![]() ![]() I bent down to them and fed them.” This brief passage depicts the essence of mothering, namely, a woman’s relationship to the child she loves. Perhaps one of the most touching mothering images of God in the Bible comes in Hosea 11:4, where God is depicted as saying (about Ephraim): “I was to them like those who lift infants to their cheeks. The maternal language for discipleship in the New Testament was so compelling that medieval monastic leaders such as Bernard of Clairvaux urged his fellow monks to be “mothers” to those in their care. To the Thessalonians (1 Thessalonians 2: 7-8) he says that his devotion to them is “like a mother feeding and looking after her own children.” In Galatians 4:19, Paul writes that he must “go through the pain of giving birth” to the Galatians “all over again until Christ is formed” in them. More Paul A Christian missionary who once persecuted the church More imagines his own discipleship as the imitation of God’s mothering work. At the beginning of his ministry Jesus called twelve apostles to follow and serve him. The apostle Derived from a Greek word meaning "one who is sent," an apostle is a person who embraces and advocates another person's idea or beliefs. ![]() The Gospel of John suggests that those “born of God” (John 1:12) and those “born in the Spirit” (John 3:6) are to imitate the caring acts of God. Centuries of Christians have seen Mary’s body and breast milk as a symbol and sign of God’s motherly care for humanity.Īnother aspect of “motherwork” in the Bible is the training and nurturing of disciples, as children are trained and nurtured by their mothers. Not only does God birth the world, God was born by a woman. But in Numbers 11:12-13, God may have forgotten God’s children were hungry! Moses Prophet who led Israel out of Egypt to the Promised Land and received the law at Sinai More complains that God gave birth to Israel, but God has now left it up to Moses to feed them.Īnd we must not forget the birth narratives of Jesus Christ. (along with Amos, Hosea, and Micah)-preachers who boldly proclaimed God's word of judgment against the economic, social, and religious disorders of their time. God the mother feeds God’s children in Isaiah Isaiah, son of Amoz, who prophesied in Jerusalem, is included among the prophets of the eighth century B.C.E. Preserving children also entails feeding them. In Isaiah 49:13-15, God responds to the people’s cry by reassuring them with the question, “Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb?” Israel’s cry to God, possibly recorded while in its Babylonian exile, offers imagery of how God as a mother preserves God’s child, Israel (Deuteronomy 32:18, see this explanatory note on the Song of Moses). Once mothers bring children into the world, they work to preserve and save their children from harm and death. Christ’s use of mothering imagery in the throes of death point to the new humanity that he brings forth for the sake of the world. Before his arrest and crucifixion, according to John 17:1, Jesus states that “the hour has come” -– a phrase that was used frequently to refer to the moment when active labor starts for a woman in childbirth. Jesus Jesus is the Messiah whose life, death, and resurrection are God's saving act for humanity More Christ speaks of himself in terms of birthing a new humanity. Such mothering language also underscores the nurturing vitality of God’s creation. In Paul’s famous imagery of female groaning in active labor, the creation groans as it labors towards redemption and new life in Romans 8:22. God also births Wisdom, as described in Proverbs 8:22-25.īirthing language continues as a description of how creation experiences sin and its future. More uses when she gives birth, or “produces” her son Cain The elder son of Adam and Eve, Cain murdered his brother Abel. The word, “maker” is the same Hebrew word that Eve The name of the first woman, wife of Adam. Genesis 14: 19 and 22 speak of God as the “maker” of the heavens and the earth. In other places, the language of birth and the female body is less clear, but ancient readers would have understood it as birthing language. More thus is not just a spoken event, but a birthing event that comes from the whole being of God. In the book of Revelation (which speaks of end times) the author declares that God created all things and. Genesis says that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Creation Creation, in biblical terms, is the universe as we know or perceive it. The sea leaps out of God’s womb (Job 38:8), and the ice is brought forth from God’s womb (Job 38:28-29). God’s mothering work begins in childbirth, as most mothering work does. But such imagery is not without some tension. The Bible offers a picture of God who mothers through the work of birthing, preserving, and nurturing God’s children. ![]()
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