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The Gospel of Ruth by Carolyn Custis James

Carolyn Custis James has drawn no small amount of criticism from the conservative wing of her denomination. Her books seek to challenge and empower women to step up in ministry. And depending on your background and subsequent perspective, that is either a good thing or a troubling thing. In my neck of the woods, we have a woman governor and two women senators. And that is probably a good reflection of how our state as a whole thinks about women. As women here come to Christ, most don’t struggle to feel empowered for ministry. Instead, most struggle with giving up parts of their dominion in submission to God.

My perception is that Carolyn Custis James comes from a completely different background. Despite accusations against her, I don’t think she is lobbying against gender roles in the church and home. I have never seen anything explicit in her writings that indicate anything like that. Instead, I think she is well aware that in certain areas in Christianity, many women are indeed weak-willed, and the state of these weak women is as hurtful to the church as the state of those who seek to rule in ways that God did not intend.

More than any other word in my vocabulary, I think the word gentle gives the most insight into the balance to which God has called us as women. Gentle does not mean weak. This is so important to get!!! Gentle means strength under control. A baby isn’t gentle. A baby is weak. The adult is gentle, because though they are strong enough to crush the baby with their hand, instead they cradle it. They temper their strength. This is God’s call to women. “Don’t be weak. Be strong!!! But keep your strength under My control.”

Now on to the review. I have finished 2/3 of the book, and I really like it so far. I should wait until I’m finished to post this, but I’m burning to put my thoughts so far on paper (or blog). A friend let me borrow hers, but I had to stop reading it and order my own because there were too many places I wanted to mark up with my pen. This book is making me think, and phrases from the book have haunted me hours after I put the book aside. Maybe it will all fall apart in the end, but so far, I have enjoyed it.

This book is not an expositional look at Ruth. I love John Stott’s commentaries, but this was nothing like that. The author reads a lot into Ruth, but I am not uncomfortable with the way she does this or the conclusions she draws (so far). In fact, I think she gets it right most of the time. In particular, she spends a good bit of time exploring the implications in that culture of being a widow and childless, as both Naomi and Ruth are at the beginning of the story. And this was a beautiful, honest, painful look at these issues from someone who has been there.

This book may push you out of your comfort zone. James is a reformed female theologian. She has done her study and has an annoying number of references to prove it. But she also has a passionate, vulnerable voice. She has experienced the things that shake women to their core and is honest with the hard questions about God that these things raise.

If you like your books neat and tidy, laid out with linear logic and devoid of emotion, this book is probably not for you. But if you are interested in a somewhat messy but still God-centered exploration of the themes of Ruth that doesn’t let you hide from the hard truths of the Word, this book is a good read.

Who is my God? (continued)

“We ask too much of ourselves to trust a stranger.” Carolyn Custis James, When Life and Beliefs Collide

God is my Saviour…

Psalm 25:5 Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long.

I John 4:14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.

… Who died for me …

1 Peter 3:18 For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit,

Romans 5:8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

2 Corinthians 5:21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

… and intercedes for me in heaven that I may always boldly enter the presence of God.

Ephesians 3:12 In him (Jesus) and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence.

Romans 5:2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.

Hebrews 4:15-16 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

It's this last part on which I have needed to meditate of late. The good news of the gospel is that Jesus has made the way for me to have access to God's throne. And I am to draw near to the throne with confidence because I am in utter, desperate need of the mercy and grace that I can find only there. I need to take better advantage of this access to God!

Who is my God? Part 1

Marriage to a Difficult Man

How Knowing God Makes a Difference in our Marriages.

Marriage to a Difficult Man is the title of the biography of Sarah Edwards, the wife of the great theologian Jonathan Edwards. I am stuck on that title (I never finished the book itself) because I think of Jonathan Edwards as a great man of God, not a particularly difficult man. My husband once joked with me that would be a good title for my life, though he suggested that the emphasis should be placed on marriage rather than the man, as in Difficult Marriage to a Man. We laughed, but honestly, it was kind of true. I’m married to a complicated man. The funny thing is that I had an elder’s wife joke with me that it could be the title of her biography as well. And I started noting a trend. I am married to a wise and loving man. My friend, the elder’s wife, has a wise, faithful, loving husband. And from reading Jonathan Edwards’ writings, I surmise that he was a man of great wisdom who loved God deeply. And, yet, we have all experienced difficult, complicated relationships with our spouse. But maybe it is not that these are particularly difficult men—though they certainly seem difficult to us. Maybe there is something deeper going on that makes it all so difficult.

For me, marriage was the first place I came to recognize that every reasonable person in the world doesn’t think exactly like I do. It was a great, humbling revelation. Applying myself to understand how my husband approaches issues without condemning him for thinking differently than me has been a 10-year battle. Until I got married and my husband rejected (very politely) my favorite seafood casserole, it never occurred to me that every reasonable person doesn’t necessarily like casseroles. I was threatened that he didn’t find my favorite meals particularly appetizing. Who would have thought it would be so hard to readjust how I thought about cooking? There is no place we tend to be more egocentric than our homes, no place where we are more threatened as women by someone who thinks differently than us.

Marriage threatened things in which I found a false sense of security. And when I was threatened, my reaction was to label my husband “difficult”. He is definitely a sinner. But so am I. The easy road is to blame him. The better road is to examine myself. What has God called me to be in my home? Am I reflecting God’s image in my responses toward my husband? Or have I replaced security in God’s plan for me with false sources of security that inevitably fail?

I know from Genesis 2:18 that God has called me to be a HELPER to my husband. Okay. Fine. But I’m egocentric in even how I define the term “help”. I want to help him the way I THINK HE NEEDS HELP. I want to make him the dinners I want to make him. I want to buy him clothes that I want to buy him. I want to decorate our house the way I want to decorate it. I want to give unsolicited advice that I think he needs. And then I make him feel guilty if he doesn’t respond in flowing gratitude for the “help” I gave him. But that kind of help is so self-centered, it is worthless to the person I think I am helping. I wouldn’t take a roast dinner to a family of vegetarians or buy a Barbie doll for the new parents of a baby boy. But that’s kind of how my egocentric view of helping my husband comes across at times. Instead, I have had to learn to help my husband in the ways HE truly finds helpful. And there is a BIG difference in the two. Here’s a practical piece of advice that may seem obvious: ASK YOUR HUSBAND WHAT HE WOULD FIND HELPFUL. Then ask him an even tougher question—WHAT DO I DO IN OUR HOUSE THAT IS NOT HELPFUL? And instead of pouting because he hurt your feelings, really listen to his answer and give him the freedom to be honest.

I’ve been studying how we as women are made in the image of God, and how understanding the image of God prepares us to embrace our role in marriage. Consider the first mention of the first woman in Scripture.

Genesis 2 ¹⁸The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him."

If you don’t know God, His Names, and His character, then hearing that woman was created to be some man’s helper is going to sound incredibly condescending and substandard to you. “I’m called to be Help?! That sounds like some 18^th century plantation snob referring to their servants. I’m not the Help.” But before we adopt that attitude, we need to let Scripture and not preconceived notions from our culture guide our thinking on this. The Hebrew word translated “helper” is ezer, meaning to help, nourish, sustain, or strengthen. It’s used often in the Old Testament of GOD HIMSELF. Consider Deuteronomy 33:29.

Deuteronomy 33

²⁹ Blessed are you, O Israel! Who is like you, a people saved by the LORD ? He is your shield and helper and your glorious sword. Your enemies will cower before you, and you will trample down their high places."

God Himself here is called our helper, our ezer, the same word used of the first woman in Gen. 2. In the New Testament, the Holy Spirit is also called our Helper (depending on which translation of the Bible you use, this is the translation of the Greek word “paraklete” or one who comes alongside in aid.) God is our Help. The Holy Spirit is our Helper. When we understand God’s role on this issue, it puts this in perspective. God, Almighty Sovereign Lord of the Universe, is our helper and we, as women, are created in His image. If we hold on to the attitude that being created as a helper is condescending and substandard, we mock the Name of God and His character, for the role of Helper is one God willingly embraces. Christ says in Matthew 10:25 that it is enough for the disciple to be as his master and the servant as his Lord. There is no greater glory for a woman than to be conformed to God’s image on this issue.

So let’s consider God’s example as our Help. Do you see yourself exhibiting God’s characteristics or the contrasting ones? In Exodus 18:4, God our help defends (in contrast to attacking or ignoring the fight altogether). In Psalm 10:14 God our help sees and cares for the oppressed (rather than being indifferent and unconcerned). In Psalm 20:2 and 33:20, God our Help supports, shields and protects (rather than leaving unprotected and defenseless). In Psalms 70:5, God our Help delivers from distress (rather than being the cause of the distress). In Psalm 72:12-14, God our Help rescues the poor, weak, and needy (rather than ignoring the poor and needy). And in Psalm 86:17, God our Help comforts (rather than causing discomfort or avoiding altogether). God’s example reveals a high and worthy calling for wives as “helpers suitable to their husbands”. We are called to show compassion, to support, defend and protect those in our care, to deliver from distress and to comfort. We are called to be like God Himself.

Often, instead of following God’s example on this, I become the very person from whom my husband feels he needs to protect himself. Rather than expecting compassion and support, he tenses as he enters my presence expecting condemnation and criticism. It’s been painful to see this about myself, but self-delusion is even worse.

Proverbs 21 ⁹ Better to live on a corner of the roof than share a house with a quarrelsome wife.

I have found there is a very fine line between being the “Helper Suitable” for the needs of the man as God intended and being the Contentious/Quarrelsome wife of Proverbs 21. Consider our spiritual heritage, beginning with Eve. In Genesis 3, Eve, created to be the helper who complemented her husband, believed Satan’s lies rather than God’s truth, and instead of being the help to her husband God intended, she “helped” Adam right into the fall of man.

Later, in Genesis 15, God promised Abraham that he would be the father of a great nation. In the next chapter, his wife Sarah is barren and manipulates Abraham into getting her servant pregnant. Then, after giving her servant to Abraham and talking him into sleeping with her, Sarah gets bitter at Abraham for the whole situation. Sarah didn’t trust God’s promises, took matters into her own hands, nagged her husband into doing her will, and then was bitter with him over the consequences.

We see this pattern throughout the women of Genesis. In Genesis 27, Rebekah manipulates circumstances in her home, getting her son to trick her husband into giving his blessing to her favorite of their children. In Genesis 30, Rachel and Leah have a fertility war. Rather than looking to the ways they could help, nourish, and protect in their homes, they manipulate every factor they can to see who can have the most sons. They have no trust in God’s Hand to provide for them. And just in case we aren’t yet convinced of the pattern, Genesis 38 gives us the story of Tamar, who manipulates her father-in-law into thinking she’s a prostitute and sleeping with her so that she will have an heir. These women weren’t helps--they were nagging manipulators intent on taking matters into their own hands because they didn’t trust God with their husbands or their situation.

Now, nothing I have said to this point should be mistaken as placing the sole blame for these circumstances upon the women in these stories. Each of the men seriously abdicated their responsibilities. Judah, in particular, certainly set Tamar up for failure, and even commends her after the fact for being more righteous than he. But for our purposes right now, the errors of the men are NOT our focus. God has called husbands to serious responsibility and accountability, and I’m always tempted to focus on others’ responsibilities. It’s easier to hear in a message what my husband needs to do and then watch like an Olympic judge to see if he does it by a specified time. But that’s a destructive mental path that I should not follow. Whether my husband is meeting his obligations or not, that does not excuse me from meeting mine.

So, our spiritual heritage is made up of women who twisted their role as helpers suitable for their husbands and became manipulators who sought to control circumstances out of their distrust of God. The word “manipulate” comes from the Latin for hand. It means to influence, manage, or control to one's advantage by artful, subtle, or indirect means, i. e. taking things into our own hands. Contrast this with faith. Faith is confidence in a person or plan, a confident belief in the truth, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing. The question we must ask ourselves as Christian wives is do we TRUST GOD in our marriages? Do we have confidence in God’s plan and His trustworthiness? Or do we believe, that to protect our interests in marriage, we have to manipulate circumstances, taking things into OUR OWN HANDS?

When I am fearful of accepting my God-given role of helper, I really need to deal with what I think about God, not what I think about my husband. Do I believe God’s Word is trustworthy? Do I trust Him to protect me? Do I trust that His plan for my life is the best? Do I fear that my circumstances have spiraled out of His control? Do I believe He is sovereign? Bottom line--what do I believe about the character, trustworthiness and effectiveness of God and His plan for my life?

Despite our fallen spiritual heritage as women, I find great hope in God’s ability to redeem sinners. Consider the genealogy of Jesus Christ in Matthew 1.

Matthew 1

²Abraham was the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob, Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers,
³Judah the father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar…

Tamar, who tricked Judah into sleeping with her in Genesis, is greatly honored by being one of only 3 women mentioned in the lineage of Christ. And Hebrews 11, the faith chapter, says of Sarah, that “¹¹By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised.” The last we heard of Sarah and Tamar in Genesis was pretty negative. And yet, in the New Testament, we see God honoring them as a result of His transforming power in their lives. In particular, Sarah goes from being the woman known for manipulating her husband into sleeping with her maid to being commended for her faith in God to fulfill His promises. That is redemption! And we too have the hope of God’s power to transform us from women who take matters into our own hands out of distrust of God’s plan into women who, in the image of God, help, strengthen, and support our husbands, trusting God in the role He has given us.

Jesus is My Example

I just read an excerpt from a book in which the female author speaks of finding her all-time greatest inspiration from a particular woman in Scripture, and I was bothered by her statement. I am a woman. Jesus is a man. Does this disqualify me from looking to Him for my identity?! Not according to Scripture.

Phil. 2: 5-8 says that our attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus. Romans 8:29 says that God predestined us all (with no distinction of male/female) to be conformed to the image of His son. And the wording of Genesis 1:27 indicates that He created both male and female in His image.

Lately, I’ve heard/read several women publicly pondering how they can identify with Jesus or learn from His example when He never experienced PMS and other girly things. Instead, they look at Ruth, the Proverbs 31 woman, or Mary of Bethany as their highest model. I like all of these women in Scripture and am fascinated by Abigail, Lydia, and Phoebe as well. But they must all take a backseat in terms of role models. These women are great for only two reasons—they are like Jesus, or they model repentance for the ways they are not like Him.

I actually get sick when I hear women talk this way. I don’t want to be like Ruth (thought I like Ruth and am reading a really good book on her). I want to be like Jesus. And I hate, hate, hate hearing talk that makes it sound like Ruth is the ideal for women because Jesus is for the men. It makes me feel so hopeless. I know deep down in my heart of hearts that my identity, even as a woman, is completely tied to who Jesus is and what He’s done for me. He is the vine and I am the branch. He is the head and I am part of His body. And apart from Him, I can do nothing (John 15). If I can’t look to Jesus to be completely equipped for my life’s work, I know I am sunk.

Whether we are struggling with PMS, boyfriend problems, a wayward husband, pregnancy fatigue, or disobedient children, Jesus is our example. He was tempted in every way like us (Heb. 4:15). He sympathizes with our weakness and is fully able to equip us to deal with every hormonally induced, non-male type struggle we face.

The gospels especially are a deep well from which to drink for inspiration and example as a wife, mom, sister, daughter, and friend. May we always as sisters in Christ encourage each other to look to Jesus as our first example. And then we may praise God for Ruth and the Proverbs 31 wife for how each points to Him and encourages us to be like Him.

Convicting Thoughts

I like a blog with short articles that make me think. At Work and Worship, my friend Trisha has several recent articles that have pricked my conscience. I especially appreciated Working Through the Junk Drawer, Weary with Work, and Embracing Interruptions as Worship.

Singleness and Infertility

The two hardest emotional struggles I have ever had centered around the issues of singleness and infertility. After breaking up with the man I thought I was going to marry, I moved to a new city to begin a new job. With no prospects on the horizon, I became quickly convinced that I would never get married, that I had lost my one chance at happiness, and now I was doomed to spend holidays in my twilight years as the spinster aunt at my sisters’ houses.

Those were the darkest months of my life. I slept a lot—because waking up and facing my bleak outlook on my future was more than I could bear. Finding a church was excruciating. Church is a family time. And my loneliness was never more painfully obvious that when I walked in, sat, and left by myself at some new church, just to go home and eat lunch by myself afterwards. I ended up choosing my church that year because I had a married friend who attended there. She and her husband would have me over for lunch on Sundays quite often. So that was my church. It had nothing to do with doctrine, and everything to do with escaping my loneliness.

Eventually, I began volunteering with the United Way, helping a family on welfare make the transition to independent living. I don’t know that I made much of a difference to that family. However, getting involved in helping them got my eyes off myself for a time, and things began to transform in my mind. I was distracted from myself. The depression over me began to lift. Soon, I met the man who would become my husband. Crisis over.

Fast forward 5 years. It’s time for us to have kids. I get pregnant and miscarry. But it takes a while to get pregnant again. My mind starts envisioning similar scenarios as it did years before—Andy dies and I’m left to have Christmas dinner at my nephews’ houses if they’ll have me. Who will there be to love? Who will love me? There is an empty feeling in the pit of my stomach as I contemplate my future.

I did get pregnant and now have 2 boys. I didn’t spend that long in either season—and yet it was long enough to learn some valuable lessons.

1) Waiting is hard. And yet, for some reason, it is one of God’s favorite ways of teaching us about Himself.

Isaiah 40:31 Yet those who wait for the LORD will gain new strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired, they will walk and not become weary.

2) People who haven’t been through it are oblivious to the pain of the struggle. “Why aren’t you married yet?!” They mean well, but such comments seem insensitive and hurtful when you’re in the midst of the waiting. One friend asked me, “When are you guys going to have kids?” I had miscarried the week before. And I told her. I didn’t do it to hurt her, but I knew seeds of bitterness would take root and grow if I didn’t honestly, graciously deal with it right then. She wasn’t being mean--she was ignorant. So I tried to inform her graciously in hopes she would be more sensitive to the next lady she came across.

3) My understanding of and love for God wasn’t enough to sustain me. These struggles revealed that I wasn’t confident that He would care for me, provide for me, and guide me in a path that was meaningful and fruitful. He wasn’t enough. This was a painful but needed road to walk. I really didn’t believe God was good and trustworthy with MY LIFE. In light of this, you’ll see that I do a lot of meditating here on who God is—that He is trustworthy and good even when our circumstances don’t fit our vision of the good life.

On a final note, a friend of mine recently recommended to me Did I Kiss Marriage Goodbye by Carolyn McCulley. Carolyn is a godly single woman who has lots of wisdom to share about the issues of this season of life. I love the subtitle of this book—Trusting God with a Hope Defferred. The interesting thing about my friend’s recommendation of this book is that she isn’t single. She’s infertile. But she found many of the lessons in Carolyn’s book to be applicable to the struggle of infertility as well as singleness and was very encouraged in seeking God’s face through reading it.

I don’t mean to diminish the struggle of either the deferred hope of waiting on a husband or of waiting on children by linking them in this article. But I do hope to provoke thought on the similarities of the issues and point Christian sisters to those in other stages of life who may still well understand and accompany them through their hurts.