Men, Women and Gender

Galatians 3:28 is often quoted on its own, but it stands at the end of a long argument about who belongs to God's people. The Galatian churches were being told that Gentile believers must be circumcised and keep the law of Moses to be true heirs of Abraham. Paul's reply is that the law was a guardian until Christ came (3:24), and that now 'You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus' (3:26). The sign of that new standing is baptism: 'all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ' (3:27). Then the anchor, and then the conclusion: 'if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise' (3:29).

So the verse is first of all about inheritance. In the ancient world, the heir was ordinarily a son, free and of the right people. Paul says that in Christ every believer, Jew or Gentile, slave or free, man or woman, has the full standing of the heir. Many commentators note that the three pairs mirror a form of Jewish morning prayer, attested in later rabbinic sources (the Tosefta and the Babylonian Talmud) and with Greek parallels, in which a man thanked God that he had not been made a Gentile, a slave or a woman. If Paul has that prayer in mind, the verse reverses it: none of those conditions now bars anyone from the promise.

There is a small detail in the Greek that matters. Paul writes neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, but for the third pair, literally, no male and female. The words are those of the Greek translation of Genesis 1:27, 'male and female He created them'. Some readers take this to mean that in the new creation the order established at the beginning is transcended, so that the distinctions of the old age no longer govern the life of the church. Others take it to mean that being male and female, which belongs to creation and remains, carries no advantage or disadvantage in standing before God.

This is where Christians divide. Krister Stendahl, in The Bible and the Role of Women (1966), argued that the verse has social implications that the church must work out over time, as it eventually did for slavery. Complementarian scholars reply that the verse is about the standing of every believer in Christ, which is equal, and does not address the different callings of men and women in the home and the church, which Paul addresses elsewhere. Both agree on what the verse plainly says: that every believer, man or woman, is a full child of God and a full heir of the promise. Peter says the same of husbands and wives, that they are 'fellow heirs of the gracious gift of life' (1 Peter 3:7).

Christians who accept the authority of scripture are divided on whether God gives men and women different roles in marriage and in the church. The question of who may preach and lead in the church is treated at full length in the Homiletics lesson Who May Preach?, and the Pastoral Care lesson Caring for Marriages and Families sets out the two readings of Ephesians 5:21-33 for the home. This lesson does not repeat them. Its aim is to show how each view forms moral judgment more widely, and what each must answer.

The complementarian view holds that men and women are equal in dignity and worth, and that God has given them different, complementary callings, with a husband called to loving, self-giving headship in the home and qualified men to the leading office of elder or pastor in the church. The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood set out the view in the Danvers Statement (1987), and John Piper and Wayne Grudem edited its fullest defence, Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (1991). Its texts include the order of creation in Genesis 2, which Paul cites in 1 Timothy 2:13; the household instructions, 'Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord' (Colossians 3:18) and their parallels in Ephesians 5 and 1 Peter 3; and 'the head of the woman is man' (1 Corinthians 11:3). Defenders argue that this pattern is rooted in creation, not in the fall or in culture, that it reflects the relation of the Son to the Father, who are equal yet distinct, and that headship in scripture is always defined by Christ, who 'loved the church and gave Himself up for her' (Ephesians 5:25). The Catholic and Orthodox churches hold their own forms of this view, reserving the priesthood to men, and John Paul II's Mulieris Dignitatem (1988) set out a vision of the equal dignity and distinct vocations of men and women.

The egalitarian view holds that men and women are equal in dignity and in calling, and that roles in the home and church should be given according to gifting and character rather than sex. Christians for Biblical Equality, founded in 1987, set out the view in Men, Women and Biblical Equality (1989); Gilbert Bilezikian's Beyond Sex Roles (1985), Philip Payne's Man and Woman, One in Christ (2009), and the collection Discovering Biblical Equality (2004) defend it at length. Its texts include Genesis 1:26-28, where the man and the woman are given dominion together; Genesis 3:16, where 'he will rule over you' is read as a consequence of the fall, not a pattern of creation; 'Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ' (Ephesians 5:21) as governing the household instructions; the mutuality of 1 Corinthians 7:3-4 and 11:11-12; and the women in Paul's ministry, Phoebe (Romans 16:1), Junia 'outstanding among the apostles' (16:7), and Priscilla, who with Aquila 'explained to him the way of God more accurately' (Acts 18:26). Defenders argue that the household instructions addressed Roman family structures in order to transform them from within, as Paul's instructions to slaves did, and that Galatians 3:28 is the principle toward which the church must move.

Each view has its hardest questions. The complementarian must show how headship differs from the domination Jesus forbade when he said that 'those regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them' (Mark 10:42) and then, 'But it shall not be this way among you' (10:43), and must explain why women prophesied and served in leadership in the New Testament churches. The egalitarian must explain why Paul grounds 1 Timothy 2:12-13 in the order of creation rather than in local circumstance, and must show that the movement from the household codes to full equality is the direction of scripture and not the direction of modern culture. Each has answered these questions at length, and a pastor should be able to give the other side's answer fairly.

Notice how the debate plays out in many students' settings. Where the surrounding culture already gives men power over women, both views must take care. A complementarian pastor must insist that the headship he teaches is Christ's self-giving and not the local custom of male rule, and must never let his teaching be used as cover for control. An egalitarian pastor must show that equality in Christ is not an import from Western culture but rooted in the gospel, and must be patient with believers who hear it as a threat to the family. Both should notice that the patriarchy of many cultures, which denies women education, inheritance and a voice, is condemned by both views.

Whatever a church holds about roles, some things are not open questions, and they should be said in every church with full conviction. Women and men are equally made in God's image (Genesis 1:27). Women are equally heirs of the promise (Galatians 3:29). Violence against women is a sin and, in nearly every country, a crime. No text on headship, submission or family order gives anyone permission to strike, threaten, control or humiliate a woman, and the Pastoral Care lessons Domestic Abuse and Protecting the Vulnerable set out what a church must do when it learns of abuse, including reporting where the law requires it.

Discrimination that denies women what God gives them is also wrong. In many places girls are kept from school while their brothers go. Widows are driven from their homes and land by their husband's relatives, a practice sometimes called property grabbing. Daughters are denied inheritance. A wife's earnings are taken from her. A girl is married before she is grown. Unborn girls are aborted because a son is wanted. Scripture speaks to all of this. When the daughters of Zelophehad asked for their father's inheritance, the LORD said, 'The daughters of Zelophehad speak correctly' (Numbers 27:7), and made their claim a law for all Israel. The prophets call God's people to 'plead the case of the widow' (Isaiah 1:17). And the woman of strength in Proverbs 31 'appraises a field and buys it; from her earnings she plants a vineyard' (31:16).

Module 5 of this track gives a full lesson to violence against women, including harmful traditional practices, child marriage and trafficking. Here the point is simpler: complementarians and egalitarians agree on all of it. A church that teaches either view while allowing any of these things in its own membership is not faithful to its own teaching. The test of a church's theology of men and women is not only what it says about the pulpit. It is how its girls, wives and widows are actually treated.

Questions of gender identity are newer in public debate than questions of men's and women's roles, and they touch people who are often vulnerable. They need to be discussed with exact words, honest uncertainty and great care. A pastor who gets the words wrong will not be heard; a pastor who speaks carelessly may do real harm.

Some terms first. Sex usually refers to the body: male or female, as shown in chromosomes, anatomy and the body's design for reproduction. Gender is used in more than one way: sometimes for the social roles and expectations attached to being a man or a woman in a particular culture, and sometimes for a person's inner sense of being a man or a woman, which is called gender identity. Gender dysphoria is the medical term, used since 2013 in the American Psychiatric Association's diagnostic manual, for serious and persistent distress caused by a mismatch between a person's body and their sense of their own gender. Transgender describes a person whose gender identity differs from their sex. Intersex, or differences of sex development, refers to a number of rare conditions in which a person's body does not develop in the usual male or female way; how common they are depends on how they are defined, and estimates vary widely. These are different things, and should not be confused with one another or with sexual orientation.

These questions are not only Western. Many cultures have long had recognised categories of people who do not fit the usual pattern of man and woman. In South Asia, the hijra community has existed for centuries, and the Supreme Court of India in 2014 recognised transgender people as a third gender in law; Pakistan passed a law on transgender rights in 2018, parts of which its Federal Shariat Court struck down in 2023. In other places, the subject is almost never spoken of, and a person who experiences gender dysphoria may suffer in complete silence or be treated as cursed or possessed. Students of this course will meet these questions in very different settings.

Something should be said before the positions are set out. People who experience gender dysphoria, and transgender people in particular, report high levels of distress, rejection and bullying, and are at higher risk of self-harm and suicide. A pastor who meets such a person must listen before he teaches, must protect him or her from mockery and violence, and must take any mention of not wanting to live seriously and at once, following the Pastoral Care lesson When Someone Wants to Die. That is true whatever the pastor believes about the questions that follow.

Christians hold three broad views, which shade into one another. Each is set out here as its own defenders would put it.

The first can be called the creational view. It holds that sex is given by God in the body, and that the body is not a shell but part of who we are, as the first lesson of this module argued. Genesis says 'male and female He created them' (Genesis 1:27), and the psalmist prays, 'You knit me together in my mother's womb' (Psalm 139:13). On this view, where a person's sense of gender and their body do not match, the faithful response is to seek peace with the body God has given, with compassionate support, rather than to alter the body to match the inner sense. Some also cite Deuteronomy 22:5, which forbids a man or woman to wear the clothing of the other, though others who hold this view note that its original setting is debated and rest their case on creation instead. Oliver O'Donovan's Transsexualism and Christian Marriage (1982) was an early and careful statement of this view. The Catholic Church holds it, in the Congregation for Catholic Education's Male and Female He Created Them (2019) and in Dignitas Infinita (2024), which warns that sex-change interventions, as a rule, risk threatening the unique dignity a person has received from conception, while also condemning unjust discrimination and violence. The Nashville Statement (2017) set out a similar evangelical position. Defenders argue that this view takes the goodness of the body seriously, refuses the idea that the true self is something other than the body, and offers a real hope: the resurrection of the body, not its replacement.

The second can be called the integrative or pastoral view. Mark Yarhouse, a Christian psychologist, in Understanding Gender Dysphoria (2015), described three lenses through which Christians see the question. The integrity lens sees the difference between male and female as part of God's sacred design. The disability lens sees gender dysphoria as one of the ways the fall has affected human beings, a condition not chosen, calling for compassion rather than blame. The diversity lens sees transgender identity as something to be celebrated. Yarhouse argued that Christians should hold the first two together, upholding the integrity of sex while recognising that dysphoria is a real and painful condition, and that pastors should help people find the least invasive ways of managing their distress, case by case, while remaining in the community of faith. Preston Sprinkle's Embodied (2021) takes a similar approach. Defenders say this view keeps the creational conviction while refusing to make a suffering person's acceptance in the church depend on resolving their distress quickly.

The third can be called the affirming view. It holds that gender identity is a real and deep part of a person, that for some people living as the gender that matches their identity, including through social or medical transition, is a faithful response to their experience, and that the church should welcome and bless them as they are. Defenders point to Jesus' words about eunuchs 'who were born that way' (Matthew 19:12), to Isaiah's promise to the eunuch and the baptism of the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8 as signs that God welcomes people who do not fit the usual categories, and to intersex conditions as evidence that bodies themselves are not always simply male or female. Megan DeFranza's Sex Difference in Christian Theology (2015) argued from intersex conditions that theology must make room for bodies beyond the binary, and Austen Hartke's Transforming (2018) set out the affirming view from a transgender Christian's perspective. The Church of England's bishops in 2018 issued guidance on using a renewal of baptismal vows to mark a person's transition, and some other churches have gone further. Defenders argue that the Christian hope is the redemption of the whole person, that the church has often caused great harm by rejecting transgender people, and that the fruit of transgender believers' lives shows God's welcome.

Two further matters should be noted. First, questions about medical treatment for children and young people are contested among doctors, not only among Christians. Some national reviews, such as the Cass Review in England in 2024, found that the evidence for some treatments of young people was weak and urged caution, and other medical bodies have reached different judgments. A pastor is not a doctor, and should not pretend to settle those questions; he should urge families to seek careful, qualified and unhurried medical and psychological care. Second, the three views, whatever their differences, agree that people experiencing gender dysphoria are made in God's image, are to be treated with respect, must be protected from mockery, bullying and violence, and must never be driven away from Christ or from the fellowship of his people.

A church will hold one of these views, and should teach it honestly. But it must not let its view become an excuse for cruelty, nor let fear of the question keep it from caring for the person in front of it. The Lord who 'will not break' a bruised reed (Matthew 12:20) asks no less of his people.

Take a new page in your casebook and title it Men, women and gender. Copy Galatians 3:28 from the BSB at the top. Under it, write in one sentence what both complementarians and egalitarians agree the verse says, and in one more sentence each, how the two views read it differently.

Now write a composite case from your own setting about the treatment of women. It might be a widow whose husband's family is taking her land, a girl kept from school so that her brothers can attend, a wife who is not allowed to keep her own earnings, or a congregation where women do much of the work but are never consulted. Write it in a paragraph, with no names and no identifying detail. Under it, write what scripture says, using Numbers 27, Isaiah 1:17 and at least one New Testament text, and then write one thing your church could do, this month, in response.

Then, on the same page, write down which of the three views of gender identity in section 5 your church holds, or the question you will ask your pastor if you do not know. Write one sentence for each of the other two views, in words their defenders would accept.

Finish by writing three things your church must do for any person in your community who experiences gender dysphoria, whatever your church believes: for example, to protect them from mockery and violence, to listen before teaching, and to respond at once to any sign that they do not want to live. Do not write about any real person on this part of the page. Write what your church will do, not what you know about anyone.