February 2007

ARTICLE TOOLS

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The Women's Evangelical Commentary: New Testament offers a conservative and complementarian perspective on Scripture by women, for women. For example, in Ephesians 5:22, where Paul exhorts wives to submit to their husbands, the commentators stress that submission is always in the context of love for the Lord: "When a Christian woman marries, she should understand that while she is her husband's equal in personhood and in her spiritual accountability to God, she is called to submit herself willingly to her husband's leadership," the editors counsel. "Their love must be first for the Lord and then for their husbands."

This volume uses the big-selling Holman Christian Standard Bible translation, sponsored by the Southern Baptist Convention. The editors acknowledge that "far more Bibles and spiritual resources are purchased by women," and this commentary provides background information, settings, literary genres, authors, dates, recipients, and major themes of every New Testament book.

The commentary's complementarian credentials are clear. It is edited by Dorothy Kelley Patterson, wife of Paige Patterson, president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and Rhonda Harrington Kelley, wife of Chuck Kelley, president of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. But whatever your position on sex roles in family and in church, this is a worthy effort by true Proverbs 31 women, faithful and wise.

Women's Evangelical Commentary: New Testament is available from ChristianBook.com and other retailers.