Some biblical concepts are puzzling for a long time; often I sort of know the answer but am not quite sure why.   The light dawned on one such issue in a recent URC New Members class – the foundation of a complementarian view of roles for men and women in the family and the church comes from the beginning.

Several key facts from the first three chapters of the book of Genesis:

–          God made everything “good,” including man – male and female (1.27).  Making two different forms of humans means there will be differences, and we know of obvious physical and emotional distinctives. 

–          God made the man Adam from the dust of the ground (2.7), put him in the Garden of Eden (2.15), and told him not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil (2.16-17).  Adam was given the command.

–          God made the woman Eve from the rib of Adam to be a helper fit for him (2.20-23).  Before the Fall and the Curse, there was a hierarchy – Adam was the head of the family and given the command to protect the tree; Eve was the excellent helper.  They had complementary roles.

–          After the serpent tempted both Adam and Eve to sin, God talked to Adam about what they had done (3.9-11) and then Eve confessed that she had been deceived (3.13).  Eve ate first, but God held Adam accountable.  Again, Adam was the one responsible – the head of the family.

–          The curses wrecked everything – the snake is cursed, the woman is cursed, the man is cursed, the ground is cursed.  The crucial complementarian curse is the sentence directed to the woman, “Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you” (3.16).  Sin has introduced an ongoing struggle for leadership in the marriage relationship.  As the ESV Study Bible comments, “This especially takes the form of inordinate desire (on the part of the wife) and domineering rule (on the part of the husband).”

The concept that sinful men and women each have a bent away from the God-ordained complementary roles is very clear in the change-of-heart commands of Ephesians 5.22-23: “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord… Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church.”   These are both hard tasks and require the ongoing work of Holy Spirit sanctification.

There are puzzling parts in other key New Testament passages on this topic: 1 Corinthians 11.2-16; 14.33-35, and 1 Timothy 2.11-15.  But there are clear directives in each verse that follow from Jesus’ shed blood setting us free from the tyranny of the devil. Men are to be loving leaders and women are to be excellent helpers.