The same God who upholds the universe with the word of his power, is the same God who declared that men must lead in the home and the church, and thus it is his command and his design, not ours, that says qualified men should teach and exercise authority in the church. Indeed, there is no other way to uphold the Word of God, but to submit to this fundamental feature of creation and canon—that God made men and women differently. We cannot interchange roles without doing damage to the Word and the world.

World-renowned historian William Manchester made this observation in 1993 in a cover story for US News & World Report. In his article, “A World Lit Only by Change,” Manchester processed the colossal changes the world had undergone over the magazine’s sixty-year history. With 1933–1993 in the rearview mirror, a period that encompassed a world war, the rise and fall of empires, the advent of the internet—let alone the lightning advances in industrialization, transportation, and globalization—this master-student of history landed on this surprising conclusion: no development heretofore experienced in the history of the world had the capacity to challenge life as we know it more than what he termed “the erasure of the distinctions between the sexes.”

What did Manchester have in mind in 1993? At the time, this erasure of the distinctions between the sexes was merely functional: “Women were admitted to bars and to the bar, to the dressing rooms of male athletes, to membership in men’s clubs. Barbershops were vanishing, replaced by unisex hairdressers. Intersexual manners changed; what had been considered flirting could now be condemned as sexual harassment.” Another contributing change not mentioned by Manchester, but one that is certainly part of the landscape, was the advent of women’s ordination in several denominations: 1956 saw the Presbyterian Church USA ordain their first woman to ministry; The US Episcopal Church ordained their first woman to the priesthood in 1974, and a General Synod of the Church of England passed the vote to ordain women in 1992—something C. S. Lewis himself had opposed in his time in writing: “Priestesses in the Church?”

Manchester’s observation is striking on many levels. With so much world-historical change before him, what led him to conclude that the most significant challenge humanity has ever faced was the erasure of male-female difference? Could he have known in 1993 how prescient this observation would be?

Thirty years on, we know how this sex erasure has proceeded and even accelerated: the functional erasure—women should be able to do anything a man can do—paved the way for an ontological erasure—women should be able to be anything a man can be. After all, if a woman can be a pastor or priest, a role traditionally reserved for qualified men, why not a husband, or father? Why can’t a woman be a man?^[1]

Such are the questions confronting Christians today.

What Does the Bible Say? And Why?

To provide biblical answers to these questions, to address this “profound” challenge, we need to reason biblically. What does the Bible say about the distinctions between the sexes? Are they mutable? Or are they innate? Are sex distinctions cultural, or creational? These questions bring us to a more foundational one, especially as we attempt to think the Bible’s thoughts after it in order to reason and believe accordingly—to be transformed by the renewal of our minds (Rom. 12:2). Why does the Bible say what it does about the distinctions between the sexes?

In the rest of this article, I want to unpack a thesis on the Bible’s teaching about what Manchester calls the distinction between the sexes. But first a word about my motivations. I am driven, as I hope we all are, primarily by a pursuit of the truth, which I believe to be found unmixed in the pure Word of God. But I am also particularly motivated to help others become convinced, as I am, that upholding the Bible’s teaching on male-female complementarity not only stands against the erasure Manchester observed, but also that it is the last best hope for humanity in addressing the dire challenge this erasure poses.

Here’s my thesis: The Bible teaches that men and women are equal yet different by divine design, a design that makes a difference in how we ought to live as male and female. More concretely, the Bible teaches male headship in the marriage (1 Cor. 11:3; Eph. 5:23), a principle that is affirmed and not undermined in the covenant community by restricting some governing and teaching roles to men (1 Cor. 14:33–34; 1 Tim. 2:12). This teaching has been called complementarianism, and it is summed up in the Danvers Statement on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. But just as important as what the Bible says is why it says it, which is why my thesis will make the following progression: (1) Scripture clearly teaches male-female complementarity and the principle of male headship, which is (2) grounded in the pre-Fall creation order (3) and in nature.

(1) Scripture clearly teaches male-female complementarity and the principle of male headship.

Bearing the divine image is a human person’s most significant aspect. Being made in the image of God (imago dei) establishes male-female equality in dignity and worth. In the very first chapter of the Bible, we learn that God created both male and female in his own image:

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

So God created man [Hebrew: adam] in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
Genesis 1:26–27

In these verses, not only are male and female both created in the image of God, they are also both referred to first by the generic Hebrew term adam. Importantly, this term becomes the particular name of the first man in the very next chapter. But in Genesis 1, this name establishes Adamic headship and, by implication, male headship in the family. This concept is developed in Genesis 2 and referenced in later revelation.

We must also note the binary, dimorphic—dare we say complementary—shape of humanity made in God’s image: “male and female he created them.” The very words used to describe the creation of the adam in Genesis 1:27 as “male and female” point to a social-sexual complementarity that is fleshed out in Genesis 2. The Hebrew term used for “male” in Genesis 1:27 is a word that etymologically hints at outwardness and prominence as a definitional aspect of this creature, and the Hebrew term for “female” is a word that etymologically hints at inwardness and receptivity. Directly after the Bible establishes male-female equality in the imago dei and complementarity in sexual differentiation, we are shown one of the reasons why God established male-female difference in Genesis 1:28:

And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

First, we should note that male-female equality is reinforced in this verse. Both male and female are addressed by this divine command: God said to “them.” But the command cannot be carried out apart from the pair’s complementary, dimorphic difference. The male and female have different obligations in carrying out this creation mandate. In order to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth, procreation is required, which requires male-female difference working together—bodily complementarity.

Some interpreters have suggested that the command to “be fruitful and multiply and fill” plays more to feminine attributes, and the command to “subdue” and “have dominion” more to masculine attributes.^[2] And there seems to be something to this. While each domain of activity is given to both the man and the woman in ways fitting to their bodily uniqueness, how this activity is carried out will necessarily be inflected through the gendered reality of God’s crowning creation.

Male-female similarity and difference are further affirmed and developed in Genesis 2. A careful reader of this chapter will note the detailed differences in how and for what purpose the man and woman are created: they are similar, yet different. Man is made first and from the ground (Gen. 2:7); God puts him in the Garden (2:8) to work and to keep it (2:15) and to name the animals (2:20). Coordinately, woman is made second and from the side of man (2:21). She is a “helper fit for him” (2:18) and is named by the man (2:23).

Why these differences? This is one of the most important questions to ponder. God could have made the man and woman at the same time and in the exact same way. But the different, complementary ways in which God makes the man and woman are intentional. These creational differences are meant to teach us something from the beginning about male and female peculiarity and purpose: something about the principle of male headship and female helper-ship.

We see something similar in how God created the universe. Instead of creating everything instantaneously, God created in six days and rested on the seventh. He did so for a purpose, in order to establish the pattern of the week (see Exod. 20:11). In a similar vein, the very way in which God created man and woman is meant to teach us about the pattern of male-female equality and difference. Genesis 1–2 are meant, in part, to prepare the people of God to receive special instructions from the Scriptures about what male-female difference means for their lives. Once we are properly catechized in the male-female complementarity of Genesis 1 and 2, we are ready to turn to these instructions.

While we believe all Scripture is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training all of God’s people in righteousness (2 Tim. 3:16), the Bible does give certain commands according to male-female difference, and some of these commands point to particular callings. The principle of male headship, or authority, in the family and the church is not only affirmed, but also commanded or assumed in multiple places in the Bible. Perhaps it is helpful to list in one place the New Testament verses that directly address upholding and honoring this principle:

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