Recommended Resources on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood

Tonight, I preached on Biblical manhood and womanhood from Genesis 2 – 3. Katie joined me on stage to share her two cents and as always did an unbelievable job of painting a picture of what the gospel can do in a woman’s life and a woman of God is called to be. I’m so proud of the journey she’s been on and what God has done in her life. She really is a great example to women of what it means to be a strong woman of God. Too many people think biblical womanhood means you are a doormat or push over with no opinion. I love that Katie can kill that perception.

There are a ton of books on marriage, what a man or woman are supposed to be. Over the 9 years that Katie and I have been married, we have read probably close to 50 books on these topics. Below are our favorites and the ones that have been the most helpful to us and challenged us in our marriage. Hope this list helps.

• Recovering Biblical Manhood & Womanhood by John Piper & Wayne Grudem
• God, Marriage, and Family by Andreas Kostenberger
• What He Must Be…If He wants to Marry my Daughter by Voddie Baucham
• Girl Talk: Mother-Daughter Conversations on Biblical Womanhood by Carolyn Mahaney & Nicole Mahaney Whitacre
• Feminine Appeal by Carolyn Mahaney
• Shopping for Time: How to do it All and NOT be Overwhelmed by Carolyn Mahaney
• Sex, Romance and the Glory of God: What Every Christian Husband Needs to Know by C.J. Mahaney
• Biblical Womanhood in the Home by Nancy Leigh DeMoss

Links of the Week

1. Why conservative churches are growing faster than liberal ones.
2. The Wall Street Journal on Fraternities and the culture of rape.
3. Al Mohler on Same sex marriage, God’s vision, and biblical authority.
4. 10 reasons not to join a church plant. So true.
5. Wendy Alsup on My journey to Gospel-Centered Womanhood.
6. What should the sting be for church discipline.
7. Acts 29 wives on being a church planter’s wife and family part 1 and part 2. If you wonder what it is like to the wife of a church planter, read these.
8. Ron Edmondson on 7 suggestions when the marriage isn’t working.
9. Watch The Gospel Coalition main sessions. Some good stuff here.
10. Noel Heikkinen on the Royal Wedding and an Illusion of Innocence.
11. C.J. Mahaney’s free ebook on leadership and criticism. Can’t recommend this high enough.
12. How women lead in a complementarian church.

Submission is Not Being a Mindless Doormat

Often whenever you talk about submission in marriage, images of male domination and abuse come up. It is sad that somehow men have taken Paul’s command to be like Christ to their wife and family, which means they lay down their life, they die first, they sacrifice, that somehow men have taken that to mean they dominate and push their weight around. I’m not sure how we get Jesus dying on a cross in our place and we play that out as male domination, but that is another post.

Often, when women hear submission, they hear, “Be a mindless, no opinion, quiet, doormat.”

The idea of male headship means that man has been given the primary responsibility of leading his marriage, his family in a God glorifying direction. That he will stand before God and give an account for that. For his wife, it means she will stand before God and give an account for how she helped him or hindered him.

To lead in a God glorifying manner, in a God glorifying direction, a woman needs to be strong, step up to the plate, challenge her husband in appropriate ways, help him to figure out the best way to go. You can’t help him do that, a wife can’t fulfill what God has called her to if she is mindless, has no opinion, is quiet and a doormat. She will stand before God and he will ask, “Why didn’t you use your brain? Why didn’t you give your opinion? Why were you a doormat? I put you there to help him fulfill his calling that I gave him. Why didn’t you fulfill yours?”

One thing I have grown to appreciate about the wives of our pastor’s and elders at Revolution is they are strong women, with opinions. They are also striving to live this out.

I’m pretty excited about talking about this tomorrow night with Katie. She is such a great example of what it means to be a strong, passionate woman of God. You definitely don’t want to miss Revolution.

Male Headship is Not Defering

I was talking with someone this week about my sermon for tomorrow at Revolution from Genesis 2 – 3 on marriage, roles and what God calls men and women to be.

The topic of male headship and submission came up, as it always does. And this couple told me they live out the roles God has called them to. I asked them to give me an example of male headship in their marriage and she said, “When we have a tie, I defer to him.” This is one of the most common questions about headship, what do you do when there is a tie. Let me say this clearly:  Deferring is not male headship.

As I will lay out tomorrow, God has given men the primary responsibility to lead the marriage in a God-glorifying direction. Male headship does not mean in a tie, you just go with what the man wants, his way might be sin and it might not be in a God-glorifying direction.

One thing Katie has done in our marriage when we first got married and started reading and learning about roles, headship and submission is that when we had a “tie” she would tell me, “You make a decision that is the best for our family.” That is male headship. It is the realization of the wife that she is not held accountable to God for the family, her husband is. It is the realization of the husband that he is held accountable to God for the family and he is not always right.

Pretty excited about talking about this tomorrow night. You definitely don’t want to miss Revolution.

God Hasn’t Told Me “No”

Often when people are living outside of God’s design for life and sinning, they will try praying about it. It will go something like this, “I know that God says I shouldn’t do this or that, or live this way, but in an effort to circumvent the Bible, I’m praying about it.” In saying they are praying about it, what they are hoping is that either they will feel better about it or that by some miracle, God will tell them that what he wrote in the Bible is not true or not for them.

I was talking recently to someone and they said, “I know the Bible says I shouldn’t be doing this, but I’m praying about it and so far God has not told me to stop.”

For them, this meant they should keep going until God told them no. The only problem is that if God has clearly laid out in Scripture how you should live, why would he tell you again. I think God probably hopes we will read the Bible, see what it says and do it instead of saying, “I will keep doing this and hope that God will let me off the hook or help me not feel so guilty about it or show me that I get to be the exception to what Scripture says.”

Why would we expect God to speak twice? We expect our kids to listen the first time. God expects the same from us.

The Tension of Leadership

This morning I was meeting with some leaders at Revolution and we were talking about the tension of leadership. Leaders live in two worlds:  the one of reality, where their church or organization is, and the other is the one that is not yet, the world they are moving into.

To lead well, leaders must live where their churches are and they must lead them to where they are going. Which means they must have a strong grasp on reality and the present, as well as where they are going. Too many pastors seem to coast into the future, not sure where they are going, not sure how they will get there.

It is easy to spend too much time in either the present or the future and miss out. You can get too far ahead of your church which means you will have a difficult time getting into the future. You can spend too much time in the present and not see a vision for where you are going and get stuck in the details of just doing church.

It is a balance. It is the tension of leadership.

A Work of Heart: How God Shapes Spiritual Leaders

I’ve been reading a lot about the inner life of leaders recently. It is great to have the tools of how to cast vision, build teams and lead things, but if your character falls apart, if you aren’t able to handle conflict, criticisms, setbacks, etc. it can destroy your leadership. Recently I’ve been hearing about a number of leaders who have been falling out leadership because of sin, stress, burnout and I want to finish well. Reggie McNeal writes about this better than anyone I’ve seen. You can read my review of one of his other books Practicing Greatness here.

In A Work of Heart, he takes a similar track as Practicing Greatness. In this one though, he looks at Moses, David, Jesus and Paul to see how God shaped their hearts, their inner lives to make them the leaders they are.

According to McNeal, when a leader loses heart, he loses. When a leader does not lose heart, he becomes a champion, not a victim.

He looked at:

• Family of origin and where they came from.
• The call on their lives, why they are here.
• Community, how they connected with others around them.
• Communion, how they related to God.
• Conflict, how they deal with criticism, those who difficult to lead.
• And the commonplaces of their world, the ordinary things we often miss in terms of shaping our lives.

Here are a few things that jumped out:

• Leaders are driven by causes and willing to personally risk involvement.
• The leader is an instrument in the Lord’s hand to help others have the opportunity to live their lives with greater significance and in relationship with God.
• The cauldron of conflict shapes the heart of the leader. Each instance forces a redefinition of the leader’s mission, values, and actions.
• Leaders content that their life could not be understood apart from their call. The call provides them with their life direction. It informs their decisions by reorienting their priorities and establishing a new set of core values. The call provides a content that becomes their life message.They would not be who they are without it.
• Leaders who give their best efforts to their current assignments from God are prepared for their next level of influence.
• Leaders become leaders, in part, because they are willing to wrestle with who they are, who they want to become, how they can overcome some deficit in their own lives.
• Leaders who create team figure out how to empower others, literally giving power away.