Complementarianism

When it comes to men-women relationships, the other argument you might want to look at is complementarianism versus egalitarianism.

So briefly, and again, broad brushstroke, there's a lot more nuance to it.

Complementarianism would say men and women are equal before God, but they have complementary roles.

And there are some roles that God has reserved for men and men alone.

So leading within the home, leading within the church.

I got one more thing I wanna talk to you guys about before we finish up here.

I saw s- an interesting study, and it was titled Why Gen Z Men Are Returning to Church While Gen Z Women Are Leaving and What It Means, uh, for Complementarianism.

Uh, three big studies came out, Barna State, Gallup, and Pew, and I just wanna give you an overview [coughs] excuse me, of this.

I found it very, very interesting because it's something I've been seeing for a couple years and seeing the trend of younger men returning to church while essentially women, uh, leaving the church.

And in fact, you could put this on a larger scale with how we do families.

Complementarianism, the family was designed as one unit.

All right, husband and wife, they're equal in value, although they have different roles.

You know who hates eyes in a church? Eyes who want to be ears.

Priscilla's role in, quote-unquote, I'll say in scare quotes here, teaching Apollos, because this is a debate among, for lack of better terms, complementarians, egalitarians.

Sure.

Complementarians who say women cannot teach men in a public church setting will point out two things.

Number one...

This is Acts 18.26.

Um, and further red flags just in terms of how women were treated.

Um, complementarian, uh, but I don't think that necessarily n- means women need to be treated badly, [laughs] you know? There's-

Right

... there's a good way of doing complementarianism.

Yeah.

And, a- a- and the difficulty was there were some women, uh, uh, that were very close to Steve who were doing lots of things, and so he could kind of go, "Look, you know, I, women have a really prominent place in our church." But women who spoke out, and especially wives of leaders who raised some concerns-

The Bible's not cookie-cuttering everyone into a 1950s June Cleaver apron and, and pearl necklace mold.

Complementarianism is not some kind of a hierarchy where men rank above women as human beings.

There's not a class system.

Men carry a responsibility to lead in the home and the church, but Christ completely redefined what that leadership means.