Men and Women in the Church E-Book

Kevin DeYoung

• Herausgeber: Crossway
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

"This is the first book I will recommend to those who want to study what the Scriptures teach about the roles of men and women both in marriage and the church. . . I was amazed at how much wisdom is packed into this short book. Everything in the book is helpful, but the practical application section alone is worth the price of the book." —Thomas R. Schreiner, James Buchanan Harrison Professor of New Testament Interpretation, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary A Biblical Primer on Men and Women in the Church There is much at stake in God making humanity male and female. Created for one another yet distinct from each other, a man and a woman are not interchangeable—they are designed to function according to a divine fittedness. But when this design is misunderstood, ignored, or abused, there are dire consequences. Men and women—in marriage especially, but in the rest of life as well—complement one another. And this biblical truth has enduring, cosmic significance. From start to finish, the biblical storyline—and the design of creation itself—depends upon the distinction between male and female. Men and Women in the Church is about the divinely designed complementarity of men and women as it applies to life in general and especially ministry in the church.

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“I expect that this book—written clearly and wisely on many topics in a brief space—will now become the first book I recommend on men and women in the church. Even where I might not agree with every conclusion, all of the positions are represented fairly. Help yourself and your church: read this book and get some copies for others.”

Mark Dever, Pastor, Capitol Hill Baptist Church; President, 9marks.org

“Kevin DeYoung set out to write a book about the divinely designed complementarity of men and women that had exegetical integrity, used minimal technical jargon, and was weightier than a pamphlet and lighter than a doorstop. He has done just that and much more. Men and Women in the Church is readable, accessible, and—despite its brevity—covers all the main texts and common questions. It is an excellent introduction to the goodness of the Bible’s teaching about men and women, and about how to live faithfully today.”

Claire Smith, New Testament scholar; author, God’s Good Design: What the Bible Really Says about Men and Women

“This is the first book I will recommend to those who want to study what the Scriptures teach about the roles of men and women both in marriage and in the church. In our busy lives it is difficult to find time to read, but here is a concise survey that can be read in an evening. Don’t be fooled by the size. The book is vintage DeYoung and is packed with solid exegesis and faithful theology. I was amazed at how much wisdom is packed into this short book. Everything in the book is helpful, but the practical application section alone is worth the price of the book.”

Thomas R. Schreiner, James Buchanan Harrison Professor of New Testament Interpretation, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

“Kevin DeYoung engages forthrightly with the most relevant scriptural texts on men and women in the church, always eager to help us see and understand not only what God is saying in the text but also why what God says is for our good. He doesn’t avoid hard questions, nor does he apologize or squirm because God did things the way he did. In this book, you are invited to acknowledge that what God has said and done in making men and women for particular purposes is not only real, but good.”

Abigail Dodds, author, (A)Typical Woman and Bread of Life

“This book does not disappoint. It brings the discussion up to date and deals forthrightly and biblically with a number of current challenges to the Bible’s teaching about men and women in the church and in the home. Kevin DeYoung’s clear, biblical exposition and engaging style make this a joy to read. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.”

Denny Burk, Professor of Biblical Studies, Boyce College; author, What Is the Meaning of Sex?

Men and Women in the Church

Other Crossway Books by Kevin DeYoung

The Biggest Story: How the Snake Crusher Brings Us Back to the Garden (2015)

The Biggest Story ABC (2017)

Crazy Busy: A (Mercifully) Short Book about a (Really) Big Problem (2013)

Don’t Call It a Comeback:The Old Faith for a New Day (editor; 2011)

Grace Defined and Defended: What a 400-Year-Old Confession Teaches Us about Sin, Salvation, and the Sovereignty of God (2019)

The Hole in Our Holiness: Filling the Gap between Gospel Passion and the Pursuit of God (2012)

Taking God at His Word: Why the Bible Is Knowable, Necessary, and Enough, and What That Means for You and Me (2014)

The Ten Commandments: What They Mean, Why They Matter, and Why We Should Obey Them (2018)

What Does the Bible Really Teach about Homosexuality? (2015)

What Is the Mission of the Church?: Making Sense of Social Justice, Shalom, and the Great Commission (coauthor; 2011)

Men and Women in the Church

A Short, Biblical, Practical Introduction

Kevin DeYoung

Men and Women in the Church: A Short, Biblical, Practical Introduction

Copyright © 2021 by Kevin DeYoung

Published by Crossway1300 Crescent StreetWheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law. Crossway® is a registered trademark in the United States of America.

Published in association with the literary agency of Wolgemuth & Associates, Inc.

Cover design: Darren Welch

First printing 2021

Printed in the United States of America

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked NASB are from The New American Standard Bible®. Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. www.Lockman.org.

Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, a Division of Tyndale House Ministries, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked NRSV are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked RSV are from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1946, 1952, and 1971 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

All emphases in Scripture quotations have been added by the author.

Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-4335-6653-0ePub ISBN: 978-1-4335-6656-1PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-6654-7Mobipocket ISBN: 978-1-4335-6655-4

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: DeYoung, Kevin, author.

Title: Men and women in the church : a short, biblical, practical introduction / Kevin DeYoung.

Description: Wheaton, Illinois : Crossway, 2021. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020036376 (print) | LCCN 2020036377 (ebook) | ISBN 9781433566530 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9781433566547 (pdf) | ISBN 9781433566554 (mobipocket) | ISBN 9781433566561 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Sex role--Biblical teaching. | Sex role—Religious aspects--Christianity. | Men (Christian theology) | Women—Religious aspects--Christianity. 

Classification: LCC BS680.S53 D4 2021 (print) | LCC BS680.S53 (ebook) | DDC 261.8/357--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020036376

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020036377

Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

2021-03-04 11:26:19 AM

To Trisha

“For better, for worse”—and you make everything better.

Contents

Introduction: What If? How Come? Where Are We Going?

Part 1: Biblical Exploration

1  A Very Good Place to Start (Genesis 1–3)

2  Patterns That Preach (Old Testament Survey)

3  Revolution and Repetition (Jesus and the Gospels)

4  Of Heads and Hair (1 Corinthians 11:2–16; 14:33–35)

5  A Marriage Made in Heaven (Ephesians 5:22–33)

6  The Heart of the Matter (1 Timothy 2:8–15)

7  Leaders, Servants, and Life Together (1 Timothy 3:1–13)

Part 2: Questions and Applications

8  Common Objections

9  Growing Up as Boys and Girls

10  Following Christ as Men and Women

Appendix: Should Complementarian Churches Allow a Woman to Give the Sunday Sermon?

Notes

General Index

Scripture Index

Introduction

What If? How Come? Where Are We Going?

We get so used to the way things are that we rarely stop to consider how things could have been drastically different.

Kaiser Wilhelm II was the king of Prussia and the last German emperor. Reigning from June 1888 to November 1918, Wilhelm was an ambitious, volatile, and aggressive ruler whose policies in Europe were partly to blame for World War I.

In 1889, when Wilhelm had barely been on the throne for a year, a special event was taking place at Berlin’s Charlottenburg Race Course: Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show. The show had arrived from America and was touring all over Europe. At one point in the show, Annie Oakley announced that she was going to shoot the ashes off of a cigar with her Colt .45. Then, as was her custom, she asked if anyone from the audience wanted to volunteer to hold the cigar. The question was meant as a joke. People were supposed to laugh, and then, when no one came forward, Annie would have her husband hold the cigar just like he always did.

But this time, at the Berlin race course, after Annie made the humorous announcement, an important man from the royal box walked into the arena and volunteered to hold the cigar. It was Kaiser Wilhelm. Some German policemen tried to stop him, but he waved them off. With a mixture of hubris, courage, and stupidity, Wilhelm insisted on holding the cigar. Annie Oakley couldn’t back out now, so she paced off her usual distance and prepared to shoot.

And what happened next? According to one historian: “Sweating profusely under her buckskin, and regretful that she had consumed more than her usual amount of whiskey the night before, Annie raised her Colt, took aim, and blew away Wilhelm’s ashes.”1 The same historian goes on to wonder how the world might have been different if she had missed the cigar and creased the Kaiser’s head instead. Perhaps an entire world war would have been avoided.

Years later, after the First World War began, Annie Oakley wrote to Wilhelm asking if she could have a second shot. He never replied.

The Way Things Are (and Were Designed to Be)

The story above comes from What If?—an aptly titled book full of counterfactual history. Instead of analyzing what took place and why, in counterfactual history scholars imagine what might have been. What if Alexander the Great had lived to be an old man? What if the Spanish Armada had defeated the English? What if the fog had not rolled in, allowing George Washington’s army to escape Brooklyn after being badly beaten at the Battle of Long Island? What if the Soviets had invaded Japan at the close of World War II? We get so used to the way things are that we rarely consider how things could have been drastically different.

What is true for history is true for life more generally. Is there any one aspect of human life that has affected every other aspect of human life more than being male or female? While my life is certainly not reducible to being a man, everything about my life is shaped by the fact that I am male, not female. My wife’s whole life is shaped by being a woman and not a man. Each of my nine children (yes, we wanted to start our own baseball team) are undeniably and monumentally shaped by being boys or girls. And yet how often do we stop to think that it didn’t have to be this way? God didn’t have to make two different kinds of human being. He didn’t have to make us so that men and women, on average, come in different shapes and sizes and grow hair in different places and often think and feel in different ways. God could have propagated the human race in some other way besides the differentiated pair of male and female. He could have made Adam sufficient without an Eve. Or he could have made Eve without an Adam. But God decided to make not one man or one woman, or a group of men or a group of women; he made a man and a woman. The one feature of human existence that shapes life as much or more than any other—our biological sex—was God’s choice.

In an ultimate sense, of course, the world had to be made the way it was, in accordance with the immutable will of God and as a necessary expression of his character. I’m not suggesting God made Adam and Eve by a roll of the dice. Actually, I’m reminding us of the opposite. This whole wonderful, beautiful, complicated business of a two-sexed humanity was God’s idea. “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Gen. 1:27). The whole human race is, always has been, and will be for the rest of time, comprised of two differentiated and complementary sexes. This perpetual bifurcated ordering of humanity is not by accident or by caprice but by God’s good design.

And why? What is at stake in God making us male and female? Nothing less than the gospel, that’s all. The mystery of marriage is profound, Paul says, and it refers to Christ and the church (Eph. 5:32). “Mystery” in the New Testament sense refers to something hidden and then revealed. The Bible is saying that God created men and women—two different sexes—so that he might paint a living picture of the differentiated and complementary union of Christ and the church. Ephesians 5 may be about marriage, but we can’t make sense of the underlying logic unless we note God’s intentions in creating marriage as a gospel-shaped union between a differentiated and complementary pair. Any move to abolish all distinctions between men and women is a move (whether intentionally or not) to tear down the building blocks of redemption itself.

Men and women are not interchangeable. The man and the woman—in marriage especially, but in the rest of life as well—complement each other, meaning they are supposed to function according to a divine fitted-ness. This is in keeping with the ordering of the entire cosmos. Think about the complementary nature of creation itself. “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1). And that’s not the only pairing in creation. We find other sorts of couples, like the sun and the moon, morning and evening, day and night, the sea and the dry land, and plants and animals, before reaching the climactic couple, a man and a woman. In every pairing, each part belongs with the other, but neither is interchangeable. It makes perfect sense that the coming together of heaven and earth in Revelation 21–22 is preceded by the marriage supper of the Lamb in Revelation 19. That God created us male and female has cosmic and enduring significance. From start to finish, the biblical storyline—and design of creation itself—depends upon the distinction between male and female as different from one another yet fitted each for the other.2

Simple Book, Simple Aim

So what is this book about? In simplest terms, this book is about the divinely designed complementarity of men and women as it applies to life in general and especially to ministry in the church.3

You may be thinking, “How can we possibly need another book on this subject?” And it’s true—much has been written on this topic over the last generation, some of it forgettable and some of it quite good.4 You should read the books. I don’t claim mine is the best of the bunch. What I can claim is that this book is shorter than the rest. We need books that give a comprehensive survey of biblical passages about men and women. We need books that engage with history, science, and philosophy as they relate to manhood and womanhood. We need books that deal explicitly with the challenges of gender confusion and toxic masculinity and secular feminism. There is a lot that can be said about sex and gender, and a lot that needs to be said.

This is your fair warning that I’m not trying to say everything, or even a small fraction of a lot.

I have a very specific audience in mind in writing this book: my congregation and others like it. Our church has a book nook in the corner of our main lobby. I have often wished for a book there that explained the Bible’s teaching about men and women in the church in a way that the interested layperson could understand and in a size that he or she could read in a few hours. I have wished for a book that would argue its case without being argumentative; a book I could give to other pastors wrestling with this issue; and a book pastors could give to their elders, deacons, and trustees that they would actually read; a book that displays exegetical integrity with minimal technical jargon; a book weightier than a pamphlet but lighter than a doorstop. You’ll have to decide if I’ve written such a book, but that is the book I set out to write.

A Personal Note and the Plan Ahead

As far as I know my own heart, this is not an axe-to-grind kind of book. Or, if I can mix my metaphors, I’m hoping to give you meat and potatoes, not fire-hot salsa. If you are among those who are looking for an introductory and non-angsty walk through the requisite biblical texts on men and women in the church, with an eye toward clarification and application, then this might be the book for you.

Having said that, I want to speak directly to two types of people. First, I want single people to know this is not a book about marriage. True, the chapter on Ephesians 5 is about marriage, and many of the patterns of God-given sexual difference find their clearest expression in marriage. And yet I’d be loathe for anyone to conclude that you can’t really be manly or womanly unless you are married. By the same token, I hope no one concludes that if we are single, the Bible doesn’t really have a lot to say to us about being a man or a woman. As we will see, the fact that God created man as a plurality—male and female, a complementary pair—ought to shape not only how we conceive of marriage but how we conceive of ourselves.

Second, I want to say something to the men and women—no doubt, mostly women—who have been hurt in contexts where the truths I’m going to lay out in this book were affirmed. Oftentimes, the biggest hindrances to believing and resting in biblical truth are not objections of the mind but objections of the heart and of the eyes. It’s one thing to be convinced that complementarian exegesis is correct; it’s another to be sure that it is good. Like any biblical teaching, the truths about men and women can be misapplied, mishandled, or used as an excuse to mistreat others. This danger is especially poignant when the truths in question affirm the man as leader and head and the woman as helper and nurturer. The biblical pattern of male leadership is never an excuse for ignoring women, belittling women, overlooking the contributions of women, or abusing women in any way. The truest form of biblical complementarity calls on men to protect women, honor women, speak kindly and thoughtfully to women, and to find every appropriate way to learn from them and include them in life and ministry—in the home and in the church.

It’s important for me to recognize that I’ve seen in my life mainly healthy gender dynamics. My parents love each other. My churches have been full of godly, intelligent, flourishing, strongly complementarian women. Most of my friends have very good marriages. Whatever I know to be true in my head about abuse or whatever I’ve seen of sin and dysfunction in marriages in nearly twenty years of pastoral ministry, there’s no doubt that it still feels deep in my psyche like most husbands are bound to be pretty good and most complementarian men are apt to be fundamentally decent. I don’t have a bunch of stories of boneheaded complementarians. But I don’t deny they are out there—men in our circles saying and doing awkward, offensive, or genuinely sinful things toward women in the church. That I don’t see them doesn’t make them unreal, and that other people have seen them does not make them ubiquitous. My point is we should all be aware that we tend to assume our experiences are normative and the divergent experiences of others are exceptional. This should make us quick to sympathize and slow to accuse.

So what is the most pressing issue facing the church today when it comes to men and women?

There is no scientific answer to that question. It may seem obvious to you that gender confusion is the big issue, or abuse or runaway feminism or a wrongheaded complementarianism or the worth of women or the war on boys. I would be foolish to say you aren’t seeing what you think you are seeing. For all I know, you’ve been surrounded by male creeps your whole life. Our assessment of what surely everyone knows and what surely everyone must be warned against may be understandably different.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not calling for an easy intellectual relativism that says, “I guess we are all equally right (or wrong).” I’m suggesting that we should be honest—first of all with ourselves—about what we perceive to be the biggest dangers and why. In recognizing our own inclinations, hopefully we will be less likely to project the worst of the dangers we see upon those who rightfully see other dangers.

The Case to Be Made

I do not write this book hesitating between two opinions. I am a convinced complementarian. I know some people are tired of that word, complementarian, and you’ll see me use the words traditional or historic as well. But there is something important about the word complementarity in all its forms. As we’ve already seen, it’s hard to tell the story of the Bible without a word that communicates “different but fitting together.” Complementary—though I cringe every time I have to text such a long word on my phone—is a good word toward that end. I’m not writing because I think everyone has to use the word. But we have to start somewhere, so I might as well tell you where I am coming from and where this book is going.

As a complementarian, I believe that God’s design is for men to lead, serve, and protect, and that, in the church, women can thrive under this leadership as they too labor with biblical faithfulness and fidelity according to the wisdom and beauty of God’s created order. It goes without saying that I hope to make a convincing case for the complementarian position. Authors do not write books unless they want to persuade people.

But besides convincing, I also hope my case is considerate. The Lord’s servant “must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness” (2 Tim. 2:24–25). My aim is to treat others, whether in person or in writing, as I would want to be treated—fairly, honestly, and with respect. Even as I write, I see in my mind the faces of friends, family, and colaborers I love who don’t see eye to eye with me on this issue—sometimes on first principles and more often in practice. I may disagree with their position and even think they are wrong on important interpretive points, but I do not want to disparage their person or demean their sincerity in following Christ.

My overriding desire is to put into the hands of churches, leaders, and curious Christians a work that is intelligent and readable. In hopes of being an intelligent help for congregations, I work through the pertinent Scripture passages, including several chapters of fairly detailed exegesis, and a smattering of (transliterated) Greek and Hebrew words. In hopes of being readable, I have tried to be concise, brief, and informed of the current debates without getting bogged down in footnotes except where attribution is necessary.

Our road map is simple. We’ll start with biblical exploration in part 1 and then move to questions and applications in part 2. Along the way I hope you will be convinced, as I am, that God made men and women not only to worship, serve, and obey him, but to worship, serve, and obey him as men and women.

Part 1

Biblical Exploration

1

A Very Good Place to Start

Genesis 1–3

I’ve heard it said