This is Part 3 of a series of posts answering a multi-part question asked of me on another blog. Read my introductory post to the series here.
In this post we’re looking at what the Bible says about being a woman. Since I’m not a woman and have no experience being a woman, I enlisted the help of my lovely and wise wife, Lauren. The following is a lesson she prepared and taught to the teen girls at church recently.
To understand femininity, or what it means to be a woman, we must take a look back to the Genesis account of creation, just as we did when considering God’s intention for manliness.
God created man and woman co-image bearers of Himself. Genesis 1:26-27 says,
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 him; male and female he create them.
Isn’t it amazing that God chose to create women and men in his image and that we are the only image bearers of God in all of creation. Man and woman were created equally valuable and special and we reflect God’s image differently. No other creature is said to be in the image of God… not even the angels.
How cool is that!
It is obvious from this passage, that God didn’t create woman somehow less than man, for they are both image bearers of God, rather He created her with a different task. God created man first and gave him a job. Genesis 2:15 says that,
The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.
By creating man first, God establishes male leadership. This is affirmed In Paul’s letter to the church in Ephesus where he writes,
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)
Can you image a school run where there is no leadership. A school with no principal and classrooms without teachers! It’s ridiculous. It wouldn’t be a school at all… no learning would take place in an environment like that. It would only take one day without leadership, and complete chaos and madness would set in. We can all agree that nothing productive would occur in a school where there was no leadership.
Like a school without leadership, is a world or family void of Godlly male leadership… chaotic, confusing and unproductive. Though the job of leadership doesn’t come without cost or difficulty… in fact, in many ways the man’s job may be more difficult and burdensome than the woman’s, as he is directly accountable to God. And it certainly is not to bring glory to man… after all, man and woman’s sole purpose is to bring glory to God. Rather, God sets up male leadership so that things run smoothly and orderly.
God creates woman with a job of her own. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by brance 
