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S2 of Love in Context podcast welcomes you. Get ready for engaging unscripted conversations with

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your hosts, Ben and Spencer. Our mission remains unchanged to explore the Bible through the powerful

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lens of love. In this new season, we'll embark on a journey together, unearthing fresh insights and

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gaining deeper understanding of how we can love God and live out our faith in practical ways.

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So let's dive into this season of Love in Context, where love in the context of the Bible intersect

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to transform our lives. Welcome to the Love in Context podcast. Something has happened that

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nobody thought would happen. We got Pastor Nick's wife, Jamie, to come on and join us,

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and she is regretting every single moment of it. She's about ready to hand that 500 bucks back.

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Yeah, 500 bucks. I wish. I'm holding you to that now. So I'm Ben. I'm not Ben. Yeah, that's Spencer

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because he apparently doesn't want to say his name. And we're joined by Pastor Nick's wife,

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Jamie. And actually, you know what the interesting thing is? Nick has been on the podcast multiple

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times, but he's not been on any of the videos. So you're actually the first one in the Mitchell

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family on the video. I feel honored. Yeah, you should feel honored. Because we have talked about

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in the past that this is actually our fourth camera because the other three broke because we

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kept filming our faces. Yeah. So we're just glad that you're here with us today. Yeah. Thank you.

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We invited you here because as you know, we're continuing on in the women in the Bible and

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ministry. You are the other half of the pastoral team of Pastor Nick. I have long maintained that

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pastors' wives are pastors because you're expected to step into pastoral role activity. I'm sure

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you've become aware of that. We figured it's probably not a great idea for a couple middle

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age guys to talk about, you know, the female perspective. We are glad that you're going to

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tap us into the correct way to talk about that. Yeah. Let's see here. So have you, you grew up in

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the church, right? Yep. Assembly? Or? Not always. But I've been in assembly for so many years.

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For about so many years. Whenever you met that handsome strapping young man. Before him even.

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Yeah. So decades. Decades. So was it so Pentecostal, but it was always Pentecostal or

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where it was? Okay. I was just curious. We were having that conversation because the last week,

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Dominique comes from CMA background, but her parents were actually, well, her dad was an atheist and

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her mom was Presbyterian. Presbyterian. Presbyterian. And Spencer comes from a free

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Methodist, I come from Southern Baptist. And so we got a lot of different perspectives

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on this podcast. Captain Shelby, Salvation Army. Yeah. If you've ever seen my mom worship,

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you know that I come from Pentecostal Charismatic Church. Listen, here's the thing. Your mom is,

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let's just, I'm going to use the word exuberant in worship. And I love every minute of it,

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as long as I don't have to stand next to her. And that's mostly because she's very into it.

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And it's very authentic for her. Like if I was moving like that, it would probably not be

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authentic. It would definitely be an act that I'm putting on, but it's very authentic to her.

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While we're doing music, it's actually very encouraging. I love it when people are into it.

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Yeah. You know what I mean? So your mom reminds me of this lady that I know in Washington where

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she would stand in the back of church during worship and she would just be all into it,

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but she would just randomly throughout songs just be like, hallelujah. She could project her voice.

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She could get over the top of the sound system. Oh gosh. And so it was like she'd be in the back

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of the church and there'd be times where you'd be doing like a quiet, calm, introspective.

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Halleluiah! That's so starring.

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Yeah, but it was one of those things where I was like, she is just into it.

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She is here for it. Yeah. Just here for it. Yeah. My mom has definitely accidentally smacked kids.

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Oh no. As they go by. You know, because our row always just seems to have a lot of kids.

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I was just saying, you need to clarify that a little bit. She's just, every time those kids

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come by, she's like smack. But her eyes are closed, her eyes are flinging about and they get whacked

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sometimes. Well, and one of the things that I like about our church is that one of the things that

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appeals to me, especially with a five year old and a three year old is we like kids be kids.

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And so like even during worship, like kids are moving around a little bit because that's what

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kids do. There's nothing quite as amusing to me as James dancing in the back with his mom

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during worship. You know, he is into it. So cute. Yeah. He is into it. Leland on the other hand

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wants to be held and cuddled and just bounced up and down during worship. So I'm pretty sure

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that at some point Tara is going to be able to just like bicep curl, like a hundred pounds.

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You know what I mean? Like it's, it's pretty impressive, like holding the kid and dancing

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at the same time. Yeah. So really quick here, you are quite the artist. Thank you. You did a piece

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for, for wearable arts, which is where you make your piece from all original material. And then

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you make like a costume of sorts. And, uh, pastor Clint, who's been on here, you had his wife as

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your model and it was quite the piece. Yeah. Yeah. What exactly was it? Dryer ducting and reflective

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insulation sheets was the majority of it. And then a bunch of other random little bits that

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put it all together, but it was kind of serpent ask. I was talking to her on Sunday and she said

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that she's like, she did it a couple of times and she was a little worried. Some old ladies,

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she did it and I was like, that's pretty great. Yeah. It's a little bit terrifying. Yeah. Yeah.

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But I saw pictures and videos and it was fantastic. One of the pieces that I enjoy that you've,

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you've done before you do those scratch art pieces. I don't know exactly what you're scratching. It's

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like black canvas with like color underneath. It's white clay board covered in black ink.

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See, this is why you ask the artist, not the musician scratched away and then it's white

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underneath. Yeah. Deciding whether to like explain it or be insulted right now. Yes.

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The answer is yes. They, what you have to do is you got to get the smug artist and be like,

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well, it's actually, you know, you know, I mean, like change the tone of my voice,

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change the tone of your voice to condescending. That is, that's actually my default setting.

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I have to change it to like sympathetic and kind. I've actually been a huge fan of your

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art and my wife is often like, she's like, oh, Jamie does such cool things. I'm going to

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copy your idea. And then I'm like, that looks nothing like what Jamie did. So I'm not sure

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how you copied it, but artists are weird. So I just trust her. Well, Tara has her own amazing

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technique in and of itself. Your, your kids are really funny because your son is so much like

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Nick. Your daughter is really good at making art too. Like her whole costume thing. Like she does

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like full, it's almost like a mascot for like a college name. I remember on my birthday, she

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brought over the Fox head and my son laughed so hard for so long. And then for the next few days,

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he was like, can the girl come over with the Fox head? Yeah. And so I was like,

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she probably appreciates being called that more than her own name. Yeah, probably, probably.

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Well, James has an interesting way of like just talking about things in general. So I introduced

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him to weird Al the other day. So I played him the song smells like Nirvana, which is the parody of

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smells like teen spirit by Nirvana. Then the next day he says, dad, can we listen to the stinky song?

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Stinky song. Like, what did I play him? It's like the stinky song. I was like, oh, do you mean

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something? He's like, yeah. So I started playing, started jumping around and I was like, well,

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that's, that's a way to talk about it, but whatever. I like it. All right. So back to the Bible.

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Got to stop talking about ourselves. This isn't a personal podcast. This is a love and context.

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This is the sixth week of our, of our mini series. So we started off in Genesis one talking about

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what is the foundational truth about how God sets up what men and women together to be a co-partnership

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that we are supposed to together rule the world, subdue the world, be fruitful to multiply to

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forward the kingdom of God everywhere from Eden. We touched on some things that we talked about

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last season in the Torah series and like how God was constantly elevating women throughout the

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scriptures. And then we had, uh, that was where we had Lord crock on. And then we continued on,

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we talked about how there's these women of promise. So it's not just Abraham, Isaac, Jacob,

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it actually matters who they partnered with because Abraham has a lot of kids outside of Sarah,

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but only one carries the promise. And, and it's not about just one. It's actually about both. And we

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have, there's a lot of like interesting things going on in the text there. Then we talked about

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women in leadership in the Old Testament. So we talked about Miriam, we talked about Holda,

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we talked about Esther, we talked about who am I forgetting? Deborah, Deborah, like my mom's name

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is Deborah. So I'm probably going to hear about that. How could you forget that name? Well,

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it's easy because I don't have it in my notes in front of me. That's why. And just like how,

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how God actually had been using women in ministry and in leadership. And then we talked about the

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line of Jesus and then like how there are these awkward, weird stories where they focus on like

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these weird stories about women that God is elevating. These people who are on the outside

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are being welcomed in. And then last week with Dominique, we talked about how did Jesus actually

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interact with women throughout his ministry, specifically that he had disciples that were

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women and he had interactions with women where he was always bringing grace to a very tense

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situation and about always about bringing the outsider in. So that brings us to today,

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we're actually talking about post Jesus. So we're talking about the rest of the Bible,

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the rest of the New Testament, everything that happens after Jesus ascends into heaven.

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So with that being said, there's actually a lot of women listed. And as I went through and when

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I started listing them, I was like, oh good golly, this is a long list. I'm not sure if we're going

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to be able to talk about this in the two and a half hours it takes to record this. Just kidding.

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Once again, I always remind people that the writers of the New Testament are all Jews.

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They're all going to come from a Jewish background. The one you might be able to argue is whether or

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not Luke is a Jew, but he's definitely a proselyte. So he's in the Jewish culture.

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So all throughout these books are these people who are part of a patriarchal culture, part of a

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patriarchal regime. Rome is very going to be a very patriarchal society as well. And yet these

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writers continually are talking about women serving as deacons, leaders, elders, pastors,

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missionaries, everything that you can consider in the New Testament. And they're naming them,

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which is a big deal. The fact that their names are even showing up at all. That's a trend that we

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want to try to spot in the Bible is like when culturally it's not appropriate to be naming

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somebody, the fact that they're being named is a big deal. Yeah. And you also need to talk Roman

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culture a little bit. And that's because it's not just Jewish culture. Like if you want women in

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Roman culture, weren't held a value either. Things like street prostitution and stuff like that was

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actually a common state in a lot of Roman towns. And so just a lot of Roman towns, how women could

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make money was just through acts of prostitution, stuff like that. Keep that in mind too, like that

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they're naming these women and they're not just the context of the Jewish culture, but in the

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context of a Roman culture, which didn't hold women in Heistain. And pretty much the only

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women you're going to have in high esteem are going to be ones who are fairly wealthy or connected to

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powerful men. So when they're being talked about in these texts, it's a really big deal. We talked

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about Joanna last week and like that she was married to the guy who was in charge of Herod Antipas's

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money. So pretty important person. Cause do you know much about Herod Antipas? Like imagine Jeff

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Bezos on steroids. Like he's got money everywhere. He makes the billionaires of today look like they

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had nothing. Like they had so much money because they controlled a lot of the spice trade and

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movement of things going around. So they were just flooded with money. The kind of things that the

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Herod's built, like palaces and stuff, they're archaeological marvels, just astounding cost.

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Most of the work for like the stone masons and stuff that would have happened during that time

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would have been Herod actually putting them to work doing some of that stuff. Like it would have

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been the best paying jobs. Yeah. He was obscenely wealthy, which I mean, of course then that's where

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you run into this whole idea that they kind of just felt like they could do whatever they want

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as long as they didn't make Rome angry because Rome may not be wealthy, but they are strong.

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So early on in the book of Acts, Jesus ascends. And so then we come back, it says that the,

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see the apostles with the believers, the disciples, right? So the believer, like disciples after Jesus

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ascend, they're called the believers. That's typically the language changes. They no longer

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call them as disciples. They start using the word disciple to really illustrate when they're talking

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about the 12th. It's just a language shift, which makes sense because now the people who are disciples

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are people who believe that Christ has risen from the dead. So it actually says in Acts, it says,

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then the apostles returned to Jerusalem from the hill called the Mount of Olives, which is

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the delicious hill by the way. I love olives. Sabbath's day walk from the city. When they

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arrived, they went upstairs to the room where they were staying. They're present where Peter,

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John, James, and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James, son of Alpheus,

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and Simon the Zealot and Judas, son of James. They all joined together constantly in prayer,

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along with the women and Mary, the mother of Jesus and with his brothers. So we see this entire

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community that's unified together in prayer, men and women alike. Now, why does Luke note this?

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Why is it important that he notes that the women are there?

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Because if he doesn't, you're not going to assume that they're there because it's not a textual

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normality. Unless you mention it, the people aren't going to really care about the women at all.

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Yet Luke says, hey, it's really important that you know Mary was there, the female disciples were

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there, and they were all together. Yes, the 12 were there, well, 11, because Judas killed himself,

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but the 11 were there, but there were other people there with them as well. And so they're

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not being assumptive on the other side of those things.

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And that's huge. And it's something we can actually learn from is that we want to be careful with

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those assumptions of what we think people know or what they might imply out of some conversation.

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Like we've even had that conversation about our podcast here. We try to be careful what we say.

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We won't have an unscripted conversation, but at the same time, we're trying to be careful

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what we say because we don't want people to assume the wrong thing.

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Yeah, yeah. Generally speaking, I hope people have grace with us. You know, I have heard from people

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that we make a lot of assumptions about the heat of the desert.

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Yeah.

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You know, because the desert isn't always really hot.

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It's also very-

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Sometimes it's really, really hot.

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Well, sometimes it's really, really cold, like in the nighttime.

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Yeah.

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Thank you for bringing it back, Ryan.

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You're welcome. We got you. Can you show me your shirt? It's great. Well, you may not be-

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I can't, huh?

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You may not be able to see it, but it's the shirt that says the desert is really hot.

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It is available on our store. So if you want one, you can get one.

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Yeah, we have a store.

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We've sold one hat.

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Yeah, we've sold one hat.

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Honestly, what we need is we need to have somebody who actually likes designing things

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to do things on the store because we're not designers.

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Is this a hint?

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No. It is an invitation. If you want to, I would love for you to design things for us.

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Something I know how to do.

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Yeah. If you would like to, we would love it.

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Okay, cool.

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Yeah. You are 100% more than welcome.

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In the book of Acts, Luke is going to bring up women working a whole lot of times. It's not a

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throwaway line. We've talked about context is really important. I think the temptation is

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to assume things about the text. And anytime we assume, I think we need to be really careful to

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examine those assumptions. Jamie, you guys have been married how long? You and Nick.

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Or 17 years.

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Have you ever found in marriage that you guys are like having like you're just coexisting in

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your life and like something happens and you make an assumption about what the other person's

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thinking? I never do that.

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You've never done that. All right. Well, so then our next episode is about lying. And so

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we're actually going to have you come back. I literally have to do that all the time because

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Nick is not a talker. Oh, yeah, that's true. Well, Nick's not a talker and he's all over the place.

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Yeah. So the I've done a few projects with that group. All right, man. Here we go.

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The thing about like even when you when you know somebody really well, like you assume that

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something is going on. And so like what I have happened with me a lot of people don't know me

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is I have an angry thinking face. Like when I'm thinking about something, my face looks angry.

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It's just like and I'm like literally I'm just relaxing and like processing things in my brain.

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And they're like, hey, I see that you're upset. And I'm like, who? Like not me. So a lot of times

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I think we have to examine our assumptions. In fact, there's a book called Having Better

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Conversations. It's about management. But it says you actually need to assume the better,

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like assume a better story about people. It's a really good book. And so like until I am

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empirically proven different, I prefer to assume the best possible scenario in every story. And

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when I have assumptions, I think that is especially when it comes to the Bible, I think it's really

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important that we actually go and we delve into those assumptions rather than just proceeding with

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what we think it means. And that's also why it's really important to have like the context of the

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entire Bible. In conversations with people on this topic of women in ministry, it's really

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interesting that a lot of times they will make the statement, they say we need to engage the whole

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word of God. And then they focus in on four verses, which we're going to talk about in a couple of

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weeks. But they focus in on four verses. And I was like, now the last time I checked there's 66

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books in the Bible. Last time I checked, I tried to sneak one in. I feel like quoting four verses

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for the entire breadth of like 66 books might not be using everything available to actually interpret.

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Yeah. Yeah. You got to hold the two in contrast. Like there's one pastor I know, he just puts it

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this way. He's like, there's way more in the Bible that talks for women in ministry than there is

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against it. And so he's like, we're just going to weigh out the two. He's like, there's way more on

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that side. So we have to examine that conversation and not just hold to the women can't do it.

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I think it's really common that, especially in the American church, that-

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That's an important specification.

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That we don't, if there's a mentioning of a woman in the word, it's not always something that we

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think about how important that is that they've been mentioned. It's just, oh, there's a name

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and it's a female name. Okay. Well, we'll just continue on reading because in our culture,

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we don't necessarily understand how important that is to see that. And also just things that

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don't make sense to us culturally, we just pass over because we don't know. We just don't know.

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And instead of always digging deeper and understanding why that's there, you know,

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like sentences and phrases and names and all this stuff that we're like, well, I don't know

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why this is here. This is just a lot of words. Well, yeah. And we've talked about, like,

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because I've been over at your house and we've done care group together. We've talked about how

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like a lot of times we read something and we're like, oh, this is what it means. And then like,

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you're like, oh wait, actually that coordinates with another story in the Bible. That's probably

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not an accident, you know? Actually speaking of which there is the next person we're talking

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about a Sapphira. There is two people in the Bible and an Isis Sapphira that come up in the

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book of Acts. The story in the book of Acts, for those of you who haven't read it, by the way,

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highly recommend 10 out of 10, would recommend that believers are, they're coming in there,

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they're selling their things so that everybody who's there is able to eat, live, continue the

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ministry. Because if you remember at Pentecost, everybody's come from all over Israel to come

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and worship for Shavuot. That's what they've come for. They've come for the Day of Atonement,

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they come for Shavuot. Then at Pentecost, which is also called Shavuot, the Spirit is poured out

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and 3,000 people are added to their number that day. Well, 3,000 people don't necessarily live in

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Jerusalem, but they're staying because God did something. They're not going back to their houses

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because something transformative has happened, which by the way, is kind of how God works.

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God does something and then you're like, I'm not leaving this place until I absorb every bit of

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goodness that God has for me. So naturally now you have a bunch of people who are there who are,

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they're going to need housing, they're going to need food. And then not to mention that in Jerusalem

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in general, there's going to be poor and people who are hungry. Now with this burden of the Holy

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Spirit on you, you're going to want to take care of them. So believers who have means are selling

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their things and bringing them, putting at the apostles feet. They're not required to do that.

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They don't have to do that. But God has opened this new temple called the people of God. The

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kingdom of priests are now the temple of the Holy Spirit. And like that, they're now bringing their

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sacrifices to move the kingdom forward. So then you have these people who are named Ananias and

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Sapphira and they sell a piece of property, totally allowed to do. And they come and bring money and

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they put it at the disciples feet. Totally good. But they decide to keep some money from themselves,

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but present themselves like they're giving everything. Not cool. That's not cool because

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God is doing something very specific about generosity in people's hearts. Nobody said they

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had to give up their money. Nobody said they had to give up their stuff. And God looks at that and

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he's like, yeah, we're not doing that. Well, this story isn't, I've heard the story miscued a few

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different ways, but one way that I've heard it miscued is like, oh, well, they didn't give

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their all. I was like, no, it's actually that they weren't honest about it. It's like if they would

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have, I mean, like, would the story have been different? This is a little speculative, but

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would the story have been different if they came into the temple and said, Hey, we sold our property.

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Here's half. I believe so. Now the reason I believe so, and to your point where we were talking about

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like the Bible telling other stories in Leviticus 10, there's another story about Aaron's sons,

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Nadab and Abihu. And it says that they are consumed by strain. They offer strange fire and they're

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consumed. Now, if you go back to our Torah series and I'll link that episode in the, in the show

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notes, what we talked about is that there's actually this interesting thing where Nadab and

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Abihu are, are frustrated with the fact that they're not being welcomed into the presence of God in,

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into the role that is actually Aaron's and Aaron is being brought into the temple of God. God's

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opening his new temple. They get frustrated and they go and take their sensors and they try to

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offer smoke to be something that they're not. And God, it doesn't say that God's angry. It just,

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he takes them out and they're gone. Now we assume that when God takes somebody from this earth,

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that he's angry. But if we have such a finite view of the world, that's how we're going to run into

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that. But if eternity is a legitimate thing, if God says that there is no beginning, there is no

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end, there's only existence with me, then at some point he will look down and be like, you know,

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it's probably better for you if I just bring you home. I have kids and there is a time and I,

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we talked about this on the same episodes where I have to sit, they hit the, I'm done button.

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You for that button. Yeah. Yours are a little older now, but you probably still have an,

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I'm done button. So there, there comes a point like when you're at dinner or whatever and like

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the kid just like you're, they're doing okay. They're doing okay. And then they,

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they start screaming and you're like, listen, we need to calm down. And it's not doing a sense.

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So what happens at that point? Pick them up. You walk out of the building, you take them home and

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you put them to bed. Yeah. I'm not angry at my child, but I am going to remove them from that

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situation. And there's nothing they can do at that point in order for me to leave them there

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because we hit the, I'm done. And they've, they've actually compromised something. Now

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that is a human example, but I think when we, when we look at the way that God interacts with the

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world, we shouldn't assume that he's mad every time, but more that God is having grace. And he

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says, listen, it's not going to be good for you. If you stay here, it's time to come home. And so

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what we see here is Ananias and Sapphire. Well, I will note is that both of them are given the

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opportunity here, not one or the other. She's not held accountable for his statements. She's held

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accountable for what she says. I just think there's a really beautiful dichotomy in that, in that

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you're not being held to, you're not being judged by somebody else's standard. So that's a big deal.

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I think it was actually a tie back to garden of Eden there too. Sure. With, with Adam and Eve.

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Yeah. Because when the Lord approached Adam and Eve, he approaches Adam and Adam's like, well,

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no, it was my wife. Then he approaches Eve. And so he actually gives equal conversation. And then

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she blames the snakes. He goes, talks to the snake, you know, this whole idea of like man and woman

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together. Cause we've talked about the Edzer connector, the force that opposes, right?

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That, that woman to man is the Edzer connecto. In other words, you're, which is by the way,

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a word in Hebrew that's used to describe God most of the time. So that's a pretty good thing

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to compare it to. Yeah. But in the, in the eating of the apple or not apple, but fruit,

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because it's not specific about apple. It was a fig because they use fig leaves. Oh my gosh.

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You and you and your perspective on that, you know what? It's fine. It's a fig. Like we'll call it a

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fig, but it says that she ate, then he ate, then their eyes were opened to two, then their eyes

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were opened. It wasn't she ate and her eyes were open. He ate and his eyes were opened. It was when

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they made a conscious decision together. And I've long said that when a couple together makes a

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statement, when one is like, Hey, I'm going to give up on X, Y, or Z. And they just says, no,

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that's not who we're going to be. We're going to step out of this. We're going to walk through this.

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We're going to, we're going to obey God. We're going to walk, you know, in goodness. I believe

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that God takes that and he has grace in that situation because we're meant to be partners

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with each other walking this road together. Yeah. I think it's interesting that Sapphira,

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my same and our husband, and Ananias, he lies first, gets struck dead. She comes later and also

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lies, gets struck dead. But it wasn't like they did that as a, they made the decision as a team

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to lie to God about how much they were giving. And I mean, as unfortunate as it feels in the

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human world that they were struck dead, it's, it is cool to see it as that they, they had made that

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decision equally and as a team and God punished them the same or held them accountable. I was

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probably would say, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Held accountable, which, okay. So,

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and the main reason I say that is not to like, just, I think sometimes when we use punishment,

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it's a negative connotative word. And I think the situation is God is just removing them

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because they're not going to be about his business and he's not going to compromise his temple.

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Yeah. I think part of that being like just the righteousness of God too. I heard this story

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correlate with, forgive me for not knowing his name because no one ever accused me of

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being great at names. Nick did. He was like, Jamie's great with names.

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No way. There's a dude walk in with the covenant of the Lord and he, it slips and he reaches out

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to try and catch it so it doesn't hit the ground and he's struck dead. And it's like, I mean,

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he was trying to be good in his actions. You know, he's trying to protect the covenant of the Lord

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and it's just the righteousness of God. Yeah. Yeah. When the fall of this man

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encounters the righteousness of God, there can be problems for us. And once again, in that situation,

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God doesn't say that it doesn't say that power went out because God was angry that he touched it.

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He said, Hey, don't touch this or you're going to die. And like pretty clear, like don't do this.

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And they got it. Like same thing with Nate Eben Abihu. He said, Hey, don't come into the temple.

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If you're not Moses or Aaron, cause it's going to kill you. The Nate Eben Abihu, they want to go

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and try to take something for themselves. Now, once again, you have somebody would touch with

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the spirit of God and then I said, Sapphira, and they're like, we're going to go and misrepresent

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ourselves to try to maybe gain acumen. You know, I mean, have you, I mean, I, I don't want to like

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throw anybody under the bus, but like I've been in church a long time. I do have people who,

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when they're like, I'm going to give a thousand, you know, whatever it is, right. To like, to really

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build up them. And I was like, listen, I appreciate your generosity, but it really feels like this was

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about you, not about actually God doing things. The other thing that comes to mind with this whole

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thing is there's also just natural consequences. So like, I remember this was a few weeks ago,

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you were over at our house. We have a wood stove. We had a fire going and you walked in.

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And first thing he did is you pointed out to your kids are like fire, hot touch, ouch,

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or something like that. And so, right. And then, but then of course, like your three year olds,

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like whenever you say, don't touch that, he's like, I must, I must embrace, I must embrace.

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So we spent a little bit of time be like, no, and then blocking the fireplace, all that stuff.

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But right. But there's, there is this natural consequence where it's like, Hey,

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if you touch this, this is going to happen. And, and so sometimes we overlook that in scripture

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too, where we're like, Oh, well they did this. So God's punishing them for that. It's like, actually

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no, like sometimes you just are coming to natural cost. Well, and we have such a finite view on

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reality too. Like we, we assume the death of like, I think even for Christians, a lot of us, we assume

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life is it. And we're like, no, life is the beginning of eternity. Eternal life starts the day.

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We say yes to Jesus. Yeah. We have to die once. Sure. But we're talking about eternity. And yet

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we seem incredibly focused on the next 80 years. That's being ambitious on my part, but science is

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coming a long way. So maybe you're seeing Francis Chan's video on that was the rope. Oh, it's really

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good. So he takes us, he's the sermon that he does, but he takes this rope and he has this rope

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strung all the way off stage. And then he has a little bit of electrical tape on the end. And he's

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like, this is your life and the rest of the ropes to charity. We're going to go from here and go focus

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all the way over here. And then we're going to like, it's the last little bit we're going to

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retire and live there. And then you still have all of eternity. Yeah. He's like, this is such a small

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view of what life's supposed to be about, right? Shifting our focus. Continuing on in Acts, it says

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here at, in verse 14, after this, it says, nevertheless, more and more men and women believed

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in the Lord were added to the number. Now it's direct correlation to the preaching and the signs

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of the apostles that God is bringing both sides of the image to belief in Christ. These same people,

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both men and women are the ones who will go out and live out the gospel and actually grow the church.

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The apostles are the ones telling the story, but the people, they're actually equipping them once

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now, cause kingdom and priests, they're equipping them to go and be the priesthood in the world,

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both men and women. Yeah. And this is in chapter two, where then it goes on to talk where he goes

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on to quote Joel, I believe where he's like men and women will prophesy. The spirit would pour

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it out on all flesh. Yep. So then there's this guy by the name of Saul, who eventually we're

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going to know as Paul, but early on he's a Saul of Tarsus. That's what he's known as his Hebrew

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name because Paul is once again, Greek, like just incidentally, if you guys are wondering why Saul

377
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Paul, is he known as a Greek or is he known as a Hebrew later on in his ministry? It's more Greek.

378
00:30:37,600 --> 00:30:44,880
Luke notes that Saul hauls both men and women off to prison for their proclamation of Jesus. Okay.

379
00:30:45,520 --> 00:30:50,400
If they're being hauled off to jail for their proclamation of Jesus, that means they are preaching

380
00:30:51,600 --> 00:30:58,400
Jesus death, burial and resurrection, men and women. Oh, the Bible doesn't talk about women

381
00:30:58,400 --> 00:31:02,320
preachers. Yes, it does. It's right here. And it says that he went from house to house and he would

382
00:31:02,320 --> 00:31:06,640
find the people who were claiming to follow Jesus, both male and females, because they were both about

383
00:31:06,640 --> 00:31:12,640
spreading the good news. Okay. Then Paul notes in acts 22 that he persecuted the followers of the way

384
00:31:12,640 --> 00:31:18,880
both male and female. This shows up repeatedly in the book of Acts. Philip baptizes Samaritans,

385
00:31:18,880 --> 00:31:23,680
both men and women in acts eight. It's probably connected to the woman at the well who Jesus had

386
00:31:23,680 --> 00:31:31,440
seen, right? That that whole region was already being prepped for this resurrection because she

387
00:31:31,440 --> 00:31:34,560
had already known the Messiah was coming. So now Philip comes through and he's like, hey, you know

388
00:31:34,560 --> 00:31:39,440
that guy who was here before that that lady was telling you about? He's now resurrected and sin

389
00:31:39,440 --> 00:31:44,960
has no power over you if you trust in him. And so he's going through all Samaria, which is a place

390
00:31:44,960 --> 00:31:50,800
that people don't like. And he's now baptizing people left and right. And Luke is continuing to

391
00:31:50,800 --> 00:31:54,800
know it again, again, men and women. It's not an accident. This isn't an accident. The text,

392
00:31:54,800 --> 00:31:59,520
Luke was saying it over and over again. It's almost like he has a point that he's reminding

393
00:31:59,520 --> 00:32:02,560
them that even in the midst of a patriarchal society, God's doing something different.

394
00:32:03,120 --> 00:32:07,760
This is a random thought experiment and I'm 20 seconds on it. Let me to move on.

395
00:32:08,480 --> 00:32:14,720
Paul was arresting both men and women. Correct. The Jewish leaders didn't do that when the lady

396
00:32:14,720 --> 00:32:19,600
was caught in act of prostitution. Okay. At least Saul was consistent with the law.

397
00:32:19,600 --> 00:32:24,640
Yes. Saul was consistent with the law at the same time. So with that said,

398
00:32:24,640 --> 00:32:31,360
Saul would recognize the quote unquote danger of a woman preacher. So why was 1st Timothy 2 whole weight?

399
00:32:32,880 --> 00:32:39,200
Yeah. Yeah. In that context. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, we're going to have a lot when we get there.

400
00:32:39,200 --> 00:32:43,520
It's no, it's a good thought. We're not there yet, but it's good. I just kind of connected those

401
00:32:43,520 --> 00:32:48,400
dots yet. So that was all. Are you familiar with the story of the Ethiopian eunuch that Philip runs

402
00:32:48,400 --> 00:32:53,520
into in the desert? Like, yeah, vaguely. I mean, it's been a while since Philip is caught up by

403
00:32:53,520 --> 00:32:58,080
the spirit and put into the desert somehow. Like, I don't know exactly. Personally, I really wish

404
00:32:58,080 --> 00:33:01,920
that the spirit could like catch me up in my car and like, just take me from my house to work without

405
00:33:01,920 --> 00:33:06,320
having to actually do the trip. It doesn't work that way. Or maybe it does. Like, I mean, there's

406
00:33:06,320 --> 00:33:11,760
mornings where I start at my house and I get to town and I'm like, I don't remember much of that.

407
00:33:11,760 --> 00:33:15,760
I feel that. Yeah. I don't, I don't think that was probably Holy spirit. That was, that was,

408
00:33:15,760 --> 00:33:19,440
that was probably you missing your coffee in the morning. Philip is in the middle of the desert and

409
00:33:19,440 --> 00:33:23,520
he sees this Ethiopian eunuch on a chariot, on a chariot going by. He sees him reading from the

410
00:33:23,520 --> 00:33:27,680
scroll of Isaiah and he's reading about the suffering servant, about who this is. And Philip

411
00:33:27,680 --> 00:33:31,440
comes up and he's like, Hey, do you understand what you're reading? And he's like, yeah, I can't

412
00:33:31,440 --> 00:33:34,720
understand it if somebody doesn't explain it to me. So then he starts to talk to him about Jesus.

413
00:33:34,720 --> 00:33:38,320
And he says, he's like, well, if I want to follow, I should just be baptized. And he's like, he's

414
00:33:38,320 --> 00:33:42,560
like, well, there's water right there. Let's go. And then Philip baptizes him. And when he comes

415
00:33:42,560 --> 00:33:46,800
out of the water says Philip disappears, which weird, weird thing with you, the Ethiopian, right?

416
00:33:46,800 --> 00:33:54,320
Yeah. Do you know who the Ethiopian was? He was, wasn't he a money manager? Like bank? He was a

417
00:33:54,320 --> 00:34:01,920
money manager for who? The queen of Ethiopia. Yes. Yeah. I said queen. It's in the Bible guys.

418
00:34:02,480 --> 00:34:07,440
So God makes a special meetup with Philip and the guy who takes care of the money for the queen of

419
00:34:07,440 --> 00:34:11,680
Ethiopia. Like maybe he wanted some influence there. Maybe he wanted some influence there. And

420
00:34:11,680 --> 00:34:16,080
there's like conversation about in Ethiopia, because they have like these, they track back

421
00:34:16,080 --> 00:34:20,800
about who this guy was and he may become like a bishop. And, you know, but there was a huge

422
00:34:20,800 --> 00:34:26,160
busting out of it seems church by the time people got there. They track it back to this guy. He

423
00:34:26,160 --> 00:34:30,720
goes back and then he tells the queen, the queen becomes a believer. Now she would bankroll movement

424
00:34:30,720 --> 00:34:35,360
of the church. It's almost like God knows what he's doing. Right. Now, by the way, that last part of

425
00:34:35,360 --> 00:34:39,280
speculation, because I can't prove that I don't have documentation, but it's really interesting

426
00:34:39,280 --> 00:34:44,880
that this is the guy that God chooses to put Philip in touch with. Philip, by the way, who has four

427
00:34:44,880 --> 00:34:52,320
daughters that prophesy. Does he have any issue with women speaking the gospel? No. Four daughter

428
00:34:52,320 --> 00:34:59,200
prophets. Boy, that is, you think raising one daughter is hard. Raise four daughters that are

429
00:34:59,200 --> 00:35:05,120
proclaiming the word of the Lord over you. My mind just went to the like, man, what were family

430
00:35:05,120 --> 00:35:11,360
dinners like four daughters who are prophets. Could you pass the salt? Thus saith the Lord.

431
00:35:12,960 --> 00:35:19,040
It's like you have the disciple, four daughters are prophets. And then Phillips wife, who's probably

432
00:35:19,040 --> 00:35:23,360
like, Oh dear Lord, I'm here. All right. So then I want to talk about one of my favorite characters

433
00:35:23,360 --> 00:35:30,080
in, in acts as prison by the name of Tabitha, also known as Dorcas, which is so great. Like Dorcas is

434
00:35:30,080 --> 00:35:34,400
such a great name. It has to do with Greek and Hebrew and a bunch of things. It says in Joppa,

435
00:35:34,400 --> 00:35:39,600
there was a disciple named Tabitha, the Greek name. Her name was Dorcas. She was always doing

436
00:35:39,600 --> 00:35:45,120
good at helping the poor. Okay. She was always doing good and welcoming the poor. She is the

437
00:35:45,120 --> 00:35:50,800
only named disciple with a feminine noun in the New Testament. So when people say that disciple

438
00:35:50,800 --> 00:35:55,520
doesn't show up in a feminine noun, it actually does in the book of Acts. She is a named disciple

439
00:35:56,320 --> 00:36:00,160
of the way with a feminine noun. Now, most of the time when it's going to be written,

440
00:36:00,160 --> 00:36:03,840
it's going to be a masculine noun because there just wasn't feminine nouns in it in the language

441
00:36:03,840 --> 00:36:09,760
at that time regarding this, this particular role. That's a language thing. That's not necessarily

442
00:36:09,760 --> 00:36:14,720
a life lived thing. It's an intentional addition by Luke to point out that women are in fact,

443
00:36:14,720 --> 00:36:18,800
actually following the disciples. I don't, I feel like that's not an accident that he adds that

444
00:36:18,800 --> 00:36:24,560
specifically that specific Greek word. And she was always doing good and helping others. So there's

445
00:36:24,560 --> 00:36:29,600
a lot of believers or at least people who knew the story around Tabitha that she has been telling

446
00:36:29,600 --> 00:36:34,240
the story for a really long time. So that when Peter shows up because Dorcas ends up dying,

447
00:36:34,240 --> 00:36:38,960
like Tabitha ends up dying and like Peter's nearby and they're like, Hey, can you come see her?

448
00:36:38,960 --> 00:36:42,480
And he shows up and he prays over her and God brings her back from the dead.

449
00:36:43,600 --> 00:36:47,680
All these people are already familiar with the story. Now the demonstrative power of the Holy

450
00:36:47,680 --> 00:36:54,160
Spirit moving through him. Now they not only know the story, they believe the story. And so now,

451
00:36:54,160 --> 00:36:58,800
and so like all those people in that area start to believe. Now, was it Peter that caused them to

452
00:36:58,800 --> 00:37:02,560
believe or was it the fact that Tabitha was constantly doing good and preaching the word

453
00:37:02,560 --> 00:37:12,160
wherever she went. And so then when power came in her life, people believed. She laid the foundation.

454
00:37:12,160 --> 00:37:16,960
She had a foundation. Yeah. Like now Peter, I think Peter would honestly be the same guy. He's like,

455
00:37:16,960 --> 00:37:20,560
he's like, man, you make my job easier. Just showing up here, ask God to move. And like,

456
00:37:20,560 --> 00:37:23,920
you already laid all the groundwork. You've been obeying. You've been walking in obedience. It's

457
00:37:23,920 --> 00:37:28,880
kind of like when our churches, when our pastors are faithful like a week to week to week to preach

458
00:37:28,880 --> 00:37:33,840
the word, follow the gospel, teach people to follow after Jesus. And then a special speaker comes in

459
00:37:33,840 --> 00:37:39,760
and God just has like his hand on him or them. Suddenly people start responding in droves. They

460
00:37:39,760 --> 00:37:43,200
didn't respond in droves simply because that person is because of the faithfulness of the ministers

461
00:37:43,200 --> 00:37:49,040
that have been working with them the whole time. Like Paul himself will say, I laid a seed, Peter

462
00:37:49,040 --> 00:37:54,640
watered, Apollo's harvested. It's not about just the harvest. It's actually about doing the work

463
00:37:54,640 --> 00:38:01,360
of planting and watering. Well, and to Tabitha's credit, she was doing the work. Yeah. A lot of

464
00:38:01,360 --> 00:38:06,880
times what we do is we focus so much on the result. And it's like, actually we're not supposed to

465
00:38:06,880 --> 00:38:12,640
focus on the result. We're called to do the work. Can you imagine if our church, and I'm not,

466
00:38:12,640 --> 00:38:18,320
this is not a negative thing about our church. Can you imagine if our church was known for doing

467
00:38:18,320 --> 00:38:24,160
good? Like people are like, I see there's something that needs to be done in town. Somebody needs to

468
00:38:24,160 --> 00:38:30,400
be helped. You know, assembly is always helping people. Like this is what they do. Like this is

469
00:38:30,400 --> 00:38:36,880
who they are. Like being known for those types of things. I mean, that just opens the door left and

470
00:38:36,880 --> 00:38:41,760
right to actually have relationships, speak into people. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, what's the conversation

471
00:38:41,760 --> 00:38:45,920
piece you talk about with young life all the time that like you earn the right to have a conversation

472
00:38:45,920 --> 00:38:50,480
to be heard, to be heard, you know? Yeah. So yeah, that's the model that they have is that you're

473
00:38:50,480 --> 00:38:55,680
earning the right to be heard. Yeah. And so with that said, like you're not just going in and being

474
00:38:55,680 --> 00:39:00,160
like, Hey, I just met you. Now let me Bible some people with Jesus. What you're doing is you're

475
00:39:00,160 --> 00:39:04,320
going in and you are building a relationship and you're earning the right to be heard to where they

476
00:39:04,320 --> 00:39:07,200
are like, Hey, there's something different about you. We want to know the story. And you're like,

477
00:39:07,200 --> 00:39:11,440
well, let me tell you. Right. The reality was that style of that style of ministry and that

478
00:39:11,440 --> 00:39:18,000
style of work is it takes a lot longer to do to, to build that trust, especially nowadays, like

479
00:39:18,000 --> 00:39:22,640
especially post COVID. It takes a lot longer to build that trust. As you're doing that, it's,

480
00:39:23,520 --> 00:39:29,760
you're laying the groundwork, you're doing the work, you're being faithful. Right. And I have

481
00:39:29,760 --> 00:39:33,600
a pastor friend of mine, like I see, you would say, as he says, he's like, yeah, I'm responsible

482
00:39:33,600 --> 00:39:37,920
for being faithful. I'm not responsible for the outcome. That's, that's Jesus's responsibility.

483
00:39:37,920 --> 00:39:45,280
And if I see one success, quote unquote, through this all, he's like every toil effort struggle

484
00:39:45,280 --> 00:39:51,600
we've gone through as pastors of this church is worth it. It's really hard to even say success

485
00:39:51,600 --> 00:39:54,880
though, because how many times do you run into somebody like five years later and they're like,

486
00:39:54,880 --> 00:40:02,400
yeah, I remember this thing you said. Yeah. Or this thing you did or how you prayed or the way

487
00:40:02,400 --> 00:40:07,920
you loved your kids. Right. And it inspired like, you know, this, and I was like, we don't know,

488
00:40:07,920 --> 00:40:12,080
we're responsible for being faithful. God's responsible for the increase in the harvest.

489
00:40:12,720 --> 00:40:15,360
Like, obviously we have to go and work the harvest because we're, we're partners with God,

490
00:40:15,360 --> 00:40:19,280
but I was like, he's responsible for actually creating the harvest. He's the one who's going

491
00:40:19,280 --> 00:40:23,920
to draw people to repentance. And I think at times you grew up in the church, I'm going to say a

492
00:40:23,920 --> 00:40:29,840
phrase, people say you just need to preach the gospel. You heard that? Yeah. What do you think

493
00:40:29,840 --> 00:40:34,960
people mean by that? I think it's probably different for everyone, for every denomination.

494
00:40:35,840 --> 00:40:40,880
Cause like in the, in, I will say like a lot of times in Southern Baptist growing up, like

495
00:40:40,880 --> 00:40:44,400
Southern Baptist history, if somebody says you just need to preach the gospel, what they, what

496
00:40:44,400 --> 00:40:48,320
they're saying is you need to talk to every single person you meet about the death, burial,

497
00:40:48,320 --> 00:40:52,880
resurrection of Jesus. Like every single time you're going to preach, preach, preach the gospel.

498
00:40:52,880 --> 00:40:57,040
I was like, okay, but the problem is that's actually not the gospel of Jesus Christ.

499
00:40:57,040 --> 00:41:00,560
That is the fulfillment of the gospel of Jesus Christ. But the gospel of Jesus Christ is

500
00:41:02,560 --> 00:41:07,280
repent now for the kingdom of heaven is here. The kingdom of heaven is here and ready for you to

501
00:41:07,280 --> 00:41:10,720
interact with it, which is accessible through the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus.

502
00:41:11,680 --> 00:41:15,280
So like it would seem to me that if I'm going to bring the gospel,

503
00:41:15,280 --> 00:41:20,480
what I should be doing is bringing a kind of world into this world by the way that I live

504
00:41:21,120 --> 00:41:26,160
and the way that I act and speak the way that I interact with the people around me,

505
00:41:26,160 --> 00:41:30,480
just simply like, and please don't mishear me. What I'm not saying is you shouldn't talk about

506
00:41:30,480 --> 00:41:34,720
Jesus. I'm saying that you talking about Jesus should be so integrated in your life that it's

507
00:41:34,720 --> 00:41:40,880
a natural part. So the phrase just preach the gospel actually rubs me the wrong way personally.

508
00:41:40,880 --> 00:41:45,040
Oh, me too. I can hear the keyboard typing in. Oh, they're typing so hard.

509
00:41:46,160 --> 00:41:50,160
It makes me think of Bible thumpers and I didn't want to see that. No, it's okay. No, it's okay.

510
00:41:50,800 --> 00:41:54,560
We're known for being a little controversial. We're known for being, we never mentioned people,

511
00:41:54,560 --> 00:41:59,840
but we do talk about like theologies. Yeah. But the idea of just preach the gospel,

512
00:42:01,120 --> 00:42:04,880
what I don't like about is it leaves out living your life according to Christ.

513
00:42:05,520 --> 00:42:08,880
And so what we should be doing is we should be living our lives according to how Christ has

514
00:42:08,880 --> 00:42:13,600
called us to live and in a way to where we are bringing the gospel everywhere we go,

515
00:42:14,240 --> 00:42:20,480
whether we are verbally speaking it or just showing it to know how we live. I've heard people bash on

516
00:42:20,480 --> 00:42:25,280
Saint Francis of Assisi where he says, preach the gospel and use words if necessary.

517
00:42:25,840 --> 00:42:29,440
And there's actually a lot more to that quote. Correct. Yeah, it's a much longer quote.

518
00:42:30,400 --> 00:42:36,400
But the idea there is that you are bringing Jesus everywhere you go. You are the temple of the

519
00:42:36,400 --> 00:42:41,920
Holy Spirit. You are bringing Christ into the grocery store, into the schools, into your church

520
00:42:41,920 --> 00:42:47,440
buildings, et cetera, into art shows, wherever you are bringing Christ into that atmosphere.

521
00:42:47,440 --> 00:42:51,680
And over time that physically changes the atmosphere of that place.

522
00:42:53,040 --> 00:42:58,160
Yeah. In Isaiah it says, a king will reign in righteousness, princes will rule in justice.

523
00:42:58,160 --> 00:43:02,400
Each man will be like a stream of water in a desert land because the desert is real hot.

524
00:43:02,960 --> 00:43:07,680
And he's going to be shelter from a great storm. And this is after it lists all these things where

525
00:43:07,680 --> 00:43:13,600
you're going to be relief, right? Then the eyes of those that can see, we'll see. And the ears of

526
00:43:13,600 --> 00:43:17,840
those that can hear, we'll hear. And the tongues of those that can speak will be loosed. What is

527
00:43:17,840 --> 00:43:23,600
this idea is that for people to see, hear and speak and be able to receive, which is you have

528
00:43:23,600 --> 00:43:30,240
to first be water in a thirsty land, shelter in a great storm. Like you need to be these things

529
00:43:31,040 --> 00:43:35,600
before you start speaking these things. Which kind of goes into this whole idea of like,

530
00:43:35,600 --> 00:43:40,000
where do you fall from love God and love other people? If we're sitting around and we're

531
00:43:40,000 --> 00:43:45,040
complaining and we're arguing about whether or not women can be pastors, are we actually

532
00:43:45,040 --> 00:43:50,640
spending time learning how to love people the way that Jesus loves us? No, probably not. I feel like

533
00:43:50,640 --> 00:43:54,560
we can focus and if we're going to fight, let's fight about more important things. One of the

534
00:43:54,560 --> 00:43:58,720
questions I always ask myself when I'm going about my day, when I'm bringing Christ into the community

535
00:43:58,720 --> 00:44:03,600
is how does Christ want to use me to make this person's day better? That's a question that runs

536
00:44:03,600 --> 00:44:08,000
through the back of my mind when I'm talking to, when I decide not to use the self checkout and

537
00:44:08,000 --> 00:44:11,920
actually go talk to someone who's ringing my grocery store because let's be real, I like self

538
00:44:11,920 --> 00:44:15,600
checkouts and times where I'm like, I just don't want to talk to anybody. I'm just one of them.

539
00:44:15,600 --> 00:44:22,160
I feel you. Yeah. But how does Christ want to make their day better? So our art community,

540
00:44:22,160 --> 00:44:30,160
in particular, Arts Council is very liberal and there's a lot of content that flows through there

541
00:44:30,160 --> 00:44:38,240
that is not always something that I agree with and I serve on a committee for the Arts Council in a

542
00:44:38,240 --> 00:44:44,800
very liberal atmosphere, which is incredibly difficult sometimes and at moments I'm like,

543
00:44:44,800 --> 00:44:50,400
this is my volunteer time and it's like, how better could I be using my volunteer time in another

544
00:44:50,400 --> 00:44:56,000
arena? And then I have to remember, the reason I said yes to being on that committee is because

545
00:44:56,000 --> 00:45:04,880
God needs to be in there. Well, you are the light of the world. Right. Yes. And I know that only

546
00:45:04,880 --> 00:45:12,640
through like relationship and being an example and being the light in that space, can God make a

547
00:45:12,640 --> 00:45:19,040
difference. That's so good. So some of the other women, we're going to kind of start high stepping

548
00:45:19,040 --> 00:45:24,160
through here because I really want to make sure that we set a level of expectation of what's going

549
00:45:24,160 --> 00:45:28,960
on in the New Testament. There's mentioned is Mary, the mother of John Mark, who has traveled with

550
00:45:28,960 --> 00:45:33,600
Paul and a lady by the name of Rhoda. So Peter's arrested and they're gathering at her house to

551
00:45:33,600 --> 00:45:38,080
pray. So this is apparently a regular place they gather. That'd be a place where believers

552
00:45:38,080 --> 00:45:42,240
intercede and listen to the voice of God. And when Peter knocks on the door, it's a woman named Rhoda

553
00:45:43,040 --> 00:45:48,160
who goes back and tells everybody, Hey, Peter's at the door. Like he's hanging out over here.

554
00:45:48,160 --> 00:45:54,080
We should probably let him in, you know? And a host has authority. Like, keep that in mind.

555
00:45:54,080 --> 00:45:59,920
And contextually, if you are at someone's house, that host actually has authority. Yeah. Rhoda,

556
00:45:59,920 --> 00:46:07,360
though, she hears Peter's voice and she doesn't even open the door to let him in. And I love that

557
00:46:07,360 --> 00:46:12,720
because she's just, she has the faith and the relationship to be able to recognize his voice.

558
00:46:12,720 --> 00:46:17,680
So obviously they're close. And then the faith to know like, Oh, that's Peter. And that's what

559
00:46:17,680 --> 00:46:22,080
we've been praying for. And so she goes, heck, to let everybody know. But they're like, nah.

560
00:46:22,080 --> 00:46:26,000
Well, and they also have to wonder because like, I mean, like, you know, it's very like,

561
00:46:26,000 --> 00:46:29,600
Judaism wouldn't be much more mystical than like Christianity today, which I think is a shame

562
00:46:29,600 --> 00:46:33,920
because God does mystical things. Mystical in the aspect of the spirit does things we don't

563
00:46:33,920 --> 00:46:38,640
understand, not mystical in the aspects of let's meditate and be crazy. But they're like, well,

564
00:46:38,640 --> 00:46:43,040
maybe this is a spirit of Peter. Maybe he was executed and he's here, which I mean, is a valid

565
00:46:43,040 --> 00:46:47,440
concern because people were getting killed. In Acts 13, Paul is actually going through his

566
00:46:47,440 --> 00:46:50,800
missionary journey and the Jewish leaders don't like what he has to say. Now we talked about this

567
00:46:50,800 --> 00:46:54,160
a few summers ago at our church when we talked about when they would go through the region of

568
00:46:54,160 --> 00:46:57,840
Galatia and then he, they would invite him in. He talked to them about Jesus and they're like,

569
00:46:57,840 --> 00:47:01,600
Oh yeah, we like this. Come back next week. And then the entire town would show up,

570
00:47:01,600 --> 00:47:05,920
all the Gentiles. And they're like, we don't like this. We don't like it. It's too many people.

571
00:47:06,720 --> 00:47:10,720
These, these people are not, should not be allowed in, which is the scandalous nature of the gospel

572
00:47:10,720 --> 00:47:14,560
is that those that are on the outside are welcomed in. It's not a relatable story at all. Yeah. By

573
00:47:14,560 --> 00:47:19,360
the way, the people on the, if you're a Gentile, you should recognize that women are being allowed

574
00:47:19,360 --> 00:47:23,680
into all the aspects of what men are being allowed into. Yeah. Because we were allowed into a place

575
00:47:23,680 --> 00:47:29,200
that was exclusive for Jews. Amen. Here I'll read this to you in verse 15 in Acts 13. It says,

576
00:47:30,000 --> 00:47:36,000
the Jewish leaders incited God fearing. So this is the Theosabes. These are the God fearing Gentiles

577
00:47:36,000 --> 00:47:41,120
that go to Jewish synagogue, God fearing women of high standing and the leading men of the city.

578
00:47:41,120 --> 00:47:45,200
They stirred up persecution against Paul and Barnabas and expelled them from their region.

579
00:47:45,200 --> 00:47:50,320
So once again, we, I've talked about Theosabes. It's the God fearing Gentiles. These are people

580
00:47:50,320 --> 00:47:55,040
who wanted to practice Judaism, but didn't go undergo conversion. So they're there on a regular

581
00:47:55,040 --> 00:48:03,200
basis. The Jewish leaders got the Gentile women of high standing to stir up the crowd. So apparently

582
00:48:03,200 --> 00:48:06,320
even the Jewish leaders are like, well, these are the people who are really going to make like

583
00:48:06,320 --> 00:48:10,240
movers and shakers. Oh, and some high profile men. This is not particularly like a good story

584
00:48:10,240 --> 00:48:14,080
talking about women because like they're forcing Paul and Barnabas out, but it is talking about how

585
00:48:14,080 --> 00:48:19,360
women actually do have authority in these contexts. Timothy's mother is a lady by the name of Eunice.

586
00:48:20,160 --> 00:48:24,800
She was a Jew and a believer, but she was married to a Greek. I think the implication is that he was

587
00:48:24,800 --> 00:48:29,600
not a believer in the text, but she stayed with the man who is likely following Paul's instructions

588
00:48:29,600 --> 00:48:33,280
in his letters is that if they're willing to stay with you, stay with them because you might be able

589
00:48:33,280 --> 00:48:39,120
to bring them. And Paul notes in Timothy, in 2 Timothy 1, 5, he says, he talks about the sincere

590
00:48:39,120 --> 00:48:47,840
faith that he sees in Timothy first that lived in his grandmother, Lois, and then in his mother,

591
00:48:47,840 --> 00:48:53,520
Eunice. And he is then persuaded that that same faith lives in Timothy, Timothy, who he's going

592
00:48:53,520 --> 00:48:59,200
to give authority over the Ephesus church. So this guy, he's going to put in charge. He says,

593
00:48:59,200 --> 00:49:05,840
the faith that I saw in your grandmother and the faith that I saw in your mother is the same faith

594
00:49:05,840 --> 00:49:09,760
I see in you. And that's what gives me the comforting reasoning to put you in authority

595
00:49:10,800 --> 00:49:14,320
because I know that there were strong women in your life who spoke into you.

596
00:49:16,720 --> 00:49:20,720
Quite a statement about those women. This is one you like to talk about is Lydia.

597
00:49:22,160 --> 00:49:28,000
So Lydia, purple cloth, when Paul went to Philippi, started this church, where did he go?

598
00:49:29,040 --> 00:49:33,760
He went to the banks of the river where these women were working. Now Lydia had means because

599
00:49:33,760 --> 00:49:40,320
purple cloth insinuates wealth. So he starts this church in Philippi. And one of the things I always

600
00:49:40,320 --> 00:49:46,480
find interesting about this is the letter of Philippians. Like when people study it and like,

601
00:49:46,480 --> 00:49:48,800
oh, well, we're reading Philippians. I was like, who do you think it was written to?

602
00:49:49,600 --> 00:49:55,600
Yeah. Like it was written to church leadership in Philippi, which were most likely women.

603
00:49:55,600 --> 00:49:59,360
Yeah. Did you actually notice in the text that, okay, so you know how it always says that he and

604
00:49:59,360 --> 00:50:05,440
his whole household believed when Lydia believes it says Lydia and her whole household believed.

605
00:50:06,080 --> 00:50:10,880
That's, that is not a, like something just glance over in the text that was dropping some heavy

606
00:50:10,880 --> 00:50:15,520
hammers and mics. And the other thing to not glance over is if you read Philippians,

607
00:50:15,520 --> 00:50:19,360
Philippians is one of the most encouraging books because of the good work that the church in

608
00:50:19,360 --> 00:50:25,760
Philippi is doing. Yeah. There actually is no direct correction. Unlike Galatians, unlike

609
00:50:25,760 --> 00:50:31,680
Ephesians, unlike Corinthians, unlike Romans. So all these other churches, Paul actually provides

610
00:50:31,680 --> 00:50:37,680
some level of direct correction, but the church that's led by women, he's like, you're killing it.

611
00:50:37,680 --> 00:50:41,200
Not only that, like his thing is like, these are the things you're doing really well. Here's how you

612
00:50:41,200 --> 00:50:45,680
go even further. Yeah. Yeah. Like that's a great conversation to have, by the way, when you're like,

613
00:50:45,680 --> 00:50:50,240
listen, you are doing a great job. Let me tell you how you can be even better. Yeah. It's not a

614
00:50:50,240 --> 00:50:55,440
negative. Well, the, so the funny part about it is the first pastor I ever heard talk about how

615
00:50:55,440 --> 00:51:00,720
there's no direct correction and, and the letter of Philippians was actually a Southern Baptist

616
00:51:00,720 --> 00:51:05,200
pastor. And I already like had connected dots about like, well, he's writing to a group of

617
00:51:05,200 --> 00:51:12,480
women pastors. He's not mentioning that. Yeah. But he's just going to skirt around that. Yeah.

618
00:51:12,480 --> 00:51:18,960
I'd love to be a fly on the wall at that time in how the women worked together, because

619
00:51:18,960 --> 00:51:25,520
it's unfortunate that now in our culture to see women work together in the church,

620
00:51:27,040 --> 00:51:33,760
it's not always a pretty thing, you know, and I don't know where we

621
00:51:34,800 --> 00:51:44,240
went wrong or why, why it has this feeling of almost a competition. Now my own personal experience,

622
00:51:44,240 --> 00:51:50,800
my own personal experience, like my co, like pastor wives, leadership wives, I am thrilled at

623
00:51:50,800 --> 00:51:56,800
this point in life to have like such an awesome team. Like I feel very, very blessed. And maybe,

624
00:51:57,760 --> 00:52:03,280
I mean, maybe that's where we're doing it right. You know, but I've just seen so much conflict in

625
00:52:03,280 --> 00:52:09,120
the church between, between women in particular. And, but do you, do you think though maybe some

626
00:52:09,120 --> 00:52:17,120
of that comes from the fact that like, if you are disqualified by bad theology, that you maybe just

627
00:52:17,120 --> 00:52:21,840
scrimp for any piece of authority you can get, like trying to step into any piece of like,

628
00:52:23,120 --> 00:52:27,040
you know what I mean? If you're not allowed to do something, like you're purposely allowed for

629
00:52:27,040 --> 00:52:32,000
something that may legitimately be a calling in your life, that, that like, there's like some

630
00:52:32,000 --> 00:52:36,480
angst, there's some frustration there's, and that just bleeds over into the way. And like, cause here

631
00:52:36,480 --> 00:52:40,720
at our church is a lot of collaborative, like we're going to work together. Nobody has a super big

632
00:52:40,720 --> 00:52:44,080
Eagle about anything. We're just going to work through this and deal with it together. Yeah.

633
00:52:44,080 --> 00:52:48,880
We'll pick up the pieces when people are gone and you know, it's great. Like to your point,

634
00:52:48,880 --> 00:52:54,960
like you and the, and the other counterparts get along really well. Yeah. Like you support each

635
00:52:54,960 --> 00:53:01,680
other. I think another part of that too, I think a lot of times we don't, we feel, we see a need

636
00:53:01,680 --> 00:53:05,840
that we need filled. And then we're like, where's a warm body to fill it? And then we're not actually

637
00:53:05,840 --> 00:53:11,600
putting someone in a place where they would be gifted to serve or take joy in serving. Right.

638
00:53:11,600 --> 00:53:18,480
And I think that gets overlooked because I hate the stereotype on this one, but like a lot of times

639
00:53:18,480 --> 00:53:24,000
where women get put in ministry is things like greeting, nursery, kids ministry. I've seen a lot

640
00:53:24,000 --> 00:53:31,600
of women who've begrudgingly agreed to serve in kids ministry and hated it. Right. Not because,

641
00:53:31,600 --> 00:53:35,440
not because they hated kids, but it's just not what they were gifted at. You know, the, the hard

642
00:53:35,440 --> 00:53:39,760
the hard thing about that too, is that when you try to force gender stereotypes in there,

643
00:53:40,400 --> 00:53:46,240
there might be a man who's incredibly gifted at working with kids, right. And a woman who's

644
00:53:46,240 --> 00:53:50,960
incredibly gifted at teaching adults and like they're not operating in the way that God made

645
00:53:50,960 --> 00:53:56,800
them to be. We're trying to force them to be different than what God wants them to be. Yeah.

646
00:53:56,800 --> 00:54:01,600
You know, now all that being said, like sometimes we fill in a ministry is just because there's a

647
00:54:01,600 --> 00:54:06,960
need. Absolutely. But we're talking about long-term like faithful, like walking, right? Yeah. Yeah.

648
00:54:06,960 --> 00:54:11,120
And so, so sometimes we jump in when there's a need. I think that's one of the call for church

649
00:54:11,120 --> 00:54:15,280
leadership though. Yeah. It'd be like, if somebody wants to get involved and serve, let's have a

650
00:54:15,280 --> 00:54:21,360
conversation about where, where your gifting's at. Yeah. Like, like what, what brings you like,

651
00:54:21,360 --> 00:54:27,440
what, what's something that brings you joy? Yeah. Later on in the text of Acts, it does talk about

652
00:54:27,440 --> 00:54:31,520
again, it's these chief and honorable women of the Greeks and because they're once again, trying to

653
00:54:31,520 --> 00:54:36,080
get Paul to leave the city. It's a different city. And they're like, let's get these, you know, these

654
00:54:36,080 --> 00:54:40,000
really high powered women. It actually happens a lot of times that the Jewish leaders are like,

655
00:54:40,000 --> 00:54:43,280
let's get these, these really strong women to get them out of here, which is a surprising,

656
00:54:43,280 --> 00:54:48,640
especially when you know things about like Ephesus and like those areas too. In 1734 of the book of

657
00:54:48,640 --> 00:54:53,920
Acts, it says this, some of the people became followers of Paul and believed among them was

658
00:54:54,640 --> 00:55:00,320
Dionysus, CS. Hmm. I'm really good at those words. A member of, a member of the Arropegas,

659
00:55:00,320 --> 00:55:06,560
also a woman named Demarius and a number of others. Okay. Some of those people became followers of

660
00:55:06,560 --> 00:55:12,560
Paul. What does that mean? Disciple. Disciple and believed among them was this one dude. And then

661
00:55:12,560 --> 00:55:17,040
there's a woman named Demarius who is now a disciple of Paul. Okay. What is the idea of a

662
00:55:17,040 --> 00:55:22,320
disciple? A disciple is somebody who knows what the rabbi knows to do what the rabbi does in order

663
00:55:22,320 --> 00:55:26,560
to be just like the rabbi and the walk with God. So that's why we apprentice under rabbi Jesus.

664
00:55:26,560 --> 00:55:30,960
Yeah. And Paul says imitate me like I imitate Christ. So the idea is if you're a follower of

665
00:55:30,960 --> 00:55:36,560
Paul, you're ultimately trying to imitate Christ. Yeah. Once, it, once again, talking about disciples

666
00:55:36,560 --> 00:55:41,040
like Jesus, we see here that Paul takes on disciples that are women as well. All right.

667
00:55:41,040 --> 00:55:45,280
And then there's this lady by the name of Priscilla. There is a lot about Priscilla. So I'm going to

668
00:55:45,280 --> 00:55:50,720
kind of mention her just a few times. In 18 to us, there is a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus,

669
00:55:50,720 --> 00:55:55,360
who had recently come from Italy with his wife, Priscilla, because Claudius had ordered all the

670
00:55:55,360 --> 00:55:59,120
Jews to leave Rome. Paul went to see them and because he was a tent maker, as they were,

671
00:56:00,080 --> 00:56:04,560
he stayed and worked with them. So he's a tent maker. So he stayed with them. And then he tells

672
00:56:04,560 --> 00:56:09,280
them about Jesus, right? It says in 18, 18, it says Paul stayed on in Corinth for some time.

673
00:56:09,280 --> 00:56:15,280
Then he left the brothers and sisters and sailed to for Syria accompanied by Priscilla and Aquila.

674
00:56:15,280 --> 00:56:21,440
Well, what just happened there? I know, but wasn't it a place first, she was placed first,

675
00:56:21,440 --> 00:56:26,000
which is a very big deal in the way that you put the text. Because if you actually read, even when

676
00:56:26,000 --> 00:56:30,000
Barnabas and Paul first go out, it's Barnabas and Saul, Barnabas and Saul, Barnabas and Saul,

677
00:56:30,000 --> 00:56:36,720
then something happens and it's Paul and Barnabas. Like there is a shift that happens because one

678
00:56:36,720 --> 00:56:41,920
actually becomes the instigator. And that's not to say that they're not together, but it means that

679
00:56:41,920 --> 00:56:47,760
one is a look to the one who is in leadership. So now it says Priscilla and Aquila. Good pick up,

680
00:56:47,760 --> 00:56:51,840
Jamie. High five. I'm not going to reach all the way over there because I'm going to stretch.

681
00:56:52,560 --> 00:56:58,480
Don't tell people that. You can cut it out. Make me look smart. I'm going to leave just that in

682
00:56:58,480 --> 00:57:03,600
so people know that you're a smart aleck. Oh, by the way, I also know to hear it says that before

683
00:57:03,600 --> 00:57:08,240
he sailed, he had his hair cut off at this place. I'm not going to read it because of a vow that he

684
00:57:08,240 --> 00:57:13,760
had taken. So if we remember, what vow do you actually not cut your hair? Nazarite vow. So Paul

685
00:57:13,760 --> 00:57:18,720
had been taken the Nazarite vow to become closer to God. So he had not been touching dead things

686
00:57:18,720 --> 00:57:22,800
or drinking fermented drink and he had not cut his hair. Then when he had fulfilled his vow,

687
00:57:22,800 --> 00:57:27,360
he cut his hair. That's how you run through the fulfillment of the vow. This is also one of the

688
00:57:27,360 --> 00:57:31,680
things I want to point out to people where we talk about, well, Paul just lived a completely

689
00:57:31,680 --> 00:57:37,040
non-Jewish life once he became a Christian. No, he was still following Jewish law all throughout

690
00:57:37,040 --> 00:57:42,320
his ministry. This is once again, like he is fulfilling a Nazarite vow at this point. That's

691
00:57:42,320 --> 00:57:47,280
a very Jewish thing to do. You don't do it if you're not like that is a substantial vow to take.

692
00:57:47,280 --> 00:57:52,000
Yeah. Continue on with Priscilla in 1824. It says, meanwhile, a Jew named Apollos,

693
00:57:53,200 --> 00:57:58,880
gifted speaker, a native of Alexandria came to Ephesus. He was a learned man with a thorough

694
00:57:58,880 --> 00:58:03,680
knowledge of scripture. He had been instructed in the way of the Lord and he spoke with great

695
00:58:03,680 --> 00:58:08,000
fervor and taught about Jesus accurately, though he knew only of the baptism of John.

696
00:58:08,000 --> 00:58:12,240
He began to speak boldly in the synagogue and when Priscilla and Aquila heard him,

697
00:58:12,240 --> 00:58:16,160
they invited him to their home and they explained him the way of God more adequately.

698
00:58:17,120 --> 00:58:20,720
They're like, we see what you're doing and you're doing a great job,

699
00:58:20,720 --> 00:58:25,280
but let's help fill in the gaps for you. Once again, Priscilla and Aquila now educating,

700
00:58:25,280 --> 00:58:33,280
teaching, having authority in instructing a very well-known pastor of that time.

701
00:58:33,280 --> 00:58:40,240
And side note, note how they corrected and how they instructed. It wasn't the Uheretic model.

702
00:58:40,240 --> 00:58:44,000
It was like, hey, we got to fill in some gaps, but what we're going to do, come over for dinner.

703
00:58:44,000 --> 00:58:49,600
Let's enjoy the meal. Let's have a conversation. And the whole thing is they, they, they. I love

704
00:58:49,600 --> 00:58:53,920
that it's they. They're doing it together. Priscilla and Aquila, even though she is the more prominent,

705
00:58:54,560 --> 00:58:59,680
they do things together. They're an awesome, they're a power couple. They're the pastor,

706
00:58:59,680 --> 00:59:08,560
Nick and Jamie of. Now go ahead. I think Priscilla is the outgoing, well-spoken one.

707
00:59:10,240 --> 00:59:12,320
That's not happening in the Knicks in my relationship.

708
00:59:12,320 --> 00:59:16,240
He's like, Hey, let's go talk to people. And you're like, do we have to? Yeah. I don't know. I

709
00:59:16,240 --> 00:59:19,200
don't know. I mean, there's times I've gone over to Nick and Jamie's house and Nick's like, yeah,

710
00:59:19,200 --> 00:59:25,040
come on in. And Jamie's like, why are you here? Peace. No, no, it's really funny.

711
00:59:25,040 --> 00:59:30,160
We enjoy you. I that sounded convincing. What she said, she's like, it's, it's really fine.

712
00:59:30,160 --> 00:59:35,200
Side note, like I, there was a time where my brother-in-law, brother-in-law and sister-in-law

713
00:59:35,200 --> 00:59:39,280
were in town. They were staying in that Airbnb, like right next to your guys' place. I was trying

714
00:59:39,280 --> 00:59:43,520
to convince my brother-in-law just to go like sit on your guys' couch and be like, yeah, this is our

715
00:59:43,520 --> 00:59:47,680
Airbnb. Right. And, and I told Nick that he's like, he's like, I would have thought that was

716
00:59:47,680 --> 00:59:53,520
funny. He's like, Jamie, that's not funny. I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like,

717
00:59:53,520 --> 01:00:00,640
that's funny. He's like, Jamie, no. That's so good. But luckily my sister-in-law was like,

718
01:00:00,640 --> 01:00:04,000
my brother-in-law was going to do it. And she was like, no, you can't walk into their house.

719
01:00:07,760 --> 01:00:12,160
That's so good. That's the woman bringing, you know, structure and discipline too.

720
01:00:13,040 --> 01:00:17,040
So it, beyond the book of Acts, Paul actually mentions Priscilla a couple of other times. So

721
01:00:17,040 --> 01:00:25,280
in Romans 16, three, he says, greet Priscilla and Aquila, my coworkers in Christ Jesus. They risk

722
01:00:25,280 --> 01:00:29,280
their lives for me. Not only I, but all the churches of the Gentiles are grateful to them.

723
01:00:29,280 --> 01:00:37,280
Greet also the church that meets in their house. So coworkers meaning, mean people that are doing

724
01:00:37,280 --> 01:00:41,760
the same work. So Paul is under the impression that he, Priscilla and Aquila are his coworkers.

725
01:00:41,760 --> 01:00:45,360
And they're also supposed to greet the church meets to their house. Interesting. I'm wondering

726
01:00:45,360 --> 01:00:51,600
if maybe somebody might be a pastor. They're also mentioned in first Corinthians in the same way.

727
01:00:52,240 --> 01:00:56,080
And they're known throughout the regions. And in second Timothy, Paul tells Timothy to greet

728
01:00:56,080 --> 01:01:01,760
Priscilla and Aquila. They are clearly significant parts of the ministry of Paul. Like he talks

729
01:01:01,760 --> 01:01:07,360
about them all the time. And they're close friends. Yeah. Probably because they were all tent makers.

730
01:01:08,320 --> 01:01:11,680
Then there's a lady by the name of Phoebe who's mentioned in Romans. It says here, it says,

731
01:01:11,680 --> 01:01:20,800
I commend you, my sister Phoebe, a deacon, the church in, uh, San Crea. Yeah, that's a word.

732
01:01:20,800 --> 01:01:27,200
I'm not Greek. So there is debate over the word deacon there on Phoebe, but, but the implication

733
01:01:27,200 --> 01:01:32,320
though is that she has authority because Paul in that later in Romans 16 one actually says,

734
01:01:32,320 --> 01:01:37,280
do what she says. Yeah. Like, well, yeah, it continues to says, I ask you to receive her

735
01:01:37,280 --> 01:01:43,520
in the Lord in a way worthy of his people and to give her any help she may need from you. For she

736
01:01:43,520 --> 01:01:48,000
has been a benefactor of many people, including me. So the word sister, by the way, is the Greek

737
01:01:48,000 --> 01:01:51,920
word for sister and it's used throughout the Bible. I mean, it literally means sister, right?

738
01:01:51,920 --> 01:01:55,200
Cause there's conversation about was Phoebe a man or a woman because they try to do some things

739
01:01:55,200 --> 01:01:59,680
with like her name, right? So a sister over and over again, if you look up the word deacon,

740
01:01:59,680 --> 01:02:03,280
it's actually the same word that Paul uses in his letter to Timothy when he's talking about

741
01:02:03,280 --> 01:02:08,640
qualifications of deacons for the church is the exact same word. So the word deacon literally

742
01:02:08,640 --> 01:02:12,960
means servant, but to be fair, this is the same word that Paul uses to describe himself

743
01:02:13,840 --> 01:02:22,560
and Apollos and Peter. This is an upside down kingdom of God because those in authority

744
01:02:22,560 --> 01:02:29,280
are really those that serve. The apostles are supposed to be servants of the people

745
01:02:29,280 --> 01:02:35,680
to empower others to be Christ in their community. It's just one of those things where they're like,

746
01:02:35,680 --> 01:02:39,280
well, you know, servant means blah, blah, blah. It's like, well, servant would actually be the

747
01:02:39,280 --> 01:02:42,160
person of highest authority because if you understand the kingdom of God, the person who

748
01:02:42,160 --> 01:02:46,960
serves is the one who is actually the greatest. They're modeling after Jesus who bent down,

749
01:02:46,960 --> 01:02:53,920
served and washed feet. Nasty feet. Nasty feet. Yeah. Even the feet of Judas. So mentioned just

750
01:02:53,920 --> 01:03:01,120
after Phoebe is a lady by the name of Junia. It says to greet Andronikos. So these guys got

751
01:03:01,120 --> 01:03:07,120
great names. If you're about to have a boy and you have a baby and you want to get a name,

752
01:03:07,120 --> 01:03:14,560
Androkinus, Androcus, that's the name right there. Yeah. And Junia, my fellow Jews who have been in

753
01:03:14,560 --> 01:03:23,920
prison with me, they are outstanding among the apostles and they were in Christ before I was.

754
01:03:24,960 --> 01:03:30,400
Junia is a proper feminine noun that means youthful. So once again, there's a conversation about

755
01:03:30,400 --> 01:03:33,920
is Junia actually a man or a woman? It is a proper feminine noun in the Greek.

756
01:03:35,680 --> 01:03:41,120
Paul considers both her and Androkinus apostles, which means, which we've talked about in the past,

757
01:03:41,120 --> 01:03:44,640
that apostles are people who are sent from one place to another place to make the place they go

758
01:03:44,640 --> 01:03:49,120
to look like the place they come from. If we are apostles for the kingdom of God, we make every

759
01:03:49,120 --> 01:03:54,480
place we go look like the kingdom of God. We bring kingdom wherever we go. It's the same word,

760
01:03:54,480 --> 01:04:01,360
same Greek word that is used for the 12 apostles and for Paul. So Paul notes that they were in

761
01:04:01,360 --> 01:04:08,240
Christ before him, meaning that they have been disciples or apostles for a long time at the

762
01:04:08,240 --> 01:04:12,960
writing of this letter. Because when he writes Romans, it's been multiple years that he's been

763
01:04:12,960 --> 01:04:18,320
a Christian. And I've heard people when we've, when Romans 16 has been brought up where they're

764
01:04:18,320 --> 01:04:21,840
like, oh, you really have to dig on that type of stuff. I was like, you don't, you don't,

765
01:04:21,840 --> 01:04:29,120
you don't. It's, it's clear to female names listed with authority. Yeah. Like you don't have to,

766
01:04:29,120 --> 01:04:32,720
like this isn't, if you're wondering like, oh, well, where are you getting all this information?

767
01:04:32,720 --> 01:04:36,160
I was like, this is actually just very clear in the text in English.

768
01:04:36,160 --> 01:04:45,200
Cause name was changed though at a point in time during certain, certain texts had changed.

769
01:04:45,200 --> 01:04:48,960
Yeah, there are, there are certain translations that I've tried. Yes. They're trying to change

770
01:04:48,960 --> 01:04:53,520
it to a male. Yeah. They tried to change it to like a justice almost. Yeah. Yeah. And,

771
01:04:53,520 --> 01:04:57,680
but when you go back to the original, uh, manuscripts, yeah. What's one of the nice

772
01:04:57,680 --> 01:05:02,240
things about like Dead Sea Scrolls showing up is that you have like older manuscripts that are

773
01:05:02,240 --> 01:05:08,160
able to actually coordinate with each other. And it's, it's definitely Junia. Yeah. Like you can

774
01:05:08,160 --> 01:05:14,000
try to change it all you want, but it's definitely Junia. But crazy to think like, you know, just how

775
01:05:14,000 --> 01:05:21,280
hard society changed, tried to change things in the Bible to, to eliminate God using women.

776
01:05:21,280 --> 01:05:26,480
Well, it's not even a new thing because in the 1600s, there was a German woman preacher in the

777
01:05:26,480 --> 01:05:32,640
Reformation who was speaking about God's authority for women to preach. And she ran a church with

778
01:05:32,640 --> 01:05:36,320
her, with her pastor husband and he died and she continued to run it for another 20 years after he

779
01:05:36,320 --> 01:05:41,840
died. Yeah. She was actually speaking opposite of Calvin. Yeah. Yeah. We're going to talk about her

780
01:05:41,840 --> 01:05:46,960
in a couple of weeks. It is crazy to me that you, somebody would actually go as far as to even try

781
01:05:46,960 --> 01:05:53,120
to edit the Bible because of their particular theological stance. There are people who do that,

782
01:05:53,120 --> 01:06:00,320
and we call them cults. I'm going to say that again. There are people who do that and we call

783
01:06:00,320 --> 01:06:04,400
them cults. Really be careful about trying to make the Bible say something it doesn't say.

784
01:06:05,040 --> 01:06:11,760
If, if you want a good example of who you should be following as far as like pastor or leader goes,

785
01:06:12,480 --> 01:06:16,560
look for the, look for the pastor or leader who has a repentive heart about what they've done wrong.

786
01:06:17,600 --> 01:06:20,560
So good. And continually has a repentive heart about what they've done wrong.

787
01:06:20,560 --> 01:06:27,120
So good. And we've talked about David with more on the podcast, but David, king of Israel, not

788
01:06:27,120 --> 01:06:33,200
necessarily a great role model you want to follow after in many aspects, like pretty bad dad had an

789
01:06:33,200 --> 01:06:37,280
affair with a woman, got her pregnant and I was like, okay, well let's try to get her to sleep with

790
01:06:37,280 --> 01:06:41,600
her husband so that this looks legit. Oh, that's not going to work. Okay. Let's have her husband

791
01:06:41,600 --> 01:06:47,200
killed off through some political scheming. Well, this goes on. Right. So what made David a man after

792
01:06:47,200 --> 01:06:54,480
his own heart after God's own heart, he repented every time he's willing to own up to his mistakes.

793
01:06:54,480 --> 01:07:00,480
Yeah. Yeah. And so if you're looking for a good role model, as far as pastor, look for the one

794
01:07:00,480 --> 01:07:06,240
who has a repentive heart. Yeah. Because they will make mistakes. All right. I'm going to rapid fire

795
01:07:06,240 --> 01:07:10,640
awesome names here because I'm not going to get super deep in these rent remainder of Roman 16.

796
01:07:10,640 --> 01:07:17,200
Paul greets a ton of women. He says, greet triphenia and trifosa great names, by the way,

797
01:07:17,200 --> 01:07:22,640
if you're having twin daughters, go for it. Those women who work, they work hard in the Lord.

798
01:07:22,640 --> 01:07:26,640
Greet my dear friend, Pursus, another woman who has worked very hard for the Lord.

799
01:07:26,640 --> 01:07:30,640
Greet Rufus chosen in the Lord and his mother who has been a mother to me too.

800
01:07:30,640 --> 01:07:37,520
Greet Anson, cretus, fledged, flag on man. It looks like phlegm. Hermes, Petrobus,

801
01:07:37,520 --> 01:07:45,040
Hermanus and the brothers and sisters with them. Greet Philo, Joelius, Julia, Nereus, and his sister.

802
01:07:45,040 --> 01:07:48,240
Somebody who knows Greek, they're going to hear me say this. And they're like, those are not

803
01:07:48,240 --> 01:07:52,400
the correct pronunciations. I apologize. Come on the podcast. I'll let you pronounce them correctly.

804
01:07:52,400 --> 01:07:57,040
And Olympus and all the Lord's people who are with him. And then there's a conversation about Chloe,

805
01:07:57,040 --> 01:08:01,680
who is mentioned in 1 Corinthians because it's Chloe's household that writes to Paul and says,

806
01:08:01,680 --> 01:08:05,680
Hey, we got some issues going on here. Can you write us a letter of repentance?

807
01:08:05,680 --> 01:08:09,200
So Chloe's well thought of enough that her household writes to Paul and he's like, oh,

808
01:08:09,200 --> 01:08:13,680
got to answer that. And then there's a couple other women listed briefly. There's Euryodia,

809
01:08:13,680 --> 01:08:21,040
there's Sintish, Claudia, Afia, and Nympha. So here's the thing. We didn't actually mention

810
01:08:21,040 --> 01:08:25,840
all the women talked about in the New Testament. I briefly skipped a stone across. I tried to pick

811
01:08:25,840 --> 01:08:28,960
out the most prominent names for you, nor in church history. We're going to talk about some

812
01:08:28,960 --> 01:08:35,440
of that next week. What we should see is that the woman who is mentioned in 1 Corinthians

813
01:08:35,440 --> 01:08:42,560
in this text is that God is absolutely using women not only to forward the church, but to

814
01:08:43,440 --> 01:08:50,000
lead the church. House the church, do the good work in communities and many other things.

815
01:08:50,000 --> 01:08:55,840
So the qualifications for ministry leadership is the call of God on your life, not your gender,

816
01:08:57,520 --> 01:09:03,840
not your experience, and not your knowledge. God doesn't call the qualified, he qualifies the

817
01:09:03,840 --> 01:09:08,400
called. I can't remember who said that originally, but I love the quote. Our job for both men and

818
01:09:08,400 --> 01:09:13,360
women is to listen to the call of God on our life, but also ask God what he's doing in the lives of

819
01:09:13,360 --> 01:09:20,160
those close to us, to recognize the call in their lives as well. Then to live into the call of God

820
01:09:20,160 --> 01:09:24,240
puts on our life and to help others live into the call that God has put on their life. And this is

821
01:09:24,240 --> 01:09:29,840
especially true when it comes to women. So Jamie, I'm going to put you a little bit on the spot here

822
01:09:29,840 --> 01:09:35,440
because I think you're going to be more qualified to talk about this than most. What has been your

823
01:09:35,440 --> 01:09:39,680
experience growing up, maybe not in the Pentecostal church because I know that they're a lot more

824
01:09:39,680 --> 01:09:43,520
open to like dating women and stuff like that, but what has been your experience growing up in

825
01:09:43,520 --> 01:09:49,280
the church with people's perspective on women in ministry or teaching? And like, have you had a lot

826
01:09:49,280 --> 01:09:56,080
of issues that you've run into with that? Well, like you'd mentioned earlier, I do think that

827
01:09:56,080 --> 01:10:04,000
there are those gender stereotype positions that women are, I'll say, encouraged to take place in

828
01:10:04,640 --> 01:10:12,560
like children's ministry, nursery. I was part of a young adults internship for a while. There were

829
01:10:12,560 --> 01:10:21,280
times when it certainly felt like there was more emphasis put on teaching the young men than there

830
01:10:21,280 --> 01:10:27,920
were the young women. I saw some of the young women got put in place of taking care of like the

831
01:10:27,920 --> 01:10:34,640
pastor's kids. To be fair, like I think all the interns kind of took a little bit of share in that,

832
01:10:35,200 --> 01:10:42,560
but one girl in particular. And so I think some of that just comes culturally, like that's

833
01:10:43,200 --> 01:10:49,520
just the mindset and the habit that we get stuck in. But I fully appreciate you recognizing

834
01:10:49,520 --> 01:10:56,160
that sometimes there's a calling on the lives of women that are not always accepted or recognized

835
01:10:56,160 --> 01:11:02,880
or encouraged to happen because they're more often positioned that a man's put into.

836
01:11:03,440 --> 01:11:08,800
Yeah. Do you think maybe I was thinking about this, there's also maybe a little bit more

837
01:11:10,480 --> 01:11:16,160
scrutiny put on a woman who serves in ministry than there is on a man who would step into the

838
01:11:16,160 --> 01:11:24,080
exact same position. Oh yeah. Yeah. I think there's way more eyes on women and kind of always

839
01:11:24,080 --> 01:11:29,440
some people waiting for them to trip up. Yeah. We've had this conversation that we said,

840
01:11:29,440 --> 01:11:33,120
if you speak from the pulpit from any period of time, you're going to speak heresy because,

841
01:11:33,120 --> 01:11:36,960
not on purpose, but just because you're talking in front of people, you're going to say something

842
01:11:36,960 --> 01:11:44,960
strange, which I've never done ever. But I think that with, there's a lot of latitude and

843
01:11:44,960 --> 01:11:50,240
a lot of latitude given to people because of their gender and not necessarily because of their

844
01:11:50,240 --> 01:11:54,400
calling. Yeah. That's not to say that I don't think we should hold pastors accountable. I

845
01:11:54,400 --> 01:12:01,760
think you absolutely should. But can we be consistent in that basis? Because when I'm

846
01:12:01,760 --> 01:12:06,880
holding a pastor accountable, male or female, my desire is for them to grow in what God is calling

847
01:12:06,880 --> 01:12:13,200
them to be, not for them to feel bad about what they're doing. You know what I mean? Yeah.

848
01:12:13,200 --> 01:12:18,640
Well, you know that my mother-in-law is an ordained pastor and that she is pastoring in the

849
01:12:18,640 --> 01:12:23,760
South right now, which has not been easy. They've been there for quite a while, I think,

850
01:12:24,320 --> 01:12:28,000
almost 10 years now. I have thought about having her on the podcast, but I'm pretty sure we wouldn't

851
01:12:28,000 --> 01:12:35,600
get to say anything. You're probably right. But she's shared a lot of her struggle about how much

852
01:12:35,600 --> 01:12:41,120
more difficult it is from moving from a state that's quite a bit more open to women in ministry,

853
01:12:41,120 --> 01:12:46,560
you know, to states where it's just not as easy. Yeah. You're going to have a lot more of that

854
01:12:46,560 --> 01:12:49,840
ingrained in... because Georgia, yeah, you're going to have a lot more of that ingrained in

855
01:12:49,840 --> 01:12:52,960
Georgia. That's not to... if anybody's listening from Georgia, we love Georgia.

856
01:12:54,800 --> 01:12:59,440
Yeah. Yeah. And so that we're speaking of a general trend, not of specific people.

857
01:13:00,000 --> 01:13:06,160
When you're in the Bible belt, that's kind of like you have... where faith became a tradition

858
01:13:06,160 --> 01:13:11,280
rather than an expression of truth. And please understand, like, if your church is handling some

859
01:13:11,280 --> 01:13:15,760
of these issues that we're talking about really well... We love it. Love it. Yeah. Awesome. In

860
01:13:15,760 --> 01:13:20,240
fact, if you have stories, please send them to us because we'd love to share them. Like, we'd love

861
01:13:20,240 --> 01:13:24,160
to hear about what's going on in your churches and how God is moving, and just love to encourage

862
01:13:24,160 --> 01:13:28,960
anybody who is stepping into this. And I think once again, it's probably important for us to...

863
01:13:28,960 --> 01:13:33,520
we're over-emphasizing women in this series because we feel like they've been de-emphasized.

864
01:13:33,520 --> 01:13:40,160
Yeah. What we're never saying is that every woman should be a pastor. But we believe that we should

865
01:13:40,160 --> 01:13:45,440
all look for the call of God in our life and lift people up for that call. And that gender is not

866
01:13:46,320 --> 01:13:51,920
part of that equation. Yeah. Do you have any final thoughts or anything that you want to share?

867
01:13:53,040 --> 01:13:56,720
I will in like an hour. In like an hour? Well, that's great because we won't be recording in an

868
01:13:56,720 --> 01:14:01,920
hour. Yeah. Yeah. They'll all flood in about at the same time and I'll have so many fantastic

869
01:14:01,920 --> 01:14:04,960
things to say. Well, that's actually good because we're actually going to push record now and do

870
01:14:04,960 --> 01:14:14,800
that whole thing again. Oh my gosh. Well, thank you for peer-papering me into being a part of this.

871
01:14:14,800 --> 01:14:19,280
Yeah. Thanks for joining us today even though we can't see you. Oh yeah. Or can we?

872
01:14:21,920 --> 01:14:25,440
You just look creepy. Until next time. Thanks.

873
01:14:25,440 --> 01:14:29,360
And that's a wrap for today's episode of Love and Context. We hope you enjoyed this engaging

874
01:14:29,360 --> 01:14:33,360
conversation and gained valuable insights into the powerful message of love within the Bible.

875
01:14:33,360 --> 01:14:37,680
We'd love to hear from you and continue the conversation. Connect with us by sending us

876
01:14:37,680 --> 01:14:43,600
your questions, thoughts, and suggestions to loveandcontext.gmail.com. We greatly

877
01:14:43,600 --> 01:14:49,360
appreciate your feedback and ideas for future episodes. Stay connected with us on social media

878
01:14:49,360 --> 01:14:54,000
for updates, behind the scenes content, and additional resources. You can find us on Instagram,

879
01:14:54,000 --> 01:14:59,200
TikTok, YouTube, and Facebook at Love and Context. Don't forget to hit that follow button to stay up

880
01:14:59,200 --> 01:15:03,600
to date with the latest episodes and join our growing community. Thank you for being part of

881
01:15:03,600 --> 01:15:08,880
the Love and Context family. Remember, love is at the heart of it all. Until next time,

882
01:15:08,880 --> 01:15:20,400
keep seeking wisdom, embracing love, and living out your faith in the context of today's world.

883
01:15:38,960 --> 01:15:42,400
I will follow along, but you are responsible for keeping us back on track.

884
01:15:43,840 --> 01:15:47,600
Did you know sometimes Nick takes these supplements that have those, what is it,

885
01:15:47,600 --> 01:15:52,560
lion's mane mushroom in it? Oh yeah. And it's supposed to give you like this real

886
01:15:52,560 --> 01:15:57,360
buzz and your brain just goes off. And I thought this morning like, oh maybe I should take some

887
01:15:57,360 --> 01:16:03,840
of that. It would help me focus and actually have words and remember the words that I want to say.

888
01:16:03,840 --> 01:16:12,240
And then legitimately interrupt us anytime. And just the only way that I'm going to get a word

889
01:16:12,240 --> 01:16:19,840
in edgewise. Just interrupt us anytime. We're good with that. Wink. That's just the camera can see

890
01:16:19,840 --> 01:16:34,800
me. I don't know if they can see me wink from that far away. Probably not.