I know I have not been writing about my personal life lately. I’ve been posting links to content and such. I’ve been too busy to write, but I have been wrestling and growing.
But that’s not really what interests me the most. You see, both of these views on gender within the church do not simply address the questions of “how do a husband and wife relate?” and “can women be pastors?” Both views offer answers to much, much deeper questions that are relevant to any man or woman whether or not they are married or desiring to be a pastor.
Piper has asked before, “What do you tell your little boy when he asks you, ‘Daddy, what does it mean to grow up and be a man and not a woman?’ or ‘Mommy, what does it mean to grow up and be a woman and not a man?’” Piper has said that if all you can respond with is an anatomical answer, then you are setting your children up for disaster.
Mark and I have taken a bit of a break from reviewing the book and, yes, we need to get back on track, but let me give you an update of where I am at. I am still uncomfortable with drawing lines in stone of what manhood and womanhood is without strong Biblical warrant. I still am not sure how exactly God describes manhood in Scripture or even if he does with the precision that I want, but I am more convinced then ever that it, manhood, masculinity is real.
I can’t quite put my finger on what it is, but while reading the article bellow I was fighting back tears. There is a depth of character and honor that the article describes that I long for and by Gods grace I believe I will understand more and posses more. While the article is not purposefully christocentric by any means (oh and I wish it was!), I could not help but feeling the weight of His glory hidden behind it.
Mark and I are alternating every week on who posts on Monday and who posts on Wednesday. On weeks where I post first (like this one) I’ll be sure to add a small post (like this one) letting you know when his parallel post is up. For weeks where I go second you can just look for a link to his post at the top of mine.
I published my first post today in the RBMW series on the books prefaces. I’m curious to see at the outset where you fall on this issue, so I created a little poll. Take two seconds and let me know where you are coming from. Feel free to comment about your answer especially if you voted for confused or other. :)
This post is part of a larger series of posts by Dwayne Forehand and Mark Tubbs on the book Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (RBMW). The entire book is available online for free here or buy it on Amazon. Click here for a complete list of posts in the series.
The Prefaces
The preface for the first edition of Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood was written by John Piper and Wayne Grudem. You can read it here.
The authors state that since the ’70s the feminist movement in society at large has increased and that the resulting movement of “evangelical feminism” has also increased. By “evangelical feminism,” the authors are speaking of those who hold to the tenets of feminism and also profess Jesus Christ as their lord and hold the Scriptures to be the authority on truth.
A large body of work had been produced during this time by evangelical feminists that the authors noted as being “persuasive to many Christians.” Though the vast majority of evangelicals had rejected this view, a controversy of huge proportion was only getting hotter.
This post is part of a larger series of posts by Dwayne Forehand and Mark Tubbs on the book Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (RBMW). The entire book is available online for free here or buy it on Amazon. Click here for a complete list of posts in the series.
About 2 weeks ago Mark Tubbs asked if I would be interested in doing a joint blogging series through a book. After some prayer and encouragement from my wife I’ve decided to do it.
The Book
The book is Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. This book was a group effort to say the least. Among those contributing are: John Piper, Wayne Grudem, J. Ligon Duncan III, Randy Stinson, John Frame and D. A. Carson.
The book is broken into 26 chapters or articles written by various authors. Each chapter/article can stand on its own in that one can read it separately from the rest of the book and have it still make sense.
There are numerous issues that relate to gender and the Bible that this book tackles. As a father, husband and brother I need to have a robust understanding of what God says to these topics so that I can first of all obey Him myself and then be able to encourage and correct those that I love around me.
The Format
Mark and I will be working through the book cover to cover. Each week we will both post our separate thoughts on the same chapter. We will take turns with one of us posting on Monday and the other on Wednesday.
What Do We Want From You?
Part of the reason Mark said he wanted to do this book with someone else was for the purpose of challenging each other to be faithful to the Scriptures. I’d simply ask for you to help with that as well.
Also this will be a long series (at least 6 months!) and so the encouragement of interacting with you can go a long way in keeping the endurance going. The entire book is available online for free, so if you’d like to read along for all or just part of the series then you can – for free!
While lying in bed sick today I wandered onto CBMW’s blog. Todays post touches on one aspect of gender uniqueness that I’ve been thinking about.
With regard to the image of God, Koessler writes,
“It is often said that men and women bear the image of God equally. But it might be more accurate to say that men and women bear God’s image together. Men and women collectively reflect the divine image; one with out the other is incomplete.”
We believe it is inaccurate to describe the image of God in this ‘partitive’ fashion. The Bible does not say that God created humanity in his image. Rather it says he created males and females in his image: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:26-27). In other words, each person bears the image of God fully. The image of God lacks nothing in a woman; just as it lacks nothing in a man.
I’ve been wrestling with the concept of Biblical manhood and womanhood for some time now. Right now I am not at a place where I can say that I agree with it, but it may simply be semantics. Let me try and explain.
Terms and definitions The Manhood and Womanhood definitions from Merriam-Webster are very similar. For womanhood it says:
1 a: the state of being a woman b: the distinguishing character or qualities of a woman or of womankind
1a seems similar to saying that a piece of aluminum has entered toasterhood. The aluminum is in the state of being a toaster. In that sense I agree that I posses manhood, but if that is the sense they mean then what is biblical manhood? Believing that it is God who has made me a man? If that’s all it means I agree.
Definition 1b talks about the distinguishing character or qualities of being a woman. These are the characteristics or qualities that distinguish or set a part womanhood from manhood. If we exclude physical characteristics and qualities are we left with any that distinguishes men from women?
Why you?
I asked some friends a while back “Why do you think that God chose for men to lead rather then women?” Their answers were not all that surprising: Men are less emotional, more temperate, they are wiser, men are better decision makers. When I asked where the Bible said that I was met with bewildered looks and shrugs.
God tells all of us in Scripture to strive for certain character attributes, the fruit of the Spirit. We fall short of them because we are sinful. Certainly both men and women are called to be wise as opposed to fools, but were men designed by God to be less effected by sin in this regard? I can’t find anywhere in Scripture that says as much.
Does the Bible say anywhere that men have a designed in edge over women for any fruits of the spirit? Does it reveal this about women?
What I am not saying Understand that I ask these as a convinced complimentarian. A complimentarian is one who believes that the husband is the head of his home and not his wife and that qualified men are elders and by virtue of the fact that a woman is a woman she is disqualified from eldership.
Egalitarianism holds that the gender of a Christian plays absolutely no part in what function they have in a body. There is no head in the family and being female does not qualify nor disqualify a woman from being an elder in the church. I believe holding the Egalitarian view point requires one to distort numerous sections of Scripture that speak clearly to the place of gender helping to define roles in family and the local church.
Why does this matter? If I have an underlying, vague assumption that by virtue of me being a man that I am wiser then my wife then how will that effect my relationship with her? When a decision needs to be made and my wife (who is naturally less wise then me of course) is offering her thoughts how much weight will I give to her input?
When my wife says that she thinks I am leading in the wrong direction will I, at least internally, say “Sheesh, poor woman. Does she not know that God made me the leader for a reason… “
On the other hand, what if I don’t have an underlying assumption that I am wiser, etc? Would that effect how I interacted with her and the value that I placed on her thoughts for a given matter?
What I am looking for Am I misunderstanding the concept of Biblical manhood and womanhood? Is it simply a view towards complimentarian roles (which I agree with) or does it enter into definitions like Merriam-Websters (which I can’t find biblical support for?)
Is there Scripture that speaks of distinguishing characteristics or qualities between men and women that are designed by God into the created order? Are there Scriptures which call men and women to pursue different or distinguishing character attributes?
This post is part of a larger series of posts by Dwayne Forehand and Mark Tubbs on the book Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (RBMW). The entire book is 