The Apostle Paul employs two primary paradigms for understanding men and women. He points backwards to the original creation and the figures of Adam and Eve, and he points forwards to Jesus Christ and the Church in their soteriological-eschatological state. The former approach can be seen in 1 Cor. 11:8-12 and in 1 Tim. 2:12-15. The latter can be seen in Ephesians 5:22-33.

Christian sex and gender conversations are back. They never really went away, but the past few weeks have seen a number of new essays and other contributions on the topic. Recently, Dr. Scott Swain added a helpful essay to this ongoing discussion. In it, he explains the variety of categories necessary to fully understand men and women from a Christian perspective. Using both natural philosophy and biblical exegesis, Prof. Swain attempts to create a systematic theological understanding of the sexes that “will better ground traditional roles” while also “further expand[ing] the vistas of mutual, personal agency for men and women seeking to live a life that is pleasing to God.” We could translate that last clause as stating that these additional categories will broaden our imaginative range of ways that men and women can serve God. The categories provide them ways to think about themselves and how they can do all that they do.

The basic categories of human identity that Swain offers are: husband, father, wife, mother, son, daughter, brother, and sister. To these he adds the social concepts of commonality and equality, diversity and structure, and mutual fellowship. Importantly, he notes that “According to Paul, there is a natural order built into God’s creative design for men and women that the church should reflect in its ministry (so 1 Tim 2:13-14)” (a point I have explained in more detail elsewhere), and then adds that a proper use of “equality” must not “read modern conceptions of equality back into Scripture” but rather understand that modern notions of equality are “corruptions of something originally positive and good” which should be placed back “within the larger economy of God and all things in relation to God” in order to “find its proper meaning and significance.” The equality between man and woman is present in their essence, they are created in the image of God, and in their goal, eternal glory with Christ. This equality exists within a structure of diversity, a diverse order of skills and talents, as well as “domestic and civil roles and responsibilities.” The key to using this diversity appropriately, Swain argues, is to order it “under God” and “to God.” One must recognize who created all things this way and what purpose He has for them.

I appreciated Swain’s argument and presentation, and I would like to follow his example by offering even more categories. I want to highlight the prominent categories used by Paul and Peter, and then I would like to suggest that the magisterial Protestant philosophical concept of the “two kingdoms” or “two realms,” as well as the scholastic distinctions of kinds of hierarchy can help us most consistently harmonize our various ideas.

Paul’s Gender Categories

The Apostle Paul employs two primary paradigms for understanding men and women. He points backwards to the original creation and the figures of Adam and Eve, and he points forwards to Jesus Christ and the Church in their soteriological-eschatological state. The former approach can be seen in 1 Cor. 11:8-12 and in 1 Tim. 2:12-15. The latter can be seen in Ephesians 5:22-33.

With regards to creation, Paul believes that the husband stands in the “Adam” role, while the wife stands in the “Eve” role. This can be seen in the way that he argues “Man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man” (1 Cor. 11:8-9). He makes the same sort of argument a second time, “For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor” (1 Tim. 2: 13-14). To contemporary ears, this justification appears nonsensical and perhaps even ad hoc. What does the order of creation with Adam and Eve have to do with individual men and women today? Why is this even relevant? And is Paul at all being fair with his use of the deception of Eve? 

If one does not believe in the inspiration and inerrancy of the Scriptures, then they are free to question or even reject what Paul says here. For the believer, the task is more difficult. They must not only accept the “letter” of Paul’s teaching, but they must seek to understand what precisely he means by it, and how his argument makes sense. They must submit to his method as well as his conclusion. But pursuing that kind of angle is worth the additional mental and emotional labor. It will helps us better understand the logic and purpose of Paul’s arguments. Doing so will open up even more categories.

Protological Lessons

The Apostle Paul does indeed teach that all humanity, men and women, are summed up in Adam (Rom. 5:12, 1 Cor. 15:22). Men and women are “in Adam.” And yet, this is not the only protological category Paul uses. Paul also appeals to Adam and Eve, noting their differences. He says that individual men are to understand themselves as embodying a kind of Adam identity and that individual women are to understand themselves as embodying a kind of Eve identity. They are simultaneously “both Adam” and yet also distinctly “Adam and Eve.”

One point of underdevelopment in Prof. Swain’s exposition of the significance of “Adam” on the sexes is the lack of a close treatment of Genesis 2. Genesis 1 certainly does present both men and women as “Adam,” and yet it is immediately followed by Genesis 2, which explains that the original corporate human was a particular male. “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it,” “Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him,’” and “the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.” Alastair Roberts identifies 9 points of instruction from this second creation action, points which can instruct men and women how to relate to one another and how they can relate to the world. Just recently, Mark Jones has made similar observations, noting:

The bible and particularly Genesis 2 give us many clues about the way man and woman harmonize. Paul explains how the man is presented as summing up the human race in himself (Rom. 5) and who is the image and glory of God, but the woman is the glory of man (1 Cor. 11:7). God creates man before the woman; but the woman, whose being derives from Adam’s, is created to be the helper of Adam. She addresses his problem of aloneness. Adam is first “formed” (1 Tim. 2:13) but the woman is “built” (binah). Adam is created outside of the Garden, prior to its creation; Eve is created within the Garden. Eve relates primarily to the inner world of the Garden, but Adam relates uniquely to the earth outside of the Garden. Adam’s priestly tasks of guarding and keeping the Garden come directly from God. The woman is not priestly. Adam is given from God the law of the Tree of knowledge of Good and Evil, but the woman is not. The difference is one of immediate versus mediate reception. The priest (Adam) guards and teaches (see Mal. 2:7). Priests and Levites were male, and they guarded the sanctuary and taught the law. Adam is given the task of naming; as king he is to rule over the world. Adam names the woman two times. The woman is formed as a helper for Adam, but this is not explicitly reciprocated (i.e., he is not a “helper”). The woman’s commission is defined relative to Adam’s task. Yet, in many ways, her tasks are the reason for his own tasks, and his require hers. The woman is created to do things that Adam cannot do. Adam and Eve sin in different ways. Adam’s is more serious because it is “immediate” whereas Eve’s is “mediate” insofar as she received the command from her husband. It is Adam that God holds ultimately responsible for the Fall, as the priest, prophet, and king. The judgments upon Adam and the woman differ according to the original vocations and origins, which proves that the curses are not egalitarian.

So we see just how vast the conceptual world of Genesis 2 is, and as we meditate upon these points, we can see why Paul felt that the creation order and purpose was such an important model. When he points back to Adam and Eve, Paul is not grabbing a quick prooftext but invoking the whole complex of meaning and principles.

For Paul, it is important that the man was made first (1 Tim. 2:13) and from the ground, whereas the woman was made second and “from man” (1 Cor. 11:8). It also matters that woman was made “for man” whereas the converse is not the case: “Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man.” The reason that Paul believes these points to be relevant is because he believes that Genesis 2 provides a distinct protology for men and women. As the first to be created, man has authority and responsibility. The woman was created to be a help to man, to be “for” him in his multiplying, filling, and dominion vocation. This does not mean that “only the man” was given these tasks and that the woman is to be his mere private assistant. It means that the common Adam-humanity was given the task but immediately found to be unsuitable until further separated into head and help, man and woman. The man has a directional “lead” over the whole, and the woman has a supportive “for” directed towards the head.

In 1 Tim. 2:14, Paul will also add a punitive element to this discussion. In addition to being “second,” Eve was also “deceived and became a transgressor.” Many commentators have read into this a sort of essentialist gender deficiency, that women are “more liable to be deceived” and, on that ground, unfit for authority. But I do not believe this interpretation is the most reasonable one. Indeed, if one did take this approach, then they would predictably invite attempts to falsify the claim. After all, women come in many intellectual and emotional varieties, and men can themselves be quite gullible at times. We see a number of “crafty” women in the Bible who deceive men, even in arguably just ways. Rebekah’s deception of Isaac is controversial, but capable of rational explanation. The Hebrew Midwives seem more obviously in the right. Even Jael employs deception to lure Sisera to his death. Rather than feel the need to make a forced and awkward argument about the capabilities of women, it seems that Paul is appealing to the curse placed upon the woman in Gen. 3:16. Because Eve was deceived, she will experience an increased sort of subjection. The fact that Paul goes on to talk about the significance of childbirth in 1 Tim. 2:15 reinforces the fact that he has Gen. 3 in mind. This is also what Paul means in 1 Cor. 14:34, when he says that “the law” states women must be in submission to their husbands. Modern commentators are reluctant to take this approach because they believe that if women are disallowed certain positions because of God’s punishment for sin, that they must then be granted those positions after Christ atones for our sin. But as Calvin points out, “there is nothing to hinder that the condition of obeying should be natural from the beginning, and that afterwards the accidental condition of serving should come into existence; so that the subjection was now less voluntary and agreeable than it had formerly been” (Calvin, Commentary on 1 Tim. 2:14).

Thus, a harsh subjection or a subjection involving conflict is the thing experienced as punishment, whereas a natural and more instinctually agreeable submission was assigned as a creation ordinance. In Christ, the relationship of authority and submission is not undone but rather progressively made more like it originally was, voluntary and agreeable because it is rightly ordered towards an upright nature. These are Paul’s protological categories.

Eschatological Lessons

Paul also employs eschatological categories. In Ephesians 5:22-33, he says that husbands are like Christ, whereas wives are like the body of Christ, the church. Just as with Adam, there is a way that both men and women are Christs in Christ (Gen. 3:28). Likewise, as they are considered members of the church, men are every bit as much the bride of Christ (Rev. 21:9) as are women. Just as there is the whole Adam, there is the whole Christ. And yet this does not prevent Paul from emphasizing the specific ways in which husbands are like Christ and wives are like the church. In Eph. 5, the wife is to submit “as the church submits to Christ.” And in this context, it is important to note that the husband actually gets the lengthier command. He is told to love the wife, but in a very specific way, “as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish” (Eph. 5:25-27). This means that the husband must “nourish and cherish” the wife, treating her as his own body (Eph. 5:28-29). 

And so in addition to those categories of Adamic leadership and Eve-like help and submission, Paul also offers Christological love and ecclesiological obedience. Paul uses both protology and eschatology to guide and direct Christians as they live as man and woman.

Peter’s Gender Categories

The Apostle Peter also employs biblical archetypes as a way for individual Christian husbands and wives to understand themselves. Perhaps because he is the apostle to the Jews, Peter focuses on the characters of Abraham and Sarah. In 1 Peter 3:5-7, Peter points to the manner in which Sarah obeyed Abraham. For the man’s part, Peter instructs him to treat his wife with understanding and special honor. The reason for this understanding and honor is not simply because all people deserve understanding and honor. That is true enough, but Peter has a particular point. The wife is to be treated in a special way, “as the weaker vessel” (1 Peter 3:7).

The language of “weakness” is startling to the modern reader, but it remains the words of Holy Scripture. What does Peter mean? Is this merely a reference to physical stature, or does Peter have something more in mind. Many readers have speculated, but the text makes no attempt to offer extended explanation. He may have something regarding men and women’s “constitution” in mind, but he may simply be speaking of jurisdiction or hierarchy. Perhaps for this very reason, we are safest in assuming that the main point is not the way in which the woman is weaker but simply the fact of it. The man has more power, and for that very reason he is to show the woman special honor. This is a classic point of just political theory, going back to antiquity. The ruler must rule for those under him. He must use his authority for their good.

Servant Leadership?

A contemporary expression is often used to explain this concept. Perhaps it is used too often and is at risk of becoming something of a cliche. Nevertheless “servant leadership” can be an appropriate biblical phrase. The leader uses his leadership for service, as we have said, for the good of those under him. However, we must not lose sight of the nature of this leadership. It is lordship. It is rule. The servant leader is a king who uses his power for the good of those who must obey him. It is precisely because he has the authority that he must take care to use it for good purposes.

The Two Kingdoms

So far I have offered exegetical observations from a mostly traditional perspective, but Prof. Swain was correct to say that these biblical observations must be synthesized in a logical way, taking account of the full content of divine revelation. This is often where disagreements arise. The New Testament especially seems to hold out two potentially competing notions: equality and hierarchy. Hierarchy seems obvious enough in the Old Testament, even appearing in otherwise universal texts like the Decalogue or Proverbs. But the New Testament appears to challenge the old hierarchical world. Is not a major part of the gospel the fact that God is exalting the lowly and humbling the mighty? Doesn’t Paul even say that “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female” in Christ Jesus (Gal. 3:28)?

Yes Paul does state that, and yes the New Testament does have a strong emphasis towards inverting stations and rank. Yet, the same apostle who says “there is no male and female” also has a lot to say about how there are male and female, as we have demonstrated above. How is one to harmonize these teachings? Is this a paradox meant to confound?

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