As a woman who can confess she is quite a bit less than perfect, I found Liz Curtis Higgs’ Slightly Bad Girls of the Bible to be an uplifting, encouraging book. In an honest, humorous, yet sensitive approach, Higgs presents the lives of Sarah, Hagar, Rebekah, Leah, and Rachel, pointing out each woman’s flaws and virtues, and deftly applying them to the lives of women today.
Higgs begins each chapter by briefly retelling each woman’s story as it might happen in today’s culture, making it easy to identify with her not just as a historical figure, but as a woman. For example, Sarah, who gave her slave to her husband as a wife in hopes that Hagar would conceive the child promised to Abraham, becomes Sandi, a modern day woman who seeks a surrogate mother to bear the child for which she longs. Then Higgs explores the different facets of each woman’s character through the lens of well-examined biblical history, drawing from different commentators and translations, winding up with an examination of the lessons that can be learned from each slightly bad girl.
This book is the fourth installment in Higgs’ study series about biblical women. In keeping with the tradition of the series, she connects with her readers on the level of a sister who can speak from personal experience. Her fresh, unique approach to familiar characters and stories is both intriguing and instructional.
Slightly Bad Girls of the Bible spoke volumes to me as a woman. What about those character quirks and flaws I fight continually against? What about the one-time choices with which consequences I still have to live? Through modern-day vignettes and in-depth character studies on the lives of these imperfect women, who were at the foundational core of God’s chosen civilization, Higgs reassures women like me that God willingly and vitally uses flawed but faithful women to accomplish his purposes. – Lyndi Markus, Christian Book Previews.com
A spiteful boss, a defiant employee, a manipulative mother, a desperate housewife, an envious sister…honey, we know these women. We’ve lived with them, worked with them, or caught a glimpse of them in our mirrors.
Now let’s take a look at their ancient counterparts in Scripture: Sarah mistreated her maidservant, Hagar despised her mistress, Rebekah manipulated her son, Leah claimed her sister’s husband, and Rachel envied her fertile sister.
They were far from evil, but hardly perfect. Mostly good, yet slightly bad. In other words, these matriarchal mamas look a lot like us.