Journal: Journal for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood
Volume: JBMW 20:2 (Fall 2015)
Article: A Review of Eric Metaxas. "Seven Women: And the Secret of Their Greatness." Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2015. 256 pp. $26.63.
Author: Kimberly Campbell

JBMW 20:2 (Fall 2015) p. 74

A Review of Eric Metaxas. Seven Women: And the Secret of Their Greatness. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2015. 256 pp. $26.63.

Kimberly Campbell

Wife, Mother, Blogger
Marietta, Georgia

As I scroll through Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram feeds I feel compelled to compare my life to the lives of those I follow. I wonder why my Pinterest pizza rolls just don’t look like the gourmet picture that I pinned just days earlier. I wonder how parents get their toddlers to sit perfectly still—and smile—for the best family photo of the year. And I think if we knew the whole story behind those feeds that we so closely monitor, we would be more content with our own lives and not be so covetous of the lives that we see on screen.

Biographies offer you insight into the featured person’s life—their birth, death, and everything in between. I love how biographies don’t just focus on the grand and glamourous, like we often do on Facebook, but also introduce you to the pain of life that the person endured.

As a follow-up to his book Seven Men, Eric Metaxas has given us a compelling collection of notable women in Seven Women. He engages us with the lives of seven very different women who were all categorized as those who changed their world and were faithful to Christ.

Fiercely Feminine

But, something else about these women engages us and first engaged Metaxas. And that is the unique task of living as women: women who love Christ and display a fierce femininity. The author shares the struggle he had in choosing which seven women to write about. He didn’t want to choose women because they “should somehow be compared to men” (xiv). He goes on to tell his readers why he chose the seven he featured in his book: “What made them great has nothing to do with their being measured against or competing; their accomplishments are not gender-neutral but are rooted in their singularity as women” (xv).

JBMW 20:2 (Fall 2015) p. 75

Although it wouldn’t be helpful for us to compare ourselves with these featured women, it does help us to examine their lives with the help of the author. By considering their faith we can examine our lives to see if there is any area of growth the Spirit would bring about in our character.

The Seven Women

Not all of the women mentioned in this book are ones familiar to most of us. I learned a great deal about some of these women, which is just one of the many reasons I found this book so intriguing and captivating. Here are the seven.

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