PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | Episode 21 – Is Male Headship Biblical?
Episode 21: Is Male Headship Biblical?
FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell
Rocky: Welcome to the podcast, FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.
Nancy: Hello, lovely ladies. It is good to be with you again. I wonder where I am talking to? I know that so many are listening over the USA, but I know that many of you are listening in different countries too. I am glad that I get to speak to you all over the world. I would love you to drop me a note if you have time, just a little email. My email is This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. If you live in a different country, drop me a line and tell me where you are listening from. I would love to hear that; it would be so exciting.
That reminds me of many of the letters in the New Testament and how Paul, and even Peter, wrote to the saints in so many different places. In 1 Peter 1, it says: “Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia.” Wow, they were all over the empire. Peter was writing to them all. I hope I’m speaking to lots of you in different countries today. By the way, have any of you ever traveled or been to Cappadocia? We visited this country, or this part of a country, when we were taking a tour to Israel, and then on to other countries.
We went on to Turkey. Cappadocia is way out in the middle of Turkey. It’s the most interesting country I’ve ever been to in my life. When you go there, it’s like you are walking on to the moon. It has all these cone-like structures coming up everywhere. There is no normal land of just grass fields; it’s all these cone-like structures. People lived in these structures, and they dug out their homes from them, and they even dug out underground cities. It was to Cappadocia that a lot of Christians fled to hide from persecution. It’s a most interesting place.
Then Peter goes on to give his salutation to the people. I love what he says; I would like to make it my salutation to you today. I would like to read it to you from the Passion translation. And it says: “You are not forgotten.” He was talking to those in many different places, just as I’m talking to you in many different places today. “You are not forgotten. You have been chosen and destined by Father God. The Holy Spirit has set you apart to be God’s holy ones, obedient followers of Jesus Christ, who have been gloriously sprinkled with His blood. May God’s delightful peace cascade over you many times over.”
That’s my prayer for you: that God’s peace and His love and His joy and His rest will cascade over you all throughout this day and all throughout this week. I bless you in the name of Jesus. Let’s go back to the King James Version. I’ll read it again. We notice something wonderful in this Scripture. “Elect, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Holy Spirit and to obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ, grace unto you and peace be multiplied.” Did you notice there that God the Father, and Jesus Christ the Son who is God, and the Holy Spirit who is God, are all mentioned there in revealing the plan of salvation? Each one in the triune Godhead took part in salvation. Isn’t that amazing? So wonderful.
This last week when we were having family devotions in our home, and this is my favorite part of the day. Every morning and every evening, Colin reads the Word to us. Of course, he asks questions, and we discuss it together. Then, we pray. I was taken by a Scripture he read this last week. It’s in John 20:17 and Jesus was talking to His disciples. It was getting near to the time He was going to return to His Father in heaven.
He said these words: “Jesus said unto her, ‘Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended to my Father. But go to my brothers and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father and your father.’” I was captivated by those words.
How amazing that Jesus, who was the beloved Son of His Father (I mean, He had this most beautiful relationship, the greatest Father-Son relationship in the whole of the world . . . the Father with His beloved Son . . . there is no greater relationship), yet our beloved Father (because if He is the beloved Son, the Father is the beloved Father) , was willing to give up His beloved Son and send Him into this world. To not visit this world and say, “Hi,” but no, to lay down His life. To give His life. To shed His blood so that we could have salvation, and we could be redeemed and so that we could be His beloved daughters. Isn’t that amazing?
Jesus shares His Father with us. I wonder, would you like to share your father with someone? I had a wonderful father, and I was blessed to grow up with a wonderful father-daughter relationship. I do not know if I would want to share my father with the world. He was my father. Yet, Jesus was willing to share His Father with us. Isn’t that wonderful? Not only to do that but to die to so that we could have this wonderful blessing of knowing God as our Father, just as Jesus knew Him as His Father.
I wonder if you know the Father in this way. Is He your intimate friend? He is your dearest, precious Father. I know that some of you might not have had a great father relationship when you were growing up and that can affect your own relationship with God the Father. Dear precious ones today, I want to encourage you that Jesus is sharing His Father with you, and He is the ultimate Father. Even if you haven’t known what fatherhood is like because of your experiences, you can know what fatherhood is like because God will reveal Himself to you as a Father. Maybe I can pray for you now.
“Father, I come to You now in the name of Jesus, and I pray for any precious mother or daughter today who has not experienced a good father relationship. Father, I pray that You will put Your loving arms around them, that You will gather them in Your arms. You will draw them to Yourself, and You will show them that You are there for them. That You are their beloved Father. That this is who You want to be to them. I pray that You will manifest Yourself as father to them, and they will know the anointing and preciousness of fatherhood in their lives. I ask it in the precious name of Jesus. Amen”.
I would like to share another Scripture that was in our same daily reading this past week. In Ephesians 3:15 it says: “For this reason,” This is Paul praying. “For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father from whom every family in heaven and in earth is named.” The actual meaning is “that from whom all derive their source. All fatherhood on earth and any fatherhood in heaven. It doesn’t matter where it is. It derives its source, its origin, from God our Father. In fact, we can’t even have family without fatherhood because the seed of life comes from the father. He is the origin of family. A family is a father and a mother and children. All are needed. Of course, you know that, but I am saying it again because we are living in such a deceived society where women are trying to put down manhood, fatherhood, and that word “family,” that every family finds its source in the Father God. That word in the Greek is patria. It means paternal. It comes from the word “father,” and the Greek word for father is pata.
Family comes from father. That’s its origin. Isn’t it sad, dear ladies, that we are living in a day when so many are rejecting fatherhood? They are rejecting patriarchy. It’s a scary word in our society today. I have been asked to be interviewed on TV on quite a number of occasions, and when I’ve been interviewed on TV or radio by the secular world, it’s amazing. They never fail to come up with this question. “What do you think about patriarchy?” Of course, when they say that word, they are thinking of men who are tyrants who are keeping their wives in subjection, lording it over everyone in the family. They have this terrible picture in their minds of patriarchy, and it’s the man lording over everyone.
That’s not the Bible picture of patriarchy. Patriarchy is fatherhood; it’s the picture of the beloved Father and His beloved Son. It’s fatherhood and family. Of course, we know that many times that picture is true of the tyrant. There are many families where that happens because Satan hates fatherhood. Every plan of God, that God has planned for us, which is for our blessing, for our highest happiness, Satan hates, and he seeks to distort it and bring it down. He tries to bring down fatherhood, bring down motherhood. We cannot reject fatherhood and motherhood because of that.
We have to acknowledge that it is Satan who is distorting the beautiful roles. In fact, if we go back to the very beginning in Genesis 1, when God first created the man and later the woman, He brought the woman to the man. At that beautiful moment, God said these words: “Wherefore, shall a man leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and they shall be one flesh.” This is the very first reference to father and to mother in the Word of God. It’s right back there at the very beginning, in Genesis 1.
Dear ladies, apart from reading about it, where was the Father and mother? There was no father and mother at that wedding ceremony that day. There was no father and mother in sight. Adam and Eve had never heard of a father or mother. “What’s a father and mother?” “I don’t know.” Do you see something amazing? God was establishing His plan right at the very beginning, before any person had ever seen a father or mother. God spoke about His plan because all God’s plans are perfect. All His ways are perfect. We sing that beautiful worship song, “The ways of the Lord are perfect.”
Every word of God has been tried. Psalm 12:6 says: “The Word of the Lord is tried, purified in the furnace seven times.” God’s plan is glorious and perfect, and He established it before we ever saw it. That’s the importance of fatherhood and motherhood. It was spoken about before anything else. This establishment of the family, of father, of mother, was the thing that God established before He ever talked about the church, before He ever talked about government, before He ever talked about all the other things we experience today. It starts with father and mother.
We even see a picture of the family in the triune God. We have our Father God; we have the Son, who is also God; and then we have the Holy Spirit, who is also God. Now, the Holy Spirit is never mentioned as a mother in the Bible, but we do see that picture over the working of the Holy Spirit. We go back to Genesis 1 and read how the Spirit brooded, like a hen broods over her chicks. He brooded over the waters. We go to the New Testament, and we see that He is called the Comforter, and the one who comes alongside. We see this beautiful picture even in the Godhead.
That’s the picture. It’s not half a picture, just a mother and a child; no, it’s family. Father, mother, children, and it’s so sad when we live in a day when fatherhood is being trodden down. It is sad because God has created the father to be the head of the family. Feminists hate it when you say that. Even so-called feminists in the church.
I don’t like to hear the words, “I’m a Christian feminist.” I don’t really think they go together because they don’t like to embrace that the father is the head of the family, but we see that in the Godhead. Ephesians 4:6 says: “One God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in you all.” He is above all. He is the head. God, in His plan (and God’s plans are best, no matter what we think, His plans are the best plans), created the male as head of the family.
Relax. Of course, that doesn’t mean to say he lords it over the family. No, because the Word of God plainly reveals that all His creation are equal. Both male and female are equal in value, equal in worth, equal in every way, but we have different functions. Even in our functions, God created the male to be the head, the protecting, providing, loving, and leading head. Now, we see this in a number of ways as we go right back to the beginning.
We see:
No. 1: Man was created first, then the woman.
God didn’t even create them both at the same time. I wonder why. He could have done that, but no, God in His plan, in the way He chooses, because God chooses what He will do. Because God is God. I think, don’t you ladies, we’ve got to get a hold of this? We have got to stop thinking that we are God and that this is the way we would have done it. We have to relinquish to God that He is God. He is Lord over all.
He is Omniscient; He knows all things.
He is Omnipotent; He is all-powerful.
He is Omnipresent; He is everywhere.
He is Omnibenevolent; He is a good and kind and a loving God.
He is Omnisapient; He is the only wise God. Three times in the New Testament it states these words: “To God only wise.” He is the only one who is truly wise. Yes, He gives godly wisdom to man, but He is the only one who has ultimate wisdom. None of us could ever truly know like God knows. He knows from the beginning to the end. Therefore, He can make the right decisions because He knows what’s going to happen. He holds the whole future in his hands. He knows everything that is going to happen from this moment on, for all eternity. This is our God.
How can we go against His plans? I love this Scripture in Proverbs 21:30: “No wisdom or understanding, nor counsel can avail against the Lord.” No matter what argument someone puts up, no matter what they think, it can’t stand against God’s plans. His plans are best.
I love Psalm 33:11: “The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the thoughts of His heart to all generations.” When God created male and female in the beginning, when He established the plan, when at the very beginning He talked about father and mother before we’d ever seen a father and mother on earth, He was establishing His counsel. It stands forever. That’s what the Word says. We either believe the Bible, or we don’t. His counsel stands forever. The thoughts of His heart are to all generations, right up till now, this very generation in 2018. It stands forever. It’s as relevant today as it was then.
No. 2: God caused Adam to represent the human race.
In 1 Corinthians 15:22 it says: “As in Adam, all die, so also in Christ shall be made alive.” Now, we all know that when Adam and Eve sinned, sin came into being. God doesn’t say, “Ok, it was a problem with Adam and Eve.” No, he says, Adam. Adam is the one who represents the human race.
No. 3: God gave Adam the responsibly to name Eve.
When someone names another person or names even an animal (Adam named the animals, and he had authority over them), God also gave him the privilege to name Eve. Once again, that doesn’t give him the option to lord over her, but he is her head, her beautiful, protective covering.
No. 4: God called the man and the woman “Adam.”
He didn’t say, “Adam and Eve.” We go back to Genesis 5:1,2 and it says: “Male and female created He them. And He blessed them, and He named them male.” It says “Adam” in the King James version, but the word just means man. He named them man when they were created. Both were created totally equal. Both were created to have worth. Both were created special. In fact, God left the creating of the woman until last. She was His final and most blessed creation of all. She was the one who was left to His last special, amazing creation.
I remember reading a quote about this. This was written by Richard Helman, and he says, “God’s glorious creation began with things such as dirt.” Well, actually, isn’t it interesting? How was Adam created? Out of the dust of the earth. How were the animals created? Out of the dust of the earth. How was Eve created? Dear ladies, she was not created from the dust of the earth. No. How about that? God took her out of Adam, out of an existing creation. She didn’t even touch the dust of the earth!
Anyway, this quote goes on to say: “God’s glorious creation begins with things such as dirt, then vegetation, then animals. It kept getting better and better. God then created His great love interest, His adopted children, human beings, yet man was created only second to last. Woman is the crescendo. The last and greatest of all God’s creation. God has created nothing more beautiful, more loving, more tender-hearted, more nurturing. That is why women are perfectly positioned to be wives and mothers, because women are the pinnacle of all God’s creations. “
There we see that, although she was left to this last glorious creation, God still called the man and the wife “man.”
There was, in God’s eyes, a headship. There is, in God’s heart, headship, even in the trinity. There is no difference of worth between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Each one is equally God, and each one has different functions, but they are equally God. Part of the function of the father is to be the head.
Yet feminists hate this truth. They hate this word. Do you remember recently when there was the battle for judge Brett Kavanaugh to come into the Supreme Court? The Hawaiian senator stood up and said to all the men of this country, “Just shut up.” This is coming from the leadership of our land, telling the men to shut up. “They don’t have a voice; it’s we woman who have the voice.” That’s not God. That’s not His plan.
No. 5: God created the man accountable.
In Genesis 3:9, after Eve had sinned and then she had also given the fruit to Adam, God came into the garden, walking in the garden in the cool of the day as He did, for He loved to come and talk with Adam and Eve. He loved fellowship with them. That’s why He created man because He loves our fellowship.
When He came into the garden, of course He knew what had happened, but He called out, and what did He say? “Adam, where are you?” He didn’t say “Adam and Eve, where are you?” No, “Adam, where are you?” God held Adam accountable for Eve’s sin because his responsibility, as her head, was to be her protector, to keep her from that sin, to protect her and woo her away. God came to Adam. He was the one that was held responsible.
No. 6: God made Eve a helpmeet for Adam.
When God said He was going to make someone for Adam, what did He call her? He said: “I’m going to make a helpmeet.” The words in Hebrew are two words: ezer kenegdo. The word ezer in the Hebrew simply means “helper.”
No, He didn’t say: “Adam, I’m going to make you a leader; she’ll be the one who’ll direct you and show you the way to go.” No, He didn’t say those words, ladies. He said: “I will make you a helper.” Now, don’t get too sad. “Helper” is not an insignificant word, ladies. We are not insignificant because God made us a helper. Did you know that that very same Hebrew word ezer is a word that’s also used to describe our God? God, who is our help and our shield--it’s the same word. Its an attribute of God. As helper to our husbands, we are being God-like.
He (our husband) cannot do without us. He cannot do without our help.
The next word is kenegdo, which means “corresponding to.” In other words, God created each one of us differently, uniquely, specially. We are not the same. With our differences, we dovetail together. As we come together, we are made one. You can think of a picture of a seatbelt. I’m sorry it’s such a basic picture, but when you put a seatbelt together and it clicks, the two parts are not the same. If they were the same, they would not fit together. Each one is different, therefore, they become one. They become one, precious ladies. God could not make two the same to make them one.
God’s plan and purpose for marriage is that we be one. One flesh and also one in spirit and mind and heart. ONE. We have to be different to be one. Let’s take another basic picture of a puzzle. When you’re fitting one piece of the puzzle into another, you can’t find two that are the same shape. If you do, they won’t fit. You can put it on top of the other, and that’s not God’s plan. His plan is not for the husband to be on top of the wife. He’s the head who is leading her.
It’s not His plan for the wife to be on top of the husband. Opposite, it’s absolutely opposite. We are different. Isn’t that amazing? Kenegdo, corresponding to. We are different, but we come together, and we fit. Praise the Lord! God’s ways are so wonderful. He created the man to be the leader and for the wife to be the helper, but both positions are powerful, and none is less than the other.
Well, time is going again, ladies, and I have a couple more points. I’ll talk about them next week. Let me pray for you.
“Dearest Father, we come to you in the name of Jesus. I want to pray for very mother and daughter and grandmother listening today. I pray that Your truth will go into their hearts. They will receive it from You, Father. Help us to receive Your divine truth from You, not to listen to the ways of the world. They can sound so good; they can sound wise, but they are not Your ways, Lord. You laugh at the foolishness of the wise. It’s just foolishness to You for You are the only wise God. Help us to be those, God, that hear Your counsel.
“Help us embrace who You created us to be. Help us to release our husbands to be who You created them to be. When we do that, we will dovetail together, and we will truly be one.
“Father, I pray for the husbands, oh God, of every wife that is listening today. I pray for these men. Men have been so put down in our society today. Their role has been downtrodden. I pray that You will lift them up, Lord God, lift them into all the glory, the glory, the glory, and the status that You have given them, oh God. Not to be tyrants over their home, but to be loving, serving leaders. Providing, protecting, gathering their families around them and under their wings. Oh God, I pray that You will raise up the anointing of fatherhood in the home of everyone listing today. I pray that You will raise up the anointing of fatherhood in this nation and the nations of the world. I pray, oh God, that you will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, to their families. Oh God, that they would come back. In the midst of this deceived generation, You will give them a revelation of who they are, and they will return, oh God, to Your plan which is for their glory and Your glory and the glory of the nation. We ask it in the name of Jesus. Amen.”