Season two of Love in Context podcast welcomes you. Get ready for engaging unscripted conversations
with your hosts, Ben and Spencer. Our mission remains unchanged to explore the Bible through
the powerful lens of love. In this new season, we'll embark on a journey together, unearthing
fresh insights and gaining deeper understanding of how we can love God and live out our faith
in practical ways. So let's dive into this season of Love in Context, where love in the
context of the Bible intersect to transform our lives.
Welcome back to the Love in Context podcast with Ben and Spencer. This is unscripted conversation.
That's Spencer. Spencer here. That's Ben right over here. And we are joined this week
by Dominique King. Thanks for being with us today. And from what I understand, prior to
this is your husband, who we love, who was like, wait, you're going on the podcast? So
that's, you're welcome, Kate. Actually, we would actually love to get him on here at
some point too. Just in for this particular series, he's not a woman. So his input is
less valuable, if that's fair. So you might not think it's fair. Well, you know what?
He's not here on a mic. So he doesn't, I can't, I can hear Kate typing his email. Just be
like, just going on right there. Yeah. Dominique, can you tell us a little bit about yourself
and about maybe about your, your faith journey? Like the church has you been a part of growing
up? Sure. Well, I just had my birthday this month. I'm a 53 year old woman. 53 years young.
Yep. Yeah. And I have four children and I was raised in a family where my dad was an
atheist and my mom was a believer. And I grew up at a church, a Presbyterian church when
I was a kid. And my dad would say, well, I'm letting you go to church so you can know who
the enemy is. So it was an interesting dynamic. I would say so. Yeah. My grandmother was a
huge woman of faith and was really the picture of Jesus to me and was kind to me throughout
all my missteps and journey. And so when I got to college, uh, I had quite a bit of background
in the Bible and people of faith around me, but I wouldn't say I was choosing to follow
those things necessarily. I would say I had a personal relationship with Jesus, but I
felt like there were a lot of, there was a lot of hypocrisy and things in what I had
grown up with. Maybe similar to how I felt part of my life was Jesus was my savior, but
I don't necessarily know that I made him my Lord. Right. And I come from kind of, I'm
a fan of recovery and brokenness and my life was very broken. And so I think, I particularly
think of Jesus as my savior, someone who saved me from myself and what, how I grew up and
what I had experienced. And I definitely knew I was broken and needed some fixing and the
guides I'd previously had even an education for college just didn't make the mark for
me. It was cool. I went to college and I met my to be husband or my, the man I married
and the guy that's sending us an angry email right now. Yeah, maybe he's not an angry guy.
He's not an angry guy at all. He doesn't like confrontation. So you're good to go. He and
I met and he had a very strong discipline to faith and we became friends, mostly arguing
about things because he wanted to tell me how it was and I didn't take it very well.
So we had a lot of discussions about faith, but in that we fell in love and decided that
we need to go to church together and started that journey and we got married and it used
to be, he'd say, I wanted to be a teacher. I wanted to be, you want to be in politics
and I want to do something in ministry. And for myself in my mind as a young, the married
woman, I thought great in perfect order. When I'm 65, I'll be ready to do something in ministry.
Little did I know that God's plan was to have us land someplace where he did teach for three
years and then wrote a letter to a church about the 10 reasons why they should hire
him and he quit his teaching job and became a minister or like quarter time at that time.
And so many people, I mean, I remember this really vividly one, cause I had a lot of conversations
with God, like what is happening right now. I am not qualified and this was not the plan.
And two, that so many people were like, you're letting your husband do that. I would leave
my husband. I would be done with this whole thing, which I found fascinating. Like, okay,
I just committed not very long ago. I was through thick and thin. I'm going to stay
married.
That doesn't quite sound like love. It does like, Hey, listen, you're doing something
I don't want to do. I'm out of here.
Yeah. I vividly remember those things that it was just so out of the box for some people
that they were just like, yeah, I'd be done after that. And it was out of the box for
me, but I'm a loyalist through and I try to keep my promises. So instead God and I had
to go on a journey together about what is happening. And yeah, now I've been what you
might call a pastor's wife for 25 years.
Yeah. But we all know the pastor's wife is the one who's really in charge. Yeah. We all
know that.
Listen, if anybody is listening here, having grown up in a pastor's household, having known
pastors and like throughout my entire life, there is no pastor and pastor's wife. There
are the pastors. Like they share the workload. That is just the reality of pastoral ship
is that they do it together. Back to the first episode where we say man and woman together
are the image of God. Right? This is the foundation for the very beginning. So you have been pastoring
with your husband for 25 years that we said.
Yeah. Yeah. Yes. He pastors the Christian Missionary Alliance Church, which I wasn't
a big denomination girl, but now that I've been there for 25 years, I know a little bit
about the Christian Missionary Alliance.
It took you 25 years though. It was like, just last year I finally learned.
Well, I got to go last summer to New York and walk in the steps of a gentleman named
A.B. Simpson, which is actually the gentleman that the Christian Missionary Alliance Church
is founded on. He was a minister from Canada that went to New York in the middle of they
had just finished the war and everybody there was kind of a north and south Exodus and all
kinds of things going on and they thought maybe it'd be good to bring a neutral guy
from Canada into a ministry position in New York. And he became very successful at a very
rich church. But then he was going down to the docks serving the immigrants that were
all coming in and bringing them and inviting them to church. And then his rich parishioners
said, we don't like this. Stop inviting people. We don't want these people here.
Speaking of that, we're actually doing a series on the book of James later. And so you'll
go over why that's not a good thing. Yeah. Yeah, that's going to be a fun one.
Yeah. So he discussed it with his wife and he quit and then decided he was going to start
his own church. But really what he ended up starting was, I mean, he had a church, but
he did. He had a recovery center for prostitutes. He had a food bank for people who needed food.
He helped people find shelter. And so he really had a mission mindset from the very beginning.
And I don't know that it was his goal to become a denomination after that. But when he passed,
he'd made such an impact in that area that they formed the Christian Missionary Alliance
denomination. And it's something you don't hear a lot in the United States because they
are completely mission oriented. And it used to be that the United States was a Christian
nation. And so it didn't need as many missionaries. And so they had tons of missionaries that
went overseas. Now, as things are changing, you might start hearing Christian Missionary
Alliance more. And you certainly hear it more in Alaska, because in Alaska, that's considered
a mission state. Not everybody wants to come to Alaska and live.
It's hard to live here, you know, especially when you're talking about like some place
north where you're often like just the boonies. It's crazy. We actually were talking about
because we have a couple that go to our church from South Korea that are from YWAM. And we're
talking about how that Korea is actually sending a ton of missionaries to America because they're
looking at that as field for people to actually hear about Jesus. It's true. You know, I have
done many an interview where we have been looking to hire and people will come and say,
I'm going to go wherever Jesus calls me to go. Yeah. And then they come here and they're
like, no, mom, no, this, no, that. I don't feel I'm calling me. Yeah. Yeah. That calling
something I real quiet in my area. And I've often said people that are in thoughts of
ministry, like they want to go into missions that Alaska is a great place to come serve
for a period of time because you don't have all the things of the lower 48 necessarily.
And if they think, oh, I want to go into a completely different culture and a completely
different this or that you should come serve in Alaska for a year or two and see how you
do there and then go. You actually deal with culturally, even if you go like to the north
or to the south or east, west. So it's so different in Alaska. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. God's
moving in Alaska, by the way. There is actually a lot of really positive movement as doing
Alaska. I wouldn't be surprised if someone in these days we don't just see revival break
out across the state. Yeah. Yeah. But you know, interesting thing when you're talking
about how the call being strong, we're talking about women in ministry and in the Bible specifically.
So over the last few weeks, we talked about God's original design in Genesis and some
of the things we talked about in the Torah series last year, we talked about the women
of promise, how God didn't just work through specific men. It was actually through specific
men and women combined together. Yeah. Because they had other kids, but these are the specific
kids that God chose to use. And it was women of promise that were just as important as
the men. And then we talked about women in leadership in the Old Testament. We talked
about Miriam, Esther, Huldah, Deborah. And then last week we talked about women in the
light of Jesus and how in the book of Matthew, all these people who you think are on the
outside are actually being welcomed in. So then it's interesting. You were talking
about like how people are like, oh, I, you know, I'll go serve God wherever he calls
and they come to Alaska and suddenly they call because the first person we're going
to talk about with Jesus interacting with women in the New Testament, it seems like
the most appropriate person to start with would be his mother. Right, Mary. Talking
about Mary, mother of Jesus, kind of a big deal in the Bible. Right. A little bit of
a big deal. One of the things I always think about with Mary, we think we touched on last
year when we were talking about, we're talking about Jesus and his family is that Mary says
yes to the call. Right. Like God comes and he says, Hey, something's going to happen
with you. That's never happened with anybody else. The Holy Spirit is going to come on.
You're going to birth a child and that's going to be with Shiach. Right. That's going to
be a Messiah. I'm going to take care of all these things and like the promise is there.
Okay, good. Then he goes and he talks to Joseph in dreams. So Joseph knows what's going on.
Nobody else knows that's what happened in this case. Like they accept Jesus as Messiah,
all the different things that kind of go with this, but she actually walks with shame for
the rest of her life because under their opinion, she would have just had a child out of wedlock.
Right. Even though they're technically married, the cultural things, but they're not supposed
to have been had union yet. Yeah. So like she actually walks her entire life with shame
because she's faithful to the promise of God. Well, not just her, Joseph too. Joseph too. Yeah.
They walked their life in that shame together because I mean, as we know, having kids usually
takes two. It takes two people. Yeah, it does. Yeah. I think it's really encouraging in the fact
of like, sometimes I think we think, Oh, we're going to be faithful with God. We're going to
be recognized for our faithfulness, but we very well may not be recognized in our like that.
Mm hmm. Right. It may be decades or hundreds of years later that people will actually recognize
the faithfulness of what God was doing in your life in that moment. And like the realities,
you just have to be resolute in actually following what God is doing. And so then the question,
like to your point, when you're talking about, Oh, I want to go, I will go wherever God calls me.
Well, what about Alaska? Right. Well, if God calls you to Alaska, you may have to give up some things
that matter to you. I guarantee you not walking around with shame matter to Mary. Sacrifice comes
to mind that word. That wouldn't be a popular word in general, I think. And I'm not sure culturally
today we do much of that or even understand it because we're indulged in so many ways with
immediate gratification and we have so much opportunity in the United States. That concept,
I mean, somebody might think I'm sacrificing because I mean, it seems really simple things,
not like your whole life. And you have to be willing and saying that, yes, to say,
I thought it was going to turn out one way, but now I'm open to another way. Yeah. And it takes a
certain amount of faith. And certainly I've questioned it a hundred times in my own life
that are, if I do this, are you really going to have my back? Yeah. Like, if I do this really
wasn't my own plan, what is up? And most of the time it's not like simple things. Like when
Cade decided to do his thing and become a minister, I was actually vacuuming at home,
having a conversation with Jesus about what was he thinking. And someone actually came and knocked
on my door and I was almost to the point of tears or whatever. And it was just a random stop by.
And I was like, well, I'm having a moment. I just, I can't believe this is happening in my life.
And they said to me, well, it does say in the Bible that whatever God puts in front of you or
whatever he gives you, he's going to give you everything you need to handle that. I've never
forgotten it ever. Like it was like an ordained moment. And you know, Mary has a couple of those
ordained moments in her life that must have been significant to her. And it doesn't ever say anything
about her original faith. Like did God choose her because she was super faithful? Did she even hear
the voice of God before? She had all this happen to her. I've often wondered. Well, I think perhaps
there is some indication that Mary has a faith, like a strong faith in God because immediately
after she is pregnant, she goes to see Elizabeth, right? And there's this exchanging of songs.
But like Mary's song, by the way, I'm going to reference a book here, Jesus to Middle Eastern
Eyes by Kenneth Bailey has a fantastic section called Jesus of Women. This is a lot of his material
from there. I do recommend checking that out. Also, we recommended this in the past, but a guy from
like 1898, B.T. Roberts, Ordaining Women is also another great book. Just talking about some of
these topics, but Bailey, you could also listen to if you Google him, you can listen to him talk
his B.T. Roberts. I love him and his below ties. Yeah, they're so great. The one with the cross
hanging on. He's got a look going to the different. If you're someone who like needs auditory
processing, B.T. Roberts does not have a podcast. He does not. That wasn't a big thing in 1800s.
So she goes and she sings a song, right? But it's a song and it's actually divided into two parts.
The first part focuses on Mary and it has three things. She talks about praise, salvation and
humiliation and exaltation. Like these are the things that God's going to do. But the second part
of her song actually has a vision for the community, right? That what God is going to do is
it's going, he's going to bring mercy and salvation and once again, humiliation and salvation. It's
like a mirroring text on itself. And these, by the way, are clear goals that actually happen in the
life of Jesus and his ministry as well. Now, I think sometimes people will hear me say that and be
like, Mary influenced Jesus's ministry. And so to be very clear, I'm going to say, yes, she did.
Like, absolutely. She did. Son of God on a mission. But like your parents absolutely influenced
like how you go about. Right. And that I mean, that's a little bit of a universal thing, right?
Your parents are going to have an influence on your life. It could be good, could be bad, could be
non-existent. Right. There's a reason why God shows Mary and Joseph to be Jesus's parents,
because that was something that he wanted as part of the ministry that Jesus was going to
be having on earth. There's a reason why he chose your parents to be your parents. Exactly. He keeps
doing it. Yeah. It's not an accident. You know, but to your point, you say, you know, is Mary a
person who hears of God? And immediately she comes out with this, we call it the Magnificant, right?
Here's what I see him doing in this situation. And it's a pretty, it's a pretty interesting thing
because the people who are on the outside, mercy, salvation, grace, these are the hallmarks of the
kingdom of God. And these are hallmarks of the gospel that Jesus presents, which is repent for
the kingdom of heaven is here, ready for you to interact. And even when we come into the
sermon on the Mount, he says, blessed are these people, these people who you think are on the
outside are actually being welcomed in because the kingdom was made for them. Yeah. And the,
another thing to mention about Mary is that she knew who she was following. Right. Because a lot
of times we kind of just associate Mary with the birth of Jesus. And it's like, no, she was
Jesus's mother and she followed Jesus throughout his ministry. She was there for the way in Cana.
She was there at his death. She followed him throughout his whole ministry. She knew who she
was following and she said no to every other thing. Yeah. She knew who Jesus was. She knew Jesus was
the Messiah, the one who's going to, who's going to forgive, redeem, save. And she said no to the
earthly things around her. Right. And in that way, she was a great role model to look after.
Well, thinking about a woman and you know, you have babies. I know you guys are both dads.
Yes. We did not have the babies, but I was there. Right. But going back to that idea of sacrifice,
I do think sometimes you really feel it when you have kids that your life was your own. And then
now you have this kid and it's taken priority. Right. And when I think about Mary, one, just
being a mom and having a child and having to sacrifice everything for that child, regardless
if it's Jesus or not, that's bonus and extra. Right. But also that requires an outlook sometimes
beyond yourself in order to have the tenacity and grit to accomplish that, to keep going over that
period of time. And we don't have kids that are maybe called to that same thing, but knowing that
and raising him, knowing or not knowing whatever she knew that something big was going to happen
with this. And I guess she knew some of it because she knew the Old Testament part of things.
Yeah. But we know that the disciples had no idea what Messiah meant. Right. Like they all had
different ideas, whether they were zealots or whether they were Pharisees or whether they were
tax collectors, they all had different ideas about like, what does Messiah mean? And most of them
thought like, why about Rome? That was, you know, which is just side note, it's just funny. That was
the view they had because that's a very narrow view. It's very narrow view. Right. And then I
started thinking about that. I'm like, that's all too relatable. Yeah. Too relatable. Like,
like a little too painful. Well, how often are we having this conversation where like, God,
if you could remove this one issue in my life, I could serve you more faithfully.
And you're like, well, could you really? I mean, because it seems like you got people like
Corrie Ten Boon, who are in the middle of the Holocaust and she's like being bitten by lice
and concentration camps and serving God faithfully and her circumstances don't matter. And then
there's us where we're like, oh, I didn't get, I didn't get the promotion that I wanted. And so
the shop gave me decaf coffee shop today. Well, that, that is a fire of offense. No.
Well, in my own life, I feel like in Mary is probably too. Sometimes when you say yes to
a higher calling, it demands more. And so I've often thought if my life hadn't gone this way,
would I have the relationship I have with Jesus today? No, probably not. I would not have chosen
a lot of those things and would not have put myself in a suffering position as much because
I think I would be more self-focused than being in the ministry kind of forces you to constantly
be focused out or tries to force you, I guess not. You don't have to comply, but I think Mary would
have been in that same position. She can't get away from this thing that, you know, that she is
growing her son into or for, but she doesn't know even what it is. So it's got to be on her mind all
the time. And it's got to grow her relationship with God, however that looked. Well, I was gonna say,
I was gonna say she gets a lot of benefit from the fact that she is the mother of Jesus as well,
though, because you remember the story where they're going to the temple and then they leave and
they're like, Oh, Jesus isn't here. So they go back and they find him and they're like, why are we
here? He's like, of course, he don't, you know, I had to be in my father's house. It says one of
the things that she says there is that it says that Mary treasured all these things in her heart.
Now, one of the things that I find particularly interesting when Luke writes that is, uh, he's
very clearly because the Magnificent is in the book of Luke, as well as the story. Um, there is
another story in the book of first Samuel about a guy, a kid by the name of Samuel, who is, has a
mother named Hannah who weeps over, uh, having a child. And then God hears her and gives her a
child and that she has a really long song. And then she gives her son to the temple. And so in
the section where they're talking about Jesus, it says this boy, Jesus grew in both wisdom and
stature gaining favor with both God and man. Well, if he actually reads Samuel, it actually
said, makes a statement here for Samuel two 26. It says, and the boy, Samuel continued to grow in
stature in favor with the Lord and with people. It's not an accident that Luke is pulling that
story because he's connecting this idea of Hannah and Samuel, this mother and this prophet to once
again, this mother and this prophet, right? That Jesus, like Samuel is going to issue usher in a
new kind of era and like a whole different kind of thing, you know? And of course, then you have
connections to David and stuff. Like it's not an accident that those words show up. The text is
really cool. We love the Bible. We were, it's a cool book. I don't know if you've read it, but
it's real good. It is amazing how it's all linked together. It is. Yeah. You were talking about
earlier and you were talking about how Mary is with him at the crucifixion. She's at the wedding
in Cana where she's like, Hey, listen, they ran out of wine. Get this party started, please. Right.
That is, that's my interpretation of this conversation, but, and Jesus calls her a woman.
Yeah. Woman, which is not derogatory in the way that he says it. It's just fun to read it that
way. Yeah. Yeah. If you read it that way to your wife though, maybe like rethink it or definitely
don't say it to your mother. Have you, I mean, you've met my wife. Yeah. Like I'm not a dumb man.
I'm not going to say those things, sir. I, how would that mean? What if your kids said, you said
woman? Well, that probably wouldn't end well for you. All my kids are young teenagers. So Jesus is
a little past that point, but still it's the whole thing of I'm, you know, I'm leaving you as my mom
and I'm my own man. Right. You guys both experienced that, that I think sometimes, you know,
women or moms can be overprotective, can have an agenda of their own, or maybe be thinking differently
than their sons. And he just said, Hey, yeah, I get you, but this is what I'm doing instead.
And there's actually times where Mary struggles with what Jesus is doing. Like when they're going
out there and he's giving them some really hard sayings and they're, and people are saying like,
Jesus is being real weird. And so like, she's like, Hey, you know, the family tries to go on and say,
Hey, Jesus, come and talk to us, which we're going to talk about, like how he addresses it in a minute.
But like, she doesn't always understand what he's about, but she is there throughout. She's there at
his crucifixion. She's there at his resurrection. And from church history, we know that she's there
through a lot of the time afterwards, especially with John, like John spends time with her from
church tradition, that she is a significant part of the church moving forward. Mary in a very real
way, even though she was his mother, was a disciple of Jesus. Well, it's crazy to think about too,
that she had other children. They weren't big fans either of Jesus, of him having that calling.
And as a woman having to balance all that, as your son is growing up, I mean, there is a lot to
act there. Can you imagine though, that your brother claims to be like the guy, the foretold
person to come in, overthrow, in your, in your head, like, what do you mean Jesus is going to
overthrow Raoul? Come on. You mean the guy who couldn't read me and rasslin is gonna, is gonna.
The last guy that did that got thrown in a pit and sold to. Yeah. Yeah. It doesn't work so well.
Yeah. Well, I was just thinking like, you're saying that and they're like, my brothers,
I have four brothers, they came to mind. And I was like, yeah, if one of them claimed that, like,
we would be all over that with mockery. Yeah. Like, like just with how we're all wired. Yeah.
And it's, yeah. Though to be fair, if one of them started walking on the water, your opinion might change.
Yeah. You know, it might start changing, you know? Yeah. But beyond Mary, there was a lot of women
who actually were huge benefactors into Jesus's ministry. There was, I mean, off the top of my
head, prominent women, there was Joanna, right? She was married to the guy who was in charge of
manifesting Herod Antipas's court, who is the son of Herod the Great, who we're going to be talking
about in the Kings and King of the series. But Herod Antipas, you know, fairly wealthy guy, right?
Yeah. Makes the people who are wealthy today look like they got nothing. Yeah. Like he's real wealthy.
And so she's a woman of some means and she is uniquely positioned to help Jesus with her
resources. She's not only helping with his resources, she's actually one of three women that,
depending on which biblical account and which gospel we're looking at, is one of the three
women who actually is at Jesus's resurrection, is going to the tomb when Jesus is resurrected.
Like she's not just some ancillary figure. Yes, she funds Jesus's ministry to go and preach the
word and bring the gospel, but she's also actively involved in what he's actually doing. The implication
here is that she's actually a disciple. I would believe so. Yeah. Like the text doesn't directly
say that, but that's the implication here. She was with Jesus. She followed him, helped support
his ministry, was there at the resurrection. Like, and for those of us who know the scriptures,
there were not many people there at the resurrection, right? It was just a handful.
And so the implication is here is that she was actually a devoted disciple of Jesus. Right.
It's actually one of my beefs with Jesus, their God. Why didn't you make it a little more clear?
Like you wrote this thing, you put this together, couldn't you have just said clearly so that there
was less misunderstanding and less like wishy-washy back and forth. Hey, I think women are just as
good as men. You're all my children and I have hopes and dreams and talents for you all. Like,
why couldn't you just put that in there so we didn't have to have such discussions?
The ironic thing is for about 1800 years of church history, there was very little issue.
Yeah. Just you run, you really run into you, you run into it in sections, but like not in,
not as a church whole, do people struggle with women actually serving in incapacity of ministry
and sharing the gospel and things like that? Well, and I'm not a historian, but I've often wondered,
it seems more so in the United States. Like if you go over, there's tons of female missionaries
that are going and doing their thing. A lot of them that have chosen not to marry and they are
leaving all kinds of things. But when it comes to the United States, oh, I don't know. Like,
I don't know what that is. Maybe you guys know what that hold up or what that changes. I mean,
do you feel like anytime Satan has the option to try to have an argument or corrupt what
God intended, you know, that's his job. I have an opinion on it. I am, it's,
this is not something that is a, that would be like, Hey, this is a theological fact. But the
reality in America is we face very little to no persecution. And so we tend to argue about pointless
things because I guarantee you, if we were being hunted for our lives and there were people sharing
the gospel, we don't care if it's a woman or a man who's teaching. We are desiring to follow Jesus.
And we're going to, we're going to set aside a lot of our differences in pursuit of actually
following him. Well, and Paul says, I can't remember exactly where, but when he's talking
about the gospel being preached, he's like, who cares if their motives are pure, like right or
wrong, the gospel is still being proclaimed. Right. Which that's a little bit of a hard pill
to swallow for some people, but we can disagree on this. But like, so if someone comes to me and is
like, well, I don't think women should be allowed to preach, but there's a woman over there who is
preaching and people are coming to know Jesus because of it. Yeah. At some point, like even if
you don't think that should be happening, you should set your opinion aside because you actually
have scriptural backing to say, just recognize what God is doing in the midst of that. The
church history piece is kind of interesting because as like you were saying, there wasn't much,
there actually wasn't much issue with this until denominations started coming into play.
Like it was really when denominations started fracturing out and becoming their own, where they
started to have their own opinions and reflections and interpretations on these things. Now I do want
to specify, I don't want to say that there were no issues. Like there's always been issues of
people disagreeing about it. I mean, I mean, but that's going back to like, yeah, people disagreeing
about like Gnosticism and like Dota-ism and like all these different things going on in the first
couple of centuries that of course women serving in ministry is going to be a topic at some point,
but there is a thread all throughout church history of women serving faithfully and God blessing
through church history, which we will talk about. I think that's in a couple of, so as a fact,
I think we're going to have one of your pastors with us. Pastor Sarah is going to be coming back.
We didn't scare her off too much last time, so she said she'd come back. So coming back,
some of you had to say somebody's benefactor. So there's Joanna, there's Susanna who we don't
know anything about except the fact that she's named, which is a big deal and that she provides
other resources. And this is also, there are others that provide other resources. There is
Mary Magdalene who is named. And the thing, the only thing that we know about Mary Magdalene for
sure is that she had seven demons outside of her that were driven out. By the way, I want to
clear up something that is really popular in should be in conversation, but is not actually
biblical. Mary Magdalene is not a prostitute. That was a musing from Augustine where he was,
he equated Mary Magdalene with Mary the prostitute. There is no implication in the text that those are
the same person. Just be very careful when you're blogging, I guess it'd be the equivalent to what
Augustine did, that you're actually talking about the right people in the right context,
because a lot of times like Mary Magdalene has been portrayed as a prostitute and there's no
indication that she was. In fact, the indication is that she was actually a very prominent disciple
and minister post Jesus. Yep. Well, I think somebody who was lived a life of brokenness
and then was healed with Jesus, it's going to be pretty powerful and persuasive. The passion
and the purpose is going to be complete for her. She'd be all in. Yeah. Yeah. And I hear sometimes
they also say that Jesus had a relationship with one of the two, which I don't find any evidence.
That actually comes from the Gospel of Thomas and sometime we'll talk about why the Gospel of Thomas
is not a reliable source for biblical authority, but most of that comes from the Gospel of Thomas
or Gospel of Judas. And there is a reason that those books are not canonized. We won't get into
them today, but there is substantial research on why those are not accepted. But that's a whole
whole her camera. She's just finding those candles. She's pouring them out all over the place here.
Sorry. She's outlining season three for us. Yeah, season three right there. So it's interesting in
this position in Luke where Luke is mentioning all these women that are helping, you know,
he's mentioning Joanna and Susanna, these other women, Mary Magdalene. You know what's missing
from that list? Names of men. I don't think that's an accident by Luke, right? I think Luke is trying
to actually like point out something here is that women are very involved in the ministry of Jesus.
In fact, throughout the book of Luke, we're going to talk about this as we start talking about Jesus
as disciples. Luke is constantly taking Jesus's teachings and showing how he's pairing them
between men and women, right? And how it's directed at not one particular sex, but at the overall
picture of humanity, right? The call of the kingdom is a call to humanity, not to a man or to a woman.
I think when you read the Bible as a whole, like if you look at,
I was saying earlier that I took all the scripture surrounding women at one point and read
all the context and read, you know, some of the rhetoric about it and things that even though
there is an argument for hierarchical things and specific passages, the overall context of the Bible
is equality and loving each other and, you know, partnership, right? We're all, even, you know,
you have Jesus and God and the Holy Spirit. There's not, I mean, they're all in partnership together.
Right. Well, we talked about in the first episode in the series in the book of Genesis,
it's they rule, they reign, they subdue, they fill the earth, they are fruitful, they multiply.
There is no tell the man to go submit, you know, take over the world and subdue and multiply.
No, it's they, it's always they in that section. And so if the idea of the sacrifice of Jesus
is actually to reverse the curse that's brought on post Eden, right? Why would we live like the
curse still is enacted? So what did Jesus reverse the curse or didn't he? That's the question that
we're still going to be in a fallen world, but we are no longer fallen people because he changed
our very nature. Yeah. Through the very righteousness of God. In other words, he did. Yeah,
exactly. In other words, he did. He did. And backing up to Genesis again, when it says that
God was going to make a suitable helper, that phrase is the same phrase that is used for God
as my helper. Yeah. And so it's this idea of man, women and mutual submission to each other,
fitting the full image of God, bringing the fullness of God. Huh, man, it feels like Paul
said something about men and women submit to each other. And yes, you know, right, which ties over
to that passage. And are you saying that Paul, the apostle knew what he was talking about?
I absolutely. Yeah. And so when you're looking at the idea of women in ministry and wrestling
with this, you really got to look at the whole picture, right? You really got to look and see
that there were prominent women of this day and age who were following Jesus, right? Who were
disciples of Jesus. Yeah. So with that in mind, let's actually get into the disciples, right?
Because this is a piece where people, I feel like we have this conversation with people who have a
different theology, theological benth and ideal, right? And they say, well, but the disciples were
all men. Yes. No, the 12 disciples were men. And there's a good reason for them to all be men
because they were supposed to represent the 12 tribes of Israel, who by the way, were all men.
So it makes sense that you would have 12 men represent 12 men from to for Israel. But Jesus
had a lot more than 12 disciples. He had 12 that were part of his, like they ultimately were ended
up being called apostles. But we even know from the book of Acts that there was more than 12 that
followed him the entire time because they had two other people that they could choose to replace
Judas. So there was at least 14. Right. And for Matthew 10, when he sends them out, he sends
70 or 72 out. 70 or 72. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There is a, there's a fun conversation about there in the
Greek that we're not going to get into today, but it actually connects to a piece of scripture in
the Old Testament. So go find that, have fun. And then we'll talk about it later. Yes. So when he's
sending them out in Matthew 10, he's sending a large group of people out. Well, and my math isn't
good, like super good, but I'm pretty sure 70 or 72 is more than 12. Yeah. Like last time I checked
70 or 72 is more than 12. And so, so the 12 are men. Absolutely. There's no denying that,
but there were other women who did follow Jesus and we have textual evidence for that. Yeah. And
generally speaking, the word disciple is going to be a masculine noun, generally speaking in Greek.
Now, a lot of these guys would have been just writing in very rudimentary Greek. So they
wouldn't have necessarily had like super polished Greek. Maybe Luke, because he has a doctor,
would have been a little bit more polished, but there is one occurrence of a disciple showing up
as a feminine noun and it's in an Acts 9 36 referring to Tabitha or my favorite way is Dorcas
because that's a great name. It's so good. I was actually having a conversation with somebody the
other day and they're like, why did they say like Tabitha also known as Dorcas? Like that's really
confusing. And I was like, well, it's confusing, but they came from like a place of like multiple
languages. And I was like, for example, we have a guy who goes to our church. He goes by Joshua.
His name is Jeho. And I was like, if I say, I was like, I was talking to Jeho and somebody's like,
who is that? I was like, oh, also known as Joshua. Yeah. Right. Like it's actually not that strange
of a thing when you're dealing with a bunch of cultures interacting. It's actually pretty
common. Yeah. We're actually going to talk about Tabitha I think a little bit more next week. Yeah.
Yeah. And there's even in Paul's writings, Romans 16 has multiple references of women who were
either in leadership or considered apostles. Right. And so that's another conversation. Yep.
That's next week's conversation, which you guys will never guess. We got Pastor Nick's wife to
be with us next week. So that's going to be fun. Buckle up because I'm sure the desert is going
to be real hot on that one. That is it. And that's a common phrase we say, by the way, the desert is
hot. When Nick was on an episode, we said it apparently like 30 times and she's like, you guys
say that a lot. And so I, we just, we made her a t-shirt and we periodically just throw it into
things. Like even when we're preaching, I'll be like, yeah, they're wandering the desert. And I
don't know if you guys know this, but the desert's really hot. So it's definitely been a thing for
like a year with the idea of also the disciples. Remember when I was talking about when Mary and
her brothers, his brothers and sisters come and they're like, Hey Jesus, you're getting kind of
weird. Right. And so they come there, but there's like so many people like meeting with them that
they can't actually get there to talk to them. And so somebody comes and says, Hey, your mother and
brothers are here. And he says, who are my mothers and brothers? I tell you the truth that, and then
he says gesturing to his disciples, these are my mother and my brothers and my sisters. Okay.
Gesturing to his disciples, he adds this thing about sisters because it's just as mother and
brothers are, are coming. He has this thing about sisters. Now it's really weird for him to do that.
If there aren't women there that are following him and it's something you can easily read right
past, but it's pretty blatant in the text that Jesus gestures to his disciples and says, these
are my disciples, my mother, my brothers, my sisters. And so it's not a half baked theory
that there are women who are following Jesus and are actually a discipling with him.
Yeah. I don't understand. I mean, I'm not a traditionalist, but yeah, you said that like
you were going to shock us when you came in here. Well, she's like, I'm not a traditionalist. Like
just, I hope I won't get kicked out of this podcast. I'm like, clearly you've not listened to enough
episodes of us talking. Women are influencers. And I'm not, I'm going to fall short of women rule the
world, but they have the babies, they raise the babies, they do everything of life. How on earth
could they not be influencing in every single spot? To me, some of this argument is mute. Like,
and if a man wants to make that argument, that then hopefully he has a daughter and it shuts him
up. Cause it will. Yeah. I mean, I feel that way. And you know, I want my daughter to have every
opportunity and that my boys, I had three boys and one girl and that one girl can wrap those three
boys up lickety split. Yep. And they will honor her and support her and they love her and give her
equal status of intelligence and everything else. I don't know how it gets corrupted or how it gets
changed later to have that conflict other than if people could get all get along and husbands and
wives could work as a team on a consistent basis in the area of Jesus, we rule the world. Right.
Together. You might say that we would subdue the earth, fill it and multiply. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
And certainly we're not doing that now. So the other side is winning. Like we should come to
our senses and figure out that when we live in a community of love and support, then we lift each
other up. Yeah. Yeah. And then we make differences, you know, and that can be ongoing. It can, you
know, never a straight line. It's always got like some ups and downs and curves here and there.
Yeah. I completely agree with you, but you know, the main, one of the main reasons we're doing this
mini series is because we do get a lot of questions about that specifically. We have listeners from
the Pentecostal to the conservative bent, right? And, and so we get periodic questions or periodic
statements about like, that's not what the Bible teaches. So that's what we're doing over the next
eight weeks is we're methodically going through and talking about like, what does the Bible actually
teach? So like the fact that people say, well, Jesus didn't have any disciples who were women.
The text is pretty clear. He did. In fact, one of the best examples is in Luke, when they go to Mary
Martha's house. Now I've heard this talked about in sermons a million times, right? And like, then you
should be a Mary, not a Martha. And first of all, Martha's also make dinner. So that's not a bad
thing. Like food is good. I like food. I was like, so if you want to be a Martha, even if you're a
dude, go be a Martha. Cause I love food. Right. But it says specifically that Mary sat at the feet,
sat at the feet, which is a euphemism. It's a turn of phrase. An idiom is what the word is.
It also says in other words that Paul sat at the feet of Gamaliel, right? This is what you do. If
you're a disciple, you sit at the feet of the rabbi. So it's not a, it's not just a random turn
of phrase that she's sitting at his feet. They're not talking about her location. They're talking
about her vocation. So her vocation is actually follower of Jesus. We've talked about like that
there's more than 12, you know, I was like, when Jesus started talking to them about, he's like,
Hey, you have to eat my flesh and drink my blood. It's some of them can't handle it and they leave.
Okay. And then there's still 12. So clearly there's more than 12 there, right? Yeah. I don't
know whether or not Mary and Martha were following all the time, but they were at least following
part of the time. Well, that verse gets me worked up anyway, cause I think people use it in a lot
of different ways. They even compare busy type people to more solace type people or people that
want to sit and they kind of hit those personalities against each other. Like one's better than the
other. It's like, Oh my gosh, I don't understand. It's more spiritual if you are a sitter and not
a doer. Like, okay. It doesn't even make sense with the talents and gifts that God has given.
It is silly to do that. Well, so one of the points that Bailey will make in his book in this section
of here, she will talk about that is that the account of Martha is distracted, not burdened
with this serving and to be distracted from something you have to be like to something,
you have to be distracted from something. So she's actually being distracted from what
God has like, what Jesus is there to do, which is to make disciples to something else that she
thinks is really important. She's like, why are you learning at the feet when you should be helping
me cook? Because clearly that's what we have to do. Missing the fact that Jesus is actually calling
her to come and sit at the feet. And by the way, like doers versus sitters, it takes a lot to learn
at a rabbi's feet. So I hate to break the people who are like, Oh, you know, being a sitter and
and you got to do there too. You're not just like, you're actually learning to become like the rabbi.
And I'm not a good rule follower. Neither was Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. That, you know,
he broke a lot of rules and made a lot of new stuff that wasn't that way, which technically
today should give us freedom that, you know, there isn't one way always to get something done or,
you know, that you have to do things a certain way to have them be effective. I mean,
if you look at healing, he does it different every single time. I mean, he created us all.
I have often thought that spitting in the mud was the right way to heal people.
Spitting in the mud was the right way to heal people, right? Well, and like to your point
right there is like Jesus is defending Mary's right to be a disciple. Like we get this conversation
about like, are you a sitter? Are you a doer? And Jesus is actually saying, Martha, don't judge
Mary for her choice to be a disciple. She's allowed to be a disciple. Like don't get into this.
You know, that's the true purpose, right? To learn what he was teaching and then be able to
know and go and spread the good news. You can feed people all day long, but if you can't have a
conversation about what Jesus's true intentions were, it's not really helpful. I mean, that's what
he wants from us today. We can go and do all kinds of things, but if we lack our personal relationship
with Jesus, we're missing the point. Well, that's not even to say doing things is bad. I mean,
he says that I turned like when I was hungry, you fed me when I was thirsty, you gave me water.
When I was had no clothes, you clothed me. When I was in jail, you visited me when I sick, you took
care of me. Well, when did we do this? When you did it for the least of these. So there is an
implication that like a changed heart causes you to do something different. In fact, we've said it.
We said it this way on the podcast before. I don't care where your theology is. If it doesn't cause
you to be more like Jesus. Well, most times, at least for me, I get interrupted and I get pretty
frustrated and ticked off about it. But a lot of times it's the interruptions that God is looking
to do something, right? We are people of a planned, you know, planned thing. But if we're in charge of
that plan all the time and doing it, then how does God break through into that? Right. Right. And
even that whole concept, it's a precarious balance all the time because we say, oh, we're going to
feed people. But do we actually talk to the people on the street when I walk by them? Like, it's.
If you're Spencer's sister, then the answer is yes. It is very true. Yeah, very true. She's just,
she's just a very giving, generous person. Yeah, it's really interesting because I mean,
being inconvenienced and thing like when we try to put God in a box, it's like trying to put a
cardboard box over a lion and being like, OK, nothing's going to happen. It's going to be safe.
What do you think that lion is going to do as soon as a cardboard box gets put over it? Right.
Like it's going to break through that box and be like, no, we're going to do things a little
differently. Right. And when you have that moment, there's that moment of being uncomfortable,
that moment of uncertainty, then we still try to take back in control under our hands and we
could be like, OK, so what's the outcome going to be? And then when Jesus is really like,
that's my concern. The outcome is my concern. Your concern is actually doing what you've been
called to do. One of the things I always find particularly interesting is there's a type of
person who claims to follow Jesus that I'm going to call a heresy hunter. Right. They're people
that like their entire job is to root out heresy and root out people. Yeah, very true. Jesus tells
me parables about, he says, go and collect the wheat and the weeds. Yeah. I will go and figure
out which ones don't belong. Your job is to go and collect. You go and collect all the fish.
My angels will take care of taking care of the batfish. Right. They're going to be the ones to
take them out. This is my job. Your job is to go and collect and to speak and harvest. And like,
and it's my job to figure out what's actually substantial or not. But a lot of times we're like,
oh, we're going to go figure out what are the tears. Right. We want to fight the tears. We're
going to cut those tears out. Yeah, that's not our job. We're not responsible for that. Like to your
point, our job is to go and be faithful, right? To love, share the gospel, do good, talk about Jesus,
represent the kingdom of God in the world, wherever we go. It hurts my heart. And I'm sure you can
relate to this. What I have heard of your heart. Yes, I heard your heart on an often basis. No,
what I'm going to say. I have four kids that were raised in the ministry and recently they
have a cousin that they have grown up with that they're really good friends who married a man
who is going into the ministry. And before she got married, she came over and all my kids are
adults now and was like, okay, tell me what you think about this and tell me, you know, is this a
good thing? And you know, I'm nervous about being a minister's wife and this, and you grew up in this
bubble. So what does that mean? And initially all my kids said all this negative stuff. And they
came back and told me this. I wasn't in the conversation that they came back and told me this.
And I was like, oh, that hurts my heart that they're saying all these, like a lot of the things of
hypocrisy or people holding them to a standard that they aren't even being held to themselves.
Just their thoughts about how people in ministry should be versus somehow that's separate from
themselves, which were all called to be that way. And then later after they had a discussion
amongst themselves about, Oh, I feel kind of bad that I told her all these bad things when this is,
you know, where God's calling her and it seems clear that's what she wants. And so in their
discussion amongst themselves, they also said, it's also the best things about our life that
have happened. And so they went back to tell her, Hey, we got a little caught up in some of the
negative things or some of the things that were really hard about our life. But I just want to
say also in saying yes, and in them saying yes in their own lives, as they grew older, it also
became some of the best parts of their journey and opportunities that they never would have had. And
I think sometimes people look at Christians or people look at the church and they're like,
I don't want to be a part of that because it doesn't look good. It doesn't feel good.
These people that are pointing out all the cracks are not people I want to hang out with.
And that makes me sad because that was not Jesus's intention ever. And as a person representing him
or wanting to represent him, which is all of our jobs, by the way. And if you want to know about
women in the Bible, open up your Bible. That's what I want to go back and say about that. Like
read every scripture and then get some friends together and talk about it and ask the Holy
Spirit to come into your life and tell you the truth. You don't got to listen to us or anybody
else. Like he will reveal it to you. Listen to her. You don't have to listen to us. Just
turn off this podcast. No, it's still good. Don't listen to us anymore. Everything you hear and see,
you should be thinking about and asking God if it's the truth. And he can speak to you through all
kinds of things, including this podcast. And I hope that for everyone listening. But at the same time,
he wants to speak to you. So you should listen. Yeah. Yeah. I think a lot of times we fail to
realize that the things that are sometimes the biggest struggle are actually the biggest
blessings. I've been married for 14 years and it has not been easy any of those years. It has,
however, been fantastic and worth every minute. I've had kids for five years and I can't think of a
month that it was easy, but it has been fantastic. You know, right. This is also comes back to a
conversation I have with people about the kingdom of God too, because we tell people that, you know,
if you accept Jesus, he's going to come into your life and it's going to be like, you're great and
fantastic. And all that stuff is true. It's also going to be difficult. Yeah. The Christian life
is not easy. Yeah. Like you're, you have to become the kind of person who's willing to lay down your
life on behalf of other people. Jesus's coronation event was getting crucified on a cross. Yeah. And
he was God made flesh. Our life is not going to be easy, but it's going to be worth it. Yeah.
Yeah. And to tell somebody that following Jesus is easy is a disservice to them. And quite frankly,
it's a flat out lie because that's not how following Jesus is. Following Jesus is a lifelong
pursuit of learning how to put your life on display for the kingdom of God to bring, bring God's kids
home in this world. And when you're going out into your community to be Christ to your community,
Jesus lays it out in Matthew 10. He's like, it's actually going to suck. Yeah. So that's the Spencer
translation right there. People are going to mess with you and they're going to be like, oh, I'm
doing good for God because I'm messing with you. Yeah. Jesus says you're, you are going to be
sheep going out amongst wolves. You're going, he goes on to say, you're going to be thrown in prison.
You're going to be rocked. You're going to be run out of towns. All of these things. He's like all
for the sake of it. Yeah. Like, well, sometimes I think maybe that's why women are built or maybe
why women are more responsive. And maybe this is a sexist remark towards, I mean, as myself, as a
woman, who knows if it is, I have full editing power. I'm just thinking as a man, I mean, any
woman that has a child gets it, gets it. You guys don't have children. Also any woman that has to
work with a man who treats them as a lesser person as a result of being a woman also culturally
has a way to deal with that already. Men don't have that. Like I'm trying to think, I'll think
of it here in a minute where we were, there was an example that just recently happened. It'll come
to my perimenopausal mind here where if it had been like a circumstance where a woman was in it
and they were, you know, given a hard time, but if it had been a man, it would have been treated
completely different if that makes sense. Yeah. So sometimes when I think about how women are
responded to Jesus, that they would have already understood all that intuitively if they were adult
women with children or things like that, that they would have been able to acquiesce or humble
themselves to that role in a kinder way than potentially a man, if that makes sense. Well,
and I think there's something inherent in the message that those of you who feel like you're
on the outside are being welcomed in. Right. If you are an oppressed gender, it's going to
be very appealing. It's going to resonate with your heart because you're like on a very real level,
people sit there and they're like, life isn't supposed to be this way. Like you can feel it
because we're supposed to resonate to the natural rhythms of creation, but creation is flawed
because of sin. Right. I was like, but we know like in our core, we can feel it like something's not
right. Like it's kind of one of those reasons, like often you don't have to tell somebody they're a
sinner for them to actually know that they're out of sync with who God wants them to be. Yeah.
Right. Like you, what you're helping to do is present a reality and an invitation to a reality
to be a different kind of person. Yeah. Well, you only know what you know. So I was raised in a
divided home spiritually. And so I saw one side of things and I saw another side of things.
What is the right side of things when you're a kid looking towards that? And then I had my own
personal journey within that, unless I stay willing to explore those things, it doesn't allow that
change to happen for God inside of me. If I land over here or I land over here and I just say,
that's it, which a lot of us do, we believe truths that come into our life at a certain time. And we
don't question them again until we deliberately have something that we encounter like this,
that we're like, is this really true? What I believe for the last 20 years? Look at that.
She's narrowing in on why we're doing this podcast series. That's perfect. I love that.
Part of the reason why a lot of bigger name pastors actually get called heretics is because
in the earlier years they will have said something. And Ben has heard me say this,
if you're given a chance to preach from the pulpit of that church, you're going to speak
heresy at some point. It's going to happen. Not on purpose, but probably will. But you probably
will. I'm not going to say you probably will. I'm going to say you will. You will. Probably
will be on accident because that's usually how it goes. But a lot of bigger name pastors,
in their earlier years, they've said one thing and then the later years are saying something else
because they have a deeper understanding of scripture, the work of Jesus in their lives.
And they're like, okay, I had this wrong before. But a lot of times people will be like, well,
they said this 30 years ago. I was like, well, they might've been 20 and dumb at the time when
they said that. Well, those kinds of people drive me crazy. No offense. But again, when you're
sitting there listening to a preacher, I'm married to one. I have to listen to the man that I'm
married every day with, that I live with. That's a pastor. I listen to him every Sunday and I don't
say, oh, he should have wore a different shirt or, oh, he just said mean things to me yesterday.
I say, what does God have for me today when he's preaching a sermon? Not he as my husband, but
he as God speaking to me on this Sunday morning. And it would take care of a lot of that. Like
I've been in ministry a long time now. I've seen all kinds of awful things happen and people falling
off of the pedestal that other people have put them on and those types of things. And guess what?
God speaks to people through all of that. He uses all of that for his good. And it may not be able
to see it at the time or you may not be able to even think it at the time because you're hurting
or you're suffering some kind of consequence. But God is still in all that, still being God and still
letting people grow in him and see things out of it. It drives me a little crazy when people
write on their comment card or their comment card for this, oh, you shouldn't have said this or you
shouldn't have said that. Well, let's look again at the whole context. Right? I have a great
receptacle for those kind of comic cards. So we actually get some pretty funny comments on like
different videos and stuff that we do. I always tell people, I was like, you can make whatever
comment you want. We're responsible for content. You can make all the comments you want. We may
or may not answer you because like, I was like, quite honestly, if you're making a statement about
that you don't like our beards or you don't like our opinions, like start your own podcast.
Yeah, start your own podcast. You also don't have to listen. Like we're here to have an authentic
conversation. We invite people on here who we don't always see everything eye to eye with because
we want to have real conversations because faith, faithful followers of Jesus need to have ways to
just have these conversations. Coming back to the teachings of Jesus and this idea of like, how did
Jesus interact with women? In the book of Luke, Kenneth Bailey has a ton of examples of how
Jesus is speaking into and he's using these dual parables. And I'm just kind of going to go through
these really quick. So in his first sermon, when he goes in Nazareth, he talks about two stories out
of tradition. There's the story of the woman of Zarephath. And then there's the story of the man
Naaman the Cyrene. Now, both of them are Gentiles and both are heroes of faith. So he names both a
woman and a man, both Gentiles. Like this is part of Jesus' regular teaching. Then in 536, he talks
about the mending of a garment, which is typically a task of a woman and also the making of wine,
which is typically the work of men. He's talking about like these two different kinds of jobs,
two different genders, but he's using it for the same exact illustrative purposes on this invitation
into the kingdom life. Jesus is concerned for the outcast and the sinner. There's a woman who's
rejected at the house of Simon. And then there's the parable of the Pharisee and they call him the
publican tax collector in Luke 18. There's two parables about prayer being answered. The first
is about this friend at midnight that keeps knocking on your door and won't leave you alone.
And that's definitely Spencer. I need bread. No. And then there's this responsible for sending
reels at midnight. Yeah. And then there's a story about this woman, this indifferent judge, this guy
who's like, listen, I don't fear God nor people, but if I don't take care of her, she's going to
drive me insane. Right? Like it's both man and woman again. And this is parable of the mustard seed
planting done by men linked with the kneading of leaven into dough, which is typically the work of
a woman. Now that's just a quick spattering, but Kenneth Bailey notes in his book that he's found
27 pairs of cases of men and women in the gospel of Luke alone, where they're pairing these two
ideas of this is directed towards men, directed towards women. Jesus himself in his teaching
is always talking about how do men and women engage the gospel? Like it's not just for men.
It's not a story just for men. It's not a story just for women. It's a story for both of us in like,
how do you actually live out the principle and be God's people on earth? And then there's like
famous interactions that he has, like there's this woman caught in adultery, which we've talked about
a number of times on the podcast, right? It's a really weird story because immediately you're
like, well, where's the guy now you've been married. How many years? Long time. Yeah. And you, so I,
I think you're aware that when there is a union between two people, two people have to be there.
And so if you're caught in the very act, there should theoretically be two people there, right?
And yet there's this woman who's caught and she's the one thrown out and they're like, well, the law
says you need to stone her. This is a setup of literally biblical proportions. Well, it,
speaking of who we spoke of earlier, Mary, wasn't that her consequence? What she should have
happened to her is be stoned. So it's kind of thematic that he, you know, somebody that is caught in
in something. I mean, in that, in Mary's case, God had that happen to her. In this person's case,
she may be made, made a wrong choice or maybe was forced into it. How do we know?
All we know for, for certain is that Jesus confronts the religious leaders in her hypocrisy
with knowledge that makes him back away. And then the way that he interacts with the woman caught
in sin is with grace, is with grace and, and gentleness. And, and it's not that he doesn't
call her to something else, but he refuses to treat her as anything less than a human being.
This is who Jesus is. We have a similar story about the woman at the well in the gospel of
John, right? And she is, depending on how you interpret the story, has had multiple husbands
and a lot of different like situations like that. But when she is confronted with the nature of who
Jesus is and the fact that Messiah has come and he's even willing to come and visit Samaria,
she becomes a missionary because she goes and tells the entire town and then starts talking to
the entire region about who this Jesus character is to actually tell the story, which by the way,
I don't know if you guys know this, that's what pastors do. They tell the story.
That story in particular drives me crazy also because in the culture of that time,
she wouldn't have had a lot of choices. It's not like she was rule of the roost going out and saying,
I'll have this husband, this husband, this husband, right? I mean, she was surviving is what she was
doing. And even though all those things happened, look at the influence she had. So she must've been
a pretty great woman. Even though all those things happened, because if she was a piece of trash,
how would she be influencing people? Right? So she had influence despite those things happening.
So he saw the inside of her regardless of the outside and she responded in love to it.
Yeah. And was committed from that point on.
This guy's for real for me. Started preaching the gospel.
Yeah. How do people overcome? I work in sales in my regular job and they always talk about-
Regular job. Well, one of the things, I do a lot of things,
but anyway, I've learned a lot about sales in general. That wasn't my intention, but one of the
things they talk about is that sales is an easy job. You're trying to get someone to buy something,
right? And how do you do that and that kind of thing. But one of the things that they talk as
a person, you have to figure out why, what is your motivation behind what you want to do?
Because when you hit hard times or hard sales or whatever it is, your tendency is going to want
to be to quit. So these people's why, these disciples, these women that followed after Jesus
figured out their why early on. And it was enough for them to hold onto through all the
things, watching Jesus die on the cross, having everybody go out looking to kill anybody else
that was associated with him, that they were able to hold on to their why or that personal thing that
Jesus did for them to go on and change the world. Really. Yeah. Yeah. To the point with all of that
is that Jesus sees the value. He respects the person and he calls the gold out, right? Like he
sees what he sees the image of God and the people and he calls them out. And like that's the way
that we're supposed to be man, woman doesn't matter. Like we call the image out and we call them to a
life of Jesus. There's another story in the book of the Bible where it talks about the woman with
the issue of blood, right? And she quotes from, she remembers some scripture that it says that
there's healing in his wings, which by the way, I don't know if you know the conifote of the
zetiot, which is the tassels on the end of the robe that they have that that's called their wings.
And so when she reaches out and she touches the conifote of his zetiot, recognizing this passage
of the Messiah has healing in his wings, right? So when she, if I can just touch this cloak,
recognizing scripture, right? And Jesus recognizes it and he sees her. But one of the things that I
think is really compelling is he addresses her as he says, daughter of Abraham, which we read right
over because we're like, yep, daughter of Abraham, Israel. Yeah, I get it. But she was unclean. She
was on the ground. Like she would not have been called like a daughter of Abraham because daughter
of Abraham is a term of respect. Jesus sees her. And not unlike how God sees Hagar in the desert,
Hagar in the desert. He is the God who sees her and recognizes her and gives her respect and compassion.
Well, I could be misquoting this, but I think I've read that when reading that passage,
one of the things is that it was she had no ability to control that. Correct. So it wasn't
that she was being punished or anything. It was actually potentially for his glory that she
suffered all that time before this redemption to happen later on in showing the power of Jesus
to be able to heal her that, you know, sometimes we get mixed up that these bad things are happening
for some kind of reason or that kind of thing. But that this particular situation for her was to
she suffered. I mean, as her cause of suffering was to give glory to Jesus later on, she didn't
even know any of that. Yeah. And her boldness in that. So like we often just read that like,
oh, well, she went and touched the tassels of his robe. Right. Well, if she was unclean,
she would have actually been required to keep distance from other people. Right.
And the passage actually specifically tells us that there was a vast crowd around Jesus.
Yeah. So what she's essentially doing is she's bringing her filth into the crowd so she can get
to Jesus. Right. To talk about a boldness. Like she's like, I know I should not be going through
this crowd, but there's Messiah. I need to touch the tassels of his robe so I can be healed.
Yeah. Right. Desperation. Yeah. And the only reason I ever give any pushback on sicknesses
so that the glory of God can be revealed is I think sometimes people can take that and they
can twist it. Absolutely. I know that God is always good and that God desires his kids to be
healthy. You know, I know that because I have kids and I desire them to be healthy all the time too.
One, because I don't like them sneezing on me and two, because I don't like them being sick.
Wow. I was like, but I do recognize that God doesn't always heal because he is in control
of the entire universe and he has a much broader picture than I do. Yeah. That's always his will.
It doesn't mean necessarily he's going to. Does that make sense? Absolutely. Like I never want
my kids to be sick. And if I could prevent them from being sick, I don't know that would be good
for them always. Yeah. Because there is something in sickness that actually helps you actually grow
as a person too. Well, are you fans of The Chosen? Oh yeah. Yes. He has a conversation. The big old
fans of The Chosen. Which disciple, forgive me, which disciple is it that actually says he has
a conversation in that show where he says, hey, you've healed these other people. How come you
haven't healed me? Yeah. Did you watch that one? And Jesus gives them an answer. I mean, a kind of
a interpreted answer from what the Bible would say about that. Yeah. But it was not an easy answer.
No. I didn't think. But I think also a truthful one, like that we all have to rectify our own
faith with God in the crosses that we're bearing for our own lives. Like it might be physical for
one person. It could be a lot different for someone else. And certainly people that are outside of the
United States that are being persecuted have their own things to bear. Yeah. We will go a little bit
deeper on healing in our next mini series, which we're actually going to talk about the gifts of
the spirit. But we're going to talk about that a little bit deeper because I think sometimes
believing that Jesus is always going to heal and praying with that kind of faith is absolutely the
way that you need to always pray. But if the answer doesn't come that you want, you always have to know
that God is good. Yeah. And those two things you have to hold in tandem because there's really easy
to cross too far from one to the other. And just because something didn't happen the way you thought
it should does not mean that God is not good. And so what you do is it causes you to actually press
into relationship and be like, God, what were you doing here? Like, help me understand, you know?
There are some things we're just not going to understand. I took a class because healing is an
interest of mine. I feel like I'd like to know more. And I'd certainly love to tap into whatever
power God wants to for me to pray for people and get them healed. And I watched all these interviews
of people who had a healing ministry and would be considered gifted in healing. And they were
talking about all the times that they personally had people come to them and asked for healing
and it didn't happen. And here they are known with this title of being a healer and having a healing
ministry. Yet this person that they were so close to, it didn't happen. And it was fascinating just
to listen to their own personal struggle of how can you do so much here, Jesus? But what about this
person that I'm struggling with and what that did to their relationships and such? It was mind blowing,
really. And it requires a level of maturity to recognize that one, you don't know everything.
And then two, that you need to be faithful even when the answers don't turn out the way you want
them to. I was going to say we have one more encounter with Jesus that we need to talk.
Psycho Phoenician woman. You know, we're just coming back to this idea of like who, how Jesus
interacts with different people. There's also the psycho Phoenician woman. I'll probably leave that
in because that's pretty good. The Syrophoenician woman where like she is not a Jew, right? And she
comes and she asked Jesus for a miracle. And Jesus said, he replies to this thing where people take
away harsher than it actually would have been in that language, which is you can't give to what's
meant for the kids, the dogs, right? People, they're like, oh, he's calling her dog. Well,
this culture, it doesn't actually mean that the same way. It's not as harsh as it sounds,
but that she responds in faith, right? She says, but even the dogs are allowed the table scraps,
right? And Jesus is incredibly impressed by her faith. This foreign woman, which by the way,
there's also a foreign man who is a Roman centurion who also Jesus recognizes his faith.
So it's interesting that there's once again, a pairing here of a foreign woman and a foreign
man, both of who recognize the authority of Jesus. He was impressed by their faith.
And to close out today, we need to talk about the death and resurrection of Jesus. Yeah.
Because we know the story. You went to the cross, died, was buried three days later, rose again.
And then when he was rose, when he came out from the grave, who were the first people that he
entrusted the message to? Women? Women, right? And this is actually one of the passages I go
to frequently when people are like, well, women shouldn't be able to preach. And I'm like, okay,
well, Jesus entrusted this message to women. Yeah. Where did they go? They went back to the
disciples. Yeah. Yeah. And proclaimed this message. Okay. So if that's not preaching,
I don't know what it is. Yeah. Right. These women that Jesus is like, here, you follow me,
you are disciples of mine. Here is this message. You are held on equal status to where you get to
go and proclaim this message to the rest of the disciples. Huge. Well, and they were all in,
he had to show up on a road later with some other disciples who, you know, who didn't know who he
was. Well, and Thomas is like, I wasn't there. So unless I touched the holes in his wrist and the
hole at his side, I'm not going to believe. Like, yeah. Those women, all in, didn't see him right
off the bat. You know, I mean, yeah, there was an angel. So that helps, I guess. But yeah. And not
all the disciples believe like you're saying, right. And the two that really did believe Peter
and John were like, let's go. Yeah. I'm like, we need to see this. Yeah. Apparently Peter's not
like super fast running apparently. Yeah. Cause it says Peter takes off and then John out runs
him and gets there first. I see those, like I've seen those reels on Instagram where they're like,
where like it's a guy acting like Peter and he's like pointing out the Bible and that verse comes
up and then the guy who's pretending to be John just like runs away. Yeah. And it's like, it feels
like, yeah, it's like them fighting words. The death burial life ministry and death and burial
of Jesus is a pivotal event in history that doesn't reach its conclusion without the resurrection.
Right. They buried him. Right. Like, no, I also have, I have pointed out in the past where people
only talk about the death burial resurrection and they forget that the life actually matters too.
Mm hmm. The life is what validates the death burial resurrection. Right. He put Torah on display
for people to see and talked about the kingdom of God and then ushered it in so that this gospel
of the kingdom of God is here and ready to be interacted with is now a reality for humanity.
Right. And so like, because death has been defeated. And so now through faith in Christ,
like the serpent in the desert that's lifted up, we look to him, but we really look past Jesus to
the third room of God and we find salvation. Right. Like this is the whole thing that's going on here
in this message. He's like, you know, who I'm going to entrust it to people who are on the outside,
who are not trusted necessarily in society for important messages. I'm going to give them the
place of that most importance. And you're going to carry my message. And I have this upside down
king where this echoes back to is actually really interesting is because this actually does full
circle and echoes back to Mary who was entrusted with this baby who had to carry the shame of
having a child outside of wedlock for a whole life. Joseph had to carry it too. They had to carry that
shame together and yet they raised this kid and he lived a sinless life, went to the cross,
laid dead for three days, rose again. And then that message went back to women. Oddly enough,
shared by another lady named Mary. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty cool. The Bible is a really
cool book. Like God knows what he's doing. It turns out that he is pretty good at crafting a story.
He is, you know, a really quick here. We'll kind of just, we're going to land the plane,
but we did not cover everything Jesus talked about with women in the Bible. Right. We skimmed a stone
across, right? That'd take hours. That would take hours. That would take much more episodes than
this season two. All we're trying to do is prompt in your brain, Hey, what did Jesus actually do?
With that being said, I'm going to ask a very broad question. Let's kind of just ruminate on
this as we close. What does the life of Jesus inform on us on how he views women's role in the
kingdom of God and ministry overall? And I'll say for myself that he's very pro and he's not stuck
on necessarily what the culture believes, but about what the kingdom of God actually teaches.
And I will say what Torah has taught all along is that women have value. They're made in the image
of God. We are meant to be partners together, the etzer connecto, the force of the poses,
and actually put the kingdom on display together so that the world would move forward. Yeah.
Yeah. I would, I would say what the reflection adds here is that there's an equal status when
it comes to men and women being involved in ministry. And I think can we just take like 10
seconds of backup here a little bit. When we talk about ministry, oftentimes in the American church,
we're like, okay, you're a pastor or something like that. Right? Like, no, when I'm in my mind,
when I'm talking about ministry, I'm talking about your life that you're living for Jesus and how
you're bringing Jesus to your community every day. Sure. Well, that's what it makes me think of. When
I hear that question, I don't think of gender. I just think of God has always loved me better than
anyone else in this world. Yeah. Preach. Yeah. And so it's not a gender issue for me. It's a,
he showed up and I've had a lot of things that have been hard in my own life and it's been very
unexpected. But through all those things, he has answered every single time. And that to me is,
he sees me when other people don't see me. He set forth a plan, a purpose that is good in store for
me that's unfolding. Every time I say yes, like Mary did to him. And he is faithful to complete
that work until I go to heaven. And it doesn't matter if you're a man or a woman, all those
things don't matter. You're just his child and he has a plan for you and he wants you to say yes to
him. Yeah. I like it. We're going to wrap it up there. We want to thank you so much for being with
us this week. I suspect you're going to be a fan favorite. Yeah. Because they're like, finally,
somebody that'll talk over Ben. Kate, if you want to send us an email, it's loveandcontext.gl.com
care of Spencer McDowell. So the, it was really, we're really glad you guys could be with us today
and we will see you next week when we'll have Pester Nick's wife on and we'll actually tell
you her name next week. Until next time. And that's a wrap for today's episode of Love and
Context. We hope you enjoyed this engaging conversation and gained valuable insights into
the powerful message of love within the Bible. We'd love to hear from you and continue the
conversation. Connect with us by sending us your questions, thoughts, and suggestions to
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Okay, I was like, it'd be terrible if we record for a while and then we don't have anything going.
And almost 13 minutes in. Okay, sounds good.