What Is The One Crucial Power Difference Between Men and Women?

I really like to tell jokes.    So it didn’t surprise me when I was thinking about the topic for today, that I remembered a joke.

Little Billy and Susie lived next door to each other.  And each Sunday, the two walked together to their respective churches.   Billy went to the Presbyterians while Susie went down the street to the Methodists.  One Sunday as they walked, they saw that the bridge over the creek had washed away.   Susie said. “I’ll be in big trouble if I get my Sunday clothes wet.”  Little Billy said, “So will I!  What do we do?”  Susie said, “Well, why don’t we take our clothes off,  fold them up and put them on top of our heads?  That way we both get across, and we can put on our clothes on the other side.”   So sure enough, they both undressed, put their clothes on top of their heads, and walked through the creek.  On the other side, they put their clothes back on, and headed off to church.  But as they walked, little Billy became very quiet.   Susie asked.  “What are you thinking, Billy?”  And Billy said, “I never realized there was such a big difference between Methodists and Presbyterians.”         

Now Billy was right.  He and Susie were different, but it had nothing to do with where they went to church.  More than that, those differences between both men and women, both the real differences and the false ones, continue to create some of the most challenging issues not only in marriage, but everywhere. 

Are men and women really that significantly different?   What are those differences? What difference do they make in the world around us?  What difference do they need to make?  In the passage we look at today, God addresses those very questions.   And as you hear what God is actually saying here, you will discover a message that liberates both men and women.  It liberates them to live out the unique gifts each has.  More than that, God’s message points the way to a world that truly values the different gifts of women and men, equally and fairly.   So, let’s hear what God has to say. 

Ephesians 5:21-33

What are the differences between men and women?   What impact do those differences need to make?   Here, God addresses these very questions.   And the answers God gives might surprise you.  

What is the main difference between men and women? It lies in how each uses their power.   And only when people honor and value both feminine and masculine ways of using power do the relationships between men and women become what God intended them to be not only in marriages, but everywhere.

So before, we look at how these power dynamics need to play out in marriage relationships, we’re going to look at how they need to play out in every relationship.   So next week, we’ll address marriage relationships in particular, and then to cap off this part of the series, the following week, we’ll look at the question of same gender relationships, and how they fit into this whole conversation.

Now almost everyone hears the words we just read today as endorsing a difference that goes like this.  Men get more power, and women get less.   Yet that interpretation, one that you’ll often hear in Christian churches, misses Paul’s entire point.  So what is Paul’s point?

Well, first Paul is saying that between men and women real differences do exist.   And more and more, research confirms this reality.    For example, science has confirmed that women see gradations of color far better than men do.   So, guys, when she tells you it doesn’t match, believe her.  Her brain is just better on that than yours.   And the list of differences goes way beyond that, and it gets longer all the time.

Yet Paul here is getting at something deeper, something more basic to who men and women are.  And to do that, Paul naturally speaks in broad terms.   For example, when Paul addresses men, he focuses on telling them to love their wives, and when he addresses women, he focuses on telling them to respect their husbands.   So does that mean women aren’t supposed to love their husbands or that men aren’t supposed to respect their wives?  No, of course not.  That would be ridiculous.   Paul is pointing to tendencies that occur in relationships, tendencies that are rooted in the different ways men and women tend to exercise power, tendencies that are literally rooted in creation.  

So to understand those differences that Paul is addressing, that’s where you need to begin.  You need to go back to creation, to the stories in Genesis.   And what does Genesis tell you?

Let’s begin at what God tells you about men.  In the beginning, God gave Adam, the man in the garden, a specific job.  God told Adam to name the animals.   Now, why in the world did God do that?   Did God have a creative block when it came to animal naming?   Sheesh, Adam, I can’t figure what to call these feathered things that fly?  Can you help me out? 

No, God is telling you something deeper.  God is telling you how men tend to exercise power.   When you name something or someone, do you sit down with the namee, and go through the options?   No, you just deliver the name, and that’s it.  When Chantal and I named our son, Patrick, he never got a say.   We just decided that was the name our son was going to have.  The same holds true, when you name anything.   I named my cat, Moonie, and that was that.  He didn’t get to choose.    But that naming function points to a certain way of using power to order the world.   It points to power that goes out and simply delivers the verdict; that gets it done. 

A few years ago, the consultant and researcher, Carol Kinsey Goman did research on how men and women communicate differently in business settings.   Do you know what she found were men’s three greatest communication strengths.   Beyond commanding physical presence, it was direct and to the point interactions, and effective display of power.   Now, why did men have those strengths?   It’s because men are namers.  That’s how they tend to exercise power in the world, directly and to the point.   

And on the other hand, when God creates Eve, how does God define her purpose in relationship to Adam.   God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.”    Now, in how we read those words, we assume that means Eve had a subordinate role, Adam’s little helper.  But that assumption could not be more wrong.   In the Bible, the word helper, almost always exclusively refers to God, as in God, our help and our salvation.  And that makes sense.

What does helping imply?  It implies that someone needs your help, that on their own, they do not have the power to do what they need to do, and you do.   For example, when I help my son Patrick put on his clothes, it is because I have a level of power there that he doesn’t yet have.   Now, if I simply just always do it for him, am I actually helping him? No.   If I want to help him, I will use my power to enable him to eventually have that power himself.  

And do you see what that tells you about how women tend to exercise power in the world?  They tend to use their power in such a way so as to enable and empower others.   For example, when Goman looked at women’s top strengths in communicating in business settings, what were the top 3?  She discovered that women have strong listening skills and great ability to pick on non-verbal signals and to show empathy, in other words skills that enable them to multiply their power by enabling others.  

Now does that mean that women don’t name things or can’t directly exercise power?  Of course not.   Nor does it mean that men can’t be good at listening or developing teams.  It is simply saying that generally women and men bring different tendencies and gifts to how they exercise power and relate to others.  For example, if a woman directly exercises power, it is generally done out of a motivation to empower others.   And when a man develops a team, it is done out of his desire to get something done.    

More than that, God is saying that neither of these tendencies can stand alone.  The first time in the Bible that the words not good appear, they appear here.  Why?  God is saying that Adam is missing something.   In other words, the different gifts and tendencies that women and men tend to have are ones that the other needs.   They complement each other.   After all, if you want to get something done effectively, what do you need?  Do you need the ability to directly order things in certain ways?  Or do you need the ability to empower others to together get things done.   And the answer is that you need both.   And when both those ways of approaching people and exercising power get honored and valued then human beings flourish.   

Yet, tragically that hasn’t happened, and in Genesis, God lays out that reality too.  After the fall of human beings in the Garden, God gives a painful picture of how evil twisted the relationships between men and women. God says that now due to this break in relationship with God, men will struggle with thorns and thistles as they work, and women will desire their husbands even as their husbands rule over them.  In other words, men will be frustrated in effectively making an impact in the world.   And in their frustration, they will become tyrants, particularly in their homes.   And women, instead of bringing to bear their gifts of using power in interdependency, will find themselves caught in a fearful dependency on the men in their lives.   And as a result of this twisting of God’s vision for the relationships between women and men, the whole world  suffers.     

In other words, when people say that the ideal of the Bible is that the man rules over the woman while the woman lives in adoring subjection; that is the exact opposite of the Bible’s ideal.   The ideal of creation portrays two people, who bring together different but complementary ways of being in the world.  And by so doing that, they together bring fulfillment not only to each other but to the whole creation.  

Yet, too often in our culture, and in the church as well, only masculine ways of power get affirmed.   People act as if that is the only way that power can be exercised.  Yet from the beginning, God affirmed that power comes in both ways, not only in power to, but also in power through.   And only when both forms of power get affirmed and honored, can human beings become all that God created human beings to be.

How do you live into this vision?  How do you live into it in your workplaces, in your families, in your neighborhoods?   How do we live into it here as a Christian community?  You look to the God from whom both those forms of power come.  And you look to how God in Jesus showed those forms of power together in one person.   Jesus, who empowered his disciples to heal and proclaim, and who boldly ordered the demons to flee.   Jesus, who gave up all his power, so we might be empowered to live joyfully as God created each of us to be.    When you see what God in Jesus did to break this curse, including the divisions and inequality between women and men, that has brought such suffering and brokenness to our world, it will free you.  It will free you to use wisely the ways of power that God has given you.  It will free you to learn from and honor the ways of power God has given others.   And together, by God’s grace, it will free you to work with God, to create a world where difference is valued and honored, where both women and men find their gifts affirmed, and where as people flourish together so does all creation.