A Biblical Theology of Motherhood

The editor of the Journal of Discipleship and Family Ministry, Timothy Paul Jones, has generously granted me permission to post my essay from the most recent issue (table of contents).

Here’s a taste of “A Biblical Theology of Motherhood“:

What is a biblical theology of motherhood? A biblical theology of anything seeks to describe both the storyline and the network of assumptions and presuppositions and beliefs assumed by the biblical authors as they wrote. The only access we have to what the biblical authors thought or assumed is what they wrote. When we pursue biblical theology, what we are trying to get at is the worldview reflected in the assumptions of the biblical authors, the worldview from which their statements spring, the worldview in which their statements make sense. If we are trying to establish a biblical theology of motherhood, we want to see how motherhood fits in the plot of the Bible’s big story, how it interacts with other aspects of the story, and how these things shed light on the direct statements about motherhood in the songs of the Psalmists, the Proverbs of the sages, and the instructions of the apostles. Story and statements inform one another, each expositing, affirming, and explaining the other. This study will begin with motherhood in the Bible’s story before considering the Bible’s statements about motherhood.

You can read the whole thing here.

The essay has the following subtitles:

A Biblical Theology of Motherhood
Not Good for Man To Be Alone
Motherhood in the Bible’s Story
The Bible’s Statements About Motherhood
Conclusion

Bibliographic info: James M. Hamilton Jr., “A Biblical Theology of Motherhood,”Journal of Discipleship and Family Ministry 2.2 (2012): 6–13.

On a related note, see the review of Created To Be His Help Meet by Tim Challies.

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