This is the third clip in our series from D.A. Carson's talk at the Different by Design 2009 conference. In this clip, Carson addresses how we should understand Paul's appeal to the creation order (1 Tim. 2:13) in the argument of the passage.

Part 1 on "Permit" can be seen here.

Part 2 on "Authority" can be seen here.

You can listen to all of Carson's address here.

[The following excerpt is from John Piper's chapter in Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, entitled "A Vision of Biblical Complementarity: Manhood and Womanhood Defined According to the Bible." The entire chapter is available here.]

The tendency today is to stress the equality of men and women by minimizing the unique significance of our maleness or femaleness. But this depreciation of male and female personhood is a great loss. It is taking a tremendous toll on generations of young men and women who do not know what it means to be a man or a woman. Confusion over the meaning of sexual personhood today is epidemic. The consequence of this confusion is not a free and happy harmony among gender-free persons relating on the basis of abstract competencies. The consequence rather is more divorce, more homosexuality, more sexual abuse, more promiscuity, more social awkwardness, and more emotional distress and suicide that come with the loss of God-given identity.

It is a remarkable and telling observation that contemporary Christian feminists devote little attention to the definition of femininity and masculinity. Little help is being given to a son's question, "Dad, what does it mean to be a man and not a woman?" Or a daughter's question, "Mom, what does it mean to be a woman and not a man?" A lot of energy is being expended today minimizing the distinctions of manhood and womanhood. But we do not hear very often what manhood and womanhood should incline us to do. We are adrift in a sea of confusion over sexual roles. And life is not the better for it.

[However,] the Bible does not leave us in ignorance about the meaning of masculine and feminine personhood. God has not placed in us an all-pervasive and all-conditioning dimension of personhood and then hidden the meaning of our identity from us. He has shown us in Scripture the beauty of manhood and womanhood in complementary harmony. He has shown us the distortions and even horrors that sin has made of fallen manhood and womanhood. And he has shown us the way of redemption and healing through Christ.

To be sure, we see "through a glass dimly." Our knowledge is not perfect. We must be ever open to new light. But we are not so adrift as to have nothing to say to our generation about the meaning of manhood and womanhood and its implications for our relationships. Our understanding is that the Bible reveals the nature of masculinity and femininity by describing diverse responsibilities for man and woman while rooting these differing responsibilities in creation, not convention.

When the Bible teaches that men and women fulfill different roles in relation to each other, charging man with a unique leadership role, it bases this differentiation not on temporary cultural norms but on permanent facts of creation. This is seen in 1 Corinthians 11:3-16 (especially vv. 8-9, 14); Ephesians 5:21-33 (especially vv. 31-32); and 1 Timothy 2:11-14 (especially vv. 13-14).7 In the Bible, differentiated roles for men and women are never traced back to the fall of man and woman into sin. Rather, the foundation of this differentiation is traced back to the way things were in Eden before sin warped our relationships. Differentiated roles were corrupted, not created, by the fall. They were created by God.

CBMW is having a Journal for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (JBMW) Twitter contest. The winner of the contest will receive a free one-year subscription to JBMW. Here is how the contest works:

If you follow CBMW on Twitter (if you don't, you'll need to start!) look for today's Twitter update (10/05/09). All you need to do is re-tweet the message and you are entered into the drawing - make sure you include @CBMWorg when you re-tweet the message.

If you are not familiar with our journal, here are few articles to give you a taste:

Rob Bell's "Feminine Images" for God: A Review of Rob Bell, NOOMA: "She." Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2008. by Chris Cowan

O.J. Simpson Is Not a Complementarian: Male Headship and Violence against Women. by Russell D. Moore

Young vs. Old Complementarians. by Mark Dever

Why is marriage so hard?

Because of human selfishness, self-focus and self-worship, says Paul David Tripp.

"Sin causes me to shrink my life down to the size of my life," Tripp, president of Paul Tripp Ministries, said. "Sin causes me to shrink my hopes, dreams, desires and motivations down to the claustrophobic confines of the borders of my own life. Sin causes me to shrink my world down to my wants, my needs and my feelings."

Tripp addressed how to handle difficulties in marriage in two presentations titled "What Did You Expect? The Realities of Marriage" Aug. 25 as part of "The Gospel: Counseling and The Church," a conference on biblical counseling at Sojourn Community Church.

Selfishness is a problem for 10 out of 10 people, Tripp said, which obviously has an adverse affect on marriage. In contrast, 2 Corinthians 5:14-15 teaches that Christ died for people so that they might no longer live for themselves but for Him, Tripp noted. To work through a self-focused perspective toward a Christ-honoring approach to life and marriage, Tripp said, spouses must uncover and be honest about their selfishness.

"What looks like love may not be love," he said. "You can have a woman shopping for the final piece of the puzzle, looking for the man who will fulfill her dreams and complete her life. The man is doing the same thing and they often don't realize it. What so needs to happen, the biggest thing people need to be rescued from, is themselves."

Tripp said marriage has a tendency to expose how deeply self-oriented people are, but that God uses this institution to sanctify His people. Tripp said God exposed significant anger in his own life through his marital relationship, even as he ministered to others as a pastor and counselor.

"In the context of my marriage, God brought me to the end of myself," he said. "I was headed for disaster. God used the deep difficulties of that relationship to expose how deep was my need for the rescuing grace of Christ."

To grow through such difficulties, Tripp said couples must ground their marriages in the Gospel. He said Christians must cling to the truth that God through Christ has broken the power of sin over them, made them new creations in Christ and is purifying them from the continued presence of indwelling sin in their lives and marriages.

Every day, Christians must fight to live for the kingdom of God, instead of following self-centered, self-focused desires, Tripp said.

"The war between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of self is the deeper war that is the reason for all those horizontal battles that take place between us," he said. "It is only when you gain ground at the deeper level that you can gain ground at the horizontal level."

To grow in relational unity, Tripp said spouses must heed Jesus' words in Matthew 6:33 to seek first His kingdom. Progress can be made in marriages when both spouses seek to live for the same King instead of for two different sets of self-centered pursuits.

"Jesus died to break the bondage that I have to my passions and my desires," he said. "Do you know what it means to seek His kingdom? You (husband) wake up in the morning and say, ‘today, I am going to look for specific, concrete opportunities to love my wife.' (Wife) you say ‘I want to know my husband, I want to know where he struggles, and I want to know ways that I can serve in him in love.'"

When spouses, in complete reliance upon God, commit themselves to the kingdom of God and pursue growth in Christlikeness, the result will be deep, satisfying and God-glorifying marital relationships, Tripp said.

"Jesus died so that I could be free of the nasty, anti-social, dissatisfying agenda of the kingdom of self and so that I could live in the beautiful country of the kingdom of God," he said. "And so that I could know experiences of love, unity, tenderness, sweetness and service that are beyond anything I could every produce in my own wisdom and in my own strength."

Gender Blog continues with the latest installment of our "Unchanging Truth" series. These articles, while not as current, are still beneficial, and they demonstrate the consistent application of biblical truth by complementarian scholars, authors, and pastors through the years.

The following is an excerpt from Rebecca Jones's article, "Submission: A Lot More Than Giving In." It was first published in The Journal for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood in 1998.

As I drove my fifteen-year-old daughter home from gymnastics, I listened intently to her description of a painful, embarrassing moment. Her emotions weighed not only on my soul, but on the gas pedal. A sick feeling came over me as I saw the flashing lights behind. When the policeman asked me if I had any reason for driving 40 miles an hour in a 30 mile an hour zone, I simply replied, "No sir, I just wasn't paying attention."

When we had finished the formalities of the ticketing process, I drove away (slowly!). My daughter, now truly sobbing due to the increased strain of watching me get a ticket I couldn't afford, began complaining about how unfair the officer had been.

"No," I insisted. "He wasn't unfair. If I was going over the speed limit, he had every right to stop me and give me a ticket."

"But he was so arrogant, so know-it-all," my daughter argued. "And he could have just warned you."

"Well, I've seen worse," I answered.

I didn't resent that policeman, nor did I fear him as a person. I didn't feel either better or worse than he, but he was a policeman and I wasn't. In that situation, I was called to submit myself to his jurisdiction.

Cultural Changes

This situation of legal authority is about the only picture of submission we have left in our society. Though it may not be particularly helpful when we think of a wife submitting to her husband, it does illustrate one principle. Just as the policeman was not "better" than I was, but was simply exercising the authority he had been delegated, so a husband is not "better" than his wife merely because he is in authority. She is no less a worthy human being than he, but authority is a part of his job, his identity and his calling.

You can read the rest of the article here.