The bible states right from the beginning that God made us male and female. So what does that mean? Do gender roles factor into the success of a marriage?
Pastor and professor Sam Andreades offers a helpful guide to gender distinctions, why they’re important, and how embracing them will actually bring us closer to each other. He shares helpful insight from his book .
Pastor Andreades has done extensive research over the years and has discovered the importance of gender roles in relationships. He details some of the misconceptions and offers a key to building a healthy, flourishing marriage.
“It’s not having matching his or her towels, it’s not having good tips in communication, all those things might be good; having a date night is helpful, but really when you get right down to it underneath it all is the cultivation of the emotional intimacy that is a key to helping a marriage succeed.”
Marriage requires an immense amount of commitment and hard work. Pastor Andreades elaborates,
“Even in the best of times you have two sinners who are being rammed together and it’s tough. It’s tough for marriages to actually make it and work.”
Gender differences also play an important role in how God designed men and women to be in relationship with one another.
“God creates on the platform of a sexual difference, but the gender that we are is really a call to love the other gender in relationship.”
The Bible provides clear examples of gender differences in marriage and how to truly love one another as husband and wife.
“When the Bible talks about gender distinction it’s much clearer on action than on essence. The Bible doesn’t say, ‘man you are this,’ or ‘woman you are this,’ it says, ‘men, do this for her, and ‘woman, do this for him.’”
Today’s culture often contradicts the Bible, and sends out false messages to men and women about who they really are.
“A lot of the ways in which the culture might say, ‘This is how you’re a man; you like to go to the hardware store,’ or ‘This is how you’re a woman; you’re afraid of mice or you like romantic comedies.’”
“This is not the way the Bible talks. Instead, it talks about finding out who we are as men and women by doing what God calls us to in relationship.”
