What’s Wrong with Feminism?

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Summary

Beginning from the meaninglessness that follows once a culture cuts itself off from God, the maker who alone defines order, meaning, and purpose, the message asks what feminism actually is and traces its waves, then turns to Genesis to recover a plain answer: God made mankind, male and female, in his own image, gave them dominion together, and called it all very good. Woman was not an afterthought or a rival to man’s dominion mandate but Adam’s God-given helper, formed to make that mandate possible and to complete a household that a man alone cannot build.

The pain of Genesis 3:16, desire turned against the husband, and rule turned hard instead of loving, is the curse feminism reacts to without naming its true source, sin, or its true remedy, the gospel. In marriage, a wife’s submission pictures the church submitting to Christ, and a husband’s headship is to look like Christ’s sacrificial love, not domineering control. Proverbs 31 pictures what a woman glorious and virtuous in that calling looks like: trustworthy, productive, wise, and strong, doing great things for God’s kingdom alongside her husband rather than against him.

Essential truths

  1. God, not the culture, defines order, meaning, and purpose, including what it means to be a man or a woman.
  2. Man and woman were both made in God's image and given dominion together; woman is no afterthought but God's necessary gift to man.
  3. The friction between a wife's desires and her husband's rule is a result of the curse, not God's original design.
  4. Marriage was made to picture Christ and the church: a wife submits as the church submits to Christ, and a husband leads by sacrificial love, not domination.

Encouragement and challenge

Instead of importing the world's definitions of manhood and womanhood, let Scripture recover what feminism has confused: wives, find your calling's glory in godly submission; husbands, love your wives the way Christ loved the church.

Reference verses

  • Genesis 1:26-28
  • Genesis 3:16
  • Ephesians 5:31-32
  • 1 Corinthians 11:3
  • Proverbs 31:10-31
  • Hebrews 12:2-3

About this sermon