Men and Women: Different By Design
From the Series—Boy Meets Girl
February 8, 2003This evotional begins a new series titled Boy Meets Girl: Understanding the Opposite Sex. An evite was sent out a few weeks ago that said this series would unravel the myths and mystery of sexuality, dating, and marriage. Someone emailed me and said with a smile, “Don’t promise what you can’t deliver.”
The opposite sex is mysterious. Always has been. Always will be. I was going through my father-in-law’s library several years ago and one of the titles caught my attention: What Men Know about Women. I opened up the quater-inch thick paperback and it was 100 blank pages. That about sums it up!
The wisest man who ever lived had this to say about opposite sex relationships in Proverbs 30:18. “There are three things that are too amazing for me, four that I do not understand: the way of an eagle in the sky, the way of a snake on a rock, the way of a ship on the high seas, and the way of a man with a maiden.”
Last week an NCCer sent me the following email:
Pastor Mark,
Earlier this week I was thinking about the series you were going to do. There are so many different aspects to “Boy Meets Girl.” The frustration both guys and gals feel with the current trend against “dating,” the confusion about the Biblical roles of men and women, the lack of understanding about the opposite sex and how God truly made each different. There is a feeling that we are supposed to be able to figure this out quickly and on our own, but we don’t know what we are doing. How do we figure out if we are compatible? How do we discern the Lord’s voice in making what may be the biggest decision of our lives? The problem is that there are no social customs in our time to guide the whole dating scene. Guys don’t know what is acceptable, girls don’t know what to expect.
I’m guessing that email resonates with most of us. Opposite sex relationships aren’t easy. They can be frustrating and confusing. But they can also be satisfying and fulfilling and glorifying to God. I don’t pretend to have all the answers when it comes to sexuality and dating and marriage. But here’s what I know for sure: sex was God’s idea. He is the one who designed men and women to be different. He’s the one who installed a sex drive in each of us. He created us as sexual beings. And that’s not bad. That’s good.
Isn’t it ironic that most churches have hardly anything to say about one of God’s best ideas? And we wonder why there is so much confusion and frustration when it comes to opposite sex relationships.
Different by Design
Genesis 1:27 says, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” It may go without saying, but sometimes the obvious eludes us. God doesn’t make generic people. He makes men and women. And this wasn’t an afterthought. It was the crowning achievement of God’s creativity. Dr. Linda Belleville says, “The creation of humanity as male and female is not an incidental fact or an afterthought but the very apex of God’s creative activity.” We ought to celebrate masculinity and femininity as expressions of God’s creative genius.
Equal in the Eyes of God
Six times in Genesis 1, God says, “It is good.” Then in Genesis 2:18, God says, “It is not good for man to be alone.” God’s solution? “I will make a helper suitable for him.”
I think the most common mistake in interpreting this passage is the false notion that by calling woman a “helper” she is somehow subservient to Adam. Nothing could be further from the truth. The word “helper” comes from the Hebrew word ezer. That same exact word is used to describe God in several Old Testament passages. If anything, common sense would dictate that the party doing the helping is somehow superior to party in need of help. But this is not about inferiority or superiority. This is about complementarity.
John Piper describes complementarity in this way, “Men and women as God created them are different in hundreds of ways. One helpful way to describe our equality and differences is this: Picture the so-called weaknesses and strengths of man and woman listed in two columns. If you could give a numerical value to each one, the sum at the bottom of both columns is going to be the same.”
Men and women are equal in the eyes of God and equality is something we ought to fight for. In 1903, Emmeline Pankhurst formed the Women’s Social and Political Union--a group dedicated to universal suffrage. For twenty-five years she fought for the right to vote. She was imprisoned twelve times in 1912 alone! At one sentencing she said, “We are here, not because we are lawbreakers; we are here in our effort to become lawmakers.” Anything less than equality is injustice.
Men and women are equally gifted and qualified for any ministry within the church. That’s controversial in some church circles, but that is the pattern established in both the Old and New Testament. At the same time, equality doesn’t equal conformity.
Different in the Eyes of God
An email on the differences between men and women circulated a few years ago. Here are a few of them:
A man will pay $20 for a $10 item he wants.
A woman will pay $10 for a $20 item that she doesn’t want.
A woman knows all about her children. She knows about dentist appointments, best friends and favorite foods, secret fears and hopes and dreams.
A man is vaguely aware of some short people living in the house.
A woman has the last word in any argument.
Anything a man says after that is the beginning of a new argument.
The average man has four items in his bathroom a toothbrush, an electric razor, a bar of soap, and a towel from the Holiday Inn.
The average number of items in the typical woman’s bathroom is 437.
The average man is able to identify four of those items!
If Emma, Suzanne, Debra and Michelle go out for lunch, they will call each other Emma, Suzanne, Debra and Michelle.
But if Mike, Phil, Rob, and Jack go out for lunch, they will affectionately refer to each other as Fat Boy, Godzilla, Peanut Head and Useless.
Women love cats.
Men say they love cats, but when women aren’t looking, men kick cats.
The word “suitable” in Genesis 2:18 comes from the Hebrew word neged and it has multiple meanings. It means “opposite.” Nature is full of interesting examples of polarity. If you have two magnets, the like poles will repel one another, but the opposites attract. There is a polarity in Genesis 2:18.
The word neged also means “corresponding to” or “counterpart.” Men and women are like two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that fit perfectly together.
So what’s the big idea? The big idea is this: men and women are designed to be different. And that’s not just a good thing. That’s a God thing. I think there is a tendency in our culture to stress the equality of men and women, which is great, but we do it the wrong way. We try to do it by minimizing the differences between men and women. That’s doing a disservice to the God who designed us to be different. We ought to celebrate the differences.
In the early 90’s, John Gray wrote the runaway bestseller Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. The whole premise of the book is that we’ve forgotten that we’re supposed to be different. Gray says, “Without the awareness that we are supposed to be different, men and women are at odds with each other. We usually become angry or frustrated with the opposite sex because we have forgotten this simple truth. We expect the opposite sex to be more like ourselves. Men mistakenly expect women to think, communicate, and react the way men do; women mistakenly expect men to feel, communicate, and respond the way women do. We have forgotten that we are supposed to be different.”
That’s point of Genesis 2:18: we’re supposed to be different. It has nothing to do with inferiority or superiority. It has everything to do with complementarity. God designed men and women to complement one another, but when men and women try to be the same we turn opposite sex relationships into a competition. The ballet becomes a boxing match.
Complement vs. Complete
If God designed men and women to complement each other, does that mean I’m incomplete until I get married? Absolutely not! For starters, the most complete person who ever lived was single. Jesus never married. God doesn’t give us a spouse to complete us. Only God can fill the “God-shaped” vacuum in the human heart. But God does give us a spouse to complement us. And there is a fundamental difference.
In their book Boundaries in Marriage, Dr. Cloud and Dr. Townsend say, “The requirement for oneness is two complete persons. To the degree that either is less than complete as a person, the oneness will suffer under the strain of that incompleteness.” The purpose of marriage is not to complete us as people. If you marry someone to make up for what you don’t possess as a person, you’ve got a prescription for problems. Don’t marry out of weakness. Marry out of strength. Marriage is not about completing. Marriage is about complementing.
The Microcosm
Ephesians 5 is a microcosm on opposite sex relationships. We don’t have the time or space to detail all the differences between men and women. And the truth is that I don’t have an exhaustive list. But Ephesians 5 is one window on how to make opposite sex relationships work. It also happens to be one of the most misunderstood and under appreciated chapters in the Bible.
Yield Signs
Ephesians 5:21 says, “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” The concept of “submission” has been used and abused, but I’m convinced it’s the key to happy and healthy relationships. It simply means “to yield the right of way.” The best way and easiest way to think of it is in a driving context.
When my wife and I first moved to the DC area eight years ago, I was driving out of Landmark mall and a metro bus was coming in the opposite direction. Our lanes merged into one and I had a yield sign. I knew exactly what a yield sign meant because I took driver’s education in high school: hurry up and try to beat oncoming traffic. You can guess who lost that confrontation! The front end of my car was crushed and I learned a valuable lesson: if you fail to yield the right of way you’re bound to have collisions. It’s true on the road and it’s true in relationships. If you want to avoid head-on collisions, learn to yield the right of way.
Submission is a two-way street. The way it works in my marriage is simple. There are times when I yield the right of way. And there are times when Lora yields the right of way. We learn to play to each other’s strengths. You can’t complement without submission.
The Headship Clause
Ephesians 5:23 says, “The husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church.” A lot of people get hung up on what I call “the headship clause.” This question almost always comes up when I do premarital counseling: does that mean a man is the ultimate decision-maker in a marriage? On one level I totally respect that question, but on another level it’s naive. I can’t imagine making a major decision in our marriage if Lora and I didn’t see eye to eye. The headship clause isn’t a trump card.
Headship has less to do with decision-making and more to do with servant-leadership. The only way to define what “headship” really means is to understand the context in which it’s written. Ephesians 5:25 says, “Husbands, love your wives as Christ loves the church and gave himself up for her.”
First things first. Does that means wives should love their husbands any less? Absolutely not! This is what I call a “re-verse-able” verse. Husbands and wives ought to love and respect one another equally, but we shouldn’t ignore the fact that Paul gives gender-specific instructions. Paul singles out men for the sake of “double emphasis.”
As the “head” of the wife, men are called to love their wives as Christ loves the church. Who can argue with that? How can anybody get hung up on that? I’ve never had a woman complain to me that their husband loves them too much or too well. “Pastor, I have a problem. My husband is loving me just like Jesus loves the church.”
Cross Love
Sigmund Freud said, “Despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul, I still haven’t answered the question, what is it a woman really wants?” Let me take a shot at it. I think the deepest need of women is love, but not just any kind of love. To be loved with an undying, unyielding, uncompromising love. I think what women want and need is a man who is willing to go to the cross for them. Women want a man who will fight for them, who will lay down their life for them, who will make sacrifices for them.
Love is not passive. In his best-selling book, Wild at Heart, John Eldredge says, “Christianity, as it currently exists, has done some terrible things to men. When all is said and done, I think most men in the church believe that God put them on the earth to be a good boy. If they will try real hard they can reach the lofty summit of becoming…a nice guy. That’s what we hold up as models of Christian Maturity: Really Nice Guys. Now let me ask my male readers: in all your boyhood dreams of growing up, did you ever dream of becoming a Nice Guy? Ladies, was the Prince of your dreams dashing…or merely nice?”
I love Jesus’ description of the Kingdom in Matthew 11:12. It says, “The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and violent men take it by force.” In other words, this isn’t going to come easy! You’re going to have to fight for it. That’s true of relationships. They don’t happen by default. You have to work at them and fight for them!
You Da Man
Ephesians 5:33 says, “Wives respect your husbands.” I think the deepest need of men is respect. The three-word greeting that was popularized a few years ago says it all: You da man!
Every man wants to feel like “da man.” And husbands need wives who make them feel like “da man.” John Eldredge puts it this way. “Every man wants to be the hero to the beauty.”
There’s an old song with a great message. “R.E.S.P.E.C.T.--find out what it means to me...sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me.” You need to find out what makes your spouse feel respected. And then do it.
The 100/1 Principle
In their book, Men are like Waffles and Women are like Spaghetti, Bill and Pam Ferrel introduce a great concept. They call it the 100/1 principle. A couple was having problems with their marriage and the wife came in for counseling. She said, “There’s nothing here! No spark or sizzle--nothing! I have no feelings. I want out of the marriage!”
Bill Ferrel suggested that she pray and ask God to show her one positive quality in her spouse. She prayed about it and the next day she told him that she’d thought of one. He said, “What is it?” She said, “He’s still here.” He said, “That’s not much but let’s run with it.” He said, “I want you to focus 100% of your energy on that one positive trait.” To make a long story short, it revolutionized the relationship.
Respect is 100/1--it is focusing on the positive qualities. According to Gary Smalley, every marriage is 80% good and 20% bad. The difference between happy and unhappy marriages is focus.