Response to Renew’s Review (Part 6) of Women Serving God
Renew has recently published the sixth part of their series on the Bible, gender, and the church. This is my response.
Renew’s series, as a whole, responds to the publication of my book, Women Serving God. The following are links to the discussion between myself and Renew in the blogosphere.
- Renew’s Review (Part 1): Hermeneutics.
- My Response to Part 1.
- Renew’s Reply to my Response to Part 1. (I copied it into #4 below.)
- My Rejoinder to Renew’s Reply to my Response to Part 1.
- Renew’s Review (Part 2): 1 Corinthians 11.
- My Response to Part 2.
- Renew’s Review (Part 3): 1 Corinthians 14.
- My Response to Part 3.
- Renew’s Review (Part 4): 1 Timothy 2:8-15.
- My Response to Part 4.
- Renew’s Review (Part 5).
- My Response to Part 5.
- Renew’s Review (Part 6): Marriage.
This present post is my response to Renew’s Part 6. Renew’s blog is over 7000 words. My response is brief–only 500 words. Renew’s blog series (now in six parts) is over 44,000+ words and my responses are about 22,000+.
As Renew turns its attention to the topic of marriage, it moves beyond the specific thesis and interest of my book, which Part 6 recognizes.
The purpose of my book is to explore the participation of women in the assembly. I make no sustained argument in the book that addresses the specific question of marriage.
Whether husbands have authority over their wives in the home is materially irrelevant to the topic of whether women are invited to fully participate in the assemblies of the saints unless husbands as authorities in the home have some specific function or giftedness in the assembly that excludes women. Yet, no such exclusive function or gift is found in Scripture unless 1 Timothy 2:12 addresses it. I discussed 1 Timothy 2:12 in my book and in my review of Renew’s Part 4.
In other words, whatever “male headship” or submission means for marriage, there is no text in Scripture that denies the use of gifts by women in the assembly. In fact, the one text that describes any correlation between headship and the assembly–which is 1 Corinthian 11–describes the use of gifts by women in the assembly. When women use their God-given gifts, they do not subvert “male headship” (however that is defined) but honor it.
Since I am not quoted or referenced in the article other than in the second sentence of the article and my book does not address any of these texts in any detail or at all, I will forego any review of their article because it does not engage my purposes in my book.
I have written a blog on 1 Peter 3:1-7 if any are interested in how I address this text.
Peace to Reneé and Rick!