Quotes from Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

“I want to be outside with the misfits, with the rebels, the dreamers, second-chance givers, the radical grace lavishers, the ones with arms wide open, the courageously vulnerable, and among even—or maybe especially—the ones rejected by the Table as not worthy enough or right enough.”
― Sarah Bessey, quote from Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

“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 Day, Catholic social activist and journalist”
― Sarah Bessey, quote from Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

“I won't desecrate beauty with cynicism anymore. I won't confuse critical thinking with a critical spirit, and I will practice, painfully, over and over, patience and peace until my gentle answers turn away even my own wrath. I will breathe fresh air while I learn, all over again, grace freely given and wisdom honored; and when my fingers fumble, whenI sound flat or sharp, I will simply try again.”
― Sarah Bessey, quote from Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

“Rest in your God-breathed worth. Stop holding your breath, hiding your gifts, ducking your head, dulling your roar, distracting your soul, stilling your hands, quieting your voice, and satiating your hunger with the lesser things of this world.”
― Sarah Bessey, quote from Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

“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, quote from Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

“People want black-and-white answers, but Scripture is rainbow arch across a stormy sky.”
― Sarah Bessey, quote from Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

“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, quote from Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

“Sometimes miracles look like instant healing; and other times, miracles look like medication and patience and discipline.”
― Sarah Bessey, quote from Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

“Miracles sometimes look like a kapow! lightning-strike revelation; and sometimes miracles look like showing up for your counseling appointments.”
― Sarah Bessey, quote from Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

“Let’s sit here in hard truth and easy beauty, in the tensions of the Now and the Not Yet of the Kingdom of God, and let us discover how we can disagree beautifully.”
― Sarah Bessey, quote from Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

“Women have more to offer the church than mad decorating skills or craft nights.”
― Sarah Bessey, quote from Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

“He called her''daughter of Abraham,' which likely sent a shock wave through the room; it was the first time the phrase had ever been spoken. People had only ever heard 'sons of Abraham'--never daughters. But at the sound of Jesus' words daughter of Abraham, he gave her a place to stand alongside the sons, especially the ones snarling with their sense of ownership and exclusivity over it all, watching.”
― Sarah Bessey, quote from Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

“People want black-and-white answers, but Scripture is rainbow arch across a stormy sky. Our sacred book is not an indexed answer book or life manual; it is also a grand story, mystery, invitation, truth and wisdom, and a passionate love letter.”
― Sarah Bessey, quote from Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

“I look forward to the day when women with leadership and insight, gifts and talents, callings and prophetic leanings are called out and celebrated as Deborah, instead of silenced as Jezebel.”
― Sarah Bessey, quote from Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

“One of my friends has a saying: “If it’s not true in Darfur, it’s not true here.” He means if we can’t preach it in every context, for every person, it’s not really for everyone, and so then we should probably ask whether or not what we are preaching is actually the gospel.”
― Sarah Bessey, quote from Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

“I saw how Jesus didn’t treat women any differently than men, and I liked that. We weren’t too precious for words, dainty like fine china. We received no free pass or delicate worries about our ability to understand or contribute or work. Women were not too sweet or weak for the conviction of the Holy Spirit, or too manipulative and prone to jealousy, insecurity, and deception to push back the kingdom of darkness.”
― Sarah Bessey, quote from Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

“God has a global dream for his daughters and his sons, and it is bigger than our narrow interpretations or small box constructions of “biblical manhood and womanhood” or feminism;”
― Sarah Bessey, quote from Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

“You learn how to love by being loved.”
― Sarah Bessey, quote from Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

“For instance, some evangelicals have turned Proverbs 31 into a woman’s job description instead of what it actually is: the blessing and affirmation of valor for the lives of women, memorized by Jewish husbands for the purpose of honoring their wives at the family table. It is meant as a celebration for the everyday moments of valor for everyday women, not as an impossible exhausting standard.”
― Sarah Bessey, quote from Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

“It's a scary thing, a life-changing, paradigm-shifting thing, to honestly ask yourself this question: Am I moving with God to rescue, restore, and redeem humanity? Or am I clinging fast, eyeteeth clenched, to an imperfect world's habits and cultural customs, in full knowledge of injustice or imperfections, living at odds with God's dream for his daughters and sons?”
― Sarah Bessey, quote from Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

“Many of the seminal social issues of our time - poverty, lack of education, human trafficking, war and torture, domestic abuse - can track their way to our theology of, or beliefs about, women, which has its roots in what we believe about the nature, purposes, and character of God.”
― Sarah Bessey, quote from Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

“So may there be grace and kindness, gentleness and love in our hearts, especially for the ones who we believe are profoundly wrong. The Good News is proclaimed when we love each other. I pray for unity beyond conformity, because loving-kindness preaches the gospel more beautifully and truthfully than any satirical blog post or point-by-point dismantling of another disciple's reputation and teaching.”
― Sarah Bessey, quote from Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

“Patriarchy is not God's dream for humanity.”
― Sarah Bessey, quote from Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

“who wants to live in an ivory tower when there is fresh air to breathe anyway? I want to be outside with the misfits, with the rebels, the dreamers, second-chance givers, the radical grace lavishers, the ones with arms wide open, the courageously vulnerable, and among even—or maybe especially—the ones rejected by the Table as not worthy enough or right enough.”
― Sarah Bessey, quote from Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

“Nothing changes in a true, God-lasting way when we use people or push agendas or make finger-pointing arguments or accusations of heresy.”
― Sarah Bessey, quote from Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

“Life in Christ is not meant to mirror life in a Greco-Roman culture. An ancient Middle Eastern culture is not our standard. We are not meant to adopt the world of Luther's Reformation or the culture of the eighteenth-century Great Awakening or even 1950s America as our standard for righteousness. The culture, past or present, isn't the point: Jesus and his Kingdom come, his will done, right now—that is the point.”
― Sarah Bessey, quote from Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

“God’s vision is a call to move forward into the future in the full operation of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control, with a fearlessness that could only come from him.”
― Sarah Bessey, quote from Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

“We reject the lies of inequality, we affirm the Spirit, we forgive radically, we advocate for love and demonstrate it by folding laundry, and we live these Kingdom ways of shalom prophetically in the world.”
― Sarah Bessey, quote from Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

“Often when a woman exhibits leadership, she’s accused of having that Jezebel spirit. I look forward to the day when women with leadership and insight, gifts and talents, callings and prophetic leanings are called out and celebrated as a Deborah, instead of silenced as a Jezebel.”
― Sarah Bessey, quote from Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

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Popular quotes

“Oh, yes! Fill the churches with dirty thoughts! Introduce honesty to the White House! Write letters in dead languages to people you've never met! Paint filthy words on the foreheads of children! Burn your credit cards and wear high heels! Asylum doors stand open! Fill the suburbs with murder and rape! Divine madness! Let there be ecstasy, ecstasy in the streets! Laugh and the world laughs with you!”
― Grant Morrison, quote from Batman: Arkham Asylum - A Serious House on Serious Earth

“Say 'Kenmore Square'," I insist.
"Kenmaw Sqway-ah."
"Say 'Nothing could be finer than to be in Carolina.'"
"Nothing could be finah than to be in Caroliner.'"
"You're doing that on purpose."
"I'm not. I sway-ah.”
― Steve Kluger, quote from My Most Excellent Year

“Violet didn’t realize that she’d pressed herself so tightly against the door until it opened from the inside and she stumbled backward.
She fell awkwardly, trying to catch herself as her feet slipped and first she banged her elbow, and then her shoulder-hard-against the doorjamb. She heard her can of pepper spray hit the concrete step at her feet as she flailed to find something to grab hold of.
Her back crashed into something solid. Or rather, someone. And from behind, she felt strong, unseen arms catch her before she hit the ground. But she was too stunned to react right away.
“You think I can let you go now?” A low voice chuckled in her ear.
Violet was mortified as she glanced clumsily over her shoulder to see who had just saved her from falling.
“Rafe!” she gasped, when she realized she was face-to-face with his deep blue eyes. She jumped up, feeling unexpectedly light-headed as she shrugged out of his grip. Without thinking, and with his name still burning on her lips, she added, “Umm, thanks, I guess.” And then, considering that he had just stopped her from landing flat on her butt, she gave it another try. “No…yeah, thanks, I mean.”
Flustered, she bent down, trying to avoid his eyes as she grabbed the paper spray that had slipped from her fingers. She cursed herself for being so clumsy and wondered why she cared that he had been the one to catch her. Or why she cared that he was here at all.
She stood up to face him, feeling more composed again, and quickly hid the evidence of her paranoia-the tiny canister-in her purse. She hoped he hadn’t noticed it.
He watched her silently, and she saw the hint of a smile tugging at his lips. Violet waited for him to say something or to move aside to let her in. His gaze stripped away her defenses, making her feel even more exposed than when she had been standing alone in the empty street.
She shifted restlessly and finally sighed impatiently. “I have an appointment,” she announced, lifting her eyebrows. “With Sara.”
Her words had the desired effect, and Rafe shrugged, still studying her as he stepped out of her way. But he held the door so she could enter. She brushed past him, stepping into the hallway, as she tried to ignore the fact that she was suddenly sweltering inside her own coat.
She told herself it was just the furnace, though, and had nothing to do with her humiliation over falling. Or with the presence of the brooding dark-haired boy.
When they reached the end of the long hallway, Rafe pulled out a thick plastic card from his back pocket. As he held it in front of the black pad mounted on the wall beside a door, a small red light flickered to green and the door clicked. He pushed it open and led the way through.
Security, Violet thought. Whatever it is they do here, they need security.
Violet glanced up and saw a small camera mounted in the corner above the door. If she were Chelsea, she would have flashed the peace sign-or worse-a message for whoever was watching on the other end.
But she was Violet, so instead she hurried after Rafe before the door closed and she was locked out.”
― Kimberly Derting, quote from Desires of the Dead

“Should thousands of animals suffer so that a new kind of lipstick or floor wax can be put on the market?”
― Peter Singer, quote from Animal Liberation

“What do you believe, Aunt Elizabeth?'
'I believe. . . I am comfortable with reading the Bible figuratively rather than literally. For instance, I think the six days in Genesis are not literal days, but different periods of creation, so that it took many thousands --- or hundreds of thousands of years --- to create. It does not demean God; it simply gives Him more time to build this extraordinary world.'
'And the ichthyosaurus and plesiosaurus?'
'They are creatures from long, long ago. They remind us that the world is changing. Of course it is. I can see it change when there are landslips at Lyme that alter the shoreline. It changes when there are earthquakes and volcanic eruptions and floods. And why shouldn't it?”
― Tracy Chevalier, quote from Remarkable Creatures

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