Many people criticize the Bible — and those who follow it — for making women subservient to men. This is not a conclusion I reach when I read the Bible. I see the Bible — and those who truly follow it — as elevating the plight of women to the place they were created to be: equal to men.
Consider Genesis 3:16 where God says to Eve that Adam will rule over her.
This is not God’s created order or a command; this is an outcome.
Adam and Eve disregard God’s way and decide to do things their way. As a result, they can no longer stay in the idyllic paradise he made for them; they have to leave. Because of their actions, life would be different. One of the changes is that men would attempt to elevate themselves over women.
This was not God’s intent, but rather the result of human action.
In the beginning — in the first two chapters of the Bible — man and women are implicitly equal. That is how God creates them to be. Then man and women get greedy and want more; they mess up the order God intended.
Their actions change God’s balance and one of the outcomes is gender inequality and strife. It isn’t what God wanted, but it is what human beings got when they did things their way.
]See Genesis 3:1-19.]
A lifelong student of the Bible, Peter DeHaan, PhD, wrote the 1,000-page website ABibleADay.com to encourage people to explore the Bible. His main blog and many books urge Christians to push past the status quo and reconsider how they practice their faith in every area of their lives.
