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.

the beginning and the end

My studies over the last few weeks and months have had me turning over the idea of “the beginning and the end” in a variety of ways. This is a familiar phrase from a few different Biblical passages, perhaps most famously the Book of Revelation, when Jesus claims this title for Himself:

“Behold, I am coming soon, and My reward is with Me, to give to each one according to what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.”

Revelation 22:12-13

Interestingly, the last couple chapters of Revelation act as a mirrored bookend with Genesis 1-2—the beginning and the end of the story. They match, and they tell us so much about what comes in between. Genesis begins a conversation about who God is and how He intended Creation to work; Revelation then offers the final say on who God is and how He intends the New Creation to work. The middle is … messy, full of questions and contradictions and moments of uncertainty, where we watch humanity fail to carry out God’s intentions again and again.

It has me thinking about how we view the Bible generally: As the beginning of the conversation, or the end?

Most of the time, I’ve noticed, we use it as the end. To doubters, we hand verses. To questioners, we respond with verses. To people who would ask us to see something in shades of gray rather than black-and-white, we give verses.

We effortlessly throw verses at anyone who disagrees with us, makes us uncomfortable, or asks us to think about a different possibility—and not because we want to open the floor for discussion or better understanding, but to silence debate, stay in our comfort zones, and have the last word. The Bible becomes a clumsy battering club in our denominational disputes and culture wars, leaving little space for it to act as the precise, soul-piercing blade of the Spirit it claims to be.

And the more time I spend with the Bible, the less convinced I am that we are “accurately handling the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15) when we use it in this way.

One of the things I love and hate about being a lifelong believer who grew up in church is that I “know” all the answers—the church answers, that is. This is helpful when it comes to constructing and corroborating doctrine, or avoiding blatant heresies, but it’s much less so when all those clean and pat church answers cloud my ability to recognize the complex and uncomfortable questions God is actually asking.

In other words—I’m well-trained in using the Bible as an end. But what about learning to let it be the beginning?

What happens when we let the Bible speak on its own terms, unfettered by our pre-determined bounds of doctrine? What happens when we let God tell us who He is, uncontained by our neat boxes of divine attributes? What would we learn about who He is, what He is doing, and how He wants us to reflect Him if we stopped trying to tell Him—and everyone else—who He is allowed to be and what He is allowed to ask of us?

Of course, I know there is a vitally important place for right doctrine. It matters that we relate to Yahweh rightly, and we know a lot about how to do that (and how not to do it) from the Scriptures. But an honest reading of the Bible won’t let us hold our “right answers” very tightly. It will challenge them and question them and throw them into turmoil at nearly every turn. It will demand of us to think and feel and undo and rebuild. It will constantly force our conversation-ending verse-wielding back into a place of humility and uncertainty, where there is room for an incomprehensible God and His creative work.

The Bible is an end: It has the authority to define God and tell us His story. It has the true answers we are looking for. But if that’s all it is—if the conversation has no beginning—then we will miss the messy riches of the middle, the parts where we have to wrestle with God and leave marked by the encounter to receive the blessing. We miss the questions it would ask of us. We miss the lifelong journey of discovery and delight it promises, because we were too mired down in making sure we “knew it all.”

I’m noticing that the more I learn, the less I know. As God increases in my perception, I decrease. Every new discovery or epiphany simply expands the universe of what I don’t understand. With every answer comes a thousand more questions.

This, I think, is as it should be.

the good news

Rider on the White Horse by Robert Wright

It’s dark. I can only see my fellow humans as dim, shadowy shapes in a sick reddish light. I hate them, and at the same time I cower among them, using them as a fleshly shield against the pain that never lets up. I’m so used to it now that I have almost grown numb: the moment-by-moment stings of my master’s cruel prod, which I can’t stop running into even though it hurts every time. It’s like a drug, destroying me even as it wraps me tighter in its grip, and I know there is no hope. This is my existence. This was yesterday, this is today, this will be tomorrow. Darkness. Pain. The haunting, but somehow also stupid, moans of the bodies around me as they, too, endlessly run back into the stinging prod.

Every once in a while, I’ll watch blankly as one of these human shapes strikes down another in a cold rage. Death is a near and familiar companion. Sometimes it almost seems like a friend. 

What’s that? Something breaks up the endless chaos of red and shadow. It’s white, even brilliant–it hurts my unaccustomed eyes, piercing straight through me like a knife-beam of light, a thing I have never seen. I blink, but it’s still there, getting closer and bigger and spilling radiant white light over this shadowy valley of death. The bodies around me crush in and scatter like rats, desperate to avoid revelation, desperate to hide from whatever it means to be seen. I instinctively cower back, too, even though I can feel the prod sink into my spine. It’s too bright. It’s too much. I can’t see. I cover my face with my hands and fall facedown on the ground, stumbling over the bodies of the dead, thinking that if only I can be dead, too, I will be spared this probing, blinding light–whatever it is.

Then there’s a voice.

It’s no voice I have ever heard. It doesn’t hiss or snarl, like my masters. It doesn’t moan, like my fellow humans. This voice thunders.

“Get up! You, follow Me!”

I am shaking uncontrollably, but this is a command that overpowers every instinct of self-preservation in my body. I instantly rise to my feet. Still shielding my face from the light, I look up, seeking the Source of this voice.

And in that moment the light shifts from blinding to brilliant. I can see. I can see Him. He is a King, a Conqueror, riding astride a white horse. He wields a sword, but the blade is clean; only his robes are dripping with blood–blood that seems to have come from a wound in His own side, from scars in His own hands.

There are words written into His robe. “KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.”

He rides forward until I can feel His horse’s breath on my neck. I am still shaking, but I can’t move–can’t so much as bow my head. It’s as if, by seeing Him, I can suddenly see myself clearly.

And I am dead. Dead in my trespasses and sins. I cannot escape this hell that I live in or this master of sin and death that I serve. The pain that I was numb to moments ago is now excruciating, and it’s only sheer terror that keeps me from writhing in agony in His presence.

As if separated from my own body, I am vaguely aware that He has leaned down and taken my hand in His, and somewhere in the recesses of my mind I become conscious of the bloody hole in the middle of His palm.

He speaks again at last, but this time, His voice is as gentle as a rippling brook. “Little girl, I say to you, get up.”

And there falls away from my eyes something like scales. My vision becomes clear for the first time in my existence. I can see the massive army behind the King, a cavalry all clothed in white. And I realize why He is here: to win this dead hellscape for His kingdom. I can either surrender or die.

And I have already been dead once. Whatever this King might do to me, I would rather be on His side than return to the reign of death.

“I surrender.”

Instead of binding my wrists and banishing me from His presence, wretch that I am, I hear Him give orders that I be clothed in white and given a mount. The whole army breaks into cheers of celebration, and I feel tears of what must be joy stream hot down my face as the embrace of what must be love wraps around my soul. I am alive, and I am at peace. I am His.

I fall into the ranks of the rest of the army. We are forward-bound behind our King, spilling the light into more dead and dark places, gathering up everyone who will surrender on our way and welcoming them into what must be a family.

My King has come, and He is taking back all Creation from the power of sin and death. My allegiance is to Him now—Him alone. Hallelujah.