One time Jesus healed a man on the Sabbath. He asked the man to stretch his withered hand out and Jesus restored it, one-hundred percent, in front of a crowd of people. Instead of glorifying God, a bunch of disgusted Pharisees (who I’ll call the know-betters) called Jesus a prig for violating the keeping of the Sabbath.
“What’s more important?” Jesus asked, “to heal or to destroy?” The Bible says He looked at the Pharisees with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart. Then, bam, he healed the guy. In an instant his hand was restored.
This enraged the know-betters. Who did Jesus think he was?
There are so many know-betters today. You might recognize them. They like to tag on all sorts of scholarly and unnecessary labels, many of which confound the every-person. Calvinist, post-millennialist, dispensationalist, southern Baptist, reformed–words I have yet to find anywhere in my Bible.
When Jesus walked this earth he garnered followers. He also gained a following of haters who wanted to trap him every chance they got. Funny, the haters were too blind to see Jesus had come for them, to save them–He was on their team!
They were folks who loved labels. Their Jewish fringe was trendy, their yarmulkes and beards were on point. Their prayers were loud and long-winded. They loved rules and regulations. They hated Jesus because they thought he was a threat to their power, their tradition, their faith, their paycheck. What if he stole their followers?These know-betters had boiled their religion down to a tidy prescription of placebo pills, handing it out like doctors to sin-stricken patients. How dare Jesus inform the Jewish people they had God’s laws written on their heart? How dare he imply that even the Gentiles could know God?
Jesus taught in the temple every day, right where the know-betters liked to hang out. This really irked them. The book of Luke says
…the chief priests, scribes, and leaders of the people were intent on killing Him. Yet they could not find a way to do so, because all the people hung on His words.
Luke 19:47-48
The people were hanging onto his words while the haters looked for any little way to trap him and kill him.
This sounds like a tight spot to be in.
A couple days ago at a conference, a well-respected preacher named John MacArthur said something unkind about Beth Moore, a women’s Bible teacher. It probably should have never been prompted–a few know-betters on stage were playing a game and for no good reason decided to poke fun at Beth Moore. At the crux of their joke was the argument that women ought not be preachers. Moore, of course, hadn’t been asked to play their pithy word game.
It reminds me of a woman in the Bible named Deborah. Before Israel had kings or a kingdom, 1,200 years before Christ, they lived in the promised land with enemies all around them. To maintain a sort of order, God determined judges for his people. Deborah was a judge in Israel. Yes–a woman. Yes–3,000 years ago, long before male preachers were ordained (another fancy non-Bible word) in the Christian church.
Deborah was a judge in Israel because Israel was full of cowards. It seems like God couldn’t find a man suited for the role, and so wise Deborah was given the reins. People came to her from all over to have her hear their disputes. Folks needed her wisdom, they sought her out to help them understand. She led them to victory against their enemies.
Today there are people who want to know God. They want to approach Jesus for healing, but there are often too many know-betters standing in their way, blocking the temple. They are the churchified, the holier than thou, the Bible thumpers who smack sinners on the head with their rules and big words. Jesus seekers want the bread of life, they hunger and thirst for righteousness, but know-betters set up standards that prohibit the starving from being filled. Know-betters don’t want to, as J.Vernon McGee says, “put the cookies on the bottom shelf.”
I’ll admit, I’m not a Beth Moore fangirl, per say. Maybe it’s because I’m jealous of her hair and makeup, but I’ve only ever attempted one Beth Moore Bible study. A friend once gave me a set of DVDs and a workbook after she’d finished teaching the study to a women’s prison group.
Did you catch that? Women in prison. People hungering and thirsting for the Word. People on the fringes, folks we have been called to minister to…Beth Moore’s Bible studies have made it into prison and set captives free. I’d say Jesus wouldn’t tell her to “go home.”
Moore has made knowing God available to the masses. She has passed on her detailed study of the Scripture to thousands of thirsty souls. She has broken it into edible pieces without waxing philosophical. Moore, like Deborah the judge, has become a sort of mother to the people. She has not, to my knowledge, assumed a man’s rightful position in church.
I am not denying that in the Bible God has laid down some rules to protect the Church on the inside. Beth Moore hasn’t denied this, either, as far as I know. There’s a reason behind His direction to men to step up as leaders.There is sovereignty in wisdom to appoint elders of a local church. In New Testament times, asking women to behave modestly (keeping silent and covered) was a way to eliminate confusion among the recently converted in the young Church (the culture at the time was cultish and sex-driven). As Christians, we need to examine these verses closely, but they are meant as clarifications on how to maintain order. They don’t encompass the message what Christ sent us to do: Go and make disciples, he said. Teach them, he said.
I wonder, these days, where the line is drawn. Online, a woman might have a Twitter account, post youtube videos, write books…but if she suddenly stands up in church, she loses all respect? Will we ever stop nitpicking, fault-finding–when our whole lives have been redeemed to reconcile people to their Creator? What is more important, Jesus asked–to heal or to destroy? With two words–go home–John MacArthur drew his sword.
This isn’t a call to add or delete scripture nor to bend it to our advantage. Rather, it is a wake-up call to see the forest in spite of the trees. For the know-betters, the Pharisees of today–those who lead–may they not forget there once was a Deborah in Israel. Jesus, the Savior, healed on the Sabbath. Beth Moore preached the Word, and men might have listened, might have learned.
…the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the miracles which they had seen.
And some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Him, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.”
And He answered and said, “I tell you, if these become silent, even the stones will cry out!”
Luke 19:37, 39-40
