How Inherited Grids Shape Our Reading
One of the subtle but pervasive influences on evangelical theology is the way inherited theological frameworks can become more determinative than the biblical text itself. This is not a matter of bad intentions—many of these frameworks arose as attempts to summarize Scripture faithfully. Yet once a structure is fixed in place, it can act as an interpretive filter, quietly shaping what we see and what we overlook.
A case in point is the Reformed covenant of works / covenant of grace schema. While often presented as the Bible’s own storyline, these two covenants are not explicitly named or defined in Scripture. They are theological constructs, developed post-biblically, which then become the default lens for reading Genesis, Romans, or Galatians. The danger here is methodological: exegesis becomes a search for proof texts to fit the grid, rather than a narrative encounter with the living God who speaks through the whole canon.
This propositionalism—the drive to secure doctrine through isolated verses—tends to fragment the text and disconnect it from its own covenantal flow. It also flattens the complex interplay of creation, fall, promise, exile, and restoration into a binary contrast: works versus grace. The richness of God’s redemptive trajectory, with its layers of calling, testing, and covenant fidelity, is reduced to a theological equation.
The same dynamic appears in ecclesial debates, including the question of women in ministry. When patriarchal frameworks are assumed at the outset, select passages (e.g., 1 Timothy 2:12–14) are elevated as universal and timeless, while counterexamples (Phoebe, Junia, Priscilla, the daughters of Philip) are either reinterpreted or minimized. The framework dictates the outcome before the exegetical work begins.
Covenantal Realism resists this reduction by insisting that the biblical narrative itself—not post-biblical categories—must set the terms of the discussion. The covenants of Scripture are not abstract contracts but lived relationships within God’s unfolding mission. They form a trajectory that moves from the creation mandate through the patriarchal promises, Sinai’s vocation, the prophetic call to justice, and the Messianic renewal of the Spirit-filled witnessing Edah. Within this trajectory, leadership is shaped by faithfulness to the covenant and the mission of God—not by fixed hierarchies tied to gender or primogeniture.
In this light, the real interpretive question is not, Does Scripture affirm male leadership?—it clearly does in many places—but rather, Does the gospel freeze that pattern, or does it free us into new arrangements where mission shapes structure?
When the framework no longer speaks louder than the text, we can hear the Spirit’s summons to align our leadership patterns with the New Creation in Messiah, where authority is redefined by service, and the image-bearing vocation is restored to both male and female. This is precisely where complementarian apologists like Wayne Grudem and John Piper fail to listen. In Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, their defense of male headship is presented not as one possible reading shaped by context, but as an unalterable creation-order mandate.
The framework—patriarchal hierarchy—becomes the fixed lens, and the text is marshaled to fit it. While they occasionally speak of servant leadership, they refuse to let the New Creation vision of Galatians 3:28 or the Spirit’s distribution of gifts in Acts 2:17 challenge their structure. In doing so, they reverse the biblical priority: instead of letting the gospel reshape leadership in light of Messiah’s servant authority, they guard a framework inherited from a particular reading of Genesis 1–3 and enforce it as universal. Their method is not one of yielding to the Spirit’s re-ordering work, but of preserving a pre-determined system, ensuring that the framework speaks louder than the text and certainly not Jewish midrashim (interpretations) that subtly affirm the gospel beyond the Covenant of Works and Grace and much more fully than simply male-headship.
