Beth Moore is someone who likely needs no introduction. One of the most influential and recognizable Bible teachers of our generation, her decades-long ministry has led countless people to a deeper love and richer understanding of God’s Word.
Since founding Living Proof Ministries in 1994, Moore’s Bible studies have been translated into over 20 languages. In addition to writing and live events, she can also be seen teaching Bible studies on the television program Living Proof with Beth Moore, aired on the Trinity Broadcasting Network.
Moore’s powerful life story is the core of her highly anticipated forthcoming book All My Knotted-Up Life: A Memoir (Tyndale). In anticipation of that milestone, Outreach Editor-at-Large Paul J. Pastor caught up with Moore to discuss key takeaways from her journey in ministry, her transition from the Southern Baptist to the Anglican tradition, God’s faithfulness through the changing seasons of life and what she hopes to see as the church passes through our present time of “pruning.”
It seems right to begin our conversation with some Bible. It can be trite to talk about “life verses,” but are there any Scriptures that have held you over the course of your life?
Absolutely. I was taught to love Scripture from my earliest age, not just because I was raised in church and Sunday school, but because I was in missions classes. We were taught how to memorize the Bible from a young age, and I could have easily told you the Great Commission at the end of the gospel of Matthew word for word by the time I was four or five. There have been some Scriptures all along that have meant so much to me. The name of the ministry—Living Proof—comes from Hebrews 4:12. It reminds us that God’s Word is alive and active and is a double-edged sword, and that we who walk with Christ and love his Word become living proof that his Word is alive.
That passage means a lot to me, but there’s another that I hold to the most. This was how your question was posed to me some years ago, and I loved it. A woman simply asked me, “Beth, what is the knot in your rope?” It was the most wonderful question, and I knew instinctively what she meant.
I love that image.
I just visualize that rope burning my hand, slipping down to where I can grab on. That’s the knot.
I instinctively answered John 15:9. Christ is talking to his disciples, and I don’t know if it gets any more profound than what he says: “As the father has loved me, so have I loved you. Remain in my love.” I mean, I don’t know what we do with that. I think as much as anything, I am reminded that no matter what, I am loved by God. That can keep you a long, long time.
Let’s talk about the rope. There are plenty of reasons people are slipping off the rope. With all that’s going on in the world today, what have you learned about staying faithful?
I’ll just use one word to describe all of it: the “chaos” we’re living in. In part, it’s demonic and of the darkness. Revelation 12:12 says that the Enemy is furious because he knows that his time is short. As time goes on, I do believe the part of our eschatological theology that says his fury will be greater and greater.
Many conditions that affect us are beyond our control. They are things that have happened to us. While we can’t really control them, we can respond to them, and we can respond to those things faithfully. I’d like to speak to the one that we are absolutely responsible for.
I want to say this well, and I don’t want to use the word “failure” of discipleship. So let me simply say, I think that somewhere in the history of evangelicalism in the United States, we jumped the track. Somehow, we have allowed to happen what Paul describes in Colossians 2: We have somehow traded the substance for the shadow. He says, “Let no one pass judgment on you in regard to what you eat or drink or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath—these are shadows of things to come but the substance belongs to Christ.” And then he goes on, “Don’t let anybody disqualify you with worship of angels or asceticism or being puffed up … and not holding fast to the head.”
Somewhere along the way, we started veering. It was toward this Americanized version of the Christian walk, and we got out of line with our Head. I’m not saying we’re not in Christ. What I am saying is that we need a chiropractic adjustment. Because we have lost a healthy attachment with the Head. Look at that passage again. The “shadows,” which are the religious things of great importance, and those were God-given things—the festivals, the Sabbath—to believers in the old covenant. What has happened is that we have taken religious things and beliefs, and somehow, we have become more connected to them than we are to Christ himself.
How can I make that kind of statement? Because when we get more religious and less Christlike, we become more involved and affected by shadows than substance, which is Christ. The end result of all discipleship was always meant to be Christlikeness. So, if we get more and more “spiritual,” but we imitate the ways of Christ less and less, something’s gone wrong. This shift has been major. I think we all must look back at what’s happened in our discipleship and ask, “Is something wrong here?” This is what’s on our plate right now, and we need to ask how to respond with integrity.
It strikes me that you would not be able to say that as a teacher if you were not first able to say that as a Christian. What has helped you stay connected to Christ over the course of your years of ministry?
Well, of course, Christ. He’s hanging on to us. He’s still hanging on to me, and I’m very thankful for that. I tell you that because one thing for me has always sort of morphed into another thing, and I have always had so many problems that I have had to have Jesus. I’ve had some seasons that were easier than others, some seasons that were incomparably more difficult than others, but I haven’t come to a single season yet that I was not absolutely desperate for God to come through in my life or my family or my ministry. So first, there is that: Christ is my rescuer.
I have this wonderful card that my husband Keith gave me years ago. It says, Elizabeth—he calls me by my full name—you are my treasure. It goes in my suitcase everywhere I travel. Because I can’t take him with me, I have his words that go with me. They don’t replace my husband, but they’re so dear to me.
Well, that’s a lot like Scripture, the authoritative words of God. It’s so dear to me because I’ve needed it so badly. But over the course of my life, I came to flat-out love to study it. I mean, I love research. I love to learn. I love the process of deep biblical study. I can’t get enough of it.
And then, actually, I enjoy him. I said to a group recently, “I wonder if I might challenge you to begin praying that you would truly enjoy the Lord.” It’s not that he’s going to appear in living color right before our eyes, but that we would enjoy walking before him, eating before him, being in his Word. That we would know him through communion with Christ through his Word, through the table, through the community. These realities have been my survival, but they have also been the joys of my life.
I had the privilege to sit backstage once at a Living Proof Live event, and just watch that room. The affection flowing between you and the people attending was powerful. What have you learned about that kind of ministry, about showing up with such warmth and kindness, even for strangers?
I want to make very clear that everything I have learned, for the most part, I have learned the hard way. So, as I share some of these things, I share them with you not as my 25-year-old self but as my 65-year-old self. There’s a whole lot of learning in those years. There’s nothing that came easy; nothing I just attained. There’s none of that.
I pray before every interview and certainly before this one. I just want so much to be true and not to sound hyperspiritual. I want to be authentic and true. So, I’m going to try to do that the best that I know how. But to answer your question, I took 1 Corinthians 13 seriously. I am still struck by the notion of that chapter. That you could do all these great things, that you could have all this gifting—but if you did not love, it’s nothing but noise to the Lord. So, I started asking him early on to help me love my groups.
I’ll tell you one reason why it became such a big issue. If you are in front of me, I love people easily. It’s always kind of thrown me when I realized—and it happens often [Laughs]—that they may not love me in return. I’m like, I thought we were all friends.
There’s all of that, but as my ministry grew, I began to minister to a people I could not physically see. This is what happened with the video-driven Bible studies. This is why it became such a big issue. Because I very naturally fell in love with the people, the women in my classes, in my Sunday school and my Thursday classes. I loved them. I knew them. I was with them every single week, and we grew together in the Lord.
But suddenly I could no longer see the people I was ministering to. I needed a supernatural work. I needed the Lord to come through for me in such a way that when I wrote, I wrote to them not with a “show” of love, but with genuine love. I just prayed for that over and over, and I still do: Please give me a supernatural love for the people that I get to serve.
So, he did that. In so many ways. Often, when I meet someone, they will say, “You know, I feel like I know you.” This sounds crazy, but if they’ve been in some of my studies, I feel like I know them, too. And I love them. There’s just something about having turned those pages together. We might even have disagreed on some points of doctrine, but somehow, we “agreed in the Lord” as Philippians 4 would say.
But the other thing is, I’m very maternal. A lot of people don’t like it, so if they’re people who really prefer for someone not to hug them, I’m not their person. That is just a very natural affinity for me. So, it is genuine. I’ve been maternal always.
Well, I would call that “fault” a gift. Especially in a very male-centric ministry world, you’re ministering to specific mother wounds. It is a significant aspect of your ministry.
I didn’t know that it would be, but you’re right. We are in a community of saints, inevitably, with deep mother and father wounds. Now, I’m not a therapist. I won’t take on the role of one. I’d be a poor one because I’m not trained in such a way. But I will tell you that there is such a need for mothers and fathers in the faith. You know, as people age, we think, There’s just nothing for me to do. One thing I would immediately ask is, “Are you of the older generation? Find someone to parent.” As a friend of mine says, this is an “orphaned generation.” So many people feel like they are not being parented in the faith. And they know they need it.
That’s a perfect segue into my next question. What have you learned about the seasons of life in ministry? What are the joys of the season that you’re in now?
There really are many. I love everything about older age except the physical part. I say it laughing, but I also say it because in some respects, readers who are about my age or older can nod to this. Aging hurts. And I do mean in the joints; it just does. It just begins to be harder. But set that aside, and if you’re still engaged in life, it is richer than it has ever been. You’re more aware of the shortness of time, and therefore, it’s more valuable. Friendships are very valuable. I can look at someone and think, Oh, my goodness. I have enjoyed you so much. I try not to get too sappy, but I savor the pure enjoyment of friendships, of relationships, of church, of all the things.
I try to have the courage to continue to walk with God and know that, really, nothing is going to stay the same. It’s just not. We are going to walk from season to season. We are going to walk from hardship into times of less hardship and into times of grief. I think this is one of the gifts of older age is just to see that he is faithful. He will always prove faithful, so just sit down when you need to, crawl to your knees when you need to, but somehow just keep going forward with him because we have a place that we’re going, and this all ends very well. We count on the goodness of God, the faithfulness of God, and we keep on walking.
I come from a background of extreme instability in my home of origin. I was abused in my home of origin. I also was loved, but I’m going to tell you [when] you are abused in your home and protectors become perpetrators, it has a profound effect on a life. There’s just no way for [there] not to be, so I’ve gone through those things, and gone through difficulties of my own, and my own brokenness, and my own failures and weaknesses, all the things. But when I look back over my shoulder, I do not know how I got here without those things.
I think the reason why Jesus is more real to me than a human that I can touch with my hands is because he came through for me in a way that no one I could touch with my hands ever could have. Now, what do I do here? So, do I trade that off, and I might have had an easier route, but I don’t know that kind of intimacy? Or do I say I’m glad those things happened, which of course I’m not. Or do I just kneel to the sovereignty of God and say he’s had his way in the whirlwind? That he took it all and forged a dependency on him that I can’t imagine living without?
It all belongs, somehow. There is great faith in that. But how hard.
I have two wonderful daughters. I love them so much, and I respect them in the faith. We are three different people, but I have gained so much from them. And one of the things that my daughter Melissa talks about is how we go through seasons where God is more silent, and to me, I think that no matter what’s going on in the world, I can make it if the Lord is loud to me, and by that, I mean, his Word is really alive on that page and jumping off the page into the marrow of my bones.
But that’s not how it always is. Sometimes, we go through a season that is painful, when we know he is with us, but there’s a greater silence. And Melissa loves to say, and has said to me often that “God has a lot to say in the silence.” I just wonder if a reader might be in that place and needs to hear that same thing. God’s not mute, but there’s a quiet. Can we be quiet in him? That is part of our seasons.
Check out Part 2 of our interview with Beth Moore where she talks about her memoir, how she handles criticism, and her transition into the Anglican church.
Paul J. Pastor is editor-at-large of Outreach, and author of several books. He lives in Oregon.