Unlikely Faces of Faithfulness: Marginal Women in the Old Testament

Jesus is known for “hanging out” on the margins of society: eating with tax collectors/sinners, speaking to the souls of Samaritans, and healing the blind, sick, and lame. What if thinking about Jesus “hanging out on the margins” could invite us into a new way of reading the Bible? What if like Jesus, we too could “hang out on the margins,” even and especially when we read the Bible, paying attention to the minor characters, to the poor, and to the women? On the margins of well-known stories of the Patriarchs, the wandering Israelites, or the Judges we will find women of great strength, courage, and faithfulness, women who have often been overlooked.  When we hang out on the margins of the Old Testament we are sure to find Jesus there with us, showing us the women who have gone before all of us in God’s story. These outsider women in their own small, yet powerful ways helped preserve the life of Israel, and so I want to properly introduce them to you! 

Nikki Ramage is a CMC currently in her final semester of seminary at Azusa Pacific University. She loves gathering books and sometimes reading them, is skilled at finding excuses to have ice cream, and more often than not wins the ping pong matches she plays. Locally, she works to support adults with developmental disabilities in independent living. She is passionate about theological education which prepares people for lives of service in the world. She is smitten with the Free Methodist Church.