This is a relatively thin book and by no means an attempt at anything near exhaustive on the subject of male and female. David Pawson makes it his stated aim to simply expound upon this one aspect concerning men and women’s respective roles – biblical, authoritative leadership is male. He shows from Scripture that patriarchy (males taking the lead in families and Church) is a very evident feature of Old and New Covenants as well as Pre-Covenant days.
There is a nice foreword by Elizabeth Elliot (a cunning move to invite a woman to contribute in this way!). She picks up on something that David Pawson says concerning meticulous exegesis being the key to resolving this issue. Elizabeth Elliot is more insightful about this in my opinion stating that it is unlikely that painstaking analysis will bring an end to the debate. She knows that the issue in hand runs much deeper.
The issue of feminism is shown to be a matter of women refusing to accept the simple command to be in submission. Equally importantly male chauvinism is shown to be an overreaction causing men to become dictators rather than gentle, loving leaders. It’s all pretty obvious to those who are filled with the loveliness of the Spirit of Christ and have read the plain words of Holy Scripture.
Mr Pawson makes a particular point of addressing Galatians 3:28 – “…there is neither male nor female…” which he describes as being a universal maxim for feminism (or something like that) whilst either totally ignoring or making all kinds of accusations about all of Paul’s many other statements on the same subject. Speaking of which he cites some of the ‘alternative’ translations and interpretations of these passages the likes of which beggars belief! He doesn’t dismiss these strange and marvelous alternatives with any abruptness but just carefully and courteously shows that they are nonsense!
See this book at Amazon.co.uk See this book at Amazon.com
Related Reading ~ Bible Study: Head Covering & Uncovering
