Celebrating the Differences

Celebrating the Differences

Text: Gen 2:15-25

Today is Mothers Day. Western Culture is on a radical and persistent mission to deny the differences between men and women. I submit to you that this enslaves women to unneeded burdens and liberates men from socially constructive responsibilities. Therefore, this morning I want to celebrate the differences between men and women.

Before we do this we need to recognize two types of feminism. “Equity Feminism” pursues equal opportunities for women in business, politics, education, etc. This was the feminism of the early sixties. We are in full support of Equity Feminism.

However, in the late seventies and early eighties “Gender Feminism” supplanted “Equity Feminism.” The goal of Gender feminism is the complete denial and abolition ofthe differences between the genders. Equal rights and equal opportunities are not enough. They want to become men, and the only way to do this is to deny the biological, social, and psychological differences between men and women.

The name for this is “androgyny.”Androgyny is a compound word formed from the Greek word for man (andro) and the Greek word for female (gyne). It literally means male-female— one without male or female characteristics. Because Christiansworship the God who created men and women differently, we reject androgyny. Instead we celebrate those differences.

The motive driving androgyny is selfish ambition. If men and women are biologically, emotionally, and cognitively different, then they must be designed for different functions in family and church.If this is true, some of the ambitions of gender feminists are blocked by biological necessity. Therefore, androgyny arguesthat men and women are not designed differently because they do not have different functions.

Androgyny is the atmosphere of Western Culture. In an effort to support gender-neutrality, Sweden recently added the gender-neutral pronoun “hen” (like the bird) to its online National Encyclopedia.The new word is to be used instead of “he” or “she”, and is defined as “a proposed gender-neutral personal pronoun instead of he (“han” in Swedish) and she (“hon”).

Some Swedish clothing companies have removed ‘boys’ and ‘girls’ sections from their stores. One toy catalog features a boy dressed as Spiderman and pushing a pink stroller, while a girl dressed in denim rides a tractor. Activists are also lobbying for parents to choose gender neutral names for their children.

The point of today’s sermon is that the relationships between the sexes will flourishto the degree that we honor the differences between the sexes.

Genesis two is a picture of how God created men and women equal in value but different physically, mentally, and emotionally.

A.God’s Original Plan

1.Marriage the Norm

18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”

Vs 18 states an important principle. “It is not good that man should be alone.”This implies that it is also not good that women should be alone.

Obviously there are exceptions—single for Christ, the death of a spouse, you want to be married but haven’t met an interested person, divorce, etc. However, having said all of this, Genesis 2 makes a clear point: People should seek and expect to be married.

Marriage is the norm because Adam was incomplete without a wife. God knew that Adam would be better married than single. Both Adam and Eve were better together than apart. This means that most people are more useful to the Lord married than single.

2.One Flesh

To emphasize the joy and love that they would share, God declared Adam and Eve “one flesh.”

24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

God did not create them to compete with each other. They were not on separate teams. Rather, God created them to complement each other, to work together as one team with one mission.

3.Equal in Value

The man wanted an equal. That is the main point ofthe story about Adam naming the animals. The animals were nothis equals. They were animals. Therefore, they could not be the companion/helper that Adam needed.

So, God created Adam’s opposite. She was his equal. But she was strong where he was weak, and he was strong where she was weak. They complimented each other. God created the animals from the earth (Gen 1:24). However, to emphasize her unique and special status, Godtook Eve out of Adam’s side.

21 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. 22 And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. 23 Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.”

In the words of the Puritans, she was not created from his head to Lord it over him, or from his feet so that he could lord it over her. Instead, God took her from his side, from a rib over his heart, as a sign of his love and care for her, to signify that she was his equal, his companion, his beloved, his delight, and his friend.

4.Different in Function

Here is where the Bible collides with Western Culture. The Biblical perspective is that equal in value, but different in function stands at the very heart of reality. The members of the Trinity are equal in value, but different in function. For example, The Father wills it. The Son speaks it, and the Holy Spirit accomplishes it. The Father sends. The Son goes. The Holy Spirit motivates his going. The members of the Trinity are all fully God. They are equal, yet they delight to serve each other in an ordered hierarchy.

God made Adam and Eve like himself—equal in value, but different in function. He did this to bring glory to himself.

a)Adam was the Head of the Relationship

God created Adam first. God created Adam from the ground.

God also spoke to Adam on behalf of the marital community. God commandedAdam not to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. It was Adam’s job to explain that to Eve.

In addition, God created Eve from Adam, indicating his leadership role.

b)God created Eve to help Adam

God created Adam with two tasks. First, he commanded Adam to fill the earth with God’s glory.

(Genesis 1:28) "28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “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.”"

Second, God created Adam to Work the Garden.

15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and keep it.

God createdEve to help Adam accomplish these tasks.

18 “I will make him a helper fit for him.”

God created Eve to “help” Adamfulfill the tasks God had given him. That is one reason that it was not good that Adam be alone. He could not accomplish God’s calling by himself.

5.Happiness Reigned

To emphasize the absence of sin, guilt, selfishness, self awareness, insecurity, or fear, etc.—all symptoms of sin— the text concludes….

25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed."

In summary: God created Adam and Eve to be married. Marriage meant “one flesh.”. He created them equal in value but different in function. He assembled them biologically to accomplish those different functions. Adam was the worker. God created Eve to help him accomplish his work. God created Eve to help Adam fulfill Gen 1:28.

Adam was the head of the relationship. Eve was his subordinate.

God created them to be happy, and they were.

B.The Current Situation

When Adam and Eve sinned they forfeited Paradise.. We live in a Genesis 3 world. Male-Female relationships are not what they are supposed to be.

1.Reluctance to Marry

God created us to be married. Marriage is supposed to be the norm. However, since 1960 marriage has been losing traction in Western Culture. People are marrying later. Someare forgoing the institution altogether. In his book, Boys Adrift, Dr. Leonard Sax reports that in 1970 eighty four percent of American households were headed by a married couple. In 2006, for the first time in U.S. history, it dropped below 50%.[1]

In addition those that do marry do so later. In 1970 the average male was 22 and female 20 at first marriage. Today it is 28 and 26 respectively.

Tragically, the reluctance to marry,and the deferral of marriage, only increases with education. When bride and groom have a college degree it moves out to 30 and 28, and a graduate degree moves it to out even further. Selfish ambition is the culprit. Men fear that early marriage will interfere with the launch of their careers. Women, now competing with men for those same careers, don’t want marriage or children either.

Many factors drive the reluctance to marry and the deferral of marriage. For example, divorce, cohabitation, redefinition of marriage, less need for marriage, etc.

However, I am convinced that one of the biggest motivators is androgyny. The failure to celebrate the differences between the sexes causes competition between husband and wife. It causes both men and women to feel a reduced need for marriage. In the famous words of Gloria Steinem. “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.” If there are no differences between the sexes she is probably right.

2.Divided Flesh

God created Adam and Eve to be one flesh. This means teamwork. It means husband wife yoked together to help the husband accomplish his calling, and to raise godly children.

Our culture celebrates and promotes the opposite—two people married but pursuing separate careers selfishly.

Laura Sessions Stepp: “Young women tell researchers the same thing the Duke class told me: that they do eventually want to be married and have children. But they also voice significant concerns about whether they can do both well and enjoy a successful career. Some say that being single may be just as satisfying.”[2]

This is one powerful explanation for the reluctance to marry. Men don’t want to marry a competitor. In the animal kingdom, males and females rarely fight. Rather, the instinct between the sexes moves toward cooperation. In the same way, there is a similar instinct in most men. They do not want to compete with a woman. That doesn’t mean they want women to fail. They don’t! They just want to be different from women.

Here is my point: The celebration of Androgyny discourages “one flesh” unions. It removes the incentives for marriage. Most importantly, it discourages the development of normal masculinity.

3.Male Withdrawal

As we have noted, men want to compete with men. They want to work with men. They want to do things that men do, but there is almost no sphere in modern society where this can occur.

Anthropologists have observed that in all cultures men share a primal instinct to be set apart from women and children. “In general,” observes Gilder, “men are happiest working with other men in challenging and virile activity.”[3] After reviewing the work of the famed anthropologist, Margaret Mead, Gilder drew this conclusion. In almost all cultures, “Males always require a special arena of glorified achievement from which women are excluded. Their concern with sexual differentiation is obsessive. …”[4]

This is not happening, and men are responding by withdrawing from cultural responsibility. The signs are everywhere.

Bright females are excelling. According to Hymowitz they have higher average High School GPA s (3.4 compared to 3.24). and college GPAs.[5] In addition, “unmarried, childless women are outearning men in 147 of the 150 largest U.S. cities.”[6]

Most alarming is the trend at the undergraduate and graduate level. Here are the young adults that will run America twenty years from now. In 1970 approximately 60 percent of undergraduates were men. Today 60 percent are women. That means that 50 percent more females are graduating from college than men. In addition, women hold 60 percent of all master degrees—again, 50 percent more than men.

This is a concern, not because we want women to fail. We don’t. We want equal opportunities for both men and women. Rather, it is a concern because it signals the gradual withdrawal of men from positions of responsibility and influence. Men are the backbone of any society. Cultures rise and fall on the moral and spiritual condition of their men. “The role of the male,” notes George Gilder, “is the Achilles’ heel of civilized society.”

In addition, the family is the foundation of culture. The family will not survive the abdication of its men. A culture run and dominated by women will be unable to compete with one run and dominated by men!

Why are men abdicating?

We have noted the reluctance of men to marry. Much of the problem is an unwillingnessto marry a competitor, an unwillingness to marry where not needed. Most men can get sex readily and easily withlittle commitment in return. Why should a man enter into a lifetime relationship with a woman, who is independent, self-reliant, autonomous, and doesn’t need him? In the words of my father, “why buy the cow that you don’t need, who competes with you, when you can get the milk for free?”

C.Solution? Back to the Garden

God calls the church to be holy. Holy people are set apart from what is common. In terms of men and women’s roles, marriage, and fertility God calls the church to honor and celebrate both our equality and our differences. Generally, the opposite is happening around us.

Dr. Leonard Sax: “Not only do most of the books currently in print about girls and boys fail to state the basic facts about innate differences between the sexes, many of them promote a bizarre form of political correctness, suggesting that it is somehow chauvinistic even to hint that any innate differences exist.”[7]

If all of t his is true, the most important thing that we can do on Mother’s Day is to honor and celebrate the differences between men and women. By doing so, we honor the God who intentionally created us different. We honor his right to create as he sees fit. We confess that he designed us differently for different tasks.

Some differences, the sex organs, are almost too obvious to mention.

1.Physical Differences

The differences start at the cellular level. Every cell in a woman’s body has two X chromosomes. Every cell in a man’s body has an X and Y Chromosome.

Size: The average American female is 5 ft 3.75 inches tall and weighs 152 lbs. The average American male is 5 ft 9 inches and weighs 180 lbs.

Muscles: A greater percent of the average males body is muscle. Whereas,a higher percentage of the average female’s body is fat. Although the average male is only 20% heavier, his upper body is 45% stronger and his lower body 25% stronger than the average female. Most of this is due to the hormone, testosterone.

Skeletal: Men, on average, have denser, stronger bones, tendons, and ligaments. Contrary to popular belief both men and women have an equal number of ribs—12 pairs.

Organs: Males typically have a 56 percent greater lung volumeas a percent ofbody mass. They also have larger hearts, 10 percent higher red blood cell count, higher hemoglobin, hence greater ability to move oxygen throughout the body. They also have higher bloodclotting factors (vitamin K, prothrombin and platelets). These differences lead to faster healing of wounds and higher peripheral pain tolerance.

On the other hand, women have lower blood pressure, despite the fact that their hearts beat faster.Women produce antibodies faster than men, and therefore, fight infectious diseases better than do men.

Brains: The Female brain is more compact than male brain. Though smaller, the female brain is more densely packed with neurons, particularly in the region responsible for language. A larger percent of the female brain is devoted to language and hearing. Whereas a larger percent of the male brain is devoted to visual and visual spatial functions. Females have more blood flow to their brains, and lose less brain tissue as they age.

Senses: Women smell and hear better than men, but men generally see better than women.

2.Behavioral Differences

Although I.Q.s are generally even, our thinking is radically different. Females experience depression and chronic anxietyapproximately twice as frequently.