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Key Bible Verse: God blessed them and said, "Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it" (Genesis 1:28). Bonus Reading: Genesis 1:26–28, 31

Men and women's primary interests correspond to the two spheres that God ordained for purposeful and satisfying labor: filling the earth and governing it. Men have a primary interest in mastery of the external world. Women show a primary interest in the mastery of relationships. They're stronger than men in establishing hearth and home. They draw double satisfaction in the well-being of their marriage, in their children, and, by extension, in promoting peace and stability within the community.

We're equally commissioned to be fruitful in our labor at home and in the world around us. But we complement one another in the proportion of interest and satisfaction we gain from laboring in the two spheres.

God has chosen not to dispense the labor of childbearing equally to men and women. He's made it the specialty of women. He has correspondingly not further burdened women with having to "govern the earth" in equal measure to men. Rather, he's made it the primary interest of men.

Does this mean that women don't work outside the home? No more than it means that fathers don't instruct their children. No, it means they fill the earth and govern it in different and corresponding measures. This is a relief and a blessing from God to both.

—John Ensor in Matters of the Heart

Matters of the Heart (Crossway, 2007) by permission;{73, 73-74}

My Response: One way I've been enriched by my partner's master of relationships is …

Thought to Apply: Marriage is that relation between man and woman in which the independence is equal, the dependence mutual, and the obligation reciprocal. —Luis Anspacher (playwright & director)

Copyright © 2009 by the author or Christianity Today International/Men of Integrity magazine.
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Prayer for the Week

Help me, Lord, to build a strong marriage by appreciating and benefitting from the ways I and my wife are different by your good design.

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