On Shame

Part Four of a Four-Part Bible Study (plus a question for you)

In honor of Women’s History Month, I thought I’d share a more in-depth study of one of my favorite women mentioned in the Bible. This is the last part of a series on the woman with the bleeding disorder and Jairus’ daughter, an account shared in 3 of the 4 gospels. If you haven’t yet, I would recommend reading parts one, two, and three first.

Whether you’re new to reading the Bible, are just curious, or have been studying the Bible for a long time, I pray this opens the door to a greater knowledge of the One who sees you and offers the same invitation to know Him as Father.   

Photo by Andrew Neel on Unsplash

Read Genesis 3:1-21.

1. Summarize what happened here.

2. What led Eve and Adam to make this decision?

   1. What was their initial response?

   2. After God calls them to Himself, how do they then respond?

3. What does God do for Adam and Eve before they leave the garden?

Shame is a universally experienced issue.  Acknowledging this, both the secular and spiritual spheres try to address this issue and establish some form of solution.  Ed Welch, in his book Shame Interrupted, defines shame as “the deep sense that you are unacceptable because of something you did, something done to you, or something associated with you. You feel exposed and humiliated….You are disgraced because you acted less than human, you were treated as if you were less than human, or you were associated with something less than human, and there are witnesses.”  

Popular author and researcher Brene Brown, notes this vulnerability in shame, writing books and giving TEDTalks all on this idea of the power of courage in vulnerability and of empathy to dispel shame. Men and women alike flock to Brown’s work, and why? They resonate with the shame she speaks about and they’re searching, often unknowingly, for a solution to this shame.

The topic of shame isn’t one to ignore, diminish, or invalidate.

The first step is to name that which is causing shame. Expose that which is exposing you. Empathy, as Brene Brown advocates, does encourage, but empathy alone does not heal.  On the bleeding woman, Luke writes that “though she had spent all her living on physicians, she could not be healed by anyone.” Mark 5 tells us that she “had suffered much under many physicians” and “was no better but rather grew worse.”   Man-centered solutions alone will not heal the problem of shame. In fact, the more our wounds of shame are exposed, touched, and shared, without the healing balm of Jesus, we may find ourselves, like the woman in this story, worse than before. 

Shame also seeks to hide.  Welch later writes, “Left to ourselves, we instinctively turn inward rather than put our trust and confidence in Jesus. You know this instinct. We call it self-protection, though it is more accurately called unbelief….Shame has a natural affinity with self-protection and unbelief. It hides from others, feels undeserving of anything good, and believes it will contaminate whatever comes close.”

We see this when shame first invaded the human experience after the Fall in Genesis 3:7-8. Adam and Eve hid their nakedness from one another and from God. We also see this affinity in Luke 8:47 when the woman trembles and falls down before Jesus when she “saw that she was not hidden,” implying she had intended to stay hidden.  Brene Brown emphasizes hiding too by what she believes is shame’s opposite: vulnerability. In a TEDTalk on shame, she argues, “If you put shame in a Petri dish, it needs three things to grow exponentially: secrecy, silence, and judgment.”

In her talk “How the Gospel Addresses Shame,” Mary Willson Hannah defines shame as “a loss of face before someone resulting in falling short in what is deemed honorable in that person’s eyes, and it can result from our actions, others’ actions, or our associations.”  She primarily focuses on the shame that results from our own sin, not sins committed against us, such as in cases of abuse, acknowledging there are nuances to the issue in those situations. 

From the standpoint of her definition, though, she argues that there is often a subjective and objective dimension of shame.  She warns that “a chief tactic of the devil is to tempt us to feel ashamed of what is truly honorable and to feel honorable of what is truly shameful.”  We see much of this in our world today.  Believers often struggle with shame in identifying as Christians who hold to the objective Truth found in God’s Word.  We can also feel shame over our own limitations, although limitations are engrained in our very humanity. On the other hand, our world and movements like “progressive Christianity” are calling more and more people to “feel honorable in that which is truly shameful,” namely, our sin. 

The enemy’s tactic of shame can be redeemed when it opens our eyes to the reality of the tentacles of sin and our brokenness. We may try to direct our eyes inward and grasp to produce enough effort to somehow establish our “goodness, or we may try to direct our eyes away from the reality of our sin — both in an attempt to erase our shame ourselves. But the truth is - this will not work. We all fall short (Romans 3:23).

The solution is to instead direct our eyes to Jesus.

There is a lot held in that one phrase: direct our eyes to Jesus. It does not exclude counseling, walking alongside other believers in a healthy community, or speaking spiritual truths over our thoughts of shame. Each of these is a means of common and specific graces to practically direct our eyes to Jesus. Ultimately, He alone is able to meet us in our need and cover our shame, with the only requirement being coming and touching His garments of righteousness. 

Application

4. Where in your life are you experiencing shame? Is this caused by something done by you or to you? Is it rooted in an actual event or a wrong belief?

5. Write this out to the Lord. Only when we are sitting at His feet can we touch the hem of His garment. Then, spend some time writing statements of truth grounded

6. Share with another trusted believer the shame you’re carrying and ask them to both pray with and for you, and to help you walk in the freedom Christ offers us.

   Romans 8:1

   “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

Have a specific idea? Let me know below! :)