Matt Chandler, lead pastor of The Village Church, wades into dangerous waters with his sermon series called Beautiful Design. The series is about God’s purpose and God’s design in men and women, and how we interact with one another. A timely and controversial issue. It is a rich series that takes a long look at the imago Dei, the differences between the design of men and women and how we interact with one another.
His teaching on Women’s Purpose and the subsequent teaching on Women’s Hurdles is some of the strongest, most insightful teaching I have heard. I want to put this teaching in your hands. It is worth the time to listen to, whether by audio on iTunes or video below.
Many of you can appreciate his opening to this sermon on Women’s Purpose:
A man teaching on the purpose of woman. What could go wrong? If you have your Bibles, go ahead and grab them. Turn to Genesis, chapter 2. True story. I was in California earlier this week doing some teaching, and then I flew back in. I only had Thursday in the office, so I came in on Thursday, and dudes were literally coming by my office just to make sure I was all right, asking, “Are you ready for this weekend?”
I’m like, “I’m not going into battle; I’m preaching the Bible. I think we’ll be fine.” One dude hugged me like it was the last time he was going to see me. I was like, “I’ll be fine. We’ll talk about it afterwards.”
Maybe you have seen your husband navigate these truths and these tricky often-inflammatory words:
What we saw concerning the man is that he was placed in the garden and commanded by God to work it and to keep it, and that’s where we got our idea of headship. Those two phrases work it and keep it are what helped us define the man. Now what we were given phrase-wise concerning the purpose of woman is this phrase, and every word in the phrase matters.
Here’s the phrase (it’s used twice in this text): a helper fit for him. We’ll break up that phrase into two ideas: a helper and fit for him. Both of those are going to matter. This word helper is a difficult one.
The question and the debate around the word help is whether the woman holds a subordinate role to the man’s in the task of human flourishing.
This phrase, fit for him, leads us to the idea of complementarian relationship. The man and the woman were created uniquely by God, both in the image of God, equal in dignity, value, and worth, but they have been meant to complement one another, not compete against one another. The weaknesses of the one is strengthened by the strengths of the other, and the strengths of the other one are made even stronger by the strengths of the other.
I strongly urge you to find the space in your life for listening to this teaching.
A Beautiful Design (Part 7) – Woman’s Purpose from The Village Church.
We’d love to hear your thoughts on the this important teaching in the comments below.
Published May 11, 2015
