Matt Chandler - Woman's Hurdles

If you’re a guest with us this morning and don’t have a Bible with you, my encouragement would be that you look under your seat or around you; there should be a hardback black one somewhere. If you don’t own one, that’s our gift to you. It’s really important that you see I’m not making anything up here; there are some things that are rooted in history and the Bible, and largely, the world would agree with them, whether they are Christians or not.

In the Book of Romans, one of the things we see is that Paul, the Apostle Paul—who initially hated Jesus—turned into one of the greatest missionaries of the Christian faith. He was actually a terrorist against the Christian faith, killing Christians before he became one himself. He wrote that one of the interesting things about those who don’t believe in Jesus is that oftentimes they’ll live—or desire to live—like Jesus would have them live, without knowing that’s actually what they are doing.

As we’ve delved into this series, «Beautiful Design,» we’re deep into discussing manhood and womanhood—what they truly are and how they work. We have emphasized some important points as we move into today’s discussion. Though I don’t have time for an expansive overview, we have established that men and women were created by God in the image of God and hold a higher place in creation than anything else in the created order. Therefore, we—men and women—are far more valuable than, say, our dog, cat, or any other species of animal. That does not grant us permission to be cruel or brutal, but we are inherently more valuable, and we know this intrinsically.

Additionally, we touched on the fact that being male does not make one a man, and being female does not make one a woman. The unchristian law would accurately point this out. For instance, my son is eight years old; he cannot buy his daddy a 20-year bottle of Pappy Van Winkle for Christmas. He can’t do it, you know why? Because he’s eight and that stuff is impossible to find. They would say that my eight-year-old son is a boy, not a man—he can’t buy a gun, can’t vote, and can’t buy his daddy a nice bottle of bourbon. He can’t do any of that because he is a boy and not a man.

Now, I have a five-year-old daughter; no one would argue that she is a woman, regardless of their beliefs. They could be completely secular, and no one is going to look at my five-year-old and say «woman.» They will say she is a girl. So she is biologically female, my son is biologically male, but he is not a man, and she is not a woman. There is something beyond that which is attached to them—a type of behavior, a way of living that biblically leads to them being a man or a woman. Without those components, little boys simply grow into little boys in bigger, more mature bodies, and little girls grow into just being little girls in bigger, more developed bodies; they still act like children do.

We began to define manhood and womanhood biblically. Here’s what we said: the man was given by God what we call headship, which is the unique leadership of the man in organizing and building out order for human flourishing. We maintain you cannot argue with this definition because sociologists and those who study economics agree that where men are present—serving, loving, and kind—everything flourishes. The home flourishes, the economy flourishes, and cities flourish. Where men step into the roles God created for them, things go well; where they refuse to enter that space, things just don’t work.

Get into the poorest neighborhoods imaginable, and you’ll find fatherlessness and women who have been consumed and not honored or loved. Women have been used as playthings rather than as those made in the image of God. We said that’s the role of the man. Then we discussed how men struggle, just as we will with women.

Last week, we defined the role of women according to the Book of Genesis as a helper fit for the man; we referred to this as a helpmate. A helpmate is a woman who serves God by helping the man in establishing order for human flourishing. We immediately needed to unpack that definition to understand it most fully. In the Old Testament scriptures, God is often portrayed as our helper, our helpmate. Therefore, the woman being called a helper for the man does not imply inherent inferiority. In fact, God being the helper has elevated the role of helpmate to a position of honor. A helper serves the one who holds the primary responsibility; if you are helping me, that means it is my responsibility, and I am too weak to get it done.