Attraction, Influence, Coercion, and Sex: A Call for Intentional Integrity

There have been three stories in the news in recent weeks that illustrate the power of influence to lead to abuse, and specifically, to abuse of a sexual nature.

In the first, a psychologist used his influence over his patients, and their trust in the therapeutic relationship, to coerce them into performing sex acts with him. In the second, a Naval officer countered charges of sexual assault against a subordinate by asserting the sex was consensual. Most recently, the Houston Chronicle amassed a record of more than 700 victims of sexual abuse—most of them minors—at the hands of ministers from the largest Evangelical denomination in the United States. All of these stories offer a strong reminder that where we have influence over another person, we must engage in extreme vigilance to ensure that influence does not become a corridor for exploitation.

As is most often the case, the predators in these tales were men. If we’re really, truly honest with ourselves, men, we can look at many of these stories and see shadows of the horrible acts we, in our baser natures, are capable of. True, some of these perpetrators are hardened predators, who intentionally and with malice seek out, groom, and exploit others for their own twisted pleasure. But most of them are men who simply allowed pride and lust and arrogance to selectively blind them to their obligation to care for and protect someone under their care, exchanging that duty for a self-serving narrative in which the vulnerability of trust placed in them was distorted into a darkened perception of sexual acquiescence. And if you cannot see your innate potential to follow a similar path, then you very likely are only a few short steps from a precipitous fall.

The goal of this essay is to offer, from one man to another, a way of thinking about how the influence we have over others intersects with forces like intimacy and attraction, with a goal toward practical steps for keeping ourselves from wandering into the same blind hubris which befell these men. We owe it to the individuals who are and will be under our care to learn this well, and to teach it to the boys and men with whom we have influence. Failure to make this an intentional aim of your leadership, ministry, or caregiving—especially if you are in a position of mentoring or training other leaders, ministers, or caregivers—is to perpetuate the same vacuous system that has allowed such abuse to flourish.

How did we get here?

A central problem in this issue (and it is also central to nearly all of the distortions of God-given sexuality we see in society) is that we generally lack the ability to discern between emotional intimacy and sexual intimacy. This is so fundamental that in my experience most men, particularly in western culture, don’t have a working definition of intimacy that is not inherently sexual.

In psychology, intimacy is defined as “a process of interaction in which social partners, as a result of sharing personal and private thoughts and feelings, come to feel understood, appreciated, and cared for by each other.” The word itself is derived from a Latin word for “innermost,” and evolved to mean making known or very familiar.

In any relationship in which one or more parties is sharing of their inner selves, intimacy can naturally arise. Psychotherapy training acknowledges this as a natural—if not inevitable—outgrowth of a therapeutic relationship, and psychotherapists are exhorted to handle this phenomenon with the greatest of care. Ministers are just as likely as psychotherapists to experience intimacy as a natural outgrowth of a professional relationship, and leaders in many settings may also find a closeness with those under their charge which can breed feelings of intimacy.

We have been created by God to connect with other human beings. We should not be surprised when this occurs. But we also must be clear-eyed as to what this means and what it does not mean. We must choose—in advance—to consciously interpret any feelings of intimacy that arise as the natural but fragile outgrowth of a trust relationship, and we must consciously set aside any interpretation of such feelings as any sort of sexual invitation.

Emotional connections between people are natural and God-given. But many of us have been so hardened by the pervasive feeding of our sexual lusts, either passively from the ubiquitousness of sexually stimulating media in our culture, or actively through the pursuit of lustful stimulation, that any sense of connection is prone to being interpreted as sexual. And evidence of reciprocation of that connection is prone to misinterpretation as a sexual invitation.

The most important preparation for this battle is to consciously and perpetually put sexual desire in its God-given container: marriage. I’ve written elsewhere of the power of a prayer of gratitude as a pathway for fleeing lust. If you are married, this may be a prayer of thanksgiving for your wife; if you are not married, it can be a prayer of thanksgiving for the institution of marriage, thankfulness that God has given you everything you need for life and godliness, and that when or if you need a wife he will provide one. You must also consciously acknowledge that any sexual thought for any woman you are not married to is adultery in its fullest, most damnable form. This is why Paul urges us not only to flee such thoughts, but to bludgeon them with full spiritual violence (Galatians 5:24). It is also worth highlighting that while the call to “flee youthful lust” (2 Timothy 2:22) is applicable for all followers of Christ for all time, its original context was in a letter from an older pastor mentoring a young pastor (2 Timothy 2:1-2).

Fatal Attraction

A common defense for exploitative sexual relationships—even when the victim of abuse is a minor—is that the sex was consensual. Indeed, it is not uncommon for the abused to profess attraction for their abuser. But the presence of mutual attraction does not in any way lessen or excuse the fact of exploitation.

Our brains are hard-wired to be attracted to other people. Most often we sort that attraction into bins based on what is appropriate for that relationship. Because of our diminished ability to discern between emotional and sexual intimacy, if we perceive the other person to be in any way a viable sexual partner, we will experience the attraction as sexual. For this reason it is vital that we have the mental discipline to constrain the range of what we allow ourselves to entertain as viable sexual partners. Again, the biblical standard calls us to limit that to the person we are married to. In a commonly used marriage vow we promise to “forsake all others.” Forsake means to give up our rights to something. Men, we must consciously—and continuously—give up our perceived “right” to any sexual partner other than the one we are in covenant with before God.

It is also helpful to recognize the common ingredients of attraction. Though attraction comes with a lot of feels, it is ultimately just a chemical reaction in our brains to stimuli to which God designed us to respond. While this obviously plays a role in the attraction that leads to a covenant marriage, I believe the biblical record would more fundamentally identify the purpose of our God-given capacity for attraction to be to facilitate our obedience to the command to love our neighbors as ourselves (Leviticus 19:18).

Social psychologists have identified a number of potent, universal mechanisms of attraction. One of the strongest is beauty, or physical attractiveness. Another is proximity: simply being physically close to someone fosters a sense of attraction; repeated or prolonged proximity can intensify this. Another strong arbiter of attraction is similarity; we feel more connection with those we perceive as being like us in some way, such as belonging to the same group (any kind of grouping will do, from shared ethnic cultural heritage to liking the same sports team, and anything in between) and sharing similar values or beliefs.

Another insidious but potent attraction-enhancer is our affective state. When we are in a positive mood, we tend to like the people we encounter more. Similarly, when we are in a physiologically aroused state, we also rate people whom we otherwise find attractive as even more attractive. Elevated heart rate and/or elevated adrenaline, such as when working out or in a frightening situation, can increase our perceptions of attractiveness.

The bottom line is this: we are designed to connect with other people, and commonplace circumstances can directly and indirectly increase feelings of intimacy and attraction. Do not be surprised when such feelings occur, and absolutely do not be so arrogant as to believe something cosmic or mystical is drawing you into a sexual relationship. Stay grounded in the God-given “bin” for sexuality—your marriage—and consciously put any other feelings of attraction or intimacy at the foot of the cross, to be used solely in keeping with kingdom-building purposes (Matthew 6:33).

A Warning for Leaders

The vulnerability that is endemic to psychotherapeutic and pastoral care relationships is fairly plain to see. To this end, all credible training programs for these professions explicitly teach would-be practitioners to monitor and manage these dynamics. But the vulnerability in the leader-follower relationship is not so obvious, and we seldom teach leaders to guard against abusing it.

The article posted above, in which a military commander was charged with sexual abuse after what he asserts was a consensual sexual relationship, is a classic example. A leader will often develop a close relationship with a follower. Followers will often admire and have feelings of attraction for their leader. In some cases these feelings may be bundled with a sense of fear, which can lead a follower to submit to an unwanted sexual relationship due to even an implicit fear of reprisal; but that fear also can lead to actual attraction due to the role that emotional and physiological arousal can have in intensifying feelings of attraction. No matter how or why the attraction emerges, it is the leader’s responsibility to keep sex out of the relationship.

The potential for abuse is particularly high in leader-follower relationships in very hierarchical organizations. Perhaps no organization—especially not in western society—is more hierarchical than the military. Service members are operantly conditioned to defer to those in authority over them. True consent requires a high degree of equality in a relationship. For a leader in a hierarchical organization to entertain thoughts that a sexual relationship could be built consensually is patently absurd.

The most egregious example of the abuse of a hierarchical relationship comes not from the pages of the newspaper, but of the Bible. David, as king of Israel, raped one of his subjects. We usually talk about the relationship as “adulterous.” But the reality is that the relationship was inherently coercive, and coerced sex is, by definition, rape. Though there is always a power differential between a ruler and their subjects, this differential was extreme in David’s time and culture. The king of Israel was granted absolute authority over his subjects (1 Samuel 8:10-18) and to disobey an order from the king could result in immediate and legally justified execution (2 Samuel 1:14-16, 2 Samuel 4:12). It is in this context that Bathsheba was summoned to appear before the sovereign king of Israel. The Bible makes no record of a conversation of any kind, much less whether any consent were sought or given. Even if David asked her for permission to have sex with her, he held all of the advantage: he was the king, she was the subject; she was alone, he was accompanied by his entire cohort of guards, servants, aides, and attendants; she was in his palace, not in her own home. There is nothing about this scenario which places Bathsheba anywhere close to equal footing with David from which she could reasonably have been expected to negotiate whether or not to engage in a relationship that they both knew was in violation of God’s law (and presumably also of the civil law of the land). David’s authority was inherently coercive, so his sex with Bathsheba was abusive.

I have heard it proposed that perhaps Bathsheba contrived the entire affair, and that her bathing on her roof was an elaborate honeytrap to ensnare the king into a relationship while she was ovulating, with a plan to get pregnant and improve her station by bearing the king’s child. I don’t know enough about ancient Jewish household arrangements to know whether bathing outdoor on rooftops was a common or an absurd occurrence. I find this reading preposterous, but let’s play what if: suppose the whole saga did turn out to have been an elaborate manipulation by Bathsheba. What of David? Is this the kind of leader one would like to follow? A leader who allows a moment of lust to germinate into using his organization’s resources to arrange an illicit affair? Who then goes so far as to alter his organization’s mission and intentionally endanger his personnel to cover it up? For whom even ordering a murder is not a bridge too far?

The military implicitly recognizes that even purportedly consensual sexual relations between junior personnel and leaders in the chain of command can be detrimental to mission effectiveness, and therefore such relationships are punishable. In fact, an inappropriate relationship does not even have to be proven to be explicitly sexual to be considered a violation of Article 134 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Leaders are charged with maintaining professional boundaries with those they lead, and it is the more senior member who bears the bulk of the responsibility for violations of this standard.

In light of the statutory prohibitions against sexual and other inappropriate relationships, the intensely hierarchical nature of military organizations, and the fact that service members are explicitly conditioned to respect and defer to superior rank, it is my view that any sexual encounter between a military leader and a subordinate should always be regarded as coerced, even when there is explicit evidence of formal consent. Military leaders wield significant influence in the form of severe formal and informal power over those they lead (especially those leaders with command authority). Service members deserve leaders who are committed to good stewardship of that power, and to be able to trust beyond any doubt that their leaders will not use their significant influence to manipulate or exploit their followers for personal gain, especially with regard to sex.

Practical Application

Psychotherapists, ministers, and leaders (especially in hierarchical organizations such as the military) are in positions of significant trust and influence. There are certainly other roles and relationships which lend themselves to abuse, and these recommendations may be helpful in those settings. But for anyone who is a psychotherapist, minister, or leader, and for anyone who is training or mentoring men for those roles, the following are absolutely critical:

• Recognize that by virtue of your role alone, before they meet or know anything else about you, those under your care will approach you with a degree of vulnerability and trust
• Recognize that due to the nature of the relationship, those under your care will likely experience feelings of admiration, closeness, and liking; always assume that these are due to your role and the service you provide and behave accordingly
• Acknowledge that these relationships also can engender stronger feelings of affection, intimacy, and attraction; recognize that these feelings can be misinterpreted (by you and/or those under your care) as sexual attraction
• ALWAYS assume that any sexual attraction you feel for those under your care (or that you perceive from them) is out of place and contrary to the real purpose of the relationship
• Commit yourself now and continuously to the conviction that those under your care will never, under any circumstances, be appropriate outlets for your sexual desires; even when the other party explicitly pursues a sexual or romantic relationship with you, your duty is to protect the sanctity of that relationship, both for that person and for the sake of all the others who depend on you

As a follower of Christ, commit yourself to crucifying every sinful desire, but expunge with extreme violence any sexual desire or other passion that would abuse the trust of vulnerability that those under your care have given you; they deserve nothing less.

A Mindful Faith

Too often, we regard faith as a sort of hazy, misty abstraction rather than a practical discipline. In a previous essay, “A Faith-Full Mind,” we explored scripture to seek a less abstract conceptualization of faith. We worked through how faith saves and what it means to live and walk by faith. In this essay, we’ll dig deeper into these concepts, with an emphasis on practical application.

In “A Faith-Full Mind,” a central theme that emerged was the role of the mind. Not only is faith a belief, but it is also a state of mental focus. When we speak of mental focus, you may be reminded of the concept of “mindfulness.”  In many conservative Christian circles there is a discomfort with practices such as mindfulness because they are often associated with traditions like Buddhism and other explicitly non-Christian religious and spiritual activities. But at its core, mindfulness is simply a psychological practice of mental focus. Most mindfulness practices direct that focus on the present moment, often through directing attention to the physical senses. This often is paired with a more passive awareness of mental phenomena, such as thoughts or emotions; a classic approach invites the subject to imagine their thoughts and emotions passing as clouds in the sky (as opposed to actively engaging them, making judgments about them, or attempting to change them). Mindfulness—along with related practices such as meditation, breathing-based relaxation, and self-hypnosis—is associated with a number of mental and physical health benefits, particularly in the realm of stress reduction. In a neurocognitive sense what is occurring in these techniques is that we are taking advantage of the fact that the brain can only truly focus on one thing at a time (multi-tasking is essentially rapidly shifting attention across competing stimuli), and the technique seeks to give the brain something that is at least neutral—and if possible relaxing and restorative—to focus on.

We were created with a capacity for focus, and when we are focused we function better mentally, emotionally, and physically. This truth is helpful to consider as we continue to explore practical applications of the biblical principle of living and walking by faith. Sometimes when we reflect on concepts such as faith, there is a tendency to overspiritualize. As we learned in the last essay, faith is our access point to spiritual and supernatural realities, but faith as an action occurs in our minds.  

Hebrews 12:2 directs us to keep our eyes on Jesus. But what eyes? What does that mean? Do we need to carry around a picture of Jesus and keep looking at it? (Actually, yes, sort of!) Consider the following scriptures:

• Colossians 3:1-2: “So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.” [emphasis added]
• Philippians 4:8: “Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable—if there is any moral excellence and if there is anything praiseworthy—dwell on these things.” [emphasis added]

Harkening back to our discussion of mindfulness, the highlighted phrases certainly are calling us to exercise the mindfulness part of our brains in pursuit of spiritual realities. But how do we know what the “things above” and “pure, lovely” and “commendable” things are? Is it a gut feeling? This is where that “picture of Jesus” comes in.  

• Psalm 119:11: “I have treasured your word in my heart that I might not sin against you."
• Joshua 1:8: “This book of instruction must not depart from your mouth; you are to meditate on it day and night so that you may carefully observe everything written in it. For then you will prosper and succeed in whatever you do.”

We create and can “look at” an internal picture of Jesus by reading, memorizing, and meditating on Scripture.

Another way to use the mind to walk by faith is prayer. 1 Thess 5:16-18: “Rejoice always, pray constantly, give thanks in everything; for this is God’s will for you.” A few writers on spiritual disciplines have described the core of their practice as being a sort of ongoing prayer, a constant conversation with the Lord, which is dominated by proclamations of gratitude and thanksgiving, but in which every single thought is shared in an ongoing conversation with the Lord. A. W. Tozer has written in The Pursuit of God of turning one’s internal eyes toward Christ who lives within. He notes that God is omnipresent, he exists throughout every aspect of his creation, so failing to be aware of God’s presence isn’t an absence of God’s presence, it’s a choosing to not be aware of it, choosing to focus on something not-God.

So there is a mental discipline of filling our thoughts with God’s thoughts, as revealed in his word, and of engaging in an ongoing conversation with him through prayer. This is a moment-by-moment focusing of the mind, an intentional and recursive directing our attention to the indwelling Holy Spirit, who is our communication link to the Father and Son. It’s vital we remember that Jesus defined eternal life as knowing God and knowing Christ. We only know what they “look like” through his word. This is why other spiritual disciplines such as Bible study and hearing the word preached are so essential. If we’re “knowing” someone or something other than what comes directly from the pages of scripture, there’s a real danger that we’re worshiping a false god.

Most often this false god is some version of our own natural desires. As we saw when we reviewed Romans 7 in “A Faith-Full Mind,” those desires, that capacity for evil, are always right there with us. If we haven’t trained our minds to recognize the true God, we’ll find other gods within. Paul warns Timothy in 1 Timothy 6:8-12 of one such god. The desire to be rich is just one example of a common, human desire, one that is ubiquitous in our culture (and even our churches), but which can keep us from the ongoing, intimate relationship with God that he created and then saved us for. When we are turning our inward eyes to that which is within without training them to recognize God and his Christ, we will make gods of any number of natural desires, and will instead live according to what is right in our own eyes (Proverbs 21:2; Judges 17:6).

When we are grounded in God’s truth as revealed in his word, and we have believed what he says about us and our sin, have received by faith Christ’s replacement sacrifice on our behalf, we can now walk by faith. We do this by continuing to grow in wisdom and knowledge of God through his word and then continually, moment by moment, turning our mental focus toward him. This mental focus is the touchpoint at which the mundane becomes the spiritual. When we are focused inwardly on this portrait of Christ we’ve constructed from his word by meditating on memorized scripture, when we are praying without ceasing in an ongoing prayer characterized by gratitude and rejoicing, we are communing with him through the presence of his Holy Spirit living within us. This is walking by faith.

Our focus so far has been on obtaining a biblical picture of walking by faith and identifying the practical components of living in that way. But there is also the subjective aspect of this way of living. What follows are several images and metaphors for walking by faith. Some of them have been given to us in the pages of the Bible. One is consistent with biblical truth, but the allusion itself is not explicitly described in scripture. But all represent another dimension of how we can use the mental abilities God has given us to keep ourselves grounded in communion with him.

When I practice breathing-based relaxation, I find that as I sit still and quiet and begin to execute the mechanics of regulating my autonomic arousal, my mind often decides it’s time to start wandering around looking for trouble (worrying, making plans, etc.). Needless to say, if my mind is not engaged in the technique, I’m not going to get particularly relaxed. So, my brain needs some sort of hook to pull it back when it wanders. That can be as simple as returning my focus to the mechanics of the technique, for example paying special attention to the air coming in through my nose and filling up my lungs. But I find if I give myself something more involved and more salient, such as a mental scene which taps into all of my senses, my attention is held even more strongly, and I achieve a much deeper relaxation response.

In the same way, the following metaphors have helped me not only conceptualize what it looks and feels like to walk by faith, but they also give my mind rich and salient images upon which to reflect, better holding my attention on the things of God. These metaphors also help to illustrate the subjective, emotional aspects of walking by faith, what walking by faith may feel like (or at least what it has felt like in my experience).

Abiding. In John 15:4-5, Jesus says, “Remain in me, and I in you. Just as a branch is unable to produce fruit by itself unless it remains on the vine, neither can you unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in me and I in him produces much fruit, because you can do nothing without me.” When I’m walking in faith, I feel connected to Christ, just like the branch he describes. The only effort is just to keep the end of my branch, the root of my branch, attached—mentally and spiritually—to Christ. As I remain connected to him, things are happening through me that are essentially effortless. For example, resisting temptation is much simpler. Rather than fighting off the temptation directly, I turn my whole inner being toward Christ, because the mind focused on Christ and his Spirit does not gratify the desires of the flesh (Galatians 5:16). Similarly, I don’t have to try to synthesize joy; the joy flows from Christ’s trunk to my branch if I’m connected to him, abiding in him, mentally and emotionally focused on and engaged with him. The effort is put into remaining focused on him, everything else flows out of that.

Light. 1 Thessalonians 5:5-8: “For you are all children of light and children of the day. We do not belong to the night or the darkness. So then, let us not sleep, like the rest, but let us stay awake and be self-controlled. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, get drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be self-controlled and put on the armor of faith and love, and a helmet of the hope of salvation.” When I’m walking by faith, there is a heightened awareness of spiritual darkness and spiritual light. For me, it feels kind of like that scene in “The Matrix” when Neo suddenly can see through the system, and instead of the images of people and objects and space, he sees the source code, strings of binary everywhere. Emotionally, it’s very powerful. For one thing, there is no sense of fear (I mean, I’m already dead [Galatians 2:20], so what can anything in the world do to me?). For another, the people and problems we face every day become transparent and their temporariness is apparent. There is a heightened sense of the eternal. The person or problem in front of me is seen in the light of their eternal worth before God, and I become much more attuned to opportunities to bear eternal fruit.

Flow. There’s also a sense of flow in walking by faith. Jesus once stood up in church and yelled, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. The one who believes in me, as the Scripture has said, will have streams of living water flow from deep within him.” John goes on to add, “He said this about the Spirit. Those who believed in Jesus were going to receive the Spirit.” (John 7:37-39) When I’m walking in faith, there is a flow. I often think of the Christian life as a stream. Saving faith gets you into the water. The stream has a current that pulls you supernaturally toward God and his righteousness. The current is slowest near the banks and grows stronger as you move toward the center. The world and the old self are represented by the banks. I can be in the stream (that is, have received salvation by faith), but be stuck in the shallow, slow water by the bank. This is most often because I am clinging to things on or from the bank, like branches hanging over the water, desires which tempt me back toward the things of the world. But when I let go of those things, I move, and the more I let go of—the less I am clinging to the desires of the flesh or the cares of this temporary world—the more I am drawn toward the center, where the current is the strongest.

Only the new self can exist in the center of the stream. As the current begins to pull me more and more toward the center, the more I become aware of the things I am clinging to of my old self. The only way to continue toward the center of the stream is to keep letting go of everything, literally every desire that is not for God and his righteousness. Just as we saw in Romans 7, evil desires are always around, hanging over the stream like branches from the shore, reminding me of what I am leaving behind. In my walk as a follower of Christ, while I’ve experienced the center current of the stream, I don’t spend as much time there as I’d like. Sometimes I get distracted by and grab hold of a branch from the shore; sometimes I get lost wallowing in the muddy shallows of the bank. But when I’m in the center of the stream, God is continually showing me new currents which can pull me even closer to him. These new currents require letting go of more desires, usually smaller and smaller desires, things that when I was on the banks, or even in the shallow water, I wouldn’t have even recognized as sinful.

Moving toward the center of the flow is simple, as the main action required is simply letting go of things from the shore and turning toward God at the center of the stream, replacing desires for worldly things with thoughts and desires for God and his righteousness. But it’s also very painful at times, because those desires are part of me, and leaving them behind hurts. Often when God is actively drawing me more toward the center of the stream, it comes with significant emotional pain. In my experience, putting to death the desires of the flesh feels as vivid as it sounds, a sort of emotional surgery in which I have tumorous growths cut out of my skin and bones without any anesthesia. But at the end of the pain is a very real—and very freeing—sense of having truly died, that literally the only life I have is the one I have by faith in the Son of God who loves me and gave himself for me.

2 Corinthians 5:5-9 “So we are always confident and know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. For we walk by faith, not by sight. In fact, we are confident, and we would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord. Therefore, whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to be pleasing to him.”

Conclusion

There is a saving faith in which salvation is received as we agree with God about our sinful state, confess our need for a salvation that only he can provide, and believe in our heart and mind and words (Romans 10:9-10) that Christ’s sacrifice on our behalf cleanses us from all our unrighteousness. But faith is also a living, moment-by-moment experience of turning our inward eyes toward God, by praying continually and reading and memorizing and meditating on God’s word, so that his thoughts replace our thoughts in a continual renewing of the mind. The byproduct of this is the fruit of the Spirit; we know we’re not walking in the Spirit when our focus is on satisfying our human desires.

I hope these thoughts have been helpful. I pray for you, dear reader, this prayer that Paul prayed for the Ephesians (Ephesians 3:16-19): “I pray that he may grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power in your inner being through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. I pray that you, being rooted and firmly established in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the length and width, height and depth of God’s love, and to know Christ’s love that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

A Faith-Full Mind

What is faith? Defining it isn’t all that difficult. Merriam-Webster offers this: “allegiance to duty or a person; fidelity to one’s promises; sincerity of intentions.” Oxford provides a more streamlined take: “complete trust or confidence in someone or something.” In the Bible, faith is famously defined in Hebrews 11:1 in this way: “Now faith is the reality of what is hoped for, the proof of what is not seen.”

Why does faith matter? The Bible teaches that “without faith it is impossible to please God” (Hebrews 11:6), “we have been declared righteous by faith” (Romans 5:1), and “for by grace you have been saved through faith” (Ephesians 2:8). From this sampling of scripture we find that faith is central to our standing before God and it is the pathway to salvation itself.

But how do we faith? The Bible provides a lot of examples, but I can’t point to an explicit “this is how to faith” declaration, so I find that faith remains something of an abstract concept. But if it’s so essential, it’s important to know what it looks (and feels) like. The goal of this essay is to suggest a practical, simple-to-employ understanding of biblical faith.

We find two main kinds of faith in the Bible: saving faith and living (or walking) by faith.

Saving Faith

Moses tells us in Genesis 15:6 that “Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness.” This is the first explicit reference to faith or belief in the Bible. What stands out, even at this early point in history and under the Old Testament framework, is that it wasn’t Abraham’s obedience or moral superiority that made him righteous, it was that he believed God. In contrast, if we look back at Genesis 3, the way the serpent convinced Adam and Eve to disobey the command regarding the fruit was to encourage them to disbelieve God (“Did God really say…?”). So from the very beginning we begin to see this pattern of believing God or disbelieving God, believing God or believing not-God.

Jesus spoke to Nicodemus about belief in John 3:14-21. Here another facet of saving faith emerges. Biblical faith means not only believing God, but also means believing his Son. This is what sets Christian faith apart from Islam and Judaism. All profess belief in the God of Abraham, but only Christians believe in the Son. Also note in Jesus’ words that while believing in God saves, it is the lack of belief in God that condemns. Jesus also defines that which we are saved into: eternal life. Later in the same gospel he defines eternal life for us as knowing God and knowing Jesus Christ (John 17:3). Salvation isn’t just to deliver us from perishing under judgment, or even so that we can go to heaven some far off day. Rather, it is that we are delivered into a state of intimately knowing God—immediately, constantly, and eternally.

Paul parses faith and salvation throughout his writings. In his letter to the Romans, (Romans 3:22-26) he teaches that believing God means believing what he says about us, in particular regarding our sin. We all have sinned. It matters less what our particular flavor of sins are but that we all fundamentally have failed to live up to God’s standard of holiness, and there is nothing we can do about that. One aspect of saving faith is that we must agree with God about this. Another aspect of saving faith is that we must agree with God that we can’t do anything about this on our own, but are wholly dependent on him to rectify the situation. Saving faith is believing that God rectified the situation on our behalf by sending Jesus Christ to take away the punishment that we had earned by our sinfulness. Saving faith, as Paul says here, is “receiving through faith Christ’s atoning sacrifice in his blood” (verse 25).

Back in John, Jesus gave us an image for believing “in our hearts.” In John 3:14-15, he references Moses lifting up the snake in the wilderness. This is a reference to an event which occurred while the Israelites were in the wilderness, recorded in Numbers 21:4-9. Snakes had been sent by God as a punishment, but he also provided deliverance from the punishment. He instructed Moses to create a bronze snake and lift it up on a post. When a snake-bitten person looked at the bronze snake, they recovered (verse 15). With this allusion, Jesus is giving us a mental image for saving faith. Just as looking to the bronze snake delivered the ancient Israelites, so looking to the sinless Christ lifted up on the cross, taking the punishment that we deserved for our own sins. The way we practically, right now “look to” Christ lifted up on the cross means to remember, reflect, and meditate on it, believing (“in our hearts” as Paul taught) that Christ’s act on our behalf saves. Believing in our hearts includes the cognitive or intellectual act of accepting it as true, but it also moves us deeply, emotionally.

Consider what Paul teaches in Romans 5:1-2. We have been declared righteous by faith, which ends the war we started with God through our sin (makes peace with God). The result? Joy. The joy of salvation is that our sins do not count against us. This sounds very “New Testament,” but take a moment to read Psalm 32:1-5.

There are many more scriptures we could unpack, but the passages we’ve reviewed so far have laid out the fundamentals. Faith as it relates to salvation is believing God’s version of history: that we all have failed to live up to the standard of holiness for which he created us, that by doing so we have brought eternal punishment on ourselves, and that no action on our part can rectify this situation, but God has rectified it on our behalf through the sacrifice Christ made in our place. Our response to this is what Paul teaches us in Romans 10: 6a,8-10: “The righteousness that comes from faith speaks like this…The message is near you, in your mouth and in your heart. This is the message of faith that we proclaim: If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. One believes with the heart, resulting righteousness, and one confesses with the mouth, resulting in salvation.” Saving faith is the message of salvation in our mouths and in our hearts.

Living by Faith

Saving faith is not just a one-time, set-it-and-forget-it thing. Faith continues to save us not only from the eternal punishment of sin, but also it delivers us from sin itself as we walk by faith. Read Romans 8:1-17. Here Paul again spells out saving faith, but also declares to us that if we are saved, we will live differently. Note that we can still choose to live according to the flesh, living in sinfulness, so being saved doesn’t automagically override our decision-making and turn us into hyper-moral automatons. But saving faith means that we now have God’s Spirit living inside of us, and we can access the power of that Spirit to continually put sin to death in our lives. How do we do this? The same way we came to saving faith—it starts in our minds.

To receive saving faith, we renewed our minds. That is, we removed our old thoughts about God, ourselves, sin, and righteousness, and replaced them with God’s truth about those things, as revealed in Scripture. But continuing in the faith works the same way, as we continually remove those old thoughts and replace them with God’s truth, and the external evidence of this is changed living, changed desires.

Read Ephesians 4:20-24. Notice the imagery here of removing or taking off the old, worldly way of life and having our minds renewed, which allows us to clothe ourselves in the new self. This is how faith not only saves us from the punishment of our sins, but actually recreates us into the likeness of God which we originally lost in our sin. Faith is being taught by Jesus through the Holy Spirit to take off our old sinful way of life and to be clothed in God’s righteousness . And the battle for this happens in our minds.

This imagery points to a pretty useful mental-imagery discipline. The articles of clothing of my old self and those of my new self both are available to me in my wardrobe for as long as I am in this mortal body. As I grow in my saving faith, I recognize more and more of the old-self clothing that needs to be removed, and more and more new-self clothing—which “looks like” Christ and his righteousness—to be put on. But the old-self clothing is still there, and sometimes I’ll find myself wearing it again, and will need to take it back off and replace it again with new-self clothing.

Paul takes the imagery a step further in his letter to the Galatians (2:20): “I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Here we’re not only taking off the old self like clothes; the old self is dead and the only life we live now is one of faith in the Son of God. This provides an even more powerful imagery and mental discipline. My old self is a rotting corpse. Why would I keep dragging it out? We read earlier from Romans 8, in which Paul talks about putting to death the deeds and desires of the flesh. Living by faith involves mentally—and emotionally—killing those behaviors and desires and replacing them with desire for fellowship and intimacy with God and with a desire for his righteousness.

But is this our daily experience? Why not? Paul helps us out again in Romans 7:14-25. Pay particular attention to verse 21, “When I want to do what is good, evil is present in me.” So, the capacity for sin and evil are still present while we are in these bodies. But because we are new creations, the capacity for intimacy with and obedience to God also is there. Where our minds are focused at any given moment will determine which master we are serving.

Paul illustrates this for us in his letter to the Galatians (Galatians 5:16-25), in particular 24-25: “Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.” Here we see it is not only where our minds are focused, but also where our desires are focused. If we are seeking to satisfy God’s desires, we’ll bear the fruit of the Spirit. If we’re seeking to satisfy the desires of the flesh, of what the world tells us is worth pursuing, we’ll not be bearing spiritual fruit. Both desires are always available for “feeding,” but we control the food supply with our thoughts and our behavior.

So we find in these passages that there is a moment-by-moment, pushing-and-pulling dynamic to walking by faith. Faith is not a set it and forget it thing. It’s something that in any given moment we are either doing, or we simply are not doing. In the moments we do not live like or feel like new creations, we simply are not living by faith. More accurately, we are living by a kind of faith, but we are replacing faith in God with faith in something else. Ultimately, that’s what every single individual sin boils down to: replacing belief or reliance on God with reliance on something not-God.

Now we understand that faith is not simply believing that once upon a time Christ died for our sins so everything is hunky dory. Faith must be a living, breathing presence that characterizes every moment of our lives. In a follow-on essay, we’ll dig a little deeper into what this looks like and practical steps for how to do it.

Gratefulness and Satisfaction

"Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: rejoice!" Philippians 4:4

Fill Your Wandering Heart with Thankfulness (from DesiringGod.org)

I highly commend this article from Desiring God. I'd add that the principle extends virtually to anything with which you may be discontent, from other sins to relationship problems to mental illness to lack of contentment itself. Gratefulness and thanksgiving can cure a great many ills, and those they do not cure they will empower you to live with in a healthier way.

Regarding sin, I believe all sins are ultimately special cases of covetousness. John Piper has defined covetousness in this way: "Coveting is desiring anything other than God in a way that betrays a loss of contentment and satisfaction in him." We are to have no other gods before God (Exodus 20:3). When I delight in the trappings of pursuing other gods (e.g., anger or bitterness in pursuit of self-righteousness, sexual pleasure outside of biblical covenant marriage, professional success for love of money, etc.), I am ultimately serving a false god (Colossians 3:5). Specific sins are sinful because I have substituted the worship of (delight in) created things for worship of (delight in) the Creator (Romans 1:25).

The simple (though admittedly not easy) antidote to covetousness is gratefulness and thanksgiving. This is more than just a theological or philosophical point. It is a plug-and-play, ready-made one-to-one replacement behavior. An important principle in behavior change is that you cannot NOT do something. When you are refraining from a behavior, you are behaving in some other way. So if there is a behavior you want (or need) to replace, the most effective way to do so is to engage in a behavior that is incompatible with the unwanted behavior. Ideally this behavior would also move you into greater alignment with those deep-down values that you ultimately want your life to be about.

A simple example is nail biting. I cannot simply not bite my nails; any time I am not biting my nails, I am doing something else with my hands. If I want to eliminate nail biting, the goal is to replace that behavior by doing something else with my hands, something incompatible with nail biting. For example, when I catch myself biting or having the urge to bite, I can sit on my hands, as sitting on my hands is incompatible with biting my nails. Digging deeper, if I recognize that I bite my nails when I'm stressed, I can replace nail biting with massaging or stretching my hands. This activity is also incompatible with nail biting, but it also moves me more in line with the deeper need for calm.

Applying this spiritually, we must begin with embracing this truth: "[God's] divine power has given us everything required for life and godliness..." (2 Peter 1:3) Note the he has given us everything "required," not necessarily "desired." We must be really clear on the distinction between needs and wants, and we need to let God's Word define those for us.

Applying this practically, 2 Peter 1:3 is an ideal prayer and meditation for replacing any covetous discontentment. When I find myself pulled toward ungodly passions, I'll often begin by praying, "Thank you, Lord, that you have given me everything I need for life and godliness." This quickly and efficiently focuses my attention on God, his power, and his purposes. From there, I may give thanks for provisions specific to the temptation. For example, if the temptation is toward lust, I can thank God that he has provided sexual pleasure to be enjoyed in marriage (1 Corinthians 7:1-5). If I am married, I can express thanksgiving for my spouse; if I'm not, I can thank God that he has given me everything required for life and godliness, and that if he hasn't called me to be married then I don't require sexual pleasure for life or godliness.

The same principle applies for other temptations. If my anger tempts me to sin, I can reflect on the truth that vengeance belongs to our sovereign God (Romans 12:19). If I'm tempted toward overeating I can reflect on the command to make no plan to gratify the desires of the flesh (Romans 13:14) and again be thankful that God gives everything I need for life and godliness. Tempted to "keep up with the Joneses" (car, house, stuff)? Same idea.

Ultimately, giving thanks is a command we must obey. But far from a burden, obeying this command clears the path for the Lord to satisfy all of our needs with the ultimate source and object of all our desires: himself.

Faith-Minded Parenting

"...I will let them hear my words, so that they may learn to fear me all the days they live on the earth and may instruct their children." Deuteronomy 4:10b

Writing about parenting has got to be the most vulnerable topic one can take on, so I find myself pressed to preamble any thoughts on parenting with caveats and disclaimers. But let me try not to belabor the point; the bottom line is I’m far from a perfect parent. I don’t have this all figured out, but I have found some principles that have helped me grow into and make sense of this extremely important role.

Parenting is a huge responsibility, and due to its heft it can seem large and overwhelming. As with any overwhelming task, the only way through it is to break it into smaller, manageable pieces. The way this manifests in my life is to identify the principles and themes that underlie the thing, and focus my attention there. With an organizing framework in place, I have a small but diverse set of tools I can draw from to approach any task. Here is the organizing framework and principles that have helped me make sense of parenting.

Principle 1: Keep first things first.

As a follower of Christ, I ultimately have only one earthly task that matters: to make disciples. This is also my only significant task as a parent. I can raise the most well-behaved, academically successful, and professionally impressive children, but will have accomplished nothing of eternal value if I’ve not taught them the gospel.

My foremost task as a parent is to point my children to the gospel. If they choose to follow Christ, then my one and only job becomes teaching them to obey everything Christ has commanded (Matthew 28: 20). Christian parenting ultimately is nothing more and nothing less than disciple-making. If I miss this, or if I allow it to get buried under other priorities and activities of parenting (academics, sports, sexual development, even morality and care and feeding), then I’ve fundamentally failed. Conversely, when this is at the forefront of everything I do as a parent, it provides the keel that holds together the entire vessel of parenthood.

On a practical level, I seek to keep myself focused on this priority by constantly reflecting on this thought: “What is the eternal value in this?” Any parenting challenge or question that arises, I seek first to ask and answer that question. For a child that hasn’t yet accepted the gospel, asking myself that question reminds me to bring that perspective to bear—or at the very least to ensure that my course of action doesn’t draw them away or distract them from gospel truth. For a child that is a fellow follower of Christ, that question and its answer remind me to keep their spiritual development at the center of everything I seek to input into their lives.

Principle 2: Keep it simple.

One of my favorite statistical tools is the factor analysis. In the behavioral sciences, this method allows us to take large amounts of conceptual data and find the common themes that organize and characterize the information. This philosophy also is how I approach most problem sets. I find that if I can organize things into just a few practical themes, then it is much simpler to generate courses of action. To that end, I’ve found that nearly everything I need to teach my kids in support of Principle 1 reduces to three areas of focus. These are the three things I can teach them as a parent that will prepare them to understand the gospel, and once a believer, to live it.

      

      1.      You are a created, eternal being. There is a lot packed in this idea. Any created thing has a creator, and all creators leave their mark on their creations. The theological implications of this are vast, and the opportunities to explore with my child creator/created relationships between things can be both fun and significant. Eternity is an abstract concept, especially for small children, but is important to help them move toward understanding. Once they have a concept of time, however, the challenge is simply continually expanding their sense of their future. These opportunities, too, are myriad and often a lot of fun (e.g., preparing cookie dough and waiting to enjoy it after it bakes, going to school to prepare for a future occupation, etc.).

      2.      Actions have consequences. This seems self-evident, but drawing this out as a major theme in parenting has implications not only for responsiveness to the gospel, but also in basic behavior management. On the discipleship front it sets up concepts like the need for sin to be punished (as a natural consequence of the sin). It also provides a way of thinking about discipline that puts the onus on the child to control their own behavior. This could be its own principle, but for me it is closely linked with “actions have consequences.” My children need to learn to manage their own behavior, and allowing the consequences for their behavior to be as natural as possible is the most efficient way to do that. If I feel the need to control their behavior, at best I am going to undermine their natural learning progress, and at worst I am going to be frustrated to the point that my efforts are liable to stray into abuse. All abuse ultimately boils down to trying to control the behavior or emotions of another person. Whether we like it or not, we never really control our children’s behavior, even when they’re newborns. But we often do control the consequences of their behavior (or at least control what consequences of their behavior they’ll actually experience). Often there is an opportunity to allow natural consequences to take hold, or to highlight the natural consequences that could have occurred as a result of your child’s behavior. Looking for these opportunities will lay foundations for important theological understandings later on, and also will take a lot of pressure off of you to try to control that which you ultimately cannot control.

      3.      Love can be unconditional. This one, admittedly, is really difficult. The bottom line is that because I am a fallen human being, my capacity for unconditional love is limited, and I won’t always get it right. But because of the transformative work of the Holy Spirit in my life, sometimes God’s perfect love will manifest through me. Because God’s unconditional love underpins the whole gospel, as parents we need to double down on any opportunity that arises to demonstrate unconditional love to our children, and to point it out when we witness it around us. This one can be tricky to execute in light of our role as disciplinarians. However, keeping the focus of discipline on the previous theme, “actions have consequences,” will create much less tension than a punishment-focused approach. Seeking to model unconditional love, and being transparent and seeking forgiveness when I fail, also creates conditions of trust and safety that allow for a much more positive teaching environment.

      This is how I’ve made sense of my role as a parent. Hopefully there is something useful or encouraging for you, as well.

Sola Scriptura and Sexual Identity

This video, which was posted at cbmw.org, is an excellent treatment of the relationship between the authority of Scripture and the authority of natural law, with a linkage to gender and sexual identity ethics. It's certainly not for the faint of mind, but I certainly commend it to anyone as a basic but extremely articulate overview of these topics. For the short of attention, feel free to start viewing at 22:00, where you'll find a succinct summary of the first 22 minutes before he begins to build the linkage relevant to gender and sexual identity. I hope you'll find it as encouraging as I did.


As I listened, I found myself frequently reflecting on Romans 1. Here Paul argues from natural law in Romans 1:18-20 that God's wrath against godlessness and unrighteousness is justified. He then illustrates a downward spiral into darkness, at the depths of which was the worship of manmade idols. But in Romans 1:24-25 he declares that the ultimate consummation of idolatry, the fundamental exchange of the truth of God for a lie, is sexual impurity. The Holy Spirit's drawing out of this theme, that the fundamental error in sexual impurity isn't that it is the violation of some arbitrary rule but that it is the most profound expression of idolatry, has been key in my own discipleship journey.

God doesn't want to spoil our fun by asking us to arbitrarily constrain our desires. Rather, He wants us to find expression of our eternal desire for Him in the temporal expression of sexual desire in a relationship that conforms to His creative intent.

What does the Bible say about Gender Roles?

Introduction

This essay was developed from preparation for a four-week Bible study. The members of the original study group were unmarried men and women ages 18-29. Several group members requested the teaching notes, so I fleshed them out into this essay for clarity.

Understanding the Bible’s teachings on gender is foundational for understanding God’s plan for marriage and family, order and administration within the church, and a number of other aspects of our identity and relationships in the Lord. Given the propensity for this topic to produce controversy and misunderstandings, we’ll first review some basic assumptions about understanding the Bible, explore the fundamentals of what the Bible says about male and female gender, discuss biblical perspectives on sexuality, and then work out a scriptural understanding of gender roles in the family and church.

Background Assumptions

It is always good to ground any study of Scripture in sound hermeneutics, but this is especially true when seeking to understand teaching that is prone to misrepresentation in both church and society, and a teaching that underpins much of our identity in relation to God, the church, and one another. Several basic principles of sound biblical interpretation that I find helpful to keep in mind are:

     1.     Allow the Bible to interpret the Bible

     2.     Give primacy to directly stated commands and explanations and cling tightly to these truths (especially those repeated across Scripture)

     3.     Seek to understand the context of a teaching: how a verse fits into a passage, a passage within a book, a book within the rest of Scripture; how the teaching fits into the context of other teachings on the topic (see principle 1, above) and how it fits into its literary and historical context 
4.    Repeated themes, allusions, allegories, and the like can provide useful enrichment of our understanding of Scripture, but these muse be subordinate to clear and direct teaching (so hold loosely to these ideas, but do not neglect them)

     5.     Romans 1 teaches us that much can be known about God by observing His creation. But, again, these principles must be interpreted against clear teaching in Scripture, and should not be the basis for any significant theological conclusion.

If we fail at any of the above steps, we will quickly and certainly arrive at a “Christianish“ theology. It may sound good and correct, but it is ultimately at variance with Scripture. In Christianish theology, we approach Scripture with our worldview guiding our interpretation. This, in turn, often results in neglecting teachings that do not conform to our existing biases and focusing on teachings that do. Many of the great tragedies of Christendom were perpetrated under the justifications of Christianish theology. At a personal level, Christianish theology results in a person who claims citizenship in the kingdom of Christ, but whose way of thinking and living varies little from that of the world and culture around them. Ultimately we are all prone toward Christianish theology, because worldview is an incredibly powerful force.

The alternative is to approach Scripture in a manner that recognizes its authority for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training us in righteousness (2 Timothy 3:16), and to allow it to transform us by renewing our minds (Romans 12:2). As we approach Scripture to understand a topic that comes with so much cultural baggage, it is imperative that we do so with a sense of humility and a willingness to allow Scripture to transform our way of thinking. (A good exercise that helps me be mindful of the God of Scripture is to read and reflect on Job 38. Job had been receiving a lot of advice that was “Christianish” in nature, and in chapter 38 God seeks to reboot Job’s theological perspective. You might pause here and read and reflect on it now before continuing.)

My goal here is to allow Scripture to speak for itself. As you proceed, I encourage you to read each verse or passage for yourself and reflect on it before reading my comments. Also, while I strive to be thorough, this is not meant to be an exhaustive treatment of the topic. Our focus is on reviewing a good cross-section of Scripture to lay a foundation for thinking about gender from God’s perspective.

Foundational Principles from First Woman and Man

In Genesis 1:26-28, we learn:

·       Male and female both created in God’s image

·       Male and female both ordered to be fruitful and multiply

·       Male and female both given dominion over created things

Read Genesis 2:7 & 21-23. Compare how God created the first male and how God created the first female. What was similar, what was different? Why were the methods different?

Here we learn:

·       Male was created from two components: dust of the earth and breath of God, giving us our temporal and our eternal natures

·       There was nothing wrong with Adam, but God declared it was “not good” for him to be alone (and the animals, plants, and everything else in creation did not satisfy that aloneness)

·       Note that this is the state of things BEFORE any sin, and this occurred in the absolutely perfect environment of the Garden of Eden; that is, our need for human companionship was built into us by the Creator

·       So God made a “helper” who was “like” Adam; that is, at the most fundamental level, male and female are alike

A few additional questions emerge. Why the different creative methods for the male and the female? Apart from the obvious, that God is sovereign and can make whom He wants how He wants, it seems reasonable to conclude that the first human was fundamentally complete, that the creative material (e.g., genetic material) needed to make an infinite number of humans was already in place. In short, He didn't need to create Eve from the dirt because He encoded Adam with material capable of generating the entire species.

Also, why God chose the rib is a mystery, but its symbolism suggests that, being drawn from the male's side, the female is equal (as head and feet are the body parts typically used in Scripture to represent leadership or submission).

In Genesis 2:24, the creative process described above is cited as the reason a husband and wife are considered “one flesh,” and also provides the biblical foundation for marriage as being between a man and a woman. In Genesis 2:25, we learn that both of them were naked, but felt no shame. There is much we could discuss about this, but it is beyond the scope of our current purpose. Suffice it to say that because sin had not yet been introduced into the world, shame also did not yet exist.

Read Genesis 3:1-7. Here we learn that Satan (via the serpent) tempted Eve. It’s not clear that he targeted her because she was a woman or was somehow inferior. Possible interpretation is that he did so because she may not have been created yet when God gave the actual command regarding the tree, which is supported by the serpent's initial appeal to doubt (“Did God really say...”).

It's also worth noting that the serpent's two tactics for tempting Eve are the ones that Satan still uses to great effect today, especially with regard to sexuality. On the one hand there is the “Did God really say that?” attack. We see the effectiveness in this strategy where things like divorce, out-of-wedlock sexual activity, lust, and same-sex sexual intimacy are ignored or even endorsed in Christian churches. “Did God really say that you can't have sex until you're married?” On the other hand is the exaggeration of the actual prohibition (God stated clearly that they could eat from every other tree, but the serpent twisted the prohibition to be against eating from trees in general). We can see the effectiveness of this tactic in teaching that implies that sex in general is a bad thing or that a person should endure any and all kinds of abuse rather than divorce.

A variation on this temptation is when the enemy prods us toward making a moral behavior a sort of idol. Like all temptation, the goal isn't necessarily to lead us into debauchery, but to cause to be out of step with God's purposes, the result of which is bearing witness to a gospel that is not Christ's Gospel. We see the effect of this temptation in practices that elevate sexual purity to its own end (as opposed to being a function of the Holy Spirit's transformative work in the life of a believer seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness) and programs that seek to replace same-sex attraction with heterosexual attraction.

Read Genesis 3:16-19. Here we learn that the female’s punishment is enhanced pain in childbirth (but note pain resolves after childbirth, John 16:21) and being subject to her husband. Note that it doesn’t say all women subject to all men. It's also worth noting that the Hebrew grammar here allows for a number of reasonable interpretations of the nature and direction of the woman's “desire” for her husband and the husband's contrasting “rule” over her. We won't try to unpackage all of that here. Suffice it to say that it would be unwise to build much in the way of dogma on Genesis 3:16. The male’s punishment is on the earth itself, a result of which is that work becomes a struggle in ways it wasn’t before; until this point, the earth was simply fruitful.

We can infer some principles from these punishments (though, because this isn’t the explicit teaching of the passage, we need to infer with caution). Because this sin was fundamental, it is reasonable to suggest that God’s punishments for each likely addresses each person’s fundamental source of worth. For Eve, the punishment suggests that the ability to produce other humans is foundational, so it was this ability that God allowed to become tainted with pains and other things to make childbirth lose some of its dignity. For Adam, the source of pride is the ability to be productive and to provide, and so obstacles are put in place to hinder that productivity. These verses have also been interpreted to suggest that the husband's fundamental role is to provide and the wife's is to bear children. While this interpretation is not unreasonable, it would be unwise to use these verses as a primary justification for hard and fast role assignments. Much more importantly, notice also that the serpent’s punishment is carried out by the “seed of the woman.” God put the woman, despite her sin, in a central role in His redemptive plan.

Additional Examples of Women in Scripture

Working our way through the Bible, we find some historical examples of roles that women have played. In Exodus, women were central to preserving Moses, and Moses’ sister became a key player in God’s delivering His people out of Egypt. Similarly, Rahab was key to preserving Israel during the conquest of Canaan (and she became a direct ancestor of Jesus); Deborah led Israel as a “prophetess and judge” (Judges 4); the books of Ruth and Esther are studies of women God used in special ways (and Ruth is also an ancestor of Jesus). Proverbs 31:10-31 describe the hallmarks of a good wife. Note that she doesn’t exactly stay at home barefoot and pregnant. Job gave his daughters an inheritance like sons (Job 42:15).

Though the 12 disciples were men, there were women in the larger group of disciples who “followed him and helped him” (Mark 15:40-41). Mary and Martha were Jesus’ close friends. Christ appeared first to women after his resurrection, and women factored heavily in the work and ministry of the early church in Acts (including being imprisoned for their faith).

These are just a few examples. I reference them to highlight the fact that the modern American view that biblical womanhood somehow equates to a 1950s housewife doesn’t bear up under scrutiny. However, this is not an essay about biblical womanhood. The key point is that any differences the Bible describes between the roles of men and women are not based on any sort of inequality of worth or ability. In fact, the only fundamental differences the Bible describes are biological distinctions which manifest in sexuality and procreation.

Gender Roles and Sexuality

Because the most foundational differences between men and women are biological differences related to sexuality and procreation, sexuality is always at least a subtext in any consideration of biblical views of gender. Similarly, the sexual relationship between men and women is a pervasive symbol throughout Scripture of the relationship between God and His people. This is why sexuality is emphasized so much in Scripture, why sexual sins are often singled out as more egregious than other sins, and why sexual sins are often described in such a way that suggests they are the clearest measuring stick for an individual’s and a people’s relationship with God.

For an extremely gritty example of sexuality as a symbol of a person or people’s relationship with God, I refer you to Ezekiel 23. I highly recommend reading it in the Holman Christian Standard Bible. This passage illustrates that sexual purity is a symbol of devotion to God (and God’s devotion to us) and sexual immorality is a symbol of idolatry. This concept is also mirrored in Romans 1:21-23 & 24-27.

In Romans 13:13-14, Paul contrasts between impurity (including sexual immorality) and being “clothed in Christ.” Though he doesn’t cite it directly, this presents an interesting cross-reference to the Genesis account of the man and woman being naked but unashamed, then after sin being ashamed of their nakedness, a condition that ultimately could only be resolved by the covering God Himself provided by way of a blood sacrifice. This is not only a beautiful picture of sanctification, but also highlights the way that our own sexual purity—to include modesty—bears witness to God’s plan for salvation.

The most explicit links between sexual purity and devotion to God in the New Testament can be found in 1 Corinthians 6:12-20. Here we find the famous overturning of the “food for the stomach and the stomach for food” argument, which can be thought of as the first century version of more modern sentiments like “if it feels good do it”, or more sophisticated appeals to natural science and biology to justify any sort of sexual desire. In contrast, Paul reminds the Corinthians that God will ultimately do away with both food and the body (and by extension, sex). Paul goes on to highlight that although the body was designed by God to be capable of sex, sex is not the purpose for which the body was created; rather, the body was created “for the Lord.” This passage also explicitly identifies sexual union of a husband and wife (in his citation of Genesis 2:24) as a symbol of the joining of a believer to the Lord. So, again we see that sexual purity matters because it is the purest form of devotion to God: deliberately constraining our sexual behavior to conform to God’s standards for sexual behavior is an act of worship to Him (see also Romans 12:1-2).

Elsewhere (Galatians 5:19-26), Paul contrasts the works of the flesh (including sexual immorality) with the fruits of the Spirit. In 1Thessalonians 4:3-8, Paul answers the oft-asked question of “what is God’s will” by stating that its cornerstone is abstaining from lustful desires and sexual immorality.

Therefore, sexual purity also matters because it is the most specific way God has given us to show faithful obedience and stewardship of what He’s given us (our bodies). I believe this symbolism is also related to why sex is designed to be so physically and emotionally pleasurable. Our sex differences exist for our sexuality, and our sexuality exists as the most physically and emotionally salient way that God has given us to represent the love and affection He wants us to feel in our relationship with Him. It’s the most salient way God has given us to “feel” His love and affection. (This is way beyond the explicit teaching of Scripture, but I personally believe that for the follower of Christ, heaven is going to feel like an eternal orgasm.)

Because sexuality is so important to God, we needed to understand our sexuality through His eyes before we can begin to reflect upon His teachings about the relationships between husband and wife in a marriage, which ultimately symbolize all other relationships within the family, within the church, between the believer and the Lord, and between the church and Christ. While there are a lot of ways to achieve sexual pleasure, the one that God has ordained is that between a husband and wife in a covenant marriage. When sex is used within the context of a biblical marriage, it often is practically more enjoyable, but more importantly, it carries spiritual significance in its capacity to symbolize substantial spiritual truths. When we deploy sex outside of a biblical marriage, we present an affront to the spiritual truths that God-ordained sex between a husband and wife are meant to reflect.

At this point, we’ve surveyed the Bible to get a sense for what kinds of differences exist between men and women. In general, males and females are equal in every fundamental and important way, and the differences that exist are primarily biological specialization related to sexuality and procreation. We also observed that sexual purity is one of the most fundamental ways we can worshipfully submit to God’s authority, by willfully constraining our sexual behavior to conform to God’s standards. Beyond the simple but important aspect of obedience, when our sexuality is constrained to a covenant marriage between a man and a woman, we also are able to bear witness to important spiritual truths.

It is important to have these factors in context before looking at the teachings we typically associate with gender roles. Without this context, it is easy to approach these passages from a thoroughly cultural perspective, which inevitably will distort our understanding. So, as we look at concepts such as submission, it is important to keep in mind the fundamental equality males and females possess as bearers of the image of God, and also to remember that sexuality that is subjected to God’s authority bears witness to important spiritual truths.

Submission in Relationships at Home

One of the classic passages on submission in the home is Colossians 3:18-24. However, before looking at these verses, it is helpful to look at the context in which they are offered. Specific commands for submission are preceded by a general overview of the life in the body of Christ. Before calling believers to specific standards of behavior in their homes, Paul first calls all believers to high standards of conduct within the church. Colossians 3:12-17 urge believers to treat one another with compassion, to pursue unity, and to teach and admonish one another in wisdom, doing all in the name of Jesus and while giving thanks. It is reasonable, based on the flow of the text, to regard verses 12-17 as a sort of preamble, with verses 18-24 providing some (but not comprehensive) examples of ways to live out the preceding principles within specific relationships.

Paul leads off in verse 18 by calling wives to submit to their husbands. First, and most importantly, note that he does not call women to submit to men. For a wife to submit to her husband is one of the ways she can live out the standards of Christian relationships Paul described in the preceding verses, and to do so is “fitting in the Lord.” This phrase, “as is fitting in the Lord” is open to a couple of viable readings. First, that for a wife to submit is fitting in the Lord. However, it also is reasonable to consider that wives are to submit to their husbands in ways that are fitting to the Lord; that is, Paul may be setting some parameters to the submission, more or less constraining it to submitting in things that are “fitting in the Lord.” This provides grounds for ensuring that Christian wives are not being asked to submit to abuse, for example, or to follow their husbands into crime or other sinful behavior. Another thing that is extremely important to note is that Paul is addressing wives. Obedience to this teaching is the responsibility of the Christian wife. Husbands are not directed to subjugate their wives. Just as it is fundamental to our understanding of atonement that Christ voluntarily submitted to the will of God the Father in laying down His life on our behalf, Christian marriage best images spiritual truths when submission in the marriage is voluntary, not coerced.

Paul goes on to charge husbands with loving their wives. I’ve often wondered whether the distinctive commands to husbands and wives are because these are the aspects of the relationship that often come least naturally to each party. In caricature, one might imagine the classic hen-pecking nag of a wife and the self-absorbed oaf of a husband, each needing to fundamentally change their view of their role in the relationship. In any event, husbands are to love their wives and not be bitter toward them. More on this love later.

Colossians 3 teaches children to obey and fathers not to exasperate and discourage their children. It then urges slaves to approach their work as for Christ, not for men. Slavery and worker attitudes are beyond scope here, but I think this verse is useful not only for slaves, but also for anyone in a modern employee role. Finally, Paul ties the passage together by reiterating in verse 23 an idea previewed in verse 17 about doing everything for the Lord. It is this structure that gives best support to interpreting verses 18-24 as specific applications of verses 12-17.

Peter also calls for wives to submit to their husbands, even when the husband is not a believer. In 1 Peter 3:1-2, he calls for submission of wives to their husbands in general, and suggests that if the husband is an unbeliever, his wife’s submission serves as a testimony to the Gospel which may win him over. (Note that this is not an endorsement of pursuing a relationship with an unbeliever; rather, this scenario is most likely a situation in which one party in an existing marriage becomes a follower of Christ.) In verse 7 of the same passage, husbands are directed to be tender and understanding toward their wives. This verse also contains the controversial “weaker vessel” phrase. Regarding this, we know that Peter is not endorsing some sort of fundamental inequality. First, that sort of reading runs counter to what we’ve already learned from our review of Scripture regarding fundamental inequality. But second, he straight up references equality when he calls husbands also to honor their wives as “coheirs of the grace of life.” Furthermore, the language here does not demand that the wife’s nature be understood as weaker. It may also be valid to read it as a simile, as in the NASB: “as with someone weaker.” If you need additional reassurance, I’d direct you back to Proverbs 31. The Bible’s most elaborate description of an ideal wife describes a woman who is anything but weak.

Another passage which adds some illumination to the nature of submission between a husband and a wife is 1 Corinthians 7:1-7. Note that both the husband and wife are each called to regard their own body as the property of their spouse (verse 4). Fundamental equality. Also, although it is beyond our scope here, verses 10-16 offer some thoughts from Paul about what a Christian spouse should do with regard to an unbelieving spouse. Finally, in verses 32-38, Paul reminds us that despite its value in imaging the relationship  between Christ and His Church, marriage ultimately is a significant distraction from living with a singular focus on serving the Lord.

Submission in the Church

As we move now to discuss submission and gender roles within the Church, a good place to start is Galatians 3:27-29. This passage reiterates that we are all fundamentally equal in Christ. If we lose sight of this truth, then we are going to be prone to misunderstanding teachings regarding specific roles.

Ultimately, the different roles assigned within church serve a purpose. Why does how we order things in the church matter? In Ephesians 3:8-10 we learn that God is using the church to reveal His wisdom to “rulers and authorities in the heavens.” This idea is not developed in much detail in scripture, but it is certainly worth reflecting on the fact that this is one of the ways in which the church bears witness and that there is substantial spiritual significance to the orderliness of Christian fellowship.

In 1 Corinthians 11:1-16 we find one of the most controversial New Testament passages relating to gender. The prescriptions and proscriptions contained here are often interpreted as being culturally bound to the time and place of Paul and his original audience, although Paul himself suggests in verse 16 it is universal. Because standards for dress and appearance are at once intensely personal and relentlessly cultural, passages such as this can be uncomfortable. In handling such teachings, I find it helpful to take a step back and ask a few questions.

First, when I feel uncomfortable upon reading a passage of scripture, I need to ask myself why I feel uncomfortable and try to discern what aspects of the teaching are invoking the discomfort. Next, I need to check my attitude: Am I approaching scripture to have my mind renewed and transformed (Romans 12:2)? Put more pointedly, am I seeking new ways to make my life a living sacrifice of obedience (Romans 12:1) or am I trying to figure out what I can get away with? When scripture provides a “do this” or “don’t do that” directive, I ought at least to consider adopting the assumption that the teaching applies to me unless it is clearly demonstrated otherwise.

Another mental model with which one may approach such teaching is to consider what is gained by adhering to the teaching and what is lost in disregarding it. If it is a teaching upon which salvation may be gained or lost I’m certainly going to seek to ensure not only I, but also others, are aware and are seeking to obey. If it is not salvation or some other eternal stake, I’d categorize it as an opportunity to “delight in [the Lord’s] commands” (Psalm 119:47) through personal obedience, but make relatively little of it in sharing the gospel and training new followers of Christ in discipleship.

Beyond this general approach, it is also helpful when interpreting any biblical teaching to seek to understand the function the teaching or command serves. Paul introduces the section as being about “traditions” he is passing on (verse 2). In verse 3 Paul points again to the relationship between husband and wife as symbolic of Christ’s relationship to believers and the church. From this introduction, I believe it is reasonable to interpret the following section as relating to traditions which are meant to testify to the relationship between Christ and the church. In obeying these, believers are helping to amplify important truths about Christ and His church in ways that words cannot. Conversely, though, there is nothing in the passage which suggests that salvation or other eternal matters hang in the balance. Additionally, it is worth noting in verses 11-12 that, once again, fundamental equality between women and men is emphasized; therefore, the different roles assigned to each gender here are about symbolically imaging spiritual truths, not about a hierarchy rooted in the relative value of each gender. Finally, I strongly believe that it is up to each man and each woman to apply and obey this passage in counsel with sound discipleship and fellowship. The symbolic nature of this fashion of ordering worship is tarnished when obedience is coerced rather than voluntary.

In sum, I’d encourage all believers to approach 1 Corinthians 11:1-16 as an opportunity to bear witness to spiritual truths about the relationship between Christ and the church.

Along similar lines, in 1 Timothy 2: 8-15, Paul again offers specific, gender-aligned exhortation regarding believers’ behavior in the church. The main guidance to men is to pray and to avoid letting anger and arguments disrupt fellowship in the body of Christ. But this passage is most famous for its commands to women regarding modest dress and a prohibition against teaching or exercising authority over a man in the church. Interestingly, Pauls supports these behavior guides with the order of creation (Adam created first, then Eve) and the order of the fall (Eve first, then Adam). There are those who interpret these prohibitions as being cultural and/or specific to the place and time of Paul’s original audience. Indeed, “I do not allow” in verse 12 lends some support to this interpretation. On the other hand, Paul repeats the command in 1 Corinthians 14:33-35, and this time explicitly makes it universal. There are other aspects of this passage that can be difficult to sort out, but I will not attempt to do so here. Instead, I point the reader to a couple of thoughts about how to interpret and apply the Bible. First, as with nearly all of scripture, it is not for one person to coerce or otherwise attempt to force another to obey; rather, we each need to humbly approach God’s Word with an eye toward obedience, trusting that obedience even—or perhaps especially—to difficult teachings produces fruit that can only be brought about by His Holy Spirit. Second, allow scripture to interpret scripture. Are the teachings here reflected elsewhere in scripture? If so, how do similar passages interact with this passage to enhance our understanding of God’s message to us on these matters? Finally, when a passage is very clear regarding what is expected but I find it difficult to accept and obey, how can I move toward agreeing with God on the matter? Can I start with a small change in one aspect of the teaching?

Paul offers additional guidance for ministry within the church along both gender and generational lines. In Titus 2:1-7, Paul delineates specific responsibilities for older men, older women, younger women, and younger men. There are specific aspects of behavior that are emphasized for each, but there is also a principle laid out in which older individuals mentor younger individuals of the same gender. In the typical American church, ministry tends to be divided by “age and stage” of life. While there are practical reasons for doing so, there is no clear biblical principle for doing so. Furthermore, this arrangement introduces artificial barriers to faithfully obeying this teaching from Titus. In light of this, believers ought to actively seek opportunities to be mentored by older believers of the same gender, and also to be a mentor to younger believers. Pastors and others in leadership roles in churches would be wise to create opportunities which encourage such mentoring relationships.

Perhaps the most comprehensive passage on submission is Ephesians 5:15-32, which describes both submission in the church and submission at home. Furthermore, this is the passage which most explicitly describes the ways in which submission in marriage bears witness to spiritual truths about the relationship Christ and the church. This passage builds on itself, and I think that is an important aspect in how one ought to interpret and seek to apply it. The passage opens with an exhortation to diligently attend to how we walk and behave, with an emphasis on behaving wisely. Two main reasons are given for behaving wisely: to make the most of the time that we have, and in recognition that we live in evil times. I believe these dual purposes are ultimately about kingdom building, bearing witness and making disciples. To protect our testimony we are urged not to get drunk (verse 18), but to allow the Holy Spirit to empower us to teach and encourage one another through “psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs,” giving thanks, and submitting to one another “in the fear of Christ.” I won’t attempt to unpack what the “fear” of Christ may be, but as the first verses in chapter 5 seem to refer to future judgment, it is reasonable to think of it as referring to Christ’s eventual role as judge. So, our submission to one another is rooted, at least in part, in recognizing Christ not only as savior, but as judge.

Paul then refines the concept of submission within the body of Christ by delineating submission within the households that make up the church. He starts with wives, calling them to submit to their “own husbands.” That it is submission to one’s own husband is absolutely essential; as we discussed earlier, women are not called to generally submit to men. The rationale for this submission is the symbolic representation of the church’s submission to Christ. The church submits to Christ because he has saved the church. He restates the command and the rationale, then calls on husbands to “love” their wives. Seems easy enough, until you look at how he defines this love: “just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her.” Furthermore, the focus of this self-sacrificial love is to “make her holy.” He further calls on husbands to love and care for their wives with the same care and love they show to their own bodies, again drawing the parallels between Christ’s love and care for His “body,” the church.

When reflecting on this passage, I find it helpful to also consider Philippians 2:5-11, which provides an even more detailed description of how Christ loved the church (and by extension how husbands are to love their wives). In this passage, we see Christ first and foremost submitting Himself fully—His will, His desires, His plans, His possessions—to God (even though He was fundamentally equal to God), and then willingly giving them up for the benefit of those whom He died to save. Of course, this passage is not written specifically to husbands, but to all believers. In this way, this passage goes even further to provide a rich context for how submission within the family and within the body of Christ work. When every believer makes their attitude like the attitude of Christ (verse 5), then we are all considering our equality (in our case not equality with God, but our equality with one another, which we’ve already established earlier in this essay) as something not to be used for our own advantage (verse 6), but as something we can voluntarily lay down, taking on the relative worth of a slave (verse 7) in complete obedience to God’s will. In so doing, we allow God to exalt not only us, but more importantly Himself. Using this passage to expand our frame of reference for “submission” also helps us see how Paul, back in Ephesians 5, found the relationship between Christ and the church such a “profound mystery” (verse 32).

Putting all this together, we see that we all are called to submit. All of us must submit to the authority of Christ and the authority of the church. Within our homes, wives are to submit to husbands, children to parents. Those submitted to are called to serve and sacrifice themselves for those in their charge. All are fundamentally equal in the eyes of the Lord, but we are asked to constrain our equality to create a prescribed order of things in the home and the church. Ultimately, the reason for this is that it bears witness to important truths about God.

Conclusion

At our most fundamental level, men and women are equals, and our differences are largely biological ones related to sexuality and procreation. Obeying God’s laws with regard to sexual purity is the most personal way we can practice the spiritual discipline of submitting our will and our behavior to God’s will and standards of behavior, which allows us access to His purposes and His pleasure we cannot attain any other way. When two parties in a relationship relinquish their efforts to pursue pleasure for themselves and focus instead on satisfying the desires of and bringing pleasure to the other party, each ends up receiving a degree of fulfillment and pleasure they could not have achieved by asserting their own rights. Sex is the rawest expression of that, but God gave it as a symbol of that principle of self-sacrificial love. This is why sexual purity is important, because of this spiritual symbolism. This is why submission and mutual self-sacrifice in the Christian marriage is so vital, because it images this spiritual principle to one another, the church, and the world. This is also why submission within the body of Christ is so important, because it images this principle within the church and to the world in ways that preaching and evangelism cannot. Our lives submitted to God’s laws for sexual purity, our marriages engaged in mutual self-sacrifice, and our churches ordered according to God’s principles creates a richly layered, fully animated scale model of God’s love.

What Do I Do If I Find Submission Hard?

Following Christ was never promised to be easy; Christ Himself described it as daily following Him to His execution (Matthew 16:24). Ultimately, our willingness—or unwillingness—to obey these teachings is ultimately a reflection on our willingness—or unwillingness—to make our lives a testimony for the Lord. In light of these factors, meditation on the following verses may be helpful in seeking to adopt the mind of Christ:

Colossians 3:5: “Put to death what belongs to your worldly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desire, and greed, which is idolatry.”

1 John 2:15-17: “Do not love the world or the things that belong to the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in him. For everything that belongs to the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride in one’s lifestyle—is not from the Father, but is from the world. And the world with its lust is passing away, but the one who does God’s will remains forever.”

Matthew 6:33: “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you.”

Psalm 37:3-6: “Trust in the Lord and do what is good; dwell in the land and live securely. Take delight in the Lord, and He will give you your heart’s desires. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in Him, and He will act, making your righteousness shine like the dawn, your justice like the noonday.”

Afterword: Official Church Offices

This essay focused on biblical teachings related to gender, sexuality, and submission with a view toward personal obedience. The New Testament also addresses gender in descriptions of qualifications for officers of the church. Church polity is a large topic, and I won’t even pretend to give it a thorough overview. When I look at all that scripture says on the topic, though, it seems to me that it is left intentionally open. For the most part, the local church is given very broad lanes for organizing itself and conducting its business. While biblical cases can be made for various approaches, I think the clearest reading of scripture offers very little in the way of universals or absolutes. But, where it does offer absolutes, we ought to pay close attention.

The only passage that officially and explicitly names church offices is 1 Timothy 3:1-12. Verses 1-7 describe “elders” or “overseers” and verses 8-12 describe “deacons.” Note, first and foremost, that gender is not the central theme to the standards and requirements for these offices. To be truly obedient to these verses, we need to be absolutely certain we are demanding the characterological and behavioral standards be met. That said, and most germane to our purposes here, there are gender and sexuality aspects to these requirements. The clearest reading of the qualifications for the elder/overseer role is that it must be a man. The main reason for this is the requirement that they be “able to teach,” which as we saw earlier, is expressly prohibited elsewhere in Paul’s instructions to the church. As for deacons, the picture is a bit fuzzier. Many interpreters restrict the office of deacon to men. However, verse 11 can be honestly interpreted to be referring either to the wives of deacons or to female deacons (the Greek word here is “woman” and can be used—and is used throughout the New Testament—to refer either to women generally or to wives specifically, depending on context). For those who interpret it as the wives of deacons, the challenge is that it seems unlikely that there would be special requirements levied against the wives of deacons but not the wives of elders/overseers, especially in light of the fact that the requirements for the latter are generally more restrictive. Suffice it to say, there seems to be room here for churches to restrict the office of deacon to men only, or to open it to both men and women. Again, the focus should be on the other qualities first and foremost, and for the purpose of building up the church (1 Corinthians 14:26).