John MacArthur, Jr. Different by Design: Discovering God’s Will for Today’s Man and Woman. Victor, 1996. See here to buy the book.
This book defends a complementarian view of gender against
evangelical feminism. Essentially, John MacArthur believes that married
women’s primary responsibility is in the home. Husbands are to be the
head of the household, but women still contribute their own unique
insight, plus husbands are to love their wives as Christ loves the
church, a tall order indeed. MacArthur also interprets the New
Testament’s position to be that only men can have senior leadership
positions in the church, but he also maintains that women can be
deaconesses.
Here are some thoughts and observations:
A. There are some tensions in MacArthur’s book. On the one hand,
MacArthur wants to argue that men and women are different by design. Men
should be leaders in the church because they are more naturally
qualified for that than women are, so churches run more smoothly when
they respect that order. On the other hand, MacArthur acknowledges that
there are women who may be better teachers than men. In those cases, he
argues, women should still submit to the male authorities in the church,
even if they feel that they are more qualified. Similarly, an employee
may be more knowledgeable and talented than his boss, but he still must
submit to his boss for there to be order in the company. MacArthur does
argue that women can find an outlet for their teaching ability, for they
are to teach their children spiritual matters in the home. Still, there
seems to be a tension in that MacArthur believes that men are naturally
more apt for certain responsibilities, yet he also acknowledges that
some women may find themselves to be more apt than men.
B. Another tension concerns marriage and divorce. On the one hand,
MacArthur has a “tough it out” approach. Men are to love their wives,
period, regardless of whether or how much the wives reciprocate. Divorce
is out of the question, with very few exceptions. That is called “dying
to self.” Christians can love, even when it’s difficult, through the
power of the Holy Spirit. On the other hand, MacArthur acknowledges that
marriage can be extremely difficult. He talks about why some people may
prefer a single life and acknowledges that as a legitimate desire. He
also refer to I Corinthians 7:15, which states that a Christian is not
bound to a marriage with an unbeliever if the unbeliever leaves, for God
calls Christians to live in peace. MacArthur interprets that to mean
that God wants Christians to have a peaceful life, rather than one of
continuous turmoil, and God recognizes that marriage with an unbeliever
can be tumultuous. But what if two believers are married and find their
marriage to be tumultuous? What about their peace? And should not the
believer married to an unbeliever tough things out and die to self, by
MacArthur’s standards?
C. Overall, MacArthur’s interpretation of New Testament passages
about gender makes sense, from an exegetical standpoint. What that means
is that he shows how individual words and verses make sense within the
larger argument of the passage. In his interpretation of I Corinthians
11, he interprets kephale in vv. 3-4 to mean “head”—-the man is the head
of the woman—-rather than “source,” as many evangelical feminists
interpret it. It is not enough, in my opinion, to show that kephale in
antiquity can mean “source.” If one wants to go with that
interpretation, one must also explain how “source” fits in with the
larger argument that Paul is making in I Corinthians 11. MacArthur
provides a coherent interpretation: Christian feminists in that day were
causing disorder in church services by transgressing what Paul
considered to be their position, so Paul was exhorting them to respect
the male headship that God had established. Similarly, MacArthur offers a
coherent interpretation of I Timothy 2:11-15: women are not to teach
officially in church because God created men first, and Eve was deceived
after she transgressed her husband’s authority. MacArthur provides a
coherent picture of how the pieces can fit together to form a whole. By
contrast, the feminist interpretations that he engages appear to be a
stretch, cutting against the grain of the passage. It is easy to forget
them in reading the biblical passages because they do not go with the
flow of what the passages are saying. I admit that there are many
evangelical feminist books that I have not read, but I am sharing my
impressions based on what I have read.
D. That said, there are things that MacArthur says in this book that
appear to be a stretch. MacArthur has to deal with biblical passages
that seem to indicate that women can have teaching authority among the
people of God: there are prophetesses in both the Old and the New
Testaments (Miriam, Huldah, Philip’s daughters in Acts 21:9), and Paul
in I Corinthians 11:5 accepts women prophesying, provided they do so
with their heads covered. MacArthur says that the prophetesses were not
prophesying in a church setting but outside of it, and he disputes that
Miriam and Huldah had a prophetic ministry: they just prophesied on
occasion, like Hannah and Mary. That seems to cut against the grain of
what the passages are saying. The topic of I Corinthians 11:1-16 appears
to concern what goes on in church services. And Huldah in II Kings
22:14 is a prophetess whom King Josiah specifically consulted for her
prophetic word, which contradicts her being someone who merely
prophesied every now and then. Of course, MacArthur goes the route that
he does because he believes that the Bible must be internally
consistent. He has to deal with passages like I Timothy 2:11-15 and I
Corinthians 14:34-35, which exhort women to be silent in the churches.
Many historical critics would say that these passages reflect
Deutero-Paul, who is more conservative on gender roles than Paul, but
MacArthur cannot go that route, as it contradicts his view on the nature
of Scripture. MacArthur does what he can with what he has.
E. MacArthur offers an interesting interpretation of I Timothy 2:15,
which states that women shall be saved through childbearing, if they
continue in faith, love, and holiness. MacArthur contends that Paul is
not saying that women receive salvation from sin through childbearing,
for people are justified by grace through faith alone. Women are saved,
however, from the stigma attached to the first woman being deceived, for
they have an opportunity to raise godly children. I am ambivalent about
this interpretation, for it seems to me that MacArthur is trying to
reconcile I Timothy 2:15 with his Protestant position on salvation. This
is not to suggest that Deutero-Paul thought women could earn their
salvation through bearing children, for the pastorals maintain that
Christ’s gracious work was necessary for salvation even to occur (see I
Timothy 1:9-11). But what if Deutero-Paul saw salvation as more of a
process: one receives forgiveness, but one still needs to persevere and
live out the Christian life to finally receive eternal life (see I
Timothy 6:12; 2:10-13)? Part of women’s sanctification, in this
scenario, is raising godly children.
F. MacArthur comments on the qualifications for elders and deacons in
the pastoral epistles. He says that these are not qualifications, so
much, for specific tasks. They can be that: you do not want a greedy
deacon embezzling funds, or a lustful bishop chasing women. But the
overall goal is that leaders in the church be solid spiritual examples.
Another consideration is the reputation of the church with outsiders. I
thought about what MacArthur was saying when I was reading about an
acquaintance. This acquaintance attends a conservative church, and he is
being considered for an eldership position. He has admitted to
struggles with same-sex attraction in the past, however, and there was a
season not long ago when he was out of work and publicly questioned the
existence of God. Some in the church do not want him to be an elder
because they believe he fails the qualifications, but others were
comparing him to the Psalmist, who himself questioned God when times
were rough. They were saying that this man, especially, would be able to
minister to people in church who struggle, unlike a person who has had
no spiritual struggles.
This book, like other MacArthur books, is informative. MacArthur
systematically goes through biblical passages, highlighting the nuances
of Greek words to illustrate what the texts mean. He also goes some into
historical background, such as feminist sentiments in ancient
Greco-Roman sources, and concepts of external beauty.