A Beautiful Design: Woman's Purpose

A Beautiful Design: Woman's Purpose

Today I felt led to listen to Matt Chandler's (Pastor of The Village Church) sermon, "Woman's Purpose" in his series, "A Beautiful Design".  The following notes are directly from the message.  You can listen to the entire sermon here.   

Biology makes us female, but does not make us women. 

God's role for the man is headship.  Male headship is the unique leadership of the man in the work of establishing order for human flourishing.  Men who are exercising headship must do so in a way that is marked by sacrificial love.  

Self sacrificing love is a mark of biblical masculinity and is the only way that true headship is ever exercised or practiced.  

Men give.  Boys take.

Men practice headship not just in sacrificial love but also in setting up the spiritual climate of the home and the church.

The man also exercises headship by providing physical care.  That doesn't necessarily mean he's the primary breadwinner.  But it does mean he's not lazy in his life that's marked by hard work.  God does not design the man to be bored or lazy.  Where a lazy bored man is anywhere in sight, destruction and death are around him.

Godly men are self sacrificing for the good of the wife, child, church, and community.

The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone.  I will make a helper suitable for him."  Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky.  He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.  So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals.  But for Adam no suitable helper was found.  So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and then closed up the place with flesh.  Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.  The man said, 

"This is now bone of my bones

and flesh of my flesh,

she shall be called 'woman,'

for she was taken out of man."

That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.  Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame. 

Genesis 2:18-25

1. There is only 1 mate, Eve.  God says, All you need is Eve, Adam.

2. God pulls woman from man's side with the connotation for intimacy and closeness

3. A man leaves his mother and father and loyalty belongs to his wife

Does the woman hold a subordinate role to the man's in the task of human flourishing? 

The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone.  I will make a helper suitable for him." Genesis 2:18

The word "help" is most often used in regards to God helping man.

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and the name of the other, Eliezer (for he said, "The God of my father was my help, and delivered me from the sword of Pharaoh").  Exodus 18:4

And this he said of Judah: "Hear, O LORD, the voice of Judah, and bring him in to his people.  With your hands contend for him, and be a help against his adversaries."  Deuteronomy 33:7

Our soul waits for the LORD; he is our help and our shield.  Psalm 33:20

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God being called helper throughout the scriptures brings honor to the position of helper.  And since God has been called the helper, a helper can not be inherently inferior.  So if woman has been made a helper fit for him, a woman as helper to the man can not mean a woman is inferior in any way.

When someone asks you for help, he is not asking you to do your job, he is asking you to do something he has been tasked with, that he is too weak to accomplish.  Strength isn't the question.  The one that's being helped is the weaker one who needs help in order to execute upon their primary responsibility.  

To say that a woman is helping is somehow inferior to the one with primary responsibility is to make the accusation that God is inferior to the help he gives his children.  

"She is a helper fit for him" is designed to complement, not compete against one another.  That the weaknesses of the one are strengthened by the strengths of the other and the strengths of the other one are even made more strong by the strengths of the other.  There's a complementary relationship.

Ephesians 5:20 reads "wives submit to your husbands".  If you roll it back to verse 15, you have this idea of mutual submission.  You've got this guideline for Christian behavior before you get to "wives submit to your husbands".  Mutual submission is men who are exercising headship, must do so in a way that is marked by sacrificial love.

Men who walk in mutual submission show:

deference

inclusion

desire for interaction

value of wife's intellect

value of wife's gifts

encouragement and speak life into our wife

Husbands love your wives like Christ loved the church and that he gave himself up for her.  Ephesians 5:25

(sidenote: In my Life Application study bible, it says, "Paul devotes twice as many words to telling husbands to love their wives as to telling wives to submit to their husbands.  How should a man love his wife?  1. He should be willing to sacrifice everything for her. 2. He should make her well-being of primary importance. 3. He should care for her as he cares for his own body.  No wife needs to fear submitting to a man who treats her in this way.)

Godly Men and Women

Older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness.  Titus 2:2

Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine.  They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may be reviled.  Likewise, urge the younger men to be self-controlled.  Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, dignity, and sound speech that cannot be condemned, so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us.  Titus 2:2-8

Single Women

Make disciples.  Don't wait for a date.  Strengthen your mind as much as possible.  Grow theologically.  Grow in your gifts and practice and exercise your gifts to make disciples for the Glory of God.  Be the type of women who are iron that sharpen the iron in your husband and male friends.  We want big minds and big hearts.  You're indispensable.    

What If

In the community that we live in, the #1 felt need is the family.  Adultery, divorce, broken homes, aggression.  What would happen if men were serious about cultivating their wives so they would look like a well watered vine?  What would happen if women were experts in the strengths of their husbands so there will never be any word mentioned about their husbands negatively, even in their own minds because they were so aware of the goods that their husbands do?  

We will fail, that's why we need grace.  But the process that leads to human flourishing is the ongoing ethic of confession and repentance.  And getting up and continuing to pursue.  That's what makes us.  That's what moves us.  May we never believe we're there but rather in route.