When Deuteronomy 22 was written, there were few sexual protections for women. This law therefore moved culture forward by giving women some protection, creating a counterculture in its wake. It held the man responsible for the consequences he created in his sin against the woman. He had to pay her father a price worthy of the woman he violated, and he could never divorce her. The law required him to remove the victim’s public shame and restore her to a position of dignity in her community through marriage. The abuser was made to value what he took by force.

Many women, including me, endure the tragic experience of Scripture being misused against them, often by men. It can be difficult to untangle Scripture’s truth from man’s manipulation. But even when the Word is handled rightly, some passages are difficult to engage as a woman. They seem unfair or even cruel.
Could any passage be as troubling for women as Deuteronomy 22?
A decade ago, Rachel Held Evans raised this passage in A Year of Biblical Womanhood. To be biblical, Held argued, women had to marry their rapists. To be biblical, Christians should stone anyone caught in an adulterous affair. To be biblical, Christians should kill a woman who didn’t cry out as she was being raped. To fully engage Evans’s argument would require dealing with her definition of “biblical,” which is outside the scope of this article. Nevertheless, she raised legitimate questions: How should we understand Deuteronomy 22? And does its inclusion in the Scriptures mean the Bible cannot be trusted to guide and direct women today?
These questions can’t be completely answered in a single article. But we can begin to make sense of them by considering both history and hermeneutics. We’ll start by looking at the specific situations described in light of their historical context. Then we’ll zoom out to consider this passage in Scripture’s larger story. As we do, please keep in mind that this article is addressing a specific textual question rather than offering counsel for victims of sexual assault.
Questions about Deuteronomy 22—as much as questions around eschatology, soteriology, or ecclesiology—require a hermeneutic. We need a holistic way of reading Scripture’s long story to understand this chapter. Jesus is that hermeneutic, the lens through which we must read the Bible. Let’s consider what Deuteronomy 22 says and then seek to understand what it means for women today.
Laws on Sexual Ethics
Deuteronomy 22:13 begins a section of the law on sexual ethics. It first deals with a husband’s false accusation that his wife had sex before marriage. Verses 15–19 outline a process for the wife to prove her innocence and, if this is found true, for the husband to be punished. The law protected women in this situation from false accusations.
Verse 22 then deals with a man and woman caught in adultery. They must have been found in the act, so they’re protected from false accusations based only on hearsay. The penalty was stark—the couple would be stoned to death—but it was the same for both the man and the woman.
Verses 23–27 then deal with the rape of a woman engaged to another man. The man who raped her was to be stoned to death. The Scriptures say violating a woman in this way is akin to a man murdering his neighbor. If the sexual act occurred outside of town, it was assumed the woman didn’t consent and she was protected from punishment. But here’s where the tricky part comes in—if the act occurred within the city, it was labeled as rape only if the woman cried out. This is worth a brief excursion.
Remember the Law’s Purpose
A 2023 New York Times article highlighted the number of women who, as a response to the trauma of rape, shut down rather than cried out during the act. Though I’ve never experienced rape, I’ve had this response to other trauma in my life. I sink into myself and have been accused of not caring in times of crisis. But sometimes I can’t process what’s happening. Mentally, I descend into a bunker and close the door, slowly opening it inch by inch over time to take in the circumstances that forced me into my mental fortress.
Not everyone reacts this way to trauma, but many naturally do, and it can be a helpful coping mechanism in some situations.
At first reading, Deuteronomy 22 seems unfair for requiring a woman to cry out. But it’s important to remember the law wasn’t only given to prescribe punishments for violations; it was given to teach God’s people how to live before the violation ever happens. Deuteronomy 6 explains that these commandments, rules, and statutes were given to God’s people so that “it may go well with [them]” and “that [their] days may be long” (vv. 1–3). Parents were instructed, “Repeat them to your children. Talk about them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up” (v. 7, CSB).
When my sons were 2 and 4 years old, we attended a cooperative preschool. The teachers taught a safety curriculum, and one lesson was on abduction. We taught the kids to yell and scream nonstop until someone came to help. We practiced, and we repeated the instructions. Similarly, in Moses’s time, if Jewish moms and dads were teaching their children God’s law, their daughters were taught through Deuteronomy 22 to cry out if they were taken against their will.
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Written by J. Warner Wallace |
Thursday, January 12, 2023
Church groups have taken every shape and form in the two thousand years since the first community of saints. The current form is not nearly as important as the transcendent purpose of God’s people here on earth. As we look deeply at the nature of the first community as it was described in the Book of Acts, we see God’s design for the Church. The Church is not a place to meet; it is a people to be. When we, as a Church, are foundationally committed to the truth, the resulting change in our character will be noticeable and transformative.

The first community of saints reflected the power and design of God in their lives as a family of believers. The early history of the Church simply reflected the Biblical record from the Book of Acts describing the nature and essence of the first community of saints. The observations of those who witnessed the early Church should inspire and guide us. If we were to emulate the earliest energized believers, our churches would transform the culture and inspire a new generation. How can we, as Christians today, become more like the Church that changed the world and transformed the Roman Empire? We must learn the truth, strive for unity, live in awe, serve in love, share with courage and overflow with joy. These six important characteristics were held by the earliest congregations:
Acts 2:42-47And they were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. And everyone kept feeling a sense of awe; and many wonders and signs were taking place through the apostles. And all those who had believed were together, and had all things in common; and they began selling their property and possessions, and were sharing them with all, as anyone might have need. And day by day continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, praising God, and having favor with all the people. And the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved.
Six simple attributes were observed in the earliest believers. These principles serve as a template and guide for those of us who want to restore the passion and impact of the early Church. If we employ them today, we’ll create healthy, vibrant, transformative churches. It begins with a commitment to truth:
Principle #1: Learn the Truth
The Church must be passionately committed to the pursuit of truth:
“…and they were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching…”
There is a truth about God. There is a truth about whether or not He exists and a truth about His nature (if He does exist). Jesus certainly had a position about the nature of truth and the nature of God. He believed objective truth exists and could be grasped.
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The churches in Wittenberg and Geneva trained pastors, and sent them out to preach the gospel all over Europe, crossing national borders and risking their lives. Geneva has been described as a vast mission hub: as refugees poured in from across Europe, they were trained and then sent back out to preach the gospel. The Genevan church kept a Register of the Company of Pastors, a sort of book of minutes, which catalogs the sending of missionaries to various places. 

In March 1557, a group of Protestant French tradesmen landed on an island off the coast of Brazil, coming to be a part of a new French colony that needed more people, especially skilled workers. Along with this company were two Protestant ministers, Pierre Richier and Guillaume Chartier, who had been invited to teach the other Europeans and to evangelize the native people. This landing marked the first Protestant missionary enterprise to the New World.
Before long, however, the Catholic governor of the colony exiled the Protestant preachers to the mainland, and then eventually he forced them to return to France. Thus, while this missionary effort to the Americas did not last long and saw little fruit, it was the first Protestant attempt to brave the great difficulties involved in bringing the gospel to the people in these new lands.
What sort of church and what kind of leaders were behind such a daring and dangerous undertaking? What was the soil from which this great, historic endeavor emerged? Contrary to some contemporary expectations, this missionary enterprise arose from the church in Geneva under the leadership of John Calvin.
Though this episode (and others like it) are well-known and discussed in academic circles, the general public commonly assumes, and missions textbooks confidently assert, that the Protestant Reformers lacked zeal or urgency for world missions. Some assume that the Reformers’ high view of God’s sovereignty undercut missions concern; others, more sympathetically, state that the press of survival and rebuilding the church kept them from being able to concentrate on missions. Yet the church in Geneva supplied the first Protestant missionaries to the New World.
The effort did not have much success. We cannot judge such work by the success we see, however, but by the willingness to obey. And this was dangerous obedience — traveling to an unknown world, all while risking health, stability, and even life in interaction with Catholic authorities, unknown diseases and animals, and potentially hostile natives. Still they went.
Joyful Cause
Some have sought to downplay this effort, suggesting it merely supported commercial activity or provided religious services for the French settlers. However, we have a firsthand account of the Genevan church’s actions in the personal journal of Jean de Léry, a member of the church in Geneva.
According to de Léry, the Genevan church was asked to provide preachers and other people “well-instructed in the Christian religion” so that they might teach the other Europeans and “bring savages to the knowledge of their salvation.”1 The missionary element of the endeavor is crystal clear. Furthermore, the response of the church to this request is striking. De Léry records, “Upon receiving these letters and hearing this news, the church of Geneva at once gave thanks to God for the extension of the reign of Jesus Christ in a country so distant and likewise so foreign and among a nation entirely without knowledge of the true God.”2 Not only was evangelistic outreach a part of the original plan, but it was also a prospect that brought great joy to the church!
During the mission, one of the missionaries sent a letter to Calvin.
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