SPEAKER_01: It's written in Genesis chapter two, verse four to twenty five, the creation of man and woman.
SPEAKER_01: These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.
SPEAKER_01: When no bush of the field was yet in the land, and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground.
SPEAKER_01: Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground, and bred into his nostrils the breath the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.
SPEAKER_01: And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed.
SPEAKER_01: And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food.
SPEAKER_01: The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
SPEAKER_01: A river flowed out of Eden toward the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers.
SPEAKER_01: The name of the first river, Fison, it is the one that flowed around the whole land on Havila, where there is gold, and the gold of that land is good.
SPEAKER_01: Bedelium and Onyx stone are there.
SPEAKER_01: The name of the second river is the Gion.
SPEAKER_01: It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Kush.
SPEAKER_01: And the name of the third river is the Tigris, which flows east of Assyria, and the fourth river is the Euphrates.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.
SPEAKER_01: And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, You may surely eat of every three in the garden, but of the three of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in that day, for in the day that you eat of it you will surely die.
SPEAKER_01: Then the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone.
SPEAKER_01: I will make him a helper fit for him.
SPEAKER_01: Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens, and brought them to the men to see that he would call them.
SPEAKER_01: And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name.
SPEAKER_01: The man gave names to all love livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him.
SPEAKER_01: So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh.
SPEAKER_01: And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.
SPEAKER_01: Then the man said, This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.
SPEAKER_01: She shall be called woman, because she has taken she was taken out of man.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
SPEAKER_01: And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.
SPEAKER_01: And so reads God's word.
SPEAKER_03: Welcome.
SPEAKER_03: We are going to be looking at a little bit of that passage that Carrie Ann read for us.
SPEAKER_03: Our normal practice at City Church is to go through books of the Bible.
SPEAKER_03: We did a long series through the Gospel of John, did the whole uh gospel.
SPEAKER_03: And uh after we finish that, we are now for the next uh five weeks or so in a in a topical series where we're looking at uh different issues connected uh with uh sex, gender, sexuality, uh, those various things.
SPEAKER_03: We've done two weeks kind of laying the foundations of uh of how to how to think about some of these things.
SPEAKER_03: I encourage you to go back on Spotify or Apple Podcasts and to listen to those first him and her talks.
SPEAKER_03: And now this morning we begin two weeks thinking particularly about how men and women relate to one another.
SPEAKER_03: Uh, so hopefully you didn't bring any rotten fruit uh or anything like that, and uh we can all have a good stimulating uh time considerate considering uh these uh these issues.
SPEAKER_03: So we're in Genesis this week.
SPEAKER_03: We'll be in the New Testament next week.
SPEAKER_03: We're going to uh so I'm gonna speak uh from Genesis 2 for around about kind of 25 minutes or so, and then uh and then Philippa, um uh my wife will will come up and we'll have a little bit of a discussion.
SPEAKER_03: Um, that's why the chairs are here, just about how some of these things uh play out in uh in real life.
SPEAKER_03: I guess understanding how the sexes relate to one another is an important topic, not least of all because it's uh pretty uh charged one emotionally.
SPEAKER_03: People talk about the battle of the sexes uh or toxic masculinity or mansplaining.
SPEAKER_03: Um and so these questions are important ones for us all to wrestle with.
SPEAKER_03: I think that our world is trying to figure out what it means for for men and women to uh to coexist together in various spheres, whether it's the home or uh or the workplace or just generally in society, what does it mean to be a man?
SPEAKER_03: What does it mean to be a uh a woman?
SPEAKER_03: These questions of how much is nature, how much is nurture?
SPEAKER_03: Are sex and gender just social constructs?
SPEAKER_03: Are they performances that we enact uh in society and in our relationships?
SPEAKER_03: Uh is these two next two weeks, are they when we talk about gender differences, or am I just wanting to go down uh back to some sort of Victorian uh uh Puritanism or back to kind of 1950s uh kind of housewife image?
SPEAKER_03: Uh the well, the short answer to that is no, not necessarily.
SPEAKER_03: Um, but we have uh come to see that these questions are personal and important for each of us to deal with.
SPEAKER_03: We've also seen in the first two weeks that uh in the creation story of how God makes uh man and woman, uh that there is a similarity and a difference, that there is a uh a sexual dichotomy that is based in biology, that human beings are sexed and sacred.
SPEAKER_03: And we also saw that God created us, this is last week, uh, with intent and design and purpose.
SPEAKER_03: And in order to live uh morally in the world, is to live in line with that design and intent and purpose.
SPEAKER_03: And so, like I say, this morning is the first of two sermons.
SPEAKER_03: I'm gonna give very kind of broad brushstroke, uh kind of basic understanding.
SPEAKER_03: Like I said at the very first sermon, this is a primer uh on understanding uh some of these very complex issues.
SPEAKER_03: But let me run through some of the key kind of um kind of marker points of our in our thinking to do with with men and women.
SPEAKER_03: So, first of all, uh very controversially, men and women are equal.
SPEAKER_03: Okay, if you're taking notes, men and women are equal.
SPEAKER_03: That's point number one.
SPEAKER_03: Now, how do we know that men and women are equal?
SPEAKER_03: Well, we know from Genesis chapter one.
SPEAKER_03: What is the basis of the equality that exists between men and women?
SPEAKER_03: It is that they are both made in the image of God.
SPEAKER_03: They are equal, therefore, in value, equal in dignity, they have equal access to God through Jesus.
SPEAKER_03: They are equal inheritors of the kingdom of God that He is bringing in.
SPEAKER_03: Men and women are equal.
SPEAKER_03: And the basis of that equality is this shared image that we both display the image of God.
SPEAKER_03: And I think part of the reason why there is this wrestle in our world now is because we have kind of jettisoned the idea of human beings existing in the image of God, we have to try and attach equality to something else and redefine what it means.
SPEAKER_03: But the Christian definition is that equality is contingent on something, it's contingent upon men and women being made in the image of the divine.
SPEAKER_03: This means that whatever we go on to talk about in terms of the difference between men and women, it is undergirded by this commitment to equality, equality of value, equality of dignity, equality of worth, equality of access to God, equal inheritors of the kingdom that Jesus is bringing in.
SPEAKER_03: There is, of course, another way in which men and women are equal.
SPEAKER_03: You keep on reading uh past Genesis 1 and 2, and we read Genesis 3.
SPEAKER_03: Men and women are equally fallen, equally affected by sin and its entry into the world, equally given to uh to self-love and to that narcissism that sin brings about.
SPEAKER_03: For sure, sin has affected the genders in different ways, but neither sex has a monopoly on virtue.
SPEAKER_03: We are all therefore equally in need of salvation, of rescue.
SPEAKER_03: It's not masculinity that's toxic, it's sin.
SPEAKER_03: Equal in dignity, equal in value, equal in our image barreness, and equally in need of a savior.
SPEAKER_03: That's point number one.
SPEAKER_03: Point number two.
SPEAKER_03: Men and women are different.
SPEAKER_03: Equality does not mean sameness.
SPEAKER_03: One of the mistakes that our culture makes is seeing any differentiation as a diminishing of value, but this is not a case that the Bible makes at all.
SPEAKER_03: That you can be different in terms of your role and operation and function, and simultaneously of equal value.
SPEAKER_03: And where does Christianity get that idea from?
SPEAKER_03: Well, wonderfully, Christianity gets that idea from who God is in himself.
SPEAKER_03: Christians believe that our God is Trinitarian.
SPEAKER_03: That means that he is three persons in one God.
SPEAKER_03: That's uh what the city kids were learning just a couple of weeks ago.
SPEAKER_03: Uh, we've been singing a song, How many persons are there in God?
SPEAKER_03: There are three persons in one God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_03: And what we see as we look at how the Trinity plays out on the stage of human history is we see two things.
SPEAKER_03: We see the Father in love and generosity sending his son.
SPEAKER_03: And his son in joyful, willing obedience to his father, going and accomplishing the works that he sent out, set set for him to do.
SPEAKER_03: And so the Bible kind of wrestles with these two questions.
SPEAKER_03: Question number one is Can you be in authority and genuinely loving?
SPEAKER_03: You look at God the Father, you get something like uh Jesus' high priestly prayer from John chapter 17, and you just reflect on all of the things that that this generous father gives to the son, and you conclude, yes.
SPEAKER_03: In the Trinity, you can be in authority and genuinely loving.
SPEAKER_03: And then the second question is: can you be a follower?
SPEAKER_03: Can you be in submission and of equal value?
SPEAKER_03: And again, the answer from Jesus is yes.
SPEAKER_03: He says in John chapter 5, I can do nothing of my own.
SPEAKER_03: What I see my father doing, that is what I can do.
SPEAKER_03: He has given me words to speak.
SPEAKER_03: I've come to accomplish the task that he has, he has sent me into the world.
SPEAKER_03: Not your, not my will, but yours be done.
SPEAKER_03: And yet, he understands his co-equality, his same dignity with the Father.
SPEAKER_03: That is why the Jews wanted to kill Jesus.
SPEAKER_03: He says that just as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself.
SPEAKER_03: This co-eternal, co-equal in divinity, and glory and nature, and yet different in terms of their function.
SPEAKER_03: In the Bible's mind, difference in function is no diminishing of value.
SPEAKER_03: We see this borne out in our world.
SPEAKER_03: Uh we see that there are differences between men and women in terms of our biology, our psychology, our temperament.
SPEAKER_03: Men tend to be stronger, more aggressive, more assertive, more task-oriented.
SPEAKER_03: Women tend to be more concerned for people rather than things, more compassionate, more nurturing.
SPEAKER_03: Men and women tend to think differently.
SPEAKER_03: Men tend to compartmentalize.
SPEAKER_03: Women have a more interconnected way of thinking.
SPEAKER_03: I don't know if you've noticed that.
SPEAKER_03: Um we make friends differently.
SPEAKER_03: We handle criticism differently.
SPEAKER_03: We resolve conflict differently.
SPEAKER_03: Now note that most of the way through there, I said tend to, because somebody in here is going to go, well, you know, I'm a man and I'm not particularly interested in things.
SPEAKER_03: I much prefer people.
SPEAKER_03: Well, that's my that's kind of my job.
SPEAKER_03: My job is people, right?
SPEAKER_03: Okay, so does that make me less than a man?
SPEAKER_03: No.
SPEAKER_03: Uh, or you might think, well, I'm a woman and I and I'm an engineer.
SPEAKER_03: Uh and I and I love to kind of focus on tasks and solve problems and that sorts of things.
SPEAKER_03: I'm using the word tend to.
SPEAKER_03: Yes, there is much overlap.
SPEAKER_03: I was going to put on a uh a graph showing the uh the the the two bell curves showing the average heights of men and women in order to illustrate this point.
SPEAKER_03: Because the point is, if you were to take the uh the average man and the average woman, uh, the average man would be taller than the average woman.
SPEAKER_03: But there's lots of overlap in terms of heights.
SPEAKER_03: But that doesn't say that there that there aren't differences in terms of the average, that that other bell curved graph is moved over for man because the average man is taller than the average woman.
SPEAKER_03: There are differences.
SPEAKER_03: Yes, in the the distribution of different traits, there will overlap, but study after study has shown that men and women tend to differ along these lines.
SPEAKER_03: And so you come to the question of well, is this nature or nurture?
SPEAKER_03: And you can't and uh you could look at some of the uh the famous and intriguing studies that came out of Scandinavia, which have uh which have sought to uh to uh impose on top down egalitarian social policies, wanting to kind of uh uh emphasize the equality between men and women in the hope that actually more women would go into things like the STEM fields.
SPEAKER_03: And what has happened is the opposite the men and women have stratified in these sort of natural differences, these tendencies.
SPEAKER_03: For sure, there are social aspects to gender, and the social aspects of gender are real, but they operate in line with the natural differences between the sexes, rather than creating and enforcing those differences out of nowhere.
SPEAKER_03: Men and women are equal, men and women are different.
SPEAKER_03: Let's think then about uh about men, and we'll think about women, and we'll think about Jesus.
SPEAKER_03: Okay, that's where we're going over the next little little while.
SPEAKER_03: Let's think about men.
SPEAKER_03: In Genesis 2 that Carrie Ann read for us, uh there is a uh few verses about the the creation of the man, where they verse 2, verse 7, if you've got it on your phone or you're following along, then the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground, breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and he became a living creature.
SPEAKER_03: And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed.
SPEAKER_03: He makes the man and places him in a garden.
SPEAKER_03: It's interesting.
SPEAKER_03: I'd always kind of assumed that the garden's there, and then God comes into the garden and makes the man in the garden, but that's not what it says.
SPEAKER_03: It says the man was made, and then God prepares a garden and places him there.
SPEAKER_03: What's going on with that?
SPEAKER_03: Some writers uh have taken this to mean that men are made for the wild.
SPEAKER_03: I mean, just look at me.
SPEAKER_03: They were created for the outside, the place of chaos.
SPEAKER_03: You might have read John Eldridge's book, Wild at Heart, and thought, no, I am the warrior that's heading out to throw some axes and smoke some meat.
SPEAKER_03: I need to be in the place of chaos, the the pioneering frontier spirit.
SPEAKER_03: And therefore, certainly what Eldridge concludes in uh in a in a book like Wild at Heart, I think wrongly, is that men realize their best selves, their most masculine selves, when they return to that wilderness.
SPEAKER_03: That one of the things that you don't want to do with a man who is made outside of the garden is to domesticate him.
SPEAKER_03: I believe that that's wrong.
SPEAKER_03: And I think that that presents a skewed and stereotypical view of manhood and masculinity that the Bible doesn't necessarily support.
SPEAKER_03: Yes, we tend to be stronger.
SPEAKER_03: Yes, we tend to be more aggressive, more ambitious, more chaotic.
SPEAKER_03: But God places the man in the garden.
SPEAKER_03: He puts him there.
SPEAKER_03: There must be something good about that.
SPEAKER_03: Now, what is the garden?
SPEAKER_03: Well, the garden, in a sense, is a uh is a metaphor, it's an image, it's a uh for a place of relationship, specifically the race uh a place of covenant, but covenant earlier, people say, what's that word mean?
SPEAKER_03: It just means a uh a binding promise, serious relationship with who?
SPEAKER_03: Well, with God, first and foremost.
SPEAKER_03: God establishes a covenant with Abraham in Genesis 2, 17, where he says, You may eat of any tree that is in the garden, but if the tree that's in the midst of the garden, you may not eat of it, from the day that you eat of it, you will surely die.
SPEAKER_03: That's him establishing his relationship with the man.
SPEAKER_03: It's defined in terms of freedom to eat whatever and to cultivate the garden however he sees fit, and with this one prohibition not to eat of the tree that's in the garden, in the midst of the garden.
SPEAKER_03: So God defines a relationship with the man in the garden, and then there's a relationship with creation itself as he as he is given to uh to work and to tend.
SPEAKER_03: We'll talk about that just in a second.
SPEAKER_03: And then there is his uh his relationship to the uh to the woman after she is created.
SPEAKER_03: So, what is the garden that the man is placed in?
SPEAKER_03: The garden is the place of both blessing and obligation, of both rights and responsibilities.
SPEAKER_03: Adam had the right to name the animals whatever he wanted to call them, and had the responsibility to work and to keep the garden.
SPEAKER_03: Adam had the blessing of every tree and its fruit, and the obligation not to eat of the tree that's in the midst of the garden.
SPEAKER_03: The garden is the place of obligation and of blessing.
SPEAKER_03: And God puts the man there for a reason.
SPEAKER_03: Men, your masculinity is not realized in throwing axes or in listening to Andrew Tate.
SPEAKER_03: I'm serious.
SPEAKER_03: Can I get an amen from a man here?
SPEAKER_03: Amen.
SPEAKER_03: Sowing your wild oats or generally being untamed.
SPEAKER_03: No, your manhood is realized in the context of both obligation and responsibility, of right and blessing, of channeling your strength and ambition for the sake of the garden that God has placed you in.
SPEAKER_03: Some of us aren't strong enough to throw axes.
SPEAKER_03: Some of us aren't alphas.
SPEAKER_03: But we can all vote.
SPEAKER_03: Voluntarily take on responsibility.
SPEAKER_03: Enjoy the blessings of the garden and the obligations that come along with it.
SPEAKER_03: Don't get suckered into this idea of I just need to be wild and chaotic.
SPEAKER_03: No, God places you in the garden.
SPEAKER_03: Adam is told to work and to keep the garden.
SPEAKER_03: We read.
SPEAKER_03: These two words are important and I think significant.
SPEAKER_03: The word to work it is to bring about its growth, its flourishing, its fruitfulness.
SPEAKER_03: And the word to keep it is to nurture and to guard it.
SPEAKER_03: You think of the spheres of life, the gardens that God has placed you in.
SPEAKER_03: In your workplace, in your relationships, in your marriage.
SPEAKER_03: How do you bring about its growth and its flourishing?
SPEAKER_03: How do you channel all that God has made you to be to cause those gardens to be fruitful?
SPEAKER_03: How do you nurture them and guard them?
SPEAKER_03: God encourages, I think, men to voluntarily take on this responsibility rather than living in the wilderness, eating locusts and honey, and to channel our ambitions there.
SPEAKER_03: But with these commands, quickly comes the first not good.
SPEAKER_03: It is not good that Adam is alone.
SPEAKER_03: It is not good that he does not have a mate to help him in these tasks.
SPEAKER_03: This is heightened in the text by the naming of the animals.
SPEAKER_03: I think that's why the kind of the animals are kind of put in there.
SPEAKER_03: Because you see, um in verse 18, it's the first time where God says, It's not good for the man to be alone.
SPEAKER_03: I'll make a helper fit for him.
SPEAKER_03: And then he brings all you know, carnival of the animals.
SPEAKER_03: And it's kind of it's almost kind of ridiculous.
SPEAKER_03: You know, God kind of goes, Will the giraffe do?
SPEAKER_03: And Adam's like, No, like probably not.
SPEAKER_03: Uh, there's no helper fit for him, there's no one like him to work alongside him.
SPEAKER_03: And so he causes the man to fall into a deep sleep, and he makes the woman from his side, from his rib.
SPEAKER_03: And so let's talk briefly about the creation of the first woman.
SPEAKER_03: God makes her out of his side, and from this I think we learn several things.
SPEAKER_03: I noted in the first talk on uh on this that uh the word for rib or side here uh in this text is never anywhere else translated rib or side.
SPEAKER_03: Uh it is a word that denotes a sacred piece of architecture in the temple.
SPEAKER_03: And so the first thing that I think God wants us to note this morning is that women are sacred.
SPEAKER_03: They are holy and good.
SPEAKER_03: They are sacred, but also they are different.
SPEAKER_03: We see this in there uh in the creation of the man and the creation of the woman.
SPEAKER_03: They're made in different ways.
SPEAKER_03: Adam is made from the dirt, it's made from the dust of the earth.
SPEAKER_03: Eve is made from him.
SPEAKER_03: Her origins are different.
SPEAKER_03: I don't think this is uh to denote uh and there's no value judgment placed on that.
SPEAKER_03: It's not denoting a lesser creation, if anything, it's almost denoting something more sacred.
SPEAKER_03: Dirt, sacred temple architecture, right?
SPEAKER_03: Um, and yet there isn't there is an order within creation.
SPEAKER_03: The man is made first, and then the woman from the man.
SPEAKER_03: Their origins are different.
SPEAKER_03: The woman is a perfect fit for the man.
SPEAKER_03: This is where we uh get the words uh a helper fit, a helper fit noted twice in these verses, once in verse 18 and then again in verse 20.
SPEAKER_03: A helper fit for him.
SPEAKER_03: When it says fit, this means a perfect fit.
SPEAKER_03: This is not like fish and chips on a plate.
SPEAKER_03: They're nice when they go together, but you could just have chips and that would be good, or you could just have fried fish and that would be good.
SPEAKER_03: And it just so happens.
SPEAKER_03: It's particularly nice when the two are together, but you could you could take it or leave it.
SPEAKER_03: No, no.
SPEAKER_03: This is more in terms of perfectly interlocking jigsaw pieces.
SPEAKER_03: She isn't an optional add-on, she is essential for him.
SPEAKER_03: That is why it is not good, even before the fall, that he is alone.
SPEAKER_03: Verses 18 to 20 among the animals, there's no helper fit for Adam, that is no suitable helper, no perfect fit to help him in the work of working and keeping the garden.
SPEAKER_03: It is not until the woman is made that that helper then comes.
SPEAKER_03: What about the word helper?
SPEAKER_03: Because I suspect, in fact, I know, that uh that when women hear the word helper, it kind of chafes up against them slightly because helper sounds like assistant.
SPEAKER_03: An assistant that does sound like a denigration of value.
SPEAKER_03: So it's worth just thinking about this in a couple of different ways.
SPEAKER_03: Well, it doesn't imply diminished value because everything that we've already said is true.
SPEAKER_03: Equal in dignity, value, worth, equal image bearers, sacred in their making.
SPEAKER_03: And so whatever helper means, it can't be a diminishing of value.
SPEAKER_03: What's more, from our call to worship this morning, Peter read from Psalm 33.
SPEAKER_03: And in Psalm 33, in the verses that he read, God describes himself using the same word.
SPEAKER_03: God describes himself as a helper.
SPEAKER_03: Or in when Jesus is preparing to leave the disciples, as we saw in John's gospel, how is it that he describes the Holy Spirit as another helper?
SPEAKER_03: That is, a helper like I am a helper.
SPEAKER_03: God voluntarily takes on this sort of language for himself and does not see it as a diminishing of his glory or of his dignity or of his worth.
SPEAKER_03: It's also worth noting that this idea of a helper, it's not so much as an assistant.
SPEAKER_03: It has this idea in it of someone is in a battle, and the battle is going against them, and then another force comes in alongside the person who is fighting, and they turn the course of the course of the battle.
SPEAKER_03: To be a helper is to be a game changer.
SPEAKER_03: And that is how the woman is described.
SPEAKER_03: The point in calling her a helper fit, a perfect helper, is not to denigrate women.
SPEAKER_03: It's to point out the fact that men cannot do it on their own, that Adam couldn't fulfill his task on his own.
SPEAKER_03: He needs help.
SPEAKER_03: Well, yeah.
SPEAKER_03: She is a perfect helper.
SPEAKER_03: What is it that he can't do on his own?
SPEAKER_03: In a sense, it's like yeah, it's in a sense, yes.
SPEAKER_03: Help to work and to tend the garden, but I think there's something else.
SPEAKER_03: And it's this Adam can't perfectly image God on his own.
SPEAKER_03: Our God is not singular, he is not alone, he is an eternal community of joy and of love.
SPEAKER_03: He is both united and diverse.
SPEAKER_03: Father, son, and spirit.
SPEAKER_03: Equal and yet different.
SPEAKER_03: The father is not the son, the son is not the spirit, the spirit is not the father.
SPEAKER_03: And as a singular being, Adam could not image that complex and beautiful eternal dance.
SPEAKER_03: It is not until, it is only when the woman, his perfect helpmate, comes alongside that he is then with her able to display that perfect, diverse unity of the God of the universe.
SPEAKER_03: Women are here in this text, celebrated in creation.
SPEAKER_03: How do we know that she celebrated?
SPEAKER_03: Because when she is made and brought to the man, he sings with joy.
SPEAKER_03: That's why the the text is it's places poetry.
SPEAKER_03: He sings at her.
SPEAKER_03: He says, At last, this is bone of my bone.
SPEAKER_03: I don't need to work with the giraffe.
SPEAKER_03: She is flesh of my flesh.
SPEAKER_03: She is perfect because she is that perfect fit for me.
SPEAKER_03: She is like me and yet different to me, complementary.
SPEAKER_03: See, the differences between the sexes should not be seen as points of competition, still less of points of ridicule, or as demeaning, but as something good to be celebrated, something to be joyfully expressed.
SPEAKER_03: Finally, before Phil comes up, what about Jesus?
SPEAKER_03: How does Jesus shape our thinking in terms of men and women?
SPEAKER_03: Because I think there are some important things to note that I'd love to and will in a future time dive even deeper into, but let's just skim like a stone across the surface of some of these things.
SPEAKER_03: What's the call of Christianity on men and women?
SPEAKER_03: Is it that men need to man up and women need to women up?
SPEAKER_03: Women up?
SPEAKER_03: You know what I mean.
SPEAKER_03: The focus of the gospel, the good news of Jesus, is on godliness rather than gender.
SPEAKER_03: Jesus is the standard of imitation for both men and women.
SPEAKER_03: Have you noticed that?
SPEAKER_03: Neither his salvation nor his commands to take up your cross and follow him come in pink and blue.
SPEAKER_03: We have one that we imitate, not two.
SPEAKER_03: The commands of the New Testament, 99.9% of the time are the same for men and women.
SPEAKER_03: To turn to Jesus in repentance and faith, to worship him alone, to have compassion and integrity, to grow into love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, faithfulness, goodness, and love and self-control.
SPEAKER_03: But godliness, we must also conclude, is always expressed through our gender.
SPEAKER_03: We are never not a man or a woman.
SPEAKER_03: And so our following of Jesus is expressed in gendered ways.
SPEAKER_03: And so in those ways, they do look different.
SPEAKER_03: Let me give you just a quick example.
SPEAKER_03: We're not going to look at this text next week.
SPEAKER_03: We're going to look at 1 Timothy 2 and Paul's teaching on men and women in the context of the church.
SPEAKER_03: But in Ephesians 5, Paul also writes about men and women in the context of marriage.
SPEAKER_03: And before he gets into the uh to the specifics of husbands love your wives and wives submit to your husbands, he says something else just before it.
SPEAKER_03: Now, in our Bibles, there's a little paragraph break.
SPEAKER_03: And I don't think that that's particularly helpful.
SPEAKER_03: Because what he says just before it is this he says to the whole church, men and women, submit to one another out of reverence to Christ.
SPEAKER_03: Men and women, submit to one another out of reverence to Christ.
SPEAKER_03: And then he goes on to show how that looks in gendered ways.
SPEAKER_03: The husband submits by not preferring his own power, by not preferring his own desires or his position, but in lovingly laying down all of those things in order to ensure the flourishing and care of his wife, by preferring her good and dying for her each day.
SPEAKER_03: Similarly, the wife submits to her husband by respecting and encouraging and joyfully following his godly but often flawed leadership.
SPEAKER_03: It's the same command played out in gendered ways.
SPEAKER_03: Finally, the equality and the difference between men and women is not just a reality within creation that we are to make peace with.
SPEAKER_03: It is a good to be enjoyed, to be celebrated.
SPEAKER_03: It points us to the richness and diversity of the creation around us.
SPEAKER_03: It points us to the richness and diversity of our God.
SPEAKER_03: It causes communities and relationships, by church and in the home, to flourish as we seek to honor one another in our differences, to empower one another's God-given differences, and to celebrate them as something that is good and holy and sacred.
SPEAKER_03: It displays something of who God is, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, perfect in unity, in glorious diversity.
SPEAKER_03: And we seek to follow Him by displaying that in our relationships.
SPEAKER_03: I'm gonna invite Phil down.
SPEAKER_03: What in all of that do you do you celebrate and what do you struggle with?
SPEAKER_02: I feel like you've stolen a lot of my stuff already.
SPEAKER_02: We've spoken That's how we work.
SPEAKER_02: We've spoken a lot about this over this past week, and you were saying things I was like, oh I was gonna say that.
SPEAKER_02: Um I think one of the things I've realized as we've been talking about it is not so much that I struggle with what Genesis actually says, but I struggle with the bad teaching I've heard around it.
SPEAKER_02: I struggle with a lot of the, I suppose, the cultural differences and expectations and stereotypes.
SPEAKER_02: Um so something like the word helper, for example, um that does, I think, really chafe.
SPEAKER_02: Like I I refer to my children when they help me in the garden.
SPEAKER_02: Oh, you're my little helper.
SPEAKER_02: It does, it sounds quite kind of diminutive.
SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, are they really my equal in helping me out in the garden?
SPEAKER_02: No, I find them some little jobs to do because they enjoy it.
SPEAKER_02: Um and I literally remember when I first read, you know, God being described as a helper.
SPEAKER_02: Um, I literally remember the first time I heard the the comparison with the Trinity.
SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, like Jesus submitting to his father's will.
SPEAKER_02: And is Jesus lesser?
SPEAKER_02: No, absolutely not.
SPEAKER_02: Um and all of those were such kind of light bulb moments because I think so much of what I had heard had been very badly taught text.
SPEAKER_02: Um and hearing those things like, why have I not heard that before?
SPEAKER_02: That makes so much sense.
SPEAKER_02: Um I think other things that helped me when I hear kind of things like the word helper, and I'm a bit like, oh um, it is it's looking at the whole Bible, it's looking at um, well, how were we made?
SPEAKER_02: We are made equally, and like we both have equal dignity and worth and value.
SPEAKER_02: We're both made in God's image.
SPEAKER_02: Um, again, it's not that women are lesser.
SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, you can't go from one uh one chapter where it's like, oh yeah, they're made in God's image, and then the next one, well, actually, women are a little bit less.
SPEAKER_02: Um, the Bible is consistent.
SPEAKER_02: Um and so if there's one bit where I start to be like, oh, I don't like how that sounds, it's a really helpful thing to look at.
SPEAKER_02: Well, how else are women talked about?
SPEAKER_02: Um, how are they described in creation, for example?
SPEAKER_03: You were talking just w yesterday um while I was doing the cooking.
SPEAKER_02: I'd been doing the gardening.
SPEAKER_03: Uh you we we were chatting yesterday and you were talking about kind of Jesus' interaction with women.
SPEAKER_03: Do you want to kind of say about that?
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think again, probably from where we are in society now, it's really easy.
SPEAKER_02: A lot of people will think, oh, the Bible's really sexist.
SPEAKER_02: And you know, uh women weren't given a place.
SPEAKER_02: But actually, it's always so important to look at the original context.
SPEAKER_02: And um when Jesus was alive in that society, women didn't have a place, a voice, um, but he consistently elevates them.
SPEAKER_02: And um, you know, women were the first at the tomb, for example.
SPEAKER_02: Um, I think it's really easy to read that in our culture and not think anything of it.
SPEAKER_02: But that was such an elevation of women back then.
SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, think of um Jesus' interaction with the woman at the well, for example.
SPEAKER_02: Like that would have been an absolute no-no back then.
SPEAKER_02: Um, but again, he reaches out uh to women that the rest of society then wouldn't have given any voice to.
SPEAKER_02: And he gives them place and value and salvation.
SPEAKER_02: Um, and again, you see that men and women have equal salvation.
SPEAKER_02: And and it's when I look at that kind of overall archer, how does Jesus teach women, you know, and treat women, sorry, uh, and those things?
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, well, when there are things when I kind of think, oh, is society telling me that women are this way or that way?
SPEAKER_02: It's how does Jesus treat women?
SPEAKER_02: How how are we described in creation, that kind of thing?
SPEAKER_03: What way what ways would you encourage uh either men or women here who perhaps are kind of struggling uh with some of the Bible's teaching on uh on gender roles?
SPEAKER_03: Um yeah, how would you how would you counsel or encourage them?
SPEAKER_03: Um I think sorry, yeah which is why you think like you didn't it's not like you came up uh or grew up experiencing a perfect kind of iteration of uh of men and women interacting together.
SPEAKER_03: And that that shaped you um uh in uh you know when we met in university and things like that.
SPEAKER_03: And um, and so you've had to kind of uh you've been thinking a lot about these things and been on a bit of a journey in terms of your view of uh of men and women.
SPEAKER_03: Um so maybe you want to speak to that, but um yeah, we'll kind of encourage you know somebody's in a similar sort of situation.
SPEAKER_03: That's a lot of questions.
SPEAKER_03: Um I'm just I was just I was just vamping to give you time.
SPEAKER_02: They don't want to hear me, they want to hear um yeah, I think I think one of the things we all have to be aware of is how much our backgrounds and our different cultures affect how we view this.
SPEAKER_02: And there is such a variety in this room.
SPEAKER_02: There'll be some people who think uh that you know this is like this is insane from either direction.
SPEAKER_02: Um you'll have very, very people who've grown up in very, very kind of strong women do everything, and then the other extreme as well.
SPEAKER_02: Um and that shapes us so much.
SPEAKER_02: Um and that's I think something that it was really helpful for me to become aware of because we don't realize, I think, our own worldviews.
SPEAKER_02: It's how we How we see the world.
SPEAKER_02: It's like the lenses that we view the world.
SPEAKER_02: We don't realize that they're there.
SPEAKER_02: And that's been a really helpful thing for me.
SPEAKER_02: Um, growing up not with good examples.
SPEAKER_02: Um, and then probably going to the other extreme, therefore, and sort of uh wanting to have um women do everything because men were about rubbish or men were so overbearing and authoritarian, we don't want them in leadership.
SPEAKER_02: Um and then I have come to a I don't want to say it's a middle ground, I suppose, a more biblical view of men and women and seeing how that is good.
SPEAKER_02: Um, because I think it's very easy.
SPEAKER_02: Let's face it, in history, women have often been treated badly.
SPEAKER_02: And one of our tendencies, I think, therefore, is to go so far the other way.
SPEAKER_02: Um, and then we look at something like the Bible where it's saying, Oh, you know, we're complementary.
SPEAKER_02: It's like, what?
SPEAKER_02: What do you mean we're not exactly the same and identical?
SPEAKER_02: That sounds really sexist.
SPEAKER_02: Um and and I don't think it is, I think it is recognizing it is that it's equal but different.
SPEAKER_02: Uh we are equal in worth and value, but that plays out in different ways.
SPEAKER_03: Um how do you think well, we'll move on in a second, but like how do you think we as a church that it that it's gonna, you know, we are we are church that affirms the equality and difference uh of men and women and that plays itself out in different ways.
SPEAKER_03: Um how do you think we can show that that's that's that's not just something that the um that that the women need to kind of white knuckle through.
SPEAKER_03: Uh okay, well fine, I'll keep on coming to city, but I don't like that.
SPEAKER_03: How can we kind of show the the goodness of that, do you think, as a church?
SPEAKER_02: I guess there'll be some who think we do and some who think we don't already.
SPEAKER_02: Um well we can we can go down the mill and say we do, but we don't do it perfectly.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
SPEAKER_02: And I think it's right and fair and honest to say we will never do it perfectly because we are all sinners.
SPEAKER_02: Um I think um I was just reflecting, I was reflecting earlier on a conversation you had with someone a few years ago who when they came to the realization that we were a complementary in church, and that was a bit like, whoo, okay.
SPEAKER_02: And you said, uh, do you see women oppressed at city?
SPEAKER_02: And the realization was, well, no.
SPEAKER_02: Um and I don't think, as I know lots of you and I see you, I don't, I think that men and women are treated equally.
SPEAKER_02: They are given equal value.
SPEAKER_02: We have women serving in all the service teams.
SPEAKER_02: And I think one of the things I uh think you you touched on one of the essentials, kind of women being essential.
SPEAKER_02: Uh there's something I think I've only really thought about recently.
SPEAKER_02: Um, I'm reading a book with Nicole and Sarah, and I know uh the elders have been reading it too, uh, called Embracing Complementarianism.
SPEAKER_02: Um and it was their kind of reading, Ashley, women are essential to church.
SPEAKER_02: It's not just Asher will let the women, you know, make the couple coffee so that they feel like they've got something to do, but women are essential to city church, and men are essential to city church because we are different, we bring different viewpoints.
SPEAKER_02: Um and I think that's kind of the first.
SPEAKER_02: It sounds really stupid, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I've been I've been a Christian for two decades, but I think it was one of the first times that I realized actually we are essential.
SPEAKER_02: Um and so I think you guys, I think the elders probably realized that before I did.
SPEAKER_02: And so I think that is demonstrated at City.
SPEAKER_02: Um women, you think in community groups, you know, men and women are contributing.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, and what a woman says will change the dynamic.
SPEAKER_02: What a man says will change the dynamic than if it was just single sex groups, for example.
SPEAKER_02: Um, and that is really good for us to be learning from each other uh in that context.
SPEAKER_02: Um I feel like what was the other part of the question?
SPEAKER_02: I feel like there was another part.
SPEAKER_03: That can be it.
SPEAKER_03: Um it's 22, anyway.
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
SPEAKER_03: Um would would you pray?
SPEAKER_02: Heavenly Father, we thank you uh that that you are good and you uh have designed us and made us to be male and female.
SPEAKER_02: Thank you for our uh equality in worth and dignity.
SPEAKER_02: But thank you that you have designed us to complement one another, to uh to bring different things to church life, to uh the world we live in.
SPEAKER_02: Um and yet we know that that can often be a hard thing, um and it can often be uh misused.
SPEAKER_02: And so we pray for us all at City Chit that as we wrestle through some of these things, um, you would show us the goodness uh of your design and that we would celebrate being men and women who love you and are growing to you together.
SPEAKER_02: I pray uh you would give us all wisdom in how we live that out, um, and that we would do it all uh for your glory.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to this week's sermon.
SPEAKER_00: If you found this helpful or want to know more about City Church Dublin, please visit our website, found in the link below.