Women and Men: What We Share

What We Share

It is important to consider God’s good design in gender and study passages that address specifically men or women. Throughout this blog, our goal is to trace patterns of biblical womanhood throughout Scripture. With that being said, it might be helpful to take a step back and think about biblical women first as redeemed image bearers and members of the body of Christ, who have been sent to the nations with the message of reconciliation, along with our brothers in Christ. The majority of the Bible does not address men and women separately, but together.

Created in the Image of God

In the beginning, God created mankind in His own image, male and female. He forms them from the dirt and breathes the breath of life into their nostrils. Mankind is distinct from the rest of creation, made in the image and likeness of God, created for relationship with God and serving under His authority as rulers over the rest of creation. Men and women, as people made in the image of God, have inherent and equal value. As those who bear the image of God, they are meant to represent God and His good purposes to the rest of His creation. He instructs them to “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth. (Gen. 1:28, ESV) This task requires both men and women. God gives Adam and Eve this task together.

God’s very good creation is corrupted when Adam and Eve rebel and sin enters the world. The curse of sin is passed down from generation to generation. The image of God in mankind is corrupted by the presence of sin in all people. But God provides hope of redemption through Christ for men and women.

Redeemed by Christ

In Genesis 3:15, we get the first glimpse of this hope for redemption when God says to the serpent, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel.” Who is this promised offspring that will bruise the head of the serpent? Jesus Christ – son of God in the flesh, fully God and fully man, born of a virgin for our salvation (John 1:14; Phil. 2:6-8; Matt. 1:23). By His sinless life, substitutionary death and triumphant resurrection, He crushes the head of the serpent and delivers His people from the punishment and bondage of sin. In Christ, we are forgiven and freed from the curse of sin. Not only are we forgiven of our sins, but we are clothed in the very righteousness of Christ. We are declared righteous before God and by the work of the Holy Spirit in us, we are transformed to the likeness of Christ, who is Himself the “image of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15). What sin corrupted, Christ restores in us.

Members of the Body of Christ

Not only are we redeemed by Christ, we are made a part of His body, the church. Paul’s teaching in 1 Corinthian 12 explains this reality for believers. In verse 27, he writes, “now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.” He writes about the different parts of the body which are all necessary and together make up the whole. Men and women, serving in distinct roles with unique giftings are all a part of the same body, sharing the same goal of obeying and exalting our head, Jesus Christ (Eph. 1:22-23; 5:23).

As members of the same body, we are to love one another and seek to encourage and build one another up. John 13:34-35 says, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” This instruction for believers to love one another is repeated over and over in the New Testament (John 15:12, 17; Romans 12:10, 13:18; 1 Thess. 3:12, 4:9-10; 1 Pet. 1:22, 4:8; 1 John 3:11, 23, 4:7, 11-12; 2 John 1:5). In 1 Thessalonians 5:11, Paul writes, “therefore encourage one another and build on another up”. As a member of the body of Christ, our faith is not meant to be individualistic. We cannot profess love for Christ and neglect His body. We are saved into a community of believers and called to love one another and build one another up.

As members of the same body, we seek to use our spiritual gifts to serve the whole body. When discussing spiritual gifts given to believers Paul writes, “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.” (1 Cor. 12:7). The purpose of the gifts given by the Spirit is for the good of the body. Women, as members of the body of Christ, indwelt by the Spirit of Christ, should seek to love and serve the local church, using the spiritual gifts they have been given for the good of the body.

Sent to the Nations

In the New Testament, Jesus commissions His disciples saying, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always until the end of the age.” (Matt. 28:19-20) This commission and promise is given to men and women. In Acts 1:8, Jesus tells His disciples, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth.” (Acts 1:8) This reiteration of the commission Jesus gives to His followers includes the promise of the Holy Spirit, also referred to as the Spirit of Christ (Rom. 8:9; 1 Pet. 1:11). The gift of the Holy Spirit to all believers is the fulfillment of Jesus’ promise to be with us always until the end of the age.

Men and women are filled with the Holy Spirit and are sent out to all the nations to proclaim the Gospel and make disciples. Remember the mandate given in Genesis 1:28, to “be fruitful and multiply”. Now we see this mandate applied to the call to make disciples – to reproduce ourselves in discipleship relationships so that more people would be worshippers of God. In their book Worthy:Celebrating the Value of Women, Elyse Fitzpatrick and Eric Schumacher trace the worth of women as revealed in Scripture from creation to the church today. They write, “both women and men now have the same primary vocation… make disciples and teach them the truth about the One who has come.” Men and women share this responsibility. We have been entrusted with the message of reconciliation and are now ambassadors for Christ (2 Cor. 5:19-20).

1 Fitzpatrick, Elyse, and Eric Schumacher. 2020. Worthy : Celebrating the Value of Women. Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House, a division of Baker Publishing Group.