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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

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and 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 and the context of the Bible intersect

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to transform our lives. Welcome to the Love in Context podcast with Ben and Spencer. I'm Ben.

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I'm Spencer. And you are re-welcoming in or you are re-welcoming. That's not even a phrase.

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That's not even a phrase. I'm probably going to leave that in just because it's great. We are

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re-welcoming our friend, our really good friend that definitely doesn't snap her fingers at me

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to try to get my attention, Pastor Sarah. It's, no, it's in the context of the statement we were

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doing, she absolutely deserved to snap her fingers at me. And let's be honest, what did you do,

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Benjamin? I was a child. I was a smart alecker. Yeah. Also, let's just be honest. I mean, if

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somebody snaps her fingers, I'm going to look. Like I can't help it. And I was like, who sounds,

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you know, I don't think I have ADHD, but I definitely do. Like when people make like random

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sounds, I have to look. Yeah. My wife's legit. I made this comment before where she has been like,

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oh, you're giving me a C in Sarah's. And I'm like, yeah, she's so great. I want to take care of you.

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I don't have to take care of you. She's like, she'll take care of that for me. Thanks, dear.

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Yeah. She's like, somebody will keep you in line. I want to receive that and hear that and love

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that, that I just have good leadership skills, which is what I'm hearing. You do. Okay. That's

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what I'm hearing. You do have good leadership skills, but that may or may not have been how

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that statement was directed. There's more. Two things can be true. That's the fashion

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translation. Sorry. It must be the comment towards my immaturity and my wife being like, oh great,

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someone's going to keep you in line for a month's hour. Oh man. We're glad you're back here because

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one, it's always hilarious. We actually, this is the second time through this part of the podcast

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because our recording failed the first time. So we are real practiced at this. Real practice.

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They're going to listen to be like, this doesn't feel real practiced. So we have been doing our

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mini series through women in the Bible and how is God using them? How is he forwarding them? How is

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he forming men and women together to push forward the kingdom of God? And all throughout the series,

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we have been overemphasizing women on purpose because they have been de-emphasized in church

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culture by and large, especially over the last 400 years. This week we're going to be out of the

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Bible because we finished up the New Testament last week with Jamie and we talked about all these

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people in New Testament, talked about Priscilla and Dorcas and I love that name Dorcas by the way,

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Tabitha. She's probably like up in heaven and be like, can you just call me Tabitha?

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But we talked about all these women and what God is doing and how they were disciples and apostles

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and heralds and they were doing all the work that God was putting on for Paul and for Barnabas and

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for all these people who were working in the New Testament church and about how it was actually

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men and women coming together and this repeated refrain of men and women, men and women, men and

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women. It is not either or, it's both and. Yeah. And last three steps, so we just like skim the

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surface. Yeah. Skip to stone. Yeah, because there's only so much we can talk about in, you know,

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45 to an hour and 15 minutes. I can talk really fast, but I can't talk that fast. So this week,

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we are jumping into women in church history. This is not necessarily going to be in chronological

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order. It's kind of going to be all over the place, but we tried to, I did research on this

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a little bit. I did research on this and the more that I spent time looking into it, the more that

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I was like, there are so many stories, like so many stories. Yeah. It is shocking to me how little of

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church history we really know. I think sometimes maybe we know the history of our denomination,

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but we don't necessarily know the history of the church, which is interdenominational, right? For

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a lot of the Protestants, do you know Catholic church history? The good parts, not just the parts

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that you want to hold up to talk about why they're wrong. Yeah. There's a lot of church history.

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There's a lot of church history. And a lot of the fights and the arguments and the stupid things

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that we're dealing with today have been going on for millenniums. Yes. So true. You know how crazy

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it is to say millenniums and it to actually be true. For it to be true. Yeah. Yeah. So first

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person we want to talk about is a lady by the name of Perpetua. She was alive in AD 181 to 203.

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So she's the first female African martyr in the early church. Born in Carthage, North Africa.

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She lived at the time in Rome when Christians were being persecuted by the Roman empire. So accepting

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Jesus or becoming Jewish was punishable by death. This is very much in the line of the pinch of

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incense and like that type of thing that's going on in this time period, though not necessarily

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pinch of incense. So she was baptized and she was eventually arrested for her faith, but she

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refused to be called by anything else than a Christian. Her father actually came and he brought

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her son, her infant son, he begged her to recant her faith, but she refused to recant her faith.

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She's like, I can't recant things that are true. And even for the sake of my son, which is, I mean,

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just a heart wrenching thing as parents, but I'm not going to lie about reality because like in a

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lot of ways that's betraying my son even more. Yeah. So she's actually thrown in the arena with

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a bunch of other people. They're supposed to be attacked by wild animals and killed and mauled and

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you know, for entertainment. But after a while the animals don't kill them. So they eventually

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sent in people with swords and they actually executed her. She's one of the first martyrs.

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I do think we have a little bit of a Daniel thing going on here. Where God is looking at the

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situation. They're like, we're going to send in wild animals and these tigers and these lions,

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these bears, like, man, they're just going to eat them up. And then the God's like, don't do that.

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Yeah. Like we're going to make a statement here. If you're, if you want to take her life,

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you got to take her life. Martyrs is such a, such an important part of our story that we have to

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remember. Like we got to, we got to remember because if you're going to preach the word and

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you're actually going to live the word, like dying for the word is a significant part of your faith.

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Yep. When you say yes to Jesus and you refuse to say no, even in the face of death,

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that is a preacher. Yeah. That is a gospel bearing preacher, somebody who's willing to

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bring the kingdom of God, no matter what it costs. Those are the kinds of people that turn the world

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upside down. Absolutely. I actually have to agree with you on that because I think she'd have to.

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I have, I have to bet. It kills me. I wasn't going to, but you made a good point, finally.

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But I do think it's the lives of the martyrs that shift something. And to be honest with you,

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you would be surprised if you heard that a small town girl like me who had the opportunity to meet

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Elizabeth Elliot. Now, when I say Elizabeth Elliot, if you're in the Christian circles and you've

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learned about missionaries, this should be a name that you put up next to Cory Ten Boom and you think

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about the heroic acts that were done. And I remember being a small child and my parents were

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still married. So I was under the age of 11 and she came part of Billy Graham's crusade stuff that

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was happening in the early nineties here. And she came to our school and her story forever changed

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me of the martyred life of her husband along with the other men and at the hands of the Inca Indians.

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And that story of bravery, that story of to sit across from a widow as a young child and realize

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that she never lost her faith in God over that. It was seeds for me to see that when we bear the

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testimony of God that it's going to come with some really big things. Maybe seeing our savior sooner

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than our family members want us to. Or it's also going to come at a price where we know that we

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have to go into the ends of the earth and risk our lives. So martyrs can't be overlooked. They're so

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important. Well, I think the flip side of that is we're supposed to go where God calls. Yeah.

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And God may call you to be a faithful worker and generate money to send out to missions

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all your life. He may never call you to put your life in danger, but he does call you to work hard,

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to grow wealth, to share it, to move it, to take care of people around you, to take care of the

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poor, the hungry. And you may never actually go out in the field, but it depends on what your call is.

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And a lot of times, especially in America, we have a lot of opportunity.

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God can use the opportunity of America for you to bless the world for the gospel.

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It's not for you. It's for those around you. And it's not any less of a calling. It's not our life.

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It's his, and he gets to tell us what to do with it. And so I think about sometimes like this

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conversation where people talk about, I really liked Dominique was here. She was talking about

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people like, I really want to serve God wherever he leads. Oh, Alaska doesn't have a mall. You know?

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Mm-hmm. You don't have a big six available, you know? That's a supporting good story, by the way,

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in case, I know you're a small-town girl, so you know, so I'm not going to lie. Thanks. Jeff,

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to small town. Yeah, I almost did that. I'm not going to lie. But the reality is that you need to

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be content with wherever God calls you. And if he calls us to Africa tomorrow, we go to Africa

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tomorrow. We don't argue. We just go. Yeah. But we need to be in tune with God's call in our life.

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And so if he's calling you to the ends of the earth, you go to the ends of the earth, and he's

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calling you to be still and serve, then you be still and serve. And it really comes into this

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whole idea that we need to learn to hear the voice of God. And there are women throughout our history

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who've done exactly that. And these stories of these martyrs are people who heard the voice of

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God, responded and walked it out faithfully, even to the point of death. And there are others

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that were faithful and walked it out the rest of their life and died of old age. Yes. Yes. And there

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is not one that is better than the other. They're both faithful disciples of Christ, and we hold

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them both up in a great esteem. And we're thankful for the sacrifice of the people who are willing to

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bear the name even of the death. But one of the early church fathers in 300 is Augustine. Oh,

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hello, Augustine. Yeah, Augustine. Yeah. That's how I say it. That's fine. I listen to too much

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foot foot, so I'm like, Augustine, you know, so like in my head. So Augustine's mother was Monica.

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Yeah. And is considered to be the driving force of his salvation. So she was born in

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Tengasti, North Africa, another African, right? Her faith, prayers and Christlike life influenced

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her family to become Christians, including her husband, who was a Roman pagan. Interesting.

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Augustine, he perhaps is best known of her children, but she had a bunch of other kids.

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But I don't think you can understate like the call, because we're talking about women in ministry.

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Sure. 100%. You also can't negate the call of motherhood. Absolutely. And what does motherhood

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bring about like actually instilling in your kids and leading them to actually be a part of what

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God is calling into the world? Like the one of the most important things we do as parents is we

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teach our kids to understand and recognize the person of God, to be in relationship, because I

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don't want my kids just follow what I have to say. I want them to know God, because if they know God,

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I know that they're connected with the thing that can save them, because I can't save them.

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Yeah. But I can introduce them to the guy who can. I actually really do like Augustine a lot.

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There are a couple of his writings that I've had issues with. Outside of that, he, man, that guy

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tried real hard. In an era, he was really trying to push the kingdom forward. Oh, we've said it

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here before. If you are given the opportunity to speak, proclaim the gospel, you will speak heresy

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at some point. At some point. Don't judge someone who's in ministry because they said one bad thing

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for in cold. We can so often do that. Yeah. Rather, if you're looking for, we said it last week,

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if you're looking for good examples to follow, look for those leaders who have a repentive heart

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and are willing to be like, Hey, I said this, I got that wrong. Yeah. I don't know. Augustine's

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no different. I am sure he said the things that were off. Absolutely. I really don't want to

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undersell how important parents are in the lives of their kids. We're talking about the mother in

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this case, but mothers and fathers are really important in the lives of their kids because

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they model what it means to be an adult. They model what it means to have a, by the way, fathers,

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if you want your kids to honor and respect and cherish women, you have to, because they're

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going to learn that behavior from you. And so if you ever have a kid that grows up and you're like,

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man, why are they so well, there's a mirror. Let's go take a look at it. You know, a lot of the

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learned behavior of males, especially your boys, like my boys, I, if I see them acting in a way,

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I'm like, where did they get that? And Spencer came over and you know, that was probably,

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it's always Spencer. Yeah. Jumping into another person in history, there's this really cool person

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named Claire of Assisi, right? That wasn't her written name originally. She was born into an

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Italian family of high status, Italy, tons of money. She was the oldest of three girls. Her mother was

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religious and taught them about Jesus, which impacted her. And she fell deeply in love with

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Jesus, had a dedication to prayer. But when she was 17, she was arranged to be married to a wealthy

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guy, married off by her dad. But Claire grieved the poor in her community. And then she heard a

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guy by the name of St. Francis of Assisi, who you may or may not be familiar with, talking about the

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gospel. And she was so moved that at 18, she would give her worldly possessions and she joined him at

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a small Catholic church within the Basilica of St. Mary in Assisi, where the Franciscan movement

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started and became one of Francis's first followers, or we would call them disciples, right?

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Mm-hmm. So then she founded actually the monastic religious order called the Order of Four Ladies,

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known as Four Clares, which, I mean, is just fantastic. I love it. It doesn't translate

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as well to English as it does in Italian. Yeah. So they lived their life focused on prayer,

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community, and joy. And when other women wanted to join the order, including her mother and sisters,

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Francis of Assisi made her an abbess. In other words, she was now in charge, a position she held

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until her death. She believed that the privileged world, the people who had wealth she had been

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surrounded by, though it appeared exciting, passes like a shadow, because your wealth isn't

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that important. Her legacy, even to this day, lies on in the importance of women in the Franciscan

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story, right? So she's a pivotal woman in the Franciscan line. We talk about monks, we talk about,

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you know, abbots, we talk about... If you're not super familiar with Catholicism and like some of

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their history, then you're... That might just, like I said, if you're a Protestant. But she was moved

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by her compassion for the poor. She grew up wealthy and rejected it. Now, once again, I want to point

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out that wealth isn't the problem, but when wealth rules you, it's a problem. But now they have these

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communities that actually go in there, they're actually servicing people. And like women who

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wanted to devote their life to service to God are able to actually, were part of this order in a

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place where they didn't have opportunity. Now they're able to actually devote their entire life.

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They're more than just getting married. They're actually devoting their entire life and being

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in existence to the forwarding of the gospel. It was powerful. Like those are powerful stories.

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So I had the privilege when I was going to the School of Spiritual Direction,

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I had the privilege to read a lot about the Desert Mother and Fathers and the monastic movements and,

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you know, Francis of Assisi. But actually one that I really love during this time period of

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the desert movement and, you know, these hillgroomages happening to go out where people

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were giving away all of their riches and choosing a life of poverty and teaching people what

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confession really was and what life was like in the divine. You can't help but talk about

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St. Teresa of Avila. And she wrote this phenomenal book on Mansions of the Heart that at the time,

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for me, being raised evangelical in the Mennon-Crosseville Church, like I still was really struggling

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with a lot of reading Augustine and Francis of Assisi and Ignatius. And I'm like, oh, this is just

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a little bit too much for me. But when she started giving language to what was happening in my soul

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as I was becoming more aware of the divine dance, the trinity around me, she gave imagery of what it

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looks like as you're moving from different rooms in your house, in your hearts. And it just gave me

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language. And actually one of her mentors, I don't know if you guys know much about St. John of the

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Cross. I mean, I know things, but I wouldn't say that I necessarily it's like in my recall. So he

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wrote a very well known book called Dark Night of the Soul. And this is it talks about how your soul

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moves from places of consolation where you're on the highs and highs of being with God and you're

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in the, then you go to desolation, the lows and lows. This book is well known in theological

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circles, but he was her mentor. He was a mentor of Teresa of Avila. And when his Carmelite brothers

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were struggling with a lot of debauchery happening within their communities, he asked St. Teresa of

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Avila to come over and reform the teaching. And his Carmelite brothers were so pissed off that they

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hired people to come and capture him and they imprisoned him. And it was during this imprisonment

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that they kept coming to him and telling him, get rid of St. Teresa of Avila. We don't want a woman

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coming in and telling us how we should be doing things. And while he was being imprisoned by his

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brothers, he wrote Dark Night of the Soul where he was saying, I will not remove her. God has called

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her for this work. And that story, I just remember being blessed because you mentioned my pastor.

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And I have had a mentor in my life like that who has suffered loss in his flock because he's chosen

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to say, I will not deny the fact that God has a call on this woman and I'm making a way for her.

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So that movement, I have to plug that in there that this monastic movement was so important because

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women really started being able to have a voice. And they were being seen as equals.

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06 And a lot of times they're getting an opportunity to write and distribute their writings too,

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which is a big, big move, right?

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06 Very big move. When you talk about writers, then you have to immediately talk about Fanny

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Crosby. And we actually have Fanny Crosby in our line. Yeah.

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06 Yes. We can't not talk about the fact that when there were all of these other writers

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writing well-known hymns, here comes Fanny Crosby with Blessed Assurance.

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06 Yeah. Well, let's talk about Fanny Crosby. We'll just get out of line in our outline because

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I want to, like you mentioned her, like 600 plus. Just a really firm grasp of poetic nature,

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like putting simple truths into poetic nature. Like the heart of a worship leader is on clear

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display in Fanny Crosby's writing. Now, the ironic thing is that sometimes people now look at her

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stuff and then they're like, oh, you know, like we got to go traditional, you know, blah, blah,

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and Fanny Crosby, I feel like with her character, she would be all about the newest music we got.

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07 Yeah.

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08 Fanny Crosby was not traditional.

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09 No. In fact, I love how supportive her husband was.

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09 Yes.

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010 Because like he came in and he's the music guy. And so he'll write the music. I was like,

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I'm just going to support you. God is doing something great in your life. I'm going to stand

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right behind you and support you. And if there are any doors that she couldn't open, he'd kick

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them open for her. You know? And I love that the most prolific hymn writer, like in history,

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is definitely a blind woman. Blind woman, right?

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08 Blind woman. I mean, you want to just talk about the faithfulness of God. I think

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that what was taken away from her and the brokenness of the world, resulting in loss of sight,

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God heightened her spiritual senses, which I think is why we see such beautiful poetry

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in the lines that she's writing, that what she couldn't see in her humanity,

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I think that got awoken her spirit to it.

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09 I don't know if you're aware of this. This is an interesting thing about Fanny Crosby is that

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did you know that she had both the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, what we call

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the Torah, and the Gospels? Yeah, along with many Psalms and Proverbs, memorized. So she could just

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actually rip it out. So when she's writing these music, she's trying to ground them in theological

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truths. Now, I think that it's definitely like some of the language needs to be updated because

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it was written 400 years ago. But there are just like timeless truths that are in her music and

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poetic nature is very stirring. You know?

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010 It is.

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012 But you also have to talk about the authority that music has,

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yeah, especially lyrically, the satyic Psalms, for example, like Psalms were meant to be either

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prayers or songs or so on and so forth. There's actually authority that is being proclaimed

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through the lyrics that are being sung. This is like one of the graphs I get when people are like

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women can't be pastors. I was like, there's authority being proclaimed as their leading worship.

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013 Yeah.

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014 Spencer, that's good.

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015 So it's like, where do you draw the line? If you're trying to draw a line, where are you

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trying to draw a line? Because I mean, you look at, because in theory, in theory, worship songs,

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pray songs, like once Fanny Crosby or writing are based in scripture.

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016 Correct.

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017 Correct.

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018 Singing your singing is proclamation of scripture.

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018 Yes.

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019 Proclamation of scripture.

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019 Yeah.

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019 Or a dog of faith.

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019 Or a scriptural truth.

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019 Mm-hmm.

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020 Right?

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021 Yes.

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022 Yes.

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023 Yeah. Because sometimes, especially in worship music, I think the lying people like,

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you know, it's not really, that's not in the Bible. I was like, no, but it is a biblical truth

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that's being proclaimed.

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024 Yes.

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025 Like the biblical truth is found in the Bible.

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026 Yeah.

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027 And they're expressing it in a way that's actually experiential to their location,

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like what's going on in their life. And I was like, you need to engage worship music in love

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and context. Like my assumption is that the person is trying to proclaim something that God is doing

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in their life. And so we always need to, you know, come at it with grace. And even if it doesn't

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connect with me, it doesn't mean that it's a bad song. It just may not be something that I put in

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my church. I'm not going to judge a person for it. It may be something that connects with their

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church really well, you know, Fanny Cross with so many songs, so many songs. Obviously the best

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well-known one is Blessed Assurance because that one is just, has just endured for a really long

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time, though I'm not a big fan of nine eight. So I may have a conversation with her husband at

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some point, you know, it just, it just makes things very difficult.

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025 It's going to learn how to play.

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026 Yeah. For those of you that are not musically inclined, nine eight is a time signature that is,

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I mean, I can't prove it, but it's probably from the devil.

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027 It's from the devil.

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028 It's got origins from Hades. Origins from Hades.

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028 I was laughing, like the drummer in the room was like, okay, nine eight, let's go.

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028 Yeah, I know you don't care. It's trying to, trying to play a rhythm on the guitar,

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though, in nine eight, not great.

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028 Oh, it does, sir.

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028 Yeah.

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028 You were.

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028 Yeah. And not at the same time of Fanny Cross, but actually in 1495 to 1561 was a lady by the

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name of Marie Dentiere. Do you know who that is?

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028 I don't.

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028 So this is during the Reformation. So she is a, she's a German, was born in modern day Belgium

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to a wealthy family and entered an Augustine nunnery in 1508, okay. But she converted during

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the Reformation. Like during the Reformation, she converts, then she flees and she ends up in

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Strausburg in 1524, where she meets her husband and she gets married. Then her and her husband

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are actually pastoring at this church together, pastoring, preaching, both of them together during

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this time. And then her husband dies and then she continues to pastor the church after he died.

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During the Reformation in Germany, we have a woman who is pastoring a church of like many,

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many people, right? And she was contemporary speakers with John Calvin.

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028 Interesting.

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028 Going to similar locations and her writings are out there as well.

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She was a very influential church. You could actually read a little bit about it in,

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I'm going to recommend a church history book that's really simple to read.

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It's Bruce Shelley's Church History in Plain English. Check that out, it'll make it a lot

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easier for you. It does not get into the nuance, but it's a lot easier to read.

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029 It's a great book if you're one like a good overview on church history.

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029 Yeah, a mile wide and an inch deep.

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029 Yeah, that's his message.

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029 Yeah, he's pretty upfront about that. Like that's what he's doing.

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She was also passionate for a larger woman for a woman in the church, which upset Geneva authorities.

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029 Shocking.

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029 But she's the, she's actually the only woman who is named on the

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029 Reformation wall in Geneva though.

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029 Wow.

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029 Wow.

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029 Isn't that crazy?

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029 Yeah.

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029 Yeah, I just love that contemporary of Calvin.

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A lot of people who tend to come from a, I'm going to say a traditional or reform base

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where they are against women being ministers, cite their roots back to the Reformation.

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029 Yeah.

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029 It's happening then.

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029 So just want to let you know that.

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029 God is always upsetting your apple cart.

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029 Yep.

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029 You know, he's always upsetting your apple cart because that's not what we're doing.

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029 So are you familiar with a lady by the name of Margaret Fell Fox?

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029 No.

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029 You're not. There is a lot of women in church history and we are literally skipping a stone.

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029 So 1614 to 1702. She is married to a guy by the name of Thomas Fell, who was a wealthy lawyer

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and eventually justice of the peace and member of the English parliament.

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029 Okay.

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029 So she decided to use her largest state for God's service, often hosted traveling ministers.

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029 In 1652, she met George Fox, a preacher who had gained a following known as the Society of

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Friends, which we know today as the Quakers, who had come to stay with her at the estate.

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029 Now they impacted her so much that she started hosting meetings and fighting for religious

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freedom and she started printing, printing religious pamphlets and letters.

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029 Now listen to the title of these, her famous women speaking justified by the scriptures.

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029 That's one of her books, right?

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029 When she unpacks patches from Genesis to Revelation that promote women in ministry

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and for equality in the sexes in the power and authority of the Spirit.

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029 In the 16...

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029 We should have had, yeah, in the 1690s, we should have had her on this podcast.

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029 I don't know how we would have done that. We found a medium or something.

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029 So after her husband passed, she hosted the society meetings in her home until she

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was arrested in 1664 and sentenced to life in prison.

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029 And she was released four and a half years later as she married George Fox.

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029 Together they traveled and preached until his death in 1691.

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029 Together they traveled.

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029 Together they traveled and preached. Yeah. I love that this book is from, yeah,

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we're looking at 1600s. So good. So good.

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029 Is that the second, that's the second woman on the list who has been married and co-passered

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with, essentially co-passered with her spouse.

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029 Yeah. You know, and it's not surprising that they would partner together, right?

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029 Yeah.

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029 It also speaks not only, can we talk about your husband and how awesome he is?

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029 You absolutely can. Because I was thinking about that in Fanny Crosby's,

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it's been, it made me think of him.

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029 It is really hard to be a woman in ministry today,

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because like you're very unsupported and the people who do support you

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are doing the best they can to have grace with the people who don't.

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Because we're trying to follow the way of Jesus.

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029 The husbands of these women, I really want to commend them for

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being willing to lay themselves down on their behalf. I really think that they take to heart

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when Paul says, husbands, you lay down your life on behalf of your wives, as Christ did for the

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church. There is a number of amount of shame and degradation that comes to the men as well.

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You hear things like, you know, get your women in line. I was like, first of all,

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he be quiet.

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029 Yeah. Ask your husband, ask my husband, if he's ever been asked that question. Absolutely.

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029 I guarantee he's been told that.

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029 Absolutely. Yep.

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029 I would love to hear his response, so it's probably not appropriate for the podcast.

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029 No, but I think, you know, when I think about, I don't want to always just focus on women,

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you know, that had to be married in order to make massive kingdom advancements, or to talk about,

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you know, Teresa of Avila, that it took, you know, St. John of the Cross to really fight for her.

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029 But I think there is something to be said that when a woman is called to

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be betrayal, not a well-known path, that if a woman is going to have the strength to do it,

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that she has to know that her husband is strong enough to deal with the backlash.

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029 Well, I think this comes back to this idea of it's not women or men, it's both. And we're

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meant to do this together.

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029 We're both called. I have the privilege right now where we are onboarding two new interns,

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and they are saying yes to the call. And they're in their early 20s, and we're talking about some

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stuff. And I was letting this young person know, I said, you know, it's really time for you to start

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seeing that the answer to the call is not just you saying yes, it's actually the person that

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you're getting ready to get married to here shortly. And that both of you have to have the call.

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029 And is your spouse falling in with that and seeing that their call may not be front and center

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like your call is? And how is that spouse going to still see that their call is maybe sitting in

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the back row, holding a nursing baby every couple years, maybe now it's running the whole tech

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ministry? Or as you guys can attest, your wives are not silent partners in your roles in ministry.

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Your wives are standing side by side with you. And when I think about-

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029 You know, my wife is a deacon of the church, right?

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029 Yes.

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029 Yeah.

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029 I love it.

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029 Yeah.

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029 They asked me and I'm like, what about Tara?

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029 But that is, but thank you though, because inevitably still in this day and age,

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there are tables that you guys are invited to sit at that I'm not. And there's tables that my husband

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is invited to sit at. And he's not even, you know, the pastor. And, you know, it's just really,

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you're going to naturally just go to him because he's the man. And-

398
00:30:13,040 --> 00:30:16,560
029 Sarah, what I'm going to tell you is any table I get invited to that you're not allowed to,

399
00:30:16,560 --> 00:30:17,520
I'll pull up a seat for you.

400
00:30:17,520 --> 00:30:18,480
029 Thanks, Ben.

401
00:30:18,480 --> 00:30:22,400
029 Yeah. Unless it has something to do with my sense of humor. And then I'm probably going to

402
00:30:22,400 --> 00:30:24,880
leave you out. But that has nothing to do with you.

403
00:30:24,880 --> 00:30:27,840
029 I'll trust you on that decision then.

404
00:30:27,840 --> 00:30:30,800
029 That has nothing to do with you being a woman. That has something to do with my

405
00:30:30,800 --> 00:30:36,640
particular personality. It's been too long since we last, so I thought I'd throw something in there.

406
00:30:36,640 --> 00:30:40,960
Yeah. No, it's very difficult. It's very difficult. And I'm getting kind of tired

407
00:30:40,960 --> 00:30:44,240
of having this conversation. And so one of the reasons we do this ministry is because we want

408
00:30:44,240 --> 00:30:48,640
to be very clear. And listen, if this is a make or break moment for listening to us, like probably

409
00:30:48,640 --> 00:30:51,360
stop listening to us because we're going to proceed with the thought that God's going to

410
00:30:51,360 --> 00:30:55,280
use people regardless of their gender. And He's going to raise people up regardless of their

411
00:30:55,280 --> 00:30:58,800
gender. And He's going to call them regardless of their gender. He's also going to call them

412
00:30:58,800 --> 00:31:04,000
regardless of their socioeconomic standing. And whether or not they're a Jew or a Gentile.

413
00:31:04,000 --> 00:31:07,920
I feel like there's a Bible passage about that somewhere. It's, you know, it's eluding me.

414
00:31:07,920 --> 00:31:14,320
It's not. Yeah. And I think too that, you know, when we look at these women in the early church

415
00:31:14,320 --> 00:31:21,680
history, we're really seeing hearts of humility. We're not seeing women that are pushing agenda.

416
00:31:22,560 --> 00:31:28,640
And even when you talk about Claire of Assisi, you know, even if she formed the Poor Clares,

417
00:31:29,360 --> 00:31:33,280
she wasn't doing that to say that women were better. She was just saying, I'm making room

418
00:31:33,280 --> 00:31:37,440
because we want to say yes. And I think that's the most important thing when we're looking at

419
00:31:37,440 --> 00:31:44,080
all of this is that ever since the very beginning, we were all created to worship. We were all created

420
00:31:44,080 --> 00:31:52,240
to love God. And that's in each and every one of us, each gender, male and female. And we all have

421
00:31:52,240 --> 00:31:56,480
that heart's cry. I love A.B. Simpson. He's the founder of the Christian Missionary Alliance. He

422
00:31:56,480 --> 00:32:00,720
has this really simple phrase and I've just been saying it over and over again, because I think

423
00:32:00,720 --> 00:32:08,880
that's where my heart is just longing. And it says, in the heart of man, a cry in the heart of God

424
00:32:09,840 --> 00:32:17,200
supply. And I've just been resting on those four because when we look at these women,

425
00:32:17,200 --> 00:32:21,360
I don't think that any of these women were like, I'm going to go do this because I can't wait to

426
00:32:21,360 --> 00:32:27,040
get everyone looking at me and I get to tell all the men what to do because the very first

427
00:32:27,040 --> 00:32:33,600
woman you talked about lost her baby. And I can tell you that there have been conversations where

428
00:32:33,600 --> 00:32:40,320
I have been sitting on the couch weeping and that is never a good thing when you see me crying.

429
00:32:40,320 --> 00:32:44,240
And my husband could probably tell you on two hands how many times he's watched me cry.

430
00:32:44,880 --> 00:32:48,880
And to see me weeping and saying, I don't know if I can take another

431
00:32:48,880 --> 00:32:56,320
coup. I don't know if I can take another group coming against whether or not I can share what

432
00:32:56,320 --> 00:33:02,000
God has revealed to me in my personal study while I've been breathing and meditating on His Word

433
00:33:02,000 --> 00:33:10,000
day and night. And I don't want to get up there. I don't want to be up there. And I think I really

434
00:33:10,000 --> 00:33:15,280
wish if we could sit with some of these women and just ask them, where was the crossroad for you

435
00:33:15,280 --> 00:33:21,600
where you had to decide if I keep moving forward, it's for Him because I don't got anything left in

436
00:33:21,600 --> 00:33:28,000
me. Because I think that all of these women came to a moment where society and everywhere around

437
00:33:28,000 --> 00:33:34,160
them was saying, step down, shut up, be quiet. And these women came to a part where they're like,

438
00:33:34,160 --> 00:33:40,640
okay, I'm going to lose my children. I'm going to lose my family. I'm going to lose reputation in

439
00:33:40,640 --> 00:33:47,440
my community. That they all came to this part where they were saying to live for Christ.

440
00:33:47,920 --> 00:33:52,800
I think you're really nailing that on the head here is they came in contact with the true gospel,

441
00:33:52,800 --> 00:33:57,600
which is that Jesus said the kingdom of heaven is here. It's time to come back. Those that are on

442
00:33:57,600 --> 00:34:01,280
the outside are being welcomed in. We talked about in the line of Jesus, there was multiple

443
00:34:01,280 --> 00:34:06,480
women mentioned who had terrible stories. Not great stories, with the exception of Ruth, except

444
00:34:06,480 --> 00:34:11,840
she was still a Moabitess, which is not good for the Old Testament. And these awkward stories of

445
00:34:11,840 --> 00:34:15,040
all these people who are on the outside. And then you think about the Sermon on the Mount that

446
00:34:15,040 --> 00:34:19,360
happened in the Book of Matthew, it says, blessed are the meek. Yep, those are the people we're

447
00:34:19,360 --> 00:34:25,520
talking about. Let's get the meek on up here. Blessed are the poor in spirit. Because the kingdom

448
00:34:25,520 --> 00:34:29,120
is not what you think it is. It's those people that you think don't belong here, the ones who

449
00:34:29,120 --> 00:34:33,040
are actually being welcomed in. Those that you think are in authority are actually the ones who

450
00:34:33,040 --> 00:34:36,640
are underneath those that are being brought in. And it's actually about those people who are being

451
00:34:36,640 --> 00:34:40,720
brought in. Now, if you're a tax collector, if you're a woman, if you're an orphan, you hear this,

452
00:34:40,720 --> 00:34:47,600
or you're a foreigner, and you hear this and you're like, oh, the kingdom's for me. And these women,

453
00:34:47,600 --> 00:34:51,600
they're serving and they encounter Jesus and they actually encounter the true gospel, which is that

454
00:34:51,600 --> 00:34:55,840
if you're on the outside, you're welcome in. It doesn't matter what your status was, you're welcome

455
00:34:55,840 --> 00:35:00,320
in. It doesn't matter what your education is, you're welcome in. Doesn't matter what your gender is,

456
00:35:00,320 --> 00:35:07,520
you're welcome in. I love the fact that the very first form of humanity that Christ redeemed

457
00:35:09,760 --> 00:35:17,200
was a woman, was a 12 or 13 year old girl that should have been killed by stones.

458
00:35:18,480 --> 00:35:27,280
But because of his testimony, his proof of life, what the angels delivered to Joseph and Mary,

459
00:35:27,280 --> 00:35:35,280
the very first gender he redeems as a woman. One of the hardest things about that story for Mary,

460
00:35:36,720 --> 00:35:42,160
hopefully this is a piece of encouragement for you. Joseph and Mary walked the rest of their lives

461
00:35:42,160 --> 00:35:47,280
with people's shame scorning them when they were the very parents of the Messiah.

462
00:35:48,800 --> 00:35:53,280
For their entire life, and Joseph probably died in shame, and it's likely that Mary did too,

463
00:35:53,280 --> 00:35:56,800
with people still assuming that she was just had a child out of wedlock. They walked their

464
00:35:56,800 --> 00:36:01,360
entire life. Now, vindication came in heaven and it came in the story of the gospel,

465
00:36:01,920 --> 00:36:07,600
but they walked their entire lives to that shame. And so sometimes when we get called to follow God,

466
00:36:07,600 --> 00:36:11,120
especially if we're going to actually be a part of his story and changing the world,

467
00:36:11,120 --> 00:36:17,520
we're going to walk with shame, but not from him, never from him. And I guarantee you that if

468
00:36:17,520 --> 00:36:23,760
somebody is authentically serving God, it doesn't matter their gender, their creed, their specific

469
00:36:23,760 --> 00:36:28,560
characteristics, they may have shame from the world, but it's never from God. God's like,

470
00:36:28,560 --> 00:36:34,080
I love that you're willing to step up. Let's go. Speaking of step up, we had a guest here a couple

471
00:36:34,080 --> 00:36:39,440
weeks ago, Captain Shelby from the Salvation Army, and there's a lady from the Salvation Army by the

472
00:36:39,440 --> 00:36:46,880
name of Katherine Booth, 1829 to 1890. And she told us a little bit about the Booths, but essentially

473
00:36:46,880 --> 00:36:52,560
her and her husband together were pastors. And by the way, the Salvation Army has been ordaining

474
00:36:52,560 --> 00:36:59,600
women for a long time, hundreds of years. And they've been, but what are the Salvation Army,

475
00:36:59,600 --> 00:37:04,960
like what are they mostly known for? Serving their communities. Yeah. The poor, the needy.

476
00:37:04,960 --> 00:37:09,520
Evangelical church, but they're known for serving the poor and needy and reaching out to those

477
00:37:09,520 --> 00:37:20,480
people on the outside. Like they have national coverage by secular organizations that help them

478
00:37:20,480 --> 00:37:24,800
because they do good work. Now I think it's easy. Of course you could say, I know somebody who serves

479
00:37:24,800 --> 00:37:28,080
in Salvation Army and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I don't care. We're talking about the

480
00:37:28,080 --> 00:37:32,960
organization as a whole. God is blessing in working through. To be fair, you can say that about nearly

481
00:37:32,960 --> 00:37:37,760
any organization. Yeah. I mean, you can say that about me, depending which day you talk to me.

482
00:37:37,760 --> 00:37:46,080
This is a true story. Oh man. But like her story is just so cool. By the way, I don't know if you

483
00:37:46,080 --> 00:37:50,400
actually know that she was a big studier of Finney and John Williams. She was a big studier of

484
00:37:50,400 --> 00:37:58,560
John Wesley. That's a no for Spencer because he does a lot of study in John Wesley. It's so good.

485
00:37:59,760 --> 00:38:03,360
The story of Salvation Army and what they're doing is just so good. I want to talk about somebody

486
00:38:03,360 --> 00:38:06,960
that came up in Southern Baptist culture. There's a lady by the name of Lottie Moon.

487
00:38:07,520 --> 00:38:15,200
Familiar with Lottie Moon? No, actually. So she was 1840, 1912. So she was a missionary into China.

488
00:38:15,200 --> 00:38:19,600
And so she went into China. Her sister went before her and then she went. And when she got over there

489
00:38:19,600 --> 00:38:24,000
like doing their, they're trying to do ministry, it was difficult to share the gospel in China

490
00:38:24,000 --> 00:38:29,760
because it's China, you know, and China does a love and Christians. Yeah. You know what she started

491
00:38:29,760 --> 00:38:35,120
doing? She started like teaching people how to knit. And while she was knitting, she would start

492
00:38:35,120 --> 00:38:39,840
sharing the gospel piece by piece. And these women started believing and then their families

493
00:38:39,840 --> 00:38:43,440
started believing. And then they'd come to her knitting circles. And so she was proclaiming the

494
00:38:43,440 --> 00:38:48,160
gospel and preaching over and over and over and over and over again, over knitting needles.

495
00:38:48,160 --> 00:38:52,320
I love it. Because she took something she knew how to do and she used it for the glory of God.

496
00:38:53,200 --> 00:38:57,440
She's like, I'm going to take whatever I can do and I'm going to put it in God's hands and see

497
00:38:57,440 --> 00:39:02,800
what he creates. Sometimes I think that we were like, we need to feed 5,000 people. We should go

498
00:39:02,800 --> 00:39:07,120
buy truckloads of food and God's like, what do you got? Five loaves, two fish. I got it. Yeah.

499
00:39:08,240 --> 00:39:14,320
Yeah. That's enough. He bring me what you got. I'll multiply it. But you come and bring me what

500
00:39:14,320 --> 00:39:18,480
you got and lay it all down. And then so she was always messaging back and the Southern Baptist

501
00:39:18,480 --> 00:39:22,080
every year, by the way, have a lot of moon. It's an offering that before foreign missionaries,

502
00:39:22,800 --> 00:39:28,240
because she was always writing back and asking people to send money. During the war of 1912,

503
00:39:28,240 --> 00:39:32,720
she ended up like, she turned her home into a hostel and she actually fed and cared for just

504
00:39:32,720 --> 00:39:37,760
a ton of people during 1912, getting people to send her money. And eventually she did get sick

505
00:39:37,760 --> 00:39:43,760
and ended up passing away on the mission field. But like her impact was massive, just massive.

506
00:39:43,760 --> 00:39:48,160
That's massive, massive impact. The thing I love about her story is

507
00:39:49,840 --> 00:39:56,640
her whole missions journey in China was so simple. Like it wasn't, like you're saying,

508
00:39:56,640 --> 00:40:02,800
it wasn't the feeding the 5,000. It wasn't the Billy Graham style conferences or that type stuff.

509
00:40:02,800 --> 00:40:09,360
It was a simple, I'm going to enter into your world where you're at and just join with you

510
00:40:09,360 --> 00:40:16,640
in what you're doing and bring Jesus into that space. The power that comes with that is huge.

511
00:40:19,280 --> 00:40:22,160
I want to jump into some different cultures because I want to talk about just like cool

512
00:40:22,160 --> 00:40:26,160
things this guy's been doing throughout like different countries. So there was a lady by the

513
00:40:26,160 --> 00:40:34,080
name of Paulina Diamino is 1858 to 1942. Spread of Christianity in Africa had been happening by

514
00:40:34,080 --> 00:40:40,560
British colonies. So she was the daughter of a Zulu war chief who was pledged to be married to

515
00:40:40,560 --> 00:40:46,320
another Zulu war chief. Like in other words, she was being like married away for like tribal

516
00:40:46,320 --> 00:40:50,160
connections and things like that. So she came in contact with some Christian missionaries who

517
00:40:50,160 --> 00:40:54,720
shared the message. And when the British colonists actually came in and they provoked a civil war,

518
00:40:54,720 --> 00:41:00,080
her clan was actually like completely decimated. And so then she was left without going into and

519
00:41:00,080 --> 00:41:04,400
being married. But she'd listened to the missionaries, she convinced and accepted the work of Jesus

520
00:41:04,400 --> 00:41:08,640
Christ. And then she became an evangelist, a laser focused on the Zulu people and started

521
00:41:08,640 --> 00:41:12,720
converting the Zulu people. And then suddenly there's like 14 churches of Zulu people

522
00:41:12,720 --> 00:41:18,240
because of her work that's going on. And then not only that, she saw a British colonizer that was

523
00:41:18,240 --> 00:41:27,040
beating slaves. And she started to preach to him about the gospel. And he stopped beating his

524
00:41:27,040 --> 00:41:32,080
workers and became a Christian. And it was a key person in and then later became a key person in

525
00:41:32,080 --> 00:41:37,840
her ministry. And seeing such a change in his life, the people were then more receptive to her

526
00:41:37,840 --> 00:41:41,440
message all throughout that region because the British colonizer heard the words of God coming

527
00:41:41,440 --> 00:41:47,040
from her mouth. By the way, this is a woman preaching to a man, bringing her authority to a man,

528
00:41:47,760 --> 00:41:53,920
her authority from God to a man and changed his life. And because of the change in his life,

529
00:41:53,920 --> 00:42:00,160
suddenly this whole region is shifting. What we were talking about a few weeks ago is like,

530
00:42:00,720 --> 00:42:05,040
if somebody is preaching the good news and people are lives are being changed, like maybe we need

531
00:42:05,040 --> 00:42:12,320
to calm down and try to get them to stop. Even if we just disagree. That's such a cool story.

532
00:42:13,520 --> 00:42:16,800
Now I'm going to go, I'm not going to lie to you guys, I'm going to have trouble with this name.

533
00:42:16,800 --> 00:42:24,320
It is Sai Su Xuan. I am not probably saying that correct, but she also went by Christiana,

534
00:42:24,320 --> 00:42:33,040
1890 to 1984. So she was in China and she was an unhappy child that was going to become a Buddhist

535
00:42:33,040 --> 00:42:40,160
monk. However, she heard a preacher talk about Jesus at school and decided to put her faith in

536
00:42:40,160 --> 00:42:45,600
Jesus, which enraged her family, which is kind of weird when you think about the fact that they're

537
00:42:45,600 --> 00:42:50,640
Buddhist, but you know, whatever they were enraged after. So after graduating, she was

538
00:42:50,640 --> 00:42:55,200
offered a ton of jobs. She declined them all and decided to go home and witness Jesus to her family

539
00:42:55,840 --> 00:43:04,000
and 55 of them, including her mother, eventually came to faith. 55 because she heard a preacher

540
00:43:04,000 --> 00:43:09,920
talk at her school and trusted in Jesus and then carried that message. She became an apostle,

541
00:43:09,920 --> 00:43:15,040
carrying the message from the kingdom to her homeland. She actually had people coming

542
00:43:15,040 --> 00:43:20,480
regularly to hear her preach like that the whole region came to know her during World War II.

543
00:43:21,200 --> 00:43:27,200
It was cool. These are cool stories. You just don't know. One more person I want to talk about

544
00:43:27,200 --> 00:43:32,480
before we get into one of my favorite women in recent history, there is Amy Carmichael.

545
00:43:32,480 --> 00:43:40,000
Amy Carmichael, she was 1867 1951 born in Ireland to devout Scottish Presbyterian parents.

546
00:43:41,200 --> 00:43:47,040
Born in Ireland is Scottish parents. Okay. So she converted to Christianity when she was 14.

547
00:43:47,040 --> 00:43:52,480
She joined the Christian Missionary Society and served in Japan for 15 months before she found her

548
00:43:52,480 --> 00:43:58,240
lifelong vocation. Then she founded the, wow, I'm not going to say that down, Navarra fellowship,

549
00:43:58,240 --> 00:44:02,960
which provided sanctuary for over 1000 children whose parents had dedicated their children to the

550
00:44:02,960 --> 00:44:07,520
gods and lived in moral and spiritual danger. Now, if you understand dedicated their children

551
00:44:07,520 --> 00:44:11,360
to the gods, it likely is that they're going to sacrifice them. You're like, that stuff only

552
00:44:11,360 --> 00:44:14,160
happens in the Bible. Well, apparently it was happening in the 1800s and it still happens in

553
00:44:14,160 --> 00:44:20,480
places. There is a book called Everybody Always by Bob Gough. In the back half of his book,

554
00:44:20,480 --> 00:44:27,440
he talks about working with a foreign country to get witch doctors arrested because they are

555
00:44:27,440 --> 00:44:32,240
sacrificing children for power. But then he also talks about how he went into the jails and started

556
00:44:32,240 --> 00:44:36,640
working with the witch doctors and one came to Christ and led the entire jail to Christ.

557
00:44:37,280 --> 00:44:40,960
This is not something that's not happening in the world. It's still happening in the world.

558
00:44:40,960 --> 00:44:47,840
Yeah. So Carmichael has a couple of books. She has one called The Gold Cord and Things As They

559
00:44:47,840 --> 00:44:53,280
Are, Mission Work in Southern India. She was in bedridden for the last two decades of her life,

560
00:44:53,280 --> 00:44:58,720
but published 16 additional books before her death in 1951. So she may have been stuck on bed,

561
00:44:58,720 --> 00:45:05,040
but she did some stuff while she was there. Yep. So this next one, I've read multiple books by her,

562
00:45:05,600 --> 00:45:11,760
Cory Tinboon. If you're not familiar with this story, I highly recommend finding a book called

563
00:45:11,760 --> 00:45:16,320
The Hiding Place and reading about her. So one of my favorite people that she mentions in her book

564
00:45:16,320 --> 00:45:22,080
and writes a lot about is her dad. Her dad is just a really solid dude and it's no wonder that they

565
00:45:22,080 --> 00:45:27,520
turned out the way they did. I believe her mom died early, but her dad was just, he was so

566
00:45:27,520 --> 00:45:34,160
solid in his faith and he did not hold back his daughters from anything. So if you are not familiar

567
00:45:34,160 --> 00:45:38,720
with Cory Tinboon, do you know enough about her to tell the listeners about her? I'm going to listen

568
00:45:38,720 --> 00:45:45,600
to you and I'll add in as if you leave anything out. So early on in World War II, the Nazi Germany

569
00:45:45,600 --> 00:45:49,520
was going through and they were collecting Jewish people. First, they were persecuting them, getting

570
00:45:49,520 --> 00:45:54,080
them to pay fines, stealing their property, kicking them out of jobs, putting them into homeless

571
00:45:54,080 --> 00:45:58,640
natures. A lot of things just to persecute Jews all throughout their area. She lived in the

572
00:45:58,640 --> 00:46:03,440
Netherlands. So that area wasn't necessarily, it wasn't as bad as in Germany, but it was quickly

573
00:46:03,440 --> 00:46:08,320
becoming like that because it came under German control. When it got to the point where they were

574
00:46:08,320 --> 00:46:13,520
actually starting to herd Jews up to actually send to the concentration camps to eliminate them,

575
00:46:13,520 --> 00:46:17,040
you can read about some of that stuff in Dietrich Bonheifer when he's writing about it.

576
00:46:17,040 --> 00:46:24,400
She, her dad, and a few, like all of her family, set about creating a false room and almost like

577
00:46:24,400 --> 00:46:31,440
a expressway, like underground railroad kind of thing to hide Jews and to get them out of the

578
00:46:31,440 --> 00:46:37,520
country so that they could be saved. And we're talking like just so many. There was this massive

579
00:46:37,520 --> 00:46:40,960
network that they created and they had these really complicated procedures on how to make sure

580
00:46:40,960 --> 00:46:44,560
that they weren't being seen. There's actually like, they had this conversation with an older

581
00:46:44,560 --> 00:46:49,120
Jewish man and that he's talking about, he says, she says, we just had the greatest time talking

582
00:46:49,120 --> 00:46:55,600
because he knew him as Adonai and I knew him as Jesus. And so we talked about how much we treasure

583
00:46:55,600 --> 00:47:01,280
the Jewish people as the people who came before us and gave us our savior. And I just love her

584
00:47:01,280 --> 00:47:05,840
heart in all of that. It's interesting that in the story of Corrie Temboun, she eventually gets

585
00:47:05,840 --> 00:47:13,520
confronted by a German soldier. And he quotes scripture to her about why she was so upset.

586
00:47:13,520 --> 00:47:28,080
And then he says, I'm not going to lie. When he said that I had a flashback to people who use the

587
00:47:28,080 --> 00:47:33,680
church as a weapon, use the Bible as a weapon on a frequent basis where they don't understand the

588
00:47:33,680 --> 00:47:38,480
heart of the Bible. And they instead try to use verses to like hack everybody else up.

589
00:47:38,480 --> 00:47:42,640
Because if you were familiar with the Bible, if this German soldier was familiar with the Bible,

590
00:47:42,640 --> 00:47:48,640
he would know that Jesus says there are weightier portions of the law and that loving God and loving

591
00:47:48,640 --> 00:47:54,880
other people is at the top. And if something is going to make you compromise that you're going to

592
00:47:54,880 --> 00:48:00,400
have to figure out how to walk that out. I don't have a good answer for you on when that happens,

593
00:48:00,400 --> 00:48:04,240
for how that happens. I say that you have to trust the spirit of God, but I suspect if you're trying

594
00:48:04,240 --> 00:48:09,360
to keep somebody from dying and you have to choose between lying and let them die, I'm okay

595
00:48:09,360 --> 00:48:13,600
with you lying. And there's probably somebody who's typing on their keyboard right now is like,

596
00:48:13,600 --> 00:48:18,480
no, you have to be obedient to the word of God. I am obedient to the heart of God and to the

597
00:48:18,480 --> 00:48:24,400
biblical text. And I believe that you have to look at the greater cause of loving somebody.

598
00:48:25,840 --> 00:48:32,000
So, eventually she gets sent into a concentration camp. And they smuggle

599
00:48:32,000 --> 00:48:36,160
in Bibles and they're reading the Bible. They're talking to people about Jesus and they're converting

600
00:48:36,160 --> 00:48:46,960
people left and right. And Bible studies. She is teaching in the midst of watching horror happen.

601
00:48:47,680 --> 00:48:58,160
She is bringing the Torah to present day. I mean, just if you hear people talk about her,

602
00:48:58,160 --> 00:49:02,720
if you hear people talk about her actually from the Jewish circles, they'll call her an

603
00:49:02,720 --> 00:49:09,520
Asiaskyle. What does that mean? It means like an angel. Oh, so good. And the only reason why

604
00:49:09,520 --> 00:49:14,080
I know that is because of the time that I got to spend working with the Jewish family I nannied for

605
00:49:14,080 --> 00:49:21,680
in college while I cared for their four kids and the young mom was battling breast cancer. And her

606
00:49:21,680 --> 00:49:29,440
father, the father 15 years later sent me a note saying, you know, we regard you as an Asiaskyle.

607
00:49:29,440 --> 00:49:36,800
So good. Like the angels, like what we aspire to be when we're entering in Yom Kippur. But

608
00:49:36,800 --> 00:49:44,480
that's what she's known as. So good. And she was also, despite all the tragedy, heartache,

609
00:49:44,480 --> 00:49:50,320
and just horrible things going around her, she was like the joy of the Lord. Yeah. And so to that

610
00:49:50,320 --> 00:49:55,120
point, like when she talks about it, she was talking about how they got, they had an infestation of

611
00:49:55,120 --> 00:49:59,680
lice with them within their people. And so they got segregated from everybody else, but because

612
00:49:59,680 --> 00:50:03,360
they did, they weren't being as closely watched as so they could talk to people more about Jesus.

613
00:50:03,360 --> 00:50:09,360
And she's like, Oh Jesus, thank you for sending us the lice. Yes. Now in her story, like you go

614
00:50:09,360 --> 00:50:13,120
through and there's so many things that happen where like divine hand and miracles are happening

615
00:50:13,120 --> 00:50:18,720
left to right in the middle of incredible depression and death. Cause let's not understate

616
00:50:18,720 --> 00:50:24,560
the Holocaust. It was, is, it is a colossal event of evil yet in the middle of it, there's hope

617
00:50:25,760 --> 00:50:32,000
and God's moving in hope through women of all things. Right. Through women, through women

618
00:50:32,000 --> 00:50:35,120
and through men, because of course we want to talk about Dietrich Bonhoeffer, but specifically

619
00:50:35,120 --> 00:50:40,960
today we're talking about women, right? And her sister ends up passing away in the concentration

620
00:50:40,960 --> 00:50:45,840
camp. And you know that, that, uh, Corey Timbon was released by accident. I don't know that. Oh

621
00:50:45,840 --> 00:50:49,280
yeah. She was released. She was actually supposed to be executed, but there was a clerical mistake

622
00:50:50,560 --> 00:50:57,760
that she got released instead. Yeah. We call that clerical mistake Jesus. And so her sister

623
00:50:57,760 --> 00:51:02,640
had a dream and she described this place where she said, cause if we ever get out of here,

624
00:51:02,640 --> 00:51:06,240
we're going to have to help people learn how to love the people who oppress them.

625
00:51:08,400 --> 00:51:12,720
I didn't hear that. We need to teach that have people love the people that oppress them. These

626
00:51:12,720 --> 00:51:17,840
German soldiers who are logging you up, beating you, starving you, trying to kill you. We need

627
00:51:17,840 --> 00:51:23,760
to figure out how to love them because Jesus loves them. And she had this dream and she describes

628
00:51:23,760 --> 00:51:29,600
this house and this property that like her sister does. And when, when Corey is out, she goes back

629
00:51:29,600 --> 00:51:34,480
and she goes back to her, our homeland and then the war ends. And eventually she is being led by

630
00:51:34,480 --> 00:51:40,560
the Lord and she finds this property and it's exactly as her sister described. And they open

631
00:51:40,560 --> 00:51:44,640
up this location and she starts inviting people who were in concentration camps, like they need a

632
00:51:44,640 --> 00:51:50,160
place to heal, to find Christ. And then of course, then they, she's to have to write like the book

633
00:51:50,160 --> 00:51:54,480
about her experience decades later, you know, and then talk about what happened. And she starts

634
00:51:54,480 --> 00:51:59,520
writing and she's traveling. And in one of her travels, she's approached by a guy, a German fellow

635
00:52:00,640 --> 00:52:04,240
afterwards, who was one of the officers

636
00:52:04,240 --> 00:52:11,840
that was beating her and was responsible for her sister's death, who became a Christian.

637
00:52:13,840 --> 00:52:18,320
And I love what she says. She says, in my humanity, I could never have shook that man's hand,

638
00:52:20,480 --> 00:52:24,880
but I'm more than my humanity. I'm filled with the love of Christ and the spirit of Christ.

639
00:52:24,880 --> 00:52:31,840
And through that, I can recognize him as a brother. And then she traveled

640
00:52:31,840 --> 00:52:36,000
all over the place. I mean, we're decades of work, multiple books. I actually love, she has a book

641
00:52:36,000 --> 00:52:40,960
called Tram for the Lord. It's so good. But where she talks about like, like just trying to get

642
00:52:40,960 --> 00:52:44,400
places and preach and they didn't want to let her go because she was a woman. And then she's,

643
00:52:44,400 --> 00:52:48,560
she's like, she would show up places and they're like, why are you here? She says, because God

644
00:52:48,560 --> 00:52:54,640
told me to be here. And then like right then a situation would open up. And it's like prophetic

645
00:52:54,640 --> 00:52:58,480
event after prophetic event, about from prophetic event. If, by the way, if you read this book and

646
00:52:58,480 --> 00:53:03,200
you're like, this is crazy. It is crazy. God was doing crazy stuff in the life of Corey Timbuktu

647
00:53:04,320 --> 00:53:10,240
because she was obedient. She listened and she obeyed. And like hundreds of thousands,

648
00:53:10,240 --> 00:53:14,960
if not millions of people at this point have been impacted by her ministry, by her teachings,

649
00:53:14,960 --> 00:53:23,600
by her story, by her witness. Like she, and, and yes, at times she preached, but like she was

650
00:53:23,600 --> 00:53:30,000
everything that like we would want in a minister. If you look at a pastor's heart, Corey Timbuktu

651
00:53:30,000 --> 00:53:38,560
had it. I do have one more story about a Muslim. It's a lady by the name, I don't want to say the

652
00:53:38,560 --> 00:53:46,960
name wrong. So just please forgive me. Bilqis Shaikh, 1926 through 1997. Right. It was a wife

653
00:53:46,960 --> 00:53:52,800
of a high ranking government official in Pakistan, gave her life to Christ in 1997. And she was

654
00:53:52,800 --> 00:53:59,200
Christ in 1966 was born in Pakistan to an elite Muslim family and never fully embraced her family's

655
00:53:59,200 --> 00:54:04,240
religions. Curious about Jesus. She read about the Quran and she asked her Christian chauffeur to

656
00:54:04,240 --> 00:54:10,480
bring her a Bible. At Romans nine 25 to 26 caught her attention. She approached two local American

657
00:54:10,480 --> 00:54:13,840
missionaries who answered her questions and explained the gospel. And soon after she

658
00:54:13,840 --> 00:54:18,240
experienced a series of dreams and visions that confirmed her decision to convert.

659
00:54:18,240 --> 00:54:22,240
News of her conversion reached her family who considered her a traitor and an infidel and shunned

660
00:54:22,240 --> 00:54:26,640
her. And after she was threatened and her home torched, she fled to the United States where she

661
00:54:26,640 --> 00:54:30,480
began speaking about her experience and love for Jesus in churches. The use later, her health

662
00:54:30,480 --> 00:54:37,520
declined and she returned to Pakistan where she died in 1997. I just, I love the whole thing of

663
00:54:37,520 --> 00:54:42,080
dreams and visions and God just meeting us where we're at. You know, there is, there is another

664
00:54:42,080 --> 00:54:46,160
story and I forget the lady's name. I have both of her books, but it's a really hard name, but she

665
00:54:46,160 --> 00:54:50,960
was, she survived the Rwanda massacre. Are you familiar with the Rwanda massacre? Yeah.

666
00:54:50,960 --> 00:54:53,440
I'm just trying to, I'm trying to think of the name.

667
00:54:53,440 --> 00:54:57,760
Yeah. She goes to the story. My, my favorite parts in the book and just like testimony to

668
00:54:57,760 --> 00:55:04,800
her faith in Christ, cause she has seen humanity as worst because in a lot of ways it was similar

669
00:55:04,800 --> 00:55:10,080
to the Holocaust, except that you had neighbors literally cutting each other down and thinking

670
00:55:10,080 --> 00:55:16,400
that they're doing good. And like, even the people who were hiding her began to resent her over time.

671
00:55:17,920 --> 00:55:22,000
When they finally came in, when they finally came in and liberated Rwanda and stopped the massacre

672
00:55:22,000 --> 00:55:27,440
from going on, they started rounding up these people who were actually doing the killing. And

673
00:55:27,440 --> 00:55:33,680
one of the officers invited her in and gave her a gun to shoot the guy who had been like killing

674
00:55:33,680 --> 00:55:41,120
people in her, in her village. And instead she forgave him and said that Jesus, this is what

675
00:55:41,120 --> 00:55:46,800
Jesus would want me to do for you. And that you have done, she said, you have done monstrous things,

676
00:55:48,560 --> 00:55:55,760
but you are not a monster. You are loved and you are forgiven. These are the kind of people who

677
00:55:55,760 --> 00:56:00,240
push the gospel forward. This is the kind of people God calls us to be. These women,

678
00:56:00,240 --> 00:56:05,040
teach us more about how to walk in faith than a lot of sermons that I've heard.

679
00:56:07,040 --> 00:56:13,760
Right? So what, what is the point of all this? It's not that it's not just these,

680
00:56:13,760 --> 00:56:16,240
we're not trying to hold up these stories where you start worshiping these people.

681
00:56:17,360 --> 00:56:21,360
We're trying to, we're trying to point a clear picture that God has been working through women

682
00:56:21,360 --> 00:56:26,880
all throughout history and he has risen up leaders. He's risen up apostles. He's risen up preachers.

683
00:56:26,880 --> 00:56:32,560
He's risen up evangelists. He's risen up mothers that are about forwarding the kingdom of God and

684
00:56:32,560 --> 00:56:37,360
everything that they do. And their gender has never been the issue except when man made it the issue.

685
00:56:39,360 --> 00:56:44,800
It's never been an issue with God. It's always been an issue with man. And usually from people

686
00:56:44,800 --> 00:56:52,720
who are more focused on their religion than their faith. I think one of the things, all these stories,

687
00:56:52,720 --> 00:56:59,680
I think one of the things, all these stories is you have these women who are saying, okay,

688
00:56:59,680 --> 00:57:05,040
we're not going to listen to the status quo. We're going to listen to Jesus and we're going to go

689
00:57:05,040 --> 00:57:09,760
where he calls us to go. Some of them are, we're going to go where he calls us to go. Some of them

690
00:57:09,760 --> 00:57:14,640
are like just life circumstances. Like Corey Tempon just thrown in prison, like thrown in concentration

691
00:57:14,640 --> 00:57:18,320
camp at some point. She didn't choose to go there, but when she was there, she said, we're going to

692
00:57:18,320 --> 00:57:25,280
bring Bibles in and we are going to proclaim the gospel. We're going to find ways to glorify Jesus

693
00:57:25,280 --> 00:57:32,400
and bring him into the situation. So to have that heart where it's no matter where I'm at in life,

694
00:57:32,400 --> 00:57:37,680
I'm going to be following after the Lord. As Paul says, am I here to serve man or am I here to serve

695
00:57:38,640 --> 00:57:44,640
God? He's like, yeah, then every time I read that, I think Paul's being a little sarcastic.

696
00:57:44,640 --> 00:57:51,520
Like, he's definitely being sarcastic. And you know, I'm just rhetorical question just

697
00:57:51,520 --> 00:57:57,840
driven me because I can. But when you have these women who are doing that, you leave and there's

698
00:57:57,840 --> 00:58:02,960
tons of other stories throughout history where women have pushed the envelope on them. So,

699
00:58:02,960 --> 00:58:08,320
but it's not, it's not because they're doing it out of a social justice cause or anything like

700
00:58:09,040 --> 00:58:13,840
they're doing it because the Lord has called them to do it. Responding to the call, responding to

701
00:58:13,840 --> 00:58:18,800
the Lord's put on their lives. And then, and to the men who are supporting them in a lot of cases

702
00:58:19,360 --> 00:58:24,080
and not every case, cause there's lots of examples for a son's case, but to the men who are supporting

703
00:58:24,080 --> 00:58:29,680
in those cases, they're not doing that for shame either. They're doing that to support the call

704
00:58:29,680 --> 00:58:34,640
that's put on their lives. Damn, so good. When thinking about this, cause I think sometimes the

705
00:58:34,640 --> 00:58:40,240
church can take this issue and turn it into what's our position, what's our stance on it and turn it

706
00:58:40,240 --> 00:58:46,560
into a posturing thing. When it's, when really the heart behind it is what's the call that the Lord's

707
00:58:46,560 --> 00:58:54,640
put on your, on your life. But one of the things with women in ministry that I always push back on

708
00:58:54,640 --> 00:58:59,040
a little bit when people are like, should they or should they not be, I was like, here's the reality.

709
00:58:59,040 --> 00:59:03,120
If you say yes to Jesus, you are called into ministry. It's just a matter of what that looks

710
00:59:03,120 --> 00:59:07,360
like in your life. A hundred percent. Right. So if you say yes to Jesus and you're a woman,

711
00:59:07,360 --> 00:59:11,600
you are called into ministry. You are called to be part of, you're called to be part of your church.

712
00:59:11,600 --> 00:59:15,280
You're called to be part of your body. You're called to serve your community. What that looks

713
00:59:15,280 --> 00:59:20,720
like is going to vary, whether it's specifically pastoral ministry, like Sarah, that's one thing,

714
00:59:20,720 --> 00:59:26,240
or whether the Lord's put on your call that you're going to be the best mother possible. Right. Or

715
00:59:26,240 --> 00:59:31,680
whether, or whatever that is, or whether the Lord said, Hey, there's this place that needs Jesus.

716
00:59:31,680 --> 00:59:38,640
You're going to go into that place and to be there. Right. Those are all aspects of you serving in

717
00:59:38,640 --> 00:59:43,680
ministry. Yeah. And so if we can't just boil it, lots of others like to boil it down until it's

718
00:59:43,680 --> 00:59:48,080
church ministry, referring to the building, the four walls that we come into on Sunday.

719
00:59:48,080 --> 00:59:52,240
Yeah. I think a lot of that comes down though, is like when you're trying to exclude people,

720
00:59:52,240 --> 00:59:59,040
like the more narrow you can make it, the easier it is. Like the more you can justify it. Yeah. And

721
00:59:59,040 --> 01:00:04,640
that comes back to like our conversation about are we unified or are we uniformed? Yeah. Because

722
01:00:04,640 --> 01:00:09,040
we're not going to be uniformed, but we are going to be unified. Yeah. But I think we got to start

723
01:00:09,040 --> 01:00:13,840
rephrasing that. Yeah. I agree. We got to start being open about that rephrasing. I mean, like

724
01:00:13,840 --> 01:00:20,080
if we are serving in ministry, it is our life, our livelihood, everything about us,

725
01:00:20,720 --> 01:00:27,760
we are bringing Jesus into the places of the world everywhere we go. So 24-7. Yep. And so to say women

726
01:00:27,760 --> 01:00:32,800
can't serve in ministry, if you're viewing it from the context of we're bringing Christ into the world,

727
01:00:32,800 --> 01:00:38,720
you're saying they can't have breasts. Right. And that is just downright insulting. Yeah.

728
01:00:40,800 --> 01:00:49,360
And I think there's, I think as this conversation continues to be had, it's so important that we're

729
01:00:50,880 --> 01:00:57,280
talking about this history because there's going to be some little girl, you know, I mean, even the

730
01:00:57,280 --> 01:01:05,120
fact that, you know, I've got four and you have one and just already, you know, Spencer, I know you can

731
01:01:05,920 --> 01:01:10,720
speak to how the world views women as you've now seen it through the lens of being a dad.

732
01:01:10,720 --> 01:01:17,520
And I think what's so important is that men need to also see the partnership that

733
01:01:18,080 --> 01:01:24,000
Jesus is inviting them to and making sure that their sisters aren't silenced. And I think that

734
01:01:24,000 --> 01:01:30,560
I feel for the men just as much as I feel for the women that are saying yes to the call when they

735
01:01:30,560 --> 01:01:37,920
know it's coming at a cost. I mean, I could write you chapters of the cost that it's been just for

736
01:01:37,920 --> 01:01:44,240
me. This is so, it's so hard. And so, you know, I don't want to discount the fact that there are

737
01:01:44,240 --> 01:01:50,240
brothers that are also carrying the weight because they're choosing to speak against the norm,

738
01:01:50,240 --> 01:01:55,600
because they're choosing to say, no, my sister has been given a gift from the Holy Spirit.

739
01:01:55,840 --> 01:02:02,640
She's got to use it, like, in whatever capacity that is. And I'm thankful that Spencer, you even

740
01:02:02,640 --> 01:02:10,480
said that our role in advancing the kingdom of God is advancing the gospel story of bringing hope to

741
01:02:10,480 --> 01:02:16,880
the world. And I want to speak to the mom that's sitting there listening to this, that, you know,

742
01:02:16,880 --> 01:02:23,280
found this podcast and she's knee deep in diapers and the home and the grocery shopping. And I was

743
01:02:23,280 --> 01:02:30,800
there for 12 years. And I remember thinking, this is it. This is what I'm going to be doing is the

744
01:02:30,800 --> 01:02:39,200
mundane of running a house and being chauffeur and chef and maid and nurse and, you know, the list

745
01:02:39,200 --> 01:02:47,760
could go on. And I don't think that God could bring me to a season of being able to be a shepherd

746
01:02:47,760 --> 01:02:55,200
to a congregation until he had to show me what it meant to be a shepherd to five little souls.

747
01:02:55,200 --> 01:02:56,000
So good.

748
01:02:56,000 --> 01:03:04,800
And there are times that I just laugh because I'm looking at an adult thinking, this is a tantrum

749
01:03:04,800 --> 01:03:11,840
that my two-year-old could have thrown and you're thrown it 10 times better. But I really have to

750
01:03:11,840 --> 01:03:19,360
look back to that, that in those 12 years of the crucible of being a stay at home mom and, and I

751
01:03:19,360 --> 01:03:26,080
was already fitting into society's space. Society wants me home. Society wants me not contributing.

752
01:03:26,080 --> 01:03:32,720
And it's such a gift now to be on the other side, to realize that it was in those formative years

753
01:03:32,720 --> 01:03:40,080
of being a mother, learning that my ministry was how I was loving my children in the midst of

754
01:03:40,080 --> 01:03:46,080
defiance and autonomy. How am I loving my husband in career changes and going back to school?

755
01:03:46,080 --> 01:03:53,040
How am I loving my teenagers as they're breaking away from the control? I don't, I can't shepherd

756
01:03:53,040 --> 01:03:55,360
a congregation if I don't know how to shepherd my home.

757
01:03:55,360 --> 01:04:00,160
And I think one of the, one of the things I want to, you said this, but, and it's definitely what

758
01:04:00,160 --> 01:04:06,960
society kind of pushes. If you're a stay at home mom, like you are absolutely contributing.

759
01:04:06,960 --> 01:04:07,760
So many.

760
01:04:07,760 --> 01:04:10,720
I would just like to say that Tara's job is way harder than mine.

761
01:04:10,720 --> 01:04:11,760
Oh, hands down.

762
01:04:11,760 --> 01:04:13,040
It's so much harder than mine.

763
01:04:13,040 --> 01:04:17,520
Like I feel for, I feel for her, her spouses, because I'm like, wow, I get to sit here and

764
01:04:17,520 --> 01:04:22,080
hang out, but I know what's happening at home with those busy bodies.

765
01:04:22,080 --> 01:04:25,840
Yeah. I actually just, I got a text message before we started this is that Leland had a

766
01:04:25,840 --> 01:04:30,640
bag of potato chips and it's so windy, I'm blown away and he lost his potato chips and is crying.

767
01:04:30,640 --> 01:04:32,400
And for Leland and his chips.

768
01:04:32,400 --> 01:04:32,960
Yeah.

769
01:04:32,960 --> 01:04:34,400
That was a really big deal.

770
01:04:34,400 --> 01:04:40,160
So I want to once again stress as we're landing this plane, these were a few stories.

771
01:04:40,160 --> 01:04:46,960
You should go read some books. Like there, there are countless stories that, and even like the

772
01:04:46,960 --> 01:04:50,960
people we talked about, you go read some books on these people. Like they're real living and

773
01:04:50,960 --> 01:04:56,000
breathing disciples that are, have just been consistently like throughout the history all

774
01:04:56,000 --> 01:04:59,520
over the country. We talked about Australia, we're talking about Ireland, we talked about China,

775
01:04:59,520 --> 01:05:05,520
we talked about Pakistan, like we're all over the place, Germany, and God is doing a work.

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01:05:06,080 --> 01:05:10,240
And I specifically didn't focus on America because there's a lot of stories that we're familiar

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01:05:10,240 --> 01:05:16,080
with here and we need to hear like, well, there's more than just us and God has been doing a lot.

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01:05:16,080 --> 01:05:20,720
Also America has only been around a couple of years, but I think it's a lot of people

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01:05:20,720 --> 01:05:24,000
around a couple hundred years. So there's a lot more churches straight in that. Yeah.

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01:05:25,360 --> 01:05:29,600
So with that, with that being said, next week we're going to, we are actually going to dive into

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the controversy. We're going to take the four verses that people use. And yes, I did say that

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01:05:35,280 --> 01:05:41,840
correctly. Four verses that people use to discredit women as, as ministers. And we're going to talk

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01:05:41,840 --> 01:05:45,520
about them and why they might not mean what you think they mean. And then we're going to talk

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about like, how do we actually support, elevate and encourage people to embrace the call regardless

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01:05:50,480 --> 01:05:56,160
of their gender? Yeah. It sounds great. Yeah. Sounds fun. See you guys next week. Okay. Bye.

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And that's a wrap for today's episode of Love and Context. We hope you enjoyed this engaging

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conversation and gained valuable insights into the powerful message of love within the Bible.

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We'd love to hear from you and continue the conversation. Connect with us by sending us

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your questions, thoughts, and suggestions to loveandcontext.gmail.com. We greatly appreciate

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01:06:18,480 --> 01:06:24,480
your feedback and ideas for future episodes. Stay connected with us on social media for updates,

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01:06:24,480 --> 01:06:29,200
behind the scenes content, and additional resources. You can find us on Instagram, TikTok,

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YouTube, and Facebook at Love and Context. Don't forget to hit that follow button to stay up to

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date with the latest episodes and join our growing community. Thank you for being part of the Love

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01:06:38,480 --> 01:06:43,920
and Context family. Remember, love is at the heart of it all. Until next time, keep seeking

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wisdom, embracing love, and living out your faith in the context of today's world.