The most vulnerable children in the United States are those raised in single-parent homes, especially if an unrelated male is present. Children are 11 times more likely to suffer sexual and physical abuse in such situations. Without the protection of a mother and father in the home, children are more likely to run away, go missing, or spend time in the foster care system. In 2016, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children found that 86% of sex trafficking victims were in the care of social services when they went missing.

Kara was 11 when her family first sold her body for drugs.
Sydney was 14 when she met an older man online who promised her financial security and a better life.
And after another stint in the foster care system, Marcus decided that anything, including homelessness, would be better than the foster family he was living with.
Each of these stories, from real girls and boys in the United States, reflects the most common entry points for children being pulled into child trafficking. The facts are frightening:

On average, a child enters the U.S. sex trade at 12 to 14 years old. Many are runaway girls who were sexually abused as children.
Most of the time, victims are trafficked by someone they know, such as a friend, family member, or romantic partner.
Predators can rent a child for a single sex act for an average of $90. Often, that child is forced to have sex 20 times per day, six days a week.
Trafficking usually occurs in hotels, motels, online websites, and at truck stops in the U.S.
About 50,000 people, primarily from Mexico and the Philippines, are trafficked into the U.S. annually.
According to the Federal Human Trafficking Report, “In 2018, over half (51.6%) of the criminal human trafficking cases active in the U.S. were sex trafficking cases involving only children.”
Traffickers use social media platforms to recruit and advertise victims of human trafficking, according to anti-trafficking advocates.

Films like “Sound of Freedom” and “Taken” highlight the dangers of international trafficking and exploitation. These films deal with trafficking outside the U.S. The United States, however, is a top destination for victims and a major transit hub. Studies estimate that 83% of child trafficking victims in the U.S. are Americans.
Like all crimes, trafficking has a context. In the U.S., child trafficking is aggravated by four main factors: the porous southern border, predatory social media use, pornography, and broken families.
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The same God who upholds the universe with the word of his power, is the same God who declared that men must lead in the home and the church, and thus it is his command and his design, not ours, that says qualified men should teach and exercise authority in the church. Indeed, there is no other way to uphold the Word of God, but to submit to this fundamental feature of creation and canon—that God made men and women differently. We cannot interchange roles without doing damage to the Word and the world.

World-renowned historian William Manchester made this observation in 1993 in a cover story for US News & World Report. In his article, “A World Lit Only by Change,” Manchester processed the colossal changes the world had undergone over the magazine’s sixty-year history. With 1933–1993 in the rearview mirror, a period that encompassed a world war, the rise and fall of empires, the advent of the internet—let alone the lightning advances in industrialization, transportation, and globalization—this master-student of history landed on this surprising conclusion: no development heretofore experienced in the history of the world had the capacity to challenge life as we know it more than what he termed “the erasure of the distinctions between the sexes.”
What did Manchester have in mind in 1993? At the time, this erasure of the distinctions between the sexes was merely functional: “Women were admitted to bars and to the bar, to the dressing rooms of male athletes, to membership in men’s clubs. Barbershops were vanishing, replaced by unisex hairdressers. Intersexual manners changed; what had been considered flirting could now be condemned as sexual harassment.” Another contributing change not mentioned by Manchester, but one that is certainly part of the landscape, was the advent of women’s ordination in several denominations: 1956 saw the Presbyterian Church USA ordain their first woman to ministry; The US Episcopal Church ordained their first woman to the priesthood in 1974, and a General Synod of the Church of England passed the vote to ordain women in 1992—something C. S. Lewis himself had opposed in his time in writing: “Priestesses in the Church?”
Manchester’s observation is striking on many levels. With so much world-historical change before him, what led him to conclude that the most significant challenge humanity has ever faced was the erasure of male-female difference? Could he have known in 1993 how prescient this observation would be?
Thirty years on, we know how this sex erasure has proceeded and even accelerated: the functional erasure—women should be able to do anything a man can do—paved the way for an ontological erasure—women should be able to be anything a man can be. After all, if a woman can be a pastor or priest, a role traditionally reserved for qualified men, why not a husband, or father? Why can’t a woman be a man?[1]
Such are the questions confronting Christians today.
What Does the Bible Say? And Why?
To provide biblical answers to these questions, to address this “profound” challenge, we need to reason biblically. What does the Bible say about the distinctions between the sexes? Are they mutable? Or are they innate? Are sex distinctions cultural, or creational? These questions bring us to a more foundational one, especially as we attempt to think the Bible’s thoughts after it in order to reason and believe accordingly—to be transformed by the renewal of our minds (Rom. 12:2). Why does the Bible say what it does about the distinctions between the sexes?
In the rest of this article, I want to unpack a thesis on the Bible’s teaching about what Manchester calls the distinction between the sexes. But first a word about my motivations. I am driven, as I hope we all are, primarily by a pursuit of the truth, which I believe to be found unmixed in the pure Word of God. But I am also particularly motivated to help others become convinced, as I am, that upholding the Bible’s teaching on male-female complementarity not only stands against the erasure Manchester observed, but also that it is the last best hope for humanity in addressing the dire challenge this erasure poses.
Here’s my thesis: The Bible teaches that men and women are equal yet different by divine design, a design that makes a difference in how we ought to live as male and female. More concretely, the Bible teaches male headship in the marriage (1 Cor. 11:3; Eph. 5:23), a principle that is affirmed and not undermined in the covenant community by restricting some governing and teaching roles to men (1 Cor. 14:33–34; 1 Tim. 2:12). This teaching has been called complementarianism, and it is summed up in the Danvers Statement on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. But just as important as what the Bible says is why it says it, which is why my thesis will make the following progression: (1) Scripture clearly teaches male-female complementarity and the principle of male headship, which is (2) grounded in the pre-Fall creation order (3) and in nature.
(1) Scripture clearly teaches male-female complementarity and the principle of male headship.
Bearing the divine image is a human person’s most significant aspect. Being made in the image of God (imago dei) establishes male-female equality in dignity and worth. In the very first chapter of the Bible, we learn that God created both male and female in his own image:
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
So God created man [Hebrew: adam] in his own image,in the image of God he created him;male and female he created them.Genesis 1:26–27
In these verses, not only are male and female both created in the image of God, they are also both referred to first by the generic Hebrew term adam. Importantly, this term becomes the particular name of the first man in the very next chapter. But in Genesis 1, this name establishes Adamic headship and, by implication, male headship in the family. This concept is developed in Genesis 2 and referenced in later revelation.
We must also note the binary, dimorphic—dare we say complementary—shape of humanity made in God’s image: “male and female he created them.” The very words used to describe the creation of the adam in Genesis 1:27 as “male and female” point to a social-sexual complementarity that is fleshed out in Genesis 2. The Hebrew term used for “male” in Genesis 1:27 is a word that etymologically hints at outwardness and prominence as a definitional aspect of this creature, and the Hebrew term for “female” is a word that etymologically hints at inwardness and receptivity. Directly after the Bible establishes male-female equality in the imago dei and complementarity in sexual differentiation, we are shown one of the reasons why God established male-female difference in Genesis 1:28:
And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
First, we should note that male-female equality is reinforced in this verse. Both male and female are addressed by this divine command: God said to “them.” But the command cannot be carried out apart from the pair’s complementary, dimorphic difference. The male and female have different obligations in carrying out this creation mandate. In order to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth, procreation is required, which requires male-female difference working together—bodily complementarity.
Some interpreters have suggested that the command to “be fruitful and multiply and fill” plays more to feminine attributes, and the command to “subdue” and “have dominion” more to masculine attributes.[2] And there seems to be something to this. While each domain of activity is given to both the man and the woman in ways fitting to their bodily uniqueness, how this activity is carried out will necessarily be inflected through the gendered reality of God’s crowning creation.
Male-female similarity and difference are further affirmed and developed in Genesis 2. A careful reader of this chapter will note the detailed differences in how and for what purpose the man and woman are created: they are similar, yet different. Man is made first and from the ground (Gen. 2:7); God puts him in the Garden (2:8) to work and to keep it (2:15) and to name the animals (2:20). Coordinately, woman is made second and from the side of man (2:21). She is a “helper fit for him” (2:18) and is named by the man (2:23).
Why these differences? This is one of the most important questions to ponder. God could have made the man and woman at the same time and in the exact same way. But the different, complementary ways in which God makes the man and woman are intentional. These creational differences are meant to teach us something from the beginning about male and female peculiarity and purpose: something about the principle of male headship and female helper-ship.
We see something similar in how God created the universe. Instead of creating everything instantaneously, God created in six days and rested on the seventh. He did so for a purpose, in order to establish the pattern of the week (see Exod. 20:11). In a similar vein, the very way in which God created man and woman is meant to teach us about the pattern of male-female equality and difference. Genesis 1–2 are meant, in part, to prepare the people of God to receive special instructions from the Scriptures about what male-female difference means for their lives. Once we are properly catechized in the male-female complementarity of Genesis 1 and 2, we are ready to turn to these instructions.
While we believe all Scripture is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training all of God’s people in righteousness (2 Tim. 3:16), the Bible does give certain commands according to male-female difference, and some of these commands point to particular callings. The principle of male headship, or authority, in the family and the church is not only affirmed, but also commanded or assumed in multiple places in the Bible. Perhaps it is helpful to list in one place the New Testament verses that directly address upholding and honoring this principle:
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Let us consider that it is far better to suffer than to be disgraced; that it is better to strive against evil than to succumb to it effetely; that loyalty and unity of heart are virtues for which no transient prosperity could make up to us if haply they were lost; that when the soul of a people moves as it does, thank God today with one strong impulse toward that which is just and right, that our soul is growing every hour to true nobility and to the worthiness of its mission.

The following excerpts were selected from a sermon preached by Morgan Dix just a few days after the beginning of the Civil War in April 1861. Considering the turmoil presently found in our stormy social and political climate, both here and abroad, it seems fitting that these words might likewise find some resonance in our day. — Editor.
The Way of God in the Storm
“The Lord hath His way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of His feet,” saith the prophet (Nahum 1:3). And the way of the Lord, whether it be in the whirlwind or in the summer’s breeze, in the storm or in the fair weather, is a way of justice, of mercy, and of truth. If a storm arises and blows, be it lighter or heavier, we need not fear if we know that the way of the Lord is there. Even in the whirlwind and in the storm “let the people praise Thee, O God, yea, let all the people praise Thee” (Psalm 67:5).
Storms are not the worst and greatest evils. Ask the sailor which he will choose, a mere storm or the dead calm of windless waters; and do not doubt his reply. Ask the wretched inhabitant of some pestilential climate, on which the stillness of the curse lies heavy day after day, what he would give for a storm from the cool, healthy north to blow upon the fever swamps and drive the destroyer from before it.
Yes, brethren, the words of the prophet are true, and the way of the Lord is in the storm. The storm is His minister of mercy and benefit, though in a rough, fierce way of its own. The storm does us good service in keeping the equilibrium among the elements, and it ministers beneficial discipline in its time — just as God appoints. This is the mission of the stormy wind and tempest in the firmament above: angry of face, but full of benefit and good; stern and sharp, but profitable also.
And that which is true in the firmament is just as true beneath it. Here, upon the way of this life, rises storm after storm. Here, also, the winds blow and beat upon the earthly house of this tabernacle. Here are blast and tempest along the way of each man, and of each community, and of all the nations upon earth. But the way of God is in them here below as well as up there over our heads.
Here, likewise, the clouds of strife and struggle are the “dust of His feet.” Here, also, have storm and tempest found their needful place and their healthful mission. It is so with them all. All are but God’s means of castigation which we need, and of advancement of which we have when we have been deemed worthy. This is true of the storms of life, whether they eddy in a narrow radius around one man, or around each one of us in his turn; or whether they gather into notable volume around some whole community; or whether, lastly, they expand to the compass of the round cyclone, and getting leverage below, through the strong arms of the earthquake, where it might shake the mighty nation and the ancient and honorable people to its center.
Finding the Virtue in the Storm
It is not the part of men to fly from the storm every time it falls upon them, but to look it full in the face; to search amid its folds and its rising fury for the mysterious way of the Lord which is surely therein. And, by doing so, to draw from it the virtue and the strength which are lodged there; thus rising, with added security from the temporary shock, to be taught by the event and gain a reverence and fear of the Lord.
Brethren, there is a deep and divine philosophy, crystallized into visible shape in nature, illustrated in all the inner history of man, and assented to by the convictions of the heart wherever that heart beats. It is a teaching, one and the same for every place, every age and every time. This philosophy runs thus: that all things are purified by trial. “Every one,” saith our Lord, “shall be salted with fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt” (Mark 9:49, KJV).
The whirlwind and the storm must come; and men must meet them. There is no exemption from this law; and the philosophy of which we speak is probably the simplest and the most universal that ever was taught. Advancement and honor come by the pathway of trial.
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