New JBMW addresses numerous issues within the gender debate

Will the functional roles of the genders remain when Christ comes and fully inaugurates the New Jerusalem?

Are the daughters of Philip among the prophets as set forth by Luke in Acts 21:9?

Does the Greek conjunction gar found in 1 Timothy 2:13 support an egalitarian or complementarian reading of that key text?

These are among the issues the essayists seek to answer in the new edition of the Journal for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (JBMW), a biannual journal of The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood.

Mark David Walton, senior pastor of Glenwood Baptist Church in Oak Ridge, Tenn., argues in his article "Relationships and Roles in the New Creation" that the genders will continue in complementary relationships in the eschaton.

Walton interacts with egalitarian interpretations of the "not yet" aspects of eschatology and seeks to show their fundamental flaws in arguing that gender will no longer hold significance in the New Jerusalem.

"Although Scripture does not speak directly to the question of the effect gender will have on the lives of resurrected believers in the new creation, it does offer sufficient evidence to affirm that gender will continue to be a significant aspect of our lives in the eschaton," he writes.

In his piece, "Are the Daughters of Philip Among the Prophets of Acts?" Jeffrey T. Riddle sets forth the three most common evangelical views of Acts 21:9 in which the four virgin daughters of Philip at Caesarea prophesy. Riddle is the pastor of Jefferson Park Baptist Church in Charlottesville, Va.

Riddle interacts with the egalitarian contention that the daughters of Philip functioned as ordained prophets in a local assembly and seeks to show the difference between the New Testament act of prophesying—an act open to any believer of the day—and the office of prophet, which Scripture limits to men.

"It must be acknowledged, for example, that Luke does not depict women as serving in leadership roles in which they exercise doctrinal or teaching authority over men," Riddle writes. "Women to not preach or teach in Acts."

David K. Huttar, professor emeritus at Nyack College in Nyack, N.Y., examines the conjunction gar (typically translated "for" or "because") located in 1 Timothy 2:13 in light of egalitarian scholar Linda Belleville’s claim that the conjuction must not be translated as a causal conjunction ("because") which supports a complementarian reading of the text.

Paige Patterson, president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, in his essay "A Journey to the Interior of the Family: The Family’s Core," suggests five essential ingredients that constitute the core of the family. Patterson argues that the family, in turn, "serves as the core of every social order in the world."

The five ingredients include the home as: the plan of God, the essential school, the world’s finest court of justice and mercy, the only appropriate venue for sexual intimacy, and the triumphal arch of love.

The new journal also includes essays by Russell D. Moore, Robert Sagers, and Albert Wolters.

Moore assesses the Christological confusion of evangelical feminism, Sagers examines Donald Miller’s troubling ode to growing up fatherless in To Own a Dragon, and Wolters offers a semantical study of the Greek term authentes ("to exercise authority over"; 1 Tim 2:12) and its derivatives.

Moore serves as dean of the school of theology and senior vice president for academic administration at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., Sagers is Moore’s research assistant, and Wolters is professor of religion and theology, and classical studies at Redeemer University College in Ontario, Canada.

To obtain a copy of the new JBMW or to subscribe, please see http://www.cbmw.org/journal/ or call (888) 560-8210.