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Introduction
For clarity and continuity, we are following a Biblical chronology to address this topic.
1. God’s Perfect, Good Design for Man and Woman
2. Man’s Fall and the Damage It Did to the Relationship between Men and Women
3. Christ’s Exemplary Relationship with Women
4. Apostolic Instructions for Men and Women
     Married Couples
     Church Congregations
5. Contemporary Applications

1. God’s Perfect, Good Design for Men and Women (Genesis 1-2)
God created human beings, both male and female, in His image. Both men and women, therefore, have intrinsic dignity and value as image-bearers of God. They are of the same substance—Eve was taken from Adam for Adam. As husband and wife, they are inseparably close and mutually interdependent. It was not good for Adam to be alone. Eve corresponded to him and completed him. He valued, cared for, and loved her. Their distinctive maleness and femaleness are integral to their interdependence. This mutual dignity, value, and interdependence extends beyond husbands and wives to all men and women in that as image-bearers of God, they need human relationships built on beneficial interaction and respectful interdependence. The sexual binary (male-female) displayed in their biological genetic makeup and in their distinctive physical appearance and function God clearly designed for the sake of completing one another and being fruitful. As such, the sexual binary is necessary to and consistent with God’s Creation Mandate and blessing. Through procreation they were to multiply and fill the earth in order to subdue it and manage it with its resources, plants, and animals (Genesis 1:26-28). 

Adam was created from the dust of the ground, so his focus was to cultivate the ground in the initial phase of subduing the earth and exercising dominion over it. Eve was created from Adam’s rib, so her focus was to help him and complete him relationally and vocationally. Beyond the exclusive union of husband and wife, all the human community of men and women should be working together to fulfill God’s purpose and enjoy God’s blessing.  They do so not by erasing their distinctive identities as male and female, but by valuing those distinctives in what each brings to fulfilling the Creation Mandate and enjoying God’s blessing.
 
2. Man’s Fall and the Damage It Did to the Relationship between Men and Women (Genesis 3)
Humanity’s sinful fall marred the work of both men and women. The very areas that God designed to bring joy would bring suffering. Pain would characterize childbirth for the woman (Genesis 3:16a). Thorns, thistles, sweat, death, and decomposition would make man’s efforts to cultivate the ground difficult and painful (Genesis 3:17-19). 

Humanity’s sinful fall marred the relationship between husbands and wives. The wife would desire mastery over her husband, and the husband would abuse his God-designed leadership (headship) over his wife, either by harshly subjugating her or by passively neglecting his duty to lead (Genesis 3:16b; Genesis 3:6; cf. 1 Timothy 2:13-14). Both are prone to blame-shifting, as Adam and Eve illustrate (Genesis 3:12). 

During the period of the Judges, when everyone was doing right in his own eyes, we see fallout from both the neglect and the abuse of God-given roles (Judges 4:4-10—Deborah and Barak; Judges 8:30, Judges 9—Gideon’s many wives and Abimelech’s resulting reign; Judges 11:1-2—Jephthah’s treatment as son of a prostitute; Judges 13-16—Samson’s moral sins; Judges 19-20—the Levite’s mistreatment of his concubine, her rape and murder, and the subsequent civil war).

Every deviation from God’s good created design brings harmful effects on humanity and dishonors God. Both Old Testament and New therefore forbid such attitudes and acts of disobedience and chronicle their destructiveness: sexual immorality, impurity, both heterosexual and homosexual; polygamy, polyamory, concubinage, and abuse; rape and bestiality (Leviticus 18; Leviticus 20; Deuteronomy 22:22-30). Unwarranted divorce reflects human hardness of heart contrary to God’s good design (Matthew 19:8), but God’s instruction concerning it displays His provision of legal protection for the innocent (Matthew 19:9) and the vulnerable (Deuteronomy 24:1-4; Malachi 2:13-16). Biblical grounds for divorce involve the violation of the exclusive sexual union between husband and wife (Matthew 19:9) or the abandonment by an unbelieving spouse (1 Corinthians 7:15).

The Bible records the sins and contributions of both men and women in these areas. Both are accountable. Both have need of a Savior. In faith, Adam named his wife Eve (“living”) because she would be the mother of all living and from her would come the promised Savior. When she bore her first son, she declared, “I have gotten a son [from] the Lord,” reflecting her expectation that the promised offspring would come as the Lord promised.

Both godly men and godly women can live in a way that displays God’s recovery of humanity from the curse of sin. Both Old and New Testaments use the healthy husband-wife relationship as an image of God’s joyful steadfast love for His people and their faithful submission to and reliance on Him (Isaiah 62:4-5; Ephesians 5:22-33). This picture is the ultimate purpose of marriage until it is fulfilled and therefore superseded in our final state of glorification. Both Old and New Testament present a high view of worthy manhood (Psalm 112) and worthy womanhood (Proverbs 31:10-31).

3. Christ’s Exemplary Relationship with Women
While on earth Jesus Christ demonstrated what healthy manhood looks like even apart from marriage, including a high view of women that caused them to flourish. In contrast to the customs of the times, Christ freely conversed with women, valued them, healed them, and taught them (John 4; John 11:1-44; John 12:1-8; Luke 7:36-50; Luke 10:38-42). Women supported His ministry and traveled with Him and the disciples (Luke 8:1-3). They felt safe with Him, respected Him, and were among His closest friends. He did not undermine the leadership of men nor did He denigrate the worthiness of women. As Head of the Church He provides a husband the ultimate model of sacrificial love and gentle, health-promoting leadership that a husband is to show his wife, making her willing, respectful support of his leadership the natural response (Ephesians 5:21-33).

4. The Apostles’ Instructions for Men and Women
Imitating the example of the Lord Jesus, the apostles regularly serve alongside of women in their missionary endeavors, calling them co-laborers, patrons, servants/deacons (Philippians 4:2-3; Romans 16:1-16). They root the distinctive roles of men and women (such as male-only headship and pastoral teaching) in God’s created order and in the history of the fall, not in current traditions or trends (1 Timothy 2:8-15). They argue that nature itself, established by God’s design in creation, teaches us that men and women should maintain distinctiveness in their appearance consistent with their roles (1 Corinthians 11:2-16). Dress and grooming vary from culture to culture, but the distinction needs to be preserved, as reflected in the prohibition of cross-dressing in Deuteronomy 22:5. 

We find further clues to the characteristic qualities of godly men and women in Peter’s call to husbands to honor their wives as the weaker vessel (1 Peter 3:7). Given his word choice, he seems to be acknowledging characteristic differences in physical strength. The Bible’s position, Old and New Testaments, is always that the strong should be protective of those who are less so, whether referring to political power, socio-economic status, physical condition, or spiritual health (Isaiah 1:17; Micah 3; James 1:27; Romans 15:1). Strikingly, 1 Corinthians 16:13-14 connects “acting like men” to vigilance, standing firm, and strength—all in love. It’s not that godly women cannot have these characteristics, but that godly manliness must display them. So there appears to be a common theme in the instructions to couples and families, that the man is to use his strength not just to lead as the head of the home but to protect and to cherish for the benefit of those he leads in love (Ephesians 5:21-33, 6:1-4).

Married Couples
A wife is to arrange herself under her own husband’s leadership as to the Lord, not as an inferior but as God the Son submits to God the Father, both of the same essence but with different functions. The physical metaphor of the head in relation to the body points to not only the husband’s leadership, but also his care. The head by its very nature does what is beneficial the whole body. Abusive leadership is completely out of bounds. She is to display a quiet spirit, pure and respectful conduct, reverencing her husband so that she helps him fulfill his God-given role. A husband is to love his wife sacrificially, to make a home with her in an understanding way, to value her highly, and to cherish her so that she flourishes into all God has designed her to be (Ephesians 5:21-33; Colossians 3:18-19; 1 Peter 3:1-7). The redemptive work of Christ in believers helps them recover to a great degree even in this life what the fall damaged. In the age to come there will be no marriage, because immortality renders procreation unnecessary to survival of the human race. 

Singles
The value, contribution, and distinctiveness of males and females is not limited to the marriage relationship. Not everyone should marry, and one’s worth of personal identity and of beneficial service to the Lord and other people is not dependent on being married (1 Corinthians 7:8-9, 25-40; Matthew 19:10-12). Jesus Christ the perfect Man was unmarried, providing the highest role model for serving God and others apart from being married. Remaining unmarried allows undivided attention to serving the Lord, especially in times of crisis. There are situations and seasons when remaining single can be a better choice. When discussing church support for older widows who have no family to care for them, Paul encourages younger widows to marry and rear a family (1 Timothy 5:9-16). Believers are to maintain sexual purity and male-female distinctions according to God’s design, as passages on the interaction of a local church body command (1 Thessalonians 4:3-8). 

Local Church Congregations
Both men and women received spiritual gifts sovereignly through the Holy Spirit for the common good of the church body. As such, they display the dignity, value, and interdependence God designed for men and women at the beginning (1 Corinthians 11:11-12). Because qualifications for pastors and deacons are to be exemplary for all the flock, a godly man is to be faithful to his wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, temperate, gentle not quarrelsome, not a money-lover, managing well his household, humble and of good reputation (1 Timothy 3:2-13; Titus 1:5-9). They are to treat younger women with purity as one would a sister, and older women with respect as one would a mother (Titus 2:1-8). In keeping with how a husband is to treat his wife and in keeping with how those who lead and govern do so righteously, men should show strength and courage, and as the strong, gently protect those who are weak or vulnerable (1 Corinthians 16:13-14; 1 Peter 3:7; Ephesians 5:28-29).

Women are to conduct themselves in a way consistent with showing respect for their husband’s authority, not flamboyant or sexually immodest, nor usurping authority over men by assuming the role of authoritative pastoral teaching. In keeping with Eve being created as a helper and companion for Adam, men (including pastors) benefit from the insights, giftings, and labors of godly women. For example, both Priscilla and Aquila help Apollos grow in his understanding of the gospel from just the teaching of John the Baptist to that of Jesus Himself (Acts 18:26). Older women are to be reverent, not slanderers, not slaves to wine. They are to teach the younger women to love their husbands and children affectionately, to be self-controlled, to be pure, to take good care of their homes, to be kind, and to be submissive to their husbands. All of this behavior causes both men and women to flourish and thus commends the power of the gospel to restore the good design God created. For either men or women to do otherwise would be contrary to the created order (1 Corinthians 11:4-10, 13-15; 1 Timothy 2:8-15; Titus 2:1-8). 
The gospel brings equal standing before God for all members of the body of Christ. It does not erase the created distinctions but rather brings blessing through Christ on all the varied members of the body of Christ, Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female (Galatians 3:26-29).

5. Contemporary Applications
We affirm that the church should make every effort to help men and women flourish according to God’s created design, Christ’s redemptive work, and the Spirit’s sovereign gifting.
We affirm that sexual self-conceptions and practices at odds with God’s sovereign creation and Scriptural instruction are contrary to God’s will and to man’s good. By the power of Christ’s saving work and the indwelling Spirit of God, believers can wage spiritual war against any such sinful deeds and desires, and need not be under bondage to them.

Regarding women serving as deacons: 1 Timothy 3:8-13 refers to women in verse 11. The words translated “their wives” can also be rendered “the women.” Interpreters have to judge from context which translation to choose. Some argue that “their wives” makes better sense from the context. Others point to the reference to Phoebe in Romans 16:1 as a “servant” of the church as better rendered “deacon” because the term uses the masculine form. Historically, the early centuries of the church did use women deacons. Provided the deacons are serving in a way that does not exercise authority over others as overseers, using women to serve as official deacons would not violate the created order. Each church body has to judge the wisdom of doing so given their own history and the general understanding of the congregation at the time.