is He worthy?

My sister and I went to a Hebrew Bible conference last month, hosted by Multnomah University in Portland, Oregon. It was the first time in too many years that I got to be part of the kind of Biblical scholarship that I love—the deep treasure-mining with a community of people who care as much about it as I do—and I have a suspicion that I will look back one day and notice that it was a pivot point in my walk with God, though it’s too soon to tell.

I had just made public “What if you’re wrong?” two days before that event. It was a difficult article for me to write, and even more difficult to publish. Even though I love the question, it’s sometimes uncomfortable to share my answers when I know how different they may be from the conclusions of everyone else. (Yes, I am a chronic people-pleaser. Working on it.) It’s taken me years to even warm up to thinking about the possibility that complementarian theology is wrong, let alone to put that possibility in writing. I’m still not sure I’m brave enough to just state it straight out. I’ve been studying and reexamining and praying for so long, asking God to give me discernment so that I don’t just change my view because I like the alternative better; I’ve been asking Him to give me a clear calling or sense of direction if this is a battle I’m supposed to fight. In other words, I’ve spent much of the last ten years thinking and praying, but very little of them in action.

But then Saturday came, the day of the conference, and the second plenary talk of the day was given by Carmen Imes. It was titled, “Zipporah: Enigmatic Heroine of the Exodus.” And somehow, in 30 minutes devoted to one of the strangest passages in the Old Testament, Carmen brought the clarity I had been waiting for.

We think of Moses as the hero of Exodus. There are endless studies and sermons out there on who Moses was and how he led the people of Israel out of Egypt and the way he acts as a sort of model of the Messiah. And they’re warranted.

But the sermon I’ve never heard is the one about all the different women who saved, delivered, rescued Moses over the course of his life—from birth onward—without ever being formally commissioned to do so. Shiphrah, Puah, Jochebed, Miriam, Pharaoh’s daughter, and yes, even Zipporah: every single one of them acted boldly, intervened fearlessly, to do what they knew was right without being asked. Each of these women acted in defiance of Pharaoh, in defiance of evil. Without them, the revered hero of the Exodus would not have survived to obey his mission.

And I think this is a good example of where recent church history regarding gender roles falls tragically short: too many Christian women are waiting for a special calling or divine permission to do what needs to be done, because we have been taught for so long that the real danger is stepping on men’s toes. But we weren’t created to sit quietly until someone gives us the go-ahead to speak. We were created to be deliverers, rescuers, defenders, examples of fearless defiance against authorities that stand in opposition to our God. This is what it means to be an ezer kenegdo. This is what it means to be the “suitable helper” of the human race. It’s written right into God’s design for us in Genesis 2:18.

I have been unnecessarily waiting for a word from the Lord that He already gave. He’s already told me why I was created. He’s already made clear what obedience to that vision looks like. And it doesn’t look like waiting quietly for the men in power to give me permission to obey Him.

Shiphrah and Puah did not wait for Pharaoh’s edict to change to start saving baby Hebrew boys. Jochebed did not wait for Pharaoh’s edict to change to bear her second son and hide him from the Egyptians. Miriam did not wait for Pharaoh’s daughter to ask her for help before she spoke up on behalf of her brother; Pharaoh’s daughter did not even ask her father’s permission to rescue one of the death-sentenced Hebrew babies! And Zipporah didn’t wait for Moses to lead their family into the covenant of circumcision when she knew she could, and must, set their relationship right before Yahweh herself.

Women of Christ, we are not “extras” on a stage that spotlights male characters only. We are not the backup cast, to be called upon only if the A-team fails. We are the ezers—the ones specifically created to make good what was not good, to defend the defenseless, to rescue those who are discarded by the powerful, to lead our families and churches courageously into right relationship with Yahweh.

It is not good for man to be alone. Our voices are desperately needed in our marriages and our male-headed churches.

It’s going to be an uphill climb, and it’s likely to come at a cost. As a chronic people-pleaser, I quake just thinking about the implications of everything I’ve written here—and I don’t even have to fear being executed by Pharaoh! But the question I keep asking is, “Is He worthy?”

If I lose friends, is He worthy?

If I am shamed or rebuked by my church, is He worthy?

If people I care about no longer respect me or like me, is He worthy?

If I have to find an entirely new support system for obeying the call He carved into my bones, is He worthy?

He is.

choice

Freedom of choice.

These are words I hear a lot. In this country, we think of liberty as the freedom to choose just about anything: our vocation, our spouse, our gender, our politicians and leaders, our family makeup, the course of our lives. From innocuous choices like the food we choose to eat or the clothes we choose to wear all the way to something as heavy as the fate we choose for our unborn children, it often feels like the single highest value that all Americans still share—as divided as we are on the particulars—is freedom of personal choice. Whatever side you’re arguing of whatever issue, chances are, the core of your perspective is shaped primarily by a concern for the freedom of someone in the scenario to exercise their freewill.

And, of course, I believe that our prioritization of personal autonomy is a good thing that has made our nation great. But the more heavily “freedom of choice” colors every single headline and issue, the more convinced I am that a society which values choice above all is an empty one. In the words of the Preacher, “Vanity of vanities! All is vanity” (Ecclesiastes 1:2b).

Paradoxically, it’s the death of Queen Elizabeth II—not any particular event in my own nation—which has brought this to a head for me. David French wrote a poignant piece this week on how decidedly apolitical she was; in it, he quoted another tribute to Her Majesty written by Andrew Sullivan, which I will also quote here:

[Queen Elizabeth] was tasked as a twenty-something with a job that required her to say or do nothing that could be misconstrued, controversial, or even interestingly human—for the rest of her life.

Our American media, pop culture, and borderline-obsessiveness with all things monarchy (particularly the British crown) would have us believe that a king or queen is some kind of all-powerful but mostly-benevolent dictator, who enjoys all the best that wealth and fame can offer. We tell fairy tales about princes who can summon every woman in the kingdom and pick a wife from among them like he’s shopping at the grocery store. Consciously or not, we often paint our mental pictures of monarchs as a blend of all the most desirable colors: someone who is beloved, famous, rich, and both free and able to do whatever they want with it all.

But we know that’s not the story of Queen Elizabeth II.

In fact, it would appear that the longest-reigning royal of the United Kingdom had very little freedom of choice in her position at all.

She didn’t choose to be born into the House of Windsor; God made that decision for her. For that matter, she had no say in the fact that her father’s elder brother King Edward VIII had no children, which could have precluded her from ever acceding to the throne. She was not even given an opinion on when she would take up the highest role in the land, and I’m sure that if she had been, she would have chosen to spend more years with her father—not take his place at the young age of 26.

And once she did take up that role? It required her “to say or do nothing that could be misconstrued, controversial, or even interestingly human—for the rest of her life.”

In other words, she had to set aside her personal interests, opinions, passions, and freedoms in order to fulfill the high duty of being more symbol than soul. Sure, she had the resources and the platform we so idolize, but—if she were to care about her people more than herself—she had no freedom whatsoever with how she chose to use it.

We don’t remember her for her hot takes or her activism or her flaunting of power, but for her steadiness and service across seven decades of tumultuous history.

Of course, not every ruler—not even most rulers—have reflected the same kind of sacred self-denial. I just finished reading through the book of I Kings, and was struck by the following passages:

 Jeroboam said to himself, “The kingdom might now return to the house of David. If these people regularly go to offer sacrifices in the Lord’s temple in Jerusalem, the heart of these people will return to their lord, King Rehoboam of Judah. They will kill me and go back to the king of Judah.” So the king sought advice.

Then he made two golden calves, and he said to the people, “Going to Jerusalem is too difficult for you. Israel, here are your gods who brought you up from the land of Egypt.” He set up one in Bethel, and put the other in Dan. This led to sin; the people walked in procession before one of the calves all the way to Dan.

- I Kings 12:26-30

Even after this, Jeroboam did not repent of his evil way but again made priests for the high places from the ranks of the people. He ordained whoever so desired it, and they became priests of the high places. This was the sin that caused the house of Jeroboam to be cut off and obliterated from the face of the earth.

- I Kings 13:33-34

Earlier in I Kings, we learn that Jeroboam was not destined to be king over Israel by right of birth; he actually worked his way up in the ranks of King Solomon’s officials and then rebelled against the king (see 1 Kings 11). When God officially appointed Jeroboam as Solomon’s successor over the ten northern tribes, He gave the soon-to-be king a key choice:

I will appoint you, and you will reign as king over all you want, and you will be king over Israel. After that, if you obey all I command you, walk in my ways, and do what is right in my sight in order to keep my statutes and my commands as my servant David did, I will be with you. I will build you a lasting dynasty just as I built for David, and I will give you Israel.

- I Kings 11:37-38

From these three passages we can piece together the stakes of the decision God placed before Jeroboam.

• Option 1: Obey God as King, and Jeroboam and his kingdom would enjoy the blessings of God’s presence and a lasting dynasty.

• Option 2: Set up self as king, and Jeroboam and his dynasty would be obliterated from the face of the earth.

Clinging to power, afraid of losing his grip on the kingdom, Jeroboam commissioned carved images to represent Yahweh and directed his subjects to sacrifice in places other than the Temple where God’s presence dwelt. Wielding his position as ruler, he did away with God’s strict requirement for only Levites to serve Him, and gave anyone who desired it the right to become a priest. Jeroboam chose Option 2 and damned his family and his nation to bear the consequences of his sin.

Perhaps choice is not the highest good we have been led to believe it is. Perhaps true greatness is revealed when someone sets aside their rights in favor of doing what is right. After all, having the right to do wrong will never make doing wrong right.

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We are born.

We are born male or female.

We are born to a set of parents and, often, siblings.

We are born in a location on the globe.

In these things, we have no input. They are what they are. We can kick and scream until we collapse from exhaustion but they will never, ever change. We don’t get to choose.

Sometimes, we are born with sexual propensities we didn’t choose, and the choice now before us is whether we will bear the responsibility of living in opposition to them.

Sometimes, we conceive a child we didn’t choose, and the choice now before us is whether we will bear the responsibility to care well for that child anyway.

Sometimes, we even find ourselves in circumstances we did choose—a marriage, perhaps—but at a level of difficulty we didn’t sign up for, and the choice now before us is whether we will persevere when it would be within our rights to give up.

The freedom to choose is a wonderful thing, but the denial of that freedom in favor of righteousness is far better. We don’t reach our highest potential by continuously reaching for the next thing our eyes and hearts desire, but by disciplining our minds and bodies to prioritize what is good over what feels good.

For Queen Elizabeth II, a commitment to duty superseded her personal desires and ambitions and opinions; for King Jeroboam, an addiction to power superseded his opportunity to steward Israel with God’s blessing. One chose what was good, and one chose what merely felt good. Each is remembered accordingly.

Likewise, Eve plucked a beautiful fruit off a beautiful tree and with it, banished the entire human race from God’s presence (Genesis 3:6, 24). That was her choice, and God gave her the freewill to make it.

But the Son of God Himself relinquished all His rights and was obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross (Philippians 2:8)—and when He bowed His head and gave up His Spirit, He gave us all the right to become children of God (John 1:12).

We may hate the way God created us, or that He created us at all. We may despise Him for having the audacity to tell us what is good and what is evil. But until we give up our liberty to live in whatever sin we choose—until we let go of being our own rulers and submit to the rightful authority of our Author—we will not know true freedom, only the counterfeit version that kills people and families and nations.

what would Jesus do?

Do you remember a time before we all had a computer in our pockets?

I deactivated my Facebook profile last week, after using the platform to share photos, memories, and blog posts for almost ten years. The decision was both sudden and a long time coming: all at once, I reached my capacity to tolerate being told from every angle except that of a truly Bible-believing Christian how to be a good follower of Christ (isn’t it crazy how unbelievers always seem to know what Jesus would do best?), and I had been examining for weeks before that point the uncomfortably huge role I was allowing this false social life to play in my actual, real-life existence.

So far, yes, I’ve missed it at times. I wanted to post something in my local Buy Nothing group so I could pass it on to someone else without making the trip to Goodwill, and I couldn’t. I wanted to ask my September 2020 pregnancy due date group how they’re going to handle breastfeeding once their babies turn a year old in just a few weeks, and I couldn’t. I wanted to share with my friends and followers that I’m creating a new resource page and email list for next year’s Bible180 Challenge, and I couldn’t.

But I didn’t quite expect to miss feeling like, I don’t know, a real person. I didn’t expect that without Facebook, I would almost feel like I don’t exist. If I’m not getting notifications, am I even here? If my thoughts aren’t out there in the internet void picking up likes and comments, are they even real?

It speaks to how unbelievably different the world has become in the last couple of decades.

I do remember a time when I didn’t have a computer in my pocket—I even remember a time (very, very dimly) when I didn’t have a computer in my house. I remember the 16+ glorious years before I had a flip phone, before so much of my communication was reduced down to a couple of poorly-punctuated clauses on a pixelated screen, before my relationships were chiefly virtual, before my friends became a tally in an online book of faces.

I remember enthusiastic conversations about horses with other kids at church. I remember potlucks, writing long letters to penpals, and weekend slumber parties. I remember begging my mom and dad to let my cousin stay overnight, and when spending four days showing lambs at the fair was the highlight of my year. There was the column on birdwatching I started in the local newspaper when I was thirteen, 4-H meetings at the primary school where I first dipped my toe into public speaking, and J-Walkers outreach events organized by a fellow Goldendale teenager. I was in plays and musicals at church and in school, I carpooled with drama club friends down to the river in the summer, and even when we didn’t see eye to eye on much of anything political or social or religious, I don’t remember being mad about it.

There was certainly a smallness to my life experience at that time which played into the apparent simplicity and bliss, and some would call that a bad thing, but I’m not so sure it is. Scientific studies have been done to estimate that humans can only maintain a limited number of quality relationships, and far fewer truly intimate ones. It begs the question: were we ever designed or intended to care about as many issues as our pocket computers throw at us every day? To read as many headlines? To know the details about as many international crises? To respond to as many notifications? To have as many “friends”?

I don’t think so.

The keyboard warriors who think they know exactly what Jesus would do in our every social crisis often forget (or maybe don’t know) that Jesus had boundaries. He did not heal every illness or stop every calamity in the world while He was on earth—not even just in His hometown. People still got sick, suffered, died. He wasn’t best friends with every single person He met; He chose twelve, and even of those, He was closest to three. He didn’t hold back the reaches of Roman tyranny, nor did He purge the religious elite of their corruption, even though He could have done both.

Instead, He strictly obeyed and glorified the Father, and was Himself glorified in due time.

Would Jesus wear a mask or overthrow the government or vote for Joe Biden or condemn Black Lives Matter or stay in Afghanistan or ban Donald Trump from Twitter? I don’t know, and I think it’s the wrong question to ask. If we think Jesus took on humanity chiefly to model human perfection for us, we’ve missed the point: Perfection is out of our reach, but God isn’t, because He reached out to us even in our fallenness. He chose to come and dwell among us because it was the only way we’d ever be able to dwell with Him in His kingdom. God sent His Son to earth to be crowned the King over all Creation—His crown a wreath of thorns, His throne a crossbeam on a tree—and to thereby permanently defeat Creation’s enemies, sin and death.

Thankfully, Jesus stayed laser-focused on that mission, even when He was being pulled in a thousand different directions by the crowds. Did He also love people? Yes, always. Did He feed them, care for them, heal their sick and raise their dead? Yes, sometimes. But He didn’t get sidetracked from the eternal goal by the momentary need, nor did He let the court of public opinion sway His course. By the time His ministry was complete and He hung poised to drink the cup of wrath God had poured for Him, no one understood what He was doing except the Triune God.

So it’s rather brazen to think that we know what He would do if He were living on earth in this moment in history, especially considering that His purpose and mission in the world were utterly unique. Yes, we are all called to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind” and “love your neighbor as yourself,” but we are not called to save the world, which is the burden that our frantic headline-screaming, notification-pinging pocket computers would love to make us carry.

My hope is that by letting go of Facebook, I’ll eventually notice that some of the weight has been lifted, and that I actually feel more like a real person again, even if that means feeling finite.