Gender Blog continues with the latest installment of our "Unchanging Truth" series. These articles, while not as current, are still beneficial, and they demonstrate the consistent application of biblical truth by complementarian scholars, authors, and pastors through the years.
The following is an excerpt from an interview with John Piper entitled "Courage in the Pastorate", first published in 2000.
JBMW: How did you come to your convictions about biblical manhood and womanhood?
JP: None of us know exactly how we have come to think the way we do because the seeds of our convictions are sown long before we know anything about it. Most important was the fact that I grew up in a Bible-believing home, where my parents said that the Bible is true and to be obeyed, regardless of what the culture says. So I've never felt a strong impulse to change my views just because they are at variance with the culture-at-large. I don't care about being up-to-date in Kansas City. I care about honoring the Scriptures. So when I realized that the Scriptures teach a complementary view of manhood and womanhood, I accepted that teaching, even though it went against the dominant viewpoint of the culture. Further, I viewed the Scripture's teaching as a good thing, because God is good.
However, I would be naïve if I didn't say that the home where I grew up had a significant impact on me, though not exactly in the way some people might think. My dad was away from home two-thirds of the year in evangelistic meetings, so my mother was everything to me. She was my financial adviser, the one who taught me how to make pancakes, the one who taught me how to clean my room, and the one who made sure I got out and played football and basketball with the guys. And yet when my daddy came home, he was clearly the leader. He took the initiative. He was the one who said, "We're going to worship this morning," or, "Let's have devotions, Mommy you read this, Johnny you read that." When we went to a restaurant, he drove the car, and he paid the bill. He was taking all those intangible initiatives, and I was absorbing his words and actions and the fact that my mother loved it-omnicompetent though she was. I had the privilege of seeing my mother run the household by herself most of the time and yet also see her gladly submit to Dad's leadership when he was there. So the idea that his leadership signified her incompetence never occurred to me.
When I graduated from high school, as I recall, I was nineteenth in my class, of 300 or so, and the eighteen who were ahead of me were women, except for my friend Kenny. When I went to Wheaton, it was women who were always ruining the grade curve because they were so bright. I grew up surrounded by tremendously intelligent, articulate, competent women, most of whom were very happy that men were strong, godly leaders in their homes and in the church. So this background strengthened me for the days of controversy when I had to decide for myself: "Am I going to go with the cultural flow of egalitarian feminism, or am I going to stick with the plain meaning of Scripture?" And the more I studied the issue, the less compelling the arguments on the egalitarian side seemed. So I remain a believer in a very happy, hope-filled, creative, complementarian view.
One more point. The essential thing about God, as I see Him in the Scriptures, is that He is sovereign and good. This means that when He tells us to do things, they're good for us. So I'm going to trust His Word and believe that for the man to be the head of the woman in the home and for men to be the godly, spiritual leaders in the church is really good for women, good for men, good for kids, good for evangelism, good for world missions, and good for every kind of ministry that the church ought to do.
You can read the rest of this interview here.