What is biblical manhood and how is it cultivated? What is God's calling for men? A new book edited by Nathan Busenitz provides a clear and compelling picture of what godly, biblical manhood should look like. In Men of the Word: Insights for Life from Men Who Walked with God (Harvest House), fifteen writers examine the lives of men in Scripture whose walk with God was pronounced and exemplary. Busenitz serves on the pastoral staff alongside John MacArthur at Grace Community Church. Contributors to the volume have been mentored by, served alongside or studied under MacArthur, himself an excellent model of biblical manhood for decades as pastor of Grace Community Church.

In the forward, MacArthur writes, "Examine the lives of righteous men in Scripture and one common characteristic quickly surfaces-they all walked with God, in sweet communion with Him and sincere commitment to Him. The patterns of their lives matched the passions of their hearts: to know the Lord and obey him." Men of the Word includes lessons from the lives of Abraham, Solomon, Josiah, Elijah, Timothy, David, Daniel, Paul and numerous others. It also examines biblical manhood in the Proverbs, the New Testament book of Acts and provides a fresh glance at Ephesians 5-6. A sampling of chapter titles include, "Real Men Treasure God's Word," "Real Men Pray With Boldness," "Real Men Love to Worship," "Real Men Repent from Sin," among others.

For example, Austin Duncan, in his chapter on Proverbs titled "Real Men Work Hard," writes, "To help fulfill our divine mandate to work, God created us with an internal motivation system: hunger. As Proverbs 16:26 explains, ‘A worker's appetite works for him, for his hunger urges him on.' Food and work were made to go together." God's Word is clear that the Lord is calling men to be His men, men of the Word, men of faith, men of purity, men of deep character and this new book faithfully brings those marvelous truths to light with clarity and conviction. A helpful guide for individual or group study is included as well as a helpful Scripture guide. The book is available here:  http://www.amazon.com/Men-Word-Insights-Life-Walked/dp/0736929819/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1303392666&sr=1-1

Recently, someone in the twitter world called me an “uber-complementarian.” They threw out the term “complementarian” derogatorily, like an ugly handful of mud – akin to calling someone a “racist,” “fascist,” “sexist,” or something scary like that. I had to smile, since I remember sitting around a table with John Piper and Wayne Grudem and others, wracking our brains to come up with an apt label to describe the historic Christian teaching on gender. Oh how quickly labels turn into stereotypes!

The Historic Christian Position on Gender

Since New Testament times, Christians believed that the Bible taught that God created male and female with complementary differences and roles. There was no word to describe this position, since no one had ever questioned it. But about 50 years ago, feminism changed all that. And by the mid-eighties, when Egalitarians and Evangelical Feminists eagerly jumped on the feminist ideological bandwagon, it was necessary to come up with a label to identify this traditional, orthodox, historic belief. That’s when we came up with the term “complementarian.” It simply means someone who believes that the Bible teaches that God created men and women with equal, yet distinct roles. We are equal, but different.

Straw Women

And that’s when I started to be called a gender traitor. And misrepresented by scary straw women. A straw woman is the female version of a straw man. A straw man argument is one that misrepresents a position, knocks that position down, and then concludes that the real position has been refuted. It’s a common, but faulty way to argue against an idea. Anyway, since the term “complementarian” now conjures up such scary stereotypes, I thought it would be fun to parade some of the most popular straw women out across the stage so they could take a bow—and hopefully bow out. Here they are:

(Strike up the scary organ music please!) . . .

Dora the Doormat

Dora the Doormat wears a “step on me please” sign around her neck. She’s a passive, quivering, opinion-less servant who can’t and won’t do anything without being told what to do. Dora can’t even get dressed in the morning without finding out which dress her husband wants her to wear. And she likes it when her husband acts like a domineering boor. Dora has absolutely no goal in life except to serve her man. She invites him to wipe his dirty, grimy, patriarchal feet all over her, so that she can happily clean up the mess. Dora’s sister, Co-dependent Clara, goes as far as to say that complementarians endorse abuse.

Since when does telling men to love their wives as Christ loved the Church support or promote women being docile doormats? Since when does the Bible’s view on unity, partnership, indivisibility, co-dominion and the dignity of male and female as complementary reflections of the image of God even remotely lend itself to this straw woman stereotype? Even the unbelieving, soon-to-be-married young lady working out with me at the gym exclaimed, “Wow, that’s incredible!” when I told her what God expects of Christian husbands. Complementarians do NOT invite, advocate, or endorse that men treat women in a sinful fashion! Complementarians instruct husbands to push for ever-increasing levels of holiness/Christ-likeness. And in my experience, they are the first to step in to protect women from harm. The claim that complementarity breeds doormats and encourages abuse is both false and reprehensible.

Dipstick Danielle

Dipstick Danielle doesn’t have a brain. She threw it in the trashcan when she embraced complementarity. Obviously, only women who have experienced the proverbial feminist “click” and had their consciousness so “raised” have the capacity to think. The rest of us are mindless minions of patriarchy–unenlightened to our repressed condition, party to our own servitude. Dipstick Danielle is close friends with Bobblehead Betty – the straw woman who doesn’t have any thoughts, ideas, or opinions of her own, but mutely nods “yes” to everything her husband says. Scary indeed!

Scripture doesn’t like the idea of “weak-willed” women, and neither do we. Complementarians encourage women to study the Word of God, THINK HARD about how to apply it to their lives, rely on the counsel of the Holy Spirit, seek the input of godly female mentors, examine cultural influences, carefully separate right from wrong, and make wise, informed decisions about how to behave. This is definitely not a brainless process. Complementarity does not support simplistic, mindless, acquiescence. It breeds strong women who can swim against the cultural tide and think for themselves. Thinking through how to apply God’s eternal principles requires brains, backbone, and courage. Complementarians don’t like wimpy women!

Kitchen-Trapped Kathy

Kathy lives in the kitchen. Oh, sometimes she’ll go into the laundry room too, but cooking, cleaning, doing laundry and other menial household chores pretty much defines her existence. This straw woman stays in the house, has no interests outside of the house, and never, ever has a career or employment outside of the house. Her over-riding, life-long aspiration is to bake cookies and keep her toilet sparkling clean. Her friends, Dipstick Dana and Bobble-head Betty, are eager to share tips with Kathy on cleaning techniques, home décor, and where to clip out the best grocery coupons.

Complementarians do believe that God gave women a unique responsibility to create and maintain a welcoming, nurturing home environment. But that doesn’t mean that women do all the housework, nor that homemaking is the sum total of all they ever do (The Proverbs 31 woman looked well to the ways of her household and also ran a business). Nor do Complementarians idolize the home and value it above that to which it points.

A woman who creates a home does on a personal level what the Church does for Christ on a corporate level; and also what Christ does in His Father’s House on an eternal, heavenly level—She creates an environment that’s welcoming, nourishing, healing, and conducive to life and growth.

Baby popping Bertha

Bertha aims to have twenty-six kids and counting. Popping out babies is her only goal and purpose in life. The more kids she has, the more spiritual she is, so the more the better! Bertha doesn’t use contraceptives or family planning . . . her plan is to have as many as she can, as quickly as she can. Bertha is best friends with Megan the Marriage-Monger. Megan’s only goal in life is to be married. She’s pushing 50, and has done absolutely nothing meaningful in her life except wait for “Mr. Right” to come along.

One of the great meanings of marriage is to bear and raise children for the glory of God. Complementarians welcome children as a wonderful and precious blessing from God. But they understand that bearing biological children is not the be-all and end-all of womanhood. While womanhood normally includes getting married and giving birth to biological children, this is not its ultimate aim. Woman’s ultimate aim is to be spiritually fruitful—to bear and raise spiritual kids. The unmarried Paul said that singleness was a precious gift from God, and that “each has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another.”(1 Corinthians 7:7) God gives us different gifts and callings. Marriage is not absolute and neither is conceiving children. It is not absolute that every woman will marry, nor is it absolute that every married woman will bear children, nor is it true that every woman ought to bear as many biological children as she possibly can. What IS absolute is that all women are called to be spiritually fruitful. The Lord wants all women—including single and childless women and women past child-bearing age—to spiritually and metaphorically have a “household” and be the “joyful mother of children.” (Psalm 113:9)

Repressed Rita

Poor Rita. She has gifts and nowhere to use them. Since her church won’t let her preach on Sunday mornings, her gifts of leadership and teaching are squelched. She is forever destined to sit on her hands on the back pew doing nothing. Silent. Frustrated. Repressed. She’s not into teaching Sunday School, or leading a woman’s Bible Study, or ministering to the homeless, or alleviating the pain of those in crisis, or reaching out to those in prison, or spiritually mothering anybody. She wants to do something really important—not something as menial as ministering to children and women. In Rita’s mind, the only person in the whole church who really gets to minister is the senior pastor—and if she can’t be THAT, then she won’t reach her full ministry potential. Poor Rita. Poor Church. Sniff. Pass the tissue box please.

Hmmm . . . Really? Last I checked, I have leadership and teaching gifts . . . and I am a woman . . . and I am exercising my gifts within a complementarian framework . . . AND there is far more to do for the Kingdom than I, and the myriads of other women I see exercising their gifts, have the time or energy to do. Complementarians believe in the priesthood of believers. Rita, and every other woman, has a responsibility to develop and exercise her spiritual gifts. Complementarians believe that the local church is to corporately reflect the dynamics of a healthy marriage relationship. The two sexes ought to work together in unity, mutuality, and cooperation to further the Kingdom of God under the loving, self-sacrificing guidance of male headship. There is no shortage of work to do. The gospel is too glorious. The needs are too great.

So there you have it! The worst of the illustrious straw woman parade!—There are more, but I’ve identified the ones who most commonly appear centerstage to give dire warnings about what will happen to women who embrace historic, orthodox, biblical views on gender.

Fighting on Two Fronts

A caveat: Standing for truth rarely affords us the luxury of fighting on only one front. Satan will warp truth by bending it to the left and the right. Are there, in fact, “uber-complimentarian” people who promote a biblical application that is narrow, rigid, and legalistic? Are there people who would like nothing better than to turn Dora into a doormat, Danielle into a dipstick, trap Kathy in the kitchen, insist that Bertha pop out more babies, and repress Rita? Yes, sadly there are. And I am the first in line to call them to account. But to say that these caricatures accurately represent the views of complementarians is like saying the Unabomber accurately represents the views of environmentalists. So please stop doing it!

If you want to talk ideas, let’s talk ideas. Let’s talk hermeneutics. Let’s talk presuppositions. Let’s talk biblical exegesis. Let’s talk principles of interpretation and application. But stop misrepresenting the complementarian position. Stop using syllogistic fallacies, non sequiturs, disambiguations and fallacies of propositional logic. But most of all, please stop parading out those silly straw women!

Could I truly say with complete abandon and total acceptance of the results, “He must increase, I must decrease”? I don’t know that I could…until Jesus redefined significance.

Can we say with Paul, “Only that in every way Christ is proclaimed”?  Only if bringing Jesus glory is our source of significance.

Can we say with Mary, “Let it be to me according to your word”? Only if we’re trusting in a Savior that honors those who serve Him.

Can we say with Mary, that everything we have and are exists to serve the Lord Jesus? Only if Jesus is the only truly significant thing about us.

I was flipping through a magazine and there was this picture of a young tween model scantily clad with this season’s best fashion attire: ultra mini skirt, very low-cut tank peeking out from an open jacket, sultry expression on her youthful face.

I turned on the local evening news and the first headline was an exposé on the evil influence Miley Cyrus had on the younger generation of girls copying her “untamable” fashion sense.

Diane and I went to our local Starbucks for a quiet evening of writing and studying when in walked three teenage girls all dressed hauntingly similar to each other. My jaw stood agape. I could not believe what I was seeing. I’m not even sure if they were skirts, but I’m definitely sure I saw hind-parts sticking out from underneath them.

A few days later, I get this article in my mailbox about Poonam Pandey, India’s native supermodel, promising to strip naked if India won the Cricket World Cup.

All of this makes me wonder….is modesty no longer in fashion? Was it just a 1950’s term my mother used when she thought my hemline was too short? Or is there a legitimate need for women to be modest today? And what is the motivation behind it all?

Modesty is Motivated by Love.

For many of us, love is a major motivation for dressing the way we do. We want someone to love us, notice us and think we’re special, thinking our attire is the perfect “subtle” way to get that person’s attention. Or maybe we think all the other girls are prettier and we can’t get that guy’s attention, so we overcompensate, and dress in a way that sends the wrong message. When I was growing up my father had this little saying, “Don’t advertise what’s not for sale.” But self-love can be one of the most dangerous motivations for us to wear the kinds of clothes we want to wear because it exalts self and puts us on the throne, calling the shots.

For others of us, however, love for the world is what drives us to dress a certain way. The latest fashions. The hippest trends. The most fabulous accessories. We are the girls who follow young Hollywood like TMZ actually cuts our paychecks. We don’t care if the skirts are getting shorter and shorter, or the tops are getting thinner and more see-through; it’s Vogue-HOT, baby, and we must have it. We are the women who are LOVING OUR WORLD, and it’s all the motivation we need; we are going to dress like it even if we’re clearly commanded to not love the world (1 John 2:15- 17). It’s just fashion! What’s the harm in that?

For a small number of us, our motivation lies deeper than a simplistic love for self or the world. No, we dress to find a certain power – feministic at its core. By dressing provocatively, we find we have power over guys, power over situations, and power over ourselves. And as twisted as it can seem, we even find power in being objectified. “Treat me like a lady even if I dress like a porn star,” is the mantra. Watch any Kardashian commercial, and they will testify to this: The way we dress is powerful. Proverbs 7 describes this woman to a tee. She comes out “dressed like a prostitute” for the sole purpose of luring the man into her trap, to control him.

Some of us are not like this at all…well, on the outside at least. We dress with clothes that cover our bodies, no one can see “a shadow or crack in the front or the back” (as a mentor of mine would say). Our skirts are not too short, and our tops are not too low; they are just right. We, after all, are the good church girls. But beyond the window-dressing lies an unearthed attitude of impropriety that would make even Tara Reid blush. “She captures him with her eyelashes,” luring him with just a look (Proverbs 6:25). And for some of us, that’s all we need…a look…and we got ‘em!

Modesty Should Be Motivated By Love.

But not the love of self, the love of the world, or the love for power. There is a greater love that modesty should be motivated by. Love for others and love for your God.

LOVING YOUR BROTHERS.

My brother Dan and I sat next to each other in church this one particular Sunday morning. I remember this vividly because at the time (I was pretty young), I didn’t quite get what he was talking about afterwards. I do now. A woman sat in the pew a few rows in front of us. It was warm out, so she had a strapless sundress on that morning. When she was filing into her seat or standing for worship, there wasn’t a problem. She was as modest as the lady next to her. But as soon as this woman sat down, my brother’s gaze dropped immediately into his Bible, and he didn’t look up for the rest of the sermon. As we walked out to the car, he put his arm around his little sister and said, “Sarah, do me a favor? When you grow up, never wear a strapless dress to a church that has pews.” As a grown woman, I now understand what he was driving at. I also understand why he got a sudden passion to read through his Bible. From behind you could see her dress when she was standing; but when she was sitting? Not so much…

Ladies, guys are visual. They are stimulated by the things they see. The clothes you wear, and the way you wear them sends a visual message to a guy whether or not you mean it. In Romans 14 and 1 Corinthians 8, Paul talks about going to great effort to help a brother not stumble in his walk with the Lord. As women, we can help them by how we’re dressing. When we dress in an alluring way, causing them to stumble in their thoughts and actions, we are the ones that are wrong. It begins with us. While their sin is ultimately because of their own choices, we don’t help them by dressing in a way that makes it more difficult to stand against temptation.

• Am I loving my brothers with how I am dressing today?

Galatians 5:19 gives a list of characteristics that describe those who live according to the flesh; among them are impurity and sensuality. Galatians 5:22 gives the opposing list: the fruit of the Spirit; among them are kindness and goodness. The question to ask ourselves is: Is what I’m wearing kind and good towards my brother in Christ, or is it impure and sensual? Am I loving my brother with the clothes I am wearing?

LOVING YOUR GOD.

Did you know that Disney had a really strict dress code policy in its early days? True story! And not just for their employees. For visitors, as well. Women who came to the park in halter tops were actually sent away because it didn’t exude a “wholesome environment.” Why do you think they implemented this? Because the clothes you wear exhibit outwardly an inward association, and Disney didn’t want to be associated with “unwholesome” behavior. The same is true for Christians and the watching world around us. What you wear on the outside, says something about the type of relationship you have with God on the inside. Nancy Leigh DeMoss says, “If our hearts are right with God—if we’re walking in purity and humility before Him—the fruit will be a modest external appearance.”

• Am I loving my God with how I am dressing today?

We don’t own our bodies. I know…this is devastating news for some of you. But it’s true. You are not your own. 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 says, “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.” The term glorify means “to make known, to make great.” So, the next time we stand in the mirror about to walk out the door, let’s ask ourselves: “Is what I’m wearing making God known and making Him great, or am I the focus of my motivation?”

Modesty. Love. Style. Power. Brothers. God.

What’s your motivation?

Recently, Rob Bell, pastor at Mars Hill Bible Church in Grandville, has caused an uproar among Christian circles for his book,  ”Love Wins.”   He argues that a loving God would never sentence humans to eternal suffering. This is just one of the many theological controversies surrounding Mr. Bell.  In 2008,  Bell came out with the “She” video where he focuses on the “feminine images of God” throughout Scripture.

I want you to know I don’t disagree with everything that Rob Bell says in the video; he does have some good points. He is right in saying that both man and woman are created in the image of God (Gen. 1:27). He’s also correct in pointing out that women have been and sometimes are still treated like “second class citizens.” No one can deny this; it’s evident in history and has happened in almost every culture. Bell does right by praising mothers who care and nurture their children. Sacrificial mothers should be praised by those in their home (Prov. 31:28). Without women like this, we wouldn’t have the C.S Lewis’, Mother Teresa’s, or Albert Einstein’s of this world. They protect and care for their children in a way that no man could.

As Bell states, “There’s this internal impulse, this ancient mothering impulse, a divine impulse.” This is given by God and is a part of our role. While I agree with these few statements he made, he starts to go wrong when he makes God to have a feminine dimension from a few similes (a figure of speech in which two unlike things are explicitly compared, as in “she is like a rose”) in Scripture.

Early in the video, Bell says the Hebrew word for compassionate is “racham” and that “it’s also the word for ‘womb.’ So, God is compassionate. God is ‘womblike’? This is a feminine image for God.” Racham does not mean both “compassionate” and “womb.” They have the same root (compassionate is racham and womb is rechem) but do not mean the same thing, just because they’re related etymologically. Take the Latin word niceus which means ignorant and the English word nice (which is derived from the Latin). They have the same root but their definition is completely different. This is called a “root fallacy,” and Bell unfortunately falls prey to this.

But if Bell’s assumption about the Hebrew adjective (compassionate equals womb-like) were correct, it would be used mostly to refer to mothers, right? Actually this is far from the case. There are several cases when it’s used for warriors, rulers, and even a father having compassion on his children (Ps. 103:13),most of the time though it refers to God. Surprisingly, only two times is compassion used to refer to a mother’s compassion (Isa. 49:15 and 1 Kgs 3:26).

Midway through the video, Bell uses the “banner” verse of egalitarians, Gal. 3:28. Paul writes, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” He goes on to explain what he means by saying in 4:1, “What I am saying is that as long as the heir is a child, he is no different from a slave, although he owns the whole estate.” As believers in Christ we are equal, but that does not mean our roles are the same. In Christ, a CEO of a company is equal to one of his employees in a cubicle. However, they have different roles. The employee would not take charge of the CEO and the CEO would not do errands for the employee. They are equal in Christ, but carry out different tasks.

While Bell never says, “We should call God by ‘Mother,’” his arguments are the same as most evangelical feminists who move towards referring to God by “Mother” or “She.” Bell is teeter-tottering on a very dangerous line towards liberalism through this push of God as part-female, and I think it’s important to address the issue of “Mother God.”

Bell then uses the metaphor in Job 38:29 as an example of “female imagery of God.” Deut. 32:18, Isa. 42:13-14, and Isa. 66:13 also use feminine comparisons to describe God’s activities, but just as in Job 38:29, they never use feminine nouns to describe God. Anytime God is referred to in Scripture, the gender markers are only masculine. For example, Deut. 32:18 (give you birth) uses a masculine participle, not a feminine one. He gave these feminine examples to the writers to help us understand what he is like. He uses the image of a mother’s compassion to say “Hey, this is what I’m like….but so much better!” What grace he has on our simple minds!

Just because feminine metaphors are used to describe God doesn’t mean that we then need to start calling Him “Mother” or starting using “she” when referring to God or Jesus. David (2 Sam. 17:8) and Paul (1 Thess. 2:7) are described as a”mother bear” or a “mother caring for her children.” Does that mean they were part woman and we should call them “she” now? If I can change a tire, have a take-charge attitude with projects, or throw a good spiral (football lingo), does that mean people should call me “he” now? Most people would say, “Of course not.” Why then do Bell, most egalitarians and feminists apply this method to God? God never uses female pronouns or nouns to describe himself, only masculine ones. He is, therefore, self-revealed by using masculine pronouns and we should only refer to him as such.

Furthermore, who said that compassion is limited to only women and is solely a feminine trait? Compassion does not come from a female but from the Lord. We would have no compassion, mercy, justice, strength, or kindness without Him. These are God-traits which were given to us when God created male and female. God is the model, women follow God’s example in obedience.

Though there are a few feminine metaphors used, we need to look at the rest of Scripture for answers. It was inspired by the Holy Spirit and is God’s revelation of Himself to us. Randy Stinson has a great article on this issue, “Seven Reasons Why We Cannot Call God ‘Mother.’” He points out, among other things, that (1) God’s own Word never calls him “Mother” or “She” but regularly uses masculine terms such as “Father,“ “He,” and “King” (never “Queen”) and “Husband” (never “Wife”); (2) God’s self-revelation in Scripture is His own chosen way of revealing His identity to us, and we should not tamper with that or add to it by calling God names the Bible never uses (and carefully avoids using.) God gave the words to write to all the authors of Scripture. How we think of God is affected by what His name is. If we start calling God “She” or “Mother,” we change God’s own description of Himself and call Him something He did not take for Himself. Only God can name God and He prescribes the language.

While Bell had some good points, he is tiptoeing on a dangerous line. When we try to identify Scripture with our culture, the problems subtly creep their way in. Blurring the lines of Scripture can lead to beliefs that are contrary to God’s Word and we must be careful to test all that we read and hear. It may sound good and right but does it follow Scripture? As it says in 1 John 4:1, “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.”

(This article orginally appeared on Unlocking Femininity, a blog for which Diane Montgomery is a regular contributor. That blog is available at www.unlockingfemininity.com)