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. For a complete list of posts in this series Click here for the series index.

Over the weekend I read chapter 3 of Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, Male-Female Equality and Male Headship: Genesis 1-3 by Raymond C. Ortlund Jr. In this short essay Raymond sets out to prove that both male-female equality and male headship were instituted by God at creation according to Genesis 1-3. Along the way he also critiques egalitarian interpetations of these Scriptures and attempts to combat male domination in contrast to male headship.

From the outset he provides some working definitions:

Male-Female Equality
Man and woman are equal in the sense that they bear God’s image equally.

Male Headship
In the partnership of two spiritually equal human beings, man and woman, the man bears the primary responsibility to lead the partnership in a God-glorifying direction.

Raymonds’ evidence for male-female equality at the time of creation rests on them both being created in the Imago Dei, the very image of God: So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. Raymond then deals with what he sees as a faulty view held by Gilbert Bilezikian. Raymond’s critiques of Bilezikian’s views carry on throughtought the essay.

Male Headship in the Garden
His evidence for male headship at creation advances as such:

1. God named the human race “man”.
2. God created the man first, not the woman.
3. God created the the woman to be the helper of the man.
4. God created the woman out of the man.
5. God allows the man to name the woman.
6. God explains his curse for the man as being in part due to him following the womans leading.

I set out to read this article and weigh Raymonds points by way of a tunnel vision for Genesis 1-3. I did this because Raymonds stated purpose was to prove those chapters alone teach headship and equality. While I found Raymond’s conclusion about headship to be essentially my views, I do not believe his case was proved on the basis of Genesis 1-3 alone. The evidences that he presents are, in my mind, only circumstantial. Now, taken in the context of the rest of the Cannon, I do believe that the “voice of headship” in Genesis 1-3 speaks clearly. I know some complementarian leaning folks won’t like this, but that’s just where I am at.

In dealing with 1 Timothy 2:14 and it’s reference to the fall as warrant for male headship and Genesis 3:16’s curse for the woman, Raymond basically bunts by presenting a couple interpetations. I myself was left less clear then before! I am hoping that Douglas Moo’s essay in chapter 9 on 1 Timothy 2:11-15 will bring me some clarity to me on this.

Eternal Subordination of the Son
In justifying the “paradox of equality and headship” Raymond turns to the doctrine of the eternal subordination of the Son to the Father. For those unfamiliar with the view, basically when Jesus said “Not my will be done, but yours” it was nothing new. That was always how the Son had related to the Father from eternity past and how he always will relate to the Father in eternity future. I’ve personally never been convinced of this position, but will be reading a 5 part essay by Jeff Robinson when I get a chance.

In conclusion
I found wrestling with each point of Raymons essay to be very beneficial. His arguments were engaging, thought provoking and challenging. This was a great article and I’m planning on reading it at least once more this week. My favorite part was in his concluding appeal which I’ll leave you with now:

What might be the principial source of evangelical feminist blindness to the Biblical text? Consider the following. There is no necessary relation between personal role and personal worth. Feminism denies this principle. Feminism insists that personal role and personal worth must go together, so that a limitation in role reduces or threatens personal worth. But why? What logic is there in such a claim? Why must my position dictate my significance? The world may reason that way. But doesn’t the gospel teach us that our glory, our worth, is measured by our personal conformity to Christ? Or have we lost confidence in the gospel’s perspective on reality? The absurdity of feminism lies in its irrational demand that a woman cannot be “a serious person” unless she occupies a position of headship.

Fortunately, this type of reasoning has already been put to the test in real life, so we can see its practical consequences. Look at the world. Is it any wonder that we see all around us a mass stampede for power, recognition, status, prestige, and so on? But the world’s reasoning is invalid. Authority does not authenticate my person. Authority is not a privilege to be exploited to build up my ego. Authority is a responsibility to be borne for the benefit of others without regard for oneself. This alone is the Christian view.

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. For a complete list of posts in this series Click here for the series index.

The second chapter of RBMW is in a question and answer format covering the most common objections of the complementarian position. The danger of a Q&A section such as this one is that the answerer is also playing the role of questioner, which can of course lead to the most diffcult questions being made, shall we say, easier, or for that matter left out completely. I am happy to report that in my opinion the authors of this section, John Piper and Wayne Grudem, pose all of the toughest questions, sharp edges intact, and provide serious, though concise, responses to them.

This chapter was also published as a seperate booklet titled 50 Crucial Questions About Manhood and Womanhood by the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. If you have not already done so, check out Mark Tubbs’ review of this chapter which also doubled as his review for the booklet at Discerning Reader.

The topics covered are all treated in greater depth in the following chapters, but the framework of their exegetical arguments is first presented here. I want to quickly reference some answers that I found compelling, then zoom in on two that really captured me. Finally, I will open it up for discussion on any of the questions and answers from this chapter that you may wish to discuss.

Stand Out Questions and Answers

• #10 is a response to a question about why the command to “Submit one to another” doesn’t negate wives submitting to their husbands.
• #12 is a brief but helpful definition of leadership, namely servanthood, with the aim of combating abusive headship.
• #28 is an answer to the question Do you think women are more gullible than men? Like I said, they weren’t afraid to include the hard questions!
• #33 answers the question of how a church prevent women from becoming elders in a local church yet send them out as missionaries to foreign lands. In this response, as elsewhere in the chapter, Piper and Grudem acknowledge that their are ambiguities in applying Paul’s instructions.

I wish I could discuss all of the questions, but if I did this series would be over and this post would be 100 pages long! Now onto the two questions and answers that struck me the most:

Question 49
Since many leading evangelical scholars disagree on the questions of manhood and womanhood, how can any lay person even hope to come to a clear conviction on these questions?

My experience in the Church (limited as it is) is that many, many Christians fall into two bad categories when it comes to doctrine. Those two categories are the “doctrine divides/isn’t spiritual/isn’t important group,” and the “doctrine is for pastors/I’m not gift enough to understand it/who can understand it after all?” group. Piper and Grudem’s response answers both of these groups well.

Their response begins with a quote from the Danvers Statement about two concerns that led to the creation of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: 1) “the increasing prevalence and acceptance of hermeneutical oddities devised to reinterpret apparently plain meanings of Biblical texts;” and 2) “the consequent threat to Biblical authority as the clarity of Scripture is jeopardized and the accessibility of its meaning to ordinary people is withdrawn into the restricted realm of technical ingenuity.”

You’ll have to read the rest of the response to hear them really flesh that out, but their admonishment to “lay people” is 1) not to believe the lie that understanding the Bible is beyond them and 2) to see the good and right place that controversies serve within the body of Christ.

Question 40
Isn’t it true that the reason Paul did not permit women to teach was that women were not well-educated in the first century? But that reason does not apply today. In fact, since women are as well-educated as men today, shouldn’t we allow both women and men to be pastors?

Their provided answer is three-pronged. The first is that the “objection doesn’t match the data in the Biblical text” and then secondly that “formal training in Scripture was not required for leadership in the New Testament church-even several of the apostles did not have formal Biblical training (Acts 4:13).”

It was the third and last prong of their answer that was so radical to me. Here they reconnect Paul’s charge to Timothy to “not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man” back into the narrative of Acts with a special focus on the character Priscilla. I not only found the argument persuasive, but also beautiful. I often see the epistles as disconnected documents of theological truth, but to see them in the context of the story of Acts really made it come alive.

A Closing Thought
The vision presented in chapter 1 promised to be one that, while applicable to marriage and eldership, went deeper than that, into the core of masculinity and femininity. Given that, I can’t help but find it odd that virtually all of these questions and answers were dealing directly with marriage and church leadership. As much as I agreed with most of the answers given, I look forward to hearing the biblical arguments that support the vision presented.

With that, I open it up to you guys…

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. For a complete list of posts in this series Click here for the series index.

In the first chapter of RBMW our brother John Piper presents what he believes to be the essence of masculinity and femininity according to the Word of God. The vision presented in this paper is what the rest of the book seeks to prove and expound upon.

I let my expectations get ahead of me with this chapter and the result was frankly a lot of frustration. Throughout the chapter Piper makes numerous sweeping statements that caused me to again and again shout, internally at least, “Where is that in the Bible??”

Let me begin by sharing with you the vision of masculinity that is presented:

AT THE HEART OF MATURE MASCULINITY IS A SENSE OF
BENEVOLENT RESPONSIBILITY TO LEAD, PROVIDE FOR AND
PROTECT WOMEN IN WAYS APPROPRIATE TO A MAN’S
DIFFERING RELATIONSHIPS.

Piper takes us on a walk through this vision phrase by phrase. If you haven’t already read it consider doing that now. At each point along this walk Piper explains himself and points to numerous places in Scripture as support. The problem that I kept having was not when Piper explained how a given aspect of this vision played out in a marriage relationship, but when he stated its place in non-married male/female relationships.

I certainly expected Piper to state that the complementarian view consisted of a husband leading, providing for and protecting his wife. Now I found that, but I also found Piper saying that I should have a “sense of benevolent responsibility” to do that not just towards my wife, but towards women in general. Well that sounds odd. What does he mean by that? Out of the dozens and dozens of passages that he quotes almost all of them are about marriage and the rest do not have a context of “how a man should relate to women in general” but instead “how a saint should treat fellow saints”.

So goes the definition of femininity:

AT THE HEART OF MATURE FEMININITY IS A FREEING
DISPOSITION TO AFFIRM, RECEIVE AND NURTURE STRENGTH
AND LEADERSHIP FROM WORTHY MEN IN WAYS
APPROPRIATE TO A WOMAN’S DIFFERING RELATIONSHIPS.

It’s the same thing here. Basically in marriage this femininity will hit it’s climax as a woman relates to her husband, but Piper says that for a mature woman this way of relating will play out in all of her relationships with men to varying degrees. I’m not sure how Piper imagines my wife receiving leadership from my male friends, but he says she should if she’s mature, or at least she should have a “disposition” to it.

Like I said, these are sweeping statements requiring solid evidence. I read this chapter at least 3 times, all the foot notes, and looked up most of the passages. Part of me wants to start digging into everything that was said in this chapter, but before I do that I want to give the authors a chance to open the Scriptures up and persuade me.

To Pipers credit, he states in the very beginning that he has not included a “detailed exegetical argument” with this vision, but will instead “leave the comprehensive technical discussion for the following chapters.” With the ideal of letting the book set the pace for my posts and out of respect for my brother I’ll restrain myself, but suffice to say at this point I am not convinced.

I am very interested in hearing your initial thoughts on these definitions, but do consider Piper’s words first:

Every word we choose could be misunderstood. Unsympathetic readers could jump to conclusions about practical implications that are not implied. I would simply plead for the application of that great principle of good criticism: Before assessing an author’s position, express an understanding of it in a way the author would approve.

On Piper
Finally, I feel as though I should at this point share my view of Piper in general. If I haven’t made it clear before, I love and appreciate Piper deeply. God has used Piper to give me a vision of Himself that is bigger and more beautiful than I ever could have imagined. He has proven to me through tears (sometimes his, sometimes mine) that my core problem is not me needing to perform better, but that my heart has been blinded to the all satisfying, joy inducing glory of God and that in that and for that and through that the power to live differently is found!

He has not done this by way of showmanship or emotional manipulation, but by faithfully and carefully and passionately expositing the word of God. I love this man that God has used so much to shape my theology, and yet I have no problem disagreeing with him when I think he’s wrong, but believe me you I won’t do that lightly.

Update!
Mark Tubbs parallel post is up now on Discerning Reader.

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. For a complete list of posts in this series Click here for the series index.

John Piper begins For Single Men and Women with this:

We know you are there-almost sixty million of you in America. And we are listening. One of the most important things we have learned is that we do not know what it is like to be single in America today-at least not the way you know it.

The paper continues with 8 theses on the realities and purposes of singleness. It is easily the most compelling vision I have seen presented on the role of single men and women in the body of Church. At least half of it is made up of quotations from singles both within Scripture and outside of it.

I’ll resist the desire to go over and personally exalt each of these great 8 points and instead point you to Mark Tubbs’ review and urge you, married like me or single – does not matter – to read the article yourself. If you are married, then I offer for your consideration the idea that a lack of interest in this topic probably indicates a lack of interest in the family of God.

The Gift
Piper presents the gift of singleness as just that: a gift. It is a gift that frees a man or a woman to pursue the mission of Christ more devotedly than that of a married person. I know there will be push back along the lines of, “but think of the legacy that a godly man can leave by raising up his children as followers and them raising up their children and so on and so on until the impact is huge!” The word of God is simply too clear on this though:

I would like you to be free from concern. An unmarried man is concerned about the Lord’s affairs-how he can please the Lord. But a married man is concerned about the affairs of this world-how he can please his wife-and his interests are divided. An unmarried woman or virgin is concerned about the Lord’s affairs: Her aim is to be devoted to the Lord in both body and spirit. But a married woman is concerned about the affairs of this world-how she can please her husband. I am saying this for your own good, not to restrict you, but that you may live in a right way in undivided devotion to the Lord.
(1 Corinthians 7:32-35).

The Resistance
I know that singleness is often not considered a gift, but instead a curse. We may intellectually nod to texts like the one above, but in our hearts many, if not most, of us see it as an unfortunate instance of Gods doing, something to be escaped by way of marriage or drudged through till heaven.

What Scripture is saying above is that singleness frees one to be about “the Lord’s affairs.” Now, what could he be referring to? I believe we could answer with many things, but I would like to sum them up in Jesus’ charge to us: Go therefore and make disciples of all nations. That is what I believe “the Lord’s affairs” are. God is telling us that sacrificing marriage in order to fulfill that mission is a gift. The only way that this can possibly make sense is if we see the eternal mission of God as more important, more valuable, and more precious than earthly marriage. I say this because if we believe that obtaining a spouse is more important then Gods mission, then sacrificing having a spouse for Gods mission is no gain but instead loss, not gift but instead curse.

If our greatest desire is not for a temporary marriage, but is instead for the Bride and her eternal marriage to the great Groom of Christ, then singleness can be seen as a gift. Piper ended is paper with a great quote from Margaret Clarkson and I’ll do the same here:

When Christian was crossing the River at the close of Pilgrim’s Progress, his heart failed him for fear. He began to sink in the cold, dark waters. But Hopeful, his companion, helped him to stand, calling out loudly, “Be of good cheer, my brother; I feel the bottom, and it is good.” Then Christian recovered his faith, and passed safely through the waters to the Celestial City. If there are singles who find the waters of singleness dark and deep, who feel, “I sink in deep waters; the billows go over my head; all his waves go over me,” this is my message to you concerning singleness: “Be of good cheer, my brother, my sister; I feel the bottom, and it is good.”

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. For a complete list of posts in this series Click here for the series index.

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.

Marks post is up on the Discerning Reader site.

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.

It is towards the solution of this controversy that Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood was written. The authors hope the book will not only answer the varied arguments of evangelical feminists, but also to “help Christians recover a noble vision of manhood and womanhood.” This view they call “complementarianism,” for they say the term carries both a suggestion of equality and also beneficial differences.

For those who are largely unfamiliar with the controversy in general, Bruce Ware has provided a concise paper summarizing the differences between the complementarian and the egalitarian (evangelical feminist) position that I think is fair to both sides.

When RBMW was re-released in 2006, the new preface made it clear that while the authors believed complementarians had offered up an impressive body of theological argument, they were losing ground and fast.  From evangelical publishers to campus ministries, a feminist viewpoint was becoming the norm, not the exception.  In many denominations, this controversial issue is, well, no controversy at all.

My Preface
At this point, I think I should preface what I am doing here with all of this, or more precisely why I am doing this.  My wife and I have spent most of our Christian lives at Mars Hill in Seattle, and, for those who don’t know, Mars Hill is complementarian (some would say hyper-complementarian!).  I picked up the view there myself, but it’s easy for young Christians to share pretty much any and all views of their beloved pastors and friends though, right?  That being said, a closer personal examination of the relevant passages would be good for me.

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.

I’ll let a bit of the cat out of the bag right now:  I don’t have an answer to that question that really satisfies me, and I am not yet convinced that that is a problem.

Update!
Mark Tubbs parallel post is up now on Discerning Reader.

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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!