The feminist movement has been a powerful force in the United States and worldwide. What does God’s word say about femininity? Note that I said femininity and not feminism! These are two very different things! Several months ago I preached a lesson about godly masculinity and this is intended to be the complement to that lesson. Let’s go to the source of all truth to see what God’s word has to say.

God created man and woman.

Genesis 2:15–25 (NASB95)

15 Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it.

16 The Lord God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely;

17 but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.”

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

19 Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name.

20 The man gave names to all the cattle, and to the birds of the sky, and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him.

21 So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place.

22 The Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man.

23 The man said,

“This is now bone of my bones,

And flesh of my flesh;

She shall be called Woman,

Because she was taken out of Man.”

24 For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.

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

Why was woman created? Because God saw that man needed a helper. None of the animals were fit to be Adam’s helper. Adam needed a helper. God created woman to fill that need.

Man and woman were created to complement each other. They are similar, but not the same. Man was created in God’s image and woman was created from man, thus woman was created in God’s image also.

Modern feminism likes to pit man and woman against each other, claiming that historically women had been subservient to men in some way and tries to right that perceived wrong.

What does the Bible say about this relationship? Should woman serve man or vice versa?

Genesis 3:11–19 (NASB95)

11 And He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?”

12 The man said, “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate.”

13 Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” And the woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

14 The Lord God said to the serpent,

“Because you have done this,

Cursed are you more than all cattle,

And more than every beast of the field;

On your belly you will go,

And dust you will eat

All the days of your life;

15 And I will put enmity

Between you and the woman,

And between your seed and her seed;

He shall bruise you on the head,

And you shall bruise him on the heel.”

16 To the woman He said,

“I will greatly multiply

Your pain in childbirth,

In pain you will bring forth children;

Yet your desire will be for your husband,

And he will rule over you.”

17 Then to Adam He said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat from it’;

Cursed is the ground because of you;

In toil you will eat of it

All the days of your life.

18 “Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you;

And you will eat the plants of the field;

19 By the sweat of your face

You will eat bread,

Till you return to the ground,

Because from it you were taken;

For you are dust,

And to dust you shall return.”

Notice here that when Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden, both were cursed by God because of it. Adam was cursed to have difficulty in working the ground. Eve was cursed with pain in childbirth, but God said she would have desire for her husband who would rule over her. So, we see that this pattern of man being the leader was setup by God all the way back in Genesis 3.

Does this mean that man is superior to woman? Not in the least! Both are made in the image of God and both complement each other. God gave each gender specific roles to fulfill. God’s design is good and perfect!

It is important to realize that in life, all of us, both men and women, must submit to someone’s leadership. Maybe it’s your husband or your boss at work. It’s a bit ironic that modern feminists will refuse to submit to a man’s leadership at home (a man who loves her) and instead go submit to a boss’s leadership at work. Ultimately all of us must submit to God’s leadership.

Now that we understand man and woman’s relation to each other as God has arranged it, let’s look at some examples from the Bible to see how this works. We have many great examples of godly women in the Bible, but today I’d like to look at a somewhat different example – Jesus and the church.

We see that the church is described as the “bride of Christ”.

Ephesians 5:22–33 (NASB95)

22 Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord.

23 For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body.

24 But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything.

25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her,

26 so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word,

27 that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless.

28 So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself;

29 for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church,

30 because we are members of His body.

31 For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.

32 This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church.

33 Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own wife even as himself, and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband.

We see here that the marriage relationship is compared to the relationship Christ has with the church. This gives us the most perfect example we could ask for in terms of how women should behave, especially in the marriage relationship.

So, from this passage, we see that Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her. What was the church (us) to do in response? We can add some other scriptures to this and sum this up as follows:

Be subject to Christ (Ephesians 5:23). Christ is the head of the church, so the church is subject to Christ. What does subjection mean? To respect one’s authority.

Worship God. Praise Jesus for His great love and sacrifice.

15 Through Him then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that give thanks to His name.

Pray. God wants to hear our prayers. He wants us to share our thoughts and feelings with Him.

7 “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.

Ephesians 6:18 (NASB95)

If you remember back to my previous lesson on godly masculinity, I discussed the three primary needs women have in marriage and where we see these exemplified in Jesus:

Now let’s look at this from the other direction. Men, you can correct me on this afterwards, but research has shown these are the three primary needs men have in marriage:

Notice how well this lines up with what we have seen from God’s instructions for wives!

We saw this in God’s instructions for the church:

Certainly, women are not the same as the church and do not have all the roles and responsibilities of the church. Similarly, men are not to be revered at the level of God. But the comparisons between the marriage relationship and Jesus’ relationship with the church give us considerable insight into how marriage should work and how men and women should behave in general.

(For the men, think about how you can make these things easy for your wife or future wife. If you are unmarried and hope to be some day, look for a woman who will do these things!)

This is probably the application that people of the world have the most issue with because it is misunderstood. How should this play out in a marriage?

Of all the applications in this lesson, this is probably the one that slides under women’s radar the most. For many men, it’s probably something they wouldn’t know to ask for, but it is terribly missed when it is gone. So, what does this look like in practice?

I want to be careful with my language here as we have a mixed audience, but understand that when I say intimacy, I’m referring to the physical relationship between husband and wife.

This is something we don’t really talk about a lot, but it is very important in a marriage. We have passages like I Corinthians 7:3 where Paul reminds us that we have duties to our mates, not to mention the entire book of Song of Solomon. Notice that this is not one way!

1 Corinthians 7:3–5 (NASB95)

3 The husband must fulfill his duty to his wife, and likewise also the wife to her husband.

4 The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does; and likewise also the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.

5 Stop depriving one another, except by agreement for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer, and come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.

Secular research agrees with God here. Researchers have shown that problems in this area can be a strong indicator of the likelihood of divorce.

First of all, why is this important to men? When polled, many women will say that this is a physical thing with their husband and they must help him handle his biological urges.

While there is some truth to that, if you poll men, you get a much different story. To men, there is a certainly a biological component involved, but they see physical intimacy much more as an emotional and spiritual bond with their wife. This is especially true as the relationship matures.

This makes sense when you see what great importance is placed on it in the New Testament. I have read many cases of wives who have been married for many years suddenly discovering this fact and it completely changes how they look at the physical relationship with their husband.

Biology backs this up as well. Scientific research has shown that when women have a great, in-depth conversation with their husband, they have a flood of hormones that makes them feel bound to their husband (oxytocin and other things). This does not, however, happen for their husband. He may enjoy the conversation, but he does not have the same response of hormones and neurotransmitters.

What does cause this to happen for men is physical intimacy. This causes the man to feel the same rush of bonding hormones and neurotransmitters, which helps him feel a tight bond with his wife. Once again, we see God’s design working to perfection. Men and women complementing each other perfectly in how their needs in the marriage are met. The deep conversations and the physical intimacy both need to happen for a marriage to function correctly, so God designed men and women to have complementary needs in this regard.

So, what should this look like for a wife?

God said this would be the state of things in Genesis 3:

16 To the woman He said,

“I will greatly multiply

Your pain in childbirth,

In pain you will bring forth children;

Yet your desire will be for your husband,

And he will rule over you.”

Ladies may sometimes have the idea that it is their husband’s job to take them on dates, buy flowers, and woo them so that they’ll be “in the mood” for intimacy.

I’m sorry to bear bad news, ladies, but while those are things your husband should be doing, research has shown that’s not how it works. Your husband doing those things might help, but even if he does them, it’s you that are putting yourself “in the mood.” He’s simply giving you a good opportunity to do so.

Ladies, I know you are probably yelling at me in your head right now, but think about it this way: If your husband took you on an amazing, romantic date to an expensive restaurant, but you were grumpy and distracted by your phone the whole time, would you feel romanced? Of course not! On the other hand, if you had spent all day looking forward to time with your amazing husband and he took you to Taco Bell, you might wish he had better taste in restaurants, but you’d still feel romanced because you had your head in the right place to begin with.

If you are already doing the other things we mentioned of respecting and admiring your husband, those alone help you build desire.

This idea of building desire is incredibly powerful – much more powerful than any hormones! (This according to the marriage experts: young women in flawless health can have no desire for their husbands and older women with tons of health problems can have tremendous desire. The state of your body matters, but much less so than the state of your mind.)

Ladies, I want to challenge you to dwell more in your femininity. We have a society that is so terribly confused about sex and gender and gender roles. Men are shouted down for exhibiting “toxic masculinity” somehow and at the same time women complain that they cannot find masculine men. Meanwhile, men in the United States are giving up on finding women who want to take on the traditional roles of wife and mother and are going abroad just to find women with these attitudes. Women are told in our society that they can be anything they want to be, with the silent implication that it is somehow wrong to be a wife and mother. In response, many women feel forced to take on a more masculine role to be successful in the workforce. There is a great need in our society for this to be sorted out. But more than that, God wants it sorted out!

God has given us all roles to fulfill in this life. We may feel that this is not the set of roles we want to fulfill, but we know that God’s design is perfect. Could it be that God gave you the role that would help you grow towards Him the most?

Let me leave you with an example I heard. A man was being interviewed and he had a wife in a very high demand, lofty position in her company. To get to that position, she had become very tough and demanding in order to compete with the men who were also tough and demanding. She was very successful at work, but their marriage was in terrible shape and neither husband nor wife was happy. After some changes were made in their relationship, the husband took on a more masculine role at home and the wife relaxed back into her feminine role. When she went back to work, she was on a call with a man she had argued with mightily before, but this time she treated him with respect and stayed in her feminine role. Instead of arguing with her, they quickly agreed on a solution. It was such a big change that her co-workers that overheard her on the phone were amazed at how the call went. This change continued with the interactions she had with other men at the office. She realized she was actually much more effective (and happier, with a better marriage) when she operated in the feminine role God had given her.

I hope this lesson spurs some good discussions and positive change for all of us. May we all do our best to fulfill the roles God has assigned us!