Some people distrust God because they believe he condones sexism and authorizes the subjugation of women.
These assertions are false. God is not sexist. He does not favor men over women. He never approves of anyone mistreating women.
Women and men are equal in God’s eyes. He endowed them with the same dignity at creation. He grants them equal access to the same salvation and blessings.
The inequality women have endured throughout history is a consequence of original sin, a manifestation of the evil that infects the world.
Composite Image
God created humankind in his image. His reflection is evident in the collective personhood of women and men.
Only this composite displays his complete image. Males or females alone portray a partial likeness. An imperfect analogy illustrates this mutuality.
Think of God as an artist who painted his self-portrait on a two-piece jigsaw puzzle.
The puzzle pieces have different shapes but the same surface area. Each veneer depicts a complementary portion of the artist’s likeness.
The two pieces are unique, yet they share common elements. Each displays an equal measure of the artist’s skill and merits the same level of admiration.
Neither puzzle piece is superior to the other. Neither is servile to the other. Neither takes precedence over the other.
The artist values both pieces equally because each is essential to the self-portrait. His image remains incomplete until the two are joined.
God values every facet of his character equally. If he favored men over women, he would demean the aspects of himself that women embody most fully.
God is not self-loathing.
God’s Intent
We do not know why God created the world, but we know he wanted humankind to continue what he had begun.
After commanding the universe into existence and filling the earth with plant and animal life, God formed Adam and Eve and delegated his dominion over creation to them.
He intended for them to recognize the order, discover the science, harness the resources, and find inspiration in the majesty he had designed into the world.
He planned for them to capitalize on this knowledge, to be enlightened by his ingenuity, and to use their imaginations to create their own handiwork.
He also wanted them to build a flourishing community of blissful offspring who would likewise be inspired by the grandeur of the world and the creativity of those who had come before them.
God intended Adam and Eve to naturally fulfill this twofold mandate as they pursued their individual and mutual interests, so he allocated between them the attributes, aptitudes, and affections that aligned their personal passions, preferences, and proficiencies with his goals.
God intended Adam and Eve to delight in each other as they fulfilled his mandate. He meant for their relationship to be continuously satisfying on every level.
So, what happened?
Evil Emerged
Adam and Eve disobeyed God’s command not to eat the forbidden fruit, and their defiance opened the door for evil to damage the world.
The ensuing chaos corrupted every aspect of their personal lives and their habitat. Their natures became inherently selfish and sinful.
Moreover, these degradations severed their spiritual bond with God and destroyed the soulful unity they had initially shared with him and with each other.
As a result, instead of flourishing organically, these relationships would thereafter require constant nurturing and yield only intermittent satisfaction.
Mandate Impediments
Although original sin changed Adam and Eve, it did not alter God’s twofold mandate for them.
He still wanted them to produce their own handiwork and populate the earth, even though he knew the results would now be imperfect.
God told them that fulfilling his mandate would now be more complex and less satisfying because of the consequences of sin.
Eve would yearn for a soulful connection with Adam, but he would largely determine the level of intimacy in their relationship. Childbirth would be painful for her.
The diminished fertility of the earth would require Adam to toil for subsistence, but his efforts would yield spotty results.
As the apostle Paul explained, their now selfish natures would prompt them to elevate their own desires above the other person’s needs.
And their personal differences, which they had previously accepted and respected without judgment, would become grounds for criticism and prejudice.
They would also be naturally inclined to make wrong choices based on moral untruths. Indeed, this duality had already materialized.
Advent Of Sexism
The first moral untruth Adam and Eve believed was that their lives would be better if they determined right and wrong for themselves, apart from God’s standard.
Their misplaced confidence in this lie led them to eat the forbidden fruit.
The second moral untruth Adam and Eve believed—at least Adam did—was that they were unequal by God’s design.
Adam articulated this fallacy when God confronted him about his disobedience. He began his defense by saying, “The woman you put here with me…”
The implication was that he sinned because God had forced him to share his habitat with someone who was morally inferior.
Adam’s comment was the first recorded instance of sexism in world history.
Theological Distortions
Today, men use variations of Adam’s defense to justify their prejudices against women, or they misconstrue the writings of Peter and Paul, as well as the example of Jesus, for the same purpose.
These misguided men are misinterpreting Scripture. God would not create women equal to men and then inspire Jesus and the Bible’s authors to sanction their subjugation.
Here are some of the theological distortions men use to justify their misogyny.
God created Adam before Eve, so men outrank women in his hierarchy.
Creation order does not determine rank. God created sea creatures before forming Adam. Fish do not have power and dominion over men.
God created Eve to be Adam’s helper, so she was subordinate to him.
The original Hebrew term in Genesis 2, translated as “helper,” means “suitable for the task,” not “subordinate.”
The same word is used elsewhere in the Old Testament to describe God’s role in the lives of reborn believers.
God is not subordinate to us. He is not our servant. Likewise, Eve was not subservient to Adam. She was not his handmaiden.
Eve ate the forbidden fruit before Adam because women are gullible.
God held Adam more responsible for original sin than Eve, as evidenced by the fact that he confronted him before speaking to her.
This is because Adam had greater knowledge.
Before Eve existed, God had shown Adam the location of the tree and warned him about the penalty for eating its fruit.
Adam was also aware of God’s excellence through his communion with him and his study of nature, as evidenced by his naming of the animals.
He knew that God was sovereign over them.
Despite this knowledge, Adam did nothing as he listened to Eve discuss the merits of eating the forbidden fruit with Satan. He failed to protect her from evil.
After they ate the forbidden fruit, God said Adam would rule over Eve, meaning men should control women.
In Genesis 3, God never empowered Adam to limit Eve’s autonomy. Instead, he said their relationship would be discordant because of their sinfulness.
God told Eve, “Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” He did not say, “You will want to make your own decisions, and he will rule over you.”
God designed Adam and Eve to have a deep, heartfelt connection with each other. However, original sin altered the uniformity of this dynamic.
God told Eve that, as a result, the intimacy of her relationship with Adam would now be subject to his desire for the same level of affection, which would not always match hers.
In their letters, Peter and Paul instructed wives to submit to their husbands, thereby granting men authority over women.
Peter and Paul never authorized a master-servant patriarchy within marriage. Instead, they prescribed a lover-beloved symbiosis grounded in mutual respect.
They instructed husbands to love their wives out of respect for them and wives to respect their husbands out of love for them.
Undergirding this mutual respect is the understanding that women and men are inherently equal, as affirmed by both God’s design and declaration.
Peter describes women as weaker vessels, so men are superior to them.
The original Greek text of 1 Peter, translated as “weaker vessel,” refers to women’s cultural powerlessness, not to their personal inferiority or incapacity.
Women were marginalized in New Testament times. They were treated as property. They had little influence.
Peter told men to follow the example of Jesus, who elevated the women around him, including those society considered cultural outcasts.
The apostle instructed husbands to honor their wives by respecting their personhood and stature.
Women are supposed to be subservient to men because Peter told them to follow Sarah’s example, who called Abraham ‘lord’.
The original text, translated as “lord,” is used elsewhere in the Bible to convey respect rather than subservience. Today, we use the terms “sir” and “madam.”
Sarah was not secondary to Abraham in their relationship. She was an equal participant in God’s covenant, as evidenced by the fact that he changed both her name and her husband’s.
God also affirmed Sarah’s influence in their relationship. When she confronted Abraham about an issue he was reluctant to address, God instructed him to take her advice.
Paul instructed women on how to behave in church, which means they need to be put in their place.
Paul was not anti-woman. He valued the female ministers in the early church. He said they could teach and prophesy, and he praised them by name in his letters.
Paul nullified a rule in the Corinthian church that prohibited women from speaking out and asking questions during worship services.
His admonition about their behavior concerned the orderliness of the worship experience, not the propriety of their participation.
In his first letter to Timothy, Paul did not prohibit all women from serving as church leaders. Instead, he disqualified only domineering women, just as he banned angry men.
Both traits indicate spiritual immaturity, which should disqualify anyone from church leadership.
Paul assigned men to worship roles to ensure their active participation in the church, not to denigrate women.
Adam failed Eve through his passivity. Paul did not want men likewise to fail the church for the same reason.
Paul did not tell women to cover their hair and dress a certain way to suppress them. Instead, he sought to preserve church decorum and minimize external criticism by advising them to uphold cultural norms.
Paul never confined women to domestic roles. In several letters, he praised a woman named Priscilla, who helped manage the family business.
Only men should lead the church because Jesus chose twelve of them as his first disciples, not women.
Jesus commissioned his male disciples to deliver a controversial message to patriarchal societies that marginalized women. In their travels, these men relied on the goodwill of their listeners for food, clothing, and shelter.
Despite their elevated social status as men, these itinerant evangelists endured persecution and deprivation. All except John were executed for proclaiming the Gospel.
If Jesus had assigned the same mission to his female disciples, they would have faced unrelenting danger in that hostile environment.
Instead, he worked within the constraints of that sin-damaged culture to advance the Gospel while protecting his female followers.
After Jesus ascended to heaven, women held leadership roles in several churches, including the Philippian congregation, which women founded.
Old Testament Stories
Sexism was one of the earliest manifestations of evil after Adam and Eve sinned. It appeared long before the first recorded murder.
The Old Testament documents the debasement and mistreatment of women that followed the advent of sexism, including the misdeeds of its heroes.
God did not include these descriptions in Scripture to excuse or condone these offenses. Instead, he wanted to underscore the depravity of evil in its guise of sexism.
Divine Absolute
Women’s equality is not a malleable human construct subject to the transient determinations of each society.
It is a moral truth, a divine absolute that God uniformly ascribes to every woman across every culture, as evidenced by the fourth commandment.
Moral truths emanate from God’s immutable character. He never changes, and neither do his moral truths.
Reborn believers should, therefore, espouse, exemplify, and defend the equality of all women in all walks of life, both inside and outside the home.
God’s Ideal
Women most fully embody half of the attributes, aptitudes, and affections God deemed necessary to build prosperous societies.
To the extent that societies uphold women’s equality, they benefit from their passions, preferences, and proficiencies. As a result, they begin to approach God’s ideal.
To the extent that societies codify women’s inequality, they deprive themselves of their contributions. As a result, they fall far short of God’s standard.
Similarly, spiritually reborn men who welcome the righteous influence of women into their lives are more likely to attain the godliness God desires for them.
Those who ignore or suppress these influences are virtually assured of not attaining the same level of godliness because of their pride.
Sexism Remedy
Jesus prescribed the remedy for sexism. He said that spiritually reborn men should love God deeply and treat all women as they themselves would want to be treated.
Abiding by these precepts is essential to walking in harmony with God. Disregarding them evidences either mindless ignorance, selfish indifference, or willful defiance.
