If you spend any time engaging with our current cultural conversations, it won’t be long before you encounter a profound and pressing question: “Isn’t the Bible sexist?”
It is a valid question to ask, especially when we look at the historical treatment of women.
However, I think the first question we must actually ask ourselves is this: why shouldn’t people be sexist?
If we adopt a purely materialist worldview based on the survival of the fittest, where the strong eliminate or dominate the weak, sexism makes sense.
But the Bible offers us an entirely different story. Instead of a framework of domination, the Bible presents a radical vision of equality between men and women, emphasizing right from the beginning that both are created in the image of God.
When we read the scriptures in their proper historical and textual context, we discover a narrative that aggressively pushes back against the deeply patriarchal cultures of the ancient world.
Today, I want to invite you to look closely at the story of the Bible, because as we read it, an amazing pattern emerges that resoundingly demonstrates the Bible is not sexist.
Often, when people look to the book of Genesis, they point out that Eve is called a “helper” to Adam, assuming this implies some sort of subordination.
I think many of us have a visual image of a “helper” as a woman in an apron, hands stuck in the kitchen sink, relegated to doing the housework.
However, when we look at the original Hebrew text, the word translated as “helper” is ezer.
This is not a term of subjugation or domestic servitude. In fact, it is a powerful and positive word that indicates strength. We know this because God repeatedly uses the exact same word—ezer—to describe Himself in relation to humanity.
The biblical concept of women as “helpers” does not imply inferiority; it is a profound image of a strong rescuer.
The idea that the Old Testament completely silenced or marginalized women simply does not hold up to the text. We see strong female figures establishing an early framework that resists sexist interpretations.
For example, Miriam led the entire nation of Israel in worship.
Deborah served as a political leader, a judge, and even a military commander leading her country to war.
Furthermore, women in the Old Testament did not require a male mediator—like a husband or father—to have a direct relationship with God.
When we come to the New Testament, we see Jesus actively resisting the sexism of His time. In a culture where women were frequently treated as second-class citizens, Jesus’ interactions were revolutionary:
As the great apologist Dorothy L. Sayers notes, Jesus never patronised women, never mocked their nature, never mapped out a restricted “sphere” for them, and took their arguments seriously.
Nobody could possibly guess from the words of Jesus that there was anything funny or inferior about a woman’s nature.
Amidst all of this testimony, there are a few verses people have weaponised to argue that women should be subjugated. To understand them, we must look at the historical and textual context:
There is a verse that talks about women being silent in church, but in the very same letter, Paul tells women how to prophesy (speak publicly) with modesty. Clearly, this was not a blanket ban on women speaking, but a pastoral correction addressed to a specific group of women who were disrupting the services.
The Greek word used for head is kephalē, which is sometimes taken to mean dominance. However, the text also says that God is the head of Christ; if this word means a domineering hierarchy, that makes no sense of the Trinity. Biblical leadership in God’s kingdom is primarily about servanthood, laying our lives down, and sacrificial love—not domination.
Remember, we have already seen women like Mary, Martha, Priscilla, and Phoebe teaching and holding authority. Paul wrote this specific letter to Timothy in Ephesus, a culture dominated by the worship of the goddess Artemis, where women culturally subjugated men. False teaching had crept into the Ephesian church, where women were misunderstanding the gospel and claiming superiority. Paul was correcting a specific, localized pastoral situation of cultural confusion, not issuing a universal prohibition.
So, is the Bible sexist? Based on the overwhelming scriptural evidence, the overarching narrative of equality, and the revolutionary example of Jesus Christ, I think the answer is a resounding no. Understanding the Bible’s full narrative reveals a consistent, beautiful theme of mutual respect, shared dignity, and equality between men and women.
