DCSW Book Reviews

Not Your Typical Women's Book

Reviewer: Stephen P. Lewis

I was skeptical. Before reading Does Christianity Squash Women? I had little use for the Christian Living/Women genre. My basic opinion was that if a Women's Bible study group wanted to read a book, they should skip the books written by women about what the Bible says about women. Skip the books which give you inspirational thoughts on how to be like Ruth, Abigail and Priscilla, and how not to be like Jezebel, Bathsheba and Martha. Such authors miss what the Bible is about, assuming that it is an encyclopedia—they look up "women" in the index, read those parts, and think they have accomplished something.

Rebecca Jones' book is entirely different. It is such a breath of fresh air for the genre that it actually transforms the genre. I urge my fellow pastors to read this one; it will give you tons of exegetical insights into passages involving women. (The next edition needs a Scripture index to facilitate this.) It will cause you to think deeply about God's ultimate purposes for men as men and for women as women. If you read it, you are going to walk away with a growing redemptive-historical understanding of women. It will change the way you preach your next set of Christmas sermons.

Whether you are Protestant or Catholic, after reading this book you are going to look at Mary, the mother of Jesus, in entirely new ways. If you are a woman and you read this book, you will then go and read your Bible differently; you will begin to see your calling as a woman and how that calling fits into God's overall purpose. Best of all, you will emerge with a greater appreciation of Christ, born of a woman.

Not only is Jones a good theologian, she's a good writer. Her study guide questions don't ask you to merely regurgitate the material; they spur you on to higher order thinking skills, to discussion, personal assessment and debate.

Some specifically helpful ideas which Jones brings to the forefront:

  1. The first male-female relationship was a de facto marriage. Humanity was created heterosexual, monogamous, and married. What are the implications of all that?
  2. Jones is going to challenge your understanding of the Virgin Birth. It is more than a hard-to-believe miracle. It is about God providing the living seed for a spiritually dead humanity. If you've wondered about the genealogy of Jesus in Luke and Matthew's gospels and how they trace the line from Joseph to Jesus while insisting that Joseph is not the father, then you need to read ch. 7, "The Baby's Mothers." The theological point of the genealogies will begin to make sense to you.
  3. Many authors draw attention to how Jesus treated women with dignity and respect. Jones does a superb job of this, but she takes it a step further: Jesus loved women so much that he didn't patronize them; he challenged them when necessary.
  4. If Paul had wanted to tell the church that marriages were relationships of mutual submission, where husbands submit to wives and wives submit to husbands in an equal and opposite fashion, then he would have written Ephesians differently. Jones gives you a traditional reading of the passages on submission with a non-traditional, frank admission that submission is not always easy and pleasant, but rather calls for nothing less than the strength of Christ.

The major weakness of the book is that it does not adequately answer the objections and concerns of egalitarian evangelicals. My Christian feminist friends are not likely to be won over by this book because Jones fails to unpack how the church has often sinfully squashed women. Adding a chapter that recognized the traditional church's failings in this area, and pointing the church towards repentance, would win Jones a more sympathetic audience which would then be ready to drink in her rich Biblical exegetical work. There are also some minor flaws in the book -- she says that "a woman who refuses the tender help of her husband is hindering her husband's prayers," but 1 Peter 3:7 doesn't exactly say it that way. Little misstatements such as this are rare and do not even distract the reader from the wealth of encouragement that is in this very readable volume.

I don't know what you are going to do after reading this book. You might go out inspired to have a dozen children. You might be moved to start a ministry to prostitutes, treating them as real people. But most likely you will walk away seeing how all the little tasks and responsibilities of your life are of great value and importance to God. Your apparent insignificance only makes your value to God and your place in His divine drama all the more ironic and powerful.