Is Complementarity Merely Functional?

00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)

00:00:02.580 | Andrea, a podcast listener in Jackson, Mississippi,

00:00:06.660 | writes in, "Hello, Pastor John.

00:00:08.020 | "Thank you for your books,

00:00:09.160 | "and particularly your new book on Providence," she writes.

00:00:12.800 | "It has proven to be life-altering for me.

00:00:16.080 | "Thank you.

00:00:17.100 | "I was wondering if you could take a moment

00:00:18.320 | "to address an entirely different topic,

00:00:20.400 | "a marriage question, actually.

00:00:22.420 | "I've started to notice an emerging view

00:00:24.660 | "of complementarity online and in my own circles

00:00:27.360 | "that seems a little off to me.

00:00:29.640 | "It's called complementarity and holds to the idea

00:00:32.680 | "that the husband and wife should take on

00:00:34.180 | "different roles in the home,

00:00:35.400 | "roles that mostly don't overlap.

00:00:37.560 | "But to me, it often sounds like simply a functional idea.

00:00:41.060 | "So if the wife is a better teacher,

00:00:42.880 | "she teaches the children the Bible,

00:00:44.820 | "and the husband doesn't.

00:00:46.060 | "Or if the wife makes more money,

00:00:47.700 | "the husband takes the primary role

00:00:49.760 | "in caring for the daily needs of the kids.

00:00:51.980 | "It's called complementarity in the sense

00:00:54.020 | "that each spouse is not duplicating the role of the other.

00:00:57.360 | "Each complements what the other is doing.

00:00:59.840 | "But I don't know what else to call it

00:01:01.340 | "except to say it feels like a genderless complementarity.

00:01:05.120 | "The husband and wife do not overlap duties

00:01:07.120 | "out of efficiency, not from deeper convictions.

00:01:10.300 | "In fact, gender rarely, if ever,

00:01:12.000 | "is brought in to define which roles the man has

00:01:14.880 | "that the woman does not and vice versa.

00:01:17.460 | "Do you see this functional complementarity?

00:01:19.360 | "If so, how do you respond

00:01:21.080 | "and what roles in the home are most gendered?

00:01:24.020 | "I would love your thoughts on this."

00:01:26.140 | - I suppose it's inevitable that the longer a label

00:01:31.100 | is used like complementarianism or complementarity,

00:01:36.100 | the easier it is for the label to replace the reality.

00:01:41.600 | The label complementarian as a designation

00:01:45.480 | for how men and women relate to each other

00:01:48.580 | has been around for about 35 years.

00:01:52.220 | And I would want to stress that labels are only valuable

00:01:57.000 | if they capture and communicate reality.

00:02:01.520 | So it's the biblical reality that we really care about,

00:02:05.520 | not so much the label.

00:02:08.200 | Now, I think Andrea is right

00:02:11.520 | that the label today is less clear and less precise

00:02:16.520 | in the reality it refers to than it used to be.

00:02:20.520 | And she's pointing to a particular use of the label

00:02:24.660 | where the reality behind it

00:02:26.700 | seems to have more or less vanished.

00:02:30.540 | People are calling themselves complementarian

00:02:33.700 | without any serious reference

00:02:36.820 | to what the essence of manhood and womanhood really are

00:02:41.820 | and what that essence calls for in life.

00:02:47.760 | From the beginning in the late '80s, 1980s,

00:02:52.180 | the term complementarianism included

00:02:55.860 | not just the biblical conviction

00:02:59.160 | that men should be the elders or pastors of churches

00:03:02.960 | and men should be the heads of their marriages or homes,

00:03:07.780 | but also the conviction

00:03:09.620 | that underneath these distinctions in roles,

00:03:14.340 | there are profound differences

00:03:17.900 | in the very nature of manhood and womanhood.

00:03:21.740 | And those differences in the unique essence of manhood

00:03:26.180 | and the unique essence of womanhood

00:03:28.620 | were designed by God in creation

00:03:31.900 | and were the foundation

00:03:34.500 | for why God assigned the differing roles that he did.

00:03:39.340 | What we are by God's original design

00:03:42.620 | in making us male and female

00:03:45.820 | has always been the foundation for God's design

00:03:50.820 | for how men and women relate to each other

00:03:53.140 | and what roles we take.

00:03:54.980 | So I would say it's a fundamental mistake

00:03:58.980 | for husbands and wives or men and women in the church

00:04:04.300 | or men and women in general

00:04:06.460 | to define our roles and how we function in them

00:04:12.020 | without any reference to the deeper design of God

00:04:17.020 | and who we are as male and female.

00:04:21.620 | So let me try to show what I mean

00:04:25.620 | by referring to a couple of Bible passages.

00:04:30.380 | For example, 1 Timothy 2, 12 to 14.

00:04:35.380 | I do not permit a woman to teach

00:04:38.300 | or to exercise authority over a man.

00:04:42.220 | Rather, she is to remain quiet.

00:04:45.060 | And then he gives a foundation, an argument, a ground

00:04:50.060 | that goes all the way back to creation

00:04:53.140 | and the ruin of that creation in the fall.

00:04:57.100 | He says, verse 13,

00:04:59.140 | for Adam was formed first, then Eve,

00:05:04.140 | and Adam was not deceived,

00:05:07.180 | but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.

00:05:11.820 | So I take Paul to be arguing something like this.

00:05:15.820 | The authoritative teaching role in the church,

00:05:19.320 | that is the role of governance and teaching,

00:05:22.400 | the role of an elder,

00:05:23.860 | is to be filled by spiritually mature and gifted men

00:05:28.860 | because God established in the first two chapters

00:05:34.440 | of Genesis a peculiar responsibility

00:05:39.300 | and leadership for Adam as part of God's design for manhood

00:05:44.300 | and what it means to be male in his family and in the world.

00:05:49.780 | Now we can see this design

00:05:51.520 | for man's peculiar responsibility in leadership confirmed

00:05:56.520 | by the way it falls apart in the moment of Satan's temptation

00:06:03.760 | and the way God follows up with Adam and Eve after the fall.

00:06:08.760 | Genesis 3, 6 says that Adam was with Eve at the temptation.

00:06:14.400 | He didn't show up later,

00:06:18.560 | but Satan being subtle and deceptive,

00:06:22.920 | totally ignores the person, the man,

00:06:27.200 | that God had made responsible for the life of the garden.

00:06:32.920 | The man.

00:06:33.920 | Thus Satan attacks at this very crucial moment.

00:06:37.680 | He attacks and undermines God's design

00:06:42.120 | and turns the woman into the spokesman and the leader

00:06:47.120 | and the decision maker for humanity.

00:06:50.460 | Now both Adam and Eve fall for this.

00:06:54.160 | Adam remains totally silent when he should have stepped in

00:06:58.080 | and taken responsibility

00:06:59.440 | for this horrifically dangerous moment.

00:07:02.160 | Eve willingly assumes the role of responsible leader

00:07:08.200 | and the result is catastrophic.

00:07:11.780 | Failure to be obedient to God for both of them.

00:07:15.200 | Now when Paul says in 1 Timothy 2, 13,

00:07:19.040 | Adam was not deceived,

00:07:21.760 | but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.

00:07:24.520 | I don't think he intends to say Adam is guiltless.

00:07:27.900 | We know that from Romans 5,

00:07:30.080 | where Adam's disobedience in fact

00:07:32.520 | is the decisive disobedience

00:07:35.080 | that brings down the curse on humanity.

00:07:37.880 | The point rather of saying Adam was not deceived

00:07:42.420 | is that Satan undermined Adam's leadership role

00:07:47.060 | by not targeting Adam for deception,

00:07:50.820 | but rather the woman.

00:07:52.400 | He made her the leader at the moment of deception.

00:07:56.680 | So the point in the context of 1 Timothy is this,

00:08:00.520 | when the role of men and women are reversed

00:08:05.520 | at the very point where leadership matters most,

00:08:08.960 | things go very badly for families and churches and societies.

00:08:13.960 | Now God confirms that understanding of what happened

00:08:20.040 | by the way he calls the couple to account.

00:08:22.840 | A few verses later,

00:08:24.480 | God comes to find them in the garden.

00:08:26.940 | Genesis 3, 9 says,

00:08:29.320 | "The Lord God called to the man and said to him,

00:08:33.860 | "Where are you?"

00:08:35.760 | And he said, "I heard the sound of you in the garden.

00:08:38.040 | "I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself."

00:08:41.320 | And he said, "Who told you you were naked?

00:08:43.880 | "Have you eaten of the tree

00:08:47.180 | "which I commanded you not to eat?"

00:08:49.020 | Now why didn't God seek out the woman first

00:08:54.780 | since she ate the forbidden fruit first?

00:08:59.020 | Because God made man first

00:09:02.980 | and built into him a God-given sense

00:09:07.120 | of sacrificial responsibility for leadership

00:09:10.340 | and protection and provision.

00:09:12.020 | He is responsible for what just happened.

00:09:16.720 | That's the price of leadership,

00:09:19.460 | this kind of built-in creation-based leadership for man

00:09:24.460 | is confirmed in Genesis 5.

00:09:28.020 | This is the second text I'm looking at.

00:09:30.620 | Ephesians 5, 23 to 30,

00:09:32.140 | "The husband is the head of the wife,

00:09:34.800 | "even as Christ is the head of the church,

00:09:37.720 | "his body, and is himself its savior."

00:09:40.780 | Now as the church submits to Christ,

00:09:44.100 | so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

00:09:47.260 | Husbands, love your wives.

00:09:49.380 | Yes, Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.

00:09:54.380 | He who loves his wife loves himself,

00:09:56.740 | for no one ever hated his own flesh,

00:09:58.720 | but nourishes and cherishes it

00:10:02.060 | just as Christ does the church.

00:10:04.780 | So Paul describes the relationship as irreversible.

00:10:09.780 | The roles are not interchangeable.

00:10:12.300 | Christ and the church don't get interchanged.

00:10:17.420 | They are the meaning of this relationship.

00:10:19.880 | How the husband and wife relate

00:10:23.060 | is to show the covenant love between Christ and the church,

00:10:26.980 | and Christ is the leader,

00:10:28.740 | savior, protector, nourisher, provider.

00:10:32.780 | And Paul roots those roles

00:10:35.860 | in the original pre-fall creation account in Genesis 2, 24,

00:10:40.420 | which he quotes now in verse 31.

00:10:43.780 | "A man shall leave his father and mother

00:10:45.540 | "and hold fast to his wife,

00:10:46.780 | "and the two shall become one flesh."

00:10:49.180 | And then he applies it like this.

00:10:51.300 | This mystery is profound, and I am saying,

00:10:55.880 | it, that is the meaning of manhood and womanhood in marriage,

00:10:59.800 | it refers to Christ and the church.

00:11:03.460 | That's the meaning of male and female in marriage.

00:11:06.880 | Male and female modeling Christ and the church

00:11:10.740 | in roles of headship and submission

00:11:13.020 | that cannot be reversed any more

00:11:14.780 | than Christ and the church can.

00:11:16.900 | So I conclude from these two texts,

00:11:19.020 | 1 Timothy 2 and Ephesians 5 and others

00:11:22.300 | that I'm not mentioning,

00:11:24.060 | that the very nature of God-designed manhood and womanhood

00:11:29.060 | is the foundation of the roles we are given by God.

00:11:35.700 | A complementarianism stripped of its foundation

00:11:41.100 | in the God-given essence of manhood and womanhood

00:11:44.980 | is a label that has lost its reality.

00:11:49.340 | When it comes to the hundreds of activities in the home,

00:11:54.260 | and who does them, that will be sorted out best

00:12:00.300 | where husband and wife agree biblically

00:12:05.140 | that the man bears a special God-given burden

00:12:10.060 | of responsibility for leadership, for protection,

00:12:14.500 | for provision in the family,

00:12:17.420 | all carried out in the pursuit of the amazing model

00:12:22.420 | of Christ's love for the church

00:12:25.820 | and the church's glad submission to Christ.

00:12:29.420 | - Thank you, Pastor John and Andrea.

00:12:30.740 | Thank you for the question.

00:12:31.700 | You can ask a question of your own.

00:12:33.420 | Search our growing archive or subscribe to the podcast

00:12:35.620 | all at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.

00:12:40.420 | Well, how do we shepherd small children

00:12:42.260 | through the pains of life,

00:12:43.620 | particularly when it comes to God's providence

00:12:46.140 | over all things, even our trials?

00:12:48.820 | When is a child ready to try and understand these things?

00:12:52.420 | And how early is too early?

00:12:54.420 | These are tricky questions,

00:12:55.540 | important ones for all parents to think through,

00:12:57.340 | and that's how we begin next week.

00:12:59.740 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.

00:13:00.700 | We'll see you back here on Monday.

00:13:01.920 | Have a great weekend.

00:13:02.840 | We'll see you then.

00:13:03.740 | (upbeat music)

00:13:06.320 | (upbeat music)

00:13:08.900 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

Is Complementarity Merely Functional?

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