gengwall

What is even more telling is what the Genesis account DOES say about “roles”. The two roles given by God to mankind were to “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.” Propogation and dominion are the ONLY two roles spoken of in Genesis 1-3 and they are distributed to the human race as a whole. No distinction or “weighting” is mentioned and so the assignment falls equally on the male and female. Now, I think there are persuasive arguments that males and females are designed to approach those two tasks in different ways. But that has nothing to do with roles.

In fact, I find not a single shred of biblical teaching that says that either the male or the female has a particular “role”, especially when it comes to activities of daily living. This is true even for some of the most contentious subjects like providing, protecting, nurturing, and home making. On the contrary, God makes it clear that both genders have a contribution to make in every aspect of family life. And although it may be true that one gender or the other may be generally better suited to particular tasks, that neither excludes nor excuses the other gender from contributing. Even then, every individual is unique, and God has graciously put little or no restriction on how each family distributes roles or even delegates authority! Only in our fallen state have we dreamed up this hierarchical world – just as God said we would in Genesis 3:16.