Men and Women in the Church: A Short, Biblical, Practical Introduction
Kevin DeYoung
Crossway, 2021
Realising that he didn’t have a short book to hand people on the topic (Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood is 600+ pages), DeYoung wrote this one.
A book like this is certainly needed, and on the whole it does what it says on the tin, but it falls short in a few ways which would make me hesitate to give it out to people.
My main criticism is his willingness to let women lead some elements of public worship. And no matter what you think of that position, the fact that he will let them pray certain kinds of prayers in church but not other kinds of prayers just seems bizarre: “In my tradition, there is usually a long intercessory prayer conducted by one of the pastors. It would not be right in my context to have a woman give this prayer. But I have had women pray in worship services in more specific contexts or in less formal ways”.
His rationale for this stems from his interpretation of the silence of women in 1 Cor 14:34 as only in the context of weighing prophecy. As an attempt to reconcile 1 Corinthians 11 (women can pray and prophesy) and 14 (women must be silent), I don’t think it’s a ridiculous interpretation, but I’m not convinced by it. Not least because it was only first proposed in 1962 and it works best if you understand NT prophecy to be different from OT prophecy (ie you are charismatic).
It seems better to understand 1 Corinthians 11 as those like Chrysostom (4th century), Bunyan (17th century) and Warfield (19th century) and others have done throughout church history – taking it as speaking of ecstatic, immediately-inspired prayer and prophecy, which no longer have any equivalent for us now the charismatic gifts have ceased.
Especially since DeYoung is a Presbyterian, he would have been better sticking to the Confessional restriction of vocal leadership in public worship to those ordained or intending the ministry (see WLC 156 & 158-9, Directory for Public Worship and Form of Presbyterial Church-government). The conclusion of Hart & Muether (in With Reverence and Awe), that ‘the key distinction in worship is not gender but ordination’ is much better and more consistent.
There were also some other bits I found unsatisfactory, such as his section on prophetesses. For example Andrew Steinmann’s treatment of the same issue (in passing!) in his commentary on Nehemiah which I read the other week is much stronger. DeYoung argues that ‘women prophetesses carrying out their ministry differently from male prophets’ whereas Steinmann emphasises the times in which they lived, pointing out that ‘Only Huldah was inspired to utter true prophecy, and she lived in the grim final days of Judah, shortly before it fell to Babylon’.
On the whole the book has much to commend it, and seeks to make a positive case for complementarianism, showing how it’s based on nature rather than arbitrary rules. His final two chapters, on ‘Growing up as boys and girls’ and ‘Following Christ as men and women’ are particularly helpful. If I were to preach a series on manhood and womanhood, it’s definitely a book I’d turn to. It’s good on the big picture but just a bit woolly in applying some of the principles to the church – which is a pity for a book entitled ‘Men, Women and the Church’.
His ability to use 1 Corinthians 14:34 ‘As in all the churches of the saints, the women should keep silent in the churches’ to argue that ‘churches that do not allow women to speak in church under any circumstances are contradicting the instructions of Scripture’ is unfortunate and means the book may confuse some people more than help them. For those who are unlikely to be swayed by that exegesis though, there is much here that is helpful.
(Though can someone tell DeYoung/Crossway that ‘helpmate’ isn’t actually a biblical word, but a misunderstanding of the KJV of Genesis 2?)