Male and Female in Christ

The issue of what the Bible says about masculinity and femininity is a touchy subject. Many people believe they already know what the Bible says: that God wills that men be dominant in family, church, and society, and that women willingly subordinate themselves to men.  Such a model for the relationship between the sexes, however, is no longer compatible with either contemporary political thought or the practical realities of modern life.  This incompatibility between this perception of “what the Bible says” and modern moral sensibilities seems to demand that Christians choose: do they believe in the continuing relevance of the Bible, or do they believe in the full dignity of each individual in Christ?  No wonder many avoid the subject all together.  

This conflict, however, is a false dilemma.  A Biblically sound middle ground exists, and is actually a solid and honest way of looking at scripture.  Using this approach, we find that rather than being a “sexist” document, the Bible proves to be surprisingly egalitarian.  That it is perceived otherwise is because we have only seen the Bible from the perspective of a conflict that is as old as human history; the struggle over who should hold power.  For certainly all of the disputes, about what men must do and what women must not are arguments about who is to have the right to control the family, workplace, society, and church.  Even when God’s name is invoked in this controversy, it is to debate who best represents God’s authority.

In many ways, this struggle is inevitable.  In this less-than-perfect world, people need control over themselves, their environment, and the other people in it.  From this basic survival need comes a tendency to see all relationships in terms of control, power, and authority.  We cannot help but read the Bible through a thick lens of assumptions about hierarchy.   But because we do not understand what the Bible says about the use of authority, we do not understand what the Bible says about the relationship between women and men.  A good example of the effects of this authority-bias can be seen in traditional understandings of a passage in the Bible in which the apostle Paul refers to woman as the glory of man (I Corinthians 11:7).  To be something’s glory is to be the thing that magnifies it, that which makes it great.  What a wonderful, affirming thing to say about women! Who would not want to be called the glory of one’s country, profession, or family?   Ironically, however, because of the tendency to read worldly concerns about hierarchy into the scriptures, this verse has been used as “proof” that God created woman to be subordinate to man.   When concerns about hierarchy dominates Biblical understanding, even positive statements about women are used against them.

These studies approach the Bible with the assumption that Christianity is not about holding power and authority over other people. When we try to understand what the Bible is saying about women and men in terms of authority, we miss the point entirely.  Read without presumptions about power, these “problem” passages – the very passages used to argue for the rule of one particular elite group or another – turn out to be about something else entirely.   Although it is sometimes difficult to penetrate hundreds of years of authority-biased translations and interpretations, it is only by cutting through these assumptions that we can see what the scriptures are saying about female roles – and just as significantly, what the Bible says about men.  In the process, Biblical theology of gender, human relationships, sin, and redemption emerges in a clearer light.  Learning better what the Bible says about men, women, and the relationship between the two will make one a better Christian as well.