The Gendered Gift

The family is a gendered gift from God to the world.

At the heart of the gift, a gift intended to fill the earth with worship and worshipers, are masculinity and femininity. And so a proper view of what family is and what families should do necessarily requires a proper view of what masculinity and femininity each are and should do.

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it.

Genesis 1:27-28(a)

Masculinity

"Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself… Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

Ephesians 5:22-28, 6:4

Masculinity involves the joyful taking of responsibility for those God has called each specific man to be responsible for. It also involves the man employing personal, daily knowledge of and worship of God to cultivate knowledge of and worship of God around him (in his wife, his children, and his spheres of influence in the wider world). Most typically, a man exhibiting Godly masculinity will take ownership of his wife’s spiritual, financial, and physical well-being, of the instruction of his children, and of reasonable provisions he can make for his extended family. And he won’t be mopey or bitter about his having taken ownership of them. He will view it as a gift he is glad to have the grace from God to bestow, and he’ll thank God for the privilege. And then he’ll repent clearly and quickly when he sins, either through not doing these things or in any other way. At the heart of his life will be the honor he gladly pays to his wife as a human vessel weaker than himself.

Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.

1 Peter 3:7

Godly masculinity in a family will build, shape, and protect a holy household.

Femininity

The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, ‘You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.’ Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” 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 man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all 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. 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. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.

Genesis 2:15-22

I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling; likewise also that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire, but with what is proper for women who profess godliness—with good works. Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet she will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.

1 Timothy 2:8-15

The man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living.

Genesis 3:20

Femininity involves joyfully nourishing and tending to human life and the work of God in the areas God has called each specific woman to. This will usually involve the woman helping her husband to do and be what God calls men to do and be (as Eve was formed from Adam to do), and in bearing, feeding, cherishing, teaching, and spiritually shaping children. It also involves reflecting the beauty and wisdom of God through cultivating inner spiritual beauty and modesty in physical beauty. Most typically, a woman exhibiting Godly femininity will submit to her husband, pray for, nourish, and raise up children, serve her church in prayer and acts of physical mercy, and have a posture and heart of quiet beauty that trusts in God. By God’s grace to her in Christ, her beauty will be deep, her tongue will be tamed, and she will be, in the truest sense of the word, a mother to many.

Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, when they see your respectful and pure conduct. Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear— but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious. For this is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves, by submitting to their own husbands, as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord. And you are her children, if you do good and do not fear anything that is frightening.

1 Peter 3:1-6

Godly femininity in a family will incubate life and adorn the household with good works.

Closing

Masculinity and femininity are essential shades in one of God’s greatest blessings to creation: The family. He has bestowed on His earth this man-woman covenantal relationship and all the attendant goodness it is designed to bear.

Family is a gendered gift to us all.

And God is a wise and gracious Giver.