By Traci Rhoades
As is common these days, I’m making an annual trek through the Bible in a year.
There are many Bible plans out there, and for more than a decade I’ve chosen to read it chronologically — that is, in a timeline scholars best understand the events occurred. For around 40 days, I’ll be wandering with the Israelites through the wilderness.
I wrote a book about that. Wandering, that is. My first book, “Not All Who Wander (Spiritually) Are Lost,” came out in 2020, the year we all but stopped wandering due to a global pandemic.
In this book, I explore a variety of church traditions, making the argument that we can celebrate the diversity of capital-C Church and ground ourselves solidly in a local church experience. I still believe that. What I didn’t fully realize is how exploring like this will change a person, how it has changed me.
It seems I created a brand, me as a wandering Christian, but not because I can’t find Jesus. It’s because together we form a fuller picture of the body of Christ. I want more of Jesus, which continues to leave me unsettled. It’s a longing I won’t fill, apparently, until he calls me home.
So I write about wandering. I ask honest questions. I fall in love with grand cathedrals and small wooden churches. I meet pilgrims along the way who want more of Jesus too. I visit sacred spaces — some familiar and some surprising.
As an homage to those Israelites, called out of slavery into what they thought was freedom, but it was the not-quite-yet freedom we can all recognize in our journeys, I want to share here about a road trip I took with my mom and daughter about seven years ago. We took two days to visit the Ark Encounter and Creation Museum, both only a few miles apart from one another in Kentucky.
I distinctly quick shooting a text to my friend, “I am blown away to discover that Jewish tradition names Noah’s wife, Emzara.” (Actually, some traditions refer to her as Emzara, while other traditions give her other names.)
Here’s what I’ve come to understand about traditions (note the lower-case t). They are historically a way for God’s people to interact with Scripture. In Judaism, this idea of interacting, or expanding on Hebrew Scripture, is called Midrash. So, while we may not know for certain the actual name of Noah’s wife (yet), we can respect the fact that scholars wanted to name her. In order to better understand how God worked among Noah and his family in a rather monumental, yet catastrophic way, they longed for, in the words of the late Paul Harvey, “the rest of the story.” I do too.
My biggest takeaway from visiting the Ark Encounter was the sheer size of the structure. I have a photo of the three of us; my mom, my daughter and me, in front of the main entrance to the Ark. The person who took this photo for us had to stand way back to ensure that most of the doors fit in the picture, with us looking tiny in comparison.
It also left me thinking practically. How did the small family live with all the noise? The smells? The creature waste? There was a separate stall where the food for Noah and his family was contained, but the animals had to eat too.
This took me back to a handful of good questions I’d encountered from my years of teaching children in Sunday School. There was no aquarium on the Ark, so did God save all aquatic animals? Were there dinosaurs on that Ark? How about birds? Would the real name of Noah’s wife please identify itself? This naming thing has been something I get stuck on sometimes.
Occasionally, people may question interactions like I’m describing. Naysayers on social media (I spend a lot of time on the site formerly known as Twitter) assure me God has told us the exact details he wants us to have in scripture. Who are we to ask for any more than that?
But asking these questions, which come quite naturally to a seven-year-old, for example, shows a curiosity about how God works among his people. It makes the Bible stories come to life, and that’s true for those who take the most literal stance, for those who find timeless moral truths in the parts they believe to be fictional accounts and for all of us who land somewhere in between those two extremes.
Which takes me to our next day of travel, the Creation Museum. While the Ark had stretched my imagination, the Creation Museum seemed to issue a warning about expanding my theological mindset too much.
From scientific apologetics to bold evangelistic tactics, I sensed how the faith journey I was on had changed me. Wandering among church traditions introduced me to a growing number of people who I knew to be both godly and hungry for righteousness.
Surely, someday, we’ll all discover doctrinal beliefs we’ve held that weren’t quite right. Of course, by that point, maybe we won’t care, because there we will stand, face to face with our Lord Jesus Christ.
What I sensed God whispering to my spirit that day, and I’ve sensed this often over the years, is this: “We don’t have to strive at proving Scripture.” I’ve long appreciated the point a former pastor made in a sermon, “The Bible is true in everything it sets out to accomplish.” It’s true. Every single word is true. Because God inspired it, and he is truth.
I’m a wanderer, looking for the God of Truth. That idea of truth not as a landing place, but a launching place for better conversations among his people.
—————
Traci Rhoades is an author and Bible teacher who lives with her husband and daughter in West Michigan.
As is common these days, I’m making an annual trek through the Bible in a year.
There are many Bible plans out there, and for more than a decade I’ve chosen to read it chronologically — that is, in a timeline scholars best understand the events occurred. For around 40 days, I’ll be wandering with the Israelites through the wilderness.
I wrote a book about that. Wandering, that is. My first book, “Not All Who Wander (Spiritually) Are Lost,” came out in 2020, the year we all but stopped wandering due to a global pandemic.
In this book, I explore a variety of church traditions, making the argument that we can celebrate the diversity of capital-C Church and ground ourselves solidly in a local church experience. I still believe that. What I didn’t fully realize is how exploring like this will change a person, how it has changed me.
It seems I created a brand, me as a wandering Christian, but not because I can’t find Jesus. It’s because together we form a fuller picture of the body of Christ. I want more of Jesus, which continues to leave me unsettled. It’s a longing I won’t fill, apparently, until he calls me home.
So I write about wandering. I ask honest questions. I fall in love with grand cathedrals and small wooden churches. I meet pilgrims along the way who want more of Jesus too. I visit sacred spaces — some familiar and some surprising.
As an homage to those Israelites, called out of slavery into what they thought was freedom, but it was the not-quite-yet freedom we can all recognize in our journeys, I want to share here about a road trip I took with my mom and daughter about seven years ago. We took two days to visit the Ark Encounter and Creation Museum, both only a few miles apart from one another in Kentucky.
I distinctly quick shooting a text to my friend, “I am blown away to discover that Jewish tradition names Noah’s wife, Emzara.” (Actually, some traditions refer to her as Emzara, while other traditions give her other names.)
Here’s what I’ve come to understand about traditions (note the lower-case t). They are historically a way for God’s people to interact with Scripture. In Judaism, this idea of interacting, or expanding on Hebrew Scripture, is called Midrash. So, while we may not know for certain the actual name of Noah’s wife (yet), we can respect the fact that scholars wanted to name her. In order to better understand how God worked among Noah and his family in a rather monumental, yet catastrophic way, they longed for, in the words of the late Paul Harvey, “the rest of the story.” I do too.
My biggest takeaway from visiting the Ark Encounter was the sheer size of the structure. I have a photo of the three of us; my mom, my daughter and me, in front of the main entrance to the Ark. The person who took this photo for us had to stand way back to ensure that most of the doors fit in the picture, with us looking tiny in comparison.
It also left me thinking practically. How did the small family live with all the noise? The smells? The creature waste? There was a separate stall where the food for Noah and his family was contained, but the animals had to eat too.
This took me back to a handful of good questions I’d encountered from my years of teaching children in Sunday School. There was no aquarium on the Ark, so did God save all aquatic animals? Were there dinosaurs on that Ark? How about birds? Would the real name of Noah’s wife please identify itself? This naming thing has been something I get stuck on sometimes.
Occasionally, people may question interactions like I’m describing. Naysayers on social media (I spend a lot of time on the site formerly known as Twitter) assure me God has told us the exact details he wants us to have in scripture. Who are we to ask for any more than that?
But asking these questions, which come quite naturally to a seven-year-old, for example, shows a curiosity about how God works among his people. It makes the Bible stories come to life, and that’s true for those who take the most literal stance, for those who find timeless moral truths in the parts they believe to be fictional accounts and for all of us who land somewhere in between those two extremes.
Which takes me to our next day of travel, the Creation Museum. While the Ark had stretched my imagination, the Creation Museum seemed to issue a warning about expanding my theological mindset too much.
From scientific apologetics to bold evangelistic tactics, I sensed how the faith journey I was on had changed me. Wandering among church traditions introduced me to a growing number of people who I knew to be both godly and hungry for righteousness.
Surely, someday, we’ll all discover doctrinal beliefs we’ve held that weren’t quite right. Of course, by that point, maybe we won’t care, because there we will stand, face to face with our Lord Jesus Christ.
What I sensed God whispering to my spirit that day, and I’ve sensed this often over the years, is this: “We don’t have to strive at proving Scripture.” I’ve long appreciated the point a former pastor made in a sermon, “The Bible is true in everything it sets out to accomplish.” It’s true. Every single word is true. Because God inspired it, and he is truth.
I’m a wanderer, looking for the God of Truth. That idea of truth not as a landing place, but a launching place for better conversations among his people.
—————
Traci Rhoades is an author and Bible teacher who lives with her husband and daughter in West Michigan.
