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Lesson 19: Complementarianism, Overview

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Summary

Complementarianism—the idea that men and women are equal in value before God but distinct in roles—is rooted not in culture or tradition but in God’s creation order. We are reminded that Christ himself submitted to the Father, not because of lesser worth, but because of his role, giving us the perfect model of authority and submission. This teaching examines how complementarian roles apply in both the home and the church.

Key Lessons:

  1. The authority-submission relationship between men and women mirrors the relationship between God the Father and Christ—it is about roles, not value or worth.
  2. Husbands are called to sacrificial love that goes far beyond dramatic gestures; it includes daily speech, tone, and conduct that sanctifies and cherishes their wives.
  3. The Bible restricts the office of elder/pastor and authoritative teaching over men to men, but women are free to teach, lead ministries, and use their gifts in every way not explicitly restricted by Scripture.
  4. We must approach this topic from Scripture alone, setting aside both worldly distortions and cultural baggage that have marred our understanding of biblical authority and submission.

Application: We are called to examine our marriages and church life in light of what Scripture actually teaches—not what culture or tradition says. Husbands should pursue Christlike sacrificial love in every daily interaction, wives should pursue godly submission even in difficult circumstances, and the church should maximize the freedom of all members to serve while honoring the specific role restrictions God has established.

Discussion Questions:

  1. How does understanding that Christ submitted to the Father change the way we view submission in marriage and the church?
  2. In what ways might cultural attitudes—either traditional or modern—have shaped our view of men’s and women’s roles more than Scripture has?
  3. What practical steps can husbands take to move beyond willingness to “take a bullet” toward daily, sacrificial, sanctifying love for their wives?

Scripture Focus: Genesis 1:27-31 and 2:18-25 (creation order establishing complementary roles), Galatians 3:26-29 (equality in salvation), Ephesians 5:22-33 (marriage as a picture of Christ and the church), 1 Corinthians 11:3 (headship), 1 Timothy 2:11-13 (roles in the church), 1 Peter 3:1-7 (submission and honor in marriage), Titus 2:3-5 (the wife’s domain), Acts 18:24-26 (Priscilla teaching Apollos).

Outline

Introduction

All right. Good morning, Calvary. It’s 9:00 a.m. and time to start our Sunday school lesson. I’m sure you are praying already, but I’m really not feeling well right now. I’m just asking everybody to be praying for me while you’re listening.

What Is Complementarianism?

A few reminders and one thing to clarify. This is complimentarianism—the idea of complementing someone or something is different from giving a compliment with an I. This isn’t about just learning how to say nice things to each other.

This is about how men and women complement each other, how they fit together. God created us that way for men and women to fit together and to be complements for each other for God’s glory.

I’m pointing that out because I actually did have someone yesterday ask if it was that. They said, “Wait, is that what you’re talking about? I thought you were really talking about how to be nice to each other and treat each other well.” So I thought maybe I should say something about this just in case.

Men and women are equal in value before God, but distinct in roles as ordained by him.

“Men and women are equal in value before God, but distinct in roles as ordained by him.”

Approach Scripture with Fresh Eyes

We’re going to be looking at a couple of, actually a lot of passages of scripture. I want to say that as difficult as it is, we should approach this and any subject with the Bible with fresh eyes. Even if we think we know it very well, it’s a good practice to pretend like we know nothing about it at all and say, “What does the Bible tell me? What instruction do I get from the Bible?”

The reason I say that is because there are certain topics like this one—like ones we’ve just gone over that Dr. Ho taught the last four weeks—where the world has a lot to say and tradition has a lot to say. We get informed by a lot of different sources that aren’t the word of God. Even if it’s someone misquoting or misapplying the word of God, we take those things in and then we come to the Bible with 95% of our thoughts on the topic already worked out. Then the Bible is really there just to confirm what we already believe.

In these topics where the world has a huge influence, I find it almost rare to talk to someone and have them say, “There was a point where I did intense Bible study and my mind changed.”

“It’s a good practice to pretend like we know nothing about it at all and say, what is the Bible telling me?”

Whatever they think now is probably what they thought even before they came to Christ. It’s just more intense now because they have a few verses to pick through and hold up. So I just want to make sure that we don’t do that, especially for topics like this where it impacts different parts of life and the world has a lot to say about it.

That’s just something I’ll throw out there and probably say again, especially next week. This is just another way of saying the same thing. Men and women are equally created in God’s image, and we’ll actually see that when we look a little bit at the creation account. They are equally valued. That’s something I think is important for us to start with.

You haven’t seen it here, but there are places where you’ll hear something different than this. When you look at the word of God, I think it’s pretty clear. So let’s look at the creation account.

Equal Value in Creation

Most of the scripture I reference will be on a slide. Now we’ll look at Genesis 1:27-31. And it says, “So God created man in his own image. In the image of God he created him, male and female he created them. God blessed them. And God said to them, be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and rule over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

Let me make sure I see what’s coming next. Then God said, “Behold, I’ve given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of the earth.” I’m actually going to skip down. He’s basically just giving him dominion over everything that’s created.

Verse 31 says, “And God saw all that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening, there was morning, the sixth day.”

What we talk about today is based on creation. It’s not based on culture. It’s not based on any particular viewpoint or history. It’s based on not just the word of God, but the word of God telling us to look back at when God first created.

When God created, he built in this concept of complimentarianism. And no, you won’t find that word in the Bible. It’s a lot like the word trinity where it was a word that was coined to describe a biblical concept.

Genesis 1:27: “So God created man in his own image… male and female he created them.”

Equality in Salvation

This is the next one we’re going to look at. Galatians 3:26-29 brings in this point even more in the gospel sense. It says:

“For you are all sons and daughters of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither slave nor free. There is neither male nor female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to promise.”

The key verse there is verse 28. It’s basically saying that there is no distinction. This is talking about salvation. This verse can be taken and misapplied to other things and say there’s no distinction at all between men and women anywhere that you look.

This passage is particularly talking about faith in Christ and salvation and having now a relationship with God that we did not have before. It’s only talking about that.

“We are sons and daughters of the most high God at the same level with the same volume.”

Don’t let someone use this to tell you that there is no distinction between male and female at all. It’s just talking about salvation. But that is important because we are sons and daughters of the most high God at the same level with the same volume.

Mutual Submission in Christ

Another foundation passage is in Ephesians 5. We’re going to return to Ephesians 5 later in this lesson. Ephesians 5:18b-21 says, “But be filled with the spirit, speaking to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to our God and father, and subject yourselves to one another in the fear of Christ.”

This passage tells us there are ways we should be interacting with each other. We should be singing to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, expressing joy to one another and encouraging each other, especially using the words of scripture and these songs that God has given us. We do that in our service and in other parts of our lives as well.

Another thing we are to do in verse 21 is subject ourselves to one another in the fear of Christ. Philippians 2:3 sheds light on this verse. It tells us that we should do nothing from selfish or empty conceit, but with humility consider one another as more important than ourselves.

When we come to a passage like this, there is a sense in which we subject ourselves to each other. We hold the other as more important than ourselves. We consider others before we consider ourselves.

If it’s something I can do that blesses one of us, and it’s between me and Arthur, it’s Arthur’s. It’s not mine. I’m going to make sure he can get the blessing, even though it was coming right to me. If it can bless him, I’m considering him first. If we’re discussing something, I’m considering him first, considering how my words could impact him. I’m considering while we’re speaking how I’m going to make sure that he sees the love of Christ in what I’m saying and how I say it.

We’re always to consider each other and be subject to each other in that way. As we think of a topic like this in different roles, it’s important to think that way as we talk about authority and submission in particular. There’s still that concept of serving as a leader, and as a leader you are serving the people that you are leading. It’s not a role as if you’re a king in an earthly sense.

“With humility consider one another as more important than ourselves.”

Distinct Roles Ordained by God

Now let’s look at one more thing that’s foundational. There are two places where we really see the roles come out: distinction and roles ordained by God. Basically, God has designed different roles for men and women as part of his creation.

We see that it came from creation and did not come from other sources. We looked a little bit at the creation account, but I want us to look at a couple other passages.

“God has ordained different roles for men and women as part of his creation.”

Let’s turn to 1 Corinthians 11:3. I think we’re going to spend more time in 1 Corinthians 11 next week, at least in the Q&A. But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of a woman, and God is the head of Christ.

Let’s stop there to even understand what Paul is saying.

Christ’s Submission to the Father

I think we take the easiest relationship to understand, or the one where we kind of see it played out the most. Let’s take God as the head of Christ. You might ask, how is God the easiest to understand? Well, there are many places that show us that Christ, a member of the Trinity, fully God, submitted to the will of the Father.

There’s not as many people here from Yam, but they got on me because sometimes my scripture references aren’t in order. They’re in order of how I think of them and how I want to put them. In my notes I have John 5:30. If you wanted to jot them down or look them up, John 5:30, Luke 22:42, and John 6:38 are just three passages.

If we looked a little further in Philippians 2, from the passage that we read, we would see another place in the Bible that talks about Jesus submitting himself to the will of the Father, even though he was fully God. As we talked about the Trinity, we see that it wasn’t because of value or worth—it was because of the roles. Christ took on the role of our Savior and our substitute, having to actually live out a sinless life.

Not just coming and going right to the cross and dying, but living for more than 30 years, starting ministry for three and a half years, and then going to the cross. That was also for us, for him to be our substitute. Because he did that, there were times that the Bible talks about him submitting himself to the will of the Father.

It’s important to see this because there is, or maybe there still is, a kind of movement that says when we look at the word that in the Greek that’s translated “head,” it really means “source” and it has nothing to do with authority. Then they say, because there’s no authority in submission in the Trinity.

“It wasn’t because of value or worth—it was because of the roles.”

They’re all equally God. So there’s no submission there. But that ignores all of the scripture that talks about Jesus submitting to the will of the Father, including Jesus saying, “Not my will but yours be done” in the garden. That’s the Luke 22:42 passage that I mentioned.

The Meaning of ‘Head’

And actually Wayne Grudem did a huge study on this. When we had our home groups and we went through First Corinthians, I referenced that study in at least the Somerset home group when we went through this passage. There was not one mention of this word in all of Greek literature that used it as “source.”

Someone literally in the 21st century just made that up and said, “What? I think it’s source.” If it was used a lot by Plato as “source,” then you could say, “Okay, there’s some evidence that it was also used that way. Maybe we have to examine how Paul was using it.” No one in the history of the Greek language has ever used that word to mean anything but head—in the sense of either authority when it’s figurative, or when it’s literal, your literal head.

So I think it’s important to see that there. Whatever we see as a relationship between the man and the woman and Christ and the man, it has to mirror the relationship between God and Christ. The authority is there because of the roles, and the authority does not imply worth or value.

“No one in the history of the Greek language has ever used that word to mean anything but head.”

It should be easier to embrace the idea of submission when it’s described with biblical terms and it comes from a biblical point of view rather than whatever the world says submission is. Whatever authority and submission looks like in the world is different.

When someone has authority and they become a ruler, there was actually a study done—the Stanford prison experiment. They took some students, I think they were graduate students, and they created a mock prison. Within several days, everybody who was in this mock prison was part of the experiment. They had guards and administrators of this prison and they had prisoners. No one was guilty of any crime, but within two days there was abuse.

The fake guards were abusing the fake prisoners because of their fake authority. It was supposed to last for a certain amount of time, but it lasted for either two or three days and they had to stop it because of the abuse that was going on. The fear that was instilled in the fake prisoners was so real that they would not report it. They literally had the same fear as a real prisoner would have from a real corrections officer.

It just really showed how wicked and evil man can be when they have authority. When we see the idea of authority and submission in a worldly sense, that’s what we tend to think of. Maybe not that exact experiment, but we think of people who were wicked and they used their authority in wicked ways.

But when we look at God being the head of Christ, that is the picture. That’s a biblical picture of authority and submission working hand in hand.

Roles Rooted in Creation Order

Now, when we look at 1 Timothy 2, again, 1 Timothy—another passage that we’re going to be in a little later—1 Timothy 2:11-13 says, “A woman must quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness, but I do not allow a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet.” For it was Adam who was first created and then Eve.

He doesn’t say Timothy, this is what I want because those women in Ephesus are so wild and they talk so much. He doesn’t say that. He doesn’t say, “I know the Greeks aren’t going to really tolerate having a woman doing these certain things, so let’s not allow it for their conscience sake.”

He says in verse 13, Adam was created first and then Eve. He says that the creation order is the reason why we have this, and it’s the first picture that we see of authority and submission. I think it’s important to see that this isn’t something that some chauvinist 400 years ago, a thousand years ago, 2,000 years ago made up.

This isn’t something that was done because in ancient Israel they didn’t know how to treat women, so that just kind of found its way into the church. This is because of what God said in the beginning at creation. Now it’s been marred, and even in this country, especially in this country, it’s been marred—this idea of authority and submission.

But when we want to capture the biblical sense, which is why I said earlier, let’s empty our minds of the things that we have in our heads when we think about that and let’s look at what God says about it.

Now let’s actually look at the creation account. This is a little more detailed view of it. Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make him a helper suitable for him.” And out of the ground, the Lord God formed every animal of the field, every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them.

And whatever the man called the living creature, that was its name. And the man gave names to all the livestock, and to the birds of the sky, and to every animal of the field. But for Adam, there was not found a helper suitable for him.

“The creation order is the reason why we have this—it’s the first picture of authority and submission.”

The Creation of Woman

So we have this problem now where Adam is lonely. God said, “Man shouldn’t be alone. I’m going to create a helper.” Then he brings Adam all of these animals so that he could name them.

I believe he also did that so Adam would see that none of them were suitable for him. Adam would know that only his wife was the complement for him.

“Adam would know that only his wife was the complement for him.”

Verse 21 continues, “So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept, and he took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh of that place. And the Lord God fashioned into woman the rib which he had taken from the man. And he brought her to the man. And the man said, ‘At last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife and they shall become one flesh.’ I’ll stop there.

Authority Established Before the Fall

So as we’ve said before, looking at different places, man and woman—or mankind, I’ll say—man was created with these distinctives already in place. Naming someone was always a sign of authority.

Which is why God did that and said, “I’m giving you dominion over every animal, over everything, and then you can name them.” We see that it was clear he was given authority over Eve at that point. What is beautiful here when we look at verse 25: it says, “The man and his wife were both naked and they were not ashamed.” This is to show that this happened before sin. They were innocent and sinless at this point.

“This happened before sin—they were innocent and sinless at this point.”

So this was not a result of the fall. This was not a sin that happened.

And God did not say, “What? Okay, you can’t handle being in charge or on your own. So let’s just give it to man. Sorry, you squandered your opportunity for all of womankind, Eve. Thank you.” That’s not what happened.

God had already set this, and this is part of his very good creation that is beautiful and wonderful. This is what honors God the most, and that’s also important: no matter what we think about it or how we may chafe under it, this is what brings God the most glory and it will bring us the most joy.

Sin’s Distortion of Roles

Now, sin likely increased the woman’s inclination to try to overtake the man by rejecting his authority and assuming it in his place. And we don’t have time to look at that. But if you compare the words in Genesis 3:16 to that of Genesis 4:7, your desire will be for him. And you look at the message that was given to Cain in Genesis 4:7, there’s some reason to believe that part of the curse was that she would constantly reject his authority.

Because he says, not only will your desire be for him, it says, “And he will rule over you.” And so there will be this struggle where there wasn’t any and it was perfect harmony and unity and they would complement each other perfectly because of sin. It became more difficult for both sides.

Now he is going to rule over you rather than lovingly lead. Now there’s this inclination that the man has to be heavy-handed with this authority. And there’s also this inclination for the woman to reject it. And both of those things are unbiblical and unfortunate.

But because we’re here and we’re hearing the word of God, we can be redeemed from that. We’ve been redeemed from the effects of the curse eternally.

“This is what brings God the most glory and it will bring us the most joy.”

And even now, we have power over all sin. And even this where we’ve been sinful in our relationships and the way that we viewed each other, God can restore us.

Roles in the Home: Marriage as a Picture of Christ and the Church

Now we’re going to look at two places, two institutions. Hopefully we can look at both where we really see these roles take effect. The first one is going to be in the home. The Bible shows us that marriage is a picture of Christ and his church.

“The Bible shows us that marriage is a picture of Christ and his church.”

We’re going to spend a lot of time going back into Ephesians 5. Bear with me. If you want, you can open up the Bible here because there’s going to be more than one slide. It’ll be harder for me to keep bouncing back and forth if I need to.

Ephesians 5:22-33 says, “Wives, subject yourselves to your own husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, he himself being the savior of the body. But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything.”

So we’ll stop there.

Wives: Submit as to the Lord

This is the first thing that we see.

When I came across this, I don’t know, 20 something years ago, maybe even almost 30 years ago, what bothered me was that Paul had like two, maybe three little quick sentences to say to the women. Like wives, all right, this is what you got to do. All right, just make sure you love your husband. You know what I mean?

“Paul had two or three quick sentences for the women—then a whole essay for us husbands.”

Husbands: Sacrificial Love

You submit to your husbands. At the end he’s going to say be sure that you respect your husbands and that’s it. And then got a whole essay for us. Hey, come on. You could have split the words a little bit better than that, but nope. And a whole essay for men that we got to do. And the women is just like, “All right, make sure you respect your husbands and that you submit to them. That’s it. I mean, there’s a lot baked into that, but it’s like there’s a lot that we have to do.”

Well, verse 25, and we’ll kind of look in a little bit of detail into this. Says, “Husbands, love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her so that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that he might present to himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she would be holy and blameless.”

So husbands also ought to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself.

Ephesians 5:25: “Husbands, love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her.”

For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, because we are parts of his body. For this reason, a man shall cleave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. We go back to Genesis 2:24.

This mystery is great, but I’m speaking with reference to Christ and the church.

Nevertheless, as for you individually, each husband is to love his own wife the same as himself, and a wife must see to it that she respects her husband.

So what’s great about this? A lot of things. But both the husbands and the wives have Christ as their example.

The ones who are to lead and have the authority and the ones who are to submit both have Christ as an example.

“Both the husbands and the wives have Christ as their example.”

And I think that’s something that sometimes we may skip over. I do sometimes.

And it’s because the picture of Christ in his church is the church submitting to Christ. But we have so many passages that talk about Jesus submitting. Not just those that we referenced earlier, but even if you just want to look at 2 Peter—not right now, but if you want to look at 2 Peter, all of chapter 2, the second half of chapter 2 is Peter giving examples of Christ suffering where we tell us where we should submit even while we’re suffering and submit to authority that may not be the most godly and that may be causing suffering rather than causing joy for us. We should still submit. Then he gives Christ as an example.

So there’s one thing I do want to point out here. In verse 25 he says, “Husbands, love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her.” And we think of this sacrificial love. And it’s a beautiful thing. And I think most if not every husband in here—I know I’m speaking on y’all behalf—but if there was something coming that meant imminent death, that we would take it. We would stand in front of it for our wives.

And not just that, there are probably some or many of us in here who would see imminent death going to someone that’s not our wife, and we would still step in and say, “I’ll take it on their behalf.” So I don’t think there’s an issue there.

Daily Sacrifice, Not Just Dramatic Moments

But this sacrificial love, willing to give up yourself all the way until your life, involves everything leading up to that point.

It’s not just that you could be a terrible husband, but if she’s stuck on those train tracks, I’ll step in for her and push her out of the way. But I could be terrible in every other aspect of life as long as I’m willing to take a bullet for her. That’s what he goes on to say. This is what you do. You sanctify her. You cleanse her.

So even in our discussion, even in the way that we’re speaking with our wives, we’re thinking about what would edify her. What would set her off? What words would get under her skin? Let me avoid those. What things do I do? What tone do I take that makes it difficult for her to resist the temptation of anger or anything else? We constantly are thinking about those things.

In those very little moments, we’re sacrificing. There may be something we want to say. There may be a thing that we were just right on. We know that we’re right. And it’s like, I’m just going to let you step into that and see that I was right, that you should have done this thing or you should have listened to me or what I told you so. Those types of things.

And we say, “All right, I’m going to withhold from saying that. I’m not going to do that because that is not going to sanctify her. That is not cleansing her. That is not washing her with the water of the word. And I have to be really careful about how I do those things.”

So it is not just that I’m willing to sacrifice in the moment that a robber comes, but I’m willing to sacrifice in every interaction in life that we have.

“I’m willing to sacrifice in every interaction in life, not just the moment a robber comes.”

So I think it’s important to look at that. Even though this isn’t a marriage class totally, we are looking a little bit into that. And I do want to look at one of those examples that I mentioned.

Submission Even to an Unbelieving Husband

First Peter 3 addresses this in the context of suffering, submitting to headship, and submitting to authority even when they aren’t godly or are causing pain, discomfort, and suffering. You are still to submit.

Peter says, “In the same way, you wives be subject to your own husbands, so that even if any of them are disobedient to the word, they may be won over without a word by the behavior of their wives. As they observe your pure and respectful behavior.”

Your adornment must not be merely external—braiding the hair, wearing gold jewelry, or putting on apparel. But it should be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in the sight of God.

For in this way, the holy women of former times who hoped in God also used to adorn themselves, being subject to their own husbands, just as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord. And you have become her children if you do what is right without being frightened by any fear.

Stop there because then you can talk about the husband. In this passage, he’s saying that even if you are married to an unbelieving husband, you are still supposed to submit to him.

Of course, we have the caveat: you don’t submit to something that would cause you to disobey God directly. Over the years, we’ve had to counsel many women through situations where it seemed like that might be the case, and it is a difficult one.

But Peter is saying that as much as it’s possible for you, still honor God. The way you’re going to honor God the most is by following these commands, even if your husband is an unbeliever. Your behavior is going to win him more than nagging him to come to church every Sunday.

“Your behavior is going to win him more than nagging him to come to church every Sunday.”

What I mean is how we can be—especially when we know something is good for someone—how we can just say this is the best thing. Don’t come to me with your problems. I’m giving you Christ and you reject it the next week crying about your problems. I gave you the solution already. Don’t come here every week with something new.

A Counseling Example: Refusing Submission

So he’s setting this up. And I remember many years ago, Dr. Ho and I were counseling a couple. They’re not a part of this church, so they don’t have to worry. I’m not giving anything away.

They were having problems, and it was both of them, which is the case in just about every marital issue. Including yours—whoever, if y’all had any issues going on now, it’s both of y’all’s fault. That’s what was happening then. Both of them were dishonoring God.

She said when we talked about her in this passage submitting, “I am a daughter of the king, and he would not want his daughter to be treated this way. So I don’t have to submit to him. How am I going to submit to him? He still hasn’t done this thing that I’m judging his whole spiritual life on. He still hasn’t done that yet. And because he hasn’t, I don’t have to obey him. I don’t have to submit to him. I don’t even have to respect him. I don’t respect him.”

And I think that was one of the only times that I almost lost it. Usually nothing surprises me. People will talk to me and say something extreme that gets to me, but this was different. We read this passage and she was just like, “I’m a daughter of the king though.” And I’m like, “Oh, act like it. Listen to what the king is saying.” And she refused.

That was sad. It was infuriating at first, and then it just became really sad. The husband was no better. I think that was probably the most angry that I’ve ever seen Greg, because of some of the things that were revealed in there—how the husband was treating her.

I mean, in a worldly sense, if I wasn’t a Christian, I’d be like, “You’re right, he doesn’t deserve your respect after what I just heard.” But as a Christian, I’m like, “But the word of God says this. The word of God tells me my feelings don’t matter in this case. What I think doesn’t matter. I have to just counsel the word of God.”

But we have to make sure that this is real to us, that we’re believers, right? We believe this to be true. We believe that this is really God’s will for us. We believe this is best for us—that you would submit even to an unbeliever.

And then he says in verse seven, which I think is still on.

“We believe this is really God’s will for us—that you would submit even to an unbeliever.”

Husbands: Treat Her as Precious

You husbands, in the same way, live with your wives in an understanding way, as with someone weaker, since she is a woman, and show her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life, so that your prayers will not be hindered.

But even there, even though he said more to the women in this case, Peter gave to the women a little more. But look what he says to the men. If you don’t love your wives right and treat them the right way, your prayers will be hindered.

That’s serious. Some of us wonder why we don’t have victory in our lives. Your prayers are being hindered.

Now, without going too far into this idea of someone weaker—and I think the King James may say like a weaker vessel—the idea is not that women are weaker because they’re women. This isn’t even talking about some emotional weakness here. It is saying that the way you treat your wife and handle your wife is the same way you would handle something that’s delicate, something that’s precious, and that can be broken easily.

I’m going to carry a kettlebell or a dumbbell very differently than I’m going to carry a $50,000 vase. Or I guess if it cost that much we call it the vase, right? I’m going to be much more careful with that and delicate the way that I carry it, the way that I hold it.

When I put it down, I’m going to get out a rag and wipe off all my fingerprints on it. I’m going to make sure I’m caring for this thing because it’s so delicate and so precious and so priceless. Men, that is the way that we are to be with our wives.

It’s not that, oh yeah, she’s weaker because she’s so emotional. No, it’s that we’re treating them the same way we would treat a weaker vessel in a physical sense. Then in a spiritual, emotional, in every sense, that’s how we are to handle relationships with our wives, interactions with them.

“Handle your wife the way you would handle something delicate, precious, and priceless.”

I used to say all the time when in verse six—well, my wife isn’t here now to say it—but it says that Sarah called her husband Lord.

I want to hear some more of that, like being addressed. I want to hear some of you. Yeah, Magna, I’m looking at you when Steve comes in just like, “Lord, Como, how are you today?” Like I want to hear that, y’all sitting over there. Check her. Make sure that happened.

That’s such a beautiful thing. I don’t know if we would know how to act if our wives called us that. But it’s just treating them with that dignity and that respect that you would, because the word doesn’t have to mean lord as far as God, but lord as far as even master or how we would say mister. It’s kind of a high form of respect that we’re giving someone, calling someone sir. That would be kind of the equivalent now.

The Wife as Manager of the Home

So, another passage that kind of looks at this is Titus 2. Titus 2:3-5 says, “Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips, nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good, so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be dishonored.”

If you don’t do your part, you’re dishonoring the word of God. If we don’t do all this, we’re not going to receive the full blessings of God. We have to do our part or we’re not going to receive the full blessings of God.

The phrase “workers at home” is related to a word—actually a compound word. It really is “home” and “worker.” It’s not anything deep or complicated, but it’s related to another compound word from which we get our word “economics.”

The idea here is that the domain, the work, or even the management of the home belongs to the wife.

“The domain or the management of the home belongs to the wife.”

I was thinking of one example yesterday as I was trying to fit leftovers in the fridge. We moved recently and we have a smaller fridge now than we used to, or at least the layout of it is not as good as the other ones.

My wife used to cook meals and she would make a lot. Those of you who know her know she’s Jamaican, and they don’t know how to cook for just two or three people. She’ll make a chili or a soup, and that’s our dinner for the whole week—like eight to ten meals right there. Then we just dish them out individually and stack them in these nice little glass containers that we have. They don’t fit now.

We have all this fruit in there, and then we have our eggs, and that’s a whole shelf. Fruit and eggs is like a whole shelf now. Before, that would be half of one, and we could do other things.

But my wife, being as crafty as she is, always finds a way to fit things in the fridge and make it work. Now she’s also saying, “Okay, we have to shop more often and we have to buy smaller things and try to make it work.”

My point in that is just saying that she sees a problem in the home, and she’s saying, “Okay, with the resources that we have, how are we going to make this work?” Why I thought about economics is because I did my graduate work in economics, so I’m kind of biased toward economics. In it, the economic problem as it’s stated is scarcity. It basically means we don’t have an endless supply of the resources that we need. So we have to learn to make do with what we have.

Same thing with the church. We wish we had maybe 20,000 more square feet to add on. We don’t have that. So we have to use the space that we have and figure out how to do that.

The Bible is saying that type of work is the primary domain of the wife—to take all the resources of the home, to take even what you’re bringing in, to take the physical layout, everything that you have, what you need. If you have children, take into account all those things and make it work.

Practical Wisdom in Dividing Responsibilities

And this isn’t banning women from having jobs or even careers outside of the home. But it is saying that it is the primary domain of the wife.

That also doesn’t mean that if the husband is better at one of these administrative tasks than the wife, you say the wife should still do it. There are many homes where the husband manages the finances just because he’s either better at it or it just fits into the flow of how the home works.

Even though managing the home and being a worker at home should be the wife’s primary role, sometimes it works better differently. There are some men that are great cooks and some women that aren’t. Sometimes the husbands will cook more than the wives. You aren’t violating scripture by doing any of those things.

You’re trying to be wise and figure out the best way to run the home. But God has given this special task and this responsibility and has ordained it so that the wife, if you’re married, is the one who is organizing those things. The wife may even say, “I think you’re better at it than me, so you should do that.” Okay, let’s work out how we’re going to have these things flow. But it is not banning a woman from working here.

When we look at the roles in the home, the primary thing that we see is that the wives are submitting to the husbands and husbands are loving the wives. We saw all the scripture here and even in other places in Colossians 3:18, it says “as is fitting to the Lord.” We see this is what honors God—that the roles, no matter how they play out and who does what, the husband has authority and the wife submits in the home.

Now we’ll look at the church and see that.

“You aren’t violating scripture by wisely dividing tasks—but God has ordained the wife to organize the home.”

Roles in the Church: Start with Freedom

And I’ll just as a reminder because it’s already 9:45 that the way we structure our Sunday schools for this series is that the first lesson is going to be just a bunch of points and really explaining the concept. And then hopefully you’ll have questions that you’ll send to me and then that will be the basis for next week’s lesson. We’ll be going over questions.

There are so many common questions and misconceptions that if you say nothing to me, I already have a full lesson for next week. But if you do have questions, make sure that you send them in and send them to me early. I’m not good like Dr. Ho. I think he was like, “You can give them to me up to like Thursday, Friday.” No, not me. I need them today, tomorrow. Send me questions you have.

Unfortunately, right after this, I’m going to be doing a sound check with the band. So I’m not going to be able to stand and answer questions. At 10 o’clock, I’ll be over there. So I won’t be able to answer questions today face to face.

We also have a membership interview after church, so I won’t be able to stand around for too long. Email me anything you have today or tomorrow. If you email it to me later in the week, I’ll try to fit it in. Most likely what you email me will be something someone else thought of anyway or something that was kind of common.

But if you have anything, make sure they’re real questions. I mean, we do a lot of the commenting thing or “I think you should talk about this.” So I’m going to try to tweak your lesson by asking a question that I already know the answer to, but I want you to cover it. So I’m just going to ask it as a question.

Make sure you ask legitimate questions that are really on your mind, on your heart, because if we get a lot, I may not be able to cover it all. It will be good to get the ones that people really want to hear, especially if they’re asked by several people.

Okay, now we can move on to the church. We actually don’t have too many left. One thing, and this kind of goes back to what I said earlier: we shouldn’t approach service in the church from a restrictive perspective. And what I mean is we shouldn’t, especially when we talk about women serving in the church, say women can’t do anything or all they could do is take care of the kids and cook us some lunch after the service.

And you have to then convince me if you want them to do anything else. You have to show me a scripture that they’re allowed to do this.

We all have freedom in Christ. So instead of that, come at it from this angle: men and women can do everything. Anyone can do anything. And then I’m going to open the Bible and see that there are actually restrictions. And those are the restrictions that we’re going to apply.

“Start from freedom: men and women can do everything—then apply only the restrictions Scripture gives.”

And there may be cases where you’re using wisdom and so it isn’t very explicit, but we still decide as a congregation. We still decide as even a ministry within a larger church to put restrictions on that may not be biblical, but they aren’t unbiblical. And I think that’s fine as well.

And I’m going to actually show you one where we would disagree. Well, we do things differently than other churches do it, but we would not say that they’re in error by doing it differently than us. So just try to come at it from that perspective: there is freedom and then as we read the word of God that freedom kind of gets reduced rather than just full restriction until you prove to me with eight different verses that that restriction can be lifted. Because where else will we get the restriction from if not from the Bible?

The Restriction: Authoritative Teaching over Men

1 Timothy 2:11-12 says, “A woman must quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness, but I do not allow a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet.” We have our first restriction here.

In a public gathering, a woman is not to engage in authoritative teaching over men. Now, this is not implying that women can’t be more knowledgeable or more skilled or more mature or more godly or even better speakers and better teachers than the men who are doing that. But God has called each one of us to a particular role within his church. He has gifted us, and all of us are to use our gifts.

“This is the role God has called each one of us to within his church.”

If this is a role that would require authoritative teaching from a woman over men, that role is only going to be held by men. So you’re not going to have a case—at least if you’re following and applying this—where a woman is exercising authority and teaching over a man.

I want to look at something here.

Priscilla and Aquila: Women Can Teach

So, actually, I’m going to stay here for a second. If you want to, you could turn to Acts 18:24-26. Because I want you to see that this is very specific.

A woman is not to exercise authority or teach a man in the church.

But we have this case where in Acts 18:24-26. I’ll just read it and we’ll talk about it. It says, “Now a Jew named Apollos, an Alexandrian by birth, an eloquent man came to Ephesus and he was proficient in the scriptures. This man had been instructed in the way of the Lord and being fervent in spirit. He was accurately speaking and teaching things about Jesus, being acquainted only with the baptism of John.”

Verse 26 says, “And he began speaking boldly in a synagogue. But when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and explained the way of God more accurately to him.”

Apollos, who some believe may have written the book of Hebrews, was formally educated. He was eloquent. He knew the scriptures, especially the Old Testament scriptures. He was a bold, fervent preacher, and it doesn’t even say he was preaching error. He just had incomplete understanding, incomplete knowledge.

He knew up to the baptism of John and that was it. It’s kind of like those people in Acts 19 who received the Holy Spirit. He was heard preaching by this couple, Priscilla and Aquila, and they took him aside and explained the way of God more accurately to him. He became an even better preacher because of that.

So we see this woman Priscilla had a big part to play. We don’t know how much. We don’t know if it was 50/50, 60/40—it doesn’t matter. But she taught him the scriptures.

“Priscilla taught one of the preachers the scriptures—the Bible does not say a woman can’t teach a man.”

She wasn’t teaching like she was teaching Nathan. She was teaching one of the preachers the scriptures.

So the Bible does not say that a woman can’t teach a man, that a man can’t be subject to a woman in another way.

Don’t Over-Apply the Restriction

And I think that’s really important because here in our church we have a lot of brilliant godly women. And if the men only are going to learn from other men, we have brilliant godly men too. But if I want to hear something from, say, Cheryl, and I have to say no, no—can you tell Eric? Let him know what you have to say to me. And then Eric, you let me know what she has to say. And then we’ll pass it that way so we can make sure that we’re lined up with scripture. That’s not what it’s saying.

Another example: I serve in the nursery ministry, and I am under the director of that ministry, who is a woman. So as an elder of the church, I have to submit to her leadership. And if she says, “All right, nursery workers are going to have to start coming in at 10:15 rather than 10:25 because we really need to relieve the parents even earlier. I need you to come in at 10.” I can’t say, “What? You’re a woman? I don’t care what you have to say, Brian. What time do you want me there?” when he has nothing to do with the ministry.

That’s not how it works.

So we just have to make sure that we don’t go too far in trying to apply this scripture, especially because we have a certain feeling about how things are going in society or we feel like there’s a slippery slope. We shouldn’t overemphasize something in scripture because we don’t want to slip down that slope. And in doing that, we’re stopping half of the congregation from using their gifts properly.

“Don’t go too far applying scripture and stop half the congregation from using their gifts properly.”

So let’s talk a little more about that role.

Elders and Deacons

This is in 1 Timothy 3:1-7. This is talking about the office of elder or overseer, bishop, pastor. It says a trustworthy statement: “If any man aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a fine work that he desires to do.”

Then it talks about some of the qualities that he has to have, the characteristics being a husband of one wife and there are other things in there. The entire time this assumes a man. The language assumes a man is talking about a man in this role. And we don’t have time to go through all of it.

You also see that in Titus 1:6-9 you see the same qualifications. So the Bible is clear that this role, which involves authoritative teaching of the word of God, can only be held by men.

“The Bible is clear that the office of elder, which involves authoritative teaching, can only be held by men.”

And that’s just the rest of it there with deacons. This is the one that I was referring to earlier. You have again deacons likewise must be men of dignity, and then it talks about the different characteristics of them.

Then verse 11 it says women must likewise be dignified, not malicious gossips. It goes on from there. That’s one way to translate it. And then in verse 12, deacons must be the husbands of one wife. It goes on from there and talks about more qualifications of the deacons.

So it’s definitely we have this.

Room for Disagreement on Deaconesses

So, with the deacons, we clearly see there are men that serve as deacons and then there are women that serve with them.

There is a lot of evidence in this text to say that the women that serve with the deacons are their wives that serve alongside them. Some churches take this differently because there is some ambiguity there. They take this to mean that there are deaconesses or there are just women who serve as deacons alongside men who serve as deacons.

Even if they’re not unmarried, it’s just that you have deacons and it could be men or women because the role is a role of service. While we at Calvary hold to the view that you have deacon men who are serving and their wives serve alongside them, the wives need to be as qualified as the husbands are.

If a church says we have women serving as deacons, we’re not looking at them as being unbiblical.

“There is room for disagreement—we would not say they are being unbiblical for having women serve as deacons.”

Conclusion: Let Scripture Establish Our View

We’re not looking at them saying that’s a church you shouldn’t join or shouldn’t support. They are just taking this verse where there is room for disagreement, room for applying it in a different way without saying that they are being unbiblical. I just wanted to point out that distinction—we would not say that they’re being heretical because they have women serving in that role.

That is the last slide, and it is 9:58. From this, I just want to reiterate that we—not just at Calvary, but we in general as believers—should be looking at what the scriptures tell us. There’s so much that society has said. Women have only been voting in this country for 100 years. Most of the history of this country has said women shouldn’t even be allowed to have a voice when it comes to who leads a nation.

So there was a lot that the world got wrong. It seems like instead of standing up against that and using what the Bible says and having the biblical view of men and women, the church for the most part just went along with that. There’s a lot of things that we even have to unlearn.

When society did their unlearning, they jumped so far in another way that they still were being unbiblical. We went from one version of being unbiblical to another. We just don’t want to be fighting against the unbiblical version of the world, but we want to be establishing what God has said. That should be the thing that we’re focused on.

Let’s bow in prayer, and then if anyone from the band is here, I guess we’ll start the sound check. Our gracious God, we want to thank you for what your word says and how you created us to complement each other. How you created us with different roles and the beauty in your creation. I thank you, God, that your word liberates us. Your word frees us from trying to figure things out ourselves. It frees us from trying to stay up with what the world is doing.

“We don’t want to fight the world’s unbiblical version—we want to establish what God has said.”

Closing Prayer

And it frees us from constantly having to come up with reasons why we do what we do. We go to your word.

I just pray, God, that you would help us in our homes, in our church to establish Christ like this in everything that we do. I pray, God, for all the marriages that are represented here that you would be glorified and that you would help us all to be more like Christ no matter what our role is, that we will be serving each other in it.

And I ask this in Christ’s name.

Amen.

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