Sermon Tone Analysis

We’re in the second week of our series on our theological distinctives: those points of doctrine which are of secondary importance, but which we feel are important enough to affirm and teach for the life of our church.

This week we’re going to be talking about probably the most divisive point on our list: the complementary roles of men and women in the church and in the home.

Now this is no secret to anyone who’s been in the church for a long time.

We’ve talked about this before, and at some length.

But if you’ve joined us more recently, you may not have heard us talk about this topic quite so much, because we’ve been in Luke for almost two years, and Luke doesn’t really address it.

So chances are, if you have heard us talk about it, it’s been in the context of the home—either through our short series last year on sex, our marriage prep classes, or if you’ve attended any weddings I’ve preached at.

So let me ask you this: hold your anger until we’re done, because it’s probably not what you think it is.

So chances are, if you have heard us talk about it, it’s been in the context of the home—either through our series on sex, our marriage prep classes, or if you’ve attended any weddings I’ve preached at.

Nous croyons que l'homme et la femme ont été créés avec une valeur et une dignité identiques devant Dieu, mais que Dieu leur a donné des rôles différents dans le contexte du mariage et de l'église.

Dieu a ordonné que l'église établisse des hommes qualifiés en tant qu'anciens pour diriger spirituellement la communauté des croyants, alors que dans tous les autres ministères de l'église, nous avons une grande liberté — hommes et femmes sont appelés à servir l'église selon les dons qui leur sont donnés.

Dans le contexte du mariage, l'homme et la femme sont appelés à présenter au monde une image de l'évangile : Dieu donne à l'époux la responsabilité d'être « la tête » de sa famille, aimant sa femme comme Christ a aimé l'église, se sacrifiant pour elle et pourvoyant à ses besoins et à son progrès dans la foi.

Dieu donne à l'épouse la responsabilité de se soumettre à son mari en l'aidant à accomplir sa responsabilité devant Dieu de manière réfléchie, intelligente et respectueuse.

La soumission de la femme à son mari ne signifie pas l'obéissance en tous points (puisque son Maître n'est pas son mari, mais Jésus-Christ), ni le silence face à l'opinion de son mari, mais plutôt le respect de la charge que porte son mari et une attitude de sacrifice et d'assistance sans laquelle son mari ne pourra pleinement accomplir cette charge.

Tout homme qui a une attitude autoritaire, abusive ou négligente envers sa femme échoue gravement dans sa responsabilité devant Dieu, puisque ce n'est pas ainsi que Jésus-Christ a accompli sa responsabilité d'aimer et de se sacrifier pour l'église.

Ces différences de rôles sont basées non pas sur des circonstances culturelles ou temporelles spécifiques, mais sur la responsabilité que Dieu a donné à l'homme et à la femme lors de leur création initiale.

So today we’re going to focus more on how this plays out in the life of our church.

(If you want to know more about how this plays out in the home, go to our website: we’ve done lots of teaching on the subject.)

Like last week, I’m going to briefly explain what we mean when we talk about complementary roles of men and women; then we’re going to go to Scripture, and there I’d like to re-examine some blind spots we may have developed because of things we haven’t said about this subject; and then we’ll see how we try to work this out in the life of our church.

If you’re wondering what we mean by “complentary roles of men and women,” the basic position held by many Christians goes something like this:

Men and women were both created in the image of God, equal in value and dignity.

But we were created different: we have been given roles and responsibilities which are not interchangeable.

In the home, God calls men to sacrificially take the initiative to lead their families for their good; and he calls women to lovingly and respectfully recognize the responsibility of their husbands, and to help him fulfill that responsibility.

In the church, God calls certain, qualified men to serve the church as elders (or pastors), and gives us freedom in every other domain for men and women to serve.

That’s basically how it goes.

Let’s be clear: we believe that, and we affirm that, and we’ll go into some aspects of why we do later on.

The problems come when you stop at that definition.

In that basic definition, there are a lot of things missing, and if we don’t fill in the blanks, what we don’t say shapes the life of the church as much as what we do say.

There is a kind of “boys’ club”mentality that can form in the life of the church, where every young man feels he has an almost inherent right to leadership, and where women feel they are pushed off to the sidelines because the pastors are men.

The unintended result of all this is that neither gender flourishes in the life of the church: men are handicapped by the idea that they can be elders because they are men (which is false), and women are handicapped by the idea that because elders in the church are men, the church doesn’t want women to serve in any leadership capacity (which is also false).

So I’d like to spend a good deal of time today talking about those things which are usually left unsaid—things which, when left unsaid, form the life of the church in unhealthy ways.

And to do that, I’ll ask you to go to the book of Genesis, in chapter 2.

Man and Woman at Creation ()

Let’s remember the context.

tells the story of creation from a wide-angle perspective: it goes through the seven days of creation, and what God did on a global scale.

So God created man in his own image,

in the image of God he created him;