These days, it’s not enough just to realize instinctively that God created men and women to be different in many ways.  

Because if I don’t understand His purposes for doing that, then I’m more vulnerable to accepting the lies today that are subverting His authority to define sexual distinction.

The creation account recorded in the Book of Genesis is a wellspring of information around which a husband and wife should build their marriage according to its Designer’s intended specifications.  And perhaps the first thing to grasp about men and women is that they were devised to be one or the other. No human being ever was born with a design flaw allowing for his gender-specific features or inclinations to be altered.

But, more importantly, both sexes are created equally in God’s image.  Neither is more precious than the other to Him.

They are, however, made for different things.  

While both were commanded to be fruitful and multiply and to rule and subdue over the earth [Gen. 1:27-28], the first man, Adam, was created before Eve and the Lord commanded him to tend over the Garden of Eden. [Gen. 2:15] Then, He created Eve and gave her as a gift to Adam to be a helper. [Gen. 2:21-23]  Accordingly, the apostle Paul reminded the church at Corinth that the woman was created for the man’s sake. [1Cor. 11:9]

This is just one reason that the responsibility for headship is established in the male rather than the female. 

As such, the man was created to be an initiator—the woman, a responder.  The man is tasked by his Creator to prepare himself with strength to maintain, rule, lead, protect and improve what’s in his domain. In the same way, the Scriptures place a woman in a role which acknowledges the man’s authority within the domain the Lord created for him—even though she is the mistress of her own domain! Biblical domain is defined as a relevant area or field of responsibility assigned by God.

However, some roles are not gender-specific from a Biblical perspective.

Because both men and women can have gifts and perform roles which don’t reflect the traditional expectations of a particular culture. But, since men and women are fundamentally different, each have been charged with positions of authority and responsibility and are bound to those gender-specific roles on the basis of their sex. For this reason, a man’s headship role [or authority] should always be applied in a sense of “being” rather than in actual performance.  More importantly though, it should never be abdicated or appropriated by anyone.  

But there’s something else that perfects the human experience.

Just as a man is entrusted with headship authority, a woman is also responsible for her designated role to complete the created station of a man by being his helper. [Gen. 2:18]  For, as anyone can read, the solitary state of the first man, Adam, wasn’t “good” in the Lord’s eyes until He formed Eve and brought her to him.

So, I think it’s critical for all men and women to understand that the created man is wholly incomplete without the presence of the responsive temperament of a woman. A woman doesn’t just make the man complete, she makes the creation complete.

The Lord’s wisdom is magnificent if we will allow ourselves to see it.

“An excellent wife, who can find? For her worth is far above jewels.” [Prov. 31:10]