INTRODUCTION
The more I read this book, the more depressing I found it. Chapter One begins with Psalm 13.
“How long, O LORD? Will You forget me forever? How long will You hide Your face from me? How long shall I take counsel in my soul, Having sorrow in my heart all the day? How long will my enemy be exalted over me? Consider and answer me, O LORD my God; Enlighten my eyes, or I will sleep the sleep of death, And my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,” And my adversaries will rejoice when I am shaken. But I have trusted in Your lovingkindness; My heart shall rejoice in Your salvation. I will sing to the LORD, Because He has dealt bountifully with me.”
My wife, Stephanie, has been bedridden for nearly five years with a mental disorder. She has felt abandoned by God many times. She has often pleaded with God, as the psalmist did in the first verses of this psalm (underlined type above). But, Stephanie has rarely if ever expressed the sentiments of the psalmist in the last verses of this psalm (bold type above). Perhaps Stephanie’s unwillingness to come to terms with God and trust Him in her misery is precisely the reason she is still in her terrible condition? I know that God loves her and me and our family enough to allow us to endure her illness until He has completed all His works through it. But, such spiritual pragmatism is completely foreign to Stephanie.
Even more traumatic for my wife than the illness itself are the collateral issues. For example: she is not able to watch her children grow up because she cannot attend their games and recitals; she can no longer travel the world with me as she so often did before her illness; she is forced to watch others raise her family; she is not the wife and mother she longs to be, and so on. And beyond all this, in the midst of all these difficult circumstances, she has not found any solace or contentment. Neither has she truly drawn near to God as a result. When I eventually came to the conclusion that I was helpless to make her well, I found a contentment and serenity in the ordeal that seems to offend her. Understandably, she wants to keep fighting, and she wants me to be her champion. But, all I can do is hold her hand, walk through it with her and pray for her and encourage her.
Marva J. Dawn states that she “wrote this book to bring the healing presence of God’s Word” (Preface ix). Far from being a comfort to me, this book was a presumptuous and unwelcome intrusion. Perhaps reading of the struggles and pain of others comforts women, and even some men, in their struggles and pain, but I am not so comforted. While this is exactly what I am doing when I read the Psalms, there is a difference because the Psalms are the inspired Word of God, profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction and instruction in righteousness, unlike the word of Dawn. I also felt the book was, for me, preachy, tedious and fraught with anecdotes too numerous to list here. There were many other obstacles for me to overcome in reading this book to really get anything out of it. And I failed miserably to overcome those obstacles.
First, Dawn refers to the chapters of her book as “studies” (Preface ix, Page 21), not reflections or “meditations” as the book’s title states. Her claims that these studies “are not intended as commentary but as devotional helps” (page 3) are a thin veil. Had Dawn’s book been merely a collection of meditations, as the subtitle suggests, I would hardly think it suitable as a seminary text.
But, the larger problem is that I take seriously the Apostle Paul’s admonition against women teaching men (1Ti 2:12-14) in the body of Christ. Since I am expected to “learn” from the author by reading this book, I find the assignment in opposition to clear biblical instruction. Consequently, I cannot relate to the author as either a student relates to a teacher, or as a pastor to a church member, or as even a husband to a wife. On this biblical ground, I do not wish to have my doctrine shaped by a woman. Thus, I have read this book with a very wary eye.
Plainly stated, my position on Paul’s instruction is that he did not offer for his restriction on women teaching men any contemporary cultural reasoning which centuries later could be dismissed by more modern cultures. But rather, he argued from the historical and doctrinal basis of the order of creation and the fact of Satan’s successful deception of Eve.
“But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet. For it was Adam who was first created, and then Eve. And it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression.” 1 Timothy 2:12-14
To read as culturally dismissable Paul’s restriction on women teaching men in the body of Christ would require a very liberal and creative approach to biblical interpretation. Dawn’s practice of counseling men is simply another violation of this biblical doctrine.
Second, Dawn is a Christian divorcée. There are always two sides to every story. As already mentioned above, I cannot help but discount portions of her “meditations” on the basis of her lack of scriptural teaching authority. For the sake of argument, had Paul not already placed a restriction on her teaching authority, that authority would certainly have been undermined by the damage done to it by her divorce. Credibility in teaching God’s Word is paramount. Who can say why her divorce happened, or what role in it she may have played? I do not accuse her of any culpability in her divorce; but I do question her right to teach me doctrine or to exegete the Scriptures for me in the vacuum of any verifiable knowledge of the circumstances of her divorce. Teachers of the Bible must be “above reproach” (1 Timothy 3:2, Titus 1:6-7). There is no need to seek biblical instruction from those who do not meet God’s strict standard.
Beyond the credibility issue, I must also discount portions of her “meditations” on the basis of my not knowing all sides of the divorce. There may be pertinent facts of which I am unaware that may have some bearing on the accuracy of her biblical interpretation. Further, since she has assumed the teaching role of a pastor or professor in the body of Christ, at least in so far as her book has become required reading for a seminary course, I will compare her divorce to Rev. Jimmy Swaggart’s well publicized sexual infidelities. While Swaggart may have extensive biblical knowledge, his teaching is now tainted because his integrity has legitimately come under scrutiny. His observations on the Scriptures cannot now be taken seriously, however accurate they may later prove to be. Again, I do not accuse Dawn; but I quite rightly question her teaching.
David, a murderer while under the grace of God and in fellowship with Him, was not allowed to build God’s temple because he had been tainted by his sin. Moses, a blasphemer while under the grace of God and in fellowship with Him, was not allowed to take Israel into the Promised Land because having dishonored God tainted him. Dawn, too, is tainted in this way. One might argue that the Apostle Paul was certainly a murderer and a blasphemer, but that he was given the privilege of writing most of the New Testament epistles. I would counter that his sins did not taint him as a Christian because they occurred before his conversion. Should I be required to regard as credible the teachings of a Christian alcoholic, drug addict or adulterer? Dawn may be none of these things, but if I am to test every spirit by its fruit, of what is divorce the fruit? Who can say based on the information available? But, one can only reasonably and legitimately raise the question of Dawn’s or any divorced Christian’s credibility in teaching God’s Word.
Third, while the female perspective is so different from my own, I don’t find a lot that is useful here. She relates to the Psalms on the basis of her emotions (Page 106), applying the truth of the Psalms as a salve on her wounds. I can see this to a degree, but I am more in tune with the truth of the Psalms as instruction on how to approach and appeal to God rather than as a comfort in my pain. As I read her book, I felt as though I was discussing traffic with a Bedouin nomad. What the nomad and I have in common is well known to us both, and what we don’t have in common (degrees of traffic in our daily lives) is a matter of perspective. At times I found myself in a one-way conversation with Dawn postulating and me fidgeting. I am found truth here, but not much that was new to me. There is no doubt that she exhibits an above average level of spiritual maturity in her “meditations.” But many of us are spiritually mature, and especially those of us who have walked with God through the deep waters of the trials of our lives.
Following the theme of Dawn’s femaleness, I object to her preference to characterize God in gender-neutral terms (Preface xiii), and her updating of modern Bible translations with her own gender-neutral terms (Ibid., Pages 58, 65, 92, 98, 106, 121, 158, 189). I also object to her apologies for sometimes referring “to God with the pronouns he, his, and himself, which [she has] always understood as gender-neutral” (Ibid.). That the Spirit of God dictated to the Scripture writers such masculine references to Himself is apparently lost on Dawn. Finally on this point, her suggestion that Psalm 25 “therefore implies the mother-love of God” carries her feminist viewpoint to the extreme (Page 31).
These are my “thoughts, reflections, feelings, reactions and direction by the Holy Spirit” as required by the assignment. Over all, the assignment was a disappointment to me. I much preferred the class lectures and the after hours discussions. That is where I came to the most intimate knowledge of the truth of the Psalms.
