Book of the Month: Why Not Women

Why Not Women by Loren Cunningham and David Hamilton

For a while now I have been searching out the Biblical direction for women in leadership.  Many churches have totally a open stance on leadership for women all the way up to allowing females to be senior pastor of entire congregations.  Many other denominations hold the view that women are not to be in leadership in any way whatsoever.  Neither of these positions have seemed correct to me.  As they are polar extremes, this is not surprising since the correct place is usually somewhere in the middle of extremes in nearly all scenarios.  I know I have leadership ability myself so this heightened my desire to search out the true Biblical teaching on this subject.

In my research, I found--as has been the case on many topics--that the extreme conservative position has been Scripturally documented using sound exegesis, but the looser interpretation has no resources which document the position with Biblical references.  However, when commenting on this fact, a friend recommended the book Why Not Women, saying that it did document its position Scripturally, even lending me a copy of the book.

I had only read a few pages when I found myself in the familiar situation of half arguments and stretched interpretations,  I wanted to take notes and make comments, but it was not my book to write in--and actually had already been highlighted and marked.  I wanted to be able to make my own comments without being influenced by anything else.  So I searched Amazon to see how inexpensively I could get my own copy.  I was able to get one very quickly in digital format.

Surprisingly, while doing this, I stumbled upon another book which caught my interest immediately.  It was an entire whole book that was actually a rebuttal of Why Not Women.  I bought it too.  (A Response to Why Not Women by Gary Hal Graff)  Again, as has been the pattern repeatedly in my various Biblical studies, the rebuttal had far more sound arguments using solid exegesis than the source backing the looser position,

I am actually nowhere near finishing reading through either of these two books, but I can see already the conclusion I am being led toward.  I will be very disappointed if the Biblical position restricts leadership by women too much and I will have to keep searching further to discover just what God would have me to do with my gifts and talents in this area.