Sword & Trowel 2020: Issue 1 


created first and the woman next; the man first, and the woman to make him sufficient, to enable him, to sup- port him, to assist him, to be with him. First the man, then the woman to complete the design and make it sufficient. All this came before the Fall, and the New Testament looks back, and tells us that the man is made for God, and the woman is made for the man. Now there is still no notion, despite the distribution of roles, of superior and inferior. We have to keep that right out of our minds. But the man is made to serve God (1 Corinthians 11), to bring glory to him, and the woman is made to support the man, and to enable him to do that. So we see that the arrangement which relates men and women began at creation.


Then came the Fall, and in Genesis


3.16 the Lord spells out the conse- quences. ‘Unto the woman he said, I


will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children.’ The first con- sequence or punishment for the Fall is to Eve. The second, also to Eve is – ‘Thy desire shall be to thy hus- band, and he shall rule over thee.’ How does this second consequence differ from the original call of Eve? Was she not created from him to be his enabler, his helper, his aid? Now it is more pronounced. She always was his supporter, but now that sin has entered in, the headship of the husband is established more firmly because an entirely voluntary sub- mission is no longer sustainable. We observe that man is punished also, for ‘Unto Adam he said, Be- cause thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the


A double-decker bus recently commissioned for the Beeches Road Sunday School in Birmingham. Their drivers had been making two to three runs each week in minibuses, but the Lord provided a licensed driver and finances for the bus.


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Biblical Roles of Men and Women


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