The Design of a Woman, Part 2 | Clarifying Gender Confusion

Selected Scriptures

God designed women, to learn, to submit, this is why women are such stellar students. I don’t say that by way of flattery, it’s documented. Women are stellar students, they excel, they achieve in academics. They are so effective in virtually every area of service. They are effective in every sector of society. So could there be a woman president, a good one? Yes, absolutely there could. Why? Because they’re designed to be good learners, to be good servants, to be good and effectual in everything that they do. They can achieve. They can excel, they learn well, they serve with excellence. All that is by God’s design. But we ask the question, is that what God intended for women? To be president, to rule the world, to run half the corporations, to run half the governments? And did he intend men to run half the homes and be mommies?

 1 Timothy 2:12 and 13, put a restriction on women from teaching and exercising authority over men in the church. But in the verse prior, 1 Timothy 2:11, Paul tells Timothy, “Let a woman learn.” You know how countercultural that was in the first century, to bring women into learning? But I told you, God does not care about social convention. He does not care about any of that. He designed women to learn. “Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness.” There is again, learning and submitting, God’s design for women. In a marriage, Ephesians 5:22, “Wives submit to your own husbands as to the Lord.” Wives aren’t running around submitting to every husband. Praise the Lord. Amen, right? Just their own husbands, just their own husbands and that’s tough enough. I get it. I’m a husband. I know how hard that would be. But again, in the context of marriage, this is God’s design.

Women are learners, women are help meets. So what’s the role of a woman? She’s designed by God, to be the complimentary helper, one who helps another with a task, a job and endeavor like such as, exercising dominion over the whole earth. And God has specially equipped women. He’s specially designed them for excellence in their role, they have sharp minds, able to learn, able to exercise quality biblical submission. Now, I want to pause here and just say a word about biblical submission because it is so often misunderstood, so often misconstrued.

Paul tells the Ephesian church Ephesians 5:21, that one of the marks of a spirit filled church is when its members are, quote, “Submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.” Submission is not just for women, it’s for all Christians, right? But that does not mean that sometimes wives submit to husbands and sometimes husbands submit to wives. It’s not reciprocating submission like that. Women running half the countries and companies and men running half the homes. That has become what’s known today as shared earning, shared parenting marriage, or the shorter term is peer marriage.

Listen, this is a bad, bad idea, for many reasons. But the foremost is men don’t make good mommies. They’re not designed that way. That’s not biblical submission, at all. This 50/50 thing that’s radical egalitarianism, which is the product of liberal secular feminism. It is the denial of the differences of gender, the unique God given or God ordained roles. It denies all of that. Rather than embracing God’s design for the man and woman, that 50/50 model seeks to supplant it, to redefine it, to recreate it according to social convention.

    That is not the practice of the Christian church. That is not the practice of Christian marriage. Biblical submission is to be practiced in a healthy, spirit filled church, and is to be modeled on an individual level, by wives submitting to their own husbands in glorifying marriages, glorifying to God. The Greek word for submission is the word hypotasso. Hypo is the word under, and it really means to line up under someone else’s authority. It’s a military concept, where some rank under the authority of others. In Ephesians 5:21, the verb form is in the middle voice, which conveys the idea of a willful voluntary submission. This is not the powerful subjecting the weak. This is the concept of, I submit myself, this is my decision, I line myself up under the authority of another.

Another way to say this is men don’t press women into this, that’s subjection. This is a matter between a woman and her God, her conscience is accountable to God in this matter. And when God speaks those verses in Ephesians, 5:22 to 24, who does he address? Husbands, make your wives submit? No, wives, submit to your husbands, right? There’s a one to one correspondence there, there’s a vertical relationship between every woman and her God. It’s not for men to shove them into that.

Military imagery, I talked about the lining up under authority and the ranking structure, that imagery can sometimes convey the idea of “put up and shut up,” like in the military, right? Some like to think of soldiers as mindlessly following orders. And they believe somehow that’s what’s being prescribed here for women. No wonder women recoil from that idea.

In fact, as I was doing some of my research for this message, I read more about this what’s become known as the biblical patriarchy movement. I don’t know if you’ve heard of this, or the quiver full movement. It’s the idea that husbands and fathers are at the top of this family pyramid dictating virtually everything to their wives, their children, anyone under his umbrella of authority, even down to their thought life. It may not be promoted this way, but it’s very often practiced this way.

Women are wilting, absolutely wilting under this authoritarian model. Imagine a combat boot smashing down a delicate flower. That’s what that is. Women have, in his models start to second guess themselves about everything questioning every little decision, to make sure they’re not un-submissive.

Again, in the practice of this, women are treated as if they have no intellectual, spiritual contribution to make it all. They basically exist to bear children, as many as possible, a quiver full, right? To raise and school all those children. She’s become a doormat for her husband to walk all over. That is not biblical submission. That is not what we’re teaching here. That is a worldly, perverted, distorted view of submission, we could call it subjection or domination. But please do not call that submission. That counterfeit really brings a reproach on true biblical submission. It provides grist for the feminist mill. It supports the stereotype that they’ve warned everybody against, and it gives strength to their charge, that submission is really a bad idea. Even a dangerous idea for women.

You know what, if that’s what they are talking about, that domination model, they are right to resist it. They are right to call the church to account for something like that. A domination of women, objectifying them as nothing more than brainless baby machines. Not true. Listen we’re not here to defend that, that is not what we teach. People are right to oppose that, but we are here to teach true biblical submission. The voluntary, thoughtful, engaged involvement of the one under authority with the one exercising authority.

Submission, in that sense is dignified, noble and virtuous. If you have any question about that, just remember, Christ, he submitted. As I said, Ephesians 5:21 biblical submission is one of the marks of a spirit filled church, practiced by male and female alike. Submission is a concept is about humbling yourself, it’s about setting yourself a side, it’s about serving another’s interest, helping someone else succeed. Christ submitted and so do all of us, male and female. And just as the general who oversees the battlefield, he needs the thoughtful, wise, intellectual engagement of his commanders as they submit to his authority. So also wives submit to their husbands. So also Christian women submit within the church. So also all Christians male and female are to exercise submission in whatever realm, in the church, in the workplace, wherever.

Let’s consider a third point We’ll call this point number three, the fruitful influence of a women. The fruitful influence of the women. When a woman is God centered in her thinking, she recognizes that her glory is found in God and God alone. She understands that her worth and her dignity, it’s as God’s creature, and a God-centered woman, she’s quick to embrace her unique role, she’s quick to learn well, so she can make full use of her God given qualities and her God given design.

She wants to put all those qualities to good use, to good effect. I want to focus on her influence, just by the very fact of being a woman. Being in existence and being present in a situation and look at Genesis 2:18 again because this is the first not good thing in God’s perfect world. What is it? No woman. Not good. It’s not good that man should be alone. I will make him a helper, or companion, suitable, fit for him. Corresponding to him.

Before God created her, before he created Eve. God stopped, he raised the issue in Adam’s mind that there’s a not good thing. There’s a no helpmeet, nobody corresponding to me. And then God had Adam name all the animals, which this is another demonstration of Adam’s authority. The authority to name, but it was also a lesson in recognizing his need. God wanted Adam to come to the conclusion that he lacked, that he was incomplete, that he needed his wife. Don’t you wish your husbands knew that about you. You need me. Absolutely, they do.

End of verse 20 says, “For Adam, there was not found a helper fit for him.” So God introduces, he creates Adam’s perfect companion. Verse 21, “So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man.” And while he slept, God took one of his ribs and closed up the place with flesh. The rib that the Lord God had taken from the man, he made into a woman and brought her to the man.” So look, God formed Adam from the dust, he fashioned Eve from the rib of the man.

She is the crowning jewel of mankind. She is the pinnacle of beauty and refinement. Here, all it took for God is a quick out-patient surgery probably didn’t even leave a scar here. And when Adam wakes up, he immediately rejoices over this new, beautiful creature, the man said there, look at it, “This at last, is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She should be called woman because she was taken out of a man.” He is really, really excited here. As you might imagine after looking at animals all day.

God, he created the man out of the dust from the ground, but the woman, the woman he fashioned. She wasn’t created from inanimate dirt, she was formed from living flesh. God used his fingers, his hands, he’s the perfect surgeon. He knit her together, she’s designed, she’s crafted, she’s knitted together with excellence and for excellence. So if mankind is the crown of creation, woman, its crowning jewel.

She’s the final act of God’s creative work. After this, God put the pencil down, he’s done. And like fine art, God introduced her last of all, after, get this, he created an audience to witness and to appreciate and to admire her beauty. She’s the picture here of refined beauty. And Adam, he’s immediately appreciative, he’s deeply honoring, he acknowledges the close, the complimentary nature of their relationship because of the intimate communion between the two of them he calls her woman because she was taken out of a man, what is that? That is a perpetual reminder of their close intimacy.

She is the reason why verses 24 and 25, “A man shall leave his father and his mother, hold fast to his wife, they should become one flesh. The man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.” Again, just her presence, just coming in on the scene, the beauty, the refinement of her form. Her softness, her gentleness, the woman has an immediate effect just by her presence. We see this even today, women are the stabilizing force in a family, in society. They bring beauty, grace, they bring softness and refinement.

They bring dignity to a situation, respect. They have the capacity to calm very tense situations just by being there. They have the capacity to make men out of boys. The have the capacity to bring the power of conscience into a situation. Again just by being there. I don’t have time to take you through it now, but sometime, mark this down, 1 Samuel 25. 1 Samuel 25 and you see there the sobering, the calming influence of a wise woman named Abigail.

An amazing woman who delivered her people. They were about to be slaughtered by David and she intervened and she spared David also the blood guilt of killing other people in rash anger. All the while, she was living under the oppressive, dominating influence of a very, very foolish man. God cares for those under authority. He cares for those who practice submission and he delivered Abigail from Nabal, by killing him. Then he gave her to David. Ladies don’t get any ideas here, okay?  

The apostle Peter though, he tells us, that even harsh, disobedient husbands, men like Nabal, Abigail’s husband. He’s name means fool. Sometimes there’s a little bit of Nabal in all of us men, at times, right? But even harsh, disobedient husbands, they can be won over without a word. By the grace and the refinement of Christian wives. When the woman embraces her God given design, she is not focused on superficial and trivial expressions of feminine beauty. She realizes that her beauty comes from deep inside, from a place that peter refers to as “the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which,” get this, “in God’s sight is very precious.”

Before we close can I mention just a few practical ways that woman live according to this divine design? Two primary arenas in which woman work out their designs as helpmeets. Increasing the effectiveness of those who they serve, two main arenas, in the home and in the church. The home and the church. I realize that some woman have to enter the work place because of financial pressures, that may be the case for some of you.

For some women that’s only a season during a tough financial stretch, for others, even like single moms, that’s a lifestyle. And it’s hard, no doubt, but God, he is near in that difficulty. He cares for you as your torn away from what your heart longs for. The trial is temporary even if it seems like a really, really long temporary. God will give you the patience to endure, he’ll give you the strength to bear up under it, but for many women, perhaps we could say even the majority of women, God has called them to be wives. And some of those wives, he’s called to be mothers. And the home is a woman’s primary domain of responsibility. In Titus 2:4-5, Paul expects young women to “Love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home. Kind, submissive to their own husbands.” Why? “So that the word of God may not be reviled.” Submission, it means coming along side your husband. Giving him perspective and counsel, working to make him successful in what God has called him to do. So since that’s the case, make sure you’re a Bible saturated wife. That way your council is godly counsel. You’ll have it ready at hand to help him make wise and godly decisions.

I realize men don’t always make good and wise decisions, But the longer your husband exercises leadership, he is designed to be a leader and a teacher, but he needs an environment, he needs a role to do that. So immediately when you marry him, he’s not the perfect leader and teacher. That’s what your there for, is to help him become that.

Help him become what he’s designed to be. And the longer your husband exercises leadership, the more effective leader he’s going to be, the more good decisions he’ll make, than bad ones. Give it time. In the context of submitting to your husband in the dominion over your home. You’re to work at home, particularly in raising your children, 1 Timothy 2:11-15, that whole context points to the significance of a woman’s work in the home. Particularly with raising children. “Let a woman learn quietly, with all submissiveness, I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man, rather she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first and then Eve and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.”

So there’s a stigma there. “Yet she will be saved through childbearing if they continue in faith and love and holiness with self-control.” Listen just as men bear the stigma of the transgression of that original sin, that is Romans 5, “In Adam all die.” Right? So also women bear the stigma of their participation in that original transgression in the garden. Women who embrace their childbearing, child rearing role, a role for which they are biologically, emotionally, intellectually, designed and suited.

If they continue in that role, as it says there “In faith, in love, in holiness, with self-control.” You know what? They have a unique, intimate opportunity to raise up godly children and set them on a godly course. That ancient stigma will be erased, forgotten in the context of a godly life. A lot of sacrifice involved in that, a lot of thankless tasks, a lot of sleepless nights, mundane duties, piles and piles of laundry, But there is a tremendous amount of joy, a high degree of satisfaction, that godly mothers find in raising the children “In the fear and admonition of the Lord.”

Well that’s the home, submitting to your husband, raising your children. Let’s quickly consider the church. I realize this is far too brief, but if you have no husband, no children, or if you have raised your children, then be a help meet to God by serving the local church. How? Well through teaching other women and doing good works. Women are known by their fruitfulness and their works of compassion and mercy and charity. They do all these things with such excellence, so first thing, in the church, older women are to teach younger women in the local church, right?

Titus 2:3-5, “Older women to be reverent in behavior, not slanders, not slaves to wine, they are to teach what is good.” So they train the young women to love their husbands, to love their children. Yeah, you might think that loving us men is natural, easy. That’s what we husbands think, but its not true, they need to be trained. Young women need to be trained to love their husbands, to love their children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, submissive to their own husbands. So the word of God may not be reviled.

So second women freed up from duties in the home, it’s not time to go out and get some job, to build some meager empire that’s just going to burn in the end. It’s not time for them to get started getting recognized. For a job for themselves some significance outside God’s intention for their lives. Women who are freed up from the duties of raising children, women who are unmarried, they have the opportunity now to engage in good works. Like the virtuous widow that Paul commended to Timothy, 1 Timothy 5:3 and following. “She is one who has set her hope on God and continues in supplications and prayers, night and day.” She’s one with a reputation for good works, if she’s brought up children, if she’s shown hospitality, if she’s washed the feet of the saints. If she’d cared for the afflicted, if she’s devoted herself to every good work.

That’s the woman, and you know what? All the good works that are listed there, none of them are drudgery for women. Women rejoice to engage in these deeds. These are things that are deeply meaningful, profoundly significant. Caring for children, showing hospitality, doing works of compassion, all of that, taps into the DNA of women. That is the essence of true beauty, real worth, profound significance. All living according to God’s design.

Sadly there are many women that don’t trust the way that God designed them is best. They look across the gender aisle and they, they want to do what men are doing. They may not recognize this, but wanting the role of the man, by wanting that, they’re rejecting their own femininity. They’re expressing a very negative judgment on their own sex. Discontent with what God has designed them to be, they’re unmoored from any biblical foundation, they’re set adrift and believe me, they’re many predators out there ready and willing to use the incredible strengths of a woman and put those help meet qualities to work for their own advantage.

They want to build their empires and they want you to help them do it. Ladies, I want to encourage you to turn away from that, to learn deeply from Gods word, to invest your intellect and your gifting in that which is eternally significant and fruitful; like the Gospel, right? That is the fruitful influence of a woman, when she lives out the gospel, as she turns from Satan’s lie, she proclaims the gospel by holding fast to God’s authority, and God’s design for her life.

 As she submits to her husband, her marriage becomes a living picture of Christ and his relationship to the church. As she raises her children in the Lord, she teaches them the gospel, to repent of their sin and embrace salvation by faith in Jesus Christ. As she engages in good works, she demonstrates the works of the gospel coming out of a transformed life. That’s the life of true beauty of inestimable worth, and eternal significance.