BOOK REVIEW: RECOVERING FROM BIBLICAL MANHOOD & WOMANHOOD

I follow Aimee Byrd, speaker, and author, on Twitter. She tweeted an announcement about her newest book, Recovering from Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. Having twice read John Piper and Wayne Grudem’s book, Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: A Response to Evangelical Feminism (1991), I was eager to read what Byrd had to say. Based on the book’s provocative title, I expected Byrd to challenge Piper and Grudem’s explanations of “biblical manhood and womanhood” head-to-head or Bible passage by Bible passage.

Discipleship for Men and Women

Unexpectedly, Byrd’s book is primarily about discipleship, not manhood and womanhood. Currently trending on Amazon as the number one new release in Christian discipleship, Byrd uses the metaphor of old, yellowed, peeling wallpaper to illustrate that the church has refurbishing work to do. The author argues that a significant part of the “yellow wallpaper” needing to be ripped away is the “biblical manhood and womanhood” teaching—teaching that is not biblical restricts women and prevents them from flourishing. She emphatically points the church back to its vital responsibility to disciple men and women with biblical and theological training. Her aim is to speak specifically to church leadership, and she advocates for spiritual leaders to consider a different gender paradigm by retrieving the understanding of brothers and sisters, “necessary allies,” serving one another and others as co-laboring disciples (p. 230).

Reciprocity of Voices

In Byrd’s view, the church “is the school of Christ,” and has relinquished to parachurch ministries its responsibility to disciple believers (p. 26). Scripture guides believers not towards biblical manhood and biblical womanhood, but rather, towards Christlikeness and communion with God. Edifying discipleship necessarily equips people to read, understand, and apply Scripture so that they may effectively share the gospel message and live lives of faith worthy of emulation. Byrd asserts that biblical discipleship aims to incorporate “the reciprocity of both men’s and women’s voices that are coactive in teaching one another through God’s Word,” and “to retrieve true integral community where men and women are both contributing as whole, fruitful persons (p. 26–27).” While holding to the “ordination of qualified men” (male elders), the author does not consider herself a complementarian. “She joins hands with evangelical egalitarians,” but wrote her book to challenge both egalitarians and complementarians (p. 121).

Book Sections

This two-hundred-thirty-five-page book contains an introduction (an essential read per the author) and eight chapters. The chapters are divided into three sections: Part 1: Recovering the Way We Read Scripture; Part 2: Recovering Our Mission, and Part 3: Recovering the Responsibility of Every Believer. Each chapter ends with five discussion questions which are helpful for use in small groups. Byrd provides footnotes, but not a bibliography.

Joint Mission & Responsibility

Acknowledging that both genders are distinct and have much to contribute to the other, Byrd argues that when only men as future male leaders and laymen are chosen for discipleship investment and leadership development, women are “disconnected from serious theological study (p. 115).” They are unjustly separated from their joint responsibility as the bride of Christ to participate in the life-giving mission of the church. Byrd calls egalitarians to rip away old wallpaper in that some downplay gender distinctions, which can result in women feeling undervalued—they need to acknowledge the unique and essential contributions women bring to the mission of the church.

Defining Service

Borrowing from two of Carolyn Custis James’s books, The Gospel of Ruth, and Finding God in the Margins, Byrd points to the biblical story of Ruth and Boaz and their demonstration of hesed love—a selfless, loyal love—to provide a counter view of manhood and womanhood. In a reversal of traditional roles, Ruth exhibited bold courage and leadership, while Boaz served Ruth. Boaz, by agreeing that a future child would be an heir to carry on the legacy of Ruth’s deceased spouse, laid down his “man card” (ripped off yellow wallpaper).

Byrd describes the many ways women served in the early church, explaining that oftentimes, women in many complementarian churches today are not allowed to serve in similar ways. Jesus affirmed Mary of Bethany sitting at his feet to learn, like disciples sitting at their Rabbi’s feet in preparation to disciple others, because her humble posture of learning is “needed,” “the best part,” and “will not be taken away from her (Luke 10:42).” She questions church leaders viewing service in the church primarily through the lens of hierarchical authority and influence. She quotes a 1992 Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood article by John Piper and Wayne Grudem, “50 Crucial Questions: An Overview of Central Concerns about Manhood and Womanhood,” in which they define authority as “the right (Matt 8:9) and power (Mark 1:27; 1 Cor 7:37) and responsibility (2 Cor 10:8; 13:10) to give direction to another.” Byrd rightly responded, “This definition disqualifies a lot of women Jesus, Paul, and the other apostles served alongside in Scripture (p. 204).” This is a worthy observation.

In my own experience, a former pastor once pointed to 1 Corinthians 16:13 NASB, “Be on the alert, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong” (emphasis added) to prove that “biblical manhood” is a worthy goal. This translation, unfortunately, does not reflect the original Greek words or meaning. Byrd notes that this verse instructs believers, men, and women, “brothers and sisters (see v. 15),” to act with bravery and courage—with maturity in the faith. It doesn’t instruct men to be masculine.

Significant Contributions

Two significant contributions to the discussion on women in the church are Byrd’s sections discussing the impact of “tradents,” those who pass on oral faith history, and “gynocentric interruptions,” in other words, female viewpoints. She writes about the significance of female tradents like Ruth, Mary the mother of Jesus, and Hannah, because their stories were told to the men in order to be recorded. And she describes the significant gynocentric interruptions provided by Rahab, Naomi, the Canaanite woman, Jael, Jephthah’s daughter, Huldah, and others, to illustrate women’s active participation in carrying out the work of the Lord.

In conclusion, given the book’s title, it seems amiss that Byrd did not include a chapter with her interpretations of the main Bible passages (1 Tim 2; 1 Cor 11; 1 Cor 14) used to restrict the ministry of women in the church. However, I recommend this book to church leaders and to anyone seeking understanding of the intersection of women, discipleship, and the church.