Table of contents

1. Introduction
   1. Two Views: Complementarianism, and Egalitarianism
   2. An Opportunity to Grow in Hearing God’s Voice through Scripture
2. Ancient Context
   1. Hearing God by Removing Our Lens
   2. Putting on the Ancient Near-Eastern Lens
   3. How Genesis Elevates Women
3. The Creation Story (Genesis 2)
   1. Problems with the “helper” and “suitable” translations
4. Genesis 2-3: The Complementarian Case
5. Problems with the Complementarian View of Genesis 1-3
   1. Adam Naming the Woman’s Type is Probably Not an Example of Divinely Sanctioned Male Authority
   2. Primogeniture Is Not Evidence for Authority
   3. Genesis 1 is More Consistent With Eternity
6. Strengths of the Complementarian View
7. A Summary of My View
8. Notes

Introduction

There has been a fierce debate over gender equality across the spectrum of Christianity. Does God desire women to be in leadership positions? Has God designed husbands to be the “leader” at home?

This is a big deal: there is a higher percentage of females than males in Christianity - should we limit the majority of Christians from leading? Are women supposed to submit to their husbands at all times?

Two Views: Complementarianism, and Egalitarianism

There are two ends of the spectrum in Christianity - on one end is the “Egalitarian” view, and the other is the “Complementarian” view. “Egalitarians” believe that there are almost no role differences between men and women - women can be pastors and leaders of churches as much as men can. Complementarians believe that women should be restricted from leadership positions.

Here it should be noted that there is disagreement in each “camp” about how much Scripture limits or empowers women. For example, some complementarians believe that women can sometimes preach and teach, they just can’t have the role of “elder” in a local church - only men can have the role of “elder”. This particular view is called the “soft” complementarian view, whereas a “hard” complementarian view wouldn’t allow women to even speak in church - a practice that still happens today in Christian churches, believe it or not!

An Opportunity to Grow in Hearing God’s Voice through Scripture

Why should we even think about this issue? Thinking deeply about Scripture and women in ministry serves as a powerful opportunity to grow in our understanding of biblical “hermeneutics” - a fancy word for interpreting the Bible. Or, to put it more relationally, how to hear the voice of God through Scripture more clearly. This short study will give us tools on how to interpret God’s word more faithfully, allowing us to understand the will of God for ourselves and those around us. So put your thinking cap on, this will be exciting!

But the glaring issue still remains: should we limit women’s role in the church? Does Scripture teach that men should have more authority in the home, and at church? Perhaps even more fundamental than this, how do we understand the very concept of power and authority in church, and in our relationships? What does it even mean to say that someone has more God-given “authority”?

These questions we will be exploring in this series. I think the best way forward is to start chronologically - from Creation and Genesis up until Paul’s letters. This article (Part 1 of the series) focuses only on the Creation accounts. The final part of the series will summarize key takeaways from each article, and form an opinion, which you get to judge. Let’s dive in!

Ancient Context

Hearing God by Removing Our Lens

If we want to be able to hear God, it is absolutely vital that we do our best to understand the original culture in which Genesis was written. How would an ancient Hebrew woman have read Genesis 1 when she was deeply acquainted with the common practices of surrounding culture? As she is trudging along a well-worn path to go draw water for her family, thinking about creation accounts she’s been told since childhood, what perspectives would she have had? How would her perspective be different from ours?

Imagine getting to converse with an ancient Hebrew couple about the creation accounts, and hearing their thoughts! Since God inspired these creation accounts to speak to people from an ancient culture, we need to put on their “lenses” and see through their perspective, especially since our culture is so radically different from theirs. Women have more rights now than probably ever in history. More and more women are outpacing men in their respective fields in competency, rising to the top of multinational corporations - in western nations, women are enjoying unfathomably better treatment now than ever before.

Putting on the Ancient Near-Eastern Lens

Fact #1: Genesis was written to a heavily patriarchal culture, that had a degrading view of women. I need not attempt to prove the deep degradation of women during that time period. Refer to such practices as men taking concubines, male inheritance rights, laws biased towards men, and numerous other unjust limitations. During the old Babylonian period for example, wives, women, and daughters were all sold for various reasons, and it was common in the ancient near-east for women to be pledged as a security for men, and could even serve as the bail price if the husband committed a crime.¹

The scholar Marten Stol published in 2016 what the Library of Congress (USA) calls the first full-scale treatment of the history of women in the Ancient Near East.² At the end of his 600+ page survey, I’m not surprised at Stol’s concluding remarks:

In the end a balanced judgement leads us to the conclusion that in ancient society women fared much worse than men. We have seen evidence of this time and time again in this book, with some chapters showing nothing to the contrary. Even in the generally wise laws of Hammurabi women were more severely punished than men. As we come to a close we expect none of our readers to shut this book without uttering a sigh of sadness.³

This is not to say that women were all treated like slaves, and the picture is not one of constant horror for a woman - they had some rights and protection under law. But everyone can agree that the ancient near-Eastern woman’s world was one where men indisputably had more rights. Ancient Israel showed some progress in this respect - women were given more rights than the surrounding culture.

How Genesis Elevates Women

Thankfully, Genesis 1 deeply contrasts from the degrading view of women common in ancient near-Eastern (from now on abbreviated ANE) cultures. Not just the male, but the female are created in the very image of God. This is a stark contrast from the very low view of women in surrounding cultures, where males (particularly the kings) were exclusively viewed as made in the image of the respective nation’s god.⁴ So if an ancient Hebrew woman heard the creation accounts, she may have thought something like “all the other kings of the nations around us are supposedly made in their God’s image, but I’m made in God’s image!” An ancient Hebrew woman would have heard the Genesis accounts and would have seen it as a stark contrast to surrounding cultures’ view of women. Theologian Linda Belleville also notes,

Both male and female are commanded to exercise dominion over the earth—to “rule over” all of it (1:26, 28) and to “subdue” it (v. 28). The language is significant. The Hebrew term (“rule”) is used twenty-two times in the OT of human dominion (Ps. 110:2, Isa. 14:2). The Hebrew word (“subdue”) occurs fifteen times in the OT, in each instance with the meaning “to bring into submission by brute force” (2 Chr. 28:10, Neh. 5:5, Jer. 34:11). No separate spheres of rule are specified (e.g., private versus public). There is not even a division of labor (e.g., domestic versus nondomestic).⁵

Belleville also notes that when God gave humans every plant and animal, the pronoun “you” is specifically plural; the man is not exclusively given one part, and the woman another part of creation. If God intended men to have the primary authority, we should expect a clear separation of authority from God’s word to the male and female. Yet we do not find it in Genesis 1.

The same could be said in some NT passages (apart from the passages that seem to limit women’s roles, to be discussed later). If God intended a hierarchy of authority between men and women, we might expect Paul to make this clear in contexts that describe all of humanity, such as Romans 5:17, which envisages all believers as “reign[ing] in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.” We might expect the same from the apostle Peter who ascribed an exclusively male title of “priest” to all believers, which includes women (1 Pet. 2:9); women are now to see their current role as a daughter of God in the same role and function as the previous, exclusively male role of priest. Peter seems not to care about gender any more for priesthood, which is a massive departure from normal, ancient Judaism. Paul, the “Pharisee of Pharisee” changed his view so radically that he thought it better than no one even marry!

The Creation Story (Genesis 2)

Complementarians view Genesis 2 as clear evidence that God intended Adam to have authority over Eve primarily because: (1) Adam named the woman “Woman” (and later named her “Eve” in Gen. 3), and (2) God created the woman as a “suitable helper” for the man.

Problems with the “helper” and “suitable” translations

I think if we are honest with ourselves, the word “helper” produces images in our minds of some sort of office assistant or maid. If I was a woman reading this word, I would definitely feel like this is an inferior and limiting role. On top of that, this “helper” should also be “suitable” for the man; another word that has the potential to communicate inferiority - English speakers tend to use that word to describe objects (e.g., the jacket is “suitable” for cold weather), not their lifelong soulmate! Does Genesis communicate the same English meaning we normally ascribe to the word “helper” when God created the woman?

Biblical scholars seem to think so. The majority of English translations have produced “helper” and “suitable”. There seems to be some agreement amongst bible scholars as to what the best word means. So egalitarians should come up with a reasonable response and argument for understanding the word “helper” and “suitable” as meaning something different than the way we understand it.

The most popular English translations were produced by teams of biblical scholars from multiple disciplines. So, if a lot of English translations translate a Hebrew word in the same way, I’m usually skeptical when someone comes along and says “all the translations are wrong.” You should be skeptical of someone who says this. But in the case of Genesis 2:20 there is actually some disagreement among scholars:

• NASB: Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.”
• NKJV: And the Lord God said, “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.”
• NRSVUE: Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.”
• NET: The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a companion for him who corresponds to him.”

There are few translations that do not use “helper”, but choose another word like “companion”. However, the NET choosing the word “companion” is highly significant - over 25 biblical scholars (the NET translation was produced by a committee of 25 translators) somehow decided (perhaps majority rule?) that “companion” is a better translation than helper.

For the other translations choosing “helper”, it also may be the case that the implications of the word “helper” were not discussed by those translation committees. Still, I should justify why “helper” is not the best translation, even though I think it’s obvious from the way the average english-speaker uses the word (no one describes the love of their life using the word “helper”.)

Here are the following reasons why “helper” does not accurately capture the intended meaning of this Hebrew word ezer:

(1) The woman was made because the man was alone, not because the man needed help to do his job. Biblical scholar Gordon Wenham agrees here when he says, “…the help looked for is not just assistance in his daily work or in the procreation of children, although these aspects may be included, but the mutual support companionship provides.”⁶ That is, companionship was the primary need, and help with tasks were a bonus. Even Wenham, as a complementarian, agrees that companionship is the primary spirit of the text.⁷ Ancient Jewish Rabbis also saw a need for companionship in the creation account. They wrote of Adam’s loneliness when no one was found from the animals to be his companion: “Everything has its partner, but I have no partner.”⁸

Hence the NET’s choice to translate ezer as “companion” instead of “helper”. If the primary spirit of the text is centered on companionship, “helper” is a bad translation. Ask yourself what images come to your mind when you think of the word “helper”. “Helper” skews the meaning of the Hebrew.

(2) The Hebrew word “ezer” by itself cannot necessarily imply subordination, since the same word is used of God throughout the OT.

Moses spoke of God as his “helper” because God saved him from Pharoah (Ex. 18:4). God describes Himself as Israel’s “helper” (Hos. 13:9). OT usage of Ezer is in contexts where the one “helping” is providing something indispensible, even deliverance (Deut. 33:7, Ps. 20:1-2, Ps. 33:19-20).

This proves that the context the word is used is not used like our word “helper”. We never refer to a top authority and a deliverer as a “helper” in common, every day usage. The Hebrew word rather “…signifies the woman’s essential contribution, not inadequacy.”⁹ If the intended emphasis is on her essential contribution, “helper” completely misses that emphasis; in fact, I think it skews it.

(3) The Hebrew word for “suitable” has much more meaning than the English. The creation account does not depict Adam just needing something “suitable”, but rather he was lonely needed companionship. The Hebrew word for “suitable” is literally translated as “like opposite him.”¹⁰ Wenham also concludes that the spirit of the word is complementarity. The spirit of complementarity is much more emotionally meaningful than “suitable”. This is why I think the phrase “corresponding to him” or “as his partner” from the NET and NRSVUE translation more accurately reflects the spirit of the text. The text clearly links the creation of the woman to the man’s loneliness, and the English translations spit out “suitable helper” as a solution for the loneliness of man. Again, “suitable” is almost always used in practical, non-emotional contexts to signify something assisting you in day to day life (suitable jacket, suitable occasion).

The NET captures it the best: “The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a companion for him who corresponds to him.”

Finally, in Genesis 2, both Waltke and Wenham, who are major authorities on Genesis (and complementarians!) agree that the creation of the woman from the man’s rib also speaks to the essential equality and intimacy intended between male and female.¹¹ This is further evidenced by the fact that the primary purpose in the creation of the woman was the man’s loneliness, and Adam then bursts into Hebrew poetry upon her creation! It is refreshing to hear these two esteemed scholars also happily cite in their work Matthew Henry’s famous quote:

Not made out of his head to top him, not out of his feet to be trampled upon by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected, and near his heart to be beloved.

That makes me want to cry!

Genesis 2-3: The Complementarian Case

One of the first points given by complementarians to argue their case is the fact that Adam “names” his wife Eve, and even names her type as “woman” in Genesis 2. The fact that Adam named her is seen as an example of Adam practicing his God-given authority. Because the woman did not name the man, the woman seems to have less “authority”.

That Adam was created first is also further evidence for complementarians that Adam held a more authoritative role, because of ancient Hebrew primogeniture, which was the ANE cultural norm that a firstborn male had the highest authority in the family after the father died, and more rights and privileges.¹² All complementarians, even soft ones, believe that this cultural component would have caused an ancient Hebrew to understand Adam to naturally have a higher level of “authority” or “rights” then Eve, because Adam was technically the firstborn.

It is also assumed that because Adam was created before Eve, and that the original command to not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil were given to Adam first, God’s original design for male and female relationships included Adam having more responsibility, and therefore the female’s role was to support that responsibility. Complementarians generally don’t see this notion as some sort of sexist understanding. The biblical scholar Thomas Schreiner adds another interesting point: even though Eve was deceived and ate first, God first calls out to Adam about his sin, and Paul in Romans 5 traces the sin of all humankind back to Adam, not Eve.¹³ Although interestingly, scholar Craig Blomberg points out that the NT blames Adam exactly twice, but also Eve exactly twice.¹⁴ Schreiner has also pointed out that Paul’s reasons for refusing to let women teach at the church in Ephesus is because Adam was made first (1 Tim. 2:11-15), which seems to be NT support for viewing Genesis as describing some God-ordained norms.

Problems with the Complementarian View of Genesis 1-3

Adam Naming the Woman’s Type is Probably Not an Example of Divinely Sanctioned Male Authority

Both Blomberg and Schreiner, the two scholars representing the complementarian view in the book Two Views on Women in Ministry (Blomberg on the “soft” side of the spectrum of complementarians, Schreiner more in the middle), admit that Genesis 1-3 give us only hints of male “headship”, although in my view they fail to grasp the equalizing weight of Genesis 1. I also do not think Adam naming his newly created partner “woman” is an example of practicing authority - let me explain why.

Genesis 2 uses the word “name” when Adam named the animals. Whatever he “called” each animal that was its name (Gen. 2:19). Biblical scholar Craig Keener points out the fact that this precise “naming” pattern does not appear until Genesis 3:20, after the fall and the curse of male domination (Gen. 3:16). Schreiner doesn’t think it matters because the man still called out her type as “woman” and didn’t need to give a proper name, because he didn’t give the animals a proper name.¹⁵

Schreiner seems to miss the fact that we blur the lines between a category of animal, and that animal’s name.

The class distinction goes from animal → type/name.

The class distinction for humans goes from human → type/gender → name.

The sequencing is different because humans and animals are a completely separate class. Logically speaking, I don’t see how Schreiner can apply a 1-to-1 correspondence in naming animals, and naming humans, because they are two completely different classes (Schreiner seems to think that if Adam called out the name of the animals, and called out the type of the woman, both are examples of God-given authority). Because humans have a type/gender and then are further identified by their name unlike animals Adam should have given her a proper name to establish authority. But again, name is never used in Genesis 2. Only after the fall in Genesis 3 is it used.

The NET translator notes are helpful here on the “naming” action in ancient Hebrew culture. Regarding the word “naming”,

In each case where it is used, the one naming discerns something about the object being named and gives it an appropriate name (See 1 Sam 9:9; 2 Sam 18:18; Prov 16:21; Isa 1:26; 32:5; 35:8; 62:4, 12; Jer 19:6). Adam is not so much naming the woman as he is discerning her close relationship to him and referring to her accordingly. He may simply be anticipating that she will be given an appropriate name based on the discernible similarity.¹⁶

This is probably why Keener sees naming the woman as only significant when the text specifically says that “Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living.” (Gen. 3:20); this is the first occurrence of the word “named” or “name” being used in connection with the woman. If we were to look somewhere to establish male authority on the basis of Adam naming the woman, the most explicit and clear verse example would be this verse, which occurs after the fall of man and the curse of male domination. Yet complementarians want to use Adam calling out the woman’s type as evidence that he was naming her like all the other examples in Scripture; this is another glaring inconsistency.

Adam was not “naming” her like all the other examples of “naming” in Scripture.Adam recognized that something changed after she was created; hence his joyful shout that this is “bone of my bones”, “flesh of my flesh”. Complementarian scholars Waltke and Wenham both agree that Adam uses celebratory poetry here,¹⁷ with Wenham going so far as to describe Adam as “bursting” into poetry, and even describing Adam’s experience in terms of “ecstasy”. The poetic cry is also filled with Hebrew wordplay, particularly in the Hebrew words for “man” and “woman”. Adam’s poem should be understood as him elebrating the close relationship and likeness between himself and the woman, rather than a declaration of dominance or control.

Craig Blomberg also mistakenly believes that Adam gave his wife a “name” when Adam called her “woman”. Particularly when Adam calls the new creature “woman”, Blomberg asserts “that he exercises his rightful authority and ‘calls’ out the name for his new partner.”¹⁸ This is just a false assertion. She had no name at that point. Her name ended up being Eve, not Woman!

Even if we granted that Adam was somehow exercising his authority over her by calling out her type (not name), and that this proves that he was meant to have a higher level of authority than the woman, Adam immediately renames his own type after recognizing the type of the woman. The Hebrew word for “man” when Adam calls out her type is not the same Hebrew word for man.

In naming her “woman” (issa), he also names himself “man” (is). The narrator names him by his relation to the ground, but Adam names himself in relation to his wife.¹⁹

On the complementarian view, the fact that he renamed himself must mean that he is then redefining his own identity and role. If this is the case, then there is no longer any clear definition between the man and woman’s role, because Adam didn’t define the newly created roles. We would then be forced to go back to Genesis 1 for a more relevant Scripture about God’s intended roles for male and female, which runs against the complementarian view of women being subordinated to men.

There is also another odd inconsistency here: if naming is always meant to imply authority as complementarians assert, complementarians must understand Adam renaming his own type as claiming authority over himself, which I think complementarians would not grant. Are we really supposed to assert that yes, Adam did display authority over the woman by naming her type, but it just didn’t apply when he renamed his own type?

I think there’s a better way to understand Adam’s poem: the primary point is joy over God’s newly created woman that is just like him, and he’s understanding that something in his own identity has changed.

If someone wanted to justify male authority through “naming” then, we should look for a clearer verse; a verse that matches all the other examples in Scripture of “naming”, and also one where the word “name” is used. Genesis 2:23 does not fit this description, but Genesis 3:20 does. And Adam named his wife Eve after the fall of man and the curse of male domination, something that God never intended.

Primogeniture Is Not Evidence for Authority

The scholars Craig Blomberg and Thomas Schreiner believe that ancient primogeniture (see above for explanation) is biblical support for God intending men to have more authority than women. Because Adam was the firstborn, he has more authority. To that I would say this: it is true the average ancient Hebrew man or woman may have read Genesis 2 and concluded that Adam had more authority than the woman because he was created first. But the problem with this argument is that the firstborn rights were based on surrounding ANE culture infected by the spread of sin in the world, and especially the curse of male domination. We’ve already seen in this article how some ANE laws were totally degrading to women. The curse of the fall (male domination) is arguably the origin of ancient primogeniture! In my view, primogeniture is the very thing you’d expect from sinful male domination.

Blomberg and Schreiner are using a product of the fall to justify pre-fall norms - I see this as a glaring inconsistency, especially considering the fact that in Christ, the curses pronounced on mankind have, in principle, been fully reversed (Rom. 6:23, Gal. 3:13, Jn. 11:25-26). Rather than using ancient primogeniture to support divinely sanctioned male authority, they should actually be pointing out its sinful nature.

There is even NT support for the fact that even some OT laws were not God’s ideal. Divorce was permitted in the OT because of the hardness of the Israelites’ hearts, not because God wanted those laws (Matt. 19:8-9). This is further evidence that post-fall norms even in Israel itself were not God’s ideal.

Genesis 1 is More Consistent With Eternity

I have actually never heard any theologians connect the final state of eternity to the debate on women’s roles.

My belief is that the end of history aligns more closely with Genesis 1’s presentation of the male and female having equal authority and equal tasks. I base this reasoning off a few things: (1) Jesus teaching that no one will be married on the New Earth, (2) the belief that God’s highest will is expressed through the paradigm of the “kingdom of God” taught by Jesus.

Genesis 1-3 forms the foundation of the entire Bible, and launches the trajectory of all of Scripture, but a few considerations need to be made about the overarching trajectory of Scripture. There are some key considerations here that shows us that Genesis 1-3 doesn’t really give God’s full “story”:

• Genesis presents marriage as a permanent institution, but Jesus says that marriage will no longer exist after the final resurrection (Matt. 22:30) which happens at the final coming of Christ.

• Genesis establishes God’s image expressed through the male and the female. The Apostle Paul however saw the establishment of God’s kingdom as so cataclysmic that he even saw there no longer being any male or female classes (Gal. 3:28).²⁰

• Genesis presents the world as engulfed by hostile spiritual forces manifested in the notorious “waters” (Gen. 1:2). But Revelation presents the final state as there no longer being any “sea” (Rev. 21:1). God also creates the sun/moon as lights in the sky in Genesis, but in Revelation, there is longer any need for a sun or moon (Rev. 21:23).

• Genesis presents the male as the first to receive the commandment from God (a point complementarians often use to understand as an example of male authority), but the New Testament expects all believers to obey commands. If it was normative for all time that males have more authority because they receive commands first, what happens if the wife knows Scripture better than her husband? Wouldn’t that make her have more authority?

Since women and men will no longer be given in marriage throughout eternity, the texts that speak of believers “ruling and reigning” with Christ teach that women will reign with Christ and not through the leadership of their husbands. This means that women will reign directly with Christ (2 Tim. 2:12, Rom. 5:17) and will judge angels (1 Cor. 6:3) with no input from a husband - husbands won’t exist. If we insist that women must rule through their husbands, I suppose the apostle Paul would say that “there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all people.” (1 Tim. 2:5).

Jesus also taught us to pray that the will of God would be done on earth as it is in heaven (Matt. 6:9-13), which tells us that some things that happen on earth are not his “highest” will. For example, we know that God’s desire is that all would be saved (1 Tim. 2:4), but not all are saved. The kingdom of God is the realm where God fully rules. When Jesus would cast out a demon, it was the result of the kingdom of God coming upon the afflicted person (Matt. 12:28). In the kingdom of God, there is no sickness or crying or pain anymore (Rev. 21:4), and no more death. When that kingdom is finally and fully manifested upon Christ’s return, we will no longer be given in marriage. Women will then rule and reign equally with men, with Christ. That picture comports more closely with Genesis 1’s example of women and men co-ruling together. The kingdom of God has come and is coming, and will fully come. How should we align ourselves with the vision of God’s final kingdom?

Strengths of the Complementarian View

While I think Schreiner and Blomberg’s arguments fall short in significant ways, they point out some facts that I think are indisputable that lay the foundation for God-ordained differences between male and female in Genesis 2.

For one, God clearly held Adam to a higher standard than Eve. After they both ate from the forbidden tree, God first calls Adam to account (Gen. 3:9-11), perhaps because he was the first to receive the command to not eat from the tree. The woman also says that she was deceived, but Adam never says that he was deceived. He therefore had a higher responsibility than the woman here, and probably committed the greater sin. It is also notable that Adam’s curse explicitly includes the death penalty, while the woman’s does not (compare Gen. 3:16-19 although it is implicitly included for the woman).

Additionally, the text specifically says that God had put the man in the Garden to work and take care of it (Gen. 2:15). The responsibility to “work” was given first to the man, not the woman. This is not to imply that women weren’t ever meant to work. It’s just that the narrative describes more clearly the man’s capacity and responsibility to work, whereas the woman’s specific task is left undefined. The woman is also created after God gave the man the command to work, which implies that part of her role is to join a pre-existing plan that God originally gave to the man.

These considerations taken together I think do in fact establish male leadership being given by God, and is a good design. I think it is good for every man to walk closely with God and receive his work and calling from God, and then invite a woman into this vision. Men should be providers, protectors, and cast vision they receive from God. This I believe is the core of God’s design for men that Genesis 1-3 teaches.

As a counter to this however, Genesis 1 does not imply that her role is to join an existing task; they are given an equal role.

A Summary of My View

So far, it might seem like I hold two contradicting viewpoints - as if I’m an egalitarian and a complementarian. But I simply can’t see this debate as black and white as most people want to see it. The main reason I can’t is because there are some fundamental assumptions that I think are usually skewed in this debate:

1. It is assumed that “authority” and “leadership” is the same as executive decision making and calling the shots. I just can’t buy into that definition because that’s not how Jesus defined true authority. Jesus turned that whole concept on its head by teaching us to live like a slave, or living like someone with the least “authority”. Practically, this means a husband can never force his vision to be accomplished, which can forfeit the traditional understanding of “male leadership in the home.”
2. People tend to narrow their focus to single passages of Scripture, instead of the whole counsel of Scripture - I can’t say Genesis gives us the whole picture if the NT brings in some new and surprising revelation that could inform our view of women’s roles, such as eternity not including marriage. If God’s final intention is for there never to be marriage, that means that gender roles are really only temporary. If we are to position our lives as if the kingdom of God and new creation have already arrived (which the NT teaches!), how might that affect the way I understand gender roles?

And if each side is to hold to their viewpoint consistently, I think each side must choose to close their ears to Genesis 1 and 2; if you’re egalitarian, you might be more inclined to ignore the fact that God held Adam to a higher standard than Eve and gave him the command to work first; there is even NT support for male headship. If you’re complementarian, you might be more inclined to ignore the fact that God included no role differences whatsoever when he gave the command to the man and woman to rule and subdue the earth; there is NT support for gender no longer restricting women to specific roles.

I think there is indeed a general pattern where men should have a pre-existing vision, and invite women into it and to “lead” by living like a servant. This may involve providing practical direction and spiritual leadership. But when a man truly lives like this however, it may cause his own desire and personal preferences and “vision” he thinks is from God to be laid aside, and instead letting the woman’s God-given vision take precedence; for in Genesis 1, we find that God gives women a direct calling to subdue the earth in equal measure to men.

My view will be refined more clearly as time goes on and we get to the NT texts, because only then will we have the full counsel of Scripture. Stay tuned for the next part in the series!

Notes