Don't Miss the Gospel in Your Bible Study
September 5th, 2022 • by Nana Dolce
“What would you miss from the gospel story if the passage you're studying right now wasn't in the Bible?”
This insightful question was posed to me by a mentor. Her hope was to convince me of this truth: the individual sections we study in Scripture are part of one big story. The entire Bible works together to tell one overarching narrative. In other words, the Bible is one book. Its forty different authors are inspired by one divine Author to tell one central story: God’s redemption of sinners through his Son.
You might give an emphatic “yes” to my mentor’s words above and still wonder at the “how” of it all. How do we connect the Bible passage we’re studying to the gospel of Jesus Christ? We know that some passages, like John 3:16, are straightforward enough. But what about an Old Testament narrative, for instance? It can be hard to see the gospel of grace in texts that read like moral tales.
Bible teachers and students often use various strategies to connect a text to the gospel. One helpful strategy is 'gospel-based teaching'. Passages with ethical demands can scream out our need for a savior. We need the One who gives us the faith to believe and obey—and who takes on the punishment of our unbelief and disobedience.
My book, The Seed of the Woman, points to Jesus through the narratives of thirty women in Scripture. The story of one of these women—Miriam—is below.
Tradition identifies Miriam as the unnamed big sister of Exodus 2. She emerges as a resourceful rescuer—and later as a praising prophetess. But Miriam is also spotted in Numbers 12, and there we meet an irreverent instigator. Miriam reminds us that God’s salvation is more than national liberation. Miriam needed freedom from Egypt and from her enslavement to sin.
Let's answer my mentor’s question: What might we miss from the gospel story if this woman’s narrative wasn’t in the Bible?
“The Bible’s forty different authors are inspired by one divine Author to tell one central story: God’s redemption of sinners through his Son. ”
Miriam, the Singing Prophetess
Miriam was sister to three-year-old Aaron and infant Moses (Exodus 2:1-2; 7:7). Scripture doesn’t mention her age at the time of Pharaoh’s death order against Hebrew newborn boys—yet she was old enough to understand the danger the law posed to her newest brother. Older sisters can be protective of younger siblings. I wonder if this was Miriam with baby Moses? Exodus 2:4 suggests that she was at hand as her brother was placed in a basket and set loose on the Nile.
Miriam watched the basket come into the hands of Pharaoh’s daughter. She heard the princess recognize her brother as a Hebrew. She noticed her pity for him and acted quickly: “Shall I go and call you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?” (Exodus 2:7). The Egyptian consented and Miriam’s wise intercession ensured Moses’ return to his mother. Those formative months must have sealed Moses’ identity as an offspring of Abraham. His adoption and education in Pharaoh’s court didn’t confuse his later call to serve as a covenant mediator between God and Israel (Acts 7:22; Exodus 3:7-10). By the end of Exodus 14, God had used Miriam’s baby brother to redeem the Israelites from their Egyptian bondage. Miriam sings of the victory in Exodus 15.
Her name is mentioned for the first time in that chapter. She’s introduced as “Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron” (Exodus 15:20). She’s the first female prophet of Scripture. The precocious girl of Exodus 2 became influential in Israel. Miriam took a tambourine in her hand by the Red Sea and all the women followed her with dancing and instruments. She lifted her voice and directed them in a song that boasted of God’s defeat of Egypt (Exodus 15:21).
Miriam, the Leprous Sinner
Unfortunately, Miriam’s tune changes in the book of Numbers. The same sister who helped to preserve her baby brother later enviously conspired to oppose him. She asked: “Has the Lord indeed spoken only through Moses? Has he not spoken through us also?” (Numbers 12:2). The questions appeared true on the surface. After all, God had used her in the Exodus as well (Micah 6:4). Yet Moses was a prophet like none other, and to dispute his unique position was to doubt Yahweh’s sovereign choice (Numbers 12:6-8). Miriam had spoken without fearing God. So, God struck Scripture’s first prophetess with leprosy (Numbers 12:10). The conqueror of Egypt was also the judge of Israel.
Miriam’s condition must have been severe. Aaron described her “as one dead, whose flesh is half eaten away when he comes out of his mother’s womb” (Numbers 12:10-12). Yet Moses interceded for his stricken sister, and God healed and restored Miriam after seven days. Her skin disease was gone, but she would never see the Promised Land.
In Miriam, we recognize that ruthless Pharaoh wasn’t Israel’s ultimate enemy. It wasn’t the force of the Egyptian state that kept her from God’s Promised Land. It was her own sin.
“We must pray with the leper in Matthew 8:1-4: “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.” ”
Seeing Christ in this Old Testament Story
We can disparage leprous Miriam, or we can perceive her leprosy as a picture of our own sin. Some of us experience insidious envy and a love for recognition that can desensitize our fear of God. We need grace to approach the One who heals us from sin. We must pray with the leper in Matthew 8:1-4: “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.”
Christ is willing. He has triumphed to deliver his church from the disease of sin—and, just like Miriam, this deliverance is something we can sing about!
*This article is adapted from Nana’s book, The Seed of the Woman: 30 Narratives that Point to Jesus
Nana Dolce is the author of The Seed of the Woman: 30 Narratives that Point to Jesus. She is a visiting lecturer at the Reformed Theological Seminary in Washington D.C., (Women’s Teaching Lab) and a Charles Simeon Trust instructor. Nana and her family live in Washington DC. Contact her at nanadolce.org or on Instagram.
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