God's Good Design (Part 2): Interview with Michael Clary

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The Ruled Church podcast.

I would say it's December,.

But I'm not sure when this episode is actually on air. This is part two of a conversation that Eddie and I had with Michael Clary, Michael, a faithful brother who has written a book called God's Good Design, a biblical, theological, and practical guide to human sexuality.

It's been endorsed by faithful folks like Michael Foster, C .R. Wiley, Dr. Owen Strand, Megan Basham, people who have been out on the front lines of these debates in the church and in the culture over the last few years.

And so we continue in this conversation with Michael where we left off, and really in this episode, we wanna get into gender roles in the church. And we think this book is helpful. There's a link to the book in the description of the episode.

And we hope that you're benefited by this conversation and what Michael has written. So here we go. You have this quote, it's on 243 from William and Barbara Mauser. Men who are led in the church by women are less than men.

Women who lead men in the church are less than women. Now I wanna say this, in the rural church, functionally, and there's some great small churches all across the state of Arkansas and other areas, but functionally in some of these churches, the pastor is really a woman.

Now, she knows not to call herself pastor, right? And the church knows, we're not gonna call this person, but functionally, you've got this guy behind the pulpit, but functionally, everyone knows who the pastor is.

And I just thought that was a profound quote that you had there that men led by women in the church are less than men, and women leading in the church are less than women. Speak to that and maybe flesh that out for a minute.

We used to have a phrase that I don't hear anymore. Maybe it was just something that was common where I grew up, but if you called a man a hen-pecked husband, are you familiar with that? You heard that?

Oh yeah, yeah.

Okay, so that's an insult. A hen-pecked husband, I'm assuming it's a reference to like a chicken hen would just kind of peck at the rooster and kind of get him to comply with whatever she wants. It's a man who is controlled by a woman.

And of course, women don't rule directly. Whenever women, women tend to be, the way that they exercise their, if they're wanting to control something, it's usually gonna be more subtle and indirect. And I think it's at least in part due to the fact that they're just not physically able to overpower a man.

They don't have a commanding presence, so they have to use other means to control and manipulate people. But the idea of what you just described, I think it's all over the Southern Baptist Convention.

And it really is all over our whole society. I mean, our society is feminized. So let's say if you had a matriarchal society, then you would have women president, mostly women in various government positions.

We're not there, but we have a feminized society in that whether you're a man or a woman, the assumptions that you bring to the table about what it means to be in charge of something, to rule something, to lead something, all of your assumptions are feminine.

And all the things that we do cater to feminine sensibilities. So if you think about, if you were to ask most Christians of our tribe, describe for me the ideal pastor, I guarantee you the majority of the characteristics and attributes that they would describe will be more characteristic of women than men.

They're gonna want somebody who's a tender voice and who's, you know, somebody who's very compassionate, very caring, somebody who's very nurturing and he's tender and he's gentle. And of course, those are not bad things.

Those can be very good characteristics and a good pastor can have some of those characteristics. But if that is the definition of a pastor for you, then you've left out what all of the New Testament always tells us that pastors are to do.

What pastors are supposed to do is they are, they're shepherds, they are, there is a warfare aspect of the ministry. So Paul tells Timothy, I fought the good fight, I finished the race, I've kept the faith.

There's laid up for me a crown of righteousness. There's language of victory and conquest. Preach the word, be ready in season and out of season. Reprove, rebuke, exhort with complete patience and teaching.

Guard the good deposit. There's this sense of when you read the New Testament and the words used to describe pastoral ministry in the New Testament, it is a masculine calling. And so what happens in a lot of churches is their presuppositions about what a pastor is is feminine.

And so if you have a masculine guy who steps into that leadership role, he's now the pastor of the church, and he starts behaving in a masculine way, people, because they're operating from a feminized standard of pastoral ministry, they're gonna feel threatened by that.

They're gonna think, well, he's not very nice. Why isn't he more tenderhearted and kind of mild-mannered? Because that feels safe because people expect more of a feminized idea of pastor. And what happens in a church is, there's a section in the book where I talk about what happens whenever women rule over men.

It's kind of what happens whenever you have a girl on a football team. This is becoming more common now, girls on a football team. So this puts boys on that team in a terrible position. They could either kind of go soft with that player, if she's a girl, hey, number 59 over there, that's a girl.

And so they're gonna be a little bit more gentle around her because they don't wanna hurt her. So it takes away the strength of men. Men have to accommodate themselves to the presence of a woman because they don't wanna hurt her.

Or they're like, well, this is the way we play the game. And they could take advantage of their superior strength and they could wipe her out. And there was just an example like this, I believe it was a field hockey team where you had a transgender dude.

No, is that, I'm trying to remember the specifics of it. There was a, I wonder what it was. It was like a Title IX thing where you had, it was a girls field hockey team and Title IX requires, if you don't have a corresponding team of the opposite sex, then the person of the opposite sex that wants to play that sport can join the opposite sex team.

So it was a girls team, but a boy played it. And a dude put a woman, put a girl on this, on another team in a hospital and knocked her teeth out because he was, so boys learn that, hey, the sexes are interchangeable.

It trains men to be, that they can either be more violent towards women, which is not good, or it trains men to suppress their natural strength to accommodate a woman, and that's not good. And so what you have whenever you put women in leadership authority positions over men, or if they just join men in some of these leadership, so it's like, well, she's not the senior pastor, but she's on our elder team.

She's one of the elders. That elder team will accommodate that. And it will introduce an element of, that weakens the bond of brotherhood and the sort of masculine nature of the calling whenever that happens.

And so back to the quote that you mentioned earlier, when you do that, when you have men in the church that are led by women, those men get weaker. And whenever you have women who lead men in the church, those women, she's distorting her feminine nature.

It makes her less womanly because she has to behave in a more masculine way to exercise that rule over men. And it's ugly. It's a distortion. It's not natural.

Eddie, I'm gonna let you jump in. Anything you would like to respond or throw in there?

Yeah, well, one thing, when you were speaking a while ago about the way that our culture tries to speak of assigning gender at birth, but the reality is boys are gonna be boys and girls are gonna be girls.

But the problem is if we are not beginning from birth to raise our sons to be men, to raise our daughters to be women, they won't be men and women.

That's right.

They will perpetually be boys and girls. And so we're living in a culture that is shot through with the kind of immaturity that we see because we haven't raised men and women. We've tried to let them kind of be what they're gonna be.

And they're gonna be immature and godless. And that's the culture we live in today. So I think a lot of it does come back to that. But even as you were speaking about the church, one thing I thought about is you were saying those things.

If you look at most churches today, as important as confessions are and creedal statements and what we believe, the thing that would probably tell you how healthy a church is, is go in and spend some time with the men.

That's right.

Are they men that are seeking after the Lord? Are they men are just there because their wives struggle? That's probably the biggest. I mean, if you go and spend some time with the men and they wanna talk to you about the things of God, then you're probably in a healthy church.

And if you go in and the few men that are actually there just wanna talk to you about hunting season or going to the football game, not that there's anything wrong with those things, but if that's all they wanna talk to you about, because their wives are in the church and they're ready to go as soon as the pastor will say amen, then that's probably not a healthy church.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think we've bought into the lie that ability equals rightness or whatever. So

Confidence, yeah. If a woman can speak, then why can't she preach?

That's right. And one thing I wanna say is a lot of places want a preacher, not a pastor. I find this when it comes to, they want someone to fill the pulpit, but don't try to assert manly leadership. And I hate that, I even feel like I need to qualify.

It's just our culture. But when I say manliness, I'm equating godly manhood. There's nothing wrong to say the manly leadership should be happening in our churches, read the epistles. But the point is, look at Jesus's leadership.

There are times to turn tables, if you will. But the point is, a lot of people want, a lot of churches I've found want someone just to fill the pulpit, but don't actually guide the direction of the church, standing here and preaching.

And so the idea is, since a woman has the capability to stand in a pulpit, to open the Bible, say things about the Bible, even true things, since a woman can do that, and we've seen churches yield to that, then it must be okay.

But I think if I can, I don't know, analogy that comes to my mind to think about is, it's kind of like I'm sitting here talking to you guys, some people in our church gifted me with a MacBook. So I'm sitting here talking to you guys on this MacBook.

I can use this MacBook as a paperweight. You know, I can, you know, I say, hey, you know what, would I really be great for this MacBook would be to hold my papers down while I'm studying. And I can do that and it will work, right?

I mean, like it will be functional, okay. However, it's not designed for that.

That's right.

And in this scenario, what I wanna speak positive to, like particularly when it comes to women, because sometimes I think we have wives, we have daughters, we have sisters in the church, and maybe they feel like, well, this is, you're coming against us in the response to the femininity of our world.

Now you feel like you're coming against us.

No, no, no.

What I'm saying is like using the MacBook for a paperweight, it's designed for so much more. So why would I relegate it to being a paperweight, right? I'll use a paperweight to be a paperweight, use a computer to be the computer.

Well, similarly, like in the church, why would we make women out to be less than women, to do something they're not designed to be in these roles in the church? So anyway, that's just something that came to mind, but this is exactly, it's a foundational issue that we're dealing with, not just surface level practicality.

Well, and this is where a lot of churches I think get in trouble. They're like, well, sister so-and-so can teach and why don't we, doesn't make, why wouldn't we just set her in with this Sunday school class of men and women?

Why wouldn't she? Well, you know, and it just, we begin to think in those terms instead of thinking in the terms like you're laying out in the book of God's good design for men.

I'm reminded of 1 Timothy 2 .12. Paul says, I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man. Rather, she is to remain quiet. If a woman did not have any capabilities of teaching or any capabilities of exercising authority, then there would be no need for the command.

But the command is a prohibition on something that she might be able to do in terms of a, she's equipped to stand up and to give a speech, you know, to speak about the Bible and God and so forth. And she could be, she could be an executive that could, you know, run a boardroom or she could be somebody that might, that could give direction to a, an elder's board or something.

But Paul says she's prohibited to do that. And then he goes on, for Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. So there's a rationale.

And the rationale is rooted in the created order and that God created Adam and Eve for a particular purpose. And Adam and Eve rebelled against that created purpose whenever they fell in the garden. And Paul is saying here to Timothy, when you have women that rule over you in the church, you're repeating the sin of Eve.

You're allowing her to be, to take the lead just the way she did in the garden. And whenever that happened, she was deceived and she became a transgressor and she led her man into sin. So whenever, like what churches want to do is they think, well, the way that we show value to women is we put them in leadership positions.

And that is not the way you value women. That's not the way you honor women. That's saying, hey, woman, I want to honor you as a woman by putting you in a position that's intended for men. That doesn't honor her, that dishonors her because that's not, that doesn't correspond to her feminine nature.

I think what churches should do is basically, if in our culture, we celebrated and just cherished children, the value of children. And we just think, man, having a baby is just the greatest thing ever.

Then more people would, women would be more like, hey, there's value here for me. It's like, this is something that I can uniquely do. But our culture doesn't want to celebrate children. We want to kill them and we want to vote for the right to kill them.

Our culture doesn't celebrate motherhood or creating homes. We think we can outsource that to daycares and we can outsource educating our kids and so all that's left, there's no sense of the value of the household and the value of creating homes.

We think like women are told from the time they're little girls and through media and various sources, your value is in girl bossing somewhere in a corporate office. And if you want to, if you know, someday you decide to settle down, maybe get married and have a kid or two, fine.

You know, that, you know, there's nothing wrong with that, but that's the accessory. That's more the, you know, little cherry on top of a life where you found your fulfillment elsewhere. And that's not God's design.

And the reason why I took the approach that I did in the book is, I mean, I can, the easiest thing in the world is to talk about what's wrong with stuff. I'm like, here's what's wrong with feminism and here's what's wrong with abortion and here's what's wrong with homosexuality.

That's easy to do. I wanted to present like the beauty of the way God made us so that we would, I would, and I've heard testimonies from other people, they've read it, and this has been super encouraging, where a man would read the book or a woman read the book and they come away thinking, I'm excited about the fact that God created me as a man or as a woman.

And I'm excited because I now have a vision that I could see I glorify God by fully embracing the vocations that God has called me to. And I want to aspire to that. And there's practical guidance in how to do it that doesn't turn back the clock and say, well, you just got to be a 50s housewife.

I mean, I address that explicitly in the book, like we have to live in 2023 or 2024, we have to live in the modern world and there are unique challenges in the modern world that we can't just escape. Nevertheless, we have to find ways to apply what scripture teaches to our current time.

And I hope that this book does provide some really helpful practical guidance in that.

Yeah, I really appreciated that because I'm afraid sometimes with the, when I read that part, but I feel like sometimes it's like people come at it as this is what's wrong and we need to. And so it almost comes across like the solution is, okay, the woman's got a quitter job, and then people are just like, they're overwhelmed.

Like, how, okay, how do I apply this? I'm not understanding how to apply this. I'm in our modern context. So I really thought that was very pastoral and handled well in that particular section. Because ultimately what we're trying to do, first and foremost, what we're trying to do is we're trying to honor God.

Amen.

God is the one who created male and female and it is his good design. He didn't make man lesser than woman lesser than man. There is a role that both are to play out made in the image of God. And we honor God first and foremost when we honor these gender roles.

But even beyond that, when we honor these gender roles, this is the avenue, if you want to steal from Dr. Mueller here for a human flourishing, right? Like this is God's good design and it's best. It is what's best for our sons.

It is what's best for our daughters. It's what's best for the single men and the single women. It's what's best for the husbands, the wives, everybody involved. This is what's best. And the church, it's undeniable that we've really just failed.

And they say like all this stuff that we've been dealing with in society goes back to, I'm not saying it's church's fault, it's depravity's fault, you know, like sinful fault. But the church has not done a great job at standing true to God's word when it comes to the design for men and women.

So good stuff. Eddie, you got anything else you want to add or ask?

Well, I just wanted to say, Michael, thank you very much for your exposition of that text from 1 Timothy chapter two. And the only thing I would add is any woman with a good enough ability to apply the proper hermeneutics to scripture wouldn't want to teach men in the church, right?

Like I look at these women that take these roles so-called pastors or preachers in churches, and I just think she obviously doesn't know how to interpret the scripture. Like not just her, this particular lady doesn't know how to interpret the scripture.

That's a problem because you're not wanting to take the word of God the way that God has given it to us. And so what other texts would she not be? And I would say not just to her, but to the church, what other texts are they not taking as God has given them to the church to apply?

And so it goes much further than just 1 Timothy chapter two, but it goes to how they're even reading the scripture and applying it in the life of the church. But I appreciate it, brother, and I'm thankful for what you've done in this book.

Like Quadro mentioned earlier, I haven't had a chance to read it, but I want to because this is really important. And I see it even in my local church and in our area here in Marshall, Arkansas, just thinking about we're coming up against these issues every single day.

And we need to have more like what you're doing, brother. We need to have more, not just women shouldn't be preachers in the SBC, okay. We need more of, okay, but here's the positive. Here's why, here's what's going on.

And that's exactly what you've got going on here, brother.

We hurt our churches when we do that.

Yeah, yeah, that's right. This is more than just, you can't do this, you can't do this, you can't do this. This is about, this is God's design. And so, yeah, thanks for your work. Thanks for coming on and hanging out with a couple of guys from rural Arkansas.

I'm glad to do it.

Yeah, yeah, you got the floor, brother. Anything else that you want to say or concluding remarks?

No, I appreciate the opportunity to talk to you all. And for anybody that's curious about the book, it's, my heart is for people to absorb the content and to see the goodness of God's design. And so I hope, I think it'll be a great resource for pastors, especially.

I think it's written at a level I think pastors could benefit from, but also church members. So my heart is just for people to fully jump in and be excited about the way God has made them. Because I think that as our civilization continues to crumble and commit suicide, the sort of thing that will survive for the generations to come is going to be strong, stable, Christian households with men and women living at God's design.

So I think it's really important and I'm really thankful for the opportunity to publish it at a time of what I think is a cultural inflection point, bit of a crisis. And I think it will equip churches and pastors to obey God in that sense.

So where's the best place for people to get ahold of your book? Would you send them to your website, to Amazon? Where would you prefer for them to go to get it?

It's on Amazon. So Amazon is probably the easiest place. So it's on, you know, the print version is there. There's a Kindle version there. There's an audio version that I recorded myself. It's, that's on Audible.

And if anybody uses Canon Plus, it's on their platform. So just if you're a monthly subscriber, then you can just listen to it there for your subscription. Those are the main places that you can get it.

Yeah, again, Michael Clary D. Michael, what's the D for?

It's my first initial. Yeah, I go by my middle name. My parents have always called me that, called me Michael.

Yeah, no, I went to a man. What does, what is the first name?

I tell people, Danger.

Ah.

It's Dan, Dan Michael Clary.

D. Michael Clary, God's Good Design, A Biblical, Theological, and Practical Guide to Human Sexuality. Get this book, be a benefit for your own soul, your family, your church. Thank you, brother, for writing it, and thanks for hanging out with us today.

Eddie, you wanna take us off here?

We'll see you guys next week.

If you really believe the church is the building, the church is the house, the church is what God's doing. This is his work. If we really believe what Ephesians says, we are the hoemos, the masterpiece of God.

How you gonna respond?