06/14/2026
Headship, Creation Order, and the Call to Oneness (Part 4)
Seeing headship not as hierarchy of value, but as divine order that leads to unity, strength, and shared purpose.
God created Adam first in His image and then created Eve from Adam. The Scriptures record that He made them in His image, male and female He made them.
Genesis 1:27
The order of creation establishes a rhythm that manifests itself in the order of marriage.
Scripture is clear on the topic of headship: God is the head of Christ, Christ is the head of man, and man is the head of woman. 1 Corinthians 11:3
The notion that headship is somehow oppressive, suppressive, or limiting for women reveals a profound misunderstanding of biblical headship.
Let’s start at the beginning.
The Father is the head of the Son (1 Corinthians 11:3), and yet Scripture is clear that the Father and Jesus are in fact one. In this headship there is equality, and God gives His Son the name above every name so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow. Philippians 2:9–11
We see this benevolence and empowerment reverberating through creation as God makes man a little lower than the angels and crowns him with glory. Psalm 8:5
God invites Adam to participate with Him in naming creation and invites mankind into the mandate to take dominion together. God gives mankind authority on the earth and authority in the Kingdom. God promises to reward mankind and He calls us co-heirs with Christ. Romans 8:17
We become one with Christ and with the Father.
If we remain in that same keynote when discussing headship between men and women, the only consistent interpretation is to see it as triumphant and beneficial to women on every level.
If man is the head of woman and he is Christlike, it should follow that the wife is empowered, given equality, called into oneness, rewarded, esteemed, loved, cherished, and protected.
This is why Paul was addressing the order of creation in his first letter to Timothy. At that time there was false teaching in Ephesus, the location of the Temple of Artemis. The false teaching from the pagan cult of Diana was that woman was created first and that man was created from her. Paul is refuting this teaching in the church in Ephesus by affirming the biblical creation order, man created first, then woman.
1 Timothy 2:13
Ephesus was a city deeply shaped by the worship of Artemis, known in Roman culture as Diana. The Temple of Artemis was one of the great wonders of the ancient world, and the religious imagination of the city was heavily influenced by this goddess cult. Artemis was associated with fertility and female preeminence, and within the surrounding cultural narratives there were ideas that elevated the woman as the originating figure.
It is therefore likely that Paul’s instruction was not abstract or general, but addressing a very specific cultural distortion that had begun to influence thinking within the Ephesian church. In affirming the Genesis account, he is correcting that influence and re-establishing the order of creation as revealed in Scripture.
A modern day distortive ideology that complicates the unity between men and women is feminism. Let me be clear in unrelenting terms: I despise feminism. It is a crooked and decrepit counterfeit for the empowerment that is given to women through Christian doctrine.
It reduces and disempowers femininity rather than elevating it in the way the order of headship in all of creation does.
In our marriage, Scott and I have always had one major goal: oneness. That is the goal. That is the target.
In our parenting, our finances, our perspective, and our leadership of church, we are pursuing oneness. This means we are pressing into God together, heirs together of the grace of life. 1 Peter 3:7
We are listening to God together as His son and His daughter. And as we share what we hear, what we feel, and what we perceive from the Scriptures, we weigh it together.
Almost all of the time we land on the same page. We find oneness and togetherness. Sometimes we have to work through things from different God given perspectives, but almost 100 percent of the time we arrive at agreement.
However, in a situation where Scott and I could not reach agreement, I see it as a biblical principle that I would defer and yield to his perspective.
Through long practice, this process has become largely frictionless for us. We have learned one another’s strengths and weaknesses, and we have learned to submit to one another in love as Paul commands. Ephesians 5:21. We love, cover, and work together as counterparts, the very way God designed men and women to function together.
This is essential in our household, and it is beneficial in our church.
I celebrate headship as it is revealed in Scripture, between the Father and Christ, between Christ and mankind, and within marriage. Yet I do not believe the Father was primarily concerned with rationing authority to His Son, nor that Christ was preoccupied with the mechanics of submission. Rather, the Father and the Son pursued perfect oneness, and from that unity flowed love, trust, honor, yieldedness, and shared purpose.
This provides a powerful template for relationships and community. Whether in marriage, parenting, or the church, the Bride of Christ, the goal is not the careful distribution of power, but the pursuit of oneness. As we become united in heart, purpose, and love, headship and yieldedness find their proper place as expressions of covenant relationship rather than points of contention.
Biblical headship is not a military authority system. It is more like a human body. The head brings order and function to the rest of the body, but the head is not the only part of value. The heart is also essential.
The head and the heart are both needed for the body to live. They are equal in value and equal in impact. Remove either one, and the body suffers.
In the same way, men and women were designed by God to function together in unity, interdependence, and mutual honor.
In the Kingdom of God, the goal is not headship or submission, but oneness; and from true oneness, both headship and yieldedness naturally flow.
*** All parts will be released on Stephanie Jones's Substack
📲 https://substack.com/
