When God created man and woman in his own image (Gen 1:26-31), he wasn’t just crafting an additional feature of the creation; he was displaying his very nature—his glory. Yes, all of creation declares the glory of God (Ps 19:1; Isa 6:3), but only men and women are created in his image and therefore display his glory in a unique way. God has created his image bearers to exist as male and female, and there are particular glories of God that he intends to reveal in these differences. When we begin to blur the line between our differences as men and women, we are blurring the beauty of God that he desires to display in his creation.
But, God is good, so that the pursuit of his own glory coincides perfectly with our blessing. In other words, God aims to display his glory in the very same differences from which we derive incredible earthly and spiritual joy and benefit. That’s why it is vital for us to see these differences as complementary—God means for our distinctive gifts, abilities, perspectives, and tendencies as men and women, to complete, balance, supplement each other so that we might fulfill his will in our homes, churches, and in the world.
The Goodness of Complementarity is Everywhere
But the goodness of complementarity is not isolated to men and women. In fact, the intrinsic blessing of complementarity is found all throughout our human experience. You can’t escape it. It’s built into the creation. On a basketball team, for example, you need athletes of different heights, speeds, strengths, and specialties to form a championship team. When diverse talent comes together, it is a true joy to see such a team play.
Many of us had the opportunity to see this kind of complementary diversity in the 1985 LA Lakers. That team had height and an amazing, unblockable skyhook in Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. They had superb passing and playmaking from Magic Johnson, and excellent three-point shooting from Byron Scott. They had great mid-range shooting reliability from James Worthy, and solid rebounding and role-playing from Kurt Rambis. If the team had consisted only of five Magics, the Lakers would not have won multiple championships throughout the 1980s. If each person on the team wanted to be just like Kareem or Byron Scott, the Lakers would not have had such a memorable run.
The same goes for today’s NBA teams. The unmatched scoring ability of Shai Gilgeous Alexander, the versatility of Jalen Williams, the strength of Luguentz Dort, the shot-blocking of Chet Holmgren, and the rebounding ability of Isaiah Hartenstein all meshed together last month to bring home an NBA championship to Oklahoma City.
The diverse complementarity of these teams in both cases is what created such amazing success.
In a company, you need employees with different skill sets, experiences, perspectives, gifts, and abilities to craft a successful business. If every employee was an accountant, no products would ever be designed or manufactured. But if every employee was skilled at engineering, the financial health of the company would be in jeopardy.
Even in our enjoyment of food, complementarity is a blessing. Why do so many people like to drink coffee with their dessert? Because the sweetness of the raspberry cheesecake pairs wonderfully with the bitterness of the coffee. Conversely, when you begin to blur the distinct lines between these complementary items so that both the cake and the coffee begin to both taste bitter or both taste sweet, the pleasantness of the experience evaporates. The blessing is in the complemetary differences, and the pleasure is lost when we blur the distinctions between them.
As I’ve already said: God has woven the goodness of complementarity into the very creation.
He has also built complementarity into the body of Christ, where our various gifts are each essential to the overall health of the congregation (1 Cor 12-14). Paul reminds the Corinthian church of the vital truth that not everyone possesses the same gift or set of gifts (1 Cor 12:29-30). That’s not a glitch in the system—it’s a feature of the design.
Good Differences in our Natures and our Roles as Men and Women
It makes sense, then, that Paul would assign complementary roles to the man and the woman in the church and in the family. Specifically, in the gathered congregation and in the home, men hold the helm of leadership. These assignments are not arbitrary but correspond with our natures as men and women and are rooted in the creation (1 Tim 2:13-14; Eph 5:22-33; 1 Cor 11:3-6). These different assignments, when working together in joyful submission to Christ, create wonderful blessing for the man, the women, the family, and the local congregation. Conversely, when the lines are blurred between our natures and our assignments, the blessing evaporates.
Applying these glorious truths to the Christian family and the church, then, we can say that the best thing for a husband is for his wife to be feminine and to fulfill her God-given assignment as a woman, and not try to be masculine or to fill her husband’s role. The best thing for a wife is for her husband to be masculine and to fulfill his God-given assignment as a man and not try to be feminine or fill his wife’s role.
The best thing for every local church is for the women to be feminine and to fulfill their roles in the church—teaching the other women in the church (Titus 2:3-5) and serving in various capacities under the leadership of their elders. Likewise, the best thing for every local church is for the men to be masculine and to fulfill the calling to lead the church in formal and informal capacities (1 Cor 16:13; 1 Tim 2:8; 3:1ff; Titus 1:5-9). Of course, we need to constantly turn to Scripture to learn what it means to be men and women made and re-made in God’s image for the glory of Christ. There are some strange views as to what masculinity and femininity entail, both inside and outside the professing evangelical church, so we need the constant guidance and re-calibrating power of God’s Word.
Blurring the Lines Forfeits the Blessing
Importantly, we need to remember that blurring the lines on an ontological or practical level when it comes to our differences as men and women will never turn out for our good. The blessing is found in the differences, which means that the differences must be maintained in order to continually experience the blessing.
When we begin to drift from the Word of God by removing the clear distinctions that exist between men and women in our natures and in our assignments in the church and in the home, we obscure God’s glory and rob ourselves of pleasant spiritual riches that our gracious Father intends to shower upon us. But when we uphold these good differences, God’s glory is clearly seen in the church and in our homes, and our lives are filled with immeasurable blessings. May Christ help us to fulfill our calling as men and women, created and re-created in God’s image, for his glory and the good of his people.