| Last week, Twitter was buzzing over two little words—go home—uttered by pastor John MacArthur about Bible teacher Beth Moore. Christians across the spectrum have defended Moore’s ministry in both snappy tweets and long essays. CT took some time to go deeper into MacArthur’s theological background on a recent episode of our Quick to Listen podcast. And Jen Pollock Michel reflected on the broader implications of confining women’s roles to the domestic sphere. “Despite his commitment to faithfully read Scripture, MacArthur (and others) often mistake this truth: In the Bible, home has never primarily been a woman’s place,” Jen wrote. “In other words, when he says ‘go home,’ he invokes a paradigm that isn’t biblical. Any church teaching that solely consigns women to the responsibilities of home (while tacitly excusing the men) proves exegetically paper-thin.” The author of Keeping Place: Reflections on the Meaning of Home, Jen has done a lot of thinking about the scriptural and social significance of the places we call home and brings up how for much of history home was a shared sphere of economic and familial activity. The divide we imagine between work and home, and often corresponding to men’s places and women’s places, is far more recent. And while feminism pushed for women to be welcome in offices and industries and other “work” spheres, there’s also the question of why we haven’t seen as much furor around calling men back to their responsibilities at home too. Jen brought up this point from Glenna Matthews, who wrote a history of American domesticity: “Making a home is a worthy endeavor .... Let’s not denigrate the work; instead, let’s call everyone to it.” Writer Hannah Anderson also shared some similar observations in the wake of MacArthur’s comments. “Linking the phrase ‘Go home; to a conversation about power in society & church tells you everything that you need to know about how folks see the home in modern West. The subtext is that the home is not a place of power, despite decades of telling women otherwise …,” she tweeted. “Could it be that more MEN need to give attention to their homes?” This is not some argument for the sake of making a point or evening the scales regarding traditional gender roles. We see in so many contexts the way the home is seen as beneath or in submission to other aspects of our lives—including the demands of ministry. I can’t stop thinking about Sarah Bessey’s recent essay for Fathom magazine about how A. Z. Tozer’s commitment to the church left his wife and family neglected. She quotes one of his biographers who wrote, “He had no inkling that his zeal for God’s house was undermining his own.” We have to care well for our own homes—and celebrate the work and love that go into them—when we consider the Lord’s example on this front. He has made a home for us in Creation and is preparing a home for us in the hereafter. “What’s clear from Genesis 1–2 is that God had readied a world for welcome. Homemaking, as a word to describe God’s labor on behalf of humanity, conveys the sense of God’s mindfulness toward the man and the woman he greets at the door,” Michel wrote in Keeping Place. “… someone is indeed taking care. The primordial Homemaker is an adoptive Father, and his empathetic homemaking will last throughout eternity.” Kate | 