The Bible and Women

It’s no secret, nor is it unclear. The Bible teaches things about women that clash with our fallen contemporary culture. Women may not function in the role of a pastor/elder (1 Tim. 2:12). Wives are to submit to their husbands as the church does to Christ (Eph. 5:22-24). Seasoned women are to shepherd younger women to, among other things, be “workers at home…[and] subject to their own husbands” (Titus 2:5).

Consequently, culture often reviles God’s word on the grounds that the Bible holds women as inferior to men. And the irony is, that contemporary western culture values women lower than just about any time and people in history. Yet, that same culture accuses the Bible of a low, insulting view of women. But, nothing could be further from the truth. The fact is, God’s inerrant word of the 66 books of the Bible regards women higher than any other ideology, religion, philosophy, or system in history. Nothing teaches a higher view of women than biblical Christianity. Here are ten reasons why:

Women are created in God’s image, making them infinitely valuable.

The value and equality of women is a frequently discussed topic in recent days. Various reasons are put forth for the value of women. For many in our day, a women’s value is grounded in her ability and opportunity to do everything a man does. For others, her value is in possessing equal, or greater, income as/than a man. Those reasons are, ironically, oppressive to women: if she doesn’t achieve some subjective cultural standard, then her worth is inferior. That’s a yoke they should not have to bear.

The Bible takes a different route altogether. A woman is infinitely valuable, not because of what she does or makes, but because of who she is:

Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them (Gen. 1:26-27).

Women are God’s image-bearers. That gives them inherent infinite worth, regardless of their abilities and achievements. The Bible does not hold up a socio-moral-economic bar and say to women, “If you can reach this, then you are valuable.” Women are valuable because they bear the image of God.

2. The Bible forbids the killing of women.

In most cultures around the world, women beyond birth are not allowed to be killed. However, in the United States, for example, it is perfectly legal to kill women at any point between conception and birth. The United States has permitted roughly 60 million of such people to be killed since Roe v. Wade. About half of all births are female. So, the United States has allowed for the killing of roughly 30 million women since 1973. To say that this is unspeakably shameful treatment of women is an understatement. The Bible forbids such treatment of women (Exod. 20:13).

3. The Bible forbids the sexual exploitation of women.

It’s obvious our culture has a hunger for exploiting women. The insatiable devouring of pornography is proof. Pornography does not only involve the exploitation of women, but it is largely that. The current statistics from the National Center of Sexual Exploitation on pornography are incredible:
93% of boys and 62% of girls have seen pornography during adolescence
64% of people ages 13-24 seek out pornography weekly or more often. One site reports that in 2016, people watched 4.6 billion hours of pornography on its site.
Analysis of the 50 most viewed pornographic videos found that 88% of scenes contained physical violence.

What is pornography conditioning boys, teenagers, and men to think about women? What is it setting them up for in their relationships with women? How is it preparing them for sacrificial, selfless, and loving marital relationships? How is it preparing them to parent productively and raise the next generation? What is it teaching them about the value of women?

This is a culture that largely exploits women. Doing so is totally forbidden in biblical Christianity, because the Bible regards women with great worth and sanctity (Matt. 5:28, 1 Cor. 6:18, 1 Tim. 5:2).

4. The Bible forbids men from sexual interaction with a woman prior to marriage.

With our colossal cultural confusion, some may ask, “How does that hold women in high regard?” Sexual interaction is giving oneself in the most intimate, vulnerable way to another. A bond and unity occur consequent of the sexual act. Women are not to be used for such interactions. Rather, the sexual relationship is reserved only for the context of a man in selfless commitment to the woman through marriage. Thus, the Bible’s prohibition of sexual relationship outside of marriage (Heb. 13:4) is one way in which the Bible holds women in high regard.

5. The Bible holds husbands to the highest ethic of love for their wives.

When a man enters a marriage relationship, he enters into the highest standard of love there is:

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her (Eph. 5:25).

You can study marital love in every culture and every religion, and you will not find a standard which exceeds the love commanded in biblical Christianity. The Greek word translated, “love,” in Ephesians 5:25 has the idea of love regardless of the recipient’s deservedness or merit; it is love towards another which does not depend on the recipient, as to whether or not they deserve it; whether or not they will reciprocate; whether or not they are lovely. It is a steady, committed love in action that seeks to consistently care. It is a love that does not depend upon a feeling or emotion. There is no such command found in rabbinic literature or household codes for Greco-Roman culture in that time. Nor is there today.

It is fundamentally a Christ-imitating love which involves at least four aspects. First, Christ-imitating love involves initiating love. The husband must not lay out multiple conditions before he takes the first step to love; and continues to love. The biblical ethic of love is one which does not depend on reciprocation.

Second, Christ-imitating love involves umerited love; love that does not depend upon a wife’s merit; or how she is doing day to day. God loves us those he saves with an unmerited love. He loves us when we deserved the opposite. Though we have earned his wrath, he extends his love. Our sin only puts us in a place where God owes us punishment, but instead, he extends his Son to us. Those whom he saves are likened to the Bride of Christ, incredibly. So, Christ seeks out a Bride. The church—all saved everywhere—is called the Bride of Christ.

Now, here’s where Christ’s love gets more amazing. When a man seeks out a bride, he seeks out the best for himself. It’s not like that with Christ. When Christ sets out to get a bride for himself, he does not seek and choose the best to be his Bride, but the worst. In other words, he chooses to love sinners; he seeks out unlovely people to be his bride (Rom. 5:8). That is an unmerited love. Husbands are to love with such love.

Third, Christ-imitating love involves self-giving love. Christ gave himself as a penal substitutionary atoning sacrifice for his Bride. He gave all of himself for his Bride, the church. That’s the kind of love husbands are to show their wives.

Fourth, Christ-imitating love involves death-to-self kind of love. Just as Christ laid down his life, so must husbands for their wives. He did not consider his life more valuable than his Bride. Husbands are to follow that. They die to themselves on behalf of their wives. There is no higher type of love commanded for wives than that of the Bible.

6. The Bible prohibits men from marrying more than one woman.

It’s a question we hear often: “Why does the Bible permit polygamy?” It does not. Nowhere does God approve of a man marrying multiple women. “Well then, why did guys in the Bible like David and Solomon have tons of wives?” God does not approve of everything that is contained in his word. Many things in the Bible were recorded there by God to show what he disapproves; to show the consequences of that which he forbids.

The fact is, God’s design since creation is one man and one woman (Gen 2:22-24). Later, God applied his desire for monogamy in a warning to the Hebrew kings, forbidding them from multiplying wives (Deut. 17:17). The Bible prohibits a man from marrying more than one woman.

7. The Bible forbids husbands from “falling out of love” with their wives.

It’s a frequent tragedy we hear from couples. “We fell out of love.” For many, it’s then assumed that a breaking of the relationship is perfectly fine.

The Bible, however, does not permit the falling out of love. Instead, love is a self-denying, joyful commitment to the other based upon Christ’s love for us. Again, “Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church” (Eph. 5:25). Christ-imitating love involves an inseparable, permanent love. Christ loves us with such inseparable, permanent, unwavering love:

For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom. 8:38-39).

This is the approach husbands must have towards their wives. Nothing must sway his loving commitment to her.

8. The Bible commands people to consider women as more important than themselves.

This is one of the greatest commands in the Bible:

Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others (Phil. 2:3-4).

The command is not restricted to women. But it at least includes them. Christians are to consider one another as more important than themselves.

9. The Bible prohibits men from divorcing their wives.

God’s word does not permit men to cycle through marriages like some sort of workout program or diet fad. This is for life. Till death do us part is literal for God. Husbands are to fight to keep on sacrificially loving their wives, through thick and thin. The only exception for divorce is on the grounds of a wife’s sexual infidelity (Matt. 19:9). But even then, divorce is only a permission, not a command. Ideally, the couple would forgive and be reconciled to each other (Eph. 4:32). That the Bible prohibits men from divorcing their wives demonstrates that it holds women in highest regard.

10. The Bible commands men to regard women with the highest moral purity.

Finally, the Bible regards women higher than all other ideologies in that men are commanded to regard women with the highest moral purity. Any moral impurity towards women is forbidden:

Do not sharply rebuke an older man, but rather appeal to him as a father, to the younger men as brothers, the older women as mothers, and the younger women as sisters, in all purity (1 Tim. 5:1-2).

But immorality or any impurity or greed must not even be named among you (Eph. 5:3).

You could add to the list of reasons why the Bible regards women higher than any other ideology in history (e.g. a woman’s command to influence humanity at its earliest, formative years, etc.). Despite the protestations of culture, God’s word remains the standard for one’s view of women. History has not, and will not, present a system of higher regard for women than Scripture.