The last two Sunday’s we’ve looked at issues of headship and submission as they relate to gender roles.

Resources to listen to and to read about the issues.

TO LISTEN 

Tim and Kathy Keller gave a two part seminar in 2005 called “Cultivating a Healthy Marriage.”

Part One is a lecture. The Keller’s describe marriage as a garden.

1. Planning & Planting

• Gospel Reenactment
• Headship Role
• Submission Role

2. Fertilizing & Watering

• Communication Help
• Love-Languages Help
• Sexual Relationship Help

3. Weeding & Pruning

• Conflict Resolution
• Conflict Confronters and Conflict Avoiders
• Forgivness and Repentace

4. Harvesting & Enjoying

• Spiritual Development
• Ultimate Hope, Significance, and Serurity

Part Two is a Q&A Session.

• Can you talk about in-laws and the impact they have on the marriage?
• Do you have to have sex every time your spouse wants to?
• What is a healthy number of times to have sex, pre-children?
• How you make sex a priority with busy schedules?
• How do you get over damage in the sexual area that was done early in your marriage?
• How can I learn the love language of my spouse?
• What does the Bible say about children and contraception?
• In heaven how will we relate to our spouses?
• Do you have any recommendations for men leading their families?
• What do you recommend for a couple who are different places spiritually?
• How do you know your spouse should change a job for the benefit of the family?
• What if headship for the man is as hard as submission is for the woman?
• What do you say to the person who says I married the wrong person?
• What do you do when you try be the leader but your wife doesn’t follow?
• How do we keep working through our communication problems?
• How do you offer forgiveness without sounding self-righteous?
• My husband’s close relationship with other women is threatening to me. How should I deal with this?
• How do you get results from your husband without sounding like a nag?
• Can you have a good marriage without good sex?
• What do you do if you hard time respecting your husband’s intelligence and judgment?
• What’s the best way to give my husband advice without making him feel bad or nagged?
• How important is it for men to come in touch with their emotions in a marriage?
• Could you give a script for working through communication issues?
• What’s the wisdom in getting married (or being single)?
• Is love a choice?
• Is a difference of family size a suitable case to be resolved though headship?

TO READ 

Stephen B. Clark’s Man and Woman in Christ: An Examination of the Roles of Men and Women in Light of the Scripture and the Social Sciences.

When the book first came out Christianity Today named it as one of the most important
books of the year in 1981. Much time has passed since then, but the significant contributions of this book have not.

The book has four main sections:

I. The Scriptural Teaching

II. Assessing the Scriptural Teaching

III. The Scriptural Teaching in Contemporary Society

IV. A Christian Approach for Today.

A detailed viewed of the contents and issues the book covers can be viewed here.

Chapters 3, 4, and 12 are particularly relevant to issues of headship and submission.

Chapter 3 The Family: Husbands and Wives

• Of particular interest in this chapter is Clark’s treatment of womanhood in Proverbs 31

Chapter 4 The Family: Key Texts

• Ephesians 5:22-33, Colossians 3:18-19, 1 Peter 3:1-7

Chapter 12 Christian Family: Husbands and Wives

“The steady witness of tradition can help us see more clearly how the views of the present age color a reading of the scriptural message about the roles of men and women.”

He sketches the views of:

• The Apostolic Fathers
• Second and Third Century Fathers
• Fourth Century Fathers
• Post-Patristic Tradition

The entire book is available for free here.

Sunday we’re resuming our sermon series on gender identity issues called Biblical Manhood & Womanhood: Equal & Unique.

Here are some things that will make the series more helpful as we move along.

                               Three Talks on the Trinity & Gender Roles 

Andrew Franseen and Andy Naselli served our congregation well by helping us see how the Trinity relates to our roles as men and women in our world, our churches, and our homes.

If you missed those talks, be sure to listen to the audio and check out the helpful handouts Andrew and Andy provided for those sessions. 

                               Two Books & Two Chapters on Gender Roles

In combination with the sermon series, this week also begins our Family Bible Class discussions on the issue of gender identity and roles. (Mike Gray starts off the series this Sunday by talking about “The Origin and Purpose of Gender.”) 

Bruce Ware’s book Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: Relationships, Roles, and Relevance is the finest book to help think through issues of Biblical Manhood & Womanhood, particularly as they relate to the Trinity. (We’ll have some of this available in our bookstall.)

Wayne Grudem tackles some of the toughest questions relating to gender roles in his excellent book Evangelical Feminism: An Analysis of More Than One Hundred Disputed Questions. (It’s available as a free PDF.)

John Piper provides the most concise and nuanced treatment of the topic in the first two chapters of Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. Chapter 1 is available as a free PDF. Chapter 2 is a series of questions and answers. It’s also available as a free PDF. (The entire book is available for free or for purchase here.)

In the weeks to come we’ll list more resources as we think through yet another issue that displays the incomparable beauty and surpassing sufficiency of our great God. 

Sunday’s message (The God-Glorifying Design of Singleness) was another installment in our series on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood.

We referenced two helpful books on the topic.

Singles at the Crossroads: A Fresh Perspective on Christian Singleness by Albert Y. Hsu. Hsu’s treatment of singleness is readable and thoughtful. He writes as a single person to us all.

You can get a feel for the book from the chapter titles. (Note: Having been published in 1997, the statistics in the first chapter are woefully out of date.)

Why This Book?

1. Where Singles Are Today?
2. A Brief History of Singleness
3. The Myth of the Gift. (This chapter is a brief, and somewhat novel, exposition of 1 Corinthians 7.)
4. The Issue of God’s Will
5. Freedom and Opportunity
6. From Loneliness to Solitude
7. From Aloneness to Community
8. Rethinking Romance
9. Temptations Singles Face

Epilogue: A Visions for the Future

Appendix: John Stott on Singleness

The Appendix is one of the most insightful parts of the book, where Hsu interviews the recently deceased John Stott. Stott carried out his fifty-plus years of ministry as a single man. In this interview he shares his insights on relevant passages, his personal struggles, and the sacrifices and privileges of being single.  

Redeeming Singleness: How the Storyline of Scripture Affirms the Single Life by Barry Danylak.

This is a heavier read than Hsu’s book, but it is probably a more important one. Rather than looking piecemeal at various issues and passages that Christian single men and women wrestle with, Danylak takes a biblical theological approach to the issue asking the insightful question: How does singleness function in the storyline of Scripture? The answers are breathtaking. The kneecap of his argument is this:

Christian singleness is a testimony to the supreme sufficiency of Christ for all things, testifying that through Christ life is truy blessed even without marriage and children. It prophetically points to a reality greater than the satsifcation of this present age by consciously anticipating the Christian’s eternal inhertinace in the kingdom of God. Christian singleness lived as a testimony of this gospel truth is a redeeming singleness (215).

Here are the chapter titles.

1. Begetting from the Beginning: Procreation, Marriage, and the Blessing of God to the World
2. Living in the Land: Why Every Israelite Man and Woman Married
3. Prophetic Paradox: How Failure of a Nation Brings Blessing to the World
4. Good News for the Gentiles: How Abraham’s Offspring Come from Jesus Alone
5. The King and the Kingdom: Jesus’ Surprising Statements on Singleness and Family
6. A Charisma for Corinth: Paul’s Vision of Singleness for the Church

This fall we’ll look at what the Bible says about gender identity issues, especially as they relate to manhood and womanhood. Brad will preach a series of sermons on the topic, which will be followed by a short, interactive series in our Family Bible Class led by the Lawrence’s and the Payne’s. 

We are excited to announce that Andrew Franseen, pastor of Grace Bible Church, and Andy Naselli, member of Grace Bible Church and Research Manager for D.A. Carson, will help kick off the series for us with a special seminar Saturday, August 27th from 9:30am-12:30pm.

Manhood and Womanhood is not finally about sorting our roles in the world and the church. The issue is important because the nature of God is important. We are created to reflect his image, and the way we view gender roles reveals the way we view God. Andrew and Andy will help us think through The Relationship of the Trinity to Manhood and Womanhood. 

The following is a tentative schedule:

9:30-9:45 Welcome and Introductions 

9:45-10:25 Session 1: The Tri-Unity of God (Franseen)

10:35-11:35 Session 2: How Does the Trinity Inform How Husbands & Wives Should Relate to Each Other? (Naselli)

11:45-12:20 Session 3: What the Trinity Means for Life in Our World, Our Homes, & Our Churches (Franseen)

12:20-12:30 Q&A

Please pray for Andrew and Andy as they prepare to serve us in this significant way on a special day.