Different and not equal: the quiet whisper in so many women's hearts

“Sometimes, I just feel like God loves men more,” a friend said to me recently.

She’s not the only one. It’s a sentiment I’ve seen echoed by many friends in various churches, and one I’ve shared in my own heart too.

Teaching on biblical gender roles seems to be a current focus in some sections of the church. That is, by and large, a good thing—but it does run a risk.

One of the catchphrases of complementarianism is that the Bible teaches that men and women are designed to be “equal in value but different in role”, in the church and in the home. I don’t deny this. But in our rush to communicate the differentness of men and women in a culture that emphasises their sameness, we risk producing a generation of women in the church who feel different, but not equal.

We’re young women who are committed Christians, have been taught faithfully, accept complementarianism as true—but we can’t see, and don’t feel, that God’s design is “good”.

Part of the problem comes when we try to marry the Bible’s doctrine of different with our culture’s definition of equal. We look in the Bible and can’t deny what’s taught there: leaders in the home and in the church are to be qualified men. But we look at culture and are unable to see that pattern can be construed in any way as “equal”.

Which leads occasionally to frustrated rage, but more often to quiet resignation, a sort of sadness that whispers internally: Being a woman is definitely second best. God likes men better. They’re more important to him. But I’ll just have to learn to live with it.

The problem is that accepting God-ordained gender differences with disappointment or dissatisfaction is not much better than denying they exist at all. It’s a symptom of a sinful heart. We hear a ring of it in Genesis 3: “Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you” (v 16). I can’t leap to blame my church (though if you’re in church leadership, there’s a word for you lower down). If I’m feeling discontent, that’s primarily an internal problem of my heart, not of external circumstances.

So if you’re a woman who is sometimes tempted to feel different-but-not-equal, don’t settle for it. Work to rejoice in being different, and equal. God wants better for us than resignation to our gendered fate, as though he’s a spoilsport or worse—and the battle begins in your own soul. Here are three things you can do:

If you’re a woman who is sometimes tempted to feel different-but-not-equal, don’t settle for it. Work to rejoice in being different, and equal.

Look to women in Scripture

It’s easy to read the Old Testament and become dispirited by how abysmally so many women are treated. I’m still wrestling with those passages too. But perhaps they make some of the stories of women in the New Testament all the more wonderful. It’s certainly hard to think women inferior when we see how Jesus treasured them: his tender words to Mary and Martha, or his resurrection greeting to Mary Magdalene, or the way the Lord opened Lydia’s heart to the gospel in Philippi.

Look to women in your church

Open your eyes to the godly ladies in your church: women parenting their preschoolers sacrificially; wives choosing to encourage their husbands to lead, doubling their ministry by their support, and always speaking loyally of their partner; very clever women working very cool jobs; women spending their prime years on the mission field; women doing bold evangelism; women who seem always to have just the right encouragement on their lips for every situation. They make women look not only different and equal, but also beautiful. Maybe you’re even one of them.

Look to Jesus

The voice in your head that says God loves you less, or treasures you less, or thinks you’re less important, is lying: “This is how God showed his love among us: he sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins” (1 John 4 v 9-10). Look to Jesus on the cross. Can you see him there and really question God’s love? God’s already given his precious son for you; he’s already loved you infinitely.

A word to pastors and elders

Brothers, could there be women in your church who are quietly (or not so quietly) feeling different but not equal? Please help us.

You can do that by making sure you not only teach the rightness of complementarianism, but also its goodness.

You can do that by making sure that—once you have discerned which roles Scripture reserves only for men in your church—you are actively encouraging women to contribute in every other role in your church, according to their character and gifts.

You can do that by making sure that older women are discipling younger women in your church, either informally or in more formal structures, encouraging and equipping older women to do this in the way that Paul instructs Titus (Titus 2 v 3-5).

And all of us, whether in leadership or not, can be regularly reminding one another of how much God treasures each of his adopted children through Christ—because that’s where any of us will find true liberation, worth and reassurance.

“I feel like God loves men more”. No he doesn’t, sister—whatever your heart suggests, and whatever your church may even unwittingly promote. He could not love you more, and will never love you less.

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