Video Transcript: Gender Relations and Marriage

In part two of this course, we've been looking at some prominent themes of the  Bible. Our understanding of these naturally is greatly informed by what Jesus  and the apostles taught about them. However, these scenes are already pretty  well developed in the scriptures of the Old Testament, the very scriptures, which  Jesus and the apostle saw is foundational to understanding what God was doing in their day and what he had in mind as the culmination of his redemptive plans.  Now in our final lectures, we'll be looking at three practical areas of life, in which  the scriptures of the Old Testament have much wisdom to offer gender relations  and marriage, parents and children and generosity versus materialism. These  subjects generate great discussion and disagreement in our world. And many  people have either lost sight of what the Bible says about them or don't care. But here are three areas in which the rubber hits the road as the saying goes, and in which our ideas about what it means to love and serve God are particularly put  to the test, the matter of gender relations and marriages and special turmoil  today. And much of this has to do with our concept of where we came from, and  whether or not we're answerable to anyone. If, for example, you look from an  evolutionary point of view, and what seems to be the male instinct to lust after  women, you might conclude that this is serve to protect humans from extinction.  And even if the human race no longer needs that instinct, because the species  we've more or less adopted monogamy, we can hardly blame men for what  evolution has conditioned us to do. If on the other hand, you look at lust from the biblical point of view, you see that it has more to do with sin than with nature, for  God created men to be fulfilled through their faithfulness to one woman for life.  And so as I said, our view of where we came from, and whether we're  answerable to a creator has a lot to say about gender relations and marriage.  However, the idea that gender is not fixed by anatomy, but fluid, or that there are no norms governing marriage is difficult to make sense of and either concept of  origins, evolutionism or creation. So with a higher animals and humans, it  always takes males and females to ensure the survival of the species. Nor is it  only sexually that males and females are made for each other. There's  complementarity in many other ways as well, despite the unwholesome and  unbiblical notions about male female relations that circulate in so many cultures  around the world. Two such notions are that one that there's no difference  between men and women or two that there is a difference, and that one sex is  better than the other. But as Peter Kreeft correctly asserts, these ideas we can  call the first unit of sexism or the second male chauvinism are the two most  ridiculous errors about men and women. The unisex feminist says that men,  women and men are not different in value and therefore not different in nature.  The male chauvinist says that men and women are different in nature, and  therefore also different in value. The biblical truth, of course, is that men and  women, while somewhat different in nature, are not different in value and God  designed us to work together and complement each other in fulfilling our God 

given tasks as stewards of His creation. That's not to say that all differences are  cut and dried or that roles do not overlap. Nor is it to say that people cannot  fulfill their individual callings without being married and or having children.  Nevertheless, we have to be clear that the first man and woman, Adam and Eve, were given to one another by God to become one with each other for a lifetime.  And although sin generated problems in their relationships that did not change  God's design for gender relations in marriage. The opening chapters of the Bible contain several implications for marriage. Adam and Eve were created for each  other and given the shared mandate to be fruitful and increase in number filling  the earth and taking care of and developing it. The first part of that mandate  being fruitful and increasing in number would have been impossible had not the  first and model marriage had been between a man and a woman. And the  second part of that mandate taking care over the earth and its creatures and  developing the potential of the creation was likewise meant to be their shared  responsibility. That is to say, Eve was not given to be Adams subordinate, his  assistant lower in the command hierarchy hierarchy, but to be his partner, a  helper suitable to him, and one who fully shared in the responsibility God had  entrusted to them. I want to mention three things that God expected from Adam  and Eve. Things they had to be good at if they weren't fulfilled their mandate  from God, and things necessary for any good marriage communication,  cooperation, and commitment. Let's start with communication. In marriage  today, as in the first marriage, there needs to be good two way communication,  that is communication with God, and with each other. Genesis 3 speaks of God  walking in the garden in the cool of the day and looking for Adam and Eve. This  particular occasion was not a happy one. But it seems clear that this was not the first time God expected to communicate with Adam and Eve, that he was used  to regular communication with him. In fact, of all the things Adam and Eve can  do together as married people, the most important was walking and talking with  God. God had given them a big job to do take care of my garden. Now I'm pretty sure that Adam and Eve weren't stupid, but neither were they created super  smart knowing everything. They had to learn, sometimes by trial and error, and  they ran into problems and went regularly to God for help. They weren't  ashamed to do that. Genesis 2:25, says Adam and Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame. This tells us that Adam and Eve started off with  absolutely nothing to conceal from God or from each other. There was good  communication on both fronts. In by communication, I do not mean simply  passing information back and forth. Good communication is the conveying of  information, but in an atmosphere of love and respect, and trust. After all, God  had put Adam and Eve together with the intention that they could build each  other up and stimulate each other to become all that God intended them to be.  But sin changed all that. The first thing they did was cover themselves up and go into hiding. They obviously felt guilty and didn't want to face God. But 

communication in their marriage was also affected. They didn't communicate as  openly and honestly, as they had before. There may have been some puzzling  moments with each other before this after all men and women have been wired  somewhat differently from the start. But that didn't become a problem until they  fell out with God. Then they also started covering up in front of each other and  when God called them on their sin, they tried to pass the blame for what they'd  been responsible for. Same sort of thing can happen too often today to even in  the best marriages at the best of times. Husbands and wives communicate  support and encouragement for each other, in the performance of their mutual  and God given tasks. But such positive communication can break down or  become negative and hurtful. And such failure communication breeds  misunderstandings distrust, anger and competition. Not long before neither  spouse listens anymore. No real communication. If there is talk, it's in anger or  frustration rather than in love. In all, such talk actually makes things worse rather than better. So, if husbands and wives want to have a good marriage, they will  begin by making sure to keep the lines of loving communication open. Of  course, there are more things than good communication that help to make a  marriage happily ever after. But good communication with God and each other is one ingredient of a healthy, happy and healthy marriage. Another ingredient, is  that the exercise of authority in marriage needs to be cooperative rather than  competitive. Before Eve there Adam was in the best of all possible worlds all  around him were trees and flowers and animals and Adam had God given  authority over only trouble was he was lonely. When he talked, there was no one who could understand or to whom he could listen. You can train your dog to help manage the sheep, but no one who had his own intelligence who could help him in his work. And that's when God made woman. He created her as man's  partner, someone suitable to work with him to manage God's world, woman and  man were essentially equal before God with shared authority. That is to say,  they both knew that God was the authority, the ultimate authority and that they  had to work together under him. Their equality didn't mean they look the same  or had exactly the same duties in the relationship. Perhaps one was better at  something than the other. They weren't identical. But they were equal. In Eve,  Adam found what he had not been able to find anywhere else, a partner in work  and play. And when God brought her to the man, Adam recognized her as his  partner, he said, This is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. Or in other  words, she's as dear and important to me as, as is my own life. These were the  first wedding vows. It was a good partnership with cooperation, instead of  competition, or if there was competition, it was of the friendly and healthy  varieties. Doesn't sound quite like the war between the sexes does it. In our  experience, women and men, wives and husbands often fight for power. Married people can make it miserable for each other by their attempts to assert authority over each other. Such powerplay started after Adam and Eve had messed up 

their relationship with God by their disobedience, then they start blaming each  other. Adam said her fault, and Eve said, The serpent's fault. And God described to Eve the way things would be from then on. He said, Your desire will be for  your husband, and he will rule over you are vying for control. That is the result of sin. It's not the kind of partnership God had in mind. For men and women, he  still urges in other ways and practice of mutual love and cooperation, rather than competition, and control. There's another ingredient for good marriage that we  see in this first marriage ceremony. That is commitment, which takes seriously  the permanence of marriage. That was God's intention from the beginning when  he gave Eve to Adam as his companion and partner in managing God's world.  Jesus later made clear the permanence of the marriage commitment when he  referred to God's hand in marriage, what God has joined together, no people  should pull apart. Because of the disorder and sin in our world, Jesus did allow  for the possibility of marriage break up. But the principle he maintained, was that God's original intentions and should not be ignored. God expected Adam and  Eve and all who follow to make their marriage work. If that's to happen in today's world, you need two people to commit themselves to following through on what  they promised in the ceremony. And commitment is not just an ability to live with  pain, and a dogged determination to stay together through hell or high water. It's rather a determination to do what it takes to make your marriage work as God  intends it to work. It's a determination to be faithful, to be kind and loving under  stress, to not take advantage of the other's weaknesses. And in cases of failure  of any of these, to be forgiven. In other words, a determination to do whatever  you can to minimize the pain you yourself cause in the marriage. All this as well  as the determination not to give up in the hard times. A commitment to marriage  is a commitment to keep the channels for communication open. It's a  commitment to resist the temptation to hide yourself from, from each other from  your partner. And you keep talking things out in open and honest and loving  ways. When you fight you fight fair. And keep in mind the power of words and  actions to hurt and destroy. Saying things designed to hurt the other is certainly  a form of communication but no communication that can help to preserve  marriage. Marriage can never function properly, where there's not continual,  rededication to being lovingly open and honest with each other. Remember the  biblical image Adam and Eve naked in front of each other with nothing to hide.  Physically naked, yes, but much more than that emotionally naked. They didn't  need defense mechanisms because they trusted that the other would not take  advantage of their vulnerability. I think a certain amount of unhealthy competition or control games are inevitable in a marriage between two sinful people but  commitment means as soon as you recognize them, you reject them. That  means you neither a seek to control your partner nor SUBMIT yourself to  unhealthy control by your spouse, but you work toward cooperation. In marriage, you're supposed to work the best for each other. You're supposed to want that 

bad enough so you can forgive each other's mistakes and lies and selfishness  and keep starting over. Couples who do this together find that the loss of  unrealistic expectations. And the joint attention to working through problems is  really the beginning of a relationship that is far more satisfying than any  independence which was lost. You'll never get rid of all friction, but it's the things that people do to deal with friction that tells the story on what the marriage will  become. Besides communication, cooperation and commitment, we should not  leave this matter of gender relations and marriage without at least briefly  considering the matter of sexual desire and its appropriate expression.  something of the sort of sexual relationship that God intends for married people  is conveyed among other places in the Song of Songs. Although some  Christians from past centuries tried to diminish the graphic sexuality of this book  by allegorizing it because they thought that sex muddied the spiritual waters and prevented one from living a truly godly life, the Song of Songs should be read as a joyful celebration of the goodness of sexual love. The impact of all its poems  about love is to say that the physical is good, sex is good that love is good, and  that we should celebrate it. Not that this book can be read as a 60s style  invitation to free love, it cannot because it must be read in the context of the Old  Testament and the Bible as a whole, which tell us that the appropriate place for  the practice of sexual love is lifelong heterosexual marriage. But in this context,  sexual desire is a wonderful gift of God to men and women. The kind of love  described in the Song of Songs is fiercely strong. Hence the refrain we hear  throughout the book. Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires. The  trouble you see is that if love is not expressed in an appropriate relationship,  then it will break you. Perhaps this is why God insists in the Bible that sex  belongs exclusively in marriage after a public ceremony, where two people vow  to maintain a lifelong commitment to one another, body and soul. To have sex  without that commitment is to lie with our bodies. It's to say I'm committed to you with my body, but not with the rest of my life. People who are sleeping with  someone to whom they are not married need to ask what prevents me from  saying with the rest of my life what I say with my body. True Love won't tolerate  a halfway commitment because love is as strong as death. It's jealousy as  unyielding as the grave. As Song of Songs says something has to give. If that's  true, you'd expect to see a negative effect if we refuse to treat love as it  deserves. And indeed, more than one survey tells us that couples who cohabit  and then married are twice as likely to divorce as couples who have not  cohabited and among those who cohabits. There, they're 50% more likely to be  unfaithful than are married people. Love is as strong as death. It has the  capability of destroying us, if not structured properly. Can you see the beauty of  the Bible to have sex, it refuses to be trapped in a repressed corner where sex  is never for recreation or celebration, but equally, it refuses to be trapped in a  liberal corner which sees sex as pure recreation. Sex is to be celebrated but 

also respected. That's a picture of it in the Song of Songs. It's a picture of what  God intended from the beginning. Admittedly, this has been severely messed up  by by sin but our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ is even now in the process of  redeeming human sexuality along with the rest of his broken creation. And this  means that regardless of the powerful attraction and commitment between a  man and a woman that relationship won't ever be as good as it can be, unless  and until both come to life and Christ. On the other hand, the mere fact of life in  Christ eternal life is not enough by itself to make sure that the sexual  relationship of two such people is just what God intends it to be. And I guess  that more than a few married Christians would do well to try to rekindle the  passion that is evident between the lovers in the Song of Songs. Wherever  you're at, keep the Bible's message on gender relations and marriage in view,  so that you don't settle for less than God intends for you