Biblical manhood and womanhood is under severe attack in our culture and the church today. With culture erasing the distinction between males and females, Christians affirming the interchangeability of men’s and women’s roles, God’s design for men and women has become one of the most pressing issues facing the church.
In Men and Women in the Church: A Short, Biblical, Practical Introduction, Kevin DeYoung addresses this issue and explores God’s proper design and roles for men and women in the church and at home.
DeYoung wrote this book to provide a short but comprehensive survey of biblical texts about men and women. He says, “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.” It is an updated version of his previous out-of-print book, Freedom, and Boundaries: A Pastoral Primer on the Role of Women in the Church.
The book has two primary parts. In the first part, titled Biblical Exploration, DeYoung surveys the Old Testament and gospels and explains their teachings about women and men. Afterward, he addresses some of the most controversial passages in the New Testament. In the second part, titled Questions and Applications, DeYoung answers common objections to complementarianism. Then he gives a few applications points for following Christ and raising children according to God’s design.
This is the first book I have read on biblical manhood and womanhood, and I enjoyed it a lot. It is easy to read and addresses all the essential points of this topic. Albeit, it is a bit too short and could have been a tad more detailed.
I appreciated DeYoung’s careful and gracious approach to controversial texts, his clear explanations, and faithfulness to Scripture. I didn’t agree with everything he says in the book, notably on head covering. DeYoung says that although the principle behind head covering is for today (authority and submission), the practice itself is cultural. Consequently, it can be replaced by something like a wedding ring. I can’t entirely agree with his interpretation and conclusion as I believe head covering—principle and practice—is still for today. But this is, of course, a highly debated issue.
Besides this little sticking point, I loved Men and Women in the Church, and I heartily recommend it. It gives solid straightforward teaching on biblical roles of men and women, and it is an excellent introduction to biblical complementarianism.
Crossway publishers graciously gave me a copy for an honest review.
Favorite Quotes
“Biblical manhood and womanhood is about nothing less than the joyful appropriation of all that God meant for us to be in the garden, divinely fitted for working and helping, for protecting and flourishing, for leaving and cleaving, for filing the earth and subduing it.”
“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.”
“Marriage must be, and can only, be between a man and a woman, because marriage is not just the union of two persons but the re-union of a complementary pair.”
“The whole human race is, always has been, and will be for the rest of time, comprised of two differentiated and complementary sexes.”
“Yes, God created marriage for companionship and for sex and for children, but most of all, he created marriage to reveal this profound mystery of Christ and the church. This is a high calling…nothing less than God’s full glory is at stake.”
“Complementarianism is often caught before it is taught, and men are the ones who do the most to make complementarianism look like catching the flu or winning the lottery. So guys, let’s not make the heartbeat of our message, ‘women, sit down,’ when it should be, ‘men, stand up.’”
“We must be careful that our beliefs about men and women are deep, thoughtful, rooted, biblical, and resigned to the fact that we may be misunderstood and even mistreated.
“God’s created order cannot be reengineered by sinful ingenuity.”
“The fact that God uses us at all when we as a church seem to stray from His Word so frequently, is a testimony to God’s grace, not a blueprint for ministry.”
“God made us men and women to act like men and women.”
“God’s objective revelation in Scripture must have priority over our subjective understanding of God’s will for our lives.”
