Would Jesus Want Boys to Wrestle Girls?

One blogger I read linked to an interesting blog on Christianity Today's website called "her-menuetics" (a play on words which seems to indicate they are interpreting the Bible with "her" in mind).  The article is entitled, "The Argument for Girl-Boy Wrestling."  The author of this particular post, Caryn Rivadeneira, thinks Joel Northup should have wrestled Cassy Herkelman, his female opponent.  Why?  Jesus attitude towards women requires it.  Really?!  She writes:

Jesus seemed to remember this well. He never saw women the way his culture did. He never treated them as they were “supposed” to be treated. Women who were not to be touched, Jesus touched. Women who should have been shunned, Jesus included. Women whose opinions didn’t matter, Jesus sought. Women who were not to learn, Jesus taught.

That was the way Jesus behaved in a terrible-case scenario for women. He provided opportunities. He didn’t shirk away because things could be awkward. He didn’t ease up because women were weak. Jesus treated women like humans. Like breathing, feeling, thinking, capable people.

Jesus touched women, but he didn't wrestle them.  He did show that God, and Christianity, has an incredibly high view of women even when the culture it is in does not.  In our culture women are sexualized or told to be like men.  Both of these extremes must be corrected by the truth that women are valuable in God's eyes, created in his image, and to be treated with respect.  But does this mean boys must wrestle them?  John Piper put it well in his recent post on this issue ("Over My Dead Body, Son") when he said, "Men don't fight against women.  They fight for women."

Rivadeneira reveals her presuppositions when she says, "We screw things up when we focus too much on gender, when we forget that while we are each male or female, and that's a wonderful thing, we are also just people."   We are "just people?"  We are people, but we are not just people.  We are created in the image of God as male and female.  God has designed us this way.  He did not make us androgynous.  Equality of the sexes does not mean there are no differences.  And these differences go to the core of who we are.  They are not just differences in our physical attributes.  We are designed to complement one another.  May God give us grace as we live out these roles that God has ingrained into our very natures so that we might put his glory on display.