Understanding Each Other's Curse

What I am about to share is likely to strike some of you as controversial. Not because of how I interpret the Word of God in arriving at this, but because of how you have been taught to look at the subject by modern, secular culture. I suggest to you that the modern view is sundered from reality and leads to dysfunction in relationships and the psychological dissonance involved in the perception of gender we see today.

What is the essential biblical truth in this matter? Biological males and females are different from each other both physically and psychologically.

Our society, as most western societies, has been laboring for decades under the false assumption that men and women are basically interchangeable. Fundamental differences in outlook, values, ambitions, etc. are seen to be superficial trappings artificially foisted upon us by developing under outdated patriarchal societal norms. Under such a view, gender is actually nothing but a choice in perspective, not a physiological assignment with psychological implications.

What I’ve seen anecdotally over my lifetime is that whatever our society has been trying to adopt in regard to the issue of manhood and womanhood has been a massive failure. I think we're collectively trying to pound a square peg into a round hole. It seems clear to me that the fallout has been the dissatisfaction, dissociation, divorce, and the sad state of gender confusion so prevalent today.

So what, exactly, does the Bible say? 

Genesis 1:26-27

According to the Bible, there is but one physical creature God made in his image, man, of which there is two physical sexes, male and female. This one creature, consisting male and female individuals, was made with one purpose by God in his pristine creation: to rule over the earth. There was no differentiation between the sexes in this and no implication of preeminence or authority in one over the other. There was, however, a differentiation in roles.

Genesis 2:15, 20b-24

Though male and female humans were undifferentiated in being (image of God), purpose (dominion), and authority (equivalent), they were made by God different in role, even in his pristine creation. The male was made to till and care for the garden God had planted. The female was made to relate to and accompany man, and eventually bear children.

Made as he was for his role, the male had a pristinely pure desire to plant, raise, maintain, and watch over the creation over which he exercised dominion. The female had a pristinely pure desire to stand beside (aid) the male she cared for and who cared for her as she exercised dominion. These purposeful conditions of either sex were implied by God's aim in creating them and verified by the dysfunction imposed upon them by God's curse upon them due to sin. 

Secular psychology will not make this distinction between the sexes, but the Bible can and does, and therefore, reality does.

Understanding this truth is to apprehend why males tend to be task-oriented and find identity in what they do, and females tend to be relationally-oriented and find identity in how they are connected to other people. Ask a man about his life and he’ll tell you about what he does or what he plans to do. Ask a woman about her life and she’ll tell you about the people in her life. A simplistic generalization, I know, but it certainly jives with my experience of people throughout my life.

This difference between the sexes is deep-rooted. It goes back to the purpose of God in creating us, and persists despite the flaws pervading our being since the Fall. Regardless of what we may say about gender differences in our politically correct affectedness, the difference is genetic, biological, and defeats our best efforts to erase it by social posturing or even surgery. Even something as mundane as video game preferences betray our innate differences: female players prefer The Sims and male players prefer Grand Theft Auto.

Genesis 3:16-19

Since the curse, Adam and Eve and all that have followed after, have been frustrated in their innate created purposes. Together in frustration, but distinctly so from each other, men and women live and die in an irreparably broken environment. Man was struck in body and in what he did: now all that he was purposed to do fights against his doing of it and then he dies. Woman was struck by death too and with increased difficulty in childbirth, as well as how she related to man. Instead of a mutually caring, egalitarian relationship, she is objectified by man, frustrated by subservience to him and then she dies.

In this age since the Fall, the differences between men and women are no longer strictly about their roles within a singular purpose (dominion in God’s image), but are also differences in the frustrations we experience with life led under the curse on the way to death. The things our natures were made to pursue are subject to struggle, are always out of reach, and then we die. So, we owe it to our husbands, our wives, and our children, by way of being examples of love, to understand the frustrations our mates experience because of the curse.

Husbands and wives do not experience the frustrations of life and death in the brokenness of this world in the same way. With patience, dedication and consideration we can make each other’s world better than it would otherwise be by understanding the burden our spouse experiences because of the curse. Jesus has broken that curse, but we can't get back to the unbrokenness of Eden in this life. We can, however, live by the light of faith, and help each other succeed despite the brokenness we encounter as we walk through this darkened age together in love and patience.

Our Abortion Battle

This story is absolutely amazing! What does it say about Crisis Pregnancy Centers shift to an ultrasound strategy for combating abortion? Whereas the scriptures say one can only believe in what is not seen, the people we're trying to persuade say seeing is believing. Regardless, God has a way of making his enemies friends! A strange way to fight a battle, I know, but apparently it's very effective, at least the early church would say so.

It is frustrating trying to know how to approach the abortion battle in America. The religious foes of abortion, particularly Evangelicals, have been waging political warfare for 30 years, with precious little to show for it. Even with pro-life majorities in both houses of Congress and a pro-life President (from 2002 to 2006) nothing, really, got done. Innocent blood continues to pay the price for American hedonism.

As a result (I hope) some have taken to more violent measures in their frustrations. I think, however, violence is likely to beget only more violence, fire is likely to be met with fire, without actually stopping the evil battled against in the first place. The devil doesn't let loose of his grasp on those that are his through unbelief. His claws are only broken by the light of faith.

Murder is worth being against in any venue. It is a justice and mercy issue. The early church was opposed to abortion within the Roman Empire, but did not have the opportunity nor the political power to do anything legislatively about it. They fought their battle passively by getting adults saved and actively by rescuing the exposed (adoption). Abortion never became illegal within their realm, even after the days of Constantine, but it all but ceased due to the power of conversion and persuasion-- a lesson for us, perhaps?

Gender Roles In Marriage

Men and women are different by nature, not just physically, but psychologically as well. That is a generalization, of course, and lots of folk will not fall precisely in any definition highlighting said differences. Nonetheless, I know countless women who find themselves torn when it comes to leaving their infant in the care of others when it's time to return to their work: I know of no men experiencing the same or similar consternation. Does this imply anything about gender roles in marriage? Well, yes and no.

Men do not bear children in the womb, almost never develop working breasts, and do not face the same hormonal swings as do females. They are not designed by nature to nurture infants at anywhere near the level that females are. It's not that men cannot be wonderful, caring fathers (certainly, it doesn't take genes to change diapers, give baths, or rock a cranky baby), but I have yet to see the same natural care, connection and ease of relating exist between father and infant that seems effortless between mother and her baby.

I think common sense would lead one to the conclusion that women will tend to be more domestically oriented in Christian marriage than men, but the Bible removes all doubt. I understand that some of the specifics of these passages are culturally bound, but I think the general message is unmistakable. In our day and age, we have been blessed to be much further removed from subsistence than were the original audiences of these passages. Our application of the principles will look different than theirs, but it will still result, generally, in mothers of young children being more oriented to their care and nurture than their fathers.

Fighting against the physical nature one has been made with is never anything but abominable before God, but that doesn't mean that KP is a woman's realm and bringing in the doggies is man's. Specifically, a husband and wife will have to agree together as to how this looks for them. I think what's important to remember in defining Christian marriage in this regard, is that neither spouse can enforce such decisions on the other. You're partners in the grace of God, get over yourself and figure it out together.

Overcoming the Gender Effect of the Fall II

Just because the gender curse wasn't spoken directly to Adam, doesn't mean men weren't cursed along with women. Their side of the equation was to rule over their wives and face their insurgency. I can understand why any women (and some small-minded men) would wonder where the curse was in that, but it is in fact the source of men's alienation from the fairer sex. In their finer moments men seek companionship, partnership, intimacy with their mates, but the curse has them thinking in most moments of dominance, possession, and detachment.

Clearly, the creation account makes no distinction between the humanity of men and women. They are all man-- male and female he created them. The wonder that is a human, built in the image of God, is indistinguishable between genders. When Eve was fashioned from Adam's rib it was as a corresponding companion in mission (a help meet) without any reference to any differential in authority. They were partners in the grace of God. That changed with the curse, and has been the unpleasant reality of life since.

Adam was cursed directly as well as Eve. He was a gardener: it was an expression of his God-given authority over land and animal. Now, thorns and thistles would battle his efforts at making a living, and in the new curse economy if he didn't work, he wouldn't eat. Eve was made to stand beside him in that authority, but now she became part of what he had authority over but which resisted him. She who had been made a partner for him, now took on some of the same characteristics of the parasites that plagued him. But Jesus changes all that.

Nature and the curse may have given men the opportunity to domineer women-- they're bigger and stronger, and in most societies still have the imprimatur to do so. But that is not Christ-like and its bondage is a two-way street. Who would want to use such a framework as a basis for Christian marriage? God says to men, "put aside your crown and your glory, step into your wife's world and lay down your life for her. Make it your mission to help her be all she can be." The trump card of decisive authority is one gender effect of the Fall that must be sloughed off.

Overcoming the Gender Effect of the Fall I

Complementarians cite numerous NT Bible verses (like this, this, this and this) for their approach to male domination in Christian marriage. Is that what's really intended by those scriptures? I don't believe it is, and I think, generally, that kind of thinking is based on a faulty understanding of gender, it's place in God's plan, and the far reaching implications of our redemption in Christ Jesus (see the link in the title).

That the scriptures command wives to submit to their husbands is beyond doubt. That, however, is not the same as saying to husbands, "rule over your wives." That is the assumption (and it most certainly is an assumption) I see in the complementarian approach to Christian marriage. It leads to the unfortunate and faulty conclusion that Jesus' passion and resurrection may have cured many of the ills of the Fall in the here and now, but it didn't get near the gender consequences of it.

Eve, and all women through her were cursed to live in this natural world under the physical and societal domination of their husbands, though they would have an inward desire to master those men. Since the Fall, it has been natural for women to desire to maneuver, manipulate, and manage their dominant husbands. Even in the church world, this reality has been the fodder of the humor mill, as attested in old jokes like Aisle, Altar, Hymn. But Jesus changes all that!

From my particular egalitarian viewpoint the NT commands to wives to submit to their husbands actually prove the point: they merely say to Christian women, "don't do that kind of thing, you have been redeemed from the curse. Stop trying to master your husbands and submit to your partnership with them." The battle of wills in the Christian household is one gender effect of the the Fall that must be overcome!

The Gender Consequences of the Fall

I've stated earlier that God knew marriage was temporary (see the link in the title). It will not be our state in eternity, and I am forced to believe that this must have been the case before the Fall, not only after it. Certainly, God not only knows what he's doing, he always knew it and always will (omniscience). If you follow this thought to its logical conclusion, it means that Adam and Eve may have been in good condition, but were not in their ultimate state before the Fall (see 1 Corinthians 13:9-12). Created gender--male and female he created them-- was a purely functional, and merely temporary contrivance.

This fact is verified in the NT by Galatians 3:26-29, which teaches that in Christ (the eternal condition) there is neither male nor female, everyone is merely a son. Gender is not an eternal verity, it is just a passing means to an end; therefore, our born again approach to gender better not rely upon created order, nor current physical reality, or it will miss what is of eternal significance. Doubtless, those considerations have had some value in history, but they will have none in eternity.

Gender authority distinctions were introduced to the human race with the curse. After Adam and Eve were confronted by God for sin (willful independence in opposition to God) they were cursed as follows: the male would rule over the female though it would be her desire [to master him] (see Genesis 4:7 for the grammatical construction). The effect of sin upon the interaction of husband and wife would be the development of a hierarchical relationship which would result in a battle of wills rather than a partnership in mission. Such a structure is clearly the result of sin and the curse rather than the design of God.

So why is gender such a controversial issue in the church today? Egalitarians pay little heed to it, complementarians see it as determinative. I see that sin and the curse have been dealt with in Christ, and that faith embraces the eternal promise of God, even while we still waste away in a world that is still wasting away. For freedom we have been set free. Is it not well past time for the church, particularly her men, to rise up and set the captives free from the gender consequences of the Fall?


Addendum: Check out this post on women leaders in Wesleyan movements.

The Duties of Matrimony

I have said before that marriage is more about what we give to it than what we get from it. That, of course, is a practical statement: for if we concentrate on what we're getting from it, we'll short shrift what we give to it and end up undermining it. Unfortunately, the sacrificial attitude necessary to maintain marriage is foreign to the narcissistic baby boom generation and all the alphabet generations that have followed. The result, the burgeoning divorce rate. One must give continuously, for a lifetime, to make marriage work.

Thankfully, there are plenty of happy marriages for us to learn from. There's a fair of amount of not so happy ones to take lessons from too. Those that I've come across that are happy and long lasting are those in which the spouses haven't saddled each other with the burden of making each other happy. Spouses can share our happiness, we can be happy to share life with them, but they cannot, in themselves, make us happy. Unhappy marriages are often laboring under that faulty assumption. It is the epitome of immaturity and folly to expect another human being to hold the key to our happiness.

We provide our spouses with fundamental emotional comfort, which (because of the gender effects of the Fall) takes different forms for husbands and wives. Natural women were cursed to live in a contest of wills with their husbands: redeemed women provide their husbands the comfort of knowing that their wives respect and submit to them. Natural men were cursed with ruling over their wives and the frustration of their toil (a source of preoccupation): redeemed men provide their wives the comfort of knowing that their husbands love them sacrificially (agapate) and will lay down their lives for them. A husband who has the respect of his wife is a man who has something to live for, and a wife loved like Christ loves the church is a woman who has something that makes life worth living.

When we see ourselves and yield ourselves as bound in oneness, providing our spouse that kind of comfort, we give our mates a sense of belonging and security that nothing else on earth can truly supply. My first pastor used to repeat over and over again for the sake of all of us coming into marriageable age, "love is not a feeling, it's a commitment." So true. I wish we all went into marriage buying into that. It is not just an emotional or relational dynamic, however. It translates into all those areas of a more tangible nature that mark our shared journeys.

Being a reliable source of provision and care is just part of the package. One area along that line that is getting a lot of pulpit attention these days is the marriage bed. I think that is more a reflection of our culture's fixation on sex than anything the word says on the subject. Short and sweet, it says nothing's wrong with sex in marriage, have as much as you like in whatever way you agree, and don't hold out on your spouse. Wow, I managed to say that in less than 12 weeks and without a single billboard!

Marriage will not work for the takers, nor the heart breakers, not for the jerks nor those who would shirk the obligations of love. Marriage is a picture of the love in the Godhead, and must be treated with the honor appropriate for such. Though we've managed to make it no more than a paper plate or plastic spoon, used for a moment than than tossed aside, there's always hope if we can but begin to dedicate ourselves to the duties of matrimony.

Why Did God Create Marriage?

From God's omniscient perspective, marriage could have had little eternal significance. Surely, he knew the end from the beginning and realized there would come a time when marriage for humans would be unnecessary. In fact, this is THE silver bullet that pierces the heart of Mormonism. Mormon hopes rest in eternal marriages, Jesus said such do not and will not exist; therefore, Mormons bank all of their hopes on a puff of vanishing smoke. Yet, if marriage has such a limited shelf life, then why did God institute it at all and make such a fuss about it?

God's plans for humankind within history required marriage. Not just the dominion clause, breeding and bossing can be accomplished without covenants, but child rearing cannot. Fathers and mothers working together is required. I think that is why the divorce epidemic is having such detrimental affects on our broader society--children cannot be raised according to design by single mothers and in broken homes. Sure, there are exceptions, but it's hard to miss the overall trend. Our fly-by-the-seat-of-our-pants, make-it-up-as-we-go approach to love, marriage and family is a dismal failure.

So, within this space called history, from the fall in the garden to the dead seed of man rising from the dust to face God's judgment, marriage has divine and practical benefit. He who finds a wife, or vice-versa for that matter, finds a good thing; something not to be discarded even after the kids have grown and gone. How hard can it be to see that spouse as the gift from God he or she truly is?

Marriage is not a human invention, nor a societal convention that can be tossed aside or experimented with. Oh, we can continue to break marriages upon the rocks of hedonism, but that only delivers the next generation into the cold, dark, stormy deep. When it comes to marriage and family, there's God's way or there's a slow descent into the night!