A few months ago, a couple who are dear friends of ours in the church, went through a very complex DUI situation with one of their children. Our daughter, Janet, now in her early 30s, overheard our discussion. She said, “Mom, Dad, tell them to love him and stand by him just like you did with me when I messed up!”

Lesson 4: There’s a difference between a man and a woman.

I know this is dangerous territory, and I don’t want to overstate this lesson. On the other hand, in this day of gender equality, it is quite easy to paper over some very basic facts of life.

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Some of these differences may just be personal and non-gender oriented. Nonetheless, I would argue from Scripture that there is more than an anatomical difference between a man and a woman. Genesis 1:27 reads, “So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”

Some years ago, one of our members, a dear personal friend, gave us a copy of a book titled Brain Sex. The book is quite explicit about the ways in which men and women are different in their emotional makeup. He took a lot of teasing from us about this book. Much to my amazement, several years later, I was driving through Scotland listening to BBC, and this secular network devoted an entire hour to a serious review of that book. It was not too much later that another book came out that captured quite a bit of public attention—Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus.

One of the clearest evidences of the difference between a man and a woman is how they approach sexual expression. The average male—there may be exceptions to this rule—is stimulated sexually in a visual, immediate kind of way—whether it’s walking down the street, seeing a very attractive woman walking his way, his head almost instinctively turning as she walks by, or he has fallen madly in love with her and then, 20 seconds later forgotten she exists. Or he’s attracted to his wife, by her beauty, her playful glance, by what she’s wearing, and how she’s carrying herself—he is stimulated by the visual.

My experience in pastoral counseling would tell me the average female—and there are exceptions to this—is sexually stimulated in a much more relational and personal way. Words of endearment are important. Gestures of affection go a long way. Sexual foreplay is important in preparing for sexual intercourse.

For the average male, in the height of his virility and physical health, does not find these more tender expressions as essential. He can come home from work, flop down on the sofa, click on the TV with the remote, multi-task between the newspaper and Monday night football, complaining that his favorite food isn’t on the table the way his mother did it, even though his wife has worked just as hard at her job all day and got home about the same time he did. It’s amazing how, at about the time Monday night football is over, he becomes extremely amorous, and she either complains of a headache or, if she’s honest, says, “I’m just not in the mood,” and he simply doesn’t understand why not.