I really appreciate the point that Piper is making here. He is pointing out the men have a special obligation to protect and to care for women. This obligation, by divine design, is written into their nature.
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God enunciates this "protector" vocation for the man when he tells him to cultivate and "keep" (guard/protect) the garden in Gen. 2:15. You can also see it when he tells husbands to care for their wives as they would their own bodies (Eph. 5:28).
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"Women and children first" reflects this vocation that God has given to the man. A husband (not the wife) checking out "bumps" in the night also reflects this vocation. It is written into his nature.
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If the ship is going down and all the men force themselves onto the lifeboats while leaving women and children on the sinking ship, do you feel that to be particularly heinous?
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Doesn't it just seem right for the men to fight for the women and children to be be put on the lifeboats before the men?
Why does it seem that way? Where does that feeling come from?
Complementarianism argues that it comes from God's design in creation.
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Why does it seem that way? Where does that feeling come from?
Complementarianism argues that it comes from God's design in creation.
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Our problem today is that God's design in creation, reflected in the differing vocations given to men and women, is something that sinners routinely try to suppress or distort. And sadly, they do so to our own hurt.
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When someone with a specific vocation not only abandons that vocation but pursues its opposite, we recognize that something especially heinous has happened.
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For example, all child abuse is heinous. But isn't there something particularly heinous when the culprit is a caregiver? Or even worse a parent?
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When someone charged with caring for a child not only abandons that care but pursues its opposite (abuse), the offense is only increased.
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If one child strikes another child and breaks one of his bones, something heinous and wrong has happened. If a mother strikes her own child and breaks one of his bones, everyone understands that the moral horror has only increased.
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This is what Piper is getting at. Men have a special vocation from God to be protectors, especially of those weaker than them. When they abandon that post and pursue its opposite (abuse), the moral horror is only increased.
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If you don't believe that God gave men that special vocation to protect, then you won't sense the full moral horror of men who perpetrate abuse.
That is Piper's point, and it is a powerful one.
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That is Piper's point, and it is a powerful one.
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