816. The Case for Biblical Complementarianism Part 1

Welcome to The Daily Platform from Bob Jones University to a series entitled Divine Design, which is a study of biblical manhood and biblical womanhood.

Today we'll explore the concept of complementarianism. This position affirms that men and women are created equally, and both equally enjoy the blessings and grace of God, but have distinct roles in marriage and in the church. BGU President Steve Pettit will introduce today's message. Well, we are continuing our series on divine design, and for the next two weeks, Dr. Sam Horn will be delivering the message.

And in our working through biblical manhood and womanhood, one of the key issues is to have to deal with the roles, the God-ordained roles of men and women. And so Dr. Horn is going to come out and lay out for you the position that we're going to teach here at the university. We realize that there are differences of interpretation, and we understand that. But we also know that we have to teach, and we have to be clear, and we have to teach with conviction.

And so that's what we're going to do. And so Dr. Horn's going to come out this week and next week and teach the position of complementarianism. And of course, you'll learn what that is as he comes to speak this morning.

Thank you, Dr. Pettit. I'm going to ask you this morning to take your Bible to the book of Acts, chapter 20. I told Dr. Pettit this just before we came out, I have had more in my own soul, more internal pressure and perhaps fear about coming to this text. And so I'm just saying to you this morning, as we look at this together, that we are going to be talking about something of very, very significant importance because it affects the way we relate to one another. It affects the way we relate to the body of Christ. It affects the way that we honor and glorify God.

And so this is a very serious, very sobering topic for me. And I'm going to ask you in just a minute to pray with me about this. But I want to begin with this text in Acts, chapter 20, beginning in verse 26 and 27. This text records Paul's final words to the elders and spiritual leaders at the church of Ephesus. This was the church that he founded. And for two years, he served and loved and taught them the word of God.

And the Holy Spirit had revealed to Paul that this would be the very last time that he would have any interaction with these beloved elders. And the words we're looking at are part of his final statement to them, filled with tears and prayers and deep affection and love. And in this communication, Paul reminds them how he fully communicated to them not just the good news of the gospel of the grace of God, but he also reminds them that he did not hesitate to declare the whole counsel of God to them. And that part of the teaching that involved the whole counsel of God to them had to do with the difficult doctrinal instruction and the even harder application of the roles that God had assigned to Christian men and women in marriage and in the church. It's significant that the two primary passages that speak to the roles that we play in marriage are in Ephesians 5, and the primary passage that speaks to the role that God has given to those who teach and preach in the church in 1 Timothy 2, chapter 11 through 15. And that text was written to Timothy while he was pastoring the church at Ephesus.

So this statement in Acts 20 is given in the context of the instruction that Paul had not shrunk back from giving to them. And I would say to you today that the teaching that Paul talked about in his day has not become any easier in our own day and in our own culture. What appears to be the clear, plain teaching of Paul on this has resulted in strong and often intense controversy among evangelical believers, especially over the last 60 years. This conversation sits at the heart of what it means to live as men and women in ways that honor God, one another, and that conform to the teaching of Scripture.

So it is no small conversation. It is not a mere tempest brewing in some evangelical teapot. It speaks to the realities that God has given to us. And so since this topic is both culturally difficult and evangelically debated, I want to speak in ways this morning that are helpful, that are gracious, that are biblical, and that are clear. And to that end, I pray this morning and I want to pray together with you about this. So would you would you just pray for me as I pray together with you to the Lord about this? Lord, as we come to this topic, I ask that you would help me to speak and help us to receive your word out of a meek and quiet soul with a gracious spirit, not a contentious one, and from a gracious heart that's displayed in grace-filled speech with words that faithfully confirm to the truth in your word. And so, Lord, we need your help to that end. In Jesus' name, amen.

So here's what I want to do today. I want to lay out, as Dr. Pettit said, a case for biblical complementarianism. I'll talk about that word here in just a minute, but maybe I could summarize it this way. I would like to lay out for you the beginnings of a biblical theology of equality and authority as I see it laid out in the scripture. And I want to make sure we caught what Dr. Pettit mentioned, that this matter is not one that rises to the level of a salvific truth. It is not a cardinal doctrine of the Christian faith. You can be a Christian and not hold to the view that I'm going to lay out for us this morning. However, because I believe the scripture teaches plainly, clearly, and repeatedly on this topic, particularly with regard to the primary spiritual leadership that God has assigned to the roles in marriage and in church, I don't see it as just a matter of personal preference. I actually think it's a matter of faithfulness to the authoritative teaching and to the consistent practice of Jesus and the apostles, which is why what you believe on this matters greatly. And so let's begin today with the central question.

What exactly are we talking about? And the question is this. Does the Bible, in its clear and normative teaching, establish unique aspects of primary leadership in marriage and in the church that are restricted to biblically qualified men? And by leadership in that question, I'm specifically talking about authority over and responsibility for. Does the Bible, in its clear normative teaching, establish unique aspects of leadership in marriage and in church that are restricted to biblically qualified men?

Now, let's make sure we understand the question. The question is not asking whether the Bible teaches that men are superior and women are inferior to one another. The Bible clearly states that men and women were created with equal value, equal standing, equal blessing, and equal participation in the promises of God to Abraham and to his church. Genesis 1, 27 and 28, Galatians 3, 28, all establish this.

And they also are co-heirs equally with the rest of the body of Christ, all of us co-heirs equally to the grace of life. Peter makes a big point about this in 1 Peter chapter 3 verse 7. So this is not a question that deals with whether one of the genders is superior to the other. Nor is this question implying somehow that women are less qualified or less equipped than men to participate in vocational or spiritual ministry.

Let me give you some examples of this. Women in the Bible clearly participated in ministry with men and even two men. Miriam in Exodus 15 verse 20 would be an example. Deborah in Judges 4 verses 4 through 5 would be another example.

Here's another thing. Jesus received the ministry of women during his life and two of the women that are most noted for this are Mary and Martha. Women were permitted in both the Old and the New Testaments to prophesy and to take part in the worship of God among his people.

The prophet is Huldah in 2 Kings 22 for example. The writer of Acts, Luke, in Acts chapter 2 verses 17 and 18 references a prophecy out of Joel in which God says he will pour out his spirit on men and women in the New Testament church. And that women would prophesy and Philip's four daughters fulfill this prophecy in Acts 21 verse 9. In 1 Corinthians 11 verse 5 women are permitted to prophesy and to pray in the public assembly of the church with proper decorum. Women clearly understood and at times participated in the instruction of others in the word of God. For example, Priscilla and Aquila in Acts 18 and older women teaching younger women in Titus 2. And the New Testament even potentially affords the service of women deacons in the early New Testament church depending on how you view 1 Timothy chapter 3 verse 11 and the role that Phoebe played in Romans chapter 16 verse 1. So I want to be real clear that the position we are articulating is not implying in any way that women are less equipped and less qualified than men to participate in ministry. And then notice finally this question is asking whether the Bible establishes and restricts certain aspects of primary leadership and spiritual authority to qualified men in marriage and in the church. And let me give you two examples of this in the Old Testament, the priesthood of Israel.

Was that limited to men or was it open to women? And secondly, what about the pastors and teaching elders of the church? Did Paul and the New Testament apostles open that office to women or was it restricted to men? That is the essence of the question.

Now the answer to that question comes in two contrasting views and so I want to put the views out before you. If you believe that the clear, plain reading of Scripture does in fact reflect that God in some way has established and restricted certain aspects of leadership and spiritual authority to men, then you are a complementarian. Not all complementarians are going to agree on how that fleshes out and where the contours and the boundaries of that are, but if you believe that the plain teaching of Scripture and the plain reading of the text in question lay out that in some way God has restricted certain unique aspects of primary spiritual leadership and authority and responsibility in marriage and the church to men, to biblically qualified men, then you are a complementarian. Now if you don't think the Bible restricts certain aspects of leadership and spiritual authority to men, then you may be on the egalitarian side of this debate. So let's look at the complementarian perspective, probably summed up in the Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood established in 1987 and 1988 and articulated in a statement called the Danvers Statement in 1987. They believe, complementarians believe, that from beginning to end, the Scripture and its inspired authors speak clearly, cohesively, and authoritatively that men and women are created equal in the image of God. They have equal standing before God, they enjoy equally the blessings and the grace of God, but they have been created for and assigned to different and distinct roles with regard to marriage and the leadership, the spiritual leadership of the church. In other words, the primary responsibility and spiritual authority to lead in the marriage and to teach authoritatively and spiritually govern the church has been assigned and restricted to biblically qualified men. So that's the complementarian position.

There are believers who deeply desire to be faithful to God, who desire to come to the Scriptures, they would see the Scriptures as authoritative, they would understand the Scriptures to be inspired and accurate, but they would say that in this particular area the Scriptures actually reflect a different thing. The egalitarian position, sometimes known as biblical feminism, which is very different from the feminism that you may be aware of for the sake of our own talk here, I'm going to refer to it as egalitarian, but you may hear the biblical feminist idea expressed in conversations, especially as you go to the literature. The egalitarian position would agree with the complementarian that men and women are created with equal value and equal standing.

There's not a question about that. They also would recognize and embrace that men and women are created with distinct differences in gender and in personhood and that they have very different roles to play in God's plan. They would embrace that. They do not agree that primary leadership and authority in marriage and in the church are restricted only to men, but that biblically qualified women can lead equally with biblically qualified men in the home and in the church. And so that's the egalitarian position. It exists in their own language to promote biblical justice and community by educating Christians that the Bible calls women and men to share equally in service and leadership in the home, church, and the world.

So now you have these two positions. Now let's make sure before we move on quickly that we understand what the egalitarian position is not saying. They agree that the Scriptures do report that men do exercise leadership and authority over women in the Old and New Testament worlds, but this was a consequence of the fall and not at all what God originally intended. That what you're reading in the Scriptures where you find men leading over women is actually because of the corruption of the fall, not as a design by God from the beginning. They believe that Jesus came to establish a new order and a new creation in which men and women are equal before God. Galatians chapter 3 verse 28, which I referenced earlier. And this equality affords men and women the same opportunity to lead in the home and in the church.

And here's an important point. Finally, while certain texts do seem to restrict the leadership of the church to men, the Galatians argue that these texts are either mistranslated textually, they're misinterpreted contextually, or they're misunderstood culturally. In other words, they accommodate a cultural situation limited to the first century, but do not reflect the ultimate trajectory that Jesus and the apostles intended for the church to take over time.

So where do we go for an answer? I mean, you have a question that's really clear. And you have two people, two groups of people who both desire to be faithful to the texts that speak to this. They believe the Scriptures are inspired. They have a deep love and a passion for God. They are trying to obey the Scriptures as they understand them.

So where do we go for an answer? And I would suggest to you that there are four terms that are debated that really provide the trajectory for a biblical case for complementarianism. Let me give them to you quickly, and then I want to end with a theological flow of this. These are the primary terms that are found in Scripture that shed immense light. And when interpreted plainly and applied contextually and taken collectively, in my opinion, they establish clearly a complementarian position. And the first of those terms is the term helper. It's the first term that we encounter in this debate or in this discussion. It occurs before the fall in the description that God gives when he creates Eve. And this is what the text actually says. I'm actually giving you the New American Standard text here for clarity. Then the Lord said, it is not good for man to be alone.

I will make him a helper suitable for him. God uses this term to describe and to define the primary role that Eve was to play in her relationship to Adam. And as I said a moment ago, this is prior to the fall.

I want to make sure you catch something. As an image bearer, she was of equal standing with Adam in her relationship to God. But in her relationship to Adam, she was uniquely designed and created in a way that would perfectly correspond and match what was missing or lacking in Adam. Eve was made from Adam.

The New Testament is going to come back to this point and for Adam to help fulfill the role and responsibility that God had assigned to him. Paul is going to explain it this way in 1 Corinthians 11. Man was not created for the woman's sake, but the woman for the man's sake. In other words, there was a need in man and God intended for the woman to meet that need. This word helper is used for God and it shows that this is not a slavish or inferior role that is unworthy or disrespectful to women. God himself comes alongside to those he has placed in authority and dignifies and honors this term by rendering service to them. And I want all of us who are men to realize that it is through this helper that God is going to deliver all the race from the sin that the man, Adam, is accountable and responsible for. So if you think this word helper is a demeaning word, actually it's a word by which God is going to deliver the entire race.

And that brings us to the second word, which is a little more difficult. If the word helper helps us to understand the design of God, submission is here to help us understand the context in which God intends for this to happen. 1 Peter chapter 3 verse 1, Ephesians chapter 5 verses 21 and 24 and Colossians chapter 3 all talk and use this term.

And it's a very, very difficult term in this debate. 1 Peter 3, 1, likewise ye wives, be in subjection to your own husband. Ephesians 21, submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God and then wives submit yourselves unto your own husband and he's going to go on to give explanation of that. And then in Colossians 3, wives submit yourselves unto your own husbands.

So let's talk about this difficult term. When this term submission shows up in the scripture, it always depicts someone subjecting themselves, arranging themselves under the authority of another. For example, citizens are to do this to a king, children are to do it to parrots, servants to masters, Christians to their pastors and elders, Jesus to the father.

And in all three of these texts, submitting one to another has different aspects. The way you arrange yourself, men you're to do it this way, children you're to do it this way, masters and servants you're to do it this way. And when it comes to this term with the relationship to marriage, men are to lovingly lead through serving and women are to support that leadership. And so when we come to the final term, head, which speaks to why, head and authority, these are the final two terms. In Ephesians chapter 5 verse 23 and in 1 Corinthians 11 verse 2 through 4, Paul explains why this is so. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church. And then in 1 Corinthians 11, Paul says the head of every man is Christ and the head of a wife is her husband and the head of Christ is God.

So clearly here the word head does not mean source or origin, it's actually speaking to someone who has been granted by God the responsibility for the relationship in a unique way. And that's really what Paul is talking about in 1 Timothy chapter 2 when he talks about the fourth word, the word authority. And it's probably the most difficult word and if you'll allow me to give you the word and then I'm going to come back to this text next Monday and we're going to look at this text.

But I'm letting you know that there's a piece in here that could potentially be very difficult for us. Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness and then Paul says this, I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man, rather she is to remain quiet. And then he goes back to the creation account to give his reason for this. And again I want to come back next Monday and I want to talk about this verse. But these four words clearly in the context of how the apostles and the New Testament and Old Testament writers lay it out seem to be restricting certain aspects of leadership in the home in marriage and in the church to biblically qualified men. And that brings us to the final thing today and that is what is the theological flow of all of this? And so let me quickly give it to you, it's rooted in the creation order. Paul made the case for women not exercising spiritual authority over men on the grounds that Adam was formed first and unlike Eve, he sinned willingly.

He was not deceived. And therefore the full weight and accountability and responsibility for the fall rested on Adam. He had been given the responsibility for the race in a unique way. Eve is never blamed for the fall, Adam is given the full accountability and the full weight of that even though Eve was present and in time ate the fruit first. This is reflected throughout the scripture, the priesthood at all limits or at all levels was limited to men. The kingship of Israel was limited to men. The prophets who wrote inspired authoritative scripture were all men and the sin sacrifice that took away the sins of Israel had to be a male lamb or a male goat. And when Jesus came to fulfill that and to take away the sins of the world, he came as a man. This was confirmed by the practice of Jesus.

He highly honored and deeply respected women. He chose 12 apostles, he could have chosen 6 men and 6 women and he wasn't doing this to culturally accommodate the people around him. He literally came to blow up certain cultural traditions and so he chose 12 apostles and the apostles actually taught the same thing. And it was practiced in the church and Paul said very clearly in the church, we have no such practice nor do the churches of God. And in 1 Corinthians 14, when he assigns this leadership to men, he says, as in all the churches of the saints. And so this is clearly the practice of the early church and it's reflected in the consummation of the new heaven. When you have the throne where 4 and 20 seats, there are 24 thrones and there are 12 Old Testament and 12 New Testament names and they are the names of the tribes and the names of the apostles. So, I think the scriptures lay out a very clear trajectory and a clear path for the fact that in certain roles, God has restricted primary responsibility to biblically qualified men.

Now the reason this is difficult is because of the way that men have applied that in their relationships to women. And so next week, I want to come back and I want to look at what it actually looks like when it is done in a Christ honoring way. Let's pray. Shall we, Lord, thank you for our time this morning. I pray that you would help us to embrace this truth and to see it. And Lord, not to be in any way fearful of it, but to recognize that in the beauty of your creation, you created us and you gave us distinctives and roles that when we fulfill, bring great honor and great glory to you and great beauty around us and great fulfillment. And we'll pray these things now in Jesus name. Amen. You've been listening to a sermon preached by Dr. Sam Horn, which is part of the study series about biblical manhood and biblical womanhood entitled Divine Design. Join us again tomorrow as we continue this series here on The Daily Platform.