Last weekend, John MacArthur was asked at a conference to voice his thoughts on Beth Moore, the lady preacher who feels called to speak for God and preach from Baptist pulpits. Dr. MacArthur addressed Beth’s unbiblical agenda succinctly: “Go Home.”
The howls of protest reverberated from all the feminist and effeminate corners of Big Evangelicalism:
“Poor Beth!”
“Mysogyny!”
“Abuse!”
“Poor women everywhere!”
“Regardless of what he said, it’s the way he said it!”
“Beth, come hock your wares throughout MY denomination!!!”
Perhaps we would do well to reconsider those two words MacArthur had for Beth Moore. Truly, they are like apples of gold in a setting of silver.
Go Home
Of course, “Go Home” means, basically, “Sit down and close your mouth,” to which, in the case of Beth Moore, God’s people respond amen and amen. The Bible tells women to remain silent in the gathered assembly and forbids them to exercise authority over a man. Yet, there is also an astonishingly gracious invitation in MacArthur’s rebuke. If Beth Moore read and believed her Bible, she would understand: Home is exactly where God wants godly women to be. Home is where he promises to bless women’s labors and make them fruitful (Psalm 128:3). To a godly woman, keeping a home is a delight, and the words “Go Home” are sweet. But Beth Moore despises God’s word, so Titus 2 reads to her like a prison sentence.
Speaking of prison sentences, are there many prospects more dreary than these Christian female conferences that gather women in concrete and steel conference centers for other women to preach at them? The speakers use all the same homiletic flourishes your pastor learned in seminary, except they always end their most poignant stories sounding as if they are starting to cry. Oh wait, your pastor does that now too? Estrogen disciples.
The problem isn’t solved when they give you a gift bag with chocolate and travel-sized pink hand sanitizer. The sanitizer is sanitary and the chocolate tastes like convention center. Some ugly divorce has happened here.
Women of the Word should be deeply suspect of any women’s ministry that speaks to women androgynously—that makes no mention of how to work diligently to keep a home, to love children, and learn submission in a way that brings glory to God; or, worse, pokes fun at the serious home-lover, like this interview to be found at The Gospel Coalition.
The interview is troubling for its complete disregard of Titus 2. The title alone states the gist clearly enough. Casseroles and Proverbs 31 women: Those are two things our world has just far too many of already, right?
Except when was the last time you stood in line at a church pitch-in, eyed the bags of store-bought chips and remarked to yourself, “This world has too many godly women cheerfully making excellent meals. Thank heaven we’ve cut back on the Proverbs 31 women. Pass the Doritos down here when you’re done.”
The fashion of the day is for women to sneer at our spiritual mothers, who, as Jen Wilkins states in the above interview, weren’t blessed like the young women of our day to hear they can “do whatever you want in life.” Which sounds like Beth Moore’s vision. And Eve’s.
Titus 2 is clear: Women’s ministry in the church is to be shaped by the glorious calling of home. There are years and mountains of dishes to wash, lullabies to sing, dough to roll, tears to wipe and shed, stories to read, prayers to pour out, spills to wipe up. But how quickly the time flies away! When older women emerge from the trenches they receive the double honor of strengthening the hands of young mothers busy at home raising children in the fear and admonition of the Lord. Who would trade it for the world?
Beth Moore, and all Beth Moore disciples: Go home.
“Go Home.” What kind and gracious words spoken to a rebellious, defiant woman. If she only had ears to hear.
