Book Review: Freedom and Boundaries

I don’t often recommend books… I’m not sure why that is. Maybe it’s because I’m afraid if I suggest a book that someone then doesn’t like, they’ll judge my literary taste. Maybe it’s because I haven’t come across very many books that I think need to be read. Regardless, I’m recommending a book. On the internet. This might be a big deal.

I recently read Kevin DeYoung’s Freedom and Boundaries, and it has been easily been one of the most helpful books (aside from the Bible, obviously) that I have read during my Christian life. It is a short, simply written (and understood) distillation of the issues surrounding women in the church—primarily whether women should be in leadership roles in the church. DeYoung holds a firm complementarian stance, but defends it gently and graciously. He takes the reader through six Bible passages (or groupings of similar passages) and explains what they say regarding the topic, and then navigates some common objections to complementarianism.

DeYoung explains in the beginning of the book that he set out with intentions to write a book “that explained the Bible’s teaching about men and women in the church in a way that the interested layperson could understand and in a size that she could read in a few hours” (xiii). He succeeded. He takes complicated passages to exegete, and explains them in a way that is simple to understand and yet not demeaning. One could tell that the book had been researched and toiled over at a scholarly level, but written in a way that anyone could pick it up.

Perhaps my favorite part of the book was the section on 1 Timothy 3:1-13. This is a tricky section, and it had caught my eye a few months prior to picking up the book. I was taking a class on the Pastoral Epistles, and in my study I came across a word which was causing me some trouble in my study.   The greek word for “wife” and “woman” is the same, and translation depends on the context.  In 1 Timothy 3:11, we come across this word, gynaikas. Depending on translation, the sentence will read either as introducing women deacons, or explaining the character of the wives of deacons. This is a significant difference. The class I was in never discussed it, and the commentaries I had glossed right over it. Nobody seemed to notice the issue! So the section focusing on this issue in the book was an answer to prayer. It was not overlooked.

This is a thorough, easy-to-read book on the role of women in the church. With practical help at the end of the book, as in “what should women do in the church?”, it left no rock unturned in my mind. I would recommend it to anyone who is a woman in the church, leaders in the church, or anyone who is still unclear on their beliefs regarding women in the church.

*In the interest of full disclosure, I receive a small portion of anything purchased by a link in this post.