Brazos Press
ISBN 978 1 58743 606 2
Price £14.99
190 pages
Amy Orr-Ewing has a high profile as a theologian, apologist and speaker. In this book she uses her experience of being a woman in these roles to send a series of letters to young Christian leader called Jo. The book is “aimed at women who want to grow to leadership wherever God has placed them”.
In 10 sections the letters cover everything from preaching, to handling chauvinism and abuse in Christian organisations, to what it means to be a woman in what is often a “man’s world”.
She writes in a moving way of the painful experience of miscarrying whilst delivering an apologetic talk to a crowd of thousands at a Christian event. Her take on what it is like to be in a large Christian organisation when the main leader goes through a moral car crash is instructive and sobering.
She writes helpfully on preaching, including an insightful letter on the contested teaching from 1 Timothy Chapter 2 about “women being silent in church”. Egalitarians will find encouragement from this letter, but I doubt whether her arguments will convince any complementarians!
The subtitle suggests that this book is full of wisdom, and it is. Jo was fortunate to be on the receiving end of these carefully crafted letters; readers should be grateful that this wisdom is now available to a wider audience.
John Woods is a writer and Bible teacher based in West Sussex. He is Director of Training at the School of Preachers in Riga, Latvia.
