God’s Good Design: A sharing

In our “In Relation To” series, we had different ones share their experiences and reflections on the topic.

I was asked to share my “testimony” on the topic and I was stressed about what to share. There are many struggles when it comes to gender but perhaps I should stress that the most important but neglected struggle is with what the Bible says rather than the struggle to find an answer that will satisfy my assumptions. So while I’m far from perfect, let me share how I’ve struggled with what the Bible says at different points in my life.

I’ll share my struggles under three statements: 

First, recognising the design.

We live in a world of design. We know this intuitively, and it’s how our world works. Things are designed with purpose. Recently, I’ve been watching my friends’ year old kids learn to use cutlery. Children love to stick the wrong end of the spoon into their mouths, which is not what they are for. When I did research in a lab I hated reading manuals, but they turned out to be my best friends because they kept me and the expensive equipment safe and prevented things from blowing things up.

Design also matters when it comes to human beings. God as Creator, designed us in a certain way, and our study has been trying to show us the intention of our designer. It doesn’t mean that we desire or want to comply with our design. That’s what it means to live in a fallen world with a flawed understanding and way of living. There are many ways that God’s design has been distorted. Gender stereotypes, cultural stereotypes, abuse and bad examples are just some. But what we cannot deny is that Scripture provides us with God’s design intent – and how our world is supposed to work. This leads to the second statement:

Second, working to see it is good.

But God’s design is also good. The reason for this is simple - because God is good, His design must be good. This can be difficult to accept because we live in a world where sin has affected the design. 

I grew up in a  female-dominated environment — I am one of three sisters, who went to an all-girls’ school, with many good female friends and role models. All these taught me subconsciously to “believe in myself” and do what I wanted. Smashing “gender stereotypes” was the mantra of my school and there wasn’t any “girls must do this, boys must do that” stereotypes because there were no boys. My female friends had varied interests  in arts and math and sciences but there were no gendered limits we grew up with.

So gender roles and stereotypes was a pet peeve for me. They were arbitrary restrictions and deep down, I feared my worth would be limited by biology which was out of my control. I had many capable women for role models, inspirational female teachers and my peers excelled in school and at work. When I did my PHD, my team had more female research fellows and a female professor, which is rare in engineering. 

So I struggled with what the Bible and the church said about gender. On the one hand, the world said it was oppressive and regressive while the church reflected these roles both in teaching and practice. I read the Bible, I wondered about my place in church. Is being a woman about being a wife and “helper”? Why did the talks about gender feel like they were about what a woman couldn’t do? As I got older and still quite single, I seriously wondered what my contributions to church could be.  

But the more I read the Bible for myself and sat under the preaching of pastors and elders who showed what the text says, I got a better understanding. It helped that I had friends to discuss and work these things out with. 

I learnt that many of our ideas about gender reflect our culture/traditions rather than the goodness of God’s design. 

For example, I baulked immediately at the idea that the woman was the helper. What I thought a helper was was coloured by my cultural experience and understanding of that word. But Gen 2 speaks of a helper fit for him – someone like him but also different from him. Adam named all creation and could not find one helper fit for him. And if God Himself was described as helper, what’s insulting about that? Helper therefore describes her work, not her worth.

At the same time, God’s design is good because of the partnership between men and women and their need for one another! This is counter to what the world implies. It pits men and women against one other in a zero-sum way. Only one gender can succeed, the Other must be the enemy. At other times, the world can reduce a gender to its functions - conservatives think of childbearing, or liberals think of the other gender as sexual objects and hookups. And all this creeps into the church too.

Another way the goodness of the design gets lost is how the world focuses mainly on the prohibitions and ignores the positives. And the church can end up doing this too when we focus on things a woman cannot do. We can neglect the many things the woman can do, or also, what the man “cannot do”, like bear children.

Today, I still struggle with the things that the Bible say, and this is not just restricted to teachings on gender. I’m sure we all read and struggle with commands and teachings in the Bible that we naturally do not accept. But the Christian doesn’t judge and evaluate based on our standards and how acceptable it is. We acknowledge that it is God’s word, and strive to make sense of it. 

In my struggle, and perhaps it is yours too, we can also neglect the purpose of the design – to reflect God’s image together in the world. Of course sin has distorted this, but this was part of God’s good design and original intent. Sin also blinds us from seeing our own blind spots. It is easy to see the problem of “the Other” – another person, or gender, or oppressive system. But my sin means that I have fallen short of God’s standard. And who gets to say what the goodness of God’s design is anyway? Ultimately, good is defined by a good God. 

Lastly. glorify God in your gender

Which brings me to my third statement – glorify God in your gender. God is the ultimate purpose of our gender. As Genesis reminds us, the image of God means being male and female. This is the chief end of men and women made in the image of God - to bring God glory. 

Practically, what does this mean? Firstly, it means recognising that sin has impacted our understanding of gender - yes, our culture, institutions and norms do not uphold justice, and often perpetuates evil in the distortion of gender. But I too am never free of my own sin when I react to the sin of others, it is my inherent blind spot that I cannot shake. As Gen 3 shows, the problem of the sinner is always what lies within me not outside me.

Secondly, the gender God has gifted me with and my life situation is one of the important ways I glorify God as a person. I’ve also been trying to figure out how to reflect this design as a single woman in the church. There’s no specific passage for me as there is for wives and husbands. But at the same time, there are ways I live for God’s glory as a woman. Simply put, all I have is where I am now, and the question that is presented to me every day is, “How can I trust and obey God today?” 

Some of these have to do with gender, and other times, not. There are many times that I struggle with irritation and anger that all humans face. Yet there are also times when this anger, irritation and even anxiety is due to my sensitivity to hormones or struggle with chronic cramps. These are unique experiences of womanhood for my sanctification. Interacting with women in church has shown me others -- motherhood, infertility, dating, marriage etc. And men will find their own circumstances too. So how do we see ourselves and others and help them grow as godly men and women? And how do we serve each other  in different ways?

Lastly, though I am not married at the moment, I’ve had many opportunities to learn from and help the other gender too, especially in and through the local church. The church is described as family which means that it is place where we pursue healthy relationships with each other. I have learned a lot from the brothers in the church, and am thankful for opportunities to work together with them. I have experienced how the Gospel has broken down manmade divides.

I’ve learnt many ways to help the brothers. This includes encouraging them to grow spiritually by sharing resources, linking them up with other men for discipling. Or it could mean asking after their welfare as we hang out in a group. For married friends, helping could be indirect as I care for their wives or find ways to serve their family and help their family grow in Christ.

Are you a part of a local church? How can you care for others in your church? Regardless of marital status, how are we being obedient to God’s design? 

For those that are married, how can you encourage other married couples to live out the gospel? How can you also reach out to and serve and love the singles?

For those that are dating, one practical thing to do is seek out relationships with both marrieds and single people, especially those that are of a different age from you! Do you cultivate a diversity of relationships? 

For those that are single, how are you loving and serving others in the church? Are there families that need help with their children? Are there older couples who are empty nesters that you can reach out to and even learn from? Do you allow others to serve and love you too? Perhaps, as a start, it could be sharing honestly about your struggles and seeking the help of the church family to keep you accountable. 

As we wrap up, in summary, I think that we will constantly struggle with what God’s word says, and it’s not different in the teachings on gender. Every generation and different generations will be challenged by different aspects of His teachings. We too, might find different parts difficult to accept as we grow older. 

But what I tried to highlight in this sharing are some principles that can hopefully anchor our thought processes. Let us recognise God’s design of gender, work to see the goodness of it, and glorify God in your gender.