I’ve heard women complain about the writings of Paul, especially when they read of Paul’s instructions concerning the authority of women and their speaking in the church. For example, in 1 Timothy 2:11-12, Paul instructs Timothy that women should not speak out in the church. He elaborates, saying that they do not have the authority to serve as spiritual teachers to men. Paul wrote these things because God indeed has an ideal hierarchy for authority, both in our family lives and in the church. Sadly, many men today fail to be the kind of men that either a woman or a church congregation should follow.
Furthermore, in the passage in 1 Timothy and others, Paul addressed women who had practices and habits they had brought into the church from their pagan worship services, such as those in the Cult of Artemis. Paul addresses that. The early church was patterned after worship in the synagogue, and those Gentile women converts did not understand the dress and habits of Jewish women within a worship setting. They dressed modestly, and they reserved their questions about what the rabbis had discussed for their husbands in the privacy of their own homes. Without a correct understanding, the modern woman might feel like scripture relegates her to being a second-class citizen.

Nothing could be further from the truth. God made men and women differently, but he made them equal in value and worth. Interestingly, even today, a Shabbat service cannot begin without the prayers of a woman (or a mother) and without her lighting the candles, which invite God’s presence and participation into the Shabbat meal. In the subject passage today, Paul states very clearly that “neither is the woman independent of the man, nor the man independent of the woman, IN THE LORD”. He goes on to explain that the woman was indeed made from the rib of a man coming out of his body, but all men are born from, and come out of, a woman’s body. All things are from God. He is the great equalizer. 

I think what we should take from this passage is that if you are a man, don’t ever get the idea that you are better than or have the upper hand on a woman. You have a different role and perform other functions, but you are not superior to a woman. In a way, you cannot do your duties independently of her. I will add that you need to seek God’s help to be the kind of man that God desires for you to be. And, if you are a woman, understand that you are not inferior to a man, nor do you function independently of a man. You, too, have your God-given role and directives on how to function and operate within His design and will. You are not inferior to a man, but in God’s design, you are not the final authority in the home nor the church assembly. Someone must have the final word, and God has an order for things. When we men fail to be the kind of men that God intends for us to be, we create dysfunction. When we are women, and we fail to be the kind of women that God intends for us to be, we too create dysfunction. God has a way for us to work together and get along in a way that gives Him glory and honor. Things run best when we do things as He directed.