“Then He said to me, “Son of man, have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the room of his idols? For they say, ‘The LORD does not see us, the LORD has forsaken the land’” (Ezekiel 8:12). In this second vision of the book, Ezekiel witnessed the leaders of God’s people worshipping idols in secret. They thought that God was somehow limited like humans. Because God had forsaken the land, they thought He would no longer be present to witness their doings (Ezekiel 9:9). But nothing could be further from the truth.

David by inspiration extolled the Lord’s omnipresent knowledge of man, when he wrote, “Indeed, the darkness shall not hide from You, But the night shines as the day; The darkness and the light are both alike to You” (Psa. 139:12). This is comforting for those who follow God. Jesus instructed, “And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly” (Mt. 6:5, 6).

However, for those who are disobedient, it is unsettling to be told God sees all. Isaiah 29:15 warns, “Woe to those who seek deep to hide their counsel far from the LORD, And their works are in the dark; They say, “Who sees us?” and, “Who knows us? ”. Men love darkness when their deeds are evil for they think it will hide them from God (Jn. 3:19). But it is not God who is blind; those who sin secretly are really the ones who are unable to discern the truth (2 Cor. 4:4; 1 Jn. 2:11). The wicked man says that the Lord does not see (Psa. 10:11; 94:7).  But God is able to judge through the deep darkness (Job 22:13). Indeed, “there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account” (Heb. 4:13). As the old song goes, “There’s an all-seeing eye watching you.”

God took Ezekiel to see what was done in secret. The prophet initially was outside the wall of the outer court of the temple and dug through into a room which was inside the wall. God asked Ezekiel, “Have you seen what they do in the dark?” to reveal to him the behind-the-scenes sins of men. Do not be deceived by sin (Heb. 3:13). Keep yourself from “secret” sins for no sin is really hidden from the Great Judge (1 Cor. 4:5). Come to the light and live a life of integrity before God (John 3:19-21; Eph. 5:13-15).

-Mark Day

Considerable discussion has occurred in secular society in the last 50 years concerning gender – from the Feminist Movement of the 1960s to the more recent attention to transgenderism. The Bible speaks very precisely and definitively on the matter of gender. The phenomenon of gender is the result of God’s own divine determination when He created the first human beings on the sixth day of Creation week: “So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them” (Genesis 1:27).

When God created gender, He clearly intended to set the stage for all of human history. He sought to convey for all time the interrelationship between men and women. In the New Testament, this interrelationship is discussed in considerable detail in 1 Timothy 2 where Paul explains gender roles as they relate to worship. However, Paul also discussed gender in one of his letters to the church at Corinth. His pronouncements on gender are clearly tied to how men and women in the church are to interact with each other. The respective roles of male and female in the church are affected and informed by gender.

Paul’s remarks demonstrate that gender, as it relates to role function in the church, is a matter of Creation – not culture (as some have alleged). He explains the origin of gender as it was instigated by God at Creation:

For man is not from woman, but woman from man…. Nevertheless, neither is man independent of the woman, nor woman independent of man, in the Lord.  For as the woman was from the man, even so the man also is through the woman; but all things are from God (1 Corinthians 11:8,11-12).

The bolded words represent prepositions in the original language. The term rendered “from” is the Greek preposition “ek” which means “out of.” The man was not “out of” the woman, but rather, the woman was “out of” the man. He is referring very specifically – and literally – to the origin of the first woman on Earth. Her body was constructed from a portion of the man’s body. Her physical origin was literally dependent on having been taken “out of” the man’s body. No wonder Adam declared: “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 2:23). In Hebrew, the word for man is “ish.” Adam employed a play on words by building on the word for man to indicate a woman: “ish-ah.”

Three verses later, Paul further clarifies gender by stating that though the woman was “from/out of” man, nevertheless, the man is also “through” the woman. Here the Greek preposition is dia meaning “by/through.” Once again, Paul is speaking very literally. All men throughout human history (except for Adam) have come into this world through a woman. Women are the designated child bearers. Men have no reason to consider themselves – or their role – to be superior to women. God intends for the male to fulfill very precise responsibilities in and out of the church, and He likewise has created the female to do the same. Their respective roles are, indeed, rooted in the creation of gender by God at the very beginning of time.¹

-by Dave Miller as submitted by Jerry D. Sturgill

¹ For a discussion of gender roles in the church, see Dave Miller (2014), “Male and Female Roles: Gender in the Bible,” Apologetics Press, http://apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=7&article=5007&topic=389