To those that disagree, where else do you think feminine character traits came from if not from God? Were women made in the image of bears or palm trees? Obviously not. Both traditional male and female character traits are drawn from God’s character. There are also, of course, unique things about men that reflect God’s character in a way that women do not. In the Old Testament, God sometimes refers to Himself like a mother to Israel ( Is 42:14, Is 46:3, Is 49:15, Is 66:13, Luke 15:8-10, Matt 23:37). There are things about me as a female that uniquely reflect God’s character in a way that my husband does not. God said He created male and female in His image. And Adam and Eve were to rule over the animals, not visa versa. First, God created organic matter like the earth, and then the plants, then fish and birds, then mammals, and finally Adam. God seems to build in magnitude through the creative acts of Genesis. First, God made Adam, and then worked down to primates, then reptiles, then plants. And since God made Adam from dust, but Eve from Adam’s rib, that teaches the doctrine of “headship and submission.” Complementarians call Adam naming Eve an act of “God-given leadership.”ĭoes Eve’s order in creation mean she was a subordinate being meant merely to complete Adam rather than be a complete person herself? This argument has weight because that is how God worked throughout the six days of Creation. They say Adam is the “ central character” in the Genesis account. What I would give to walk in Eden face-to-face with God.Ĭomplementarians argue that Eve’s creation as a helpmeet for Adam in Gen 2:18 shows that a husband should set the agenda as leader and a wife merely “help” him achieve his agenda rather than having any agenda of her own. So, we flip to the first chapters of Genesis, which detail those few happy days or weeks Adam and Eve enjoyed when there was no sin in the world. We need to dig deeper into the Biblical text to discover not just what happened, but what God thought about what happened. So the fact that Patriarchy and hierarchal relationships between men and women is in the Bible really tells us nothing about God’s will. Hence, Stephen asked his countrymen which of God’s prophets they hadn’t persecuted or killed. In fact, a major portion of the Old Testament is a lesson in what not to do. The fact that God found something worthy of recording does not mean He approves of it. Yet, the Old Testament is filled with other things too: adultery, idol worship, unbelief, lies, and murder. And no one can deny that the Old Testament is chockfull of Patriarchy: Solomon with all his wives, Naomi left penniless because she didn’t have a man, Nabal’s abusive use of Abigail. What’s right? Patriarchy? Complementarianism? *gasp* Egalitarianism? How do we avoid merely instituting the cultural norms of the Middle Ages, 1950s, or 21 st century rather than actually doing God’s will?Īs any Bible-believing Christian, when I want to know what God thinks about something, I look at the Bible. The issue of women’s roles in marriage, the church, and the workplace is a sharply debated one. Distributed by DIRECTMEDIA Publishing GmbH.

Or perhaps the emphasis is on the word “respect,” recognizing the obligation to provide the rest of the world with an explanation they can evaluate for themselves.Adam and Eve - Credit: The Yorck Project: 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei. As British political theorist John Locke wrote: “The people have no other remedy in this, as in all other cases where they have no judge on earth, but to appeal to heaven.” The reference to a “decent respect to the opinions of mankind” might be viewed as a kind of an international public opinion test.

But the ultimate judge of the rightness of their cause will be God, which is why the revolutionaries spoke of an “appeal to heaven”-an expression commonly found on revolutionary banners and flags. The Declaration is like the indictment of a criminal that states the basis of his criminality. “Declare the causes” indicates they are publicly stating the reasons and justifying their actions rather than acting as thieves in the night. It asserts that Americans as a whole (and not as members of their respective colonies) are a distinct “people.” To “dissolve the political bands” revokes the “social compact” that existed between the Americans and the rest of “the People” of the British commonwealth, reinstates the “state of nature” between Americans and the government of Great Britain, and makes “the Laws of Nature” the standard by which this dissolution and whatever government is to follow are judged.

All men are created equal