If you have grown up in most Churches in America you may have heard the Gospel. You may have heard about various Biblical prophecies. You may have heard about the Ten Commandments and basic holy living. You may even have been taught a little about marriage.

In churches today the only thing most people hear about marriage is that God designed marriage to be an equal partnership between a man and woman. If gender is discussed at all, you will hear that God designed men and women equally in his image and that he has given men and women equal opportunity to do whatever they want with their lives.

The problem with all these teachings about marriage and gender in most modern churches today is that they are completely and utterly at odds with what the Bible actually teaches on gender and marriage. Our churches have completely abandoned a set of doctrines found in the Scriptures that impact not only our daily lives but also the plans we make in this life.

You might try to follow the Ten commandments and not lie or steal or kill. But you cannot fully live a holy life for God if you are ignorant of or disobedient to his commands regarding gender and marriage. This is the mission of this blog. To shine a light on these forgotten and in many cases ignored doctrines of the Bible.

I encourage you to read the doctrines below and do as the Bereans did(Acts 17:10-11) and search the Scriptures to see if these doctrines are there. I promise you – they are. These doctrines, if you allow them to penetrate your heart and mind, will change your life like few other doctrines save the Gospel which is the greatest doctrine the Bible teaches us.



You might be a young person who makes the following prayers to God each day – “Lord what do you want me to do with my life?” If you are a young man you might be praying “God show me how to be the man you want me to be” and if you are a young woman you might be praying “God show me how to be the woman you want me to be“. Young brothers and sisters in Christ, I can confidently tell you that the answers to these crucial life questions are found in the forgotten doctrines below.

And one more thing I want to add before I get into these doctrines contained in the Bible. If you are a husband, or husband to be, who is seeking to incorporate these doctrines into your marriage then I would suggest that you first read my article “7 Steps to Grooming Your Young Christian Wife“. That article will show you what foundational things your wife must first embrace, before she will have any hope of embracing the doctrines I mention below.

20 Doctrines Regarding Biblical Gender Roles

1. In Genesis 9:6 we read that man, as in mankind, men and women, are made “in the image of God.” However, the Bible tells us that male human beings are not just made in the image of God, but it tells us in I Corinthians 11:7 of the male human being that “he IS THE image and glory of God“. What this means is that while men and women equally reflect God’s nature in their common human traits they diverge in equally reflecting God in their distinct male and feminine traits. In other words, God’s nature is most accurately reflected by the masculine human nature, not the feminine human nature. This is why God is always referenced in the masculine sense as a Father, a Son or a Husband in the Bible and should always be referenced by us in the masculine sense and not in the feminine sense.

2. For man to fully exercise the image of God in him as a husband and a father he needed another being that was similar to man but also very different than man. So God made woman as a subordinate companion and helper suitable for man because she would share a common human nature with him (Genesis 2:18-24, Genesis 3:16, I Corinthians 11:7-9, Ephesians 5:22-24).

3. God created woman and by extension marriage to model the relationship between himself and his people. This is why God is referred to as Israel’s husband in the Old Testament(Ezekiel 16:8, Jeremiah 31:31-33) and why Christ is referred to as the husband of the Church in the New Testament (2 Corinthians 11:2).

4. In marriage God has placed the husband as the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the Church so that man can exercise the leadership and authority attributes of God’s image in him(Ephesians 5:23).

5. In marriage God has not only placed husbands in authority over their wives, but he also given them ownership of their wives. The Hebrew word for marriage in the Old Testament is literally “to be owned” as in a woman coming to be owned by a man. When a man married a woman he became her “owner” and she became “owned by” him (Deuteronomy 22:22, Deuteronomy 24:1, Proverbs 12:4, Proverbs 31:10-11). In the New Testament we read that Christ “purchased” his bride, the Church as men had purchased their wives since the beginning of creation (Acts 20:28).

6. The husband/wife relationship is the only human authority relationship where God commands the one under authority to submit to the other as “unto the Lord” (Ephesians 5:22). Wives are commanded to submit to their husbands “in everything” (Ephesians 5:24) and in spiritual matters “…if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home…” (1 Corinthians 14:35). The only exception to a woman submitting to her husband in everything is if he asks her to disobey God’s law (Acts 5:29).

7. In marriage God has given the husband the responsibility to be the provider for his wife so that he can exercise God’s attribute of being a provider for his people(Exodus 21:10-11, Ephesians 5:29).

8. In marriage God has given the husband the responsibility to be the protector of his wife so that he can exercise God’s attribute of being a protector for his people(Nehemiah 4:14, Luke 11:21, Ephesians 5:29).

9. In marriage God has called on men to love their wives not only by leading them, providing for them and protecting them but he has also called men to give themselves up to sacrificially love their wife by washing her spiritual and spots and wrinkles to make her the glorious wife God intends her to be (Ephesians 5:25-27). This means if a husband is loving his wife as Christ loves the Church he will do as Christ does to his Churches and “rebuke and chasten” (Revelation 3:19) his wife. In other words he will discipline his wife.

10. God made woman as “the weaker vessel”(I Peter 3:7) or weaker human so that woman would need man’s leadership, protection and provision as God’s people need his leadership, protection and provision. When a woman desires a man to lead her, protect her and provide for her these desires are part of her God given design.

11. God made woman to bear man’s children and be the keeper of the home (Proverbs 31:27, 1 Timothy 5:14, Titus 2:4-5). When a woman strongly desires to bear children this desire is part of her God given design. When a woman desires to make her home beautiful and wants to organize it this is also part of her God given design.

12. God made woman beautiful and he designed man to desire the beauty of woman because God desires the beauty of his people (Psalm 45:11). When a woman desires to make herself beautiful this is because God has placed this strong desire in her so that she will make herself beautiful for man.

13. God made woman to desire and receive sexual pleasure from her husband to bring him pleasure (Song of Solomon 2:3-13). But God also designed her as the gatekeeper of sex so that she would only desire sex within the confines of marriage (Deuteronomy 22:13-29).

14. God made woman to bring man pleasure because God desires pleasure (Proverbs 5:18-19, Revelation 4:11).

15. God made man to strongly desire pleasure, especially sexual pleasure to image God’s own desire for pleasure (Revelation 4:11).

16. God compares a man’s desire for sex to our human desire for water (Proverbs 5:15). To this end God commands that men drink their fill of and satisfy themselves “at all times” with the sexual well that is their wife’s body and he commands them to be ravished (intoxicated) with her love (Proverbs 18:19).

17. God says that husbands and wives have the responsibility to render their bodies to one another for their sexual pleasure in marriage (I Corinthians 7:3). God also states that husbands and wives have the power to take sexual pleasure in their spouse’s body in marriage (I Corinthians 7:3). There is no requirement that both the husband and wife must mutually desire sex to have sex. In fact, the only time there must be mutual consent regarding sex in marriage is for the couple to mutually agree to stop having sex for a short time (I Corinthians 7:5).

18. Man and woman were designed to come together as one flesh in marriage (Genesis 2:24) to help man fully image God. This is why God’s first command to mankind was to “Be fruitful, and multiply” (Genesis 1:28). To fulfill this command, men and women must marry, have sex and thereby have children.

19. Celibacy is God’s exception to his rule that he wants men and women to marry and be fruitful and multiply. But we should only choose the celibate life if we truly have the “gift” (I Corinthians 7:7) for as the Scriptures say it “it is better to marry than to burn” (I Corinthians 7:9) with desire for marriage than to remain celibate with this God given desire for marriage.

20. Because man is God’s image bearer it is God’s design that men should rule over women in all areas of life including the home (Ephesians 5:22-24, I Peter 3:1-6), the church (1 Timothy 2:12, 1 Corinthians 14:34) and in society (Isaiah 3:12, I Corinthians 11:3). In other words, Patriarchy is not just a cultural tradition of ages past, but it is in fact God’s design for society. This is why God only allowed male priests(Leviticus 21) in Israel and he only allows male pastors in the Church (1 Timothy 3:1-4). This is why all twelve of Christ’s Apostles were male and even his replacement for Judas was male. Female prophets were God’s exception to his rule that women should never occupy any position of authority spiritual or otherwise over men.