Book Review: Tell Her Story by Nijay Gupta

Gupta, Nijay K. (2023). Tell her story: How women led, taught, and ministered in the early church. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press. ISBN: 978-1-5140-0075-5

In Tell Her Story: How Women Led, Taught, and Ministered in the Early Church, author Nijay Gupta takes a closer look at the women who ministered throughout the Bible. After exposing the extent of Deborah’s leadership as prophetess and judge of Israel in chapter 1, he spent chapter 2 dismantling common misconceptions and clarifying Eve’s role in Genesis 1-3. He the touched on the important roles that women played throughout the New Testament and, in particular, in the life of Jesus in chapters 3 and 4, respectively.

In the second part of the book, Gupta zoomed in on the roles that women played in the early church, revealing that there is substantial evidence they were not excluded from any role. He then surveys the New Testament to highlight numerous women considered by the apostles to be key partners in ministry before focusing specifically on the ministries of Phoebe, Prisca, and Junia.

Finally, Gupta addressed the question of key biblical texts often thought to prohibit women from leadership in the church and the submission texts derived from the household code of the ancient church. He argued persuasively that the biblical texts generally leveraged by complementarians to keep women from ministry are, in fact, addressed to specific situations in specific churches, and he insisted that the biblical authors’ intent was not to affirm the normal household codes that had migrated into the church but to challenge them and nudge people toward transformation.

This book is a refreshing call for the modern church to rethink the marginal status to which women are often relegated. In complementarian churches around the world, women are not allowed to hold leadership positions as a matter of principle, but even in many egalitarian churches, they are held out of key positions. Gupta does a fine job of demonstrating that women have historically played crucial roles among the people of God.

Gupta’s discussions about Deborah, Phoebe, Prisca, and Junia were especially helpful. Many complementarians will argue that these women were God’s Plan B, and he was compelled to activate them because Plan A, that is to say men, somehow failed. Yet, Gupta leverages scriptural and contextual data to argue that these women were no one’s backup plan.

His conversation about the prohibition passages and submission texts is also insightful. He effectively ties the controversial 1 Timothy 2:11-15 to the presence of specific false teachings in the specific setting of Ephesus. Then, he shows how the household code prescribed in Scriptures for the early church in many ways reflects the typical codes of the day, but there remain key differences. The suggestion is that these passages were intending to nudge believers to reexamine from Christ’s perspective the status quo which they had blindly accepted prior to their salvation.

This book was a very pleasant surprise. I had not heard of it until a friend on social media mentioned her opportunity to review a pre-release copy. I was intrigued, and pre-ordered a digital copy as soon as I read the synopsis offered on Amazon. The book was released the next day, just in time for a road trip to see family. While on the road, I finished the audio book I had been reading – Richard J. Evans’ The Third Reich At War – and immediately started into this volume. By the time we returned home, I had read 90% of the book and could not wait to finish. Gupta’s way of intertwining the biblical account with historical and cultural contextual information presented a compelling and refreshing argument when compared to many of the off-hand accusations and dismissals which often stand for arguments in the complementarian-egalitarian debate.

I would warmly recommend this book to anyone interested in a robust discussion over women in ministry. Complementarians will find it challenging as Gupta’s arguments will at the very least compel them to clarify and refine their arguments. Egalitarians will find it refreshing as Gupta brings serious hermeneutical scholarship to bear on the matter.

I would also recommend this book to women who have ever wrestled with a call to lead or been led to feel that they are in any way God’s backup plan because some guy would not do the job. Gupta’s work will encourage and inspire as you encounter biblical women leaders, both familiar and unfamiliar, in a new light.