Patriarchy is initially revealed in the first three chapters of Genesis and reaffirmed in I Corinthians 11:3. It is also taught in many other places in the Bible, both Old and New Testaments. It is demonstrated in the lives of godly men and women throughout the Bible. Some non-Jewish men in both Old and New Testament scriptures also demonstrated patriarchy, indicating that it is a teaching from creation that was a foundational building block of all human society. As a young Christian, husband and father, I thought I knew what patriarchy was. I was wrong, I had a very limited understanding of God’s design for men and women in the family. It has been a long, lonely and painful road on the journey of knowing and understanding my Lord’s truth and will for His people.
I will endeavor to explain my learning and experience:
1. God designed the family to reflect Himself and His relationship with His creation, along with other more concise purposes as procreation and education. The family is to display the Lordship of Christ and the order of His creative mind and heart.
2. In this structural order we find that Christ is the head of the man, the man is the head of the woman and God is the head of Christ (I Corinthians 11:3).
3. In Genesis 1-3, we see proclaimed and demonstrated our Lord’s purpose for His creation. This is before the Law was given to Israel through Moses. Man and woman were created in His image and given two basic commands of purpose. They were a) to multiply and replenish the Earth (reproduce) and b) exercise dominion over God’s creation (as the small g gods of the world). They were also to dress or care for the Garden of Eden.
4. Prior to sin entering the world, God’s order was already established. After the sin of Adam, the structure of God’s order was not changed, but clarified with the effects of the result of sin. Though sin marred God’s creation, it did not change the structure and order of His creation, but there were consequences that affect human relationships to this day. Just as the Earth, being under the curse because of Adam’s sin, is still functioning with all of what we call the laws of nature, i.e. gravity, sea level, seasons, etc., so family structure and order remain unchanged in God’s design.
5. The first effort to distort God’s structure and order and therefore distort the image of His relationship with His creation, took place in the Garden of Eden. Satan, the master deceiver, set out to destroy the authority of God, who expelled him from Heaven and consigned him to a future eternity in the lake of fire (Hell). Satan did not approach God’s designated head of the first human family, but to undermine God’s authority, he undermined the authority of the replica god, Adam. He did this by bypassing the head and approached the subordinate, Eve. Eve received the command to not eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil from her head, Adam. Adam received the command from God before Eve was created. Eve was deceived by Satan into rejecting her husband’s voice of authority to listening to and taking the word of another (Satan) who suggested that she was being lied to by Adam. Eve responded to Satan’s deceptive suggestion that what she had been told was a lie by turning to her own observation and evaluation. She saw that it was good for food, pleasant to the eyes and desired to make one wise, she ate it and NOTHING HAPPENED! I believe that Adam saw her eat it with no consequence and he was easily tempted when she said, “here Honey, taste this”. When Adam ate the fruit, there was an immediate consequence to both of them. They knew they were naked, their innocence was gone and they immediately tried to compensate by making clothes of fig leaves, the first effort of self-righteousness. The difference between Eve eating and Adam eating was that she supplanted her husband’s authority with another and Adam listened to his wife instead of God. God had put Adam in charge, so the sin is hereafter known throughout the Bible as the sin of Adam. This is the first application of what we know today as militant feminism, supplanting the authority of husbands with the authority of wives.
6. I turned 13 years old in 1960. The sixties and therefore my teenage years were tumultuous. I witnessed the major social upheaval. “Question everything” was the cry of the decade and everything was subject to revaluation in the light of modern thought and philosophy. Foundations were shaken and the tremors are still being felt today. The most severe shaking was in the realm of feminism, a sociological revolt against Biblical standards of male and female identity, the same conflict that Eve faced in the Garden. Men and women were caught up in the cry for “equality of the sexes”. Unfortunately, it went far beyond the initial effort to provide equal opportunity for both genders and equal pay for equal work, to total destruction of the blessedness of womanhood, of wife and motherhood, of homemaker and builders of the next generation. The God designed distinctions between the genders has been rapidly deteriorating in the world. Tragically, Christians and churches were being affected by the philosophies of feminism, after all, “equality” is a good thing, isn’t it? Men who had been raised to honor, respect and protect women were easy prey for the bra burning feminists because, like Adam, they chose to listen to the voice of the age of enlightenment rather than the Word of God and didn’t want to disrespect women. Therefore, they abdicated their role of leadership and headship in their homes and churches. The rapid increase in cases of homosexuality of both genders arose out of this malaise. From that, came what we have today in the LGBTQ+ communities, the evidence of the confusion of God’s designed order and structure.
7. As a result of men abdicating their God designed role of headship in their homes and churches, our culture has been deteriorating and will continue to do so. We now have a divorce rate among those who profess to be Christians that compares equally to that of the lost world around us. Consequently, there is a breakdown of family structure and order, where God is no longer being portrayed as the Lord and head of His creation. We are in a worse condition than the nation of Israel during the days of the Judges, when, “because there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes.” Judges 21:25 Where structure and order are denied, chaos rules. There will always be the conflict of, who is right, who is in charge, who is responsible, the husband or the wife? Peacemakers in our day are trying to save the day by initiating a new structure, where both are right, both are in charge and both are responsible. Unfortunately for them, we cannot improve on God’s design. The appropriate solution is for men and women to gladly conform to God’s design for their individual role. God specifically uses the word “head” when putting forth His order and structure in the family; He invests that headship in the husband and saddles him with the responsibility that goes with the task. “Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.” Genesis 3:16 A consequence for Eve’s heeding Satan’s accusatory lie is, her husband is not only still the federal head of humanity and their family, but now she will have to deal with her desire to be the head while her husband remains the head, ruling over her. No living being can function normally with two heads. One preacher said, “anything with two heads is a monster”.
8. As a result of the feminizing of our culture, our churches have been gravely affected by the spirit of the age. Most of them have lost the cognizance of God’s design for His creation and accepted the feminized view of men and women, thereby affecting the Christian view of the Lordship of our Creator and Redeemer. Men no longer know what it means to be a godly man. Women no longer know what it means to be a godly woman. Our churches and families are now virtually powerless because of this confusion of how God reflects Himself in His creation.
9. Near the end of the Apostolic era, many heretical doctrines arose, as the Apostles prophesied. One of the heresies that had a lasting effect had to do with the concept that the body is evil and the soul is good. This is called “asceticism” and mainly came out of the Catholic church that was at Alexandria, Egypt. Perhaps the most notable ascetic was Augustine of Hippo, he took his views to Rome and influenced the Catholics at Rome. At various times in the history of the Catholic Church this played out in forbidding marriage, not only for priests and nuns, but for all people. At other times spouses were only allowed to have sexual relations for the purpose of producing babies, no other reason or time. These practices did not last long each time they were instigated. Human sexuality has been considered the worst of sins and to the other extreme, nothing more than animalistic lust. God has another view and since it is His, it is the right view, one which we would do well to embrace.
10. God created man and woman as uniquely designed genders. Our sexuality is not an afterthought in the mind of God. Our gender is actually one of the foundational blocks of our identity. “So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created him; male and female created He them.” Genesis 1:27. This is God’s word. Our world has been manipulated by Satan to believe that men and women are the same, that we are equal in every aspect of our being and that the only differences are our genitals and that our gender differences are hindrances to human progress and growth. Yet, God declares that He made us with unique and distinctive differences, specifically designed for the purposes we are created to fulfill. When we allow gender denial or confusion, we contribute to the emotional, physical and above all spiritual, confusion of life. What passes for godly manhood and womanhood today is a pale shadow of God’s design; remember we were created in His image, by His design and for His purposes. Our sexual design does contribute a major part of who we are, something the world has been trying to deny, with great success in recent decades. Let’s not be afraid to embrace a Biblical view, God’s view, of our sexuality and how it impacts who we are and what our Lord has designed us for, our identity and purpose.
11. A godly woman is the epitome of God’s handiwork, the peak of His creative work. Adam was complete and therefore did not need Eve to complete him. Eve was not a correction of the Lord’s work with Adam, she was not an afterthought. She is exactly what and who God created her to be. She is man once refined, but she is not a man, she is a woman, the last and finest act of God’s six-day creation extravaganza. She is the epitome of the Creator’s masterpiece. Let us depart from the worldly view of woman, the view inspired by and propagated by Satan. Let us shun the idea that a woman should be anything less or more than what and who God created her to be, for one cannot improve on perfection. God created her to be Adam’s helper, companion, friend, lover and mother to his children. The Lord equipped her with a particular nature and skills to accomplish the great tasks she was created for. He did not design her to carry the heavy load of leadership and headship with its associated burdens and pains. That’s not to say that she cannot function in leadership positions, but that such is not her design and function, where she will shine the brightest. Eve and all her daughters are defined by their sexuality; their biology portrays a major description of their purpose. In God’s design for sexual interaction, the woman is the receptor, the vessel that receives the man and his seed. She is the receiver that holds and gives life, nurtures and embraces that good gift of God. Her activities are not aggressive by nature, but strong, consistent and faithful in being the bringer of new life and the nurturer of children and husband. She is also one who gives encouragement, respect, honor and reverence to her husband. She cannot effectively fulfill her role of God’s design if she is endeavoring to be the head in the marriage.
12. A godly man is a reflection of his creator. Adam was created in the image and likeness of God. He was given responsibility over God’s creation, that made him the god of this world. Adam relinquished that god-like status to Satan when he listened to Eve’s voice rather than God’s Word. “And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;” Genesis 3:17. “Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?” Romans 6:16. Adam surrendered his status as god of this world, but retained the responsibility of headship of his family and he did so for every man who descended from him. Adam, as the progenitor of the entire human race, is the representation of manhood. He portrays God’s design for men to this very day. I find it obvious that manhood has fallen into great decay since Adam, and increasingly more so in recent decades. It is my goal in writing this project to promote a Biblical example of godly manhood, using New Testament truth, including Old Testament examples. “Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.” I Corinthians 10:11. Men, by God’s design, tend to be aggressive, controlling, opinionated, possessive, self-appreciating, confident, competitive, single-minded, compassionate, and loving while generally suppressing emotion internally. It is a rare man that is strong in all these characteristics, but most all men will be strong in one or many of these characteristics. These virtues are generally appreciated by honest women, but they are also the characteristics that the feminists and their cohorts find most revolting in a man. These listed virtues are not a complete list, but they are an example of the reflection of God in His creation. Sin has marred the image of God in His handiwork, but not removed it. This marred image becomes evident when we see men and women living their lives without honoring the Lordship of Christ. Selfishness, bitterness, hatred and greed, etc. becomes the theme of their life in varying degrees. However, I wish to keep our attention on things that are becoming to godly men and women. Men are designed to be the leader of their families, to protect, provide and support them. They are to be the spiritual and physical head of the family. It is a man’s responsibility to work to provide for them, to be the one who meets the wolf at the door or the enemy at the gate. He is to take the leadership from the hand of God and not wait for his wife to give it to him. His goal is to be right, not popular. He is to set an example for his family by being faithful, first of all to God and then to all his responsibilities. In human sexuality, the man is the giver of seed, the possessor of his woman; penetration in sexual intercourse is the act of lordship, of possessing her, giving of strength and functioning on the human scale as the creator. For women, sex is about receiving, enveloping and nurturing, but for men it is about possessing, conquering and headship. (Yes, it is also about pleasure for both) God did not design men to assume the passive role in the husband/wife relationship, but rather to replicate the role of God in creation by taking leadership, responsibility and accompanying authority, all motivated by Godly love.
13. The differences between men and women in God’s design are real, beneficial and distinct, profitable for both. Marriage in our western culture has been corrupted by the influence of the Roman and Greek pagan religions that have been inculcated into the doctrine and philosophy of the Roman Catholic Church and by extension into Protestantism. The concept of a “soul-mate” or “a better half” was made popular by Socrates who tells that Zeus split the first person into two parts and that since then people have been seeking their other half that will make them complete. Romanized Christianity has used this pagan mythology to explain the following Scripture. “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.” Genesis 2:24 However, the verse says “one flesh”, not one person, not one entity, or one spirit. Also note that the following indicates that one flesh relegates the relationship to the physical realm only, “What? know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body? for two, saith he, shall be one flesh”, I Corinthians 6:16. Two applications present themselves from these passages, a) The joining of a male and female body in sexual intercourse make a matching of parts that makes (temporarily) one flesh. b) A man who was part of the one flesh unit of his parents, marries a woman who was part of the one flesh unit of her parents and unite in the marital relationship and form their own one flesh unit with the husband as the head. The Biblical relationship of the husband and wife is not based upon the two becoming one person, but one unit with distinctively unique roles and functions.
14. Christians in western society have generally thought of marriage as being entirely between a man and a woman, with each being held to the relationship by love, loyalty and Divine injunction. However, it should be better understood to be a man and a woman joined by the will of God (personal love and desire are secondary), each of the parties have first loyalty to God and His design for the relationship. Failure by one or both of the parties to keep the initial love and desire active and consistent does not necessitate dissolution of the marriage because that is the secondary motivation. The primary motivation to faithfulness and marital success is ultimate faithfulness to God. If it is God’s will for one to get married, it is God’s will for one to stay married.
15. Godly Patriarchy is as much a function of Christian women as it is of Christian men. I will describe the Biblical teaching of the function and responsibility of both, using NT precepts and OT examples. This is to keep us from being entangled with the Law for the nation of Ancient Israel. These three main passages in the New Testament are where husbands and wives are instructed together and always address the wives first, so I will also; Ephesians 5, Colossians 3 and I Peter 3.
16. We have already looked at the biological differences and functions between men and women, now I wish to address the social structure of marriage and the woman’s role with some examples to illustrate it. Ephesians 5:22 presents the wife submitting to her own husband as her service to the Lord. Verse 23 declares that her husband is her head and verse 24 continues that she is to be subject to him in everything. We find in verse 25 that she should be able to expect that her husband will love her as Christ loves His church. Verse 28 says that the husband should love her as well as he loves his own body. The chapter concludes with verse 33 instructing that the wife see that she reveres her husband. So far it sounds like being a wife is a passive position, somewhat lacking in status and power. That is the way the world looks at it, however, our authority is God Himself, so we must look for His plan and direction. I would like to first call to your attention to verse 22 and the words “as unto the Lord”. While at first glance it appears that the wife is submitting to and serving her husband, while in fact she is first submitting to and serving the Lord, it is our Lord’s instruction we are observing. Being a Christian wife is a high calling from the Lord Himself, not of mankind. The husband’s worthiness is not the criteria for wifely submission or reverence, but the command of the Lord is the criteria. Whether he is a good man or not, does not negate the Lord’s design for marriage, her submission and reverence to her husband, is her service to the Lord, the husband’s benefit is secondary. In I Peter 3:1-6, he begins with the instruction to wives, “be in subjection to your own husbands”. However, he follows up with a revelation of the potential and power that a godly wife has. Wives have the opportunity to win unbelieving or disobedient husbands to Christ by the exercise of their godly lifestyle and spirit, called here, the conversation of the wives. The next verse adds to the wife’s chaste conversation, “coupled with fear”. That fear is a genuine reverence for God. From this we see that a godly wife requires a sincere, genuine holiness and a close walk with God. Far too many men and women see the role of a wife as far more superficial than what God designed her to be. In God’s design for wives, the single most significant feature is her spirit, that part of her that is most like the Lord, when she is in the right relationship with her Savior. Verse 4 declares it to be the “hidden man of the heart” and “the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price.” King Solomon’s mother, Bathsheba instructed him in Proverbs 31:10, with these words, “Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is far above rubies.” A virtuous woman, a godly woman with a meek and quiet spirit; one whose demeanor reflects the Lord she serves, is most effective in the passive role in the marital relationship. This woman is more effective in this role than any other and no one can improve on her status. Worldly fame and fortune are eclipsed by a godly woman serving God through being in submission to her husband. A godly wife is her husband’s helper, not his burden or his supervisor. She functions well as his supporter and cheerleader, encouraging him to do well in that which God has called him to be. She may easily be more intelligent than him and more capable than he, but it is his God given work that is to be followed. A godly wife ought not feign humility to make herself look servile, rather the meekness Peter wrote about is the effort of avoiding self-promotion, not appearing less than what she really is. Any man worth his salt will revel in the excellence of his wife’s virtue, intelligence and ability. I have said for decades, “when a wife becomes a mother, the husband either gains a family or loses a wife.” A wife’s function becomes increasingly complex when she becomes a mother. There exists a tendency to subordinate the role of wife, and make the role of being a mother the primary role. That would be a mistake. By deferring cheerfully to the husband/father, a mother is demonstrating to the child that there is a lordship relationship between the parents. This is vital to her teaching the child about her relationship to God and then teaching the child about the Lord so that he/she too may come to the Savior for him/herself. Falsely deferring to the husband’s leadership does not fool the children. They mimic not only the appearance of the mother’s behavior, but also the spirit of it.