Untangled: The Curse vs. the Kingdom
Were men and women created as equals? Or were women just the helpers?
Untangled | Week 1
If you grew up in evangelical religious spaces, you were likely handed an invisible rulebook early on.
In that book, hierarchy was framed as holiness. Male headship was presented as God’s original design, female submission was rebranded as humility, and the unequal distribution of power in relationships, churches, and marriages was taught as “divine order.”
If your soul ever felt cramped inside those structures, you were usually told that the tightness in your chest was just rebellion. You were told that your desire for true equality, shared authority, and mutual partnership was proof of a culture-corrupted heart.
So you tried to shrink. You tried to soften your voice, deference became your default, and you carried the heavy weight of trying to fit an expansive, image-bearing soul into a very small, male-dominated box.
I know that feeling and I want to tell you something that your nervous system has probably known for a long time:
The tightness in your chest was not rebellion. It was discernment.
When we return to the Hebrew text of the creation narrative without the lens of patriarchal tradition, we discover a reality that turns the hierarchy model completely upside down.
The Garden Design: Before Gendered Order
In Genesis 1 and 2, before sin, shame, or fracture ever entered the world, God creates humanity. Genesis 1:27 establishes the foundational baseline: male and female are created simultaneously in the Image of God, given identical mandates to cultivate the earth together. There is no authority structure. There is no chain of command. There is only shared stewardship.
When we look closely at the text of Genesis 2, a fascinating linguistic nuance unfolds.
Initially, God forms the ’adam from the dust of the ground (’adamah). In ancient Hebrew, the ’adam is not textually a gendered male—it is an undifferentiated earth-creature, a human being formed from the dirt.
Strictly speaking, gendered humanity does not appear on the page until Genesis 2:21–23, when God brings a deep sleep upon the earth-creature. God takes a tzela—a complete side or flank—and builds the woman. It is only at that moment, when the single human is divided into two counterparts, that the text uses the specific Hebrew words for gender: ’ish(man) and ’ishshah (woman).
Gendered man and gendered woman emerge simultaneously out of the same human soil. Man was not created “first” as a male boss over a female assistant; gendered identity appears at the exact same moment for both, born into absolute mutuality.
The Equal Partner: Ezer Kenegdo
It is in this context of simultaneous origin that the woman is described as an ezer kenegdo.
For centuries, this phrase was translated into English as “helpmate” or “helper”—words that, in modern English, carry a secondary, subordinate connotation (like a boss and an assistant).
But in the Hebrew Scriptures, the word ezer is not a term for a subordinate. It appears 21 times in the Old Testament: twice for the woman, three times for military allies, and 16 times for God Himself as humanity’s strength, rescuer, and protector in times of crisis.
Ezer means “rescuing strength.”
Kenegdo means “corresponding to,” “face-to-face,” or “equal counterpart.”
The woman was not created to be a second-tier assistant sitting in the passenger seat of Adam’s life. She was created as an equal, face-to-face rescuing strength—a partner standing eye-to-eye in absolute mutuality.
That was the original blueprint. That was the Garden.
The Tragedy of the Curse
So where did male domination come from?
It enters the narrative in Genesis 3, right after the fracture occurs. As God describes the tragic, broken consequences of humanity’s departure from trust, He turns to the woman and describes how the shattered world will now look:
“Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” (Genesis 3:16)
Notice what is happening here textually. Male rule is not instituted as a creation mandate; it is announced as a consequence of the Fall.
Hierarchy, male domination, and the subjugation of women were never part of God’s holy design for humanity. They are symptoms of a broken, cursed world—right alongside thorns, thistles, sweat, and death. Patriarchy is not holiness. It is the tragedy of Genesis 3.
When institutional religious systems tell women that male authority is God’s eternal, ideal order, they are taking a direct consequence of the Fall and re-labeling it as the Will of God. They are handing you a thorn bush and telling you to call it a flower.
The Restoration Project
This is where the Gospel becomes radically liberating.
Jesus did not come to bless the Curse; He came to break it.
When Jesus announced the present-tense arrival of the Kingdom of God, He was launching a massive restoration project—one designed to pull the mutual, face-to-face design of the Garden straight into our lived reality today.
Throughout the Gospels, Jesus actively dismantled patriarchal norms. He taught women theology, defended their bodily autonomy, named them as His primary witnesses, and invited them out of the background and into full, shared authority.
In Christ, the hierarchy of Genesis 3 is undone. The wall of division is dismantled. We are invited back into the mutual, side-by-side partnership of Genesis 1 and 2.
Finding Room to Breathe
If you have spent years carrying the physical and spiritual exhaustion of living under patriarchal rules—wondering why God seemed to love women a little less or give them a little less agency—you can finally let your shoulders drop.
God never designed you to live under someone else’s shadow. The domination you were taught to revere was just the debris of a broken world.
This week in Untangled, we are going to begin clearing away that debris. We are going to stop honoring the Curse as if it were holy, and start stepping out into the free, spacious soil of the Kingdom.
You do not need to shrink anymore. You were made for the Garden.
Next Steps for This Week:
In Friday’s Greenhouse (Paid): We will dive into the somatic side of this text. We’ll look at how patriarchy physically lives in our bodies, provide guided journal questions to untangle internal guilt, and share a custom liturgy for reclaiming your divine equality.
Ready to go deeper 1-on-1? My calendar has 5 slots open this week for 1-on-1 spiritual direction using The Human Faith Audit. 👉 Click here to book your session.
The Garden Notes
Special thanks to Julian Gonzalez, Ph. D for his work on the book of Genesis! He inspired me to look deeper into the creation story. I highly recommend hopping on over to his page for deep dives into how Genesis is translated and what it means.
Unlock subscriber perks by joining our Greenhouse tier. Every week you get exercises to try, 5 deep journaling questions to help you define your faith, and personal liturgies you can use from home to quiet your mind and help you connect with God.
The Greenhouse Preview
This Friday, paid members get the custom liturgy for Untangled and the full Monthly Field Guide. Your support makes this work possible!
The Closing Question
When did you first realize that the story you were handed might not fit into the Biblical narrative? What have you discovered since then?
P.S. Visit Streams of Grace
Going to church can be tricky when you are deconstructing, when you’ve experienced church trauma, or spiritual abuse. That’s why we created Streams of Grace. It’s an asynchronous, trauma-informed community with a gentle message to help steer your faith towards God’s grace. It’s always free! However, joining the Grace in the Weeds paid tier helps support our work at Streams.