God Created Man As Male and Female

Transcript

GR1937
01/17/2016
God Created Man as Male and Female
I Peter 3:1-7; Selected Verses
Gil Rugh

We have been studying I Peter together on Sunday nights and we are going to tie something into that study. It also fits what we have talked about recently on the authority of Scripture and the importance of proper hermeneutics or the principles of interpreting Scripture.

Maybe you should turn in your Bibles to I Peter chapter 3 just to refresh your minds since it has been a little bit since we have been in this; I Peter chapter 3, all the way in the back of your New Testament. Peter is dealing in this section with particularly order that God has established and God’s people manifesting His character by being obedient in recognizing the order that He has put in place in the world. In other words He has established authority and Peter particularly focuses attention on the responsibility of believers being submissive in a context even where the person in authority over you may be an unbeliever and thus can make life difficult and unpleasant.

So he started this section when he said in verse 12: “To keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles” and then he says in verse 13: “Submit yourself.” He starts out with human government and the responsibility there for believers to submit themselves to all areas of human government and naturally that will be by and large a governing body of unbelievers. Just in the order of things.

So from the ruler whether it is the King, the Caesar, the President, the Prime Minister all the way down to the local officials we use the freedom we have in Christ to be obedient to Him and to be obedient to those God has placed over us.

In verse 18 he talked about servants being submissive to their masters and even when you are not treated fairly you still are to manifest God’s character in how you carry out your responsibility, Christ being the prime example of being mistreated and yet He didn’t say things that would have been out of line. Verse 23, He didn’t revile when He was reviled; He didn’t utter threats, He carried out the will of God for our benefit.

So we come to chapter 3 and you have the instructions to wives being submissive to their husbands and that includes husbands who are unbelievers because it is expected that husbands who are believers, the wives will still be submissive but that will be an easier, more pleasant situation and reminds the wives they are to adorn themselves with godly character. It doesn’t rule out other kinds of adornment but the prime focus for a godly woman and a godly wife is godly character.

Then he does remind the husbands in verse 7 of their responsibility. “You husbands in the same way live with your wives in an understanding way as with a weaker vessel.” You show her honor because she is a fellow heir of life. So he draws in here the responsibility that there is of a believing husband with a believing wife and for the husband to fail in this part would mean his spiritual life is hindered, his relationship with the Lord is hindered. This becomes a very important matter.

So in light of what he says, particularly addressing husbands and wives, I want to talk about the whole issue just in overview summary way of God having created man as male and female and just a reminder as we move through some of these basic passages. We have done more detailed studies on those. They are available on the internet and in Sound Words if you want to pursue them. The foundational issue is God’s sovereignty over all His creation.

Come back to the book of Isaiah. We won’t do a lot of these verses but one chapter, Isaiah chapter 45. I encourage maybe sometime at your leisure this week to read particularly Isaiah chapters 40 and following through chapter 45 where we are going to be where God emphasizes His role as creator.

We will pick up verse 5: “I am the Lord and there is no other. Besides Me there is no God. I will gird you though you have not known Me.” The men He is instructing here, Cyrus, He is going to raise up for His purposes but a reminder of who He is.

Middle of verse 6: “There is no one besides Me. I am the Lord there is no other. The One forming light and creating darkness, causing well-being and creating calamity. I am the Lord who does all these things.” We call the good things and the good things. What is sometimes called the natural disasters. God is sovereign and brings it all about according to His purposes.

Verse 9: “Woe to the one who quarrels with his maker. An earthen ware vessel among the vessels of earth. Will the clay say to the potter, ‘what are you doing?’”

Verse 12: “It is I who made the earth, created man upon it. I stretched out the heavens with My hands. I ordained all their hosts.” I am sovereign, I created it all, I rule over it all. It is My intention that My will is carried out. And He even so works sovereignly that one like Cyrus who was not a believer is God’s anointed, His appointed one to serve Him by carrying out His purposes. God uses the sinfulness of man in the accomplishing of His work. That does not excuse man for his responsibility but man cannot frustrate the purposes of God.

I say that is foundational because foundational to all we are going to say, to everything but even our focus particularly on man as male and female is rooted and founded in God’s work as creator.

So we come back to Genesis, chapter 1, Genesis chapter 1 and the opening of Genesis and when we talked about the authority of God’s Word and then we talked about how we interpret God’s Word. This is where some of the foundations are being eroded and almost completely removed by developing scholarly ways in interpreting Scripture and the book of Genesis, its clarity, its simplicity is being undermined. If you read much they talk about the genre of literature and there are different kinds of literature and Genesis is creation kind of literature. These opening chapters and that is not intended to be taken literally. It is claimed to just convey truths but in non-literal ways. As we will see in just a brief touching we will do with various passages every time these opening chapters of Genesis are referred to later right on into the New Testament by Christ, Paul and others they are always taken at face value, literally. There is no, “Well, it said that but it was really just an allegory or something mythical to convey a general truth.” God is the sovereign cause of it all but the details aren’t the way Genesis says they happened. We understand Genesis is to be taken as it says it, intended as we talked about in our study of the principles of hermeneutics, the way to be understood by normal people and so it is interpreted in Scripture.

We are just going to pick up with the sixth day of creation on verse 26 when God created man, Genesis 1:26, “Then God said, ‘let Us make man in Our image according to our likeness. Let them rule over all the other creation.’” Verse 27: “God created man in His own image. In the image of God He created him. Male and female He created them.” We note here and it is not popular today but God originally used man in the sense of mankind including male and female. Where I think the change is being made in Bible translation to be gender neutral. There are sometimes when the word ‘man’ is ‘mankind’ which includes men and women but God’s the One who started it by saying “I am going to make man and he will be male and female.” Not in the same singular individual person as the unfolding of the creation makes clear but you can call him man. In fact you know what the word here for man is, it is Adam. So Adam becomes the name of the individual man He is going to create and also the overarching name that encompasses both male and female because as we will see the female comes out of the male in the order of the creation.

So I think it is as God has it. They are going to be male and female and both male and female will have sovereignty over creation, the rest of creation but there is an order established in the creation.

The details of how that creation will take place comes out in chapter 2. Now again you will hear some who say, “Well Genesis 1 is a different account of creation than Genesis 2.” And you begin to play the Bible off against itself and Genesis 1 they would say denotes an equality where Genesis 2 has a hierarchy. People who deal with the Bible like that do not qualify to be considered evangelical. If you abandon not only claiming to believe the Bible is the Word of God but interpreting it according to its own guidelines I don’t think you quality to be an evangelical, a true Bible believing Christian. You are undermining the authority of the Word of God.

We will see once you go through the rest of the Bible, if Genesis 1, 2 and 3 are not clear, the rest of the Bible is a muddle including the work of Christ according to the last part of Romans chapter 5.

So we come into chapter 2 and we are going to get the details. Verse 4, this is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created in the day that the Lord God made heaven and earth and we are told in verse 7: “The Lord God formed a man.” He is going to focus chapter 2 and here on the height of His creation, man that was created in the image of God, chapter 1, verse 27 to act as God’s representative on earth among His creation in ruling over it, being sovereign over it.

So we just are going to unfold how did God create man as male and female? Well, God formed man, verse 7 of chapter 2 “Out of the dust from the ground, breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living being.” God has planted a garden and that will be the place man resides, the Garden of Eden. Verse 15: “Man is put there to cultivate the garden and keep it.” So he will have activity but it won’t be toilsome, wearisome labor but he wasn’t created just to sit in a rocking chair and look around. He was created to be active and to serve the God who created him. But there is no negative in cultivating the garden. There aren’t any weeds in it. What was involved in caring for the garden we don’t know. It doesn’t go into a lot of the details. What He does say is clear. A lot of the details that aren’t there, He formed man from the dust of the ground. Well that would have been interesting to see how He did it. He didn’t just speak the word and man came into existence. He used the dirt and made the man and then breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. Now I may have questions about that but the fact that what is said is pretty clear and I can get a general idea. I don’t know how He held the dust together. Did He put a little water on it or what but He formed out of the dust. Then God could have ordered the particles of dust to hold together and He made a man. It would have been interesting to watch. But even though I can’t put in my mind altogether what He says here is clear, “He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life” he is alive from that point. He is put in the garden to care for the garden. He is told, “You don’t eat of one tree in the garden. Everything else is yours, but you don’t eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and if you do you will die that day,” verses 16 and 17.

And then in verse 18, “God said,’ (I am not done.) ‘It is not good for the man to be alone.’” Now this is not a surprise to God. Remember back in chapter 1 He said his plan to make man as male and female. Now here is what He is going to do. He didn’t intend from the beginning that there just be a man. He intended to have a helper. “I will make him a helper, suitable,” compatible, “fitting for him.” There is nothing wrong with creation but when He created man as male He wasn’t done. His purposes and plan are not yet complete. So it is a reminder that in God’s plan the female is an important counterpart to the male but it is important to note here. The female was made for the male, not vice versus. Well, you are making something out of this. But this is what the New Testament says so God’s further explanation helps clarify things. God made all the animals but there is “no helper fitted for Adam,” the man who is male, the end of verse 20.

Again it is not like God is routing around to find a helper. This is just to clarify things. Man as male was made in the image of God. The animals were not. They are not suitable companions. God’s intention that man as male and female will reflect His image but in order man will get the image directly from God. The woman will get the image of God from the man. Again the details exactly as they are put are important and the New Testament builds on these things.

Verse 21: “The Lord caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man and he slept. He took one of his ribs, closed up the flesh at that place. The Lord God fashioned (built as you have in the margin, literally) into a woman the rib which he had taken from the man and brought her to the man.” Again, the way God is doing this is striking. He could have just said, “Woman,” and she appears but He follows a certain pattern. Not because He is not capable as God just speaking it and if there would have been a male there and then a female but He creates man out of the dust. Then later He creates the woman out of a part of the man and He brings her to the man and the man said, “This is now bone of my bone. She shall be called woman for she was taken out of man.” He uses the word here for man, ‘ish’ and the one named for woman is ‘isha.’ A building similar to our English word man and woman. The same idea. She came out of man and in that sense she is an indirect creation. Not that God didn’t directly create her, He built the woman out of the rib. He used the part of the man so He used the one created in His image to create the female who would be the image of the man who is the image of God but that order becomes important and then you see God’s plan. “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife. They shall become one flesh.” That is the pattern; foundational, simple, clear. Now that doesn’t mean everything I can say details, I can’t fill in maybe a lot of the details that aren’t here but what is here is pretty simple. How did God create man as male? He took the dust and formed it and built it into a man and breathed into the man the breath of life. Then subsequently He put the man to sleep and took a side part out of the man and built it into a woman and then brings the woman to the man. Evidently she derives her life from the man in that sense and say then He breathed into the woman because coming out of the man who had already had life comes the woman and the New Testament makes the point. This is the only time this has been the order because everybody since that is what? Born out of a woman but here God created the woman out of the man.

Again you say, well, interesting. Does it make any difference? It does. Certain things are established here; the priority of man as male; the superior position in authority for the male, the complimentary position of the female.

In chapter 3 you have the fall. Now in the fall you have the rebellion but again the fall will not occur until the man exercises his will and eats of the fruit. The devil comes in the form of the serpent, deceives the woman, another detail that is taken just flat literally in the New Testament and then she gave to her husband. You know what the New Testament says, you know the account here. The woman was deceived by the serpent. Adam wasn’t deceived and he was the true head of the race. It was when he exercises his will in rebellion against God by eating that dooms the human race because he is the father of the human race and is acting as their representative as Romans 5 makes clear.

Then judgment comes and you will note there will be a difference in the judgment. First you have the judgment on the serpent in chapter 3. Then in verse 16 he said to the woman, “I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth. In pain you will bring forth children and your desire will be to your husband. He will rule over you.”

Now some say, “Well the position of the man in authority didn’t happen until the fall and so with the coming of Christ and salvation that order has been done away.” That is not true. That is where that kind of handling of Scripture is undermining of Scripture. We will see that when we move to the New Testament.

The woman would have had children before. That was God’s intention because back in chapter 1, verse 27, 28 He told them to “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.” So having children is not part of the curse. It’s part of the original plan. But now there is negative that comes in. Because those sweet little children are going to be impacted by the fall of Adam. So they come into this world screaming and on it goes.

You see where the woman’s realm is. Her trial and pain and suffering have to do with the realm God creates her for, the home, the children and that. For the man he is created, remember he is cultivating the garden. He is the one who is the protector and provider as we often say and his difficulty, no problem having children, I didn’t have any pain at all. I love the way people talk today, “We’re pregnant.” I have never been pregnant. I have two kids. I went in to see the birth of one as I have shared with you. That was enough for me. It was our second child. There was a reason that was our last one. I wasn’t going in for a third.

It is different, different for the man but he is the one who is to toil, to labor in an unproductive environment now. He cultivated a garden that was beautiful and perfect. It was a pleasure because there would have been no sin. Something for his enjoyment but now it’s not going to turn out so well.

So two different realms even in the judgment that is meted out. God didn’t create them to be the same. If we don’t have this fixed in our mind we will wander from Biblical truth. Within evangelicalism we have two different views. I think one fits with evangelicalism and one doesn’t but it is usually classified together. We have complementarianism which simply is a position which says the woman and the man, they complement one another which is more the Biblical position. Egalitarianism is they are equal in every way which comes to mean the same. The man and the woman are spiritual equals but they are not the same. They were not created the same. God created them differently. He did not intend them to be the same. The woman is not just a different looking man or the man a different looking woman. That is an attack on God’s revealed purposes in creation.

Now I understand the world is in confusion because if you don’t have the Word of God all you have is what the current opinion is but the church needs to be sure we are clear on these things.

Alright, we need to look at some New Testament passages. Come to Matthew 19. We are not going to attempt to address all the issues that come up in these passages. I just want you to see first and primarily how they are understood. They are understood in what we call literal, normal ways. They come and ask Jesus a question about divorce in Matthew 19. In verse 4 He asks them, “Have you not read?” We have noted that is somewhat of a rebuke to the Pharisees who prided themselves in being experts in the Old Testament. Remember Paul was a Pharisee of the Pharisees. “Haven’t you read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female?” What don’t you understand about that? What’s not clear? That is what Jesus is saying. Why are you asking me this question? “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife. The two shall become one flesh.”

That clarifies the question, does God have any provision for homosexual marriage? No, haven’t you read He created them male and female. Not male and male, not female and female. Well what if someone born male wants to be female and someone female wants to be male, we come up with what they call transgendered.

In the paper this past week a couple of times it mentions the school is trying to work out how they are going to do athletics and all that. It should be in the funny page section. It is silliness but it is worse than silliness, it is sinfulness because it is a rejection of what God has revealed His plan is.

Now we want to be careful. I will say this now in case I forget to say it. That doesn’t mean there are not variations among males and among females. Every male doesn’t have to be a weight lifting football player. Every female doesn’t have to be a frail seamstress or cook or whatever. There is variation within but a male is a male and a female is a female. We have an example of that in the Bible with Jacob and Esau. Esau was the man’s man. He was the hunter. His father Isaac liked Esau. He’s my man he is out there. Jacob was mama’s boy. His mom liked him and he liked to hang around the kitchen, I guess. I don’t know. There is difference. That’s fine but a male is a male and a female is a female.

Now again, the world, how do they know? They are just out here with nothing to anchor them. But we as Christians want to be clear and we are clear.

All I want you to see here is how does Jesus take it? Have you read what it says in the beginning? It’s exactly just like you would have got it if you didn’t have any training in genre and creation, style of literature and just take it at face value. That is what it is.

Come over to the book of I Corinthians. There are a couple of main passages that go into more detail. In I Corinthians 11 is one of them and we have done together some extensive studies on I Corinthians 11. Paul is unfolding here in verse 2 of I Corinthians 11: “I praise you because you remember me in everything. Hold firmly to the traditions I delivered them to you.” I mean talk about complimentary but we know that the Corinthians had a tendency to drift at times too. At least some of them but Paul compliments them here. “I want you to understand Christ is the head of every man. The man is the head of the woman. God is the head of Christ.” There is order beginning in the godhead with the relationship of the Father and the Son and then in His creation. God the Father, God the Son and then He created man as male and then you create man as female, the man and the woman. That is the order, how we interpret this.

Now they come up and say, “Well you know, heads doesn’t necessarily carry the idea of authority.” Some have written on this, written in commentaries. It’s like the source waters, the head you know that is where that river began. These are the head waters.

One person did a study I think of 2,300 uses. Now if they can do computer searches and all and say well, I can’t find that being used that way in the Greek. So it is clear. This is talking about an order.

So this is to be reflected. God’s creating work and planning creation is to be reflected and that is what He goes on. “The woman if she prophesies” and we don’t have time to go into that but I take it the praying and prophesying go together and there were gifts of prophetess and with that they would pray. These were normally male activities so when she did those she should have her head covered acknowledging she is not stepping out from the position God has given her. Even if in those early days when we had prophets and prophetesses she was a gifted prophetess. That did not remove her from the created order that God had established. Some go off on these veil head coverings. That is the simple understand of it.

I am going to read you some of the material on that. Some say “Well, they had to cover their head because only prostitutes and women of ill repute went about with their heads uncovered.” Well then why did they only have to cover their heads when they prophesy and pray? Didn’t it matter if you looked like a prostitute if you weren’t praying or prophesying? I mean some of these kinds of things they reach around for I think what I have said simply you can get more detailed studies on it.

You note the reason he gives. Down in verse 7: “The man ought not to have his head covered. He is the image and glory of God.” The covering indicated something of the submissive position. We have had that in certain cultures in the Mideast where the women wear their heads veiled, the men don’t. I was watching the news this morning. Some of the men of that culture sitting there and they looked you know sort of like we do but the women are all sitting there with the head veiled. It is not a proper understanding here of the passage. That is why people say, “Well if you have the veil in I Corinthians 11 if you were taking the Scripture literally why wouldn’t you have the women that come to worship at Indian Hills? It doesn’t say every time they worship they are to be veiled. It said if they are praying or prophesying they should have their head veiled. So since the gift of prophesy has passed off and I think that praying here is connected with the prophesy gift and when we did more detailed study on that we looked at passages that connected to praying with the prophesying.

But look what he says in verse 7: “He is the image and glory of God. The woman is the glory of man.” Why so, verse 8: “For the man does not originate from woman but woman from man.” Does it get any more literal than that? The very specific details are crucial in understanding God’s plan for the sexes. Man was the direct creation of God. The woman is the creation of God but indirectly she’s created out of the man. That is what it means in verse 8: “The man does not originate, come out from the woman but the woman from the man.” That only happens as we noted in Genesis 2. That is foundational. God wasn’t doing this just because well, it seems like a good way to do it now. He had a purpose in it. He is creating from the beginning order for His creation.

Now when the woman is the glory of the man who is the glory of God that actually connects her to God but her glory comes from the relationship with the man and the man’s relationship to God. That doesn’t mean well a woman who is a single woman can’t have glory but she has a different role still. Man is male and female.

Contrary to some conservative writers I will read to you if I have time here I think this pervades all creation. This is creation instruction. So it permeates everything out from this point. Here he is talking about naturally in the church because God doesn’t give instruction to the unbelieving world. They are in rebellion against Him. He does give instruction to His people Israel in the Old Testament, the church in the New Testament.

And the next point, verse 9: “Indeed man was not created for the woman’s sake but woman for the man’s sake.” That is not popular to be said today but it is Biblical. What does it say? “It is not good for the man to be alone; I will create a helper for him, one fitted for him.” It wasn’t the other way around. Well does it matter what the order is? God says it does. He had a purpose in the way He did it. This is why all we see going on in the world around us is a reflection of what? Man’s innate, ongoing rebellion, rejection of God’s plans and purposes. We are not surprised at that but where it becomes a problem is when this thinking begins to permeate among us as God’s people and we say, “Well, I don’t want people to think we are anti-women, that we are negative toward women.” Well we are not when we are saying this is what our God, the creator of man as male and female intended. It is not a put down. Well then we don’t want them to think that men are over women. Well then you don’t want to be Biblical. Make up our mind. Do I want to fit with the world or do I want to fit with what God says? There is an order of authority established. The world rejects it. God’s people are not to. “The woman is the glory of the man; the man is the image and glory of God.” The woman gets her image of God through the man in the order of creation and the purpose of creation, verse 8 and verse 9. “Therefore the woman ought to have authority on her head because of the angels.” They are observing the functioning of God’s people.

A woman prophesying in the days when the gift of prophesy was present and praying was stepping into a role that is usually just a man’s role but sometimes God made provision for that but that doesn’t change the authority of the man even in that position. So she ought to acknowledge in a visible way since she is doing something visible that could raise questions about that and he does go on then to talk about mutual dependence. Verse 11: “However in the Lord neither is the woman independent of man nor is man independent of the woman. For just as the woman originates from the man, the man originates from the woman.” So I am not driving this to the point to say that you know, the man is everything and the woman is just an add-on. No, they are mutually dependent. God’s intention was that would be the normal pattern. It is not the only pattern, it is the normal pattern.

You know, there is provision for singleness. Paul sees advantage to that. We talked about that in chapter 7 of Corinthians but how do we interpret the Scripture? And when you come down, the hair is the covering for that as well, the long hair versus the short hair. It may be relative in that but there is to be a difference. Paul says we don’t have anything to debate about this. Verse 16: “If one is inclined to be contentious we have no other practice nor have the churches of God.” All God’s people agree but all of God’s people by definition are people who submit to God and His Word.

So you want to be contentious over this? This is the only possible interpretation; this is the only possible practice in light of what the Scripture says. So that is what he means. He doesn’t say if anyone is inclined to be contentious we have no other practice or no such practice. We are not going to fight over it, if you want to do something. He is just saying for the churches of God all of them have to have the same view. Well, you know it all depends on how you interpret it. There is only one interpretation.

Let’s go over to I Timothy. The contrast here between the men and the women is not a new battle. We talked about earlier today that Satan is not doing anything new he just is waging the same battle with a different generation, a new generation. So verse 8 of I Timothy 2: “Therefore I want the men in every place to pray.” That is the normal pattern. There may be an exception to this as we saw a woman with the gift of prophecy would pray in connection with her prophesying gift. But the normal pattern the men are to pray in every place. That is the pattern. That doesn’t mean women can’t pray but obviously he is talking here in the context of audible prayer, public prayer, prayer with men present and men are to be godly in their character. Holy hands means you know, we are not defiled, without wrath and dissention. Here is what I want the women to do.

So it is a contrast between the men and the women, not between husbands and wives but men and women. “The women are to adorn themselves properly and be characterized by good works.” Again it doesn’t mean you can’t have the external adornment. We talked about that in Peter. Obviously they can wear proper clothing but the focus on life is not to be on the externals. That’s what the world looks at. I remember God telling Samuel “Man looks at the outward appearance, God looks at the heart.” That doesn’t mean we can’t take care of the outward appearance but that is not the focal point.

She is to be characterized, verse 10 “By the means of good works as is proper for a woman making a claim to godliness.” And part of that godly character of the woman, a woman must receive instruction with entire submissiveness. God does not put the women in charge of the teaching of God’s Word. Yet evangelical seminaries now have women on their faculties. Not all of them but it has become a pattern.

I’ve been getting a theological quarterly of an evangelical seminary for 40 some years. They have women now writing articles in the theological quarterly as well as being on the faculty. What has happened to Scripture? Has Scripture changed? I saved the article from a number of years ago when they said they were going to be opening up to train women at the seminary. Then it moved it having faculty and then…….

“The woman must quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness. I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man but to remain quiet.” This is just not Paul speaking. If you believe in the inspiration of Scripture this is Paul being the mouth piece of the Spirit of God. Why would you say this? It seems arbitrary. Maybe it is Paul’s background as a Rabbi, as a Pharisee, teacher with that conservative Jewish bent. Well he doesn’t say, “Coming out of my conservative, Jewish background.” What does he say? “I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man but to remain quiet for it was Adam who was first created then Eve.”

Where are we? We are back in Genesis 2 again. You see why there is so much relentless attack on the opening chapters of Genesis? Don’t take it literally. It was never intended to take it literally. That enables you to just stretch it out. There is just general truth there. There is a Sovereign Supreme Being God who brought everything into existence for His purposes. That is what the first two chapters of Genesis are about. Other than that the details but when God interprets further on what He said earlier there is no misunderstanding. Back again. What was the order of creation in Genesis? Man who taught for years in evangelical seminaries, “If science would demonstrate there was no literal Adam and Eve it wouldn’t bother me.” That tells me something of your spiritual condition. What does that do to I Timothy 2: “It was Adam who was first created then Eve.”

He is not done. There is something else in those first three chapters of Genesis. “It was not Adam who was deceived but the woman being deceived” and he uses the intensified form. He has the word “It was not Adam who was deceived but the woman being deceived” and he uses the same word ‘deceived’ but he puts a preposition on the front which often is used to intensify, the woman being fully deceived, completely deceived fell into transgression. I take it that tells us something. It never was intended that the woman would take the initiative here, provide the leadership here and when you get the roles reversed you are out of the will of God. You don’t know where you are going. It is not popular to say but the woman was not created to be the leader in that sense, the decision maker. I take it that she is more susceptible to deception. That doesn’t mean every woman and every man but that is the normal thing because God didn’t create them to be the same, to do the same.

Now I read an article where they are trying to come up with a way that a man can carry a baby. Why? I don’t know what kind of man could qualify for Paul’s word, “I speak as if insane,” out of my mind. Have you ever been to a child birth? Ever been to a bad automobile wreck? It is messy. I could never have been a medical doctor. Here comes the baby. There goes the doctor!

What is wrong with God’s plan? It is so beautiful. It’s not a putdown for the woman because the woman realizes the fullness of God’s blessing and all that God intends for her when she functions as God created her to be as does the man. Don’t make the woman fulfilled in the purpose of God by trying to make her as much like the man or make the man like the woman. That is the creation fighting against the creator. So to say, well if the woman is more susceptible to the deception. Why? That’s what God said. That is why she can’t be the teacher. She would be more susceptible to being deceived. Oh I don’t think that’s what it says. Well, I don’t know. That is what I read and the fact of the matter is that’s what happened in the garden so he interprets it literally. He interprets the order literally. What is the woman to be? Her salvation, that word translated ‘preserved’ is the basic Greek word for to save, sozo “through the bearing of children. If they continue in faith and love and sanctity with self-restraint.” Not that the children but if the women do. In other words godly character and her realm will be this realm. That doesn’t mean that every woman is going to get married and have children and we recognize the sovereignty of God in that as Paul recognized God’s sovereignty for him being single and he saw it as a potential for women and in some marriages God doesn’t provide children. Well, that doesn’t mean oh, I can’t fulfill God’s purpose for me. I of course can fulfill God’s purpose for me. In the normal flow it will be to be married, have children but God may have something more distinct and unique. It may be a single life. It may be to be married but to not have children.

So recognize here this is the general plan that God does certain things. Paul said that is a blessing. That is God’s plan for me. It is not God’s plan for everybody but there are certain things that are going to be true for everyone.

So the woman’s realm is the realm of the home, the family, whatever. We are taking the Scripture just literally.

Later in I Timothy chapter 5, verse 14, widows, young widows: “I want the younger widows to get married, bare children, keep house, give the enemy no occasion for reproach.” That is the woman’s realm. Does that mean the woman can never work outside of the home? What about a single woman who does have to provide some support?

I would say we want to recognize our maleness and our femaleness and whatever I am doing I want to evaluate it and do it within the framework of what God created me to be that is consistent with what God intends me to be as male or as female.

Now we are running out of time but I am not running out of material. Some say this order is only for the church and for marriage. Now one, well he’s written a big thick book and he is good on this subject. But he says “The Bible does not object to women in positions of leadership in other parts of society such as business, education and government. Only restrict certain kind of leadership to men in marriage and in the church.” I don’t think that is true.

Another very conservative writer says this, “Christian women may serve in a variety of other areas but when the church assembles men take the lead in teaching and governing the church family. In this way the local church displays (and note what he says here,) God’s design for the sexes. It is God’s design for the sexes for the woman to function under the authority of the man.” And he goes on to elaborate that. Well if that is God’s design for the sexes why do you say that it only applies to the church? You know there was no church in Genesis 1 and 2 and 3. That is later.

What does God do? He applies it. We were going to go through some of the examples in the Old Testament but we don’t have time to do it. Consistently for God’s people Israel from birth God marks out a woman was considered impure for a certain length of time if she gave birth to a male. For a longer period of time if she gave birth to a female and that kind of pattern goes on and on. You can read in the book of Leviticus. There are no female priests in Israel. Kings were male. There was one queen, Pathalia in II Kings 11 and she got there by killing all of her grandchildren but one. Not one of God’s appointments.

The pattern is for God’s people but that doesn’t mean if it is God’s design for the sexes, the order of male and female is to permeate the creation. You can’t say well this is God’s creation design but it only applies in the church and in marriage. This is God’s intention for male and female. Certain positions I would say would be contrary to what God made a woman to be as a woman. Recognize that.

So I am not going to get into, “Well, do you think this job is, this job?” I think we begin to undermine it is not different than the world even functions for quite a bit of its history in the normal flow. Men were expected to work, provide a living, protect the family. Women were to take care of the home. That was the flow. It’s when we become more open in our resistance and rebellion it is difficult. I just say women ought to be careful in looking at the Scripture since there is more pressure on going that way for the women to be like the men because that is elevating.

I clipped out some articles I was going to share but I knew we wouldn’t have time. They are constantly saying, “How many woman are leading corporations, how many women…” Because until we get women in those positions we don’t have equality which is sameness. And we’ve got to take out the issue of children so we’ve got to make another way for children and homes to be taken care of so woman can be out there just like the men. It’s just like well let’s just make every flower look exactly alike. Boy if we could just do that wouldn’t it be wonderful? No, we can appreciate the beauty of the diversity. God made us different, to function different, to reflect His will in creation and we as Christians are to reflect that wherever we are, whatever we are doing, not just in church but a character that conforms to the Word and whatever. So we evaluate what we do. Is this consistent with what I see the Scripture saying I should be as a man, what I should be as a woman and we order ourselves accordingly?

Let’s pray together. Thank You Lord for the foundation we have in Your Word. We are not adrift. We are not out grasping at the air, going around in circles in confusion, unsure, unsettled. We know You, the living God, the creator of all things. You have made Your will known. Lord we can come to Your Word and find out Your intention for us, us as men, as women. We belong to You. We can appreciate that you created us differently to function differently, to serve differently so that together we complement one another and bring honor to You. May that be true in our lives in all that we do, wherever we are. Bless us in our service for You in the week before us we pray in Christ’s name, amen.