Editor's Column

The Journal for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood comes to you, this issue, displaying its new look. God is prospering our meager but sincere efforts, and we rejoice that the beauty of his design for manhood and womanhood can be mirrored just a bit better by the beauty of the design for the new cover for our Journal. But most important, the contents of this Spring issue again present a rich variety, and much from which to learn and grow in Christ.

David Talley's excellent study of how God's created design (Gen 1-2) was marred by sin (Gen 3) and is restored through Christ's redeeming power as shown in marriage (Eph 5) is full of mature insight and wisdom. As you read this fine piece, you will see afresh some of the glory and beauty of manhood and womanhood, as God's purpose, in part, is to work through our respective roles to help us grow in sanctification, to the honor of the redeeming work of Christ. It is clear that Dr. Talley has spent much time studying and musing over the thesis he commends in this article, and I assure all who read carefully that you will find much profit here for your own lives and relationships with others.

Steven Tracy warns, helpfully, that headship becomes perverted and distorted when it is exercised with harshness and selfishness. Those of us who hold and commend the complementarian view must keep front and center the responsibility that male headship entails. Whether in marriage or in church leadership, the New Testament commends those men who lead to do so for the benefit and blessing of those under their authority. To fail here is to bring disrepute to the cause of Christ and harm to those we are called to love and serve.

If distortions of male headship can be manifest through abusive relationships, another kind of distortion takes place when passages of Scripture are abused by being made to say something foreign to their intended meanings. Peter Schemm offers a very helpful review of how the supreme text of the egalitarian movement - Galatians 3:28 - has been misunderstood and misapplied by those who advance the feminist agenda. He shows convincingly that the context and clear teaching of this passage is about a glorious truth indeed, for women and men alike (!), but it is a teaching very different from the one purported by egalitarian advocates. Again, careful reading, with your Bibles open, will bring insight and personal gain as the real truth of God's Word is brought home with clarity and forcefulness.

A recent trend to minimize the male gender of Jesus (which some find offensive while they claim to follow him as Lord!) is an issue many of us never dreamt we would need to address. But, alas, the need is upon us. I offer here some reflections on whether the "Father" (recall that the One who sent Jesus is called this) really had to send his "Son" in the form of a male human being. Consider with me 12 reasons why the male identity of Jesus seems clearly not to have been ad hoc but part of God's eternal plan and necessary for its accomplishment.

Our own Dorothy Patterson offers a wonderful service to our readers by alerting us to a new book released by InterVarsity Press claiming to offer a via media between the complementarian and egalitarian positions. As Dr. Patterson shows convincingly and clearly, Sarah Sumner's Men and Women in the Church in fact consistently fails in this respect, offering instead a steady dose of egalitarian arguments and positions, albeit through her own "story" and innovative approaches. I know Dr. Sumner personally, and I could wish that our review here could commend her work to our readers. Unfortunately, unless in another work she demonstrates a significant shift back to Scripture's clear teaching, and embraces the glory of the authority and submission relationships within which God has designed for men and women to live, this simply will not be possible. Dr. Patterson's review is direct, but for a book proposing to pull complementarians to the "middle" when in fact they are pulled to the opposite side, we are grateful to the help and insight offered to us here.

Recently, CBMW underwent an organizational restructuring which all involved believe will be of great benefit to this ministry endeavoring to be faithful to God and his word, while being strategic and wise in our witness in the world. With a newly elected Board of Directors, CBMW now also has its first Chairman of the Board in the person of Dr. J. Ligon Duncan, III, Senior Minister of the First Presbyterian Church of Jackson, Mississippi. In light of Dr. Duncan's election to this important post within CBMW, it is a special delight to present a fine sermon he delivered recently on marriage from Genesis 2. Known for his exegetical care and practical application, readers will find encouragement here in knowing and following God's word in marriage, as God designed it to be.

We welcome, in this issue, a new feature of the Journal, i.e., a "Cultural Commentary" which endeavors to discuss some recent cultural development in light of the transcultural and normative Word of God on issues of sexuality and gender. Russell Moore writes columns and news articles regularly for our CBMW website and for the Baptist Press (both can be read online). You'll enjoy this recent commentary where, with great wit and skill, Dr. Moore explores whether complementarians are closer to egalitarians or to liberals. You might be surprised with his answer!

Once again, I commend the hard work, diligence, and skill of Mr. Rob Lister, our Managing Editor, and Mr. Todd L. Miles, our Assistant Managing Editor. We begin our third year of offering to our readers annotated bibliographies of the most significant articles on gender published in the previous year (in our Spring issue) and of books on gender published in the previous year (in our Fall issue). No other resource, to my knowledge, offers such a helpful survey of this literature, and so we express our gratitude for this useful service.

As a theologian, I am painfully aware that the evangelical church today risks massive doctrinal departures from "the faith once for all given to the saints" in a staggering array of areas. Among these, and at the center of Christianity's interface with our culture, are the temptations to compromise on issues of sexuality and gender. We offer this issue of the Journal, then, with the prayer that God would be pleased to use this tool to keep more men and women of God faithful to him and, by his grace, to pull some back from paths of ruin. If so, we will give God all the praise for any and all good accomplished for his kingdom. May God be praised!