No Little Women
Equipping All Women in the Household of God
-
-
5.0 • 2 Ratings
-
-
- $8.99
-
- $8.99
Publisher Description
Why are so many well-intentioned women falling for poor . . . or even false . . . theology? Part of the reason is that, in church ministry, women are often left to fend for themselves.
Writing to concerned women and church officers, Aimee Byrd pinpoints the problem, especially the commodification of women’s ministry. She answers the hot-button issues—How can women grow in discernment? How should pastors preach to women? What are men’s and women’s roles within the church?—and points us in the direction of a multifaceted solution.
After all, cultivating resolved, competent women will equip them to fulfill their calling as Christ’s disciples and men’s essential allies. If we want to strengthen the church, we must strengthen the women in it!
“Aimee Byrd is asking the right questions. . . . [She] steers the discussion about women and the church back to its rightful place by uniting a high view of Scripture and a high view of women.”
—Karen Swallow Prior, professor of English, Liberty University, Lynchburg, Virginia
“Women are our most committed resource for doing the work of the kingdom, and they deserve our best thinking and support. . . . Aimee Byrd writes with wit and wisdom, biblical clarity and theological maturity.”
—Liam Goligher, senior minister, Tenth Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia
“Aimee Byrd fearlessly takes on a range of problems that are not often addressed. . . . May all those who need to hear her message give it heed.”
—Kathy Keller, author, Jesus, Justice, and Gender Roles
Aimee Byrd is a Bible study teacher and author of Housewife Theologian and Theological Fitness. She also speaks at women’s retreats, blogs about theology and the Christian life, and cohosts The Mortification of Spin podcast. She is married with three children, lives in Maryland, and is a member of New Hope Orthodox Presbyterian church.
Customer Reviews
Worth reading
I started this book on Friday and just finished it on Sunday. Actually, I bought a physical copy on Amazon a few months ago because it sounded interesting, but ended up giving it away because, coming from your basic casual nondenominational church, I was thrown off by talk of “church officers and laypeople” “covenant community” and “Word and sacrament” and wrongly concluded that this book wasn’t for me. Fortunately I’ve since started listening to the Fighting for the Faith podcast by Lutheran pastor Chris Rosebrough, and once I got over my ill-informed prejudice against more traditional churches, I wanted to give this book another shot. Obviously it was worth it.
To quote the 2019 version of Little Women, (which was actually borrowing from another of Alcott’s books called Rose in Bloom), “Women, they have minds, and they have souls, as well as just hearts. And they’ve got ambition, and they’ve got talent, as well as beauty, and I’m so sick of people saying that love is just all a woman is fit for. I’m so sick of it!”
Yes, as women we are emotional and relational and tend to like pretty things, but in Christ, we are so much more than that, and more than just someone’s daughter or wife or mother, and our place in the church is more than just the women’s ministry and the children’s ministry, and if we really want to grow spiritually, we need more than the pretty, fluffy, theologically shallow and downright heretical junk that’s currently being marketed to us.
This book is a call to discernment, an exhortation not to be the “silly women” of 2 Timothy 3:6, letting false teachers lead us astray from the truth, but to study and hold to the Word of God and sound theology so that we can truly function as helpers or “necessary allies” to men, not only in our own households but ultimately in God’s household, which is the church. Yet too often, poor teaching in women’s groups, Bible studies, conferences, devotionals, etc. is overlooked or dismissed as no big deal, both by the women involved and by pastors and elders who, by their refusal to hold these materials to the same standards as materials being directed at men in the church, send the message that they don’t really respect women as being intellectually equal with men or their contributions to the church and the work of God as being all that important.
This book includes many examples, both positive and negative, of women in the Bible and how they served as necessary allies in the work of God or as antagonists and adversaries. There are also examples of shallow and false teachings from popular Christian women today. Some people may take issue with this and accuse the author of nitpicking, but the fact is that when someone claims to be teaching God’s Word, they must be held to a higher standard as far as their theology is concerned. Does it line up with the truth revealed in the Bible, or are they taking Scripture out of context to make their point? They especially need to be clear in how they present who God is and what the gospel is, because these are the first-order doctrines that will determine whether someone is truly saved or not, and we can’t just assume that everyone picking up the book or joining the discussion already has a solid understanding of these basics of the faith.
This book was encouraging in its perspective on women’s roles in the church and the true meaning of biblical womanhood as more than just being nice and nurturing and domestic, while acknowledging the differences between men and women and respecting God’s design for the church.
I could say a lot more, but in conclusion, I would recommend reading other reviews as well as the preview of the book. Personally, I’ve already ordered copies for a couple friends and maybe my pastor’s wife.