{"id":1494,"date":"2012-11-26T08:08:45","date_gmt":"2012-11-26T14:08:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michellevanloon.com\/?p=1494"},"modified":"2012-11-26T08:08:45","modified_gmt":"2012-11-26T14:08:45","slug":"i-was-wrong-about-you-beth-moore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/pilgrimsroadtrip\/2012\/11\/i-was-wrong-about-you-beth-moore\/","title":{"rendered":"I was wrong about you, Beth Moore"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a>Beth Moore, you surprised me.<\/p>\n

When I worked at a\u00a0seminary bookstore<\/a>, various women\u2019s ministry leaders from the local church community would call or come in to order curriculum for their study groups. It seemed as though about 90% of them ordered\u00a0Beth Moore\u2019s materials<\/a>. The Moore-orderers tended to be older, conservative women from churches that sponsored women\u2019s events titled with words like \u201ctea\u201d, \u201cspa\u201d, \u201cscrapbook\u201d and \u201cchocolate\u201d (sometimes in especially-trying-too-hard combinations like \u201cchocolate spa\u201d).<\/p>\n

I\u2019d benefitted from my years using\u00a0Kay Arthur\u2019s\u00a0<\/a>study materials, though I\u2019d gagged on some of her \u201cOh Beloved\u201d gush in her address of her readers. My throat would have closed up entirely from that honey-sweet talk if Arthur\u2019s bracing line-upon-line inductive study hadn\u2019t diluted that sugar considerably. I\u2019d done my time marching drills in women\u2019s Bible study land with General Kay. My initial assessment of Beth Moore\u2019s study materials was that they seemed a little lightweight somehow. In my mind, Moore\u2019s Southern cheerleader persona escalated the \u201csister-girlfriend\u201d sugary spoken intimacy level to diabetic-inducing levels. Case closed.<\/p>\n

Instead, for many years, I flew solo, reading theology, and practiced consistent daily devotional time in Scripture. I did try one year of women\u2019s Bible study at our church, but it was a lot of \u201cWhat jumped out at you from this passage of Scripture?\u201d and \u201cThe notes in my Study Bible say\u2026\u201d I kind of figured I was done with women\u2019s Bible studies, since, except for the Precepts studies, most of the ones I\u2019d attended over the years tended to be heavy on reader-response and light on meaningful content. When we moved this past summer, God prompted me to reconnect with a bright, creative, seminary-educated friend who was running the women\u2019s ministry program at a church here in our new town. She described the slate of offerings at her church, and lobbied me to join the study group she facilitated.\u00a0I\u2019ll give it a try,<\/em>\u00a0I said gamely. Then she dropped the Beth Moore bomb on me.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe usually do a Beth Moore study in that group in the fall, Over the winter and in the spring, I\u2019ll write curriculum or we\u2019ll study a book together.\u201dShe must have seen the look of undisguised dismay on my face. \u201cIt\u2019ll be the book of\u00a0James<\/a>,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

James is my favorite epistle, and I\u2019d had a great experience doing a Precepts study of the book a few years ago, so I put my game face on and figured I could coast on my past James study experience through the fall.\u00a0\u00a0If it is too excruciating or silly,<\/em>\u00a0I reasoned,\u00a0I\u2019ll just bow out.<\/em><\/p>\n

My assumptions about myself were wrong. First of all, why would God allow me to coast on my a serious study I\u2019d done 10+ years ago when his Word is living, active and razor-sharp every single day? It didn\u2019t take long before I had to admit that I had a lot of pride at play: I was too\u2026what? smart? sophisticated?\u2026to get anything out of the kind of study loved by members of the Scrapbooking Brigade. It\u2019s a little embarrassing to admit the arrogant way my head works sometimes, but according to James, confession is my only hope for a cure: \u201cTherefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.\u201d (James 5:16) So there you have it. Sometimes, I am a prideful doofus.<\/p>\n

I was also wrong about the content of Moore\u2019s study. Yes, there was the overwrought emotionalism I dreaded on both video and in the workbook, particularly during the final week of the study. (Her long, anguished goodbye during that week\u2019s material left me feeling like I\u2019d eaten a half-jar of caramel sauce for breakfast.) There were moments when it was all a little too much about Beth, her family and her life \u2013\u00a0 and not quite enough about Ya\u2019acov (James\u2019 Hebrew name).<\/p>\n

And that sentence captures what I came to admire about Moore. Most of the study had solid content of the kind that should be (but usually isn\u2019t) the baseline for the way we in the Church learn, speak and pray. Specifically, she placed James in his proper Hebrew context in ways I\u2019ve rarely heard from a church pulpit. She dug into the original languages. She sought the input of scholars. She read history. She did her homework. She prayed. She used that emotional intensity of hers to place herself under the scalpel of the Word for the benefit of many others. She avoided prooftexting, and refused to go down the reader-response \u201cWhat do\u00a0you<\/em>\u00a0think this verse means?\u201d road. The study surprised me, challenged me, and, I hope it\u2019s changed me.<\/p>\n

Her material doesn\u2019t necessarily equip people to dig into the Word for themselves in quite the same way she does, one contrast I noted from my years doing Kay Arthur\u2019s inductive studies. Not that people couldn\u2019t do the work of serious study Moore does (they can!), but her material is extremely teacher-dependent. I wonder if she\u2019s ever considered putting together a \u201cthis is how I do it, and how you can do it yourself\u201d teaching. It would be a wonderful, eternal gift to her students.<\/p>\n

I came away from the study with a new-found respect for Moore. She loves the Word of God and its Author. Is there a higher compliment than that?<\/p>\n

So, I admit it. I was wrong about you, Beth Moore.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Beth Moore, you surprised me. When I worked at a\u00a0seminary bookstore, various women\u2019s ministry leaders from the local church community would call or come in to order curriculum for their study groups. It seemed as though about 90% of them ordered\u00a0Beth Moore\u2019s materials. The Moore-orderers tended to be older, conservative women from churches that sponsored […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1449,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christian-life"],"yoast_head":"\nI was wrong about you, Beth Moore - Pilgrim's Road Trip<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Beth Moore, you surprised me. 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