Paul, Women, and Wives : Marriage and Women's Ministry in the Letters of Paul

Paul's letters stand at the center of the dispute over women, the church, and the home, with each side championing passages from the Apostle. Now, in a challenging new attempt to wrestle with these thorny texts, Craig Keener delves as deeply into the world of Paul and the apostles as anyone thus far. Acknowledging that we must take the biblical text seriously, and recognizing that Paul's letters arose in a specific time and place for a specific purpose, Keener mines the historical, lexical, cultural, and exegetical details behind Paul's words about women in the home and ministry to give us one of the most insightful expositions of the key Pauline passages in years Craig S. Keener (Ph.D., Duke University) is F. M. and Ada Thompson Professor of Biblical Studies at Asbury Theological Seminary. He is author of 30 books, 5 of which have won awards in Christianity Today. More than a million copies of his books are in circulation; the most popular is The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, which provides cultural background on each passage of the New Testament. Craig is also the New Testament editor for the NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, which won the International Book Award for Christianity and Bible of the year in the Christian Book Awards. Craig is editor of the Bulletin for Biblical Research and is past president of the Evangelical Theological Society. Craig's wife, Dr. Médine Moussounga Keener, was a refugee in her home country of Congo; their story appears in Impossible Love: The True Story of an African Civil War, Miracles, and Hope against All Odds (Chosen, 2016). His blog site is www.craigkeener.com. Content: Part 1 : The roles of women in the church. Head coverings in 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 -- Questions about questions : 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 -- Learning in silence : 1 Timothy 2:9-15 -- -- Part 2 : Women's roles in the family. Why Paul told wives to submit : the social situation of Ephesians 5:18-33 -- Mutual submission in Ephesians 5:18-33 -- A model for interpreting wives' submission : slaves in Ephesians 6:5-9 -- Closing words -- -- Appendix A : Women's ministry elsewhere in Paul -- Appendix B : Mysteries, music, women, and wine : Ephesians 5:18-21 and the threat of subversive religions.