chapter one and two is where we're going to be looking at. Obviously, Genesis three is the fall and we have some curses on the masculinity and femininity, but that doesn't really define it. The creation order is what defines what it's like.

And then there's sinful things that come out of that, that mess up those roles. And when we, when we get further into that next week with the roles of man and woman, we'll probably hit Genesis three. So that's why we're omitting that this week.

And we're just wanting, we're just laboring to define man and woman biblically. Okay. And a small caveat on that is it is vitally important that we're going to be discussing today is pre-fall.

Like Rocky was mentioning, it's pre-fall and because it's pre-fall, that transcends culture. It's, this means that this is how God made us. So we can't argue with God, who are we to answer back to God? This is how we made it.

So we need to understand exactly. So yeah, yeah, this is the, yeah, exactly. Good point.

Hopefully you guys grasp that this, the key word there transcends culture. Okay. This is binding for every human in every culture, these things, every man, every woman, these things will be binding.

Okay. So let's define man and woman. So let's go to Genesis one, verses 26 and 27.

Sound good? Okay. The verse, starting in verse 26, I'm reading out the ESV, by the way. I think we already said that multiple times, but that's what I'm reading out of.

Then God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created them male and female.

He created them. So a lot of that is general, creation order. What does mankind like in general, having dominion over the fish to see and all those things.

But there is going to be an ordering to these things on how, you know, men and women both have dominion over the earth, but men primarily are what lead out in having dominion over the earth. And the woman comes alongside him and helps him in this endeavor. And we're going to walk through that.

But the key point here is both male and female are created in the image of God. So when we define man and woman, you know, what is the defining part of man and woman? Well, they have biological systems that are different. That would be a defining thing, but that's not the, the Bible is not concerned about defining the biblical, or sorry, the biological differences between man and woman.

That's an obvious part of creation. You should learn that from what theologians called the book of nature, the revelation of nature. When you just open your eyes and look at a man and then you look at a woman, you will notice things about the difference, physical stature, sexual organs, all these things, you'll notice the difference.

So the Bible is not laboring to do that here. The main takeaway, both are made in the image of God. Right.

Good. Anything to add? It's also important to note too, that contrary to your popular belief, mankind is the proper term. We shouldn't be saying humankind.

And the reason here is that it's all under the subcategory of mankind. Male and female, both were created in the image of God, but notice it's addressed specifically to singular man. Yeah.

And that's an important note because you're even seeing hidden hierarchy, even within that statement that God said in terms of him creating male and female. But the image of God itself is a very beautiful thing and it's what gives both man and woman their value. Yeah.

Because we are seen by God as being in his image because that's how he created us. Exactly. So we both have roles when it comes to taking dominion.

Exactly. But real quick note, just because men are higher in the hierarchy, as a patriarchy over how a human society is ordered, doesn't mean that men are made more in the image of God and women are made a little less in the image of God because they're not exercising as much dominion as men over creation. It's the difference that Bryce and I want to highlight is there's going to be a different role and how they're interacting with having dominion over the whole earth.

Namely, that men lead and go conquer the earth like men are supposed to do. And women come alongside and help and support and love and basically build up the home that the man comes back to basically every day. She creates the comfortable refuge.

Yeah. Basically. And they both together, the man needs that and the woman needs that.

Right. Yeah. That's a really good point you bring up.

And it even seems like Moses under the divine inspiration of the Holy Spirit in the next chapter really hits on that very hard. Yeah, exactly. So we can move on.

Yeah. So in chapter two, verse 15, you would see chapter one is really kind of like Rocky said, it's a broad general overview kind of a, of what's happening, how God created everything. And then chapter two, you kind of get the zoomed in, you're seeing the particulars of what's occurring.

Yeah. Right. So you see everything.

Some theologians messes up and say, Oh, there was one creation, it was destroyed. Now there's another. I mean, you have to really do some gymnastics to get around the text and that, but what's happening right here is you see particularities, particular events of the historic Adam and Eve being made and created.

Yep. So in Genesis chapter two, verse 15, it says the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. So you're seeing the man specifically being mentioned there.

Eve had not been created yet. Okay. So this is specifically regarding Adam and he's given two tasks, two tasks, which are in accordance with the nature that he's been made in.

And he's supposed to work the garden and to keep it. And that word keep, it can also be translated guard. It also has the connotation that he's supposed to protect what is his in the garden.

Right. So he's given that authority and then he's given that cash, work it. So in other words, cultivate the ground, cultivate the garden, and then also protect it.

Yeah. From any, I don't know, maybe serpents that try to slow them in there, right? Darn it. Yeah.

That's his task. I mean, nowadays that's like equivalent to like a rabbit coming and eating your carrots, right? You got to guard it, you know, don't let them rabbits, eat them carrots. Get a bone arrow and you shoot the rabbit.

Yes. But then notice what happens after that is the woman is now made. And you see that God is saying that the only thing that's not good is that man should be alone.

And there wasn't a helper fit for him. Right. And a lot of people don't really like the term helper, but it's really a beautiful term.

That word is there is also used to describe God as our helper. Yeah. And other passages in the Old Testament.

Yeah. So basically the connotation isn't like a helper as in a slave or somebody that like you don't really need, but like you kind of appreciate. Like if it's used to describe God, this is a necessary other.

This is a necessary second party to you as an individual. Like a dog, like man's best friend. Yeah.

If a woman's going to be described as an Azer and then God in the Psalms is described as Azer helper to David, helper to Israel. This is not an arbitrary term. And this isn't just like a semi-appreciated second party.

Right. This is like a person of dignity, worth, honor, glory, all these things. And that's why we're going to read eventually Proverbs 31, like a God, the woman is the crown of her husband, the glory of him.

So yeah, let's just get rid of that whole notion right there. Just cause we have an idea of what a like a helper, maybe in a job you have like the person that's really doing the job and then you have the helper that's like there to make his job a little easier. And there's some truth to that in the analogy, glomming that onto between a man and a woman.

But this helper is not just indispensable or sorry, this, this helper is not dispensable. They're indispensable. Right.

And that's why the image of God is only able to be properly exercised and it's dominion with both parties. Yeah. Right.

Because a man is not, he can't do the one he can't reproduce by himself. He can't take dominion in that way. Cause guess what? His years are going to come to an end, but that's after the fall.

But even here, he can't produce his offspring before the fall. Right. He needs the one and then the woman is finally made.

He, God pretty much presents to him all these different animals and none of them are good enough. None of them actually were a good fit. Yeah.

Right. For Adam. And then finally God makes the woman by causing a deep sleep to fall on Adam.

And then he takes out one of his ribs, which also can be that he, your word can also be used in a sense of a, the side of a wall is taken off of a building. So it's the connotation of like a half of him in a sense. Yeah.

It takes a half of them. They're like literally complete each other in the most, although it's kind of corny. It's like you complete me, you know, but like, yeah, I've heard that before.

Do what? Oh, I have no idea. That's why at the vampire movie. Yeah.

You complete me. I bet they said something like that. Yeah.

That's a very, but it is corny movie about masculinity. It is. But yeah, you complete me.

And that's why Adam first sound the song. He like, he says is literally of my bone flesh of my flesh. But here's something important to notice.

He didn't say dust from dust as Adam was. He says bone of my bone flesh of my flesh. So here you see there are two distinct creations happening.

There's not, it's not that mankind in the sense of both of them have the same, here's a theological word, ontology, which just means the makeup of who they are, what the reality of their being is. They're not the same. They have two different natures.

Adam was taken out of the dirt and a woman was taken out of man. Yeah. Right.

So you see two different things happening here. They're not the same thing. Right.

And in spite of popular belief and that you can egalitarianism. Yeah, exactly. That'd be the word.

Right. We're different. Bryce and I are coming against hard egalitarianism right now.

Yeah. You wouldn't even know it unless we say it, but yeah, we are. Yeah.

And you wouldn't even, it's such a subtle serpent. Yeah. The church that is teaching people that men and women have the same nature.

You know, we're really not that different, which is completely wicked and evil. And it's not honoring the woman and it's not honoring the man. Yeah.

You honor the uniqueness of the woman and honor the uniqueness of the man. Right. Both of us have completely beautiful, distinct roles and distinct ways in which God created us.

Yeah. Even in spite of all the obvious biological factors, right? The physical is always a bleed off of the spiritual reality of what's occurring. Yeah.

Right. So we're different both physically and spiritually. Yeah.

And mentally. We'll get into how the Bible will attest to all that. But yeah.

So anyways, it's bone of my phone, flesh of my flesh, not dirt like my dirt, dust like my dust. Yeah. It's completely different happening here.

Exactly. And real quick before we move on to 1 Corinthians 11. Note, she is the crown of the creation for all you feminists out there are all you man haters or whoever's listening to this.

If anybody's disgruntled by some of the language, Bryce and I have already used the Bible in no way dishonors women or looks at women as baby factories. She is a necessary other. Literally the last thing that God created, he said, literally, there's one thing that isn't good.

It's that man is alone. He needs this essential Azer helper to help him get along in life. And she's going to need him and he's going to need her.

Yeah. So just want that to be said. This is, this is a position of women have been given, have been given a position of honor.

Men have been given a position of honor. But what Bryce and I want to do is show that a woman's role that our culture hates or whatever, to stay at home with the kids, to be a homemaker, to love her husband, to submit to her husband, all these things that she's called to in her role. Those are actually a position of honor.

And you're literally spitting on women and dishonoring them when you as a feminist or you as an egalitarian Christian or whatever, get rid of those roles and say the man should stay home. The woman should go work. The woman should go fight the wars.

Man should stay home. We should let women hold a gun and go murder and massacre other humans. Women are not fit for that task.

It's not fitting for a woman who is literally the beacon of life. Women are where life comes from. The next generation comes from women.

How unfitting is it to have literally the life giver? Eve literally means mother of all the living or the life giver, that kind of thing. To have women go take life and war. That is an ugly act reserved for men.

Right. So let's not dishonor women by trying to make them men. That's the stupidest, most dishonoring thing you can do to a woman and to send her into corporate America and to make her a corporate wage slave is literally one of the most evil, heinous, unnatural things for a woman to go do.

Yeah. And that's why they all hate their lives. If you look at the statistics, I mean, I'm going to try and find something to put in the show notes, but they do not.

They're not happy in corporate America. They don't like that. They're much more happy being home with the kids because women love their kids.

When you have a kid, you're attached to it. Apparently that's what I've heard. And my wife is pregnant right now.

She is already, you can tell how attached she is to the child growing up there. Yeah, exactly. It's a very integral part of her life.

I just want to say all that. Yeah. Since we're defining it, let's just define it.

What's another part of the definition? Honorable. Honorable position. Honorable ontology.

And this would, you could even very applicable go to 1 Corinthians 12 and say, how can the hand say to the foot, I have no use of you. Obviously that's a different context, but even here, you can't say, oh, this is just a subordinate role and they're useless. They are very useful.

And in fact, they're essential and integral. Yeah. Exactly what Rocky said.

And I would hope women would say that about men. Yeah. Like I don't hate men.

They have a unique role and I as a woman, I need it. I need to have a man in my life. Just like a man would be like, I would like to have a woman if I need a woman.

Yeah. If I want to be get a woman, a woman monogamy. Okay.

Let's go to first with these 11 and wrap this up. Yeah. You want me to read it? Yeah.

I thought that was kind of your, yeah, that's what we talked about. Yeah. Well then do it.

First Corinthians 11. A lot of people are confused by this section because they say, oh, this section is about head coverings and it's really just confusing and we're not really entirely sure. There are some very easy statements that Paul says here that if you just take it natural face value, it means what it says and it says what it means.

This section is really not that hard. Yeah. Of course, there's obviously some, there are some sections in here that are a little difficult.

But with the probably the because of the angels part. Yeah. That part's weird.

Exactly. Yeah. But with the sections we're going to read, it's very easy.

Yeah. Just as I'm reading it, what I'm saying out of my mouth is what it means. So that's just the easiest way to, I guess, interpret this.

So first Corinthians 11 verse three says this, but I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ. The head of a wife is her husband and the head of Christ is God. These are very basic statements that Paul just said.

The head of Christ is God. This is talking about the incarnate son of God, right? There's not some subordination in the trinity. We don't have to necessarily get to that.

This is talking about the Jesus and his incarnate state as he is forever. The God man is subordinate to the father and his manhood. So the head of Christ is God.

He came to do the will of his father. The head of every man is Christ. He is our king, which is the point of this podcast.

He is our God. He's the one who we submit to. Every, every person will stand naked before Jesus Christ.

Naked. Naked. Yeah.

My dad always said that naked. I know. In the head of every wife or woman, you can also translate it as a woman.

That means the same thing, depending on context. The head of every woman is man or the head of your wife is her husband. So this specifically is referencing to a very basic common understanding.

If everything else transcends culture, Jesus is the head of every man. Yeah, that's right. Definitely transcends culture.

This one is definitely transcends the cultural realm. This isn't just some weird cultural statement. Yeah.

He didn't put in the middle of two transcendent statements. He didn't just put a little cultural statement in there. He's like, but this is for our time.

Yeah. Just as a caveat, you Corinthians, just for you guys, you know, the husband's a head, you know, which is, it's not what Paul's doing. So just get that out of your head.

Yeah. So this is a very easy statement. The head of every husband, sorry, the head of every wife is her husband.

Right. You already see this hierarchy that was established at the beginning of creation, going back to the creative order with Adam being made first and then a woman. That's what Paul says in second Corinthians for Adam.

A woman is not made first, but Adam was made first and then the woman. So that's the whole point of that passage. And going on down to verse seven through nine, it says for a man ought not to cover his head since he is the image of the glory of God, but woman is the glory of man.

For man was not made from woman, but woman for man. Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. So here's the whole point.

Okay. If we break this down, if you take this back to Genesis, why was man created? He was given a task to work it and to keep it or guard it, but woman comes along and what she made, she's made for her husband as a aid and a helper and essential and integral part to the family relations. Right.

So she is made with her eyes focused on the man because she was taken out of man where she's taken out of. That's where her eyes are focused towards, but man was taken out of the dirt. So what's his eyes focused on the dirt.

He worries about working the ground, telling it, cultivating it and guarding it. That's his focus. So right here, you see the outcome of two completely distinct natures that woman was made from the man, but man was not made from the woman.

Yeah. Right. He was made first woman was made second.

This doesn't mean that women are of less value. All that this means is that women are lesser in the hierarchy. That mankind is preeminent over women in the sense of authority, not a value authority.

Yeah. I know some feminists would already get mad at that statement. Well, authority is value.

You have more value. Uh, if you're more authoritative, you'll already get into that, but that is just a false equivocation. You're just equivocating the terms.

They are not equal statements. That's because you have more authority does not mean you have more value necessarily. Um, anything at all on that? I was just going to bring up, this is always rooted in how Christ submits to the father.

So obviously Jesus does not have, um, less value than the father just cause he submits to him in, um, a role he's been assigned for a time. Right. Um, I imagine in, in heaven, women and men are both submitting to God.

Women are no longer submitting to men. I don't know if those roles would even need to be played out anymore in heaven. Um, so obviously it's for a time.

It's a role given in God's wisdom and the way he made men and women. There's no, there's no marriage in heaven. There's no, yeah.

Well, she would still be submitting to the man. Yeah. To Christ.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Um, but men also submit to Christ, you know, so I think, yeah, these are the way men and women flourished in, in the world that God created.

And when you minimize this and when you take it out, you are fundamentally destroying society because society is built on this creation. Yeah. On the creative order we can, I've said this to some of my coworkers, I have some coworkers who they're still, um, you know, they're, they're pretty much committing adultery because they're not married and they have a girlfriend, they have like kids and stuff.

And I've encouraged them, like, you should get married, right? You should stay, you should not stay in this state any longer. And that's because this isn't something that's just for Christians. Yeah.

This is upon the creation of the world. Yeah. Woman was made for man.

Man was made to marry woman and to keep and cultivate the garden. Yeah. Right.

This is just part of the creative order. And that's what Paul's getting at. He's going back to the garden.

Like he's saying, this is how it was from the beginning. Man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Yeah.

Right. He's alluding back to the garden. And that's the key part here is that this transcends culture.

This isn't something that you could have say, Oh, you know, this really is talking about head coverings. Head coverings was just for that day and age. Therefore everything else here was just culturally relevant then.

No, no, no. He's going straight back to the culture. He's not talking about the Corinthians.

He's indicting them because of the woman's lack of submission to the man. Yeah. And the man's lack of understanding of this as well.

Exactly. It's really not that hard of a section. No, it's not.

We should, yeah, we should be able to understand this and Christians should return back to this clear biblical teaching instead of egalitarianism. And even complementarianism is not as you will see if you listen to that August 1st episode with Zachary's complementarianism even has compromised a lot of things. We need biblical patriarchy.

Men should be the leaders loving their wives and dying for their lives, keeping the garden. Okay. That's it for this episode.

All of these things that we've talked about defining man and woman, their ontology will be played out in certain roles in the church, in the home, in society. We will walk through those is the goal over the next couple of weeks as we do this series. Home, church, society, roles in general, that kind of thing.

So we're going to see how all this creation order stuff will play out in those roles. So thanks for tuning in. If you guys are offended, sorry about you.

And you can reach out and get in a discussion with us. Somebody can talk about this too. Yep.

Just ask you the question. It's really scary to believe something, to hear something that you disagree with, get all angry and then do nothing about it. That's a really scary place to be in.

So if you just listened to this and you were mad, you ought to send me an email or you're a coward. So send me an email and we can talk. Heck, if you disagree and you think egalitarianism is correct, come on the podcast.

I'll debate you. Anything like that. Would love to do that.

Or it doesn't even have to be in the podcast. He can debate you somewhere else if you don't want to do that. I can debate you and not even upload it.

Is that what you mean? Yeah. Yeah. That's no, 100% I would do that.

I guess. Yeah. If you think it's wrong and you want me to know and you want other people to know, you're welcome to go present that view of my podcast, but I will be there to present the other view.

But I'm happy to talk about it. Obviously offline. That's what the email is for.

That's kind of what I meant by that already. So yeah, that's it. Go straight to the gladiator.

If you want to talk to me, you have to do it in public in front of thousands of people. I'm just kidding. So thanks for listening.

For those of you that were tuning in, Bryce and I don't want to be unnecessarily offensive, but we do want to be offensive because the Bible is just going to be offensive to our culture. And nobody, especially if you live in America, you're not above the culture. Bryce and I, Bryce and I probably three years ago would have got offended by some of the stuff we just said or have been put off by and been like, ah, there's no way that can be true.

Well, I've always been on this. No, Bryce is not. Don't let him fool you.

So obviously we understand that a lot of people think differently, but we're presenting what the Bible says that transcends culture. Okay. So thanks for listening.

Check out the website, for the king podcast.com. I reached out to my email, like I was saying earlier at for the king podcast at gmail.com. If you want to send an inquiry, a question, a thought, anything like that. Pray for the podcast, support it financially. If you would feel inclined, give me a rating and review on Apple podcasts.

So the podcast might grow. I would appreciate that as well. And I'm going to end with this little, little tiny doxology that Paul says in first Timothy, chapter one, verse 17 to the king of the ages, a mortal, invisible, the only God, the honor and glory forever and ever.

Amen. Solely. Deo.

Gloria. [inaudible]