How does a local congregation carry out women’s ministry in a way that is faithful to Scripture?

J. Ligon Duncan and Susan Hunt have written a new book—Women’s Ministry in the Local Church (Crossway)—that seeks to give a thoroughly biblical answer to that question.

The authors argue that women’s ministry is vital to the life of a local church and must, in both its message and methodology, move forward upon the tracks of a thoroughgoing biblical theology.

Hunt is the former director of women’s ministries for the Presbyterian Church of American (PCA) and is an active mother and grandmother, a pastor’s wife, and the Women in the Church Consultant for the PCA. Duncan is senior minister of the historic First Presbyterian Church of Jackson, Miss. He also serves as chairman of The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW).

"The role of women in God’s Church is a vital and volatile question in every age, but the increased visibility of this topic in our time demands that the Church develop a theology of, and a functioning model for, women’s ministry in the local church," the authors write.

"Even among evangelicals who hold to male headship, there is widespread difference in practice regarding women’s ministry."

Within the pages of Women’s Ministry, Hunt and Duncan seek to answer five fundamental questions:

· Why should a church have a women’s ministry—what is the biblical apologetic?

· Who is responsible for the women’s ministry in a church?

· How does women’s ministry relate to the other ministries in a church?

· What are the tasks of a women’s ministry?

· How does a church implement a biblical approach to a women’s ministry?

The authors use two main building blocks in constructing a biblical framework for women’s ministry: the covenants of Scripture and a complementarian approach to gender roles in the church and home.

"The covenants of the Bible give the framework to understand Scripture," the authors write. "God’s covenant of grace supplies the vital structure, the unifying thread, of His redemptive plan set forth in Scripture.

"Complementarianism gives the relational framework for men and women to live out their covenantal privileges and responsibilities."

Both Hunt and Duncan argue that the church has a crying need to develop an apologetic on biblical womanhood. That apologetic will, in turn, serve as the underpinning of a women’s ministry in the church.

"Biblical womanhood and worldly womanhood are radically different," Hunt writes, "just as everything about the Christian life is countercultural and counterintuitive. Without a biblical apologetic for womanhood, individual women and women’s ministries will lose their way."

Hunt is the author of numerous other books on biblical womanhood, including By Design: God’s Distinctive Calling for Women, The True Woman: The Beauty and Strength of a Godly Woman, The Legacy of Biblical Womanhood, Spirtual Mothering, and Leadership for Women in the Church. All are available in the CBMW webstore at www.cbmw.org/store. Duncan is author of the forthcoming book from Crossway, Misunderstanding Paul? Responding to the New Perspectives.

Women’s Ministry in the Local Church is available through the CBMW webstore here.  It is also available to read online in its entirety on the CBMW website.  This PDF file is for personal use and should not be ditributed.

For John Higgins, the gender debate is no laughing matter.

However, when Higgins tells fellow Wheaton College students that he is the president of a student group known as "College Complementarians," his words are typically met with snickers.

"The common response from peers when I share with them my involvement in the group is light laughter," Higgins said. "I find this profoundly telling."

And so it is.

A group of students founded College Complementarians four years ago to provide the student body with an alternative vision of the gender debate on the campus of an overwhelmingly egalitarian school.

The vast majority of Wheaton’s faculty members hold to the egalitarian position. Last spring, the school’s theology conference dealt with gender issues and took a decidedly egalitarian slant with few strong complementarian papers offered among the presentations.

"College Complementarians was formed to offer the students of Wheaton College a vision of complementarianism in the milieu of rampant egalitarianism," Higgins said. "The complementarian viewpoint is not received very well here."

The organization is doing its best to level the playing field by inviting speakers that urge students to view gender roles through the lens of Scripture and not by the dictates of a postmodern culture.

The group is also starting a bi-semester publication called Complementarian Quarterly which will address gender issues from a biblical perspective. Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW) leaders such as Wayne Grudem and Bruce Ware have addressed gender issues at Wheaton thanks to the student group. College Complementarians has also attempted to organize a debate with an egalitarian group on campus.

Higgins, a biblical and theological studies and philosophy major, says where one comes down on the issue of gender roles has deep-reaching effects on the remainder of his theology, his view of Scripture and his hermeneutic. .

"Where a person comes down on this issue will affect their Christology, ecclesiology, Theology proper, and the character and nature of the marital union," Higgins said.

"When the egalitarian material is scanned, the reader comes away baffled asking, `Does the Bible have nothing significant to say about the most foundational relationship of all of civilization other than the ultimate equality of the persons involved?’ [The question is] are we going to follow the clear teachings of Scripture or not? This is the issue and this is why the gender debate is so important."

With the death of Southern Baptist Convention patriarch Adrian Rogers last month, complementarians and Christian family advocates lost a true champion.

Rogers, whose election to the presidency of the SBC in 1979 sparked a wholesale Egypt-to-Canaan resurgence of biblical orthodoxy within the denomination, died Nov. 15 at the age of 74. Rogers served as pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church in Cordova, Tenn., for 33 years before retiring earlier this year. He died following a protracted battle with cancer and double pneumonia.

Rogers, who also served as SBC president in 1986 and 1987, was a member of the board of reference for The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW) and wrote 18 books, including Ten Secrets for a Successful Family: A Perfect Ten for Homes that Win, published by Crossway in 1996.

Perhaps his most significant recent impact on the 16-million member SBC regarding gender roles was his chairing of the Baptist Faith & Message Study Committee that reviewed and revised the SBC’s confession of faith, the Baptist Faith & Message.

Among the changes was the addition of an article and other language clarifying the denomination’s stance on gender roles in the home and church. Rogers and the committee revised Article VI on the Church that the office of pastor or elder is limited to males by the clear teaching of Scripture.

Rogers also oversaw the addition of Article XVIII on the family, an article that sought to clarify the Bible’s teaching that marriage is to serve as a picture of the Gospel. The article, in part, reads:

"God has ordained the family as the foundational institution of human society. It is composed of persons related to one another by marriage, blood, or adoption.

"The husband and wife are of equal worth before God, since both are created in God's image. The marriage relationship models the way God relates to His people. A husband is to love his wife as Christ loved the church. He has the God-given responsibility to provide for, to protect, and to lead his family. A wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband even as the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ. She, being in the image of God as is her husband and thus equal to him, has the God-given responsibility to respect her husband and to serve as his helper in managing the household and nurturing the next generation."

R. Albert Mohler Jr., CBMW council member, served alongside Rogers on the BF&M 2000 committee. Rogers was a champion of biblical orthodoxy, Mohler said.

"Dr. Rogers was a lion in our midst--the man God used to serve as leader and voice for a great resurgence of biblical Christianity (in the SBC)," Mohler said. "He was a man of tremendous gifts, whose booming voice was matched by a gift for words and a powerful delivery.

"He dominated the pulpit as few men ever have, preaching the Word and calling sinners to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. He was a modern-day 'Prince of Preachers' whose personal example served to encourage thousands of others to greater faithfulness in preaching the Word of God."

James Dobson, founder and chairman of Focus on the Family, remembers Rogers as a faithful soldier of Christ amidst a culture that exalts anti-Christian values. Rogers also served as a member of the board of directors for Focus on the Family.

"There is no one in America whom I respected more than Dr. Rogers," Dobson said. "He has been a faithful friend to me and to the ministry of Focus on the Family for many years, serving as a voice of wisdom, encouragement and admonition on our Board of Directors. He was also a staunch ally in the battle to defend biblical values in our culture.

"Most importantly, Dr. Rogers was responsible for impacting countless people through the faithful preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That was the defining passion of his life, from the day I first met him until the very end. For that reason, our sorrow at his passing is mixed with joy and thankfulness. We know that he is now free from the shackles of this earthly existence, and that he has entered into the very presence of the God he loved so deeply and served so diligently."

According to a new book by Wayne Grudem with Jerry Thacker, Zondervan’s Today’s New International Version (TNIV) contains 3,686 gender-related translation inaccuracies.

In Why Is My Choice of a Bible Translation So Important?, published by The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, Grudem and Thacker list every gender-related text that the TNIV changes and seek to show why the TNIV and indeed all so-called "gender-inclusive" translations cannot be trusted to accurately reflect the original texts.

"Choosing which Bible to read and trust is an important decision," the authors write. "Christians need to care enough about their own sanctification to choose a translation that conveys the very words of God."

The 109-page book provides an overview of the different approaches to biblical translation and sets forth hundreds of specific texts that are altered by tampering with the gender language of Scripture.

The authors point out that such an approach to translation can only lead along a continuum that drifts further from fidelity to the Greek and Hebrew manuscripts. This approach means that translation techniques will have to change in direct proportion to the endless shifts in popular culture, they assert.

"The deepest danger in adopting gender-neutral policies such as those by which the TNIV was translated is that hundreds of other details that the modern culture finds offensive may be watered down in future translations," they write.

"More and more, we will have a Bible that does not accurately represent in English what the original Hebrew and Greek languages said. Rather these Bibles will represent something that the translators think will be a little more acceptable in modern culture. But then we no longer have the Word of God in all its wisdom and richness. Instead, we have the Word of God mixed with the words of man."

Why is My Choice of a Bible Translation So Important? is available through the CBMW webstore.

           Should many diverse and complex cultural forces influence the use of the English language that goes into translating the Bible?

            Essayists in the Fall edition of the Journal for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (JBMW) examine this question from numerous angles as it relates to the “gender-neutral” translation of Holy Scripture released earlier this year by Zondervan—Today’s New International Version (TNIV).

            JBMW editor Peter R. Schemm, Jr., in his journal editorial, argues that two mistakes must be avoided in the debate over  the accuracy and validity of the TNIV: Judging the motives of the Committee on Bible Translation (CBT), which translated the TNIV, must be avoided, and, all players in the debate must admit that no translator comes at his task with complete objectivity.

            “We offer this issue of JBMW in order to assist the reader in a charitable yet discerning critique of the TNIV,” Schemm writes.

 “It does not appear that evangelicals will soon come to agreement on the use of gendered language in Bible translations. Yet, as this debate continues, we hope to make substantive contributions that honor God’s Word, as well those with whom we disagree.”

Contributors seek to show the manifold problems that exist with the use of “gender-inclusive” language in the new translation.

In an essay co-written by Schemm and Michael E. Travers, the authors introduce readers to C.S. Lewis as an expert tutor in the importance of continuing the “conversation” between the “sons of Adam” and the “daughters of Eve,” demonstrating also that gender-specific language has dominated great literature throughout history. Such language should continue to be used today, they assert.

Russell T. Fuller contributes an article on how to choose a Bible translation and argues that Christians in the pew should reject “gender-neutral” versions such as the TNIV.

Fuller offers three criteria for choosing a translation: Choose one that is faithful to translating the meaning of the original Hebrew and Greek without unnecessary interpretation, choose one that reflects a high view of Scripture, and choose one that follows the natural changes of modern idiom, but does not follow unnatural changes of political movements or agendas.

Robert L. Cole argues in his article that a gender-neutral translation of Psalm 1 obscures its connection with Psalm 2.  The man of Psalm 1 "is not any person, nor any man, but rather the all-conquering king and son of God portrayed in Psalm 2."

Other essayists include Wayne Grudem, Russell D. Moore, Vern Poythress, John Mark N. Reynolds, and Justin Taylor. This edition of JBMW, along with subscriptions to the journal, is available online through The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW) at http://www.cbmw.org/journal.