What’s the Big Deal Between Men & Women? pt. 1: How Men & Women Are Similar
This past Sunday (5/21/17), I taught the 5th part of my church's relationship series. My topic was, what is now, the title of this blog. I'm not a fan of topicy-topics, and this topic is so broad and so polarizing that up until after both services I was not sure how it was going to be received. Surprisingly, it was received far better than I could've imagined. Awesome how the Holy Spirit works, right! Based on the feedback I received, and since I had manuscripted the whole message (minus the parts where I expounded on the Bible references, and so on), I decided to post it as a blog-article series along with the link to the audio sermon.
May this not only bless you but challenge you to better understand and obey God accordingly.
Introduction
As a student of Scripture and a student of history, I have observed relating to the topic I’m addressing, that a noticeable and touchy complication in relationships is in how men and women regard and treat one another’s similarities and differences. And that is pretty much my objective in this series, to biblically address how men and women are to regard and treat one another’s similarities and differences. In order to do so, I’ll be tackling 4 things:
I. How men and women are similar
II. How men and women are different
III. How things get complicated
IV. How we are to be in regarding and treating one another’s similarities and differences
Some things to NOTE:
Topicy-topics are so broad they can pose the problem of coming across as too narrow. So if by the end, some of you think that I didn’t touch enough or address other specifics, forgive me in advance.
Most of this won’t be surprising. But it will challenge what we say we believe to be true with how we actually live out what we say we believe to be true.
A lot of what I’ll be touching on in this blog-article series is applicable for all relationships and interactions with others, not just between men and women. But my context for this series is between men and women. So keep that in mind.
How are men and women similar?
–According to Scripture, we are similar universally in...
1. being image-bearers of God (Gen. 1:26-27)
Because God decided in His love, goodness, and grace to create us in His image and according to His likeness, He has placed a divine imprint of value on humankind (both man and woman). And by doing so, God has dignified man and woman above every other aspect of His Creation, including heavenly hosts. So, whether a person believes in Jesus or not, every human (man and woman) is worthy of dignity because their mere existence is God’s testimony of His divine imprint of value upon them. Yet, because of sin, there is a constant depreciation of viewing and treating each other with this value and dignity.
2. our humanness (Gen. 1:27)
You know what this means? This means whatever trait we can think of for a human, we, both man and woman, share it (minus some biological traits, clearly). And to be sure this is being truly understood, I’ll push in a little further.
The traits that we normally attribute to men or women (e.g. men are physical, sexual, logical, etc; and women are nurturing, sensitive, emotional, etc), the Bible does not declare those things as reserved distinctly for one or the other only. Those differing traits may be true of many men and women, but not all, and they certainly don’t define a man as a “man” or a woman as a “woman”. But that’s exactly what we (society, culture, & the Church) do. For example,
there are many women who possess traits normally attributed to men (e.g. toughness, works with their hands, analytical, driven, etc) in which we (society, culture, & the Church) chauvinistically call them “tomboy” or “boyish” or say things like “they wear the pants”, etc); and,
there are many men who possess characteristics normally attributed to women (e.g. sentimental, affectionate, docile, etc) in which we (society, culture, & the Church) chauvinistically call them “effeminate” or “soft”, or say things like “he’s not a man’s-man”, etc.
If God does not define a man as a “man” or a woman as a “woman” by the traits mankind normally attributes to men and women, then neither should we define each other as such. Because when we do so, we are compartmentalizing our humanness to suit and justify our control or minimization of the other sex (or the same gender).
We, as the Church, through the Holy Spirit, must follow the wisdom of God in Scripture and describe individuals (each man and woman) by how God has uniquely, fearfully, and wonderfully created that man or woman in His image. We have to stop defining men and women by the customary, societal, and cultural qualifiers that overtly and subliminally emphasize the superiority or inferiority of one sex over the other, or by swinging the pendulum to the other extreme and attempt to terminate the distinction between male and female altogether. None of these are right or pleasing to God.
We are co-equal as image-bearers of God and co-equal in our humanness. Until we trust God enough to see this and accept this and stop defining one another by mankind’s flawed opinion and not God’s Word, we will not be able to treat and value each man and woman with dignity and equality.
–According to Scripture, we are similar, exclusively for those who are born-again, in that...
3. we are equal in Christ (Gal. 3:25-29)
What does this mean? This means God makes no distinction between man and woman in our spiritual status in Christ Jesus. We are equal brothers and sisters because we are both equally unconditionally loved by God as daughters and sons. We are both equally seated with Christ in the heavenlies. We are both equally citizens and ambassadors of the Kingdom. We are both equally ministers of the Gospel. We are both equally disciples of Jesus. Neither man nor woman is superior or inferior to the other in Christ. And we should never make the other feel as such.
These 3 are how men and women are similar: (i)in our value in God’s eyes as image-bearers, (ii)in our humanness, and specifically for Christians, (iii)in our spiritual status in Christ. We need to value and treat each other appropriately in these ways; and yes it will be tough, but we can do so through the transforming power of the Holy Spirit.