I believe God is honored with truth. My discoveries when writing the book, Bible Truth About Women, weren’t all just hard, cold-fact, truth bombs about accurate translation and interpretation. My truth discoveries speak to the very heart, nature, and character of God. This post lightly covers the big picture of God’s heart, summarizing how we can know God desires that we live in mutual respect and interdependence rather than hierarchy. My logo represents this truth and my desire to bear witness to God’s heart.

THE PROBLEM — MULTIPLE TRAGEDIES

The importance of addressing the error of hierarchy in church teaching is rooted in multiple tragedies:

First Tragedy

Over half of the church is held back from fully using their gifts to bless their homes and communities. Homes, churches, and the lost world suffer when women are restricted due to weak biblical justification that runs contrary to the Bible’s strong affirmation of women’s freedom.

Second Tragedy

Younger women who expect to live in an egalitarian world are less and less inclined to go to church when women are marginalized there. They are using their gifts in para-church organizations. They aren’t counted by pollsters there, giving the impression that women aren’t as interested in God as they once were. Some aren’t, but many are.

Third Tragedy

There are women who are mistreated (emotionally, spiritually, and even physically) by men who go overboard with the belief they are responsible before God to control their wives and others.

Fourth Tragedy

Men under this teaching are saddled with the burden of thinking everything depends on him if he is to be a good Christian man. This leads to anxiety and defensiveness about performance, being right, everything going right, and whether other men think he’s leading well enough. He’s learned that if anything goes wrong, the wife can say it’s ultimately his fault because he’s ultimately in charge; therefore, they aren’t “in this together.” He has tragically lost his partner and “strong ally” (the meaning of ēzer kenegdô, poorly translated as “suitable helper” in Genesis 2:20).

He has tragically lost his partner and “strong ally.”

Fifth Tragedy

In countries where men already oppress women, when missionaries take hierarchical teaching to them as if it’s from God himself, it makes home life even more miserable for women. This is because now the men feel even more justified to act oppressively. This happens in the USA as well, but even more so in other countries due to their cultures.

Sixth Tragedy

Last, but not least, our view of God has suffered, and the very character of God is misunderstood and maligned, affecting the walk of every believer. A pastor told me, “God loves authority. He has chosen hierarchy and authority as his means to work in the world.” However, the Bible shows us the following:

• An all-powerful Creator who handed over his creation to humans and said, “Here, you have dominion over it together” (but not over each other). He stepped back and let humans mess it up and suffer the natural consequences.
• He calls us to himself but doesn’t coerce or force us (contrary to what some teach).
• He subjected himself to being in a young woman’s womb, forced through a birth canal, then required sustenance and training from her, submitting to/cooperating with her even in the timing of his first public miracle.
• Jesus didn’t come to earth to exercise dominion and set up hierarchy. He came to proclaim the arrival of the upside-down Kingdom of God. He said he came “to proclaim good news (gospel) to the poor, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for prisoners.” (Luke 4:17-21) He not only preached repentance from sin, he met physical needs, gave compassion, and gave dignity to the most marginalized in society (women, children, the diseased, common laborers like fishermen).
• Jesus let humans misunderstand, slander, and kill him.
• Jesus (God in the flesh), again left the earth to us, telling us we will do greater things than he did. He said that we are no longer servants but friends who have access to his plans and credit card (John 15:14-17).
• God invites us to be his active body in the world rather than doing it all himself. Jesus expressly forbid exercising authority over each other in his kingdom (Mark 10:42-45).
• We also get to participate in his suffering in the world and experience deep fellowship with him as we do so.
• Then, to top it all off, he invites us to sit on the throne with him, now and forever.

God is all about elevating and empowering others. Jesus came to earth and gave us the ultimate example of this. However, we focus almost exclusively on the (very important) substitutionary atonement on the cross to where we forget the rest of his example. Then we think he works in a hierarchical manner (like that pastor said), because that’s how we would do things. So, we set up hierarchy while claiming to follow him. He both demonstrated and taught interdependence within the body of Christ rather than hierarchy, but we miss it, all while shaking our heads at the dullness of “The Twelve” disciples.

THE SOLUTION — DO WE WANT IT?

The Israelites wanted a king like other nations so God let them have one even though it wasn’t his best for them. The church has insisted on fabricating “offices” (a word that’s not in the Greek anywhere in the New Testament) out of servant-type words that Paul used for fellow laborers. Then the church used those “offices” to create a hierarchy where women are excluded. It is no wonder that God told Eve that one of the three greatest sorrows she would experience would be the dominance of men.

Jesus didn’t come to earth to exercise dominion and set up hierarchy.

But we do it, while claiming to follow him.

In Christian homes, we can’t even have two people who simply cooperate and share power, there has to be hierarchy. What kind of witness is that to the world? Men in marriages outside the church know that if they don’t treat their wives as fully equal, they are highly likely to lose them. But men in “complementarian” Christian marriages think they can behave however they wish and the wife will not leave because she is bound by God to stay. This provides a path for selfish and immature conduct by husbands. Although Christian men are told to live “sacrificially,” that definition is open to interpretation.

The church is so obsessed with authority over each other that we miss the most astounding metaphors in the Bible (such as the use of “head” as a source of provision) because we’re forcing them into our ideas of hierarchy instead of Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 20:25-28 (Mark 10:42-45). Are we able to distinguish between how the world does things and how the church is supposed to do things? Do we even begin to understand God’s heart? Do we know this Jesus who empowered those who had less power and then inexplicably stepped back himself?

This article only briefly touches on the issue of hierarchy and on God’s heart for his people to live with interdependence within the body of Christ rather than in hierarchy. The book, Bible Truth About Women, is not about telling women they don’t have to submit; it’s about how God wants everyone to submit/cooperate, not one more than the other. It’s about following the example of Jesus. I pray it will help men and women (really all of us) who have been harmed by the misuse of Scripture. I invite you to read it, not just to have ready answers to those, “What about this verse?” questions, but to ponder, like Mary did, the strange ways of God and then bear witness to God’s heart.

P.S. I’d like to recommend the writing of Kaeley Triller Harms on Substack. In the following article she has fascinating stats about the contributions of women partnering with men in traditionally male-dominated fields. Women Are Your Partners