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Sarah Bessey QUOTES

Sarah Bessey QUOTES

181 " I call myself a Jesus feminist because to me, the qualifier means I am a feminist precisely because of my lifelong commitment to Jesus and his Way. "

― Sarah Bessey , Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

182 " One needn’t identify as a feminist to participate in the redemptive movement of God for women in the world. The gospel is more than enough. Of course it is! But as long as I know how important maternal health is to Haiti’s future, and as long as I know that women are being abused and raped, as long as I know girls are being denied life itself through selective abortion, abandonment, and abuse, as long as brave little girls in Afghanistan are attacked with acid for the crime of going to school, and until being a Christian is synonymous with doing something about these things, you can also call me a feminist. "

― Sarah Bessey , Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

183 " The curse that was laid upon Eve—her desire would be for her husband, and her pain in childbirth would be greatly multiplied—even shows us how patriarchy, subordination, and pain are part of the Fall. They were never God’s original intent; they are a consequence of sin.2 "

― Sarah Bessey , Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

184 " When Paul referenced that Adam was created first, then Eve, in 1 Timothy 2:13, he wasn’t assigning superiority to Adam based on birth order (if that were the case, animals win). No, he’s pointing out Adam was there first, so he had something to teach Eve. She needed to learn. She wasn’t inferior; she was ignorant, lacking in knowledge. "

― Sarah Bessey , Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

185 " Plant gardens in your exile, work for the good of the city, and don't be so caught up in the "not yet" of the Kingdom of God that you forget it's also now. "

― Sarah Bessey , Out of Sorts: Making Peace with an Evolving Faith

186 " Inhale: You fill my life Exhale: with good things. (From Philippians 4:7) "

― Sarah Bessey , A Rhythm of Prayer: A Collection of Meditations for Renewal

187 " abandoned our plans to church plant in this context, at least in the way we had been taught to do it in America. Instead, we embraced a new understanding of church and community, of vocation and ministry, of organic faith and missional living. We were lonely. And then we began to heal, slowly at first, then faster and faster. "

― Sarah Bessey , Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

188 " In general, according to theologian Carolyn Custis James, egalitarians “believe that leadership is not determined by gender but by the gifting and calling of the Holy Spirit, and that God calls all believers to submit to one another.” In contrast, complementarians “believe the Bible establishes male authority over women, making male leadership the biblical standard.”5 Both sides can treat the Bible like a weapon. On both sides, there are extremists and dogmatists. We attempt to outdo each other with proof texts and apologetics, and I’ve heard it said that there is no more hateful person than a Christian who thinks you’ve got your theology wrong. In our hunger to be right, we memorize arguments, ready to spit them out at a moment’s notice. Sadly, we reduce each other, brothers and sisters, to straw men arguments, and brand each other “enemies of the gospel. "

― Sarah Bessey , Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

189 " I learned that faith can, in fact, move mountains. And this is where I learned that sometimes our most holy mountain-moving faith looks more like spending our whole lives making that mountain move, rock by rock, pebble by pebble, unsexy day after daily day, casting the mountain to the sea stone by stone rather than watching a mountain suddenly rise up and cast itself. "

― Sarah Bessey , Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

190 " Jesus engaged her in serious theological discussion; in fact, hers is the longest personal conversation with Jesus ever recorded in Scripture. It was also the first time that the words "I am the Messiah" were spoken from his lips, and she became an evangelist. (about John 4) "

― Sarah Bessey , Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

191 " The lack of women among the twelve disciples isn't
prescriptive or a precedent for exclusion of women any more than the choice of twelve Jewish men excludes Gentile men from leadership. "

― Sarah Bessey , Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

192 " Even though the word of a woman was not considered sufficient proof in court, Mary Magdalene was the first witness of the resurrected Christ and the first preacher of the Resurrection "

― Sarah Bessey , Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

193 " The word that accompanies ezer is kenegdo, typically translated as "suitable"
or "helpmeet" I'm sure we've all heard a teaching or two on the word helpmeet, focused on woman as a man's assistant as wife, mother, and homemaker. But as Carolyn Custis James insightfully points out (...) <> "

― Sarah Bessey , Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

194 " The word that accompanies ezer is kenegdo, typically translated as "suitable" or "helpmeet" I'm sure we've all heard a teaching or two on the word helpmeet, focused on woman as a man's assistant as wife, mother, and homemaker. But as Carolyn Custis James insightfully points out (...) <> "

― Sarah Bessey

195 " There are a lot of Jesuses running around these days. There is the Jesus who wants you to find a good parking spot at the mall. There is the Jesus invoked at music awards, and the one raised like a flag to celebrate capitalism and affluence. There is the Jesus drawing lines about who is in and who is out. And there is the Jesus on both sides of the picket lines. There is the one in the slums, and the one in suburbia, and the one in Africa, and the one in America, and the one in Calgary. There is the Jesus who told Mother Theresa to touch the lepers and love with her hands. There is the one who lead the bravest and kindest of men and women all the way to the end. And then there is the Jesus who supposedly inspired manifestos of hate, crusades, murder, and wars. And then there is the Jesus who likes everything you like, and hates everything, or everyone, you hate and is quite pleased with everything about you. I like that Jesus best sometimes. "

― Sarah Bessey , Out of Sorts: Making Peace with an Evolving Faith

196 " Perhaps it is no wonder that the women were first at the Cradle and last at the Cross. They had never known a man like this Man—there never has been another. A prophet and teacher who never nagged at them, never flattered or coaxed or patronized; who never made arch jokes about them, never treated them as “The women, God help us!” or “The ladies, God bless them!”; who rebuked without querulousness and praised without condescension; who took their questions and arguments seriously; who never mapped out their sphere for them, never urged them to be feminine or jeered at them for being female; who had no axe to grind and no uneasy male dignity to defend; who took them as he found them and was completely unselfconscious. There is no act, no sermon, no parable in the whole Gospel that borrows its pungency from female perversity; nobody could guess from the words and deeds of Jesus that there was anything “funny” about woman’s nature. Dorothy Sayers, Are Women Human "

― Sarah Bessey , Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

197 " When I stay in prayer long enough, I am surprised by the level of emotion I inevitably encounter within myself. The stillness brings the weight, the sadness, and the freedom it always has, and a profound sense for me of what is true. "

― Sarah Bessey , A Rhythm of Prayer: A Collection of Meditations for Renewal

198 " These days when I pray, I send all of my hopes and fears into the air over the Hudson River, trying to remain long enough for the language of praise to come to me naturally "

― Sarah Bessey , A Rhythm of Prayer: A Collection of Meditations for Renewal

199 " Well, who is in charge here? We are. Yes, but if push comes to shove, who is the leader? We are. But then who is the spiritual head of your home? Only Jesus. only ever our Jesus. "

― Sarah Bessey , Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

200 " After all, the Israelites saw God in tribal ways. How else would they experience God but within their unique place and time?
The Bible is the story of God told from the limited point of view of real people living at a certain place and time...These ancient writers had an adequate understanding of God for them in their time, but not for all of time. "

― Sarah Bessey , Out of Sorts: Making Peace with an Evolving Faith