In Defense of @BethMooreLPM “Little Girl Arise”

Last week when an email from Paige Patterson was released, wherein he said he wanted to meet with an alleged rape victim in order to “break her down”, Beth Moore tweeted this in response:

“Break her down.”
—Mortal Man

“Raise her up.”
—Son of God

Taking her by the hand He said to her, “Talitha Cumi” which means, “Little girl, I say to you arise.” Mark 5:41

— Beth Moore (@BethMooreLPM) June 2, 2018

I’ll be honest and say that at first reading I thought this was a bit of a strange passage to use in defense of her point. But then I saw a couple of days later many taking her to task for her exegesis of this passage. One gentleman even said, “This is exactly why she is unqualified to teach Scriptures”. This statement, her critics have said, has absolutely nothing to do with misogyny and she has ripped this passage out of its context to make her point.

This caused me to pay a bit more attention to her tweet. I wanted to know if she really did exegete that passage improperly. But first, I think it would do us well to actually engage (exegete) what she is saying and the point she is making.

I believe love calls us to give our brothers and sisters in Christ the fairest reading possible. (I’m not always good at this). To me the fairest reading of what Moore is trying to say is that mortal men have a tendency to break people down whereas Jesus’ ministry is life-giving. And it’s likely a call for us to follow the way of Christ and not the way of mortal man.

So can you get that from this text?

One of the most helpful things that I’ve learned in biblical interpretation is that we must keep a text in its context. (This is what folks are accusing Moore of not doing). But when we say keep a text in its context it is helpful for us to think about context in terms of three horizons. This comes from Richard Lints:

The biblical text has three interpretive horizons: the immediate context of the book (or passage), the context of the period of revelation in which the book (or passage) falls, and the context of the entirety of revelation.

Let us, then, consider each of these contexts of Mark 5:41. The immediate context is Jesus healing of the bleeding woman and this raising up of Jairus’ daughter. When I preached through Mark I taught our people how much Mark likes sandwiches. He loves to tells stories of similarity and have a meaty points right in the middle. This is one of those instances. The bread here is the raising of the little girl and the meat of the sandwich is the healing of the bleeding woman.

Every bit of these passages points to the helplessness and the hopelessness of the situation and the fullness of Christ in conquering the unconquerable. The story of the bleeding woman shows the inadequacy of every treatment she had tried. But one touch of the garment of Jesus and she was healed. Likewise, Mark writes in such a way that the hopelessness of Jairus’ daughter is loud. “She’s dead. Don’t bother the teacher anymore. Nothing we can do”. Then Jesus comes in an does what only Jesus can do; namely, raise the dead.

So the immediate context of the story points to the exceedingly great power and authority of Jesus. Which fits in with Mark’s overall account of who Jesus is. “Truly this man is the Son of God.” How do we know? Not only because he died and rose from the grave but because of all these things that he had done which showed that he was the one who was promised. This is where it fits in that second context. Jesus is the life-giving Messiah who was promised.

It’s no accident that Acts 9:36-43 read somewhat similarly. The apostles are carrying on the work of Jesus. What’s the work of Jesus? The word used here is the same one used of Jesus’ resurrection. His resurrection is a first-fruits of our resurrection. He truly is making all things new. So, when we pan out to the third context—the entirety of revelation we see that Jesus is the promised Messiah. He is the one who would give life and heal all that is broken by the fall. Mark 5:41 is a tiny slice of this greater truth. Jesus gives life where there once was death.

So yeah—the immediate context of Beth Moore’s tweet doesn’t quite square up. But what if she’s making a wider point and using that text as just one little slice of this great truth. Jesus is life giving and calls little girls to “rise up” whereas mortal men have a tendency to bring death? Well, that seems to fit a little better.

Sure, the main point of that text is about a little girl who was physically raised from a physical death. But how would you preach that passage? You’d preach it by pointing to the greater work of Jesus and how this narrative shows us who he is. And a far application of that passage might truly be that Christ heals us where we are broken. For Jairus’ daughter she needed life where there was only death. And Christ alone could do that. Perhaps a far application for us would be to say that where you’ve been broken down by rape and abuse in Christ you can find healing and indeed “rise up”.

A side note to this, that I believe needs to be mentioned, is that I wish that we would do a much more charitable job of exegeting our brothers and sisters in Christ. Let’s read them with a benefit of the doubt. It’s a sign of a good interpreter to consider genre. Twitter is a genre. It’s used to make quick points and not full expositions. It’s really not the best medium for doing good Bible study. But it’s certainly a decent place to make short and even poetic points. Reading a tweet like Beth Moore’s charitably—or even asking questions about what specifically she’s meaning by this—would be helpful. It’s wrong to expect a full exposition or to accuse her of being a false teacher simply because she took a far application from a wider horizon instead of the immediate application from the immediate context.

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