Male and female He created them...

Those who believe and honor God’s gift and order of sexuality confess both the history recorded in Genesis and the New Testament texts that explain the meaning of Genesis. Here then is Scripture's revelation concerning God's gift of sexuality:

First, God created Adam and Eve “in His Own Image,” thereby revealing their essential equality.

God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. (Genesis 1:27).

Second, God created Eve... 

after Adam (order of creation).

For it was Adam who was first created, and then Eve. (1Timothy 2:13)

Third, God created Eve for Adam (purpose of creation).

Then the LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him." So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. The LORD God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man.

The man said, "This is now bone of my bones, And flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, Because she was taken out of Man." (Genesis 2:18-23)

Fourth, God Created Eve from Adam (body of origin).

For man does not originate from woman, but woman from man. (1Corinthians 11:8)

Fifth, Adam named Eve.

Out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name.… The LORD God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man.

The man said, "This is now bone of my bones, And flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, Because she was taken out of Man." (Genesis 2:19, 22-23)

Sixth, in Adam we all died; not in Eve. Nowhere does Scripture lay the blame for the Fall at Eve’s door.

God, walking in the Garden in the cool of the day, inquires of Adam “Where are you?” When Adam responds by explaining that he and Eve found themselves naked and hid, it is notable that God directs His follow-up question again to Adam alone, asking him:

Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat? (Genesis 3:11)

It was Adam, not Eve, who was required to explain the tragic alienation from God they both had suffered—and this despite Eve having been the one deceived, the first one to sin, and the one who enticed her husband to follow her into that sin. God first held Adam responsible for the Fall despite Adam being the second sinner in the Garden—after the woman, Eve.

It is because of the sin of Adam, not Eve, that the race of Adam remains under the curse of judgment and death down to this present day.

Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned—for until the Law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come. (Romans 5:12-14, emphases added)

And again:

For since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive. (1Corinthians 15:21-22; emphasis added).

Seventh, God named the human race ‘adam' and this name reinforces what the whole account of the creation of Adam and Eve reveals—that the first woman was made after and for the first man, and that for all time this structure is to be mirrored in the lives of man and woman by their living together under patriarchy, not matriarchy or egalitarian utopianism. 

And eighth, when we leave the Genesis account and move into the New Testament epistles, we see that the Apostle Paul prohibits the exercise of authority over man by woman:

But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet. For it was Adam who was first created, and then Eve. (1 Timothy 2:12, 13)

Thus Scripture demonstrates that the principles enumerated for us in these first three chapters of the Bible are timeless boundaries for all mankind. We are dealing here with an order of creation which is universal in it’s application.

Thus the wickedness of those we hear perpetually whining that they have not yet been shown biblical arguments for the authority and leadership of man over woman. There’s no one so blind as the man who refuses to see.

If we were to ask how the above texts might be rewritten so that they would be more clear in teaching patriarchy or father-rule, and its applicability across races, nations, and time, it’s impossible to conceive of a stronger statement than this:

I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, for Adam was created first, then Eve. (1Timothy 2:12a).

On the other hand, were we to desire to have less clarity, less perspicuity, in the above texts, there are an almost-infinite number of ways those texts could be rewritten so that evangelical feminists would no longer have to deny them (“Paul was just being rabbinical there”) or lie about them (“this passage only has application to the church, or the church and the home; certainly not anywhere outside the church and home”).

Thankfully, though, the Holy Spirit recorded God’s order of creation as clear as clear could be. And only those with seared consciences, and those vulnerable sheep led astray by them, have ever failed to see it.

Finally, to those who want to point to Deborah and the other women leaders in Scripture, saying that those of us who submit to God's Word concerning sexuality are dismissive of these women and their work, shall I now reiterate what we have always said here on Baylyblog?

Deborah was a woman; Deborah was a judge; Deborah led in Israel. God set Deborah as a judge over His people to lead them. There, does that do it? God sent Mary Magdalene to the Apostles to tell them about the Resurrection of our Lord. God used Priscilla and Aquila to “explain” things to Apollos. God sent the Woman at the Well into her village to tell everyone there about her Master. There are others. Shall I go on?

None of us here on Baylyblog who honor God's Word concerning sexuality have ever been dismissive of any of the above women or their work. We merely do not use these historical facts of the sovereign work of God as weapons to oppose the order of creation God decreed, nor the significance of that order God has commanded us to obey. In other words, these women are exceptions who prove the rule.

And yet, there is in fact one woman in the New Testament who teaches within the church. Stumped? Remember “the woman Jezebel?”

But I have this against you, that you tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, and she teaches and leads My bond-servants astray so that they commit acts of immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols. (Revelation 2:20)