The Bible and Gender

Originally, this project was entitled "A Paper on the Woman's Role." As the project evolved, it became evident that the product from this project was not going to be one paper, but several papers (nine in total). Also, it became evident to the members of the task force that the discussion was not about the woman's role in marriage and the church, but it was a discussion of women and men in the image of God, marriage, ministry, culture, and biblical interpretation. The task force was a global team of twelve teachers who volunteered their time for this project. The task force was diverse in gender and ethnicity. The task force sought to provide scholarly, exegetical articles that target an audience who desire the "meat" of the Word. Therefore, the papers were based on the Hebrew or Greek text of the passage being considered, as reflected in the papers. It was not the goal of the task force to comment on how the concepts discussed in the papers were to be implemented on a practical level in local ministries. Neither was it the goal of the task force to provide guidelines for local ministries concerning this topic. The goal was to provide research papers that could be used to facilitate discussions within local ministries concerning the Bible and gender. All but one of the articles include reflections that can be used to help facilitate discussions within churches.