Introduction
Christian theology has three views on gender: complementarianism, mutualism, and egalitarianism. In the complementarian view, men and women complement each other with distinct hierarchical roles and responsibilities. The mutualist perspective teaches that men and women have mutual roles and responsibilities, but not necessarily the same ones. The egalitarian view presents the idea that men and women are equal (French: égalitaire) in all roles and responsibilities. This article is about the scriptural case for mutualism. Here is a table that explains the differences between complementarianism, mutualism, and egalitarianism:
Context | Complementarian | Mutualist | Egalitarian |
Value | Men & women are equal in value and dignity. | Men & women are equal in value and dignity. | Men & women are equal in value and dignity. |
Church | Men & women have separate roles in the church. Women cannot be leaders. | Men & women have mutual yet separate roles in church leadership. | Men & women have fully interchangeable roles in church leadership. |
Home | Men & women have distinctly ordered roles in the home. | Men & women have distinct yet mutual roles in the home. | Men & women have interchangeable roles in the home. |
Creation | Gender roles are God's intent in creation; salvation is a return to that intent. | Gender roles are a result of creation, and salvation restores mutuality. | Gender roles are a result of the fall, and salvation is deliverance from them. |
The mutualist view emphasizes the inherent equality of men and women as co-heirs in Christ, reflecting this biblical principle: "There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Gal. 3:28). This perspective affirms the value and dignity of each individual, regardless of gender, and promotes collaboration and shared leadership within the church and society. It recognizes the diverse gifts and callings of both men and women, encouraging their full participation in all aspects of ministry and service. Ultimately, embracing mutualism fosters a more inviting and dignified community where the gifts and contributions of all members are honored and valued.
Made in God's Image
Many readers believe the consequence God gave to Eve for her sin in the Garden of Eden suggests that he always intended for women to be submissive to men (see Gen. 3:16). However, God made it clear before Adam and Eve sinned that he "created humankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them" (Gen. 1:27; see "Humankind & Ancestral Sin"). In other words, the subjugation of women is a consequence of evil, not an intrinsic part of God's perfect will. When he removed one of Adam's ribs to form Eve, God chose a symbol of mutuality rather than one of oppression. To be sure, the Hebrew noun tzela (H6763), translated as "rib" in Genesis 2:21-22, means "side." Even in our culture, we say "by your side" as a statement of mutuality and solidarity. If God wanted to symbolize lesser status for women, he would use something more like the feet. In ancient Near Eastern culture, the foot represented all things filthy and evil because they often wore open-toed sandals. In a time without cars, everyone walked to their destinations and frequently encountered waste and decay. As we know from the Last Supper, foot-washing was the duty of slaves (see John 13:8). Even among modern Arabs, it is an insult to show the soles of one's foot to another person. Moreover, God never told Adam to conquer Eve but to care for her. She was to be his "suitable helper" (Hebrew: ezer kenegdo; H5828; H5048), a woman who would be at his side (see Gen. 2:18). Just as God ultimately wants the man to be at rest instead of work (see Matt. 11:28-29; Heb. 4:9-10), he wants the woman to be equal without having to fight for power (see Gen. 3:16-17; Luke 7:44, 50).
Women in the Old Testament
In the Hebrew Bible, women are usually traditional housewives, mothers, and helpers. Sarah, the wife of Abraham, exemplified the role of women in a patriarchal society so well that Simon Peter wrote, "They submitted themselves to their own husbands, like Sarah, who obeyed Abraham and called him her lord. You are her daughters if you do what is right and do not give way to fear" (1 Pet. 3:5-6). In our modern culture, we have given way to fear, especially in literal battles of the sexes. In response to women increasingly working outside the home, homemakers must defend their values and dignity. However, this problem is hardly new. In ancient Greece, philosophers such as Socrates (c. 470–399 BC) and Plato (428/27–348/47 BC) called for men and women to let the city-state raise their children while they pursued success and knowledge (cf. Republic, bk. 5). However, this was far from a type of proto-feminism—women were obligated to be potential sex partners for their male neighbors without a marriage covenant. To Jewish ears, this was an extraordinarily godless and pagan idea. That said, many of our beliefs about public education by the government come from Plato's Republic and not from the Bible. We also receive Plato's cultural view that homemakers are inferior to career women. There is nothing wrong with a woman choosing to stay at home with her children any more than with a woman striving to be a corporate executive. Unfortunately, many social influencers judge the first, while many church leaders condemn the second. The scriptures present "Sarah" and "Deborah" options. Deborah was a judge of Israel, especially during a national emergency (see Judg. 4-5). The role of a judge in antiquity was much like our concept of a president because the legal code restricted its power. The Israelites trusted Deborah to make decisions while following the Law. She did not come to power because she was born into the right family, as with monarchs. Deborah enforced nothing less than the Law of Moses, the legal system God presented at Mount Sinai (see Exod. 34:32). It also underlies the basis for the "Proverbs 31 woman" that complementarians emphasize in their call for the submission of women. Proverbs 31 (spec., vv. 10-31) offers a natural conclusion to this Old Testament section of the article. It begins with describing a "wife of noble character" and how well she supports her husband. This ode to a faithful woman is a bookend of Proverbs, which contrasts with the manipulative adulteress at the beginning (e.g., Prov. 2:16). King Solomon, the traditional author of the text, did not want to leave his male readers with a poor impression of women. This struggle was personal for Solomon, who was sometimes both the faithful husband and the foolish adulterer. In verses 13-16, the woman is an excellent breadwinner, shrewd in domestic and international business matters. She supervises the younger women who work for her on the estate. In the text, the "Proverbs 31 woman" buys land instead of her husband. She exercises to stay fit, is ready to do business, and faces whatever hardships come her way. This woman makes her husband look good, but not in a trophy-wife way. Her devotion as a godly wife and mother inspires the leading men at the city gate to respect him. Yet, she is kind and readily gives to the poor while providing the best quality clothing to her family and customers. The actual "Proverbs 31 woman" is the furthest thing from "barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen." Instead, we see a woman who is a familial, socioeconomic, political, and—most importantly—a spiritual force to reckon with (vv. 17-31). Those who walk away from Proverbs 31, thinking it describes a subservient homemaker, have not noticed its message.
Women in the New Testament
Complementarians see Paul of Tarsus' message in Ephesians 5:21-33 as a proof-text for the submission of women to men. If verse 22 ("Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord") were the only one in the passage, such a reading would be understandable. However, a theologically astute reader knows to read the verse in context. Paul warned, "This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband" (vv. 32-33). Moreover, the writer cautioned the reader not to view this lesson as subverting women but as an analogy about the hypostatic union God the Father shares with Jesus in the Trinity (see "Trinity: Jewish & Gentile Views"). In God's eyes, the people of Christ's church are first-class citizens of his kingdom. In the same way, a husband should consider his wife a first-class member of his household, not an indentured servant. Because Jesus cared for the church as his inheritance and gave up his life to save her, men should also be selfless, loving, and willing to die for the woman they married. This following passage sets the tone for interpreting others with a more excellent mutualist theme than complementarians admit or focus on local issues of the time. For example, Paul wrote:
For God is not a God of disorder but of peace—as in all the congregations of the Lord's people. Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church. Or did the word of God originate with you? Or are you the only people it has reached? (1 Cor. 14:33-36).
However, Paul was also friends with the woman Priscilla of Rome, who most certainly did not keep quiet in the churches. She was the wife of Aquila of Pontus and fled Rome when the emperor Claudius (10 BC–AD 54) banished the Jews from the capital (see Acts 18:2). Priscilla was a teacher—a teacher of men at that. Luke of Antioch testified to this when he wrote, "[Apollos of Alexandria] began to speak boldly in the synagogue. When Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they invited him to their home and explained to him the way of God more adequately" (Acts 18:26). The New International Version (NIV) correctly renders the Greek verb proslambanō (G4355) as "invited to their home," meaning Priscilla and Aquila led a house church of their own. This seemingly contradicts what Paul wrote to Timothy, "I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet" (1 Tim. 2:12). The only way to reconcile these verses is to realize that Paul was addressing a local issue with specific women and that Priscilla was exempt from this because she was a praiseworthy "Proverbs 31 woman." Paul made this exemption because Priscilla was Jewish and knew the Law of Moses. In contrast, the women of Corinth were recent Gentile converts to "the Way" and were still recovering from pagan fertility cults like those dedicated to Artemis or Aphrodite. The first-century church included many women in leadership. However, let us be clear: there was no ordination in the first few decades of Christianity. The Greek verb diatassō (G1299), which means "to thoroughly command," and the only word to be translated as "to ordain," never appears in the Bible regarding the ordination of people, much less church leaders. It primarily refers to God the Father and Jesus (e.g., Matt. 11:1, 1 Cor. 9:14). When Paul cautioned Timothy, "Do not be hasty in the laying on of hands, and do not share in the sins of others" (1 Tim. 5:22), he used a different phrase that referred to a commissioning rite when appointing leaders (see here). This rite dates to AD 64, when Paul wrote his first letter to Timothy. In the meantime, the local churches chose elders from within, but they held responsibility rather than an office. It is correct, therefore, to say that women were not "ordained" in the early years of Christianity, but neither were men. In addition to elders, there were deacons. In his letter to the Romans, Paul greeted a female deacon named Phoebe of Cenchreae (see 16:1). He called her a diakonos (G1249, "server") because she served in her local church. (The early church later appointed women to the diaconate once they reached sixty; see Acts 6:1-6; 1 Tim. 3:11; 5:9. In 451, Canon 15 of the Council of Chalcedon lowered the minimum age to forty.) Various women such as Chloe of Corinth (see 1 Cor. 1:11), Lydia of Thyatira (see Acts 16:11, 14, 40), Nympha of Laodicea (see Col. 4:15), and Euodia and Syntyche of Philippi (see Phil. 4:2) were the matrons of house churches with some degree of leadership. Jesus had several female benefactors who financed his ministry (see Luke 8:1-3).
Conclusion
In our paradisal state in the Garden of Eden, men and women were equal in God's image. The gender roles complementarians see in scripture are not what he originally intended but only exist because of our fallen nature. Yes, these complementarians are right when they say the Bible demonstrates gender roles, but they do not correctly understand why. In a strictly literal reading, which views nearly everything written in scripture as instructive or example-setting, they miss out on essential metanarratives. For example, when Paul wrote, "There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Gal. 3:28), this was a baptismal formula for the early Christians to know that God does not view us by our ethnoreligious, socioeconomic, or gender categories, but by our relationship with Jesus (see "Equal Opportunity in Galatia"). Because of our baptism, the old boundaries of discrimination and culture are gone, to be replaced with God's grace. Likewise, God designed the man not for work but to be in his sabbath rest (see Mark 2:27-28). Jesus' resurrection is the essential claim that separates Christianity from other religions. We overlook that our witness to this historical event derives from a woman: Mary Magdalene (see John 20:11-19). For this reason, the early church identified her as the "apostle to the apostles" because she first witnessed Jesus' resurrection, who commissioned her to share the good news. As Paul wrote of the woman and her husband, Andronicus, Junia was also "outstanding among the apostles" (Rom. 16:7). While complementarians today read this verse as Junia merely being respected by the apostles, church history reveals that this was not how most of the late-antiquity and medieval theologians understood it. Some translations, such as The Living Bible (TLB), feature the masculine Junias (see here) because of the implication a female apostle would have on systematic theology. However, even the fourth-century Greek bishop John Chrysostom (AD 347–407) described Junia as a woman, saying, "Indeed, how great was the wisdom of this woman that she was thought worthy of being called an apostle!" (On the Epistle to the Romans, hom. 31). So, now we see the lengths some churchgoers will go to preserve the complementarian view. In closing, today's church must teach gender mutuality as the virtue of praiseworthy women; this was also the early church's teaching.
Prayer
Blessed are you, LORD our God, King of the universe; you made us in your image and redeemed us through your Son. Look with compassion on the whole human family; take away the arrogance and hatred that infect our hearts; break down the walls that separate us; unite us in bonds of love, and work through our struggle and confusion to accomplish your purposes on earth; that, in your good time, all nations and races may serve you in harmony around your heavenly throne; through Jesus the Messiah our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, now and forever. Amen.
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