On November 11 I bookmarked 2 blog articles. Bookmarks usually last about 24 hours before they get a) archived b) used in A La Carte or c) erased. But these ones are still sitting there. Several times I have gone back to read the articles and each time I’ve wanted to think about them a little bit more. There is nothing in them that is earthshaking to me. And yet the way they are phrased has given me a lot of food for thought (just ask Aileen if you doubt me).

The first article I read was by Amy Scott and it was titled simply “Be You.” In her article she references another, one titled “Just Whose Wife Am I Anyway?” They both deal with a common them: submission. In particular, they deal with the biblical command that a wife submit to her husband. Those are fighting words in many parts of the Christian world, not to mention outside of the Christian world. I won’t allow that to distract me here.

Both women write about their own struggles with what submission really looks like in a godly marriage. And as I read their thoughts, here is what struck me: We spend a lot of time talking in general about how men and women complement one another—generic men and generic women. This complementarity is obvious from a physical standpoint, but also from many others. But I wonder if we spend far too little time talking about how this husband and this wife complement one another. When we move beyond the generalities of gender roles, we find that the specifics may look very, very different from one couple to another. Within the Bible’s general guidelines, there are many ways to work out the details. Amy puts it like this:

My own husband would knock me silly (...figuratively) if I called him yesterday from the flooring store to solve and negotiate the huge issue that came up. He trusts me. He knows I am capable, and we are a team. (On the flip side, many husbands feel very respected to have their opinion asked about how to handle disasters.) We found a rhythm that works for us.

Greg has one Patriarchal rule for me. He will not let me use a paintbrush under any circumstances in our house. But I am OK with this.

At my church last night I preached a message that was part of a series we are doing on various points of theology. The topic I had to address was biblical manhood and womanhood. It’s something of an uncomfortable topic to have to preach and one we, as Christians, are too often intimidated by. I sought in this message to emphasize the freedom and the delight in God that come to us when we understand and even celebrate the differences between men and women—when we understand what God tells us about biblical manhood and womanhood.

I guess I am very traditional (and hopefully biblical) when it comes to gender roles within the church and within marriage. I believe that God has called men to lead their families and to lead their churches. I believe that God has made men and women, husbands and wives, to be complementary—to complement one another. And in so doing he has given us the privilege of reflecting him in his Trinitarian relationship. Here we see the Father always leading, the Son submitting to the Father but exercising authority over the Spirit, and the Spirit always submitting to both Father and Son. We learn from the Trinity that we can be equal in value and worth and dignity, even while having different and subordinate roles. And this is the way God intends the church and the family to function.

The subject of freedom was much on my mind as I considered the topic. It was my conviction as I prepared this message that there is greater freedom for those who understand the roles God has assigned to men and to women than to those who deny that such roles exist. This may seem to go against the societal grain. We are told, if not explicitly at least implicitly, that there is more freedom in a lack of rules or a lack of boundaries than there is with their presence. Freedom comes, we are told, when we live without rules or when we cast off the old rules.

I do not believe this. I believe that we are free only when we live within the boundaries given to us. Here’s a silly illustration I used for this.

Imagine a country in which there were no traffic laws whatsoever. There were plenty of cars, but no rules about how those cars can be driven. No speed limits, no minimum age requirements, no safety standards, no “no parking” signs, no dotted lines down the middle of the road, no stop lights, no drunk driving laws. Every person would have freedom to do whatever he wished to do. I could drive on the left and you could drive on the right. I could park in the middle of the freeway and you could drive 100 miles per hour past a grade school. No one could rightly tell either one of us not to.

What kind of freedom would this be? Sure, we would all be free to drive however, whenever, wherever we wanted. But this freedom would be devastating and terrifying. I would have no real freedom to travel from Toronto to Ottawa; I would undoubtedly not make it far before finding myself in some kind of accident. We would be free to get killed in all kinds of original and awful ways. Freedom comes when we have rules and when we obey those rules.

Adam and Eve had freedom, didn’t they? They had true freedom—the freedom not to sin. And yet they also had rules. Or one rule, anyways. They were free to live before God but only if they lived within the boundary he gave them. You know how the story went. And human beings have been fighting boundaries ever since.

So I guess I see biblical manhood and womanhood through this lens. We experience a kind of freedom in submitting to the rules God has given us—the rules that tell us how men and women should relate and especially so within the church and within marriage. This opens up to us the freedom to live as he would have us live. It opens to us a freedom to understand the beauty of seeing things and doing things in God’s way. It allows us to see that, for all the supposed wisdom of men, God’s ways really are better.

Here is yet another little quote drawn from that great big book I’ve been reading. In his Old Testament Theology, Bruce Waltke is careful to prove that gender roles and differences are rooted not in society and culture but in creation. He shows that, though men and women have been created equal, man was to take the leadership role in family and in the church. This is not a result of the fall into sin but a part of the created order. This brief quote stood out to me as an example of godly submission and one that is, of course, exceedingly counter-cultural. Here we see submission not as suffering but as a glorious and meaningful expression of faith.

Mary’s response to the angel’s announcement that she would be with child, “I am the Lord’s servant. May it be to me as you have said,” models for Christian women an obedience she offers out of her freedom, her independence, and her thoughtful commitment so that her submission is meaningful and glorious, not a passive resignation to her fate.

May we all learn from Mary’s example and submit well to those God has placed over us.

I have recently been reading Bruce Waltke’s (rather large!) Old Testament Theology and came across this quote. It seemed appropriate in light of all of the attention being give to The Shack and its distinctly feminine portrayal of God. Waltke argues here that it really does matter how we think of God and how we address Him.

God, who is over all, represents himself by masculine names and titles, not feminine ones. He identifies himself as Father, Son, and Spirit, not Parent, Child, and Spirit, nor Mother, Daughter, and Spirit. Jesus taught his church to address God as “Father” (Luke 11:2) and to baptize disciples “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 28:19). God’s titles are King, not Queen; Lord, not Lady. God, not mortals, has the right to name himself. It is inexcusable hubris and idolatry on the part of mortals to change the images by which the eternal God chooses to represent himself. We cannot change God’s names, titles, or metaphors without committing idolatry, for we will have reimagined him in a way other than the metaphors and the incarnation by which he revealed himself. His representations and incarnation are inseparable from his being.

This morning I continue with The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment blog tour by answering a question at Gender Blog, the official blog of the Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. The question is one that is important, interesting and, I found, quite difficult to answer adequately and sensitively. Here is what they asked:

It is not an uncommon experience reported by female pastors today that they believe they have received an actual call from God to become a pastor. Here are two recent examples from the newspaper:

• Jacci is not a rebel. She didn’t want to break new ground for those “crazy feminists.” She only wanted to follow God’s leading. After much study and soul-searching, Jacci’s thoughts became clear during a college trip to the Holy Land. “It was a call,” she stated. “It was quite amazing. I turned to a friend and said - I think God is calling me to be a minister. I was waiting for God to strike me dead. It was a huge shift in my thinking. That was not in the realm of possibility for my life the way I had grown up and had been taught.”

• There was no writing in the sky, no voice from heaven. “I would have loved that,” said the Reverend Keri, “but that doesn’t happen. At least, it didn’t happen to me.” Nevertheless a bolt of some sort caused Pastor Keri to suddenly quit her job and go to seminary. She is now the new shepherdess of a 266 member church..

How would you help a woman discern whether or not she is receiving an actual “call from God” to become a church pastor?

Read my answer here

The tour will go on a weekend hiatus before continuing next Monday with visits to Jollyblogger, Justin Taylor, the Pyromaniacs, the Internet Monk and 9 Marks Ministries. And the questions just keep getting tougher! Here is the schedule: