women are equal in value before God. It does not suppress women’s
gifts and wisdom and insight; it encourages them.
This created order is also a mystery.I have been married to one very
wonderful woman for thirty-two years, but I don’t completely under-
stand her. Just when I think I understand her, she surprises me again.
Marriage is a challenge! And it’s also very fun. But in our relationships
with each other as men and women there will always be elements of
surprise, always elements of mystery, always aspects of difference that
we will not fully understand but simply enjoy.
This created order is beautiful.God took delight in it and thought it
was “very good.” When it is functioning in the way that God intended,
we will enjoy this relationship and delight in it, because there is a God-
like quality about it. And in fact, though some elements of society have
been pushing in the opposite direction for several decades, there is
much evidence from “natural law”—from our observation of the
world and our inner sense of right and wrong—that men and women
have a sense that different roles within marriage are right. This is what
we meant when we said in the Danvers Statement, “Distinctions in
masculine and feminine roles are ordained by God and should find an
echo in every human heart” (Affirmation Two). God’s created order
for marriage is beautiful because it is God’s way to bring amazing unity
to people who are so different,as men and women are.
The beauty of God’s created order for marriage also finds expres-
sion in our sexuality within marriage. “Therefore a man shall leave his
father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become
one flesh” (Gen. 2:24, ESV). From the beginning, God designed our
sexuality so that it reflects unity and differences and beauty all at the
same time. As husband and wife, we are most attracted to the parts of
each other that are the most different. Our deepest unity—physical
and emotional and spiritual unity—comes at the point where we are
most different. In our physical union as God intended it, there is no
dehumanization of women and no emasculation of men, but there is
equality and honor for both the husband and the wife. And there is
our deepest human joy and our deepest expression of unity.
This means that sexuality within marriage is precious to God. It
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