Book Review: 50 Crucial Questions

Well, I said a month and a half ago that my first book review was (hopefully) coming in the next week. I could talk about final exams and starting a new job, but. . . excuses, excuses. Here is (finally) an actual review, the first of what I hope to be many--several of which are currently in my drafts folder. Admittedly, the reason that I'm finishing this review before several others which I had already begun is that this book is, in comparison, easier to rev--wait a minute. I already wrote a piece on writing book reviews; I'd better just start reviewing.

What does it mean for a man to have headship? Why are women permitted to prophesy if they are not permitted to be pastors or elders? How can we as Christians come to clear and Biblical convictions on matters that many evangelical scholars disagree on? 50 Questions addresses these and other questions on the topic of Biblical manhood and womanhood, including foundational questions such as "Why do you regard the issue of male and female roles as important?" and "What do you mean when you call the husband 'head'?" (Questions 1 and 6) as well as matters ranging from whether women can prophesy in church to the connection between evangelical feminism and liberal views of homosexuality (Questions 23 and 41).

The best description of the book is its full title: 50 Crucial Questions: An Overview of Central Concerns About Manhood And Womanhood. At just over sixty pages, 50 Questions is a short, informative read. Written by John Piper and Wayne Grudem, editors of the much larger work Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: A Response to Evangelical Feminism, it provides concise yet insightful responses to fifty common questions regarding the complementarian view of manhood and womanhood. Piper and Grudem ably defend the Biblical model for humble male headship and church leadership, providing numerous Scriptural citations in every response to every question.

One answer that I found to be particularly helpful was that which addressed selective literalism. In answering the question "Aren't you guilty of selective literalism when you say some commands in a text are permanently valid and others, like 'Don't wear braided hair' or 'Do wear a head covering,' are culturally conditioned and not absolute?" Piper and Grudem give three keys for discerning whether or not a Biblical command is "culturally conditioned." As they explained,

"(1) we seek for clues in the context that this is so; (2) we compare other Scriptures relating to the same subject to see if we are dealing with limited application or with an abiding requirement; and (3) we try to show that the cultural specificity of the command is not rooted in the nature of God, the gospel, or the created order."

This excerpt also represents another valuable aspect of 50 Questions. Rather than trying to give lists of certain things that are permissible and others that aren't, they explain how they seek to exercise Biblical discernment in addressing the issue, and equip readers to do so as well. Overall, I enjoyed reading 50 Questions, and have found that I now have an increased interest in digging deeper into the issue of complementarity by reading Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood.

(The book is also available in a web-based format here.)

Rating: Recommended

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Until I Write Again

That title makes it sound like I'm taking a hiatus, doesn't it? Well, I'm not. At least, not intentionally. Writing thoughtful posts takes time--something that is increasingly hard to come by. Thus, with several book reviews and numerous other posts in my drafts folder, and my most recent real post several weeks old, I sit down to do what I generally (once before?) do when I haven't finished a real post in a long time: write a few scattered thoughts.

I got a cell phone last month. I put it off as long as I could, but I finally caved. Part (most) of the reason was that I got a job. I now qualify under one of the Eight Marks of a 21st-Century American College Student. For those curious to learn the complete list, the other seven are the humerously pervasive (iPod, coffee addiction, Facebook) and the sadly pervasive (swearing, alcohol, etc). For those further wondering, I did make the list up.

Did I mention that my commute is about 50 minutes? I'm on track to drive as many miles this summer as I did over the first 20 months since I bought the car. The large upside to this is that I can listen to a lot of good messages over the summer. It takes almost a week to listen to one when I commute to school during the semester.

My half day of summer vacation passed quickly. I finished finals around noon on Friday the 11th, and started my co-op job on Monday the 14th. Yeah, I'll have a few other days off, but those are for specific reasons (holidays or trips). There's no reason to feel sorry for me, though. I'm grateful to have obtained a job, and should gain some valuable experience. So what did I do with my half day? Changed the oil in my car, went to the park with my brother and sisters, and went to get frozen yogurt together afterwards. Then, of course, there was New Attitude, but that deserves its own post. (Hopefully I'll finish it before the summer is out.)

Lastly, on a humorous note, some people visit my blog through strange ways (i.e. Google searches). Among the hits that I've received over the last few months were those that resulted from the following searches:
--"Mike Bullmore"
--"Bob Kauflin"
--"benefits of reading and meditation on scripture"
--"render to caesar what is caesar's, and to god what is god's"
--"rushing waters define"
--"burnished bronze defined" [bet you wouldn't have guessed that my blog is Google's result #2]
--"what exactly does the first quest of jesus talk a" [huh?]
--"dord" [big surprise]
--"i am dord" [o... kay]
--"dord defined" [now that one's pretty specific...]

June's Quote to Ponder

"The root of our sinfulness is the desire for our own happiness apart from God and apart from the happiness of others in God."
--John Piper, What Jesus Demands from the World