number 11 and great to have you all on this live webinar. Thanks so much for joining us. I hope you had a great week and that you're trusting in the Lord for your life and for the lives of those whom you love, and that you're just walking in the blessings of Christ.

It's been a busy and a full week and a busy and a full day here at Kindred, and I know that that's true for all of you as well, but we do look forward to a wonderful hour here looking at theology exam number 11. We're looking at the subject of man as male and female, theology exam number 11, and I think this is going to be a good study for us tonight.

For our opening devotional tonight, I'd like to take us to Matthew Chapter 3, verses 16 and 17. It might be an unexpected passage to look at dealing with the subject of man as male and female, but I trust you'll see the connection. I want to introduce this topic in a roundabout way, and I think you'll see the connection to our study tonight.

But this is from Matthew 3, verses 16 and 17, which is the scene of the baptism of Jesus, and the text reads in verse 16, "And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were open to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him.

Behold, a voice from heaven said, 'This is my beloved Son with whom I am well-pleased.'" That is a beautiful picture of the persons of the Trinity. You have there the Son, Jesus Christ, in the Jordan River being baptized by John the Baptist at the beginning of his public ministry.

You have the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on the Son, Jesus Christ, and we see that the Son in his earthly life and ministry was empowered by the Spirit, was led by the Spirit of God, and then we see the affirmation of the Father where it says, "Behold, a voice from heaven said, 'This is my beloved Son with whom I am well-pleased.'" This isn't the last time that the Father is going to express his delight in the perfections of his Son.

You'll remember in Matthew 17, there's the passage of Christ's transfiguration where the Father says, "This is my beloved Son with whom I am well-pleased. Listen to him." So you'll remember from our study on the Trinity, God is three persons, each person is fully God, and yet not three gods, there's one God, Triunity or Trinity.

So you see God the Father expressing his delight in the person of God the Son. "This is my beloved Son with whom I am well-pleased." So you have your distinction. You have Jesus the Son being baptized, you have the Spirit of God descending on the Son, you have the Father declaring his joy in the Son, and yet at the same time, you have essential harmony or essential unity.

You don't have any type of competition, you don't have any type of friction between the persons of the Trinity, you have each person working in perfect harmony and unity. That is a beautiful picture of the relationships that exist within the unity of the Trinity. So just think through with me for a minute the relationships between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

The Son, as you know, comes in obedience to the Father's will. He submits to the Father, and he accomplishes the Father's plan of redemption. We have passages like John 4, verse 34, where Jesus said, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work." So this coming of the Son, Jesus Christ to this world is not of the Son's initiative, it's the Father's initiative.

The Son comes to fulfill the plan of the Father. John 8, verse 42, Jesus said to them, "If God were your Father, you would love me for I came from God and I'm here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me." So the Son comes to this earth in submission to the Father's will.

At the Garden of Gethsemane, you remember Jesus was praying, "My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me, nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will." So you have two persons of equal essence. The Father is fully God and the Son is fully God. The Son is co-equal with the Father in essential deity, and yet the Son comes in perfect submission to the Father's authority.

Then you have the ministry of the Holy Spirit. How does the Holy Spirit work in relation to the Son? Well, if you read the gospel records, you know that the Spirit comes and empowers the Son and his public ministry. Jesus comes to this earth, the Spirit empowers the Son, and the Spirit leads the Son through his earthly ministry.

Luke 4, verse 1 says, "Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness." So the Son is led by the Holy Spirit. Verse 14, "Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee and report about him, went out through all the surrounding country." Verse 16 says, "He came to Nazareth where he had been brought up, and as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day and he stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him.

He enrolled the scroll and found a place where it was written, 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.'" So the Son is the Messiah, the anointed one. He is anointed by the Holy Spirit and the Spirit empowers the Son.

Watch this, "In order to fulfill the Father's plan, in order to fulfill the Father's will." So we could say that the Spirit comes in submission to the Son, so that the Son will fulfill his submission to the Father. Many passages speak of this relationship. "In this day and age, the Spirit fills the Church of God, empowers the Church to minister the gospel of the Son." John 16, verse 13, "When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears, he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.

He will glorify me, that is Christ, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you." So the Spirit's goal in this day and age is to shine a giant spotlight on the Son and his perfect work, and glorify the Son. The Spirit is delighted whenever the Son is exalted, as is the Father is delighted in that as well.

So you have this beautiful relationship between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. You have essential unity. Remember, each person is fully God, yet you have these distinction of roles. You have the Spirit submitting to the Son and desiring that the Son receive all glory and praise. You have the Son submitting to the Father and coming in obedience to the Father's will.

You have essential unity and yet distinction of roles, what theologians call ontological equality, that is equality of essence and economic subordination, that is submission in terms of roles, as the Son submits to the Father and the Spirit to the Son. So Bruce Ware has said it well when he said this.

"God works as the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, with each person accomplishing the specific work that each one is responsible to do." Within the carrying out of these roles, there seems to be a clear relationship in which the Father is supreme in authority, the Son submits fully to the will of the Father, and the Spirit seeks to carry for the work of the Son to the ultimate praise of the Father.

The distinctions in their work, then, must be recognized if we are to understand, rightly, the outworking of God's purposes and plans. Now, I know what many of you might be thinking on this webinar. You might be saying, "But Dan, we finished the doctrine of the Trinity, right? I mean, we finished the doctrine of God.

We're on to anthropology, the doctrine of man. You know, my essay's done on the Trinity. Why are we going back to the doctrine of the Trinity? Why is it important for us to review this doctrine?" And I wanted to approach the subject of gender, male and female, and the relationships that exist between genders by starting with the doctrine of the Trinity.

I think we need to start here. I think as we talk through the whole issue of complementarianism, the truth that male and female are equal in value, in worth, in dignity, and yet play different roles in the family and the church, I think we need to start with how the persons of the Trinity relate to each other and respond to each other just to put this whole discussion in its proper context.

I want to start here because I believe that if we don't start with God and with the persons of the Trinity, and if we just teach, you know, bare complementarianism, we teach the functions and we teach the roles that are taught in Scripture without putting it in context of man is made in the image and likeness of God.

We are made to reflect God's beauty. We are made to reflect God's glory, to live in relationship with him, and to reflect something of the beauty of who he is. And so if we don't start with God and how the Father, Son, and Spirit relate to each other, then you might agree with the teaching of complementarianism.

You might say, "Well, I agree that, you know, husbands should be leaders of their wives and wives should submit to their husbands, and I agree that pastors should be, and elders should be male, and that females shouldn't preach in the church." I mean, you may agree with the bare facts of complementarianism, but if you don't see it in context of the relationships that exist within the unity of the Trinity, then you're not going to love complementarianism.

You're not going to delight in it. You're not going to find something that's beautiful and wonderful in the roles that God has designed unless you see how those roles reflect something of the beauty of the Triune God himself. And I think that's why it's important to start again with the doctrine of the Trinity and then reason from there.

If God is three persons and the Father is co-equal with the Son and co-equal with the Spirit, and yet the Son delights to submit to the Father and the Spirit delights to submit to the Son, then does it not follow from who God is that male and female can be equal in value, dignity, worth, and rank, and yet play different roles in the church and in the family, and that those distinctions would not just merely be functional?

That is, it's not just meant to serve a practical end, even though there are practical benefits from those types of role distinctions. It's not merely functional. That's not our argument. It's reflective of the person of who God is himself. It is something that is beautiful because it reflects something of God's likeness.

And if you take away the idea of complementary roles in the church and in the family, and you say that male and female are equal, therefore they're interchangeable, that they don't have distinct functions and roles, then you lose something of how male and female can reflect the likeness of the triune God himself.

I'd pray that the result of our study tonight, that you wouldn't just be able to recite the bare facts of complementarianism or to say that you intellectually agree that these teachings are true. My prayer is that as you see this in context, that you would cherish this doctrine, that you would love it, that you would see something of the beauty of it, that it would be precious to you.

My prayer is that you would understand the texts which teach complementarianism versus egalitarianism and be able to defend distinction of roles from scripture. But I hope that you and I go beyond that and that we would love this doctrine, not only because it's taught in the word of God, but to submit to God-given authority is to be like Christ himself.

And to understand equality yet diversity of roles is to see something of the beauty of God himself. And so I wanna talk through that with you tonight. Just some practical, just some implications here. I'm gonna skip some of this language. But as I was just thinking through this and this is fresh on my mind and on just how does this impact our lives and how does this impact my life and yours?

I was just thinking through some fresh implications. Number one, and I believe this, you're only a leader when you yourself are able to submit. And that's, I think, a good encouragement for not only men, but women as well who are in places of authority. We are all called to submit to someone that God has placed over us.

And I've just been reminded of this myself that I'm only a leader as much as I am able to submit. I'm called to submit to God's word. I'm called to submit to Christ as Christ's authority is real in my life. And I submit to Christ as I study his word.

I'm called to submit to my fellow elders and pastors in the local church. I'm called to submit to governmental authorities. I'm called to submit even in the sense of submitting with accountability to church membership and the members of the church who hold me accountable. I'm called to submit to God-given authority.

And I can't say to my wife or to my children or to members of my church as a pastor, I can't say to them, well, you need to submit to me unless I myself am submitting to the authorities that God has placed over me. And that's just something that's fresh and really real a reminder on my heart that a leader is called to submit.

And when a leader submits to the authorities over him, then he makes it a joy for people to submit to him. If I'm submitted to God's word and submitted to Christ, then my wife will find submission to me and marriage a joy. And if I'm not submitted to God's word, then submission to my leadership in the home will be very burdensome for my wife and for my children.

And so you're only a leader when you yourself are able to submit. Number two, this is just some fresh reflection on this. True submission is not inferiority. It's not inferiority. It's equality of value, equality of rank, equality of dignity. It's being equally made in the image of God. I mean, there is equality and then there is distinction of roles.

And so to be brought into submission to what God has placed over you is not to embrace inferiority. Again, this is just some fresh reflections on this theme. I think there is, I mean, thinking through the whole topic of parenting adult children, because that's a common counseling issue as well as something that's real in my life.

I have two, I'm a brand new, I'm a rookie to parenting adult children, but I do have boys who are newly young adults. And I think in parenting adult children, you have children who were once under your authority functionally, and now they are not under your authority. They are, in some sense, they are now equals.

There's more emphasis on the quality of being made in the likeness and image of God and less emphasis on the functional subordination that they have under your leadership. And I believe that many parents struggle with this transition because they're still trying to relate to their children in terms of authority and control rather than developing that relationship as those who are equally made in the likeness and image of God.

And it just relates to this whole theme of there is both, equality of being equally made in God's likeness and there is functional subordination in the plan of God. And then number three reflection is true submission is heart submission, it's heart submission. The son didn't say to the father, well, I'll do it, but I hate submitting to your authority.

He said, my food is to do the will of him who sent me and accomplish his work. The son submitted with a full heart to the father because the son delighted in his relationship with the father. So let me just talk to you guys as biblical counselors in training for a moment.

Much of biblical counseling is marriage counseling. I think it's estimated in most counseling centers, 60% of biblical counseling is marriage counseling. Much of marriage counseling is due to a misunderstanding and an abuse of complementarian roles in marriage that somehow the husband has heard that he's the head of the home and he didn't hear the other part of Ephesians five that says that being the head of the home means you love your wife as Christ loves the church and you lay down your life for her.

But he heard the first part that he's the head of the home. And so he's calling the shots and he's telling people what to do. And he's the boss and he'll justify it using some biblical text saying, well, see the Bible says that I'm the leader of the home.

So everyone needs to submit to me. And then you have distortions on the wife's end as well. But you see how this works that much of marriage counseling is helping people think through these roles and exactly the topic that we're looking at tonight on a complementarian understanding of gender roles and thinking through that biblically and clearly.

And I think that's why this topic is so important for our training in biblical counseling. That's why ACBC wants you to write this essay. It's so practical. And you're gonna have a hard time shepherding people through the abuses of this doctrine if you don't clearly understand the teaching yourself.

Would you see when the son submitted to the father, it's not just merely he did the father's will, but he delighted to do the father's will because he delighted in the father. He delighted in that relationship. He loved the father and the father delighted in him. And it's out of that mutual joy and delight in the perfections between the persons of the Trinity that came this wonderful submission where Jesus said, my food is to do the will of the father.

And what you see in a lot of marriages is you see people trying to force the function. They're trying to force submission and headship, leadership and submission, apart from that mutual relationship of delight and joy. And just saying it's because I delight in my wife that I lay down my life for her and vice versa.

It's because the wife says I delight in my husband's love for me. And I delight in my relationship with him that I will joyfully submit to his leadership over me. I think those are the things that we need to think through as biblical counselors. And we wanna train counselors that understand this doctrine, can shepherd people through it and also live it out themselves.

I think that where true submission is heart submission is where the rubber meets the road for all of us. I think this is just, I mean, all of us can be like that kid who said, I'm sitting down on the outside and I'm standing up on the inside. And that's not true submission.

That's not the submission of Christ. And this is something that is challenging for all of us and where we wanna lead our counselees as well as our own lives. So let me read the exam question. And then there's a typo here, but you guys will get the point here.

Describe the biblical understanding of manhood and womanhood from an egalitarian and complimentarian perspective, explain which view you embrace and outline which you believe to be most biblical. Let me pray for us and then we'll get into the outline, but let me pause here and let me pray for our time.

Father, thank you for just this reminder of the beauty of who you are and the beauty of the relationships that exist between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We just praise you that Lord, we are made in your image and likeness and made to reflect your glory and beauty.

And we pray that Father, you would help us to understand gender roles as defined by scripture, not just so that we would grudgingly obey, but so that we might delightfully submit to your plan and that there would be something of a reflection of your glory in our marriages and our homes and in our churches.

And so bless our time tonight. Thank you for each of my brothers and sisters who are working their way through this essay and pray that you would give them clear understanding. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. Okay, on page one, just a brief overview. We have some good material there.

I'm gonna let you read through that on your own, just a number of good works that you can look at. But let me move to the second page of your handout and take a look at man as male and female. I'm not gonna go through this handout in slavish detail, but I will make a few points that will be helpful for the writing of your essay.

So why is this topic so important? Genesis one, verse 27, God created man in his own image, in the image of God, he created him male and female, he created them. Genesis five, verse one, when God created man, he made him in the likeness of God, male and female, he created them and he blessed them and named them man when they were created.

Pretty simple, right? I mean, I think it's pretty clear, pretty straightforward. It's amazing how much confusion there is in our society over this issue, how you got from male and female, he created them to the whole mess that we're in in our society over gender. I don't know how we got here except for the doctrine of sin and rejection of the word of God, but here we are.

Would you agree that our society is confused about gender? I think that this is from an LA Times article on August 6th, 2015. It's not on your handout, but let me read this. It says, "Starting this fall, students applying to the University of California will have the option to choose among six gender identities listed on undergraduate admissions forms.

Male, female, trans male, trans female, gender, queer, gender non-conforming." And then the sixth option is just different. Different identity. The identity choices official says, so this is state of California and this is the UC system. So really smart people run this system, at least from a secular point of view.

And yet they have a lot of confusion about gender. The official said that the identity choices are intended to help serve the student body of each campus. One spokesman said, "When a university has better information on their student population, better decisions can be made without allocating the resources to support students." And just a whole lot of confusion on this issue.

And that's five years ago. I think the choices have possibly expanded since then. The California education code says that gender means sex and includes a person's gender identity and gender expression. Gender expression means a person's gender related experience and behavior, whether or not stereotypically associated with a person's assigned sex at birth.

So the California education code defines gender as one's chosen subjective self-expression, not that which is defined by biological sex. So just a whole lot of confusion on this issue. And then contrast that to the clear teaching of scripture, male and female, he created them. And again, in Genesis five, verse one, male and female, he created them.

So we have to be clear because society is not clear. We need to know what we believe because this is a very muddled in the world that we live in. So the second issue would be the choice of the church, the choice of the church. So we have two viewpoints and this is on your handout, the viewpoint of egalitarianism.

Egalitarianism would say that male and female are equal before God in their personhood, and there are no gender-based distinctions as to what roles male and female can fulfill in the family and in the church. So the basic issue here is egalitarianism would say that male and female are equal, therefore they're interchangeable.

There's no gender-based distinctions. They would argue that gender-based distinctions are a result of the fall of man into sin. And therefore, since we are in Christ, there's either a male or female, Genesis, Galatians three, verse 28. And so these gender-based distinctions have been reversed. They've been reversed through salvation in Christ.

And so that would be the viewpoint of egalitarianism. Male and female are equal, and therefore they are interchangeable. Complementarianism would be the viewpoint that male and female are equal before God in terms of dignity, personhood, and value, and they fulfill complementary roles in the family and in the church.

So I said, egalitarianism would say that gender-based distinctions are a result of the fall of man into sin. Therefore in Christ, those distinctions are reversed. Complementarianism teaches that gender-based distinctions were part of the original created order and were designed by God and were pronounced by God in the Genesis account to be very good.

God looked at all that he had made and he declared it to be very good. The gender distinctions of male and female are good. They're an expression of the goodness of God. To assault or attack gender-based distinctions in our day and age is really to argue against the goodness of God.

I mean, every man should wake up every morning and say it's good to be a man. It has biblical warrant to say that. Every woman should wake up every morning and say it is good to be a woman. I mean, that is the implication of Genesis chapter one. God saw all that he had made and declared it to be very good.

And so complementarianism teaches that because gender-based distinctions were part of the created order, that salvation in Christ brings a reversal in the distortion of the roles. It does not obliterate the distinctions themselves. And you can read, if you wanna go deeper on this, you can read Wayne Grudem's Rediscovering Manhood and Womanhood.

He walks through the arguments that egalitarians make. And I have a summary of that on your handout. If you want that more in depth, you can look at his book, "Rediscovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood." But that's the basic argument. The theological argument is where gender-based, gender distinctions part of the original created order or were they a result of the fall of man into sin?

And Grudem does a good job arguing the point that gender distinctions were part of the original created order. By the way, I know we differ a little bit on some of the chapters in Wayne Grudem's Systematic Theology as ACBC. But on this particular subject, I think Grudem has some of the most helpful materials out there just presenting a complimentarian view of gender roles and doing that with clarity and with precision, answering the arguments biblically, as well as being very balanced and pastoral in his presentation.

Now, the kindred doctrinal statement is really lifted from the Danvers statement. You'll find this exact same language in the Danvers statement that I gave to you on your Dropbox. The Danvers statement was a statement written by the Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. And they have a very clear expression of what we mean by complimentarianism.

Let me read this for you. They say that, "In the family, "husbands should forsake false, "harsh or selfish leadership "and grow in love and care for their wives. "Wives should forsake resistance "to their husband's authority "and grow in willing, joyful submission "to their husband's leadership. "In the church, redemption in Christ "gives men and women an equal share "in the blessings of salvation.

"Nevertheless, some governing and teaching roles "within the church are restricted to men." Now, on that page there on your handout, I would just circle the words family and church. Okay, family and church. Under the definition of complimentarianism, they fulfill complimentary roles in the family and in the church. And then in the statement from the Danvers statement on Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, the first statement, "In the family, "husbands should forsake harsh or selfish leadership." And the second paragraph, "In the church, redemption in Christ "gives men and women an equal share "in the blessings of salvation." Our understanding of complimentarianism is that it is restricted to the family and the church.

Those are the two specific applications of gender roles. It's not the idea that all men have leadership over all women or all women should have a submissive attitude to all men. It's restricted in its application to the church and to the family. I remember working with one single brother in the church many years ago who had this idea that all women in the church should have a submissive attitude to him even though he wasn't married simply because he was a man.

And you can see that, I mean, the terrible implications of that kind of attitude and how I as a pastor needed to help him with that to say, it's not all women need to have submissive attitude to all men. It's if you're married, then your wife is called to submit to you as a leader, but it's not this general idea.

I think that's more of an Islamic idea of all women submitting to all men. I can tell you that when I worked in accounting at an accounting firm, I had a manager and a partner who were over me, both female. And in that context, God had called me to submit to them as those who were over me in that company.

And it was a joy to do that. They were great bosses and that was not a burden at all, but it's just the family and the church. I think our definition of complementarianism would highlight those two applications. And you wanna be on guard against a widening of the application to spheres that are not really addressed by scripture.

I'll go to bat for the church and the family. I believe that elders are to be men as qualified and defined by scripture. I believe that 1 Timothy 2, that a woman shouldn't preach in mixed settings over men and exercise authority over them in that way. I believe that husbands are the head of the home and that they should love their wives as Christ loves the church and that wives should submit to their husbands as to the Lord.

And aside from that, I don't have a biblical warrant to widen the application of complementarianism to a wider sphere. And so you just wanna be on guard and careful of that. It's not that all men everywhere have authority over all women, simply by virtue that they are men. So if you move to, let me move to page three here and just give you some key truths on complementarianism.

First is that gender is a creation of God. I think we see that very clear, male and female made to be distinct. Male and female are equal but not identical. We do harm when we seek to eliminate the differences between male and female. And male and female are, were meant to be complimentary.

If you look at the bullet point at the bottom of page three, Genesis two, verse 18, then the Lord God said, it is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him a helper fit for him. The Hebrew term Ezer, a lofty word used to describe God himself.

It's not a demeaning term. It's just, it's a term of strength. And it says for Adam, there was not found a helper fit for him. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man. And while he slept, took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh.

And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man, he made into a woman and brought her to the man. And the man said, this at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. He shall be called woman because she was taken out of man.

Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife and they shall become one flesh. So beautiful creation of God, male and female made to be complimentary. If you move to the next page there on page four, Richard Davison writes, by building Eve from one of Adam's ribs, God appears to be indicating the mutual relationship, the singleness of life, inseparable unity in which men and women are joined.

The rib means solidarity and equality. The phrase bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh indicates that the person described is as close as one's body. It denotes physical oneness and a commonality of concern, loyalty, and responsibility. And as Peter Lombard has written, Eve was not taken from the feet of Adam to be a slave, nor from his head to be his ruler, but from his side to be his beloved partner.

The distinction of male and female is declared to be very good. Genesis one verse 31, God saw everything that he had made and behold, it was very good and there was evening and there was morning the sixth day. So if you look down on page four to letter B, you see there that a distinction in roles is intrinsic to the nature of God himself and therefore part of the image of God.

That was my purpose in reviewing in our devotional, the persons of the Trinity, father, son, and Holy Spirit. Each person is fully God, yet there are not three gods, but one God. And if you move to the next page, you find those terms ontological equality, which means equality of essence.

The father is equal to the son in terms of essence, attributes and nature of divinity, and then economic subordination in terms of function, role, or activity. The persons of the Trinity differ in how they relate to each other and to creation. So moving to the box on page five, if equality and submission are both intrinsic to the nature of God as a Trinity and man is made in the image of God after his likeness, then we would expect to see some type of distinction in role between male and female.

And that is exactly what we do find, 1 Corinthians 11, verse three. "But I want you to understand "that the head of every man is Christ, "the head of a wife is her husband, "and the head of Christ is God." Head means authority in verse three. Grudem does a great job defending that.

There's been kind of attacks on that teaching. Some would wanna redefine the term head, meaning source, instead of authority, but it's pretty clear in 1 Corinthians 11, verse three, that the head of every man is Christ, and that means authority. The head of Christ is God, that means authority as well.

And then the head of a wife is her husband. Some would say in 1 Corinthians 11, verse three, that that's talking about a cultural issue that was relevant to the early church, but it's not relevant today. And I would just walk you through this in saying, you know, that first statement, the head of every man is Christ, I mean, we just asked the question, is that a cultural statement?

I think that's a theological statement, not a cultural one, that the authority of every man is Christ. That's not just relevant to the first century early church, that's relevant to all peoples everywhere. And if you look at the third statement, the head of Christ is God, and that's talking about the relationship of God the Father and God the Son.

We would also have to conclude that's not a cultural statement, that's not just something that was relevant to the early church, that's relevant to people everywhere in all times. And so how do you take that middle statement, the head of a wife is her husband, and conclude that that's a cultural statement that was only applicable to the early church?

If we're consistent and we say that the top statement is universal, and the bottom statement is a universal truth, then we have to be consistent and just interpret the verse in its context. And we have no warrant to take that second statement and make that into a cultural statement that's not applicable to every generation.

The head of a wife is her husband, that's talking about the same concept of as the first and third statements, head means authority, and 1 Corinthians 11 goes on and talks about head coverings and just the symbol of authority that they were in that day. And I'm not gonna be able to get into that subject tonight with the five minutes I have remaining, but it is a worthy study.

But it goes back to verse three that the head of a wife is her husband. So I have a summary there of Wayne Grudem's, how he deals with the topic of egalitarianism versus complementarianism. Okay, let me walk through some counseling scenarios and just try to whet your appetite for how this is practical in counseling.

I think this was something that was, some scenarios I'll walk through with me from Dr. Robert Jones of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. I'm just talking through, how do we see complementarianism gender roles show up in the counseling room and counseling ministry, and how do we address those things biblically?

Well, you have some husbands who, I mean, let's just face it, they're tyrants, okay? They've taken this whole idea of headship and they've divorced it from the biblical context. They don't see headship as an opportunity to express Christ-like servanthood and Christ-like sacrificial love. They're taking kind of this military context of being the authority and then bringing that to their homes.

And so they're the commander of their wives and their children. And so they're tyrants, they're the big boss at home. I'm the head of the home and that means everybody needs to do what I say. I think you know what I'm talking about there, and we know that situation that shows up often.

But then you have on the other side, the other extreme on the right-hand side, husbands who are passive. And so they never take leadership. It's a let go, let God type of issue. They don't find jobs. They don't think of ways to improve the lot of the family. They don't think of ways to shepherd their wives.

There's many ways that this shows up. And I don't mean passive in terms of personality, I mean passive spiritually, passive in terms of their leadership role. I've seen husbands who have very quiet personalities, but man, they're leaders in the home. They know how to lead their wives and they know how to lead their kids and their kids respect them.

And then I've seen husbands who are very loud and kind of very outgoing personalities and yet spiritually, they're very passive at home and they don't know how to lead their wives and lead their children. So it's not a personality issue of loud versus quiet. It really is taking spiritual leadership versus being spiritually passive.

So you have these two extremes and then you've got this whole spectrum of everything in between, okay? So you have husbands who gravitate more to the left where they're just gravitate more toward cold authority. And then you have husbands that gravitate more to the right and really take a passive role in their homes.

And that's just sort of some categories to put some counseling scenarios in. And then what about the wives? So you have on one hand down at the bottom left, you have wives that are dominant. So let's just face it. We have women who they have taken authority in their homes.

And again, it's not a personality issue. I have seen wives who are very outgoing and vivacious and just personality wise, they are louder than their husbands are. But spiritually speaking, they are submitted to their husbands and they follow his leadership and vice versa. So this is not a personality type.

This is a spiritual issue. You have wives that really are taking leadership of their homes. You see, I mean, you hear wives say, well, he's not leading. So somebody needs to lead. And so I'm gonna do it and other things as well. And so you have that on the left-hand side.

And then you have on the right-hand side, and we can use the word doormat. I think the Denver statement has the word servile, not biblical submission, which is strength that is submitted to God-given authority. If you look at the Proverbs 31 woman, she was not a doormat. She was not servile.

I mean, she was strong. It says even her arms were strong, spiritually strong, physically strong. She ran a business. She invested money. She had spheres of authority. Why spheres of authority? I mean, I always get very concerned when I see husbands who have to make every single decision in the home.

That's not the Proverbs 31 woman. She had wide spheres of authority that were submitted to her husband, to be sure. But she considered a field and bought it. Doesn't say that she asked her husband if she could buy it. I mean, there was just freedom there. And when you see that in healthy, godly marriages, you see this trust and this built up respect where a wife is submitted to her husband's authority, but has wide spheres of authority herself that she can run in.

So the Proverbs 31 woman was not a doormat. But you have these extremes. So counseling scenarios, this is just practical. I'm not gonna go to Matt for this in terms of defending the biblical exegesis of this. But I think it was helpful for me to think through, and hopefully it's helpful for you as well.

First, so you have that spectrum as well in the middle between dominant and doormat. So first scenario is what do you have when you have a husband who's a tyrant married to a wife who is dominant? What do you have there? Well, you can, I mean, you can imagine.

You've got a whole lot of conflict in that type of scenario. So I just put, kaboom, you've got some explosiveness there. If not harnessed by the Spirit of God, if not brought under biblical submission, you're gonna have a lot of conflict in that type of situation. What do you have in the second scenario where you have a passive husband married to a wife who is a doormat or servile?

You have a marriage that's not really going anywhere and a marriage in need of the husband to take biblical initiative. And then you can look at the different scenarios here. You have a husband who's a tyrant married to a wife who's a doormat. So he's calling the shots. And then you've got this other scenario here, a wife who's dominant married to a husband who's passive.

Remember, this is a spectrum, so we see everything that's in between. Now, so the question is, I mean, those are just some counseling scenarios that you might come across. And the question would be, how does a biblical understanding of complementarianism address these counseling scenarios? Well, the standard is Christ.

I mean, in the end, the standard is Christ. Both a husband who's a tyrant and a husband who is passive need to become more like Christ. Both a wife who is dominant and a wife who is a doormat need to become like Christ. And when you have a husband who becomes more like Christ, what you see is that the husband is neither a tyrant nor passive, but develops a loving servant leadership.

He leads, but it is a Christ-like leadership. It is a leadership that exercises self and love. It is a leadership that gives up its rights and its privileges on behalf of his wife. It's a love that nourishes and cherishes. First Peter three, verse seven, which is my most frequently used verse when I counsel husbands, I live with your wife in an understanding way.

I should use that verse more than I use Ephesians five, because men, I think that's really practically where they're at. They don't know how to understand their wives. They don't know how to listen to their wives and minister in a way that shows understanding. And most wives don't want their husbands to fix all the problems.

They just want their husband to live with them in an understanding way. And that's what first Peter three, seven calls for. So you have a husband who becomes more like Christ and he develops this loving servant leadership. And then you have a wife who is not dominant and who is not a doormat, but who exercises an intelligent, joyful submission.

Again, the standard is Christ. Christ was not a doormat. Christ was strength under control. It was strength that was submitted to his father in joyful submission. And you have a husband and wife moving toward this middle ground in both cases. Now, in that case, when you have a loving servant leadership combined with intelligent, joyful submission, you have a biblical marriage.

You have both husband and wife living according to their God-given roles. And you have this beautiful complimentary relationship that respects each other as full equals in terms of dignity and worth, and yet playing different roles. You have Christ likeness on both sides, one exercising a Christ-like sacrificial love, the other exercising a Christ-like submission.

And you have a wonderful expression of the fruit of the spirit, both by husband and by the wife. Practically speaking, what this means for me when I counsel with married couples, rarely do I go to roles as the first order business. So if the husband is walking in the flesh and the wife is walking in the flesh, and they're both being selfish, and they're both not being filled with the spirit, they're both not forgiving each other or respecting each other.

And I just come in, in my first counseling session, I say to the husband, "Well, you need to lead." And I say to the wife, "You need to submit." I'm not gonna get anywhere with that couple. And both are gonna take, first of all, they're gonna listen to what I'm telling the other person, because the husband is gonna say, "Yeah, so you need to submit." And the wife's gonna say to the husband, "Yeah, you need to lead." And they're both just gonna exercise that in a fleshly, selfish way.

So rarely do I go to that as a first order business. I really don't get into roles until I see forgiveness starting to flow between husband and wife, until I start to see the fruit of the spirit, a merciful, gracious attitude toward each other. It's as you're working on those general ideas of just submission to the word, submission to the Lord, of being humble toward one another, and you start to see those things to grow, then you can introduce a distinction of roles, because now they're going to embrace that in a godly way.

But be careful of, I think that's a caricature of biblical counseling, is the husband and wife comes in for biblical counseling, and we just tell the husband to lead and the wife to submit. Rarely does that yield good fruit. So those are some counseling scenarios to think through in relation to the subject.

I hope that's helpful for your study. Okay, what I'm gonna do is, I'm out of time, so I'm going to pray for us, and you can be free to leave. Thank you again for joining us this time. I'll hang around for five, 10 minutes. If you have any questions, I'll be happy to answer that according to the essays or anything else that I could help with.

But thank you again for joining us, and we're just blessed by your faithful study. I pray that this is a help to you, and that you'll continue to grow in the knowledge of God's word. So let me pray for us. Father, we do pray this for our churches and for our families, for our marriages.

We just do pray that, Father, you would fill us with the fruit of your spirit, and that the roles that you have assigned in the family and in the church would not be a burden, would not be exercised in a fleshly manner or a selfish manner, but Lord, that there would be the true fruit of Christ in each of our lives.

Lord, none of us can study these things without being convicted ourselves. Father, we need to change. Lord, I think of the authorities that you have placed over me, and just, Lord, how many times my submission is not a heartfelt submission, a joyful submission, but is a grudging, complaining type of submission.

And Lord, I believe that's true of all of us, that we need to grow in our submission to you, our submission to your word. And Lord, as we grow in those graces, that we can call others to submit in their spheres of roles and where you have placed them, for we are models of that ourselves.

So I just pray that that would be the fruit of our study. I pray that you would help my brothers and sisters to continue to work hard and to read, to think, to write, to clarify in their own mind what they believe. Just pray that you would bless this study and bring much fruit from this time that would abound to your glory.

We thank you again and pray this in Jesus' name, amen. - All right, amen. God bless you all. Thanks for being here. If you have any questions, feel free to use the chat and I'll try my best to answer them. Otherwise, we will see you next Sunday at five o'clock.

So God bless you guys. and I'll try my best to answer them. - Yes, so we had a question that came in. Practically, what kind of homework would you give a married couple that is not following their roles? Should marriage counseling be counseled by a married couple? Great question.

I think my general approach has been to get through the principles of peacemaking before I get into roles. So I would go from Robert Jones' "Pursuing Peace," which talks about the principles of peacemaking before I went to "Strengthening Your Marriage" by Wayne Mack. Probably in a marriage counseling situation, that would be the order I would follow.

I've just seen that happen where once you get into roles and you haven't dealt with those issues of the heart, of humility and forgiveness and loving one another, then, I mean, you've heard it. It's actually true that people go to marriage seminars and where the roles of husband and wife are preached and the wife takes really good notes of what the husband should be doing and the husband takes really good notes of what the wife should be doing.

And now they've just got more ammo to judge each other. And so you really wanna deal with those heart issues, the general heart issues of just humility, forgiveness, servanthood, and then if those things are in place, then I think "Strengthening Your Marriage" by Wayne Mack is a great introduction to roles.

He's got a great chapter on the husband's responsibilities and the wife's responsibilities. And then Stuart Scott's "The Exemplary Husband," as well as Martha Peace's "The Excellent Wife." I would give those in bite-sized pieces. I think that's a lot to, you know, you could really overwhelm a counselee if you assign the entire thing, but, you know, bite-sized pieces, I'll use the chapter from Stuart Scott's book.

He has one chapter on 1 Peter 3, 7, living with your wife in an understanding way. And I'll just assign that chapter and really just hit that issue because I find that that's a very common issue is husbands have a hard time listening to their wives and really understanding them.

And so there's listening to fix the problem and then listening to understand. And most of us husbands try to listen to fix the problem instead of listening to understand our wife's perspective. So those are some of the homework. I never counsel anyone in marriage counseling where I'm not convicted myself of things that I need to grow and change in.

So those are, that's kind of the joy and also the double-edged sword of biblical counseling is you give out God's word and you're also convicted yourself. So great question. Another question came in. How do you help them counsel to see growth in other areas before they focus on leading and submitting roles?

Yeah, great question. I mean, the first, practically speaking, the first thing is forgiveness. I mean, you have to have forgiveness in a marriage counseling situation. Forgiveness because what that does is it gives the husband and wife space to change. If you don't have forgiveness and they're not taught in the principles of forgiveness, unconditional forgiveness, heartfelt forgiveness that's not dependent upon the other person's repentance, as well as conditional forgiveness, forgiveness that reconciles when the other person repents, then you're not gonna have space in the relationship to really grow and change.

And so the first thing is forgiveness. And then the second thing I would go to is humility. Stuart Scott has a great chapter in his book, "The Exemplary Husband" on pride and humility. And then he's got this checklist of, I think it's 50 or something like that, 50 ways to know that you're proud and the 50 ways to know that you're humble and you're supposed to go through it and you're supposed to evaluate yourself.

And then if you're really humble, you have your wife evaluate you on those issues. I don't know how you get through that questionnaire without just being convicted of your sin. I always give that to guys and just warn them, beware, conviction is coming. But if you have forgiveness and humility in place, and then you've got some gracious attitudes, I think in Bible believing churches like ours that hold to a high view of scripture, you can have a lot of couples who hear these things in a legalistic way.

And they really harshly judge their spouses for failing to meet these standards. And so Dave Harvey's book, I think it's called, "What Did You Expect?" He's got a book on marriage. The name is escaping me right now, but I think it's, "What Did You Expect?" No, that's Paul Tripp's book.

Anyway, Dave Harvey has another book, "Married to Another Sinner" or something like that. But that's a book that really we use in counseling just to, yes, "When Sinners Say I Do." Excellent, thank you. He's got an excellent, that's a book we use when we see that legalistic attitude that's really harshly judging the other spouse.

Our counselors will use "When Sinners Say I Do" because he gets more into the issues of grace and mercy and kindness in the relationship. Doesn't talk about roles too much. I mean, I don't think he talks about roles at all, if I remember it correctly, but he really gets after those legalistic, prideful attitudes.

And we just found that if those legalistic, prideful attitudes in marriage exist and you go straight to roles, you're pouring fuel on the fire. They just got more ammo now to judge and criticize each other. So you gotta get after humility, grace, kindness, forgiveness. Those are all just general things.

And then when you see that, you can grow, you can teach roles on top. And that's a general approach. You think through that on your own. That was a general approach taught to me by Robert Jones at Southern Seminary. I've thought through that and put that into practice and found that that's helped change my marital counseling.

I think in the early days in marital counseling, I would go straight to roles and you need to submit and you need to lead. And really a lot of it backfired and I was wondering why. I think 'cause, oh, you gotta actually help people be like Jesus and be humble before you do that.

So, great question. Another question came in. There's a lot of needed teaching on roles during premarital counseling. What resource do you use for premarital counseling? Yeah, each of our pastors do premarital counseling. We do it a little bit differently. Wayne Mac's "Strengthening Your Marriage" is one of my go-tos on marital counseling just 'cause it really hits a number of those issues.

I think that John Piper's "A Momentary Marriage" is a very good resource just that it highlights the one flesh relationship, the permanence of the one flesh relationship. I think that's really necessary for premarital. I think most people are not thinking of their marital covenant too seriously and he just has a way of sobering you up of this is the reality of what it is.

And those are some resources. And then "Pursuing Peace," I give that to everyone who's getting married and I just let 'em know whether you think you need this or not, you're gonna thank me later 'cause that's a great resource on just conflict resolution. Those are three good works that I would go to and then just talking through those issues.

Wayne Mack's book is a little, the homework there is a little much but if a couple can get through it then I think they'll be ready to get married, so. Wonderful, great questions. So hope this helped. "Book titles and authors." Yes, I will do that. Excellent. Okay. Well, hey, God bless you guys.

Thank you so much for your faithfulness. We're encouraged at your study and your faithfulness. Hope you have a great week.