MacArthur out of line telling Beth Moore to “Go Home”

Recently John MacArther gave a rather scathing review of Beth Moore. At the most recent Grace to You conference, John MacArthurs ministry MacArther was asked to give a one word response to the simple prompting “Beth Moore” from Todd Friel. His answer? “Go Home”.

He goes on to say “there is no Biblical case that can be made for a woman preacher. Period. Paragraph. End of Discussion”.

Before I give my critique I want to say that I respect MacArthur greatly he is a phenomenal Biblical scholar in our time. I credit him to much of church avoiding some liberal and unbiblical interpretations of scripture. He also did an interview with Ben Shapiro this year and of all the Christians I have seen on Shapiro’s show I think he did the best pushing Shapiro to accept Christianity. All of that being said I think MacArthur is is flat out wrong of his critique of Moore on multiple levels.

A case can be made for Women preachers
MacArther seems to make a bold faced false claim when he says a Biblical case cannot be made for women preachers. While MacArthur may not agree with those arguments they do exist. One resource for instance would be Women in Leadership from the counterpoints Zondervan series in which Craig Keener and another author outline Biblical case for women preachers. Furthermore, Ravi Zacharius makes a case by explaining that in fact the first to even preach the resurrection were in fact women since they were the ones to see the empty tomb first.
So there is a bit here that MacArthur seems even a bit dishonest. I am sure he is familiar with these arguments he just doesn’t agree with them, but when men like Keener and Zacharius make the case saying “a biblical case can’t be made” is just dishonest.

Beth Moore is not Narcissistic
Phil Johnson went on to criticize her as narcissistic. This was due to Moore expressing that she tries to put herself into the story of what she is reading in scripture. In this critique I think Phill is blatantly twister Moores words. He claims that she puts herself in the story to make it all about her, but a simple listening to her preaching would make you see she is only doing so to help her better understand the characters. For instance if you imagine yourself being in Davids shoes it helps you realize how amazing and Godly David was not to kill saw on the two occasions he had opportunity to. There is nothing narcissistic about that, and I am willing to bet Johnson and MacArthur has done the same.

Beth Moore is not a hawker.
MacArthur went on further to say that just because someone can sell jewelry on a tv channel doesn’t mean you are able to preach. In that he seemed to be implying that Moore hawked jewelry on the home shopping network or something like that. First off, the jewelry connection is based off one if her books where she talks about the bracelet as a reminder to her of Isaiah 43:10 that there is only one God and to believe Him. Moore doesn’t make jewelry or make profit from it. Secondly, MacArthur should probably listen to a more of Moore’s talk before he claims she isn’t a good preacher. I know countless people who have learned from her teachings, including myself as a seminary student at a highly conservative school.

Final thoughts
Overall, I have to say that this entire clip has me very disappointed in these men and the example that they set. It is one thing to not think Beth Moore should preach, but I’ve seen countless examples of others who also believe women shouldn’t preach and have done this with humility and tact. This was not that.