Beth Moore: A Lifelong Learning—Part 2

Don’t miss Part 1 of our interview, where Beth Moore talks about her life verses and how she’s stayed connected to Christ through decades of ministry.

Beth, I so enjoyed your memoir. One of the things that I appreciate about you that came through in the book, even in describing very difficult realities, is that you are sharp, quick and witty. With that in mind, what is the role of humor and fun in your faith life and in your ministry?

[Laughs] No one ever asks me about that.

Well, don’t take it personally, but you’re very funny. That’s important for your work, isn’t it? 

It’s such an important part of me. I do believe laughter is an outlet much like tears are an outlet. It plays such a part in my family of origin. My maiden name is Green, and it just so happens as we’re having this interview, I have recently been with all my brothers and sisters except one, and so we have just so freshly been together, just so freshly talked about this and laughed our heads off. We had a very witty mom. She was a handful and not always the most stable force in our lives, but she was funny. Somehow, it seemed like we could get through anything if we could just laugh about it. It wasn’t avoidance. We just always had a deep appreciation for the absurd.

I share this with both my daughters. Often, we’ve been together when something absurd is happening, maybe even during a time of public criticism. Criticism really hurts, I wish I could say that it didn’t. But every now and then, something in the middle of it all will be absurd enough that it’s just hilarious, and for whatever reason, that’s how we process it. It becomes so ridiculous that all we can do is laugh.

On my way home from an event, after I have taught hard (I mean hard), we don’t take any personal energy back to the airport. Nothing. We drag our empty shells to the airplane, get on and come home. We’ve given away everything we had in us. It’s not always slick, and it’s not always good, but we’ve given those precious people everything we had in us and on the way home, I always know I’m either going to cry or I’m going to laugh. One or the other will satisfy the same thing—the release of a whole lot of pressure. It’s the sign that you’ve been carrying a burden that you can now lay down. That’s finished. Now this all is the Lord’s, and he does with it what he wants.

All this to say, yes, humor has an important place in our family. Laughter is, like I’ve said before, an audible hope, I think. If it’s true laughter—not sarcasm—it comes from an inner hope. 

You mentioned criticism. Obviously, you’ve had your share of it. Much of it public, and much of it … unmannerly … to put it mildly. What have you learned through those experiences?

Well, I’ll just say this because it must be said, and this is not false humility. This really must be said: As much as I don’t enjoy it, some of the criticism of me has been very valuable and very well earned. In other words, there have been moments in the past that I needed to have been more careful. I was not academically trained, but I don’t think someone has to be. I think that there are people who God calls to seminary or to a master’s in theology of some kind. I think that all of us can serve, but I, very unintentionally, have had moments when I was out further than I had the depth of knowledge to support at that time. 

I love Jesus with all my heart. I knew the basics, but I wouldn’t always say them right. And once it got out into the larger world where I could be critiqued for having said something imperfectly—maybe even in a way that I didn’t mean—some of those things I purely learned from. Like I learned to step around a complex issue, or not to be so hasty with my words and talk off the top of my head, or not to chase a rabbit and get into huge trouble. So, there’s that. I’ve learned from my more responsible critics.

But, of course, there has been plenty [of criticism] that hurt more, and that I felt was less fair. I have had to simply receive those experiences as humility. But even that had a gift, to answer your question. What it did after a while was simply ruin the whole idea of playing to the audience, because the audience has proven to be fickle. Once you get criticized enough, you begin to think, You know what? I may as well just go with Galatians 1:10, and just seek to please God instead of human beings, because I can’t please them, and even if I could, I couldn’t keep them pleased.

So that’s the one good side of it. To the degree that anyone has ever adored you, people can abhor you. That line is so fine, and you do not know what it is going to cost, and you don’t know when it will cost you. It’s so not fun. But very valuable things come out of that.

Sometimes it is difficult, knowing when to speak up about unfair criticism. Most of the time, I find that God is saying, Keep your mouth shut. Your reputation is my business. I’m going to handle it. Let’s call God faithful because when people turn on us, this is his way of making us know that the thorns and thistles of this earthly [dwelling] are not our home. 

In recent years, you’ve found a spiritual home in the Anglican tradition. But can you tell me what is speaking to you from that liturgical way of worship right now?

First, I have to say that I would never want to trade my Baptist heritage for anything. My heritage is extremely important to me. If someone had handed me a snapshot from last Sunday as I was serving at my little church, if someone had taken a snapshot of my now and laid it in front of me 10 years ago and said, “This is you in 10 years, what happened?” I would have had a chill go up my spine because I would’ve known that nothing, nothing that was not cataclysmic could have ever caused me to change denominations. Ever. Being Southern Baptist was too fundamental for me. It was all I had ever known, and even still, I will love that tradition to my death.

It taught me to love the Scriptures and to believe in sharing the gospel. I mean, I’m evangelistic to the bone because of it. I believe in sharing my faith. But what is more, my Southern Baptist upbringing taught me how to have an individual, personal relationship with Christ. This is going to sound strange, but while I’ve had so many doubts of various kinds, I always knew what it was to receive Christ as Savior. And of all the things I’ve ever doubted, not once have I ever doubted that. I’ve known I was in Christ, personally, and I thank God for that.

But after I had felt called (with my heart broken) out of the denomination I had loved and served all my life, Keith and I found that when we visited any church of a similar tradition, my presence was loaded. I brought out an opinion in people, whether they were glad to see me or weren’t glad to see me. I couldn’t just come to worship. So, one Saturday, Keith said, “Let’s visit an Anglican church.” I knew nothing about the tradition except that they loved the same Christ and held that same high value in Scripture—Scripture that was read and taught, lifting high the power of the cross.

And the Lord was so kind. He did not want me to finish my life thinking what I had previously thought, which was that the Anglican tradition was not as warm in terms of a Christian walk, and that it was too rigid compared to what I had experienced. That’s not what I found. Instead, I found the most beautiful thing—that while my Southern Baptist heritage taught me about that vital personal relationship, one of the primary gifts that Anglicanism has given me is a deep connection to the community of saints. It’s the we. All through every service, we say, “We, we, we, we.” We’re looking around at one another.

I found it in a moment of my life when I felt that I was free-falling. In the middle of that, it was a gift to suddenly walk into an atmosphere where Jesus was highly exalted, the gospel was preached and taught, the Word of God was highly valued and esteemed, and the community of saints was emphasized.

Somebody asked me, “Beth, I wonder if after what you’ve been through, you maybe are opposed to denominations in general.” I said, “Oh, that’s absolutely not true.” I said, “Now our divisiveness and our rivalries, that’s a different question, but I did not ditch a denomination. What I did was I went to something older, back to the We believe in God the Father, the Almighty …”

When you just don’t know where home is, to just say the things that Christians have said—the creeds, the prayers that have been said for centuries, and that have held the church together for all this time—is rich in a way I cannot put into words.

I would love you to speak now to three categories of readers: pastors, women and men. For those in each category who are trying to hold on to the rope, what would you say?

I’ll start with pastors. Remember that the Christian walk is a lifelong learning. We are disciples of Christ. We don’t come before a group or congregation as one who already knows it all, but as one who is learning with the people, and is ever having to be discipled by Christ himself. We must keep learning.

What is extremely difficult and that does not have good repercussions in the church is that every single thing learned in Sunday school or seminary is what we must believe in 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, 40 years. We all must keep growing in our knowledge of Scripture. We must keep listening so that we don’t find out at the end of our lives that we were wrong about that pet doctrine all along. We don’t get to a point where we’ve figured it all out and then just preach and teach it from that point forward. Stay a learner; stay a true disciple.

To women, I want to say, stay greatly encouraged that Christ went out of his way to make sure women knew they were of value. I would send you to the first verses of Luke 8. I would send you to the foot of the cross on Good Friday. I would send you to the story of the Resurrection. Know that no matter where you may feel like you are not valued, look at your value in the eyes of Christ. Look how he is constantly looking out for you. That’s what helps me. It does matter that I am demeaned in certain places, but at the end of the day it does not affect my security because of what Christ did for women. Stay encouraged.

And then for men, I want to say what Peter said in his first letter—that women are fellow partakers in the grace of God. Women are to be esteemed and heard. Do not be so separate from them that you don’t even know what they could contribute to your community of faith. I’ve seen situations—if I may be so bold—where there have been pastors who were so very careful about “this is for the men; this is for the women,” that they don’t mix. Then, because there is no working together shoulder to shoulder— because there is nothing like what Paul talks about in Philippians 4, about “these women who have contended for the gospel at my side”—when there is none of that, it’s easy not to value their strengths and gifts because you don’t see them. They’re busy doing all the “women” things, and you’re busy doing all the “men” things. And because those never collide, you are in danger of never seeing their value. So even if you’re highly complementarian at church, make sure those women know they are greatly valued, where they can serve, what their opportunities are. Be very mindful of it.

A family loves one another. Brothers and sisters love one another. 

It seems there are so many difficulties for the church right now. What do you want to see in coming years for us?

I believe this is a moment in which God is pruning his church. In God’s economy, growing can look a lot like shrinking. Just look at John 15, when Jesus talks about what it takes to produce fruit, and he talks about pruning. In this way, believers differ greatly from the world.

I believe that God is doing something in all the “cutting back” we are experiencing right now. There’s so much idolatry in the church and so much showiness and carnality and all these things. I think we got to a place in American evangelicalism that we wouldn’t have even known if the Spirit were there or not. We knew how to imitate him, sure. We knew how to do it with all the lights, all the right songs. Now, I love music. I love lights. I’m not even opposed to a fog machine once in a while at an event. But I’m saying we should have been asking, like Jeremiah, where the Lord was. But instead, we got showier and showier, and more and more fleshly. I believe he’s doing something good, something hard. I believe we’re in a reckoning; I really do, but that it is good.

Because I believe that God is always for us. He’s doing exactly what he said he would. He’s cleaning house and starting with the household of God, and in doing so I believe that he has pruned us way back. Why? Well, in order to grow us in a way that is under the headship of Jesus, in the very joints and marrow of Christ himself. This is going to sound so cheesy, but what I’m hoping for in these years is a return to Jesus. Not just Christianity. Those things have become very different in a lot of our atmospheres. What does this look like now to return to Jesus? That’s my hope. That’s my belief and ultimately, that is my certainty. His Word says he will refine his church and that we will stand before him by his grace clothed in white linen and in his righteousness, all ethnicities, every tongue, every language, every color.

So, what I want to tell everyone is, hang in there. He is going to be so faithful to you. Don’t assume you know what serving him is going to look like. Let him decide all that. Just walk with him. Let him take you. You’re called to follow him. Not called to a place but called to a person.

Paul J. Pastor is editor-at-large of Outreach, and author of several books. He lives in Oregon.

Paul J. Pastor
Paul J. Pastorhttp://PaulJPastor.com

Paul J. Pastor is editor-at-large of Outreach, senior acquisitions editor for Zondervan, and author of several books. He lives in Oregon.

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