As we mature in our lives, we look upon the opposite gender as friends, companions, and eventually mates. For the female gender, some would look at them as equals while others look at them as inferior to males. That extends to even Christion males who say there is a biblical basis for this. While there is biblical teaching on the ROLES of females within a family even the family of God, the church, they are by NO MEANS inferior to males.
God does say in His word through the apostle Paul that women should be subject to their husbands (Ephesians 5:22) but that should, as all scripture, be taken in context. This is describing a husband – wife union. God also says that women should be respectful in a church setting (1 Timothy 2:11-12) but He does not say that women cannot participate in worship. After all, God says that all are equal in Christ (Galatians 3:28). So, if there is spiritual equity between the genders, what is different?
It is simply a difference of roles within the marriage covenant and within the congregation. All of us have free will and thus these roles should not be forced upon anyone but submitted to freely. Men must submit to Jesus just as their wives submit to them (1 Corinthians 11:3). God is an orderly God and demands obedience and submission within covenant roles (1 Corinthians 14:33).
So, men, should accept their roles as leaders within the family and the church knowing that all men have Jesus and God the Father that they are accountable to. With that in mind, men owe respect to those that take submissive roles to them when they do eventually marry and not lord it over them but “love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Ephesians 5:25, ESV).
