The Practice of Wrestling with Scripture in a Communal Conversation

I had my all time favorite teacher in the fourth grade. Miss Mizrahi. She was smart, kind, and challenging. I learned how to debate in her class. She gave us free rein to say what we believed and to defend our arguments with passion and courage. My friend Samuel also came from a Christian family, albeit a much more conservative one. Somehow he and I ended up as the spokespeople for Christian thought in my public school fourth grade class. For the most part we agreed with one another. Until one day…

Samuel said women shouldn’t work outside the home after they have children. He believed God was clear about this. He was only defending God’s character and God’s standard. God wants a woman to take care of her family. There was only one right way to do that. She was to stay at home.

As you can imagine, this did not sit well with me. The hair stood up on the back of my neck. I raised my hand and quickly entered into the biggest debate of my life. One, I’m still in if we’re being honest. What does God want a woman to do? Who are we called to be?

Miss Mizrahi, a practicing Jew, encouraged us to go home, study our faith’s teachings about these matters and come back the next day ready to defend our stance.

When I walked through the door I immediately called out to my mom. She was folding clothes. “Where does it say in the Bible that a woman can work after she has children?” I was looking for ammunition and my mother knew the Bible better than anyone in my life. She’d know where to go.

“Proverbs 31 is a good chapter. You might find that helpful.”

I read Proverbs 31. This was good stuff! I underlined a few important verses. She bought a field seemed pertinent. The woman owned her own small business. Samuel was going to eat his words.

The next day Miss Mizrahi had us pull out our Bibles. She sat us in the front of the class and told us to explain where we were reading from and then to read our passages and defend our argument.

The problem was… Samuel and I brought the exact same passage to defend two different sides of the argument. He brought Proverbs 31 to defend his belief that a woman should take care of her family. I brought Proverbs 31 to defend that a woman can start her own small business.

I was shocked. The passage seemed so clear that it defended a woman’s right to work and be independent. Apparently, it seemed clear to Samuel that it instructed a woman to tend to matters at home.

I went home believing with all my heart that I was correct. But the wind got knocked out of me about scripture. How could I use it to defend my beliefs if someone else was going to use the exact same passage to defend a different belief? What in the world was scripture good for, if not to defend my truth?

It would take years to learn, to realize, that it’s complicated. That scripture is not a document intending to be used as a club to whack people over the head with truth. Yes, scripture has laws in it, a few black and white mandates, ten very important ones, that if followed, create a community rich in honor. But scripture is also overflowing with narratives about people who lived their lives and didn’t follow those ten important mandates and still encountered God despite or maybe even because of it.

Then Jesus came onto the scene and said all those laws could be summed up in loving God and loving your neighbor. That sounds quite vague. I want specifics, thank you very much. 

I’ve been reading the Bible my entire life. I spent years reading it cover to cover, and memorizing long passages. I’ve shaped my life around it, meditating, savoring, and also debating. I’m learning that the fruit comes from listening to the God we encounter in it.  

Scripture has been most beneficial to me as I’ve learned to let it be a doorway into a long communal conversation with God and God’s people. There’s rich beauty in the practice of wrestling over what it means to be human and how to shape our lives after the person of Jesus, both individually and as a community. Part of how we do this is my admitting that it’s much more complicated than we’re comfortable with, and committing to remain present to one another throughout the entire conversation. 

There is a depth that comes from being friends with people who don’t agree with you about every single theological thing. There’s room at the table for all of us. This might be something you disagree with. Your table might be more defined than mine. I like to set the table with plates overflowing with Jesus, and utensils and napkins of grace and mercy.

For me, it becomes a spiritual practice when I choose to listen to someone with whom I disagree, not to convince them that they’re wrong, but simply to hear the story of their lives and how scripture has shaped them.

I like how Anne Lamott says you can safely assume you’ve created a God made in your image when he dislikes all the same people you do. What words to think about.

What are the conversations you’re having around the table and how is scripture shaping them?