Before reading this blog post read Genesis 1 & 2 in your Bible or online.

Order and chaos are at odds with one another. At first blush, chaos may seem attractive. After all, chaos evokes thoughts of freedom, spontaneity, and independence. Order in comparison can appear rather droll. It makes us think of uniformity, everything being the same, and it is associated with words like discipline, neatness, and the police. Bland. Manila folders. Excel Spreadsheets. The list goes on…

But this is a sophomoric, and wildly incomplete way to think about order and chaos. Order is simply a construct or framework in which all things can exist and operate as beautifully and effectively as they are able. Chaos is the absence of that construct or framework, and in chaos nothing exists or operates as it should. At its greatest extreme, chaos is essentially meaningless jumble. Static on the TV or radio is chaos. Random particles bouncing up against one another in space is chaos. A city on fire is chaos. Chaos brings emptiness, terror, and death. Indeed, chaos cannot facilitate life, and neither life nor order can spring from chaos spontaneously. Order gives life. Without the order that we find in biology, physics, and chemistry, there could be no life. Without the order we find in math there would be no computers, and ultimately no physics upon which all elements in the universe depend to operate. These are the most rudimentary forms of order, but look at it at a social and cultural level. People groups and nations exist on the premise of order. People have organized around central thoughts, ideas, locations, and individuals to unify their thoughts and behaviors in certain ways so as to coexist at some level of cohesiveness and peace. The alternative to this social order is anarchy, and anarchy ultimately results in tyranny, as the vacuum of power is quickly filled with whoever is the strongest and most ruthless.

Thankfully, God is a God of order. If he were not, then none of us would exist. But in the beginning God created order out of chaos, and this went beyond simply making things. God established a divine and created order from the beginning, and it’s important that we are aware of it so we know our right place in the universe, and especially understand our right place in relation to God. Observe:

Above you see my expression of the Divine & Created Order. It is generally derived from passages in Genesis 1 & 2, though other passages throughout scripture contribute to it as well.

While the theology of the Trinity may not be thoroughly explained or unpacked in Genesis 1 & 2, the other elements are for the most part. Let me walk you through it:

• Genesis 1:1-3 – Identifies God as creator, including Father, Son, and Spirit (see also John 1)
• Genesis 1:27 – God makes man in his own image
• Genesis 1:28 – God explicitly gives dominion to man over every living thing on the face of the earth (plans and animals)
• Genesis 1:29 – God gives man and the animals every plant yielding seed and every tree with seed in its fruit for eating (indicating that plants are not only subordinate to humans, but also animals)
• Genesis 2:19 – Adam exercises dominion over the animals, naming each of them
• Genesis 2:18-25 – God seeks a helper for Adam, and not finding one amongst the animals, makes a helper for him (the Woman)
• Genesis 2:23 – Adam exercises the same authority over the woman that he previously exercises over the animals (he calls her Woman)

I won’t be further unpacking the Trinity in this post, because that really could be a post all in its own, but I will add some supporting scripture around children. While children aren’t explicitly mentioned in Genesis 1 & 2, we can look at other scriptures that explicitly subordinate children to parents such as Exodus 20:12, “Honor your father and your mother,” and Ephesians 6:1, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.”

Just as we can wrongly look at order vs. chaos and feel a sense of attraction to chaos, so we can also find ourselves looking negatively at hierarchy. Everyone wants to be the boss. But God is the ultimate boss, and the cardinal sin effectively seeks to deny this. Although hierarchy can be wielded in an evil manner (and it often is), hierarchy is not in and of itself bad. Hierarchy is good, a clear blessing from God that facilitates order in innumerable ways.

Hierarchy is the most fundamental building block of any organization. For the organization to serve any purpose, it must have the means to make and execute decisions. Without designating a specific party or parties to make these decisions, there can be no consistent, cohesive direction for the organization, and chaos rules.

21st century Americans live in a world that strongly counters this truth, especially as it relates to the most basic and fundamental organization: The family. Modern feminism has categorically rejected the following truth:

• God made men and women separately and distinctly in his own image (Genesis 1:27)
• Women were designed by God as the ideal companion and helper for men (Genesis 2:20-24)
• God explicitly subordinated women to men (most clearly in the context of marriage) (Genesis 2:18-25)

Before I proceed further, please accept this disclaimer: I’m not trying to belittle women, or cast men as superior or greater in value than women. Know this: God created all human beings in his own image. As image bearers of the almighty creator of the universe, we all have infinite value, both men and women. However, no matter how controversial this topic is, it is one we must look at through the lens of scripture above all else.

Here I must address a common misconception that exists within Christian communities: That is that women are subordinate to men because of sin. This is at least partially due to Genesis 3:16. After Adam and Eve sinned by eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, God confronts them, and says to Eve, “Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you.” One way this verse has been interpreted is that Eve (and all women after her) would have a desire to rule over her husband, but her husband would rule over her instead. This conflict of interests creates conflict in marriage, and corrupts the very good thing God made, and it is the natural consequence of the sin in which both Adam and Eve partook.

What Genesis 3:16 does not do, is establish women as subordinate to men. This already happened in chapter 2:18-25. Allow me to make the case:

In verse 18 God expresses that he will make a helper fit for Adam. Before God carries out that new creation, Adam exercises his God-given dominion and authority over all the animals by naming them in verses 19-20, but it is added that “there was not found a helper fit for him” amongst those animals. In verses 21-22 God takes a rib from Adam, from which he makes Eve. In verse 23 Adam exercises the same dominion and authority he had just exercises over the animals in that he (Adam) calls Eve Woman, “because she was taken out of Man.”

If this is not enough, consider what Paul had to say to the Church in Ephesus in Ephesians 5:22-33:

²² Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. ²³ For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. ²⁴ Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

²⁵ Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, ²⁶ that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, ²⁷ so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.^[a] 28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. ²⁹ For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, ³⁰ because we are members of his body. ³¹ “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” ³² This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. ³³ However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

In the above passage, women are reminded to submit to their husbands as the church is to submit to Christ. This is not in order to fulfill the requirements of a curse. This is the established order God created. Likewise, women are told to respect their husbands,. Subordinates should always respect their authorities. Husbands are told to love their wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. Husbands should take care of their wives. It is the natural duty of all authorities to take care of their subordinates.

Why does all this matter? What does it mean?

First, let me tell you what it’s NOT about. It’s not about reaffirming the ancient, sinful form of masculinity in which men are seen as valuable and women are not. It’s not about making rules for women, while allowing men to do whatever they want without consequence. It’s not about hurting, demeaning, or subjugating women. These passages and the rest of scripture make it clear that women are absolutely equal in value to men, and should be loved, honored and cherished. God intentionally uses women instrumentally for his Kingdom throughout both the Old Testament and the New Testament.

Additionally, these passages do not give men a free pass to exercise authority however they choose over women. In fact, the burden of responsibility on men is great. We are to love our wives as Christ loves the Church!

This is why it matters: We need to ponder and question our own natural inclination to question God’s perfect plan. Everything God made at the beginning of the universe was good. The hierarchy of the family unit was and is good. When one party is clearly responsible and “in charge” the opportunity for conflict drops significantly. How many marital fights could be avoided if both men and women understood and accepted their own roles in marriage?

An “equitable” marriage in which no one is in charge is a leaderless marriage, in which both parties are constantly vying for authority. The man is abdicating his God-given responsibility and authority, and failing to step up to his full potential as the husband he ought to be. The woman is overstepping and trying to control things that should not be under her control, and the burden of this responsibility is crushing her.

Genesis 3:16 makes it clear that this conflict of authority will be present in marriage as long as sin exists. We should not be so naïve as to believe we can wish it away. However, Christians can and must reject the Godless notion that there is no difference between men and women, and that there is no divinely established order between the two. This only feeds the conflict, results in failed marriages and dysfunctional families, and conforms us more to the world rather than to God.

Christian, reject worldly philosophies. Reject feminism, anarchy, and every form of chaos that rejects God’s Divine & Created Order. This order exists for our good, and for the functionality of the universe. We can feebly and futilely fight against it and find ourselves fighting God, or we can embrace it and find ourselves experiencing the blessing God had for us when he established it in the first place.