6 Passages That Help Us Develop a Theology of Disability

Building a Theology of Disability

The Bible isn’t a disability ministry handbook, but it’s a head and heart book—it teaches us how to think about disabilities and how to treat those with disabilities (including how to view ourselves if we are ever diagnosed with a disability).

Let’s focus on passages that illustrate the overarching view of disabilities in Scripture. We will build our theology of disability on these passages. Jen Wilkin and J. T. English write in their book, You Are a Theologian, that theology is a means of organizing the ideas given to us in God’s word. So when I talk about building a theology of disability, what I mean is organizing and understanding passages in Scripture about disability. Having a theology of disability matters because, as they write, “we think differently, feel differently, and act differently as a result of developing better categories for understanding God.”¹

1. Genesis 1

We will start at the beginning of the world as we build our theology of disability. It starts with our theology of man, which of course begins at creation:

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

      So God created man in his own image,
            in the image of God he created him;
            male and female he created them. (Gen. 1:26–27)

Man was created by God and in the image of God. Being created in the image of God sets humans apart from everything else God created. However, the fall and sin distort our ability to reflect God perfectly, but the image of God remains in each person.

What it means to be created in the image of God has been discussed for centuries and has not always been agreed on. Theologians Joel Beeke and Paul Smalley remind us, “As fallen human beings, we are not in a position to understand the image of God completely. We do not fully know what it means to be human.”² Even though we can’t fully know, what we do understand about the image of God has implications for how we view and treat others, especially those with disabilities.

Beeke and Smalley underscore that “the image consists centrally of inward righteousness and a right relationship to God, but more broadly encompasses man’s whole nature along with his divinely ordained function.”³ What’s helpful about this view is that it doesn’t reduce God’s image to only the roles we play or the capacities we have.

Although the image of God can include functions and characteristics, it is more than that. If the image of God were only about our dominion over the earth, those who have opportunities to have more dominion might be seen as reflecting more of God’s image. Or if it were primarily about intelligence and understanding, those with the highest IQs would resemble God most. Instead, 1 Corinthians says, “But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong . . . so that no human being might boast in the presence of God” (1 Cor 1:27, 29). If it were only about doing, would we still image God if we failed to function? Instead of only imaging God (a verb), we are the image of God (a noun). The image is about who man is and not just what he does.

Beyond being simply functional, the image of God is also relational. Being able to have a relationship with God and having the potential for salvation and sanctification (the ability to reflect Jesus, who is the image of God) is an essential characteristic of the imago Dei. It is holistic and ontological, based on who people are and not what they do. John Kilner writes, “Being made in the image of God involves connection and reflection. Creation in God’s image entails a special connection with God and also God’s intention that people be a meaningful reflection of God, to God’s glory.”⁴ This understanding better represents realities for people with disabilities who reflect the image of God. As John Hammett contends, “We may affirm that each person has the capacity for a relationship with God because we believe God has the capacity to reach every human spirit.”⁵

2. Psalm 139

In Psalm 139, David writes of this love and care in God’s creation of himself. In the sensory class I teach each week at our church, the Seeds Kids Worship version of this Psalm is the first song I play. I want our kids to know that God has a plan for their design, and that his plan is for their good and his glory. They can echo what David knows to be true:

For you formed my inward parts;
     you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
     my soul knows it very well.
My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
     intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
     the days that were formed for me,
     when as yet there was none of them. (Ps. 139:13–16)

Disabilities are diagnosed at different times in a person’s life. My sister Syble’s Down syndrome was written into her DNA in our mother’s womb. My son James’s autism wasn’t detectable until the gaps between his development and the development of other kids his age became too clear to ignore. Joni Eareckson Tada had a diving accident at age seventeen that left her a quadriplegic. These verses in Psalm 139 make it clear that no matter when a diagnosis comes, it is under the sovereign plan of God.

3. Ephesians 2

Ephesians 2:10 says, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” Each one of us is his workmanship. We are clay in the hands of a loving potter (Isa. 64:8). Being born with a disability or developing one later in life is not a sign of faithlessness or weakness on our part or a mistake or anger on God’s part. Disabilities may be results of the fall, but they are still part of God’s plan and his purpose for our lives.

4. Exodus 3–4

Exodus 3–4 records a conversation between Moses and God that is foundational to our understanding of disabilities and God’s sovereignty. God reveals himself to Moses through a burning bush and tells him about his expectations for Moses’s advocacy and leadership for his people. Moses has many excuses for why he can’t fulfill this calling. In Exodus 4:10–12, Moses even tries to use his limitations as an excuse: “But Moses said to the Lord, ‘Oh, my Lord, I am not eloquent, either in the past or since you have spoken to your servant, but I am slow of speech and of tongue.’ Then the Lord said to him, ‘Who has made man’s mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak.’” What’s profound about this response is that it’s clear—and clear in such an early account for the followers of God—that God takes credit for disabilities. There is no guessing, no assuming, no excusing. God says, “Is it not I” who is fully responsible for your creation? As Michael Beates writes,

We have discovered that God is not only creator of man and we are made imago Dei, but we have seen that God is declared to be the creator of disabilities. He is also, in some profound sense, the source of brokenness and the one who has ordained to use such brokenness for his purposes, and ultimately, for his glory.⁶

Jesus’s healings do more than restore sight or mobility or health. They also restore relationships and communities.

5. John 9

Joni Eareckson Tada writes, “God permits what he hates to accomplish that which he loves.”⁷ And that which he loves—his purpose—can be seen in the life of my son James and others who have disabilities. We see it in another of the best-known passages about disabilities, John 9:1–3: “As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’ Jesus answered, ‘It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.’”

As I was adjusting to having a son with a diagnosis and all that would mean for our family, this passage brought me peace and hope. But now as I look at it from the broader perspective of a ministry leader, I see the context it was written in and the application not only for the family of the man born blind but also for those of us caring for special needs families.

First, let’s think about the purpose for this miracle and the other miracles of Jesus. Jesus heals many people, but he doesn’t heal everyone. Some people he heals show evidence of their faith before the healing, and some after. Some are healed by a touch, whereas others have to take steps to receive healing. Some show appreciation for their healing, while others do not. For some, Jesus heals them and also says their sins are forgiven, as we see in Mark 2 with the paralytic man. What is consistent in each healing miracle recorded is the healer. Jesus heals to show his power over sickness, suffering, and death. Albert Wolters writes, “Christ’s work was not only a preaching of the long-awaited coming of the kingdom, but also a demonstration of that coming. In his words, and especially in his deeds, Jesus himself was proof that the kingdom had arrived.”⁸

Jesus’s healings do more than restore sight or mobility or health. They also restore relationships and communities. As Lamar Hardwick observes, “An examination of [Jesus’s] healing ministry strongly suggests that the central theme and aim of his healing ministry was to restore people who were disabled and disregarded back into the community.”⁹ This restoration of connection is seen in his healings and teachings (in Luke 14 and Matt. 21 specifically).

Second, let’s place this encounter with the man born blind into the wider scope of John’s Gospel. Professor Chris Hulshof connects it to Jesus saying “I am the light of the world” in John 8 and to his good shepherd discourse in John 10. Without these important connections, we might wrongly assume that this man glorified God only after his healing. Instead, as Hulshof writes, “God was glorified through the visual validation that Jesus Christ is the Messiah and his representative. Thus, the focus is shifted from the blind man and directed to both God the Father and God the Son.”¹⁰

The connection to Jesus’s teaching on what it looks like to be a good shepherd comes from the reactions of those in the life of the man who was born blind. His neighbors, the Pharisees, and even his parents discuss his condition out of curiosity, not care. Jesus calls himself the good shepherd and gives examples of what it looks like to be a good shepherd. But in the story with the man born blind, the people (and specifically the religious leaders) do not exhibit these characteristics. Again from Hulshof: “For Jesus, leaders who lack the divine compassion and sympathy for the blind man give evidence that they are not true shepherds. Further, the inability of these leaders to recognize this divine compassion and mercy in Jesus only adds to their indictment.”¹¹

6. James 1

Seeing God’s purpose in creating people with disabilities in Exodus 4 and noticing Jesus’s purpose in healing people with disabilities helps provide guardrails for our own thinking about disabilities. They are not accidental or without purpose. They are not a result of our sin or God’s apathy. In my own experience after receiving my son’s autism diagnosis, I was able to read James 1:17 through this lens: “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights.” If my son’s autism was from God, then somehow it must be a good and perfect gift for the purpose of making us more like Christ and to bring others to him. It is part of his purpose for us.

This article is adapted from Accessible Church: A Gospel-Centered Vision for Including People with Disabilities and Their Families by Sandra Peoples.

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