Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. applied?

 

At the risk of getting my head shot off by someone out there, yes, I have been thinking some about the roles of men and women, and I’m about to express some of my thoughts.

 

I’m reading a book right now that approaches the issue from a cultural angle… sort of. Basically, the book says that cultures tend to oppress women universally. But it also says that women are universally freeing themselves from this oppression and establishing their rightful equality with men.

 

The book is also trying to see this whole issue from a biblical angle, though it has hardly brought the Bible to bear on anything so far. As I look at the Bible, I have to agree that men and women are created equal. But I also have to believe that God has assigned men a role of authority over women, and that women were made to help their men. Many would say this is an oppressive belief. But is it?

 

Confusingly, I think the answer is both yes and no. First, no – God’s assigned authority of a man over a woman is not oppressive. That is, in an ideal world, without sin, a man’s authority over a woman would not be oppressive. The belief itself is not an oppressive belief.

 

But then again, yes. In our world, with sin in each human heart, a man’s authority over a woman tends to lead to oppression. The authority itself is not inherently oppressive, but men and women respond to each other in sinful ways that lead to oppression and frustration in one another.

 

A husband, unsure of how to know the boundary line between when his wife is challenging his authority and when she is merely trying to help him the make the best possible choice (and respects him enough to believe he wants to make that choice), may misinterpret her questions and suggestions, get angry, explode with rage, and verbally or even physically attack the wife he wants to love.

 

A wife, trying to figure out how best to help her husband make good decisions, may keep silent at times and then after things go wrong say, “I thought that might happen;” or she may too forcefully argue to make sure something really minor goes the right way, leaving her husband feeling attacked and disrespected. Either way, a wife may well leave her husband feeling as though she thinks he is incompetent and untrustworthy.

 

And these things assume that husbands and wives are acting with the best of intentions. Unfortunately, sin makes it so that we do not have the best of intentions, let alone make the best decisions or do the most loving actions.

 

In a world where both husband and wife have been created equal, and yet God has given husbands authority over their wives, both need to exercise sacrificial amounts of loving grace toward each other. And we need to try to understand the goodness of God’s design.

 

I see things more clearly when I realize how much responsibility God has given to me – far more than I can handle on my own. In fact, even with Christy’s amazing and abundant help, the responsibilities God has given me overwhelm us more often than we might like to admit. Because God has given me so many responsibilities, He has graciously given me Christy to help me fulfill them. But she does so as Christy, not as Matt. We are equal, but I have both more authority and more responsibility. Because Christy is so gifted and talented, I am sometimes tempted to believe that she is using her gifts in ways that threaten my role… but as I look at what she has done with them, I see that those temptations are foolish. Let me take a moment to praise my dear Christy, and perhaps it will help create a picture of how men and women can be both equal and yet given different levels of authority – and how this was never meant to be oppressive (and may God forgive us men when it is oppressive!).

 

Various things I believe that the Bible says I am responsible for include:

• Cultivating My Family And Those I Know (MFATIK) to know Jesus Christ and to lead others to know Jesus
• Cultivating MFATIK to obey Jesus Christ in whatever we do
• Providing a home for my family
• Providing food and clothes for my family
• Learning from God so that I can teach MFATIK to listen to Him
• Encouraging MFATIK through and into hospitality
• Urging MFATIK to serve others
• Guiding MFATIK to be ambassadors for Jesus beyond our comfort zones

 

Christy has supported me in so many ways.

 

She encourages me to cultivate my own relationship with Jesus Christ and to help others cultivate the relationship, too. She is such a wonderful mother. She spends about half of her week watching our kids and caring for their needs – and I’m not even talking yet about the financial support she provides for them. She helps me keep our children focused enough to benefit from our nightly Bible story times. She prays with our children and sings songs to them that encourage them to know Jesus. Hearing her sing to them has several times reminded me to do the same, and her choice of songs has also helped me remember some wonderfully helpful songs for our children. Even beyond our family, Christy supports my efforts to cultivate people’s relationships with Jesus Christ. She tells people that I am actually worth listening to (which means so much to me and gives me courage to speak, knowing I have her support), and she sometimes surprises me by telling me such things as that I ought to publish what I have learned from God so that I can help even more people cultivate a relationship with Jesus.

 

Christy has also supported me in obeying Jesus. I tend to theorize about the future, but Christy has consistently helped me to live in the present – to see my neighbors and their real needs, obeying Jesus and reaching out to people I might otherwise have overlooked as I daydreamed about future ministry. She has allowed me to open our home to relative strangers – overnight! – graciously and joyfully seeking to obey Jesus our Lord with me. She has even supported my preparation for obedience – my years in seminary could not have happened without her emotional, financial, and devoted support. She has given her time to help me serve more effectively, building websites and designing brochures to help me organize and communicate with others. She has walked side-by-side with me—sometimes through pain—to distribute flyers or serve food to marginalized people. She has definitely helped me obey Jesus.

 

As to providing a home, food and clothes for our family, that responsibility has pretty much been on Christy’s shoulders for the past two and a half years. Yes, I have worked part-time so that the full weight of the responsibility wouldn’t overwhelm her (in conjunction with all the other responsibilities she has carried for me, I’m amazed she hasn’t experienced a complete meltdown). But my part-time work has not been even CLOSE to the primary way that God has provided for our family; He has done that through Christy’s consistent, steady work as a web designer/graphic designer/photographer. She has only worked part-time (on the job, not on life), but God has blessed her with such wonderful talents that her part-time work has been far more financially productive than mine. Christy’s talented work is the only reason that we are not in debt!

 

I have already mentioned that Christy’s support is what allows me to attend seminary so that I can learn from God and prepare to help others learn from Him. But her support also allows me to learn from Jesus in other ways. She frees me up to participate in ELI, a men’s group in our church designed to help us learn to follow God and lead others in every area of life. She gives me time to meet with other men on a regular basis for accountability and encouragement. She helps me make sure our family gets to church on time to hear God’s message in the songs, Scriptures, and sermons. Without Christy, I couldn’t accomplish half these things.

 

Christy has helped me grow in hospitality. She and I open our apartment every week to our Community Group, and she never complains about the cleaning, cooking, or extra shopping she has to do because of it. She encourages me to have guests over to eat, and is extremely flexible with having visiting friends and family stay in our home (she lovingly gave up our bed to a three-year old! – how many people would do that?)!

 

Even though my taking a part-time job at our church took more time away from Christy and her work, she encouraged me – really encouraged me, not begrudgingly – to take the job so that I could spend more time serving God’s church and leading God’s family into service. I have learned so much about service because of her sacrifice. I have benefited both from her example of service to me and from my experiences in serving others. I am learning that I am not all that willing a servant on my own, and it has given me the chance to cry out to God for a heart of love, mercy, and service. God is answering my prayers. Who knows how much longer I might have waited to learn the valuable lessons in service that I am now learning had Christy not encouraged me to accept this role?

 

Finally, there is no one I would rather have at my side as an ambassador for Jesus Christ, in or beyond my comfort zones. Christy has been there since near the beginning of our relationship. She has helped me witness to people all over Toccoa. She has faithfully developed friendships with those we’ve witnessed to, encouraging them to know the Lord more fully. She has dreamed with me about the places the Lord might lead us as missionaries, and has helped me be realistic about how to be an ambassador here and now. She understands people beautifully and adjusts readily to upper- and lower-class situations, neither being overly intimidated by those others might perceive as powerful or standoff-ish toward those others might reject.

 

In every area of life, Christy helps me fulfill my responsibilities. Yes, they are her responsibilities, too. But I feel the weight of them, and she lifts enormous amounts of their weight from my shoulders. As I free her to help me in the ways she is uniquely gifted to help – her artistry, her cultural awareness and sensitivity – she often ends up being more productive than I am. And lovingly, she doesn’t demean me. Instead, she points out my gifts and encourages me in my strengths. Together, we look to Jesus Christ to make us complete, knowing that we are incomplete and imperfect on our own. I thank God for Christy – and I don’t often enough say so publicly.

 

I hope that this helps just a bit to clear the confusion away from a Biblical picture of manhood and womanhood – of non-oppressive authority relationships between equals. I know it won’t clear the air completely. I myself am still confused, and I know that I have oppressed Christy by my use of authority more often than I would like to remember. But I repent of my sinful oppression, and I find forgiveness both from Christy and Jesus Christ. Christy and I are aiming to live the way Jesus intends for us to live, and I can’t thank God enough for putting Christy in my life.