An Honest Conversation About Biblical Femininity with Mary Mohler
Mary Mohler currently serves in ministry as the President’s Wife at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, and is the founder and director of The Seminary Wives Institute.
Mary is the author of Growing in Gratitude: Rediscovering the Joy of a Thankful Heart, and has been published at The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, The Gospel Coalition, Desiring God, and more. Mary and her husband Dr. R. Albert Mohler Jr. will soon celebrate their 39th Wedding Anniversary, and together they have two children. She is also a very proud grandmother.
Show Notes
Why is femininity important or compelling to you?
In your own words, how might you define, “femininity?” Is it accurate to say that “femininity” is the expression of our embodied femaleness?
Do you believe there are specific ways women ought to behave in order to accurately express our femaleness to the world?
Can someone be “feminine” if they do not like makeup or other girly things?
How might you respond to someone who is under the assumption that a truly “feminine” female is a married female or a mother?
For many women it is uncomfortable or even irritating to surrender to the idea that someone else has a right to define us. Why is it a good thing that our designer has created us in a particular way for a particular purpose?
In her book, Let Me Be A Woman, Elisabeth Elliot writes, “Yours is the body of a woman. What does it signify? Is there invisible meaning in the visible signs – the softness, the smoothness, the lighter bone and muscle structure, the breasts, the womb? Are they utterly unrelated to what you yourself are? Isn’t your identity intimately bound up with these material forms?” Is our identity as a female intimately connected to our embodied state as female?
What are some practical ways that the female body points to God’s unique design for the female? Or what are some (in Elisabeth’s words) “visible signs” that remind us that the female body is not the male body.
The development of Feminism since the late 60’s or early 70’s has really changed the way women view their bodies. The female body is viewed as an impediment to a woman’s happiness or it prevents her from being just like men (Ex. Reproductive system and ability to bear children). How would you respond to a woman who views her female body as a disadvantage?
Is femininity a social construct? In other words, should our understanding or definition of femininity rest upon whatever is acceptable or agreed upon in society?
Where in Scripture would you begin a study of gender and femininity?
As you consider the development of Feminism, how has this movement and belief system changed our understanding of femininity in your opinion?
Why is it important that we challenge the general acceptance of feminist ideals concerning what it means to be a female and to recover a biblical understanding of femininity?
In your opinion, is the term “ biblical femininity” beyond recovery?
How would you respond to someone who might counter that biblical femininity is just “too old fashioned” or “out-dated” and no longer worth pursuing?
Why is it important that women seek to live within the limitations of our femininity?
Why is it dangerous for women to seek to prove that we can do “all that men can do?”
What are practical ways women can seek to encourage the men in our lives to embrace their own masculinity?
Notable Quotations
“I’m trying to never get over the wonder of my salvation, and to just live out my life using the very ordinary gifts that God has given me to do extraordinary things that amaze me and He gets the glory for it.”
“With each passing day, we as believers are learning how important it is to learn how to articulate and stand firm on these issues.”
“You have to allow the Lord to speak to you through these passages that He has so amazingly preserved for us. A milenia later, we can read these words and they still mean what they meant then. We have to take those personally to heart to see how it is that you and I are to live out the role and assignment that we have been given as image bearers that are female.”
“At a very basic level, femininity just means pertaining to women. Beyond that, we are image bearers who gladly thrive as women, who have been created by God to fulfill what he has called us to do and to do that while being a woman. ”
“I am just grateful that the Lord has given me this assignment!”
“Be glad that this is your assignment. It is a great one!”
“It is just clearly false to say that femininity is diminished or somehow not as valuable if you are not a wife or a mother. You can pour into lots of children all around us that need that sweet feminine influence in their lives. This is a misconception we need to squash.”
“He is God and we are not.”
“God knit us together and he delights in us.”
“Our books are starting to sound the same because we don’t have any nuances here. We are simply drawing people back to what the Bible says.”
“What was once condemned is now celebrated, what was celebrated is now condemned, and those who refuse to celebrate are condemned” (Quote original to Theo Hobson)
“Take comfort, the Lord is still on His throne and all hope is not lost.”
“Our great great great great grandmothers would have thought that this was old fashioned because they were reading texts that were hundreds of years old as well. It’s not new to think that it is old fashioned, we are dealing with an ancient text here that is forever true.”
“Try to put out of your head this whole notion that it’s old fashioned, because once you start doing that, then what else in the Bible is old fashioned that we need to update? This is a slippery slope.”
“We were bought with a price, let’s back thus up to not being a masculinity and femininity issue. Let’s go back to the gospel – we were lost, completely unable to save ourselves, but God, who is rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us… (Ephesians 2).”
“We want to just live our lives as redeemed sinners who are still sinning on this earth, but who are trying to draw as many people as we can to Christ. I just don’t have time to waste fighting that I am not a man or how that limits me. There is just too much work to do.”
“There is more for us to be doing. When we get to heaven, we are going to see how the Lord is weaving all things together. Simple things that the Lord is going to string together in His perfect plan to draw people to Himself.”
“If a man offers to help you, please thank him! Affirm it when you see a man seek to help you.”
“As moms, you are teaching your children so much through your actions every day.”
“We really risk messing this up if we can articulate our biblical femininity either in a classroom, on a podcast, or to a Sunday school class, but then people see how we act, both people in the church, strangers on the street, and our own children who are right in front of us forming all kinds of opinions.”
Recommended Resources
God’s Good Design Claire Smith
Mary Kassian (Author)
Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth (Author)
Lit! by Tony Reinke
Susie by Ray Rhodes Jr.
Horner’s Bible Reading Plan
Pray Through the Psalms
The Development of Feminism with Mary Kassian
Scripture References
1 Peter 3:4
Psalm 139
Genesis 1:27
Matthew 16:18
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