S2 of Love in Context podcast welcomes you. Get ready for engaging unscripted conversations with
your hosts, Ben and Spencer. Our mission remains unchanged to explore the Bible through the powerful
lens of love. In this new season, we'll embark on a journey together, unearthing fresh insights
and gaining deeper understanding of how we can love God and live out our faith in practical ways.
So let's dive into this season of Love in Context, where love and the context of the Bible intersect
to transform our lives. Welcome to the Love in Context podcast with Ben and Spencer. I'm Ben.
I'm Spencer. And you are re-welcoming in or you are re-welcoming. That's not even a phrase.
That's not even a phrase. I'm probably going to leave that in just because it's great. We are
re-welcoming our friend, our really good friend that definitely doesn't snap her fingers at me
to try to get my attention, Pastor Sarah. It's, no, it's in the context of the statement we were
doing, she absolutely deserved to snap her fingers at me. And let's be honest, what did you do,
Benjamin? I was a child. I was a smart alecker. Yeah. Also, let's just be honest. I mean, if
somebody snaps her fingers, I'm going to look. Like I can't help it. And I was like, who sounds,
you know, I don't think I have ADHD, but I definitely do. Like when people make like random
sounds, I have to look. Yeah. My wife's legit. I made this comment before where she has been like,
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.
I don't have to take care of you. She's like, she'll take care of that for me. Thanks, dear.
Yeah. She's like, somebody will keep you in line. I want to receive that and hear that and love
that, that I just have good leadership skills, which is what I'm hearing. You do. Okay. That's
what I'm hearing. You do have good leadership skills, but that may or may not have been how
that statement was directed. There's more. Two things can be true. That's the fashion
translation. Sorry. It must be the comment towards my immaturity and my wife being like, oh great,
someone's going to keep you in line for a month's hour. Oh man. We're glad you're back here because
one, it's always hilarious. We actually, this is the second time through this part of the podcast
because our recording failed the first time. So we are real practiced at this. Real practice.
They're going to listen to be like, this doesn't feel real practiced. So we have been doing our
mini series through women in the Bible and how is God using them? How is he forwarding them? How is
he forming men and women together to push forward the kingdom of God? And all throughout the series,
we have been overemphasizing women on purpose because they have been de-emphasized in church
culture by and large, especially over the last 400 years. This week we're going to be out of the
Bible because we finished up the New Testament last week with Jamie and we talked about all these
people in New Testament, talked about Priscilla and Dorcas and I love that name Dorcas by the way,
Tabitha. She's probably like up in heaven and be like, can you just call me Tabitha?
But we talked about all these women and what God is doing and how they were disciples and apostles
and heralds and they were doing all the work that God was putting on for Paul and for Barnabas and
for all these people who were working in the New Testament church and about how it was actually
men and women coming together and this repeated refrain of men and women, men and women, men and
women. It is not either or, it's both and. Yeah. And last three steps, so we just like skim the
surface. Yeah. Skip to stone. Yeah, because there's only so much we can talk about in, you know,
45 to an hour and 15 minutes. I can talk really fast, but I can't talk that fast. So this week,
we are jumping into women in church history. This is not necessarily going to be in chronological
order. It's kind of going to be all over the place, but we tried to, I did research on this
a little bit. I did research on this and the more that I spent time looking into it, the more that
I was like, there are so many stories, like so many stories. Yeah. It is shocking to me how little of
church history we really know. I think sometimes maybe we know the history of our denomination,
but we don't necessarily know the history of the church, which is interdenominational, right? For
a lot of the Protestants, do you know Catholic church history? The good parts, not just the parts
that you want to hold up to talk about why they're wrong. Yeah. There's a lot of church history.
There's a lot of church history. And a lot of the fights and the arguments and the stupid things
that we're dealing with today have been going on for millenniums. Yes. So true. You know how crazy
it is to say millenniums and it to actually be true. For it to be true. Yeah. Yeah. So first
person we want to talk about is a lady by the name of Perpetua. She was alive in AD 181 to 203.
So she's the first female African martyr in the early church. Born in Carthage, North Africa.
She lived at the time in Rome when Christians were being persecuted by the Roman empire. So accepting
Jesus or becoming Jewish was punishable by death. This is very much in the line of the pinch of
incense and like that type of thing that's going on in this time period, though not necessarily
pinch of incense. So she was baptized and she was eventually arrested for her faith, but she
refused to be called by anything else than a Christian. Her father actually came and he brought
her son, her infant son, he begged her to recant her faith, but she refused to recant her faith.
She's like, I can't recant things that are true. And even for the sake of my son, which is, I mean,
just a heart wrenching thing as parents, but I'm not going to lie about reality because like in a
lot of ways that's betraying my son even more. Yeah. So she's actually thrown in the arena with
a bunch of other people. They're supposed to be attacked by wild animals and killed and mauled and
you know, for entertainment. But after a while the animals don't kill them. So they eventually
sent in people with swords and they actually executed her. She's one of the first martyrs.
I do think we have a little bit of a Daniel thing going on here. Where God is looking at the
situation. They're like, we're going to send in wild animals and these tigers and these lions,
these bears, like, man, they're just going to eat them up. And then the God's like, don't do that.
Yeah. Like we're going to make a statement here. If you're, if you want to take her life,
you got to take her life. Martyrs is such a, such an important part of our story that we have to
remember. Like we got to, we got to remember because if you're going to preach the word and
you're actually going to live the word, like dying for the word is a significant part of your faith.
Yep. When you say yes to Jesus and you refuse to say no, even in the face of death,
that is a preacher. Yeah. That is a gospel bearing preacher, somebody who's willing to
bring the kingdom of God, no matter what it costs. Those are the kinds of people that turn the world
upside down. Absolutely. I actually have to agree with you on that because I think she'd have to.
I have, I have to bet. It kills me. I wasn't going to, but you made a good point, finally.
But I do think it's the lives of the martyrs that shift something. And to be honest with you,
you would be surprised if you heard that a small town girl like me who had the opportunity to meet
Elizabeth Elliot. Now, when I say Elizabeth Elliot, if you're in the Christian circles and you've
learned about missionaries, this should be a name that you put up next to Cory Ten Boom and you think
about the heroic acts that were done. And I remember being a small child and my parents were
still married. So I was under the age of 11 and she came part of Billy Graham's crusade stuff that
was happening in the early nineties here. And she came to our school and her story forever changed
me of the martyred life of her husband along with the other men and at the hands of the Inca Indians.
And that story of bravery, that story of to sit across from a widow as a young child and realize
that she never lost her faith in God over that. It was seeds for me to see that when we bear the
testimony of God that it's going to come with some really big things. Maybe seeing our savior sooner
than our family members want us to. Or it's also going to come at a price where we know that we
have to go into the ends of the earth and risk our lives. So martyrs can't be overlooked. They're so
important. Well, I think the flip side of that is we're supposed to go where God calls. Yeah.
And God may call you to be a faithful worker and generate money to send out to missions
all your life. He may never call you to put your life in danger, but he does call you to work hard,
to grow wealth, to share it, to move it, to take care of people around you, to take care of the
poor, the hungry. And you may never actually go out in the field, but it depends on what your call is.
And a lot of times, especially in America, we have a lot of opportunity.
God can use the opportunity of America for you to bless the world for the gospel.
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.
It's his, and he gets to tell us what to do with it. And so I think about sometimes like this
conversation where people talk about, I really liked Dominique was here. She was talking about
people like, I really want to serve God wherever he leads. Oh, Alaska doesn't have a mall. You know?
Mm-hmm. You don't have a big six available, you know? That's a supporting good story, by the way,
in case, I know you're a small-town girl, so you know, so I'm not going to lie. Thanks. Jeff,
to small town. Yeah, I almost did that. I'm not going to lie. But the reality is that you need to
be content with wherever God calls you. And if he calls us to Africa tomorrow, we go to Africa
tomorrow. We don't argue. We just go. Yeah. But we need to be in tune with God's call in our life.
And so if he's calling you to the ends of the earth, you go to the ends of the earth, and he's
calling you to be still and serve, then you be still and serve. And it really comes into this
whole idea that we need to learn to hear the voice of God. And there are women throughout our history
who've done exactly that. And these stories of these martyrs are people who heard the voice of
God, responded and walked it out faithfully, even to the point of death. And there are others
that were faithful and walked it out the rest of their life and died of old age. Yes. Yes. And there
is not one that is better than the other. They're both faithful disciples of Christ, and we hold
them both up in a great esteem. And we're thankful for the sacrifice of the people who are willing to
bear the name even of the death. But one of the early church fathers in 300 is Augustine. Oh,
hello, Augustine. Yeah, Augustine. Yeah. That's how I say it. That's fine. I listen to too much
foot foot, so I'm like, Augustine, you know, so like in my head. So Augustine's mother was Monica.
Yeah. And is considered to be the driving force of his salvation. So she was born in
Tengasti, North Africa, another African, right? Her faith, prayers and Christlike life influenced
her family to become Christians, including her husband, who was a Roman pagan. Interesting.
Augustine, he perhaps is best known of her children, but she had a bunch of other kids.
But I don't think you can understate like the call, because we're talking about women in ministry.
Sure. 100%. You also can't negate the call of motherhood. Absolutely. And what does motherhood
bring about like actually instilling in your kids and leading them to actually be a part of what
God is calling into the world? Like the one of the most important things we do as parents is we
teach our kids to understand and recognize the person of God, to be in relationship, because I
don't want my kids just follow what I have to say. I want them to know God, because if they know God,
I know that they're connected with the thing that can save them, because I can't save them.
Yeah. But I can introduce them to the guy who can. I actually really do like Augustine a lot.
There are a couple of his writings that I've had issues with. Outside of that, he, man, that guy
tried real hard. In an era, he was really trying to push the kingdom forward. Oh, we've said it
here before. If you are given the opportunity to speak, proclaim the gospel, you will speak heresy
at some point. At some point. Don't judge someone who's in ministry because they said one bad thing
for in cold. We can so often do that. Yeah. Rather, if you're looking for, we said it last week,
if you're looking for good examples to follow, look for those leaders who have a repentive heart
and are willing to be like, Hey, I said this, I got that wrong. Yeah. I don't know. Augustine's
no different. I am sure he said the things that were off. Absolutely. I really don't want to
undersell how important parents are in the lives of their kids. We're talking about the mother in
this case, but mothers and fathers are really important in the lives of their kids because
they model what it means to be an adult. They model what it means to have a, by the way, fathers,
if you want your kids to honor and respect and cherish women, you have to, because they're
going to learn that behavior from you. And so if you ever have a kid that grows up and you're like,
man, why are they so well, there's a mirror. Let's go take a look at it. You know, a lot of the
learned behavior of males, especially your boys, like my boys, I, if I see them acting in a way,
I'm like, where did they get that? And Spencer came over and you know, that was probably,
it's always Spencer. Yeah. Jumping into another person in history, there's this really cool person
named Claire of Assisi, right? That wasn't her written name originally. She was born into an
Italian family of high status, Italy, tons of money. She was the oldest of three girls. Her mother was
religious and taught them about Jesus, which impacted her. And she fell deeply in love with
Jesus, had a dedication to prayer. But when she was 17, she was arranged to be married to a wealthy
guy, married off by her dad. But Claire grieved the poor in her community. And then she heard a
guy by the name of St. Francis of Assisi, who you may or may not be familiar with, talking about the
gospel. And she was so moved that at 18, she would give her worldly possessions and she joined him at
a small Catholic church within the Basilica of St. Mary in Assisi, where the Franciscan movement
started and became one of Francis's first followers, or we would call them disciples, right?
Mm-hmm. So then she founded actually the monastic religious order called the Order of Four Ladies,
known as Four Clares, which, I mean, is just fantastic. I love it. It doesn't translate
as well to English as it does in Italian. Yeah. So they lived their life focused on prayer,
community, and joy. And when other women wanted to join the order, including her mother and sisters,
Francis of Assisi made her an abbess. In other words, she was now in charge, a position she held
until her death. She believed that the privileged world, the people who had wealth she had been
surrounded by, though it appeared exciting, passes like a shadow, because your wealth isn't
that important. Her legacy, even to this day, lies on in the importance of women in the Franciscan
story, right? So she's a pivotal woman in the Franciscan line. We talk about monks, we talk about,
you know, abbots, we talk about... If you're not super familiar with Catholicism and like some of
their history, then you're... That might just, like I said, if you're a Protestant. But she was moved
by her compassion for the poor. She grew up wealthy and rejected it. Now, once again, I want to point
out that wealth isn't the problem, but when wealth rules you, it's a problem. But now they have these
communities that actually go in there, they're actually servicing people. And like women who
wanted to devote their life to service to God are able to actually, were part of this order in a
place where they didn't have opportunity. Now they're able to actually devote their entire life.
They're more than just getting married. They're actually devoting their entire life and being
in existence to the forwarding of the gospel. It was powerful. Like those are powerful stories.
So I had the privilege when I was going to the School of Spiritual Direction,
I had the privilege to read a lot about the Desert Mother and Fathers and the monastic movements and,
you know, Francis of Assisi. But actually one that I really love during this time period of
the desert movement and, you know, these hillgroomages happening to go out where people
were giving away all of their riches and choosing a life of poverty and teaching people what
confession really was and what life was like in the divine. You can't help but talk about
St. Teresa of Avila. And she wrote this phenomenal book on Mansions of the Heart that at the time,
for me, being raised evangelical in the Mennon-Crosseville Church, like I still was really struggling
with a lot of reading Augustine and Francis of Assisi and Ignatius. And I'm like, oh, this is just
a little bit too much for me. But when she started giving language to what was happening in my soul
as I was becoming more aware of the divine dance, the trinity around me, she gave imagery of what it
looks like as you're moving from different rooms in your house, in your hearts. And it just gave me
language. And actually one of her mentors, I don't know if you guys know much about St. John of the
Cross. I mean, I know things, but I wouldn't say that I necessarily it's like in my recall. So he
wrote a very well known book called Dark Night of the Soul. And this is it talks about how your soul
moves from places of consolation where you're on the highs and highs of being with God and you're
in the, then you go to desolation, the lows and lows. This book is well known in theological
circles, but he was her mentor. He was a mentor of Teresa of Avila. And when his Carmelite brothers
were struggling with a lot of debauchery happening within their communities, he asked St. Teresa of
Avila to come over and reform the teaching. And his Carmelite brothers were so pissed off that they
hired people to come and capture him and they imprisoned him. And it was during this imprisonment
that they kept coming to him and telling him, get rid of St. Teresa of Avila. We don't want a woman
coming in and telling us how we should be doing things. And while he was being imprisoned by his
brothers, he wrote Dark Night of the Soul where he was saying, I will not remove her. God has called
her for this work. And that story, I just remember being blessed because you mentioned my pastor.
And I have had a mentor in my life like that who has suffered loss in his flock because he's chosen
to say, I will not deny the fact that God has a call on this woman and I'm making a way for her.
So that movement, I have to plug that in there that this monastic movement was so important because
women really started being able to have a voice. And they were being seen as equals.
06 And a lot of times they're getting an opportunity to write and distribute their writings too,
which is a big, big move, right?
06 Very big move. When you talk about writers, then you have to immediately talk about Fanny
Crosby. And we actually have Fanny Crosby in our line. Yeah.
06 Yes. We can't not talk about the fact that when there were all of these other writers
writing well-known hymns, here comes Fanny Crosby with Blessed Assurance.
06 Yeah. Well, let's talk about Fanny Crosby. We'll just get out of line in our outline because
I want to, like you mentioned her, like 600 plus. Just a really firm grasp of poetic nature,
like putting simple truths into poetic nature. Like the heart of a worship leader is on clear
display in Fanny Crosby's writing. Now, the ironic thing is that sometimes people now look at her
stuff and then they're like, oh, you know, like we got to go traditional, you know, blah, blah,
and Fanny Crosby, I feel like with her character, she would be all about the newest music we got.
07 Yeah.
08 Fanny Crosby was not traditional.
09 No. In fact, I love how supportive her husband was.
09 Yes.
010 Because like he came in and he's the music guy. And so he'll write the music. I was like,
I'm just going to support you. God is doing something great in your life. I'm going to stand
right behind you and support you. And if there are any doors that she couldn't open, he'd kick
them open for her. You know? And I love that the most prolific hymn writer, like in history,
is definitely a blind woman. Blind woman, right?
08 Blind woman. I mean, you want to just talk about the faithfulness of God. I think
that what was taken away from her and the brokenness of the world, resulting in loss of sight,
God heightened her spiritual senses, which I think is why we see such beautiful poetry
in the lines that she's writing, that what she couldn't see in her humanity,
I think that got awoken her spirit to it.
09 I don't know if you're aware of this. This is an interesting thing about Fanny Crosby is that
did you know that she had both the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, what we call
the Torah, and the Gospels? Yeah, along with many Psalms and Proverbs, memorized. So she could just
actually rip it out. So when she's writing these music, she's trying to ground them in theological
truths. Now, I think that it's definitely like some of the language needs to be updated because
it was written 400 years ago. But there are just like timeless truths that are in her music and
poetic nature is very stirring. You know?
010 It is.
012 But you also have to talk about the authority that music has,
yeah, especially lyrically, the satyic Psalms, for example, like Psalms were meant to be either
prayers or songs or so on and so forth. There's actually authority that is being proclaimed
through the lyrics that are being sung. This is like one of the graphs I get when people are like
women can't be pastors. I was like, there's authority being proclaimed as their leading worship.
013 Yeah.
014 Spencer, that's good.
015 So it's like, where do you draw the line? If you're trying to draw a line, where are you
trying to draw a line? Because I mean, you look at, because in theory, in theory, worship songs,
pray songs, like once Fanny Crosby or writing are based in scripture.
016 Correct.
017 Correct.
018 Singing your singing is proclamation of scripture.
018 Yes.
019 Proclamation of scripture.
019 Yeah.
019 Or a dog of faith.
019 Or a scriptural truth.
019 Mm-hmm.
020 Right?
021 Yes.
022 Yes.
023 Yeah. Because sometimes, especially in worship music, I think the lying people like,
you know, it's not really, that's not in the Bible. I was like, no, but it is a biblical truth
that's being proclaimed.
024 Yes.
025 Like the biblical truth is found in the Bible.
026 Yeah.
027 And they're expressing it in a way that's actually experiential to their location,
like what's going on in their life. And I was like, you need to engage worship music in love
and context. Like my assumption is that the person is trying to proclaim something that God is doing
in their life. And so we always need to, you know, come at it with grace. And even if it doesn't
connect with me, it doesn't mean that it's a bad song. It just may not be something that I put in
my church. I'm not going to judge a person for it. It may be something that connects with their
church really well, you know, Fanny Cross with so many songs, so many songs. Obviously the best
well-known one is Blessed Assurance because that one is just, has just endured for a really long
time, though I'm not a big fan of nine eight. So I may have a conversation with her husband at
some point, you know, it just, it just makes things very difficult.
025 It's going to learn how to play.
026 Yeah. For those of you that are not musically inclined, nine eight is a time signature that is,
I mean, I can't prove it, but it's probably from the devil.
027 It's from the devil.
028 It's got origins from Hades. Origins from Hades.
028 I was laughing, like the drummer in the room was like, okay, nine eight, let's go.
028 Yeah, I know you don't care. It's trying to, trying to play a rhythm on the guitar,
though, in nine eight, not great.
028 Oh, it does, sir.
028 Yeah.
028 You were.
028 Yeah. And not at the same time of Fanny Cross, but actually in 1495 to 1561 was a lady by the
name of Marie Dentiere. Do you know who that is?
028 I don't.
028 So this is during the Reformation. So she is a, she's a German, was born in modern day Belgium
to a wealthy family and entered an Augustine nunnery in 1508, okay. But she converted during
the Reformation. Like during the Reformation, she converts, then she flees and she ends up in
Strausburg in 1524, where she meets her husband and she gets married. Then her and her husband
are actually pastoring at this church together, pastoring, preaching, both of them together during
this time. And then her husband dies and then she continues to pastor the church after he died.
During the Reformation in Germany, we have a woman who is pastoring a church of like many,
many people, right? And she was contemporary speakers with John Calvin.
028 Interesting.
028 Going to similar locations and her writings are out there as well.
She was a very influential church. You could actually read a little bit about it in,
I'm going to recommend a church history book that's really simple to read.
It's Bruce Shelley's Church History in Plain English. Check that out, it'll make it a lot
easier for you. It does not get into the nuance, but it's a lot easier to read.
029 It's a great book if you're one like a good overview on church history.
029 Yeah, a mile wide and an inch deep.
029 Yeah, that's his message.
029 Yeah, he's pretty upfront about that. Like that's what he's doing.
She was also passionate for a larger woman for a woman in the church, which upset Geneva authorities.
029 Shocking.
029 But she's the, she's actually the only woman who is named on the
029 Reformation wall in Geneva though.
029 Wow.
029 Isn't that crazy?
029 Yeah.
029 Yeah, I just love that contemporary of Calvin.
A lot of people who tend to come from a, I'm going to say a traditional or reform base
where they are against women being ministers, cite their roots back to the Reformation.
029 Yeah.
029 It's happening then.
029 So just want to let you know that.
029 God is always upsetting your apple cart.
029 Yep.
029 You know, he's always upsetting your apple cart because that's not what we're doing.
029 So are you familiar with a lady by the name of Margaret Fell Fox?
029 No.
029 You're not. There is a lot of women in church history and we are literally skipping a stone.
029 So 1614 to 1702. She is married to a guy by the name of Thomas Fell, who was a wealthy lawyer
and eventually justice of the peace and member of the English parliament.
029 Okay.
029 So she decided to use her largest state for God's service, often hosted traveling ministers.
029 In 1652, she met George Fox, a preacher who had gained a following known as the Society of
Friends, which we know today as the Quakers, who had come to stay with her at the estate.
029 Now they impacted her so much that she started hosting meetings and fighting for religious
freedom and she started printing, printing religious pamphlets and letters.
029 Now listen to the title of these, her famous women speaking justified by the scriptures.
029 That's one of her books, right?
029 When she unpacks patches from Genesis to Revelation that promote women in ministry
and for equality in the sexes in the power and authority of the Spirit.
029 In the 16...
029 We should have had, yeah, in the 1690s, we should have had her on this podcast.
029 I don't know how we would have done that. We found a medium or something.
029 So after her husband passed, she hosted the society meetings in her home until she
was arrested in 1664 and sentenced to life in prison.
029 And she was released four and a half years later as she married George Fox.
029 Together they traveled and preached until his death in 1691.
029 Together they traveled.
029 Together they traveled and preached. Yeah. I love that this book is from, yeah,
we're looking at 1600s. So good. So good.
029 Is that the second, that's the second woman on the list who has been married and co-passered
with, essentially co-passered with her spouse.
029 Yeah. You know, and it's not surprising that they would partner together, right?
029 Yeah.
029 It also speaks not only, can we talk about your husband and how awesome he is?
029 You absolutely can. Because I was thinking about that in Fanny Crosby's,
it's been, it made me think of him.
029 It is really hard to be a woman in ministry today,
because like you're very unsupported and the people who do support you
are doing the best they can to have grace with the people who don't.
Because we're trying to follow the way of Jesus.
029 The husbands of these women, I really want to commend them for
being willing to lay themselves down on their behalf. I really think that they take to heart
when Paul says, husbands, you lay down your life on behalf of your wives, as Christ did for the
church. There is a number of amount of shame and degradation that comes to the men as well.
You hear things like, you know, get your women in line. I was like, first of all,
he be quiet.
029 Yeah. Ask your husband, ask my husband, if he's ever been asked that question. Absolutely.
029 I guarantee he's been told that.
029 Absolutely. Yep.
029 I would love to hear his response, so it's probably not appropriate for the podcast.
029 No, but I think, you know, when I think about, I don't want to always just focus on women,
you know, that had to be married in order to make massive kingdom advancements, or to talk about,
you know, Teresa of Avila, that it took, you know, St. John of the Cross to really fight for her.
029 But I think there is something to be said that when a woman is called to
be betrayal, not a well-known path, that if a woman is going to have the strength to do it,
that she has to know that her husband is strong enough to deal with the backlash.
029 Well, I think this comes back to this idea of it's not women or men, it's both. And we're
meant to do this together.
029 We're both called. I have the privilege right now where we are onboarding two new interns,
and they are saying yes to the call. And they're in their early 20s, and we're talking about some
stuff. And I was letting this young person know, I said, you know, it's really time for you to start
seeing that the answer to the call is not just you saying yes, it's actually the person that
you're getting ready to get married to here shortly. And that both of you have to have the call.
029 And is your spouse falling in with that and seeing that their call may not be front and center
like your call is? And how is that spouse going to still see that their call is maybe sitting in
the back row, holding a nursing baby every couple years, maybe now it's running the whole tech
ministry? Or as you guys can attest, your wives are not silent partners in your roles in ministry.
Your wives are standing side by side with you. And when I think about-
029 You know, my wife is a deacon of the church, right?
029 Yes.
029 Yeah.
029 I love it.
029 Yeah.
029 They asked me and I'm like, what about Tara?
029 But that is, but thank you though, because inevitably still in this day and age,
there are tables that you guys are invited to sit at that I'm not. And there's tables that my husband
is invited to sit at. And he's not even, you know, the pastor. And, you know, it's just really,
you're going to naturally just go to him because he's the man. And-
029 Sarah, what I'm going to tell you is any table I get invited to that you're not allowed to,
I'll pull up a seat for you.
029 Thanks, Ben.
029 Yeah. Unless it has something to do with my sense of humor. And then I'm probably going to
leave you out. But that has nothing to do with you.
029 I'll trust you on that decision then.
029 That has nothing to do with you being a woman. That has something to do with my
particular personality. It's been too long since we last, so I thought I'd throw something in there.
Yeah. No, it's very difficult. It's very difficult. And I'm getting kind of tired
of having this conversation. And so one of the reasons we do this ministry is because we want
to be very clear. And listen, if this is a make or break moment for listening to us, like probably
stop listening to us because we're going to proceed with the thought that God's going to
use people regardless of their gender. And He's going to raise people up regardless of their
gender. And He's going to call them regardless of their gender. He's also going to call them
regardless of their socioeconomic standing. And whether or not they're a Jew or a Gentile.
I feel like there's a Bible passage about that somewhere. It's, you know, it's eluding me.
It's not. Yeah. And I think too that, you know, when we look at these women in the early church
history, we're really seeing hearts of humility. We're not seeing women that are pushing agenda.
And even when you talk about Claire of Assisi, you know, even if she formed the Poor Clares,
she wasn't doing that to say that women were better. She was just saying, I'm making room
because we want to say yes. And I think that's the most important thing when we're looking at
all of this is that ever since the very beginning, we were all created to worship. We were all created
to love God. And that's in each and every one of us, each gender, male and female. And we all have
that heart's cry. I love A.B. Simpson. He's the founder of the Christian Missionary Alliance. He
has this really simple phrase and I've just been saying it over and over again, because I think
that's where my heart is just longing. And it says, in the heart of man, a cry in the heart of God
supply. And I've just been resting on those four because when we look at these women,
I don't think that any of these women were like, I'm going to go do this because I can't wait to
get everyone looking at me and I get to tell all the men what to do because the very first
woman you talked about lost her baby. And I can tell you that there have been conversations where
I have been sitting on the couch weeping and that is never a good thing when you see me crying.
And my husband could probably tell you on two hands how many times he's watched me cry.
And to see me weeping and saying, I don't know if I can take another
coup. I don't know if I can take another group coming against whether or not I can share what
God has revealed to me in my personal study while I've been breathing and meditating on His Word
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
wish if we could sit with some of these women and just ask them, where was the crossroad for you
where you had to decide if I keep moving forward, it's for Him because I don't got anything left in
me. Because I think that all of these women came to a moment where society and everywhere around
them was saying, step down, shut up, be quiet. And these women came to a part where they're like,
okay, I'm going to lose my children. I'm going to lose my family. I'm going to lose reputation in
my community. That they all came to this part where they were saying to live for Christ.
I think you're really nailing that on the head here is they came in contact with the true gospel,
which is that Jesus said the kingdom of heaven is here. It's time to come back. Those that are on
the outside are being welcomed in. We talked about in the line of Jesus, there was multiple
women mentioned who had terrible stories. Not great stories, with the exception of Ruth, except
she was still a Moabitess, which is not good for the Old Testament. And these awkward stories of
all these people who are on the outside. And then you think about the Sermon on the Mount that
happened in the Book of Matthew, it says, blessed are the meek. Yep, those are the people we're
talking about. Let's get the meek on up here. Blessed are the poor in spirit. Because the kingdom
is not what you think it is. It's those people that you think don't belong here, the ones who
are actually being welcomed in. Those that you think are in authority are actually the ones who
are underneath those that are being brought in. And it's actually about those people who are being
brought in. Now, if you're a tax collector, if you're a woman, if you're an orphan, you hear this,
or you're a foreigner, and you hear this and you're like, oh, the kingdom's for me. And these women,
they're serving and they encounter Jesus and they actually encounter the true gospel, which is that
if you're on the outside, you're welcome in. It doesn't matter what your status was, you're welcome
in. It doesn't matter what your education is, you're welcome in. Doesn't matter what your gender is,
you're welcome in. I love the fact that the very first form of humanity that Christ redeemed
was a woman, was a 12 or 13 year old girl that should have been killed by stones.
But because of his testimony, his proof of life, what the angels delivered to Joseph and Mary,
the very first gender he redeems as a woman. One of the hardest things about that story for Mary,
hopefully this is a piece of encouragement for you. Joseph and Mary walked the rest of their lives
with people's shame scorning them when they were the very parents of the Messiah.
For their entire life, and Joseph probably died in shame, and it's likely that Mary did too,
with people still assuming that she was just had a child out of wedlock. They walked their
entire life. Now, vindication came in heaven and it came in the story of the gospel,
but they walked their entire lives to that shame. And so sometimes when we get called to follow God,
especially if we're going to actually be a part of his story and changing the world,
we're going to walk with shame, but not from him, never from him. And I guarantee you that if
somebody is authentically serving God, it doesn't matter their gender, their creed, their specific
characteristics, they may have shame from the world, but it's never from God. God's like,
I love that you're willing to step up. Let's go. Speaking of step up, we had a guest here a couple
weeks ago, Captain Shelby from the Salvation Army, and there's a lady from the Salvation Army by the
name of Katherine Booth, 1829 to 1890. And she told us a little bit about the Booths, but essentially
her and her husband together were pastors. And by the way, the Salvation Army has been ordaining
women for a long time, hundreds of years. And they've been, but what are the Salvation Army,
like what are they mostly known for? Serving their communities. Yeah. The poor, the needy.
Evangelical church, but they're known for serving the poor and needy and reaching out to those
people on the outside. Like they have national coverage by secular organizations that help them
because they do good work. Now I think it's easy. Of course you could say, I know somebody who serves
in Salvation Army and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I don't care. We're talking about the
organization as a whole. God is blessing in working through. To be fair, you can say that about nearly
any organization. Yeah. I mean, you can say that about me, depending which day you talk to me.
This is a true story. Oh man. But like her story is just so cool. By the way, I don't know if you
actually know that she was a big studier of Finney and John Williams. She was a big studier of
John Wesley. That's a no for Spencer because he does a lot of study in John Wesley. It's so good.
The story of Salvation Army and what they're doing is just so good. I want to talk about somebody
that came up in Southern Baptist culture. There's a lady by the name of Lottie Moon.
Familiar with Lottie Moon? No, actually. So she was 1840, 1912. So she was a missionary into China.
And so she went into China. Her sister went before her and then she went. And when she got over there
like doing their, they're trying to do ministry, it was difficult to share the gospel in China
because it's China, you know, and China does a love and Christians. Yeah. You know what she started
doing? She started like teaching people how to knit. And while she was knitting, she would start
sharing the gospel piece by piece. And these women started believing and then their families
started believing. And then they'd come to her knitting circles. And so she was proclaiming the
gospel and preaching over and over and over and over and over again, over knitting needles.
I love it. Because she took something she knew how to do and she used it for the glory of God.
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
what he creates. Sometimes I think that we were like, we need to feed 5,000 people. We should go
buy truckloads of food and God's like, what do you got? Five loaves, two fish. I got it. Yeah.
Yeah. That's enough. He bring me what you got. I'll multiply it. But you come and bring me what
you got and lay it all down. And then so she was always messaging back and the Southern Baptist
every year, by the way, have a lot of moon. It's an offering that before foreign missionaries,
because she was always writing back and asking people to send money. During the war of 1912,
she ended up like, she turned her home into a hostel and she actually fed and cared for just
a ton of people during 1912, getting people to send her money. And eventually she did get sick
and ended up passing away on the mission field. But like her impact was massive, just massive.
That's massive, massive impact. The thing I love about her story is
her whole missions journey in China was so simple. Like it wasn't, like you're saying,
it wasn't the feeding the 5,000. It wasn't the Billy Graham style conferences or that type stuff.
It was a simple, I'm going to enter into your world where you're at and just join with you
in what you're doing and bring Jesus into that space. The power that comes with that is huge.
I want to jump into some different cultures because I want to talk about just like cool
things this guy's been doing throughout like different countries. So there was a lady by the
name of Paulina Diamino is 1858 to 1942. Spread of Christianity in Africa had been happening by
British colonies. So she was the daughter of a Zulu war chief who was pledged to be married to
another Zulu war chief. Like in other words, she was being like married away for like tribal
connections and things like that. So she came in contact with some Christian missionaries who
shared the message. And when the British colonists actually came in and they provoked a civil war,
her clan was actually like completely decimated. And so then she was left without going into and
being married. But she'd listened to the missionaries, she convinced and accepted the work of Jesus
Christ. And then she became an evangelist, a laser focused on the Zulu people and started
converting the Zulu people. And then suddenly there's like 14 churches of Zulu people
because of her work that's going on. And then not only that, she saw a British colonizer that was
beating slaves. And she started to preach to him about the gospel. And he stopped beating his
workers and became a Christian. And it was a key person in and then later became a key person in
her ministry. And seeing such a change in his life, the people were then more receptive to her
message all throughout that region because the British colonizer heard the words of God coming
from her mouth. By the way, this is a woman preaching to a man, bringing her authority to a man,
her authority from God to a man and changed his life. And because of the change in his life,
suddenly this whole region is shifting. What we were talking about a few weeks ago is like,
if somebody is preaching the good news and people are lives are being changed, like maybe we need
to calm down and try to get them to stop. Even if we just disagree. That's such a cool story.
Now I'm going to go, I'm not going to lie to you guys, I'm going to have trouble with this name.
It is Sai Su Xuan. I am not probably saying that correct, but she also went by Christiana,
1890 to 1984. So she was in China and she was an unhappy child that was going to become a Buddhist
monk. However, she heard a preacher talk about Jesus at school and decided to put her faith in
Jesus, which enraged her family, which is kind of weird when you think about the fact that they're
Buddhist, but you know, whatever they were enraged after. So after graduating, she was
offered a ton of jobs. She declined them all and decided to go home and witness Jesus to her family
and 55 of them, including her mother, eventually came to faith. 55 because she heard a preacher
talk at her school and trusted in Jesus and then carried that message. She became an apostle,
carrying the message from the kingdom to her homeland. She actually had people coming
regularly to hear her preach like that the whole region came to know her during World War II.
It was cool. These are cool stories. You just don't know. One more person I want to talk about
before we get into one of my favorite women in recent history, there is Amy Carmichael.
Amy Carmichael, she was 1867 1951 born in Ireland to devout Scottish Presbyterian parents.
Born in Ireland is Scottish parents. Okay. So she converted to Christianity when she was 14.
She joined the Christian Missionary Society and served in Japan for 15 months before she found her
lifelong vocation. Then she founded the, wow, I'm not going to say that down, Navarra fellowship,
which provided sanctuary for over 1000 children whose parents had dedicated their children to the
gods and lived in moral and spiritual danger. Now, if you understand dedicated their children
to the gods, it likely is that they're going to sacrifice them. You're like, that stuff only
happens in the Bible. Well, apparently it was happening in the 1800s and it still happens in
places. There is a book called Everybody Always by Bob Gough. In the back half of his book,
he talks about working with a foreign country to get witch doctors arrested because they are
sacrificing children for power. But then he also talks about how he went into the jails and started
working with the witch doctors and one came to Christ and led the entire jail to Christ.
This is not something that's not happening in the world. It's still happening in the world.
Yeah. So Carmichael has a couple of books. She has one called The Gold Cord and Things As They
Are, Mission Work in Southern India. She was in bedridden for the last two decades of her life,
but published 16 additional books before her death in 1951. So she may have been stuck on bed,
but she did some stuff while she was there. Yep. So this next one, I've read multiple books by her,
Cory Tinboon. If you're not familiar with this story, I highly recommend finding a book called
The Hiding Place and reading about her. So one of my favorite people that she mentions in her book
and writes a lot about is her dad. Her dad is just a really solid dude and it's no wonder that they
turned out the way they did. I believe her mom died early, but her dad was just, he was so
solid in his faith and he did not hold back his daughters from anything. So if you are not familiar
with Cory Tinboon, do you know enough about her to tell the listeners about her? I'm going to listen
to you and I'll add in as if you leave anything out. So early on in World War II, the Nazi Germany
was going through and they were collecting Jewish people. First, they were persecuting them, getting
them to pay fines, stealing their property, kicking them out of jobs, putting them into homeless
natures. A lot of things just to persecute Jews all throughout their area. She lived in the
Netherlands. So that area wasn't necessarily, it wasn't as bad as in Germany, but it was quickly
becoming like that because it came under German control. When it got to the point where they were
actually starting to herd Jews up to actually send to the concentration camps to eliminate them,
you can read about some of that stuff in Dietrich Bonheifer when he's writing about it.
She, her dad, and a few, like all of her family, set about creating a false room and almost like
a expressway, like underground railroad kind of thing to hide Jews and to get them out of the
country so that they could be saved. And we're talking like just so many. There was this massive
network that they created and they had these really complicated procedures on how to make sure
that they weren't being seen. There's actually like, they had this conversation with an older
Jewish man and that he's talking about, he says, she says, we just had the greatest time talking
because he knew him as Adonai and I knew him as Jesus. And so we talked about how much we treasure
the Jewish people as the people who came before us and gave us our savior. And I just love her
heart in all of that. It's interesting that in the story of Corrie Temboun, she eventually gets
confronted by a German soldier. And he quotes scripture to her about why she was so upset.
And then he says, I'm not going to lie. When he said that I had a flashback to people who use the
church as a weapon, use the Bible as a weapon on a frequent basis where they don't understand the
heart of the Bible. And they instead try to use verses to like hack everybody else up.
Because if you were familiar with the Bible, if this German soldier was familiar with the Bible,
he would know that Jesus says there are weightier portions of the law and that loving God and loving
other people is at the top. And if something is going to make you compromise that you're going to
have to figure out how to walk that out. I don't have a good answer for you on when that happens,
for how that happens. I say that you have to trust the spirit of God, but I suspect if you're trying
to keep somebody from dying and you have to choose between lying and let them die, I'm okay
with you lying. And there's probably somebody who's typing on their keyboard right now is like,
no, you have to be obedient to the word of God. I am obedient to the heart of God and to the
biblical text. And I believe that you have to look at the greater cause of loving somebody.
So, eventually she gets sent into a concentration camp. And they smuggle
in Bibles and they're reading the Bible. They're talking to people about Jesus and they're converting
people left and right. And Bible studies. She is teaching in the midst of watching horror happen.
She is bringing the Torah to present day. I mean, just if you hear people talk about her,
if you hear people talk about her actually from the Jewish circles, they'll call her an
Asiaskyle. What does that mean? It means like an angel. Oh, so good. And the only reason why
I know that is because of the time that I got to spend working with the Jewish family I nannied for
in college while I cared for their four kids and the young mom was battling breast cancer. And her
father, the father 15 years later sent me a note saying, you know, we regard you as an Asiaskyle.
So good. Like the angels, like what we aspire to be when we're entering in Yom Kippur. But
that's what she's known as. So good. And she was also, despite all the tragedy, heartache,
and just horrible things going around her, she was like the joy of the Lord. Yeah. And so to that
point, like when she talks about it, she was talking about how they got, they had an infestation of
lice with them within their people. And so they got segregated from everybody else, but because
they did, they weren't being as closely watched as so they could talk to people more about Jesus.
And she's like, Oh Jesus, thank you for sending us the lice. Yes. Now in her story, like you go
through and there's so many things that happen where like divine hand and miracles are happening
left to right in the middle of incredible depression and death. Cause let's not understate
the Holocaust. It was, is, it is a colossal event of evil yet in the middle of it, there's hope
and God's moving in hope through women of all things. Right. Through women, through women
and through men, because of course we want to talk about Dietrich Bonhoeffer, but specifically
today we're talking about women, right? And her sister ends up passing away in the concentration
camp. And you know that, that, uh, Corey Timbon was released by accident. I don't know that. Oh
yeah. She was released. She was actually supposed to be executed, but there was a clerical mistake
that she got released instead. Yeah. We call that clerical mistake Jesus. And so her sister
had a dream and she described this place where she said, cause if we ever get out of here,
we're going to have to help people learn how to love the people who oppress them.
I didn't hear that. We need to teach that have people love the people that oppress them. These
German soldiers who are logging you up, beating you, starving you, trying to kill you. We need
to figure out how to love them because Jesus loves them. And she had this dream and she describes
this house and this property that like her sister does. And when, when Corey is out, she goes back
and she goes back to her, our homeland and then the war ends. And eventually she is being led by
the Lord and she finds this property and it's exactly as her sister described. And they open
up this location and she starts inviting people who were in concentration camps, like they need a
place to heal, to find Christ. And then of course, then they, she's to have to write like the book
about her experience decades later, you know, and then talk about what happened. And she starts
writing and she's traveling. And in one of her travels, she's approached by a guy, a German fellow
afterwards, who was one of the officers
that was beating her and was responsible for her sister's death, who became a Christian.
And I love what she says. She says, in my humanity, I could never have shook that man's hand,
but I'm more than my humanity. I'm filled with the love of Christ and the spirit of Christ.
And through that, I can recognize him as a brother. And then she traveled
all over the place. I mean, we're decades of work, multiple books. I actually love, she has a book
called Tram for the Lord. It's so good. But where she talks about like, like just trying to get
places and preach and they didn't want to let her go because she was a woman. And then she's,
she's like, she would show up places and they're like, why are you here? She says, because God
told me to be here. And then like right then a situation would open up. And it's like prophetic
event after prophetic event, about from prophetic event. If, by the way, if you read this book and
you're like, this is crazy. It is crazy. God was doing crazy stuff in the life of Corey Timbuktu
because she was obedient. She listened and she obeyed. And like hundreds of thousands,
if not millions of people at this point have been impacted by her ministry, by her teachings,
by her story, by her witness. Like she, and, and yes, at times she preached, but like she was
everything that like we would want in a minister. If you look at a pastor's heart, Corey Timbuktu
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
name wrong. So just please forgive me. Bilqis Shaikh, 1926 through 1997. Right. It was a wife
of a high ranking government official in Pakistan, gave her life to Christ in 1997. And she was
Christ in 1966 was born in Pakistan to an elite Muslim family and never fully embraced her family's
religions. Curious about Jesus. She read about the Quran and she asked her Christian chauffeur to
bring her a Bible. At Romans nine 25 to 26 caught her attention. She approached two local American
missionaries who answered her questions and explained the gospel. And soon after she
experienced a series of dreams and visions that confirmed her decision to convert.
News of her conversion reached her family who considered her a traitor and an infidel and shunned
her. And after she was threatened and her home torched, she fled to the United States where she
began speaking about her experience and love for Jesus in churches. The use later, her health
declined and she returned to Pakistan where she died in 1997. I just, I love the whole thing of
dreams and visions and God just meeting us where we're at. You know, there is, there is another
story and I forget the lady's name. I have both of her books, but it's a really hard name, but she
was, she survived the Rwanda massacre. Are you familiar with the Rwanda massacre? Yeah.
I'm just trying to, I'm trying to think of the name.
Yeah. She goes to the story. My, my favorite parts in the book and just like testimony to
her faith in Christ, cause she has seen humanity as worst because in a lot of ways it was similar
to the Holocaust, except that you had neighbors literally cutting each other down and thinking
that they're doing good. And like, even the people who were hiding her began to resent her over time.
When they finally came in, when they finally came in and liberated Rwanda and stopped the massacre
from going on, they started rounding up these people who were actually doing the killing. And
one of the officers invited her in and gave her a gun to shoot the guy who had been like killing
people in her, in her village. And instead she forgave him and said that Jesus, this is what
Jesus would want me to do for you. And that you have done, she said, you have done monstrous things,
but you are not a monster. You are loved and you are forgiven. These are the kind of people who
push the gospel forward. This is the kind of people God calls us to be. These women,
teach us more about how to walk in faith than a lot of sermons that I've heard.
Right? So what, what is the point of all this? It's not that it's not just these,
we're not trying to hold up these stories where you start worshiping these people.
We're trying to, we're trying to point a clear picture that God has been working through women
all throughout history and he has risen up leaders. He's risen up apostles. He's risen up preachers.
He's risen up evangelists. He's risen up mothers that are about forwarding the kingdom of God and
everything that they do. And their gender has never been the issue except when man made it the issue.
It's never been an issue with God. It's always been an issue with man. And usually from people
who are more focused on their religion than their faith. I think one of the things, all these stories,
I think one of the things, all these stories is you have these women who are saying, okay,
we're not going to listen to the status quo. We're going to listen to Jesus and we're going to go
where he calls us to go. Some of them are, we're going to go where he calls us to go. Some of them
are like just life circumstances. Like Corey Tempon just thrown in prison, like thrown in concentration
camp at some point. She didn't choose to go there, but when she was there, she said, we're going to
bring Bibles in and we are going to proclaim the gospel. We're going to find ways to glorify Jesus
and bring him into the situation. So to have that heart where it's no matter where I'm at in life,
I'm going to be following after the Lord. As Paul says, am I here to serve man or am I here to serve
God? He's like, yeah, then every time I read that, I think Paul's being a little sarcastic.
Like, he's definitely being sarcastic. And you know, I'm just rhetorical question just
driven me because I can. But when you have these women who are doing that, you leave and there's
tons of other stories throughout history where women have pushed the envelope on them. So,
but it's not, it's not because they're doing it out of a social justice cause or anything like
they're doing it because the Lord has called them to do it. Responding to the call, responding to
the Lord's put on their lives. And then, and to the men who are supporting them in a lot of cases
and not every case, cause there's lots of examples for a son's case, but to the men who are supporting
in those cases, they're not doing that for shame either. They're doing that to support the call
that's put on their lives. Damn, so good. When thinking about this, cause I think sometimes the
church can take this issue and turn it into what's our position, what's our stance on it and turn it
into a posturing thing. When it's, when really the heart behind it is what's the call that the Lord's
put on your, on your life. But one of the things with women in ministry that I always push back on
a little bit when people are like, should they or should they not be, I was like, here's the reality.
If you say yes to Jesus, you are called into ministry. It's just a matter of what that looks
like in your life. A hundred percent. Right. So if you say yes to Jesus and you're a woman,
you are called into ministry. You are called to be part of, you're called to be part of your church.
You're called to be part of your body. You're called to serve your community. What that looks
like is going to vary, whether it's specifically pastoral ministry, like Sarah, that's one thing,
or whether the Lord's put on your call that you're going to be the best mother possible. Right. Or
whether, or whatever that is, or whether the Lord said, Hey, there's this place that needs Jesus.
You're going to go into that place and to be there. Right. Those are all aspects of you serving in
ministry. Yeah. And so if we can't just boil it, lots of others like to boil it down until it's
church ministry, referring to the building, the four walls that we come into on Sunday.
Yeah. I think a lot of that comes down though, is like when you're trying to exclude people,
like the more narrow you can make it, the easier it is. Like the more you can justify it. Yeah. And
that comes back to like our conversation about are we unified or are we uniformed? Yeah. Because
we're not going to be uniformed, but we are going to be unified. Yeah. But I think we got to start
rephrasing that. Yeah. I agree. We got to start being open about that rephrasing. I mean, like
if we are serving in ministry, it is our life, our livelihood, everything about us,
we are bringing Jesus into the places of the world everywhere we go. So 24-7. Yep. And so to say women
can't serve in ministry, if you're viewing it from the context of we're bringing Christ into the world,
you're saying they can't have breasts. Right. And that is just downright insulting. Yeah.
And I think there's, I think as this conversation continues to be had, it's so important that we're
talking about this history because there's going to be some little girl, you know, I mean, even the
fact that, you know, I've got four and you have one and just already, you know, Spencer, I know you can
speak to how the world views women as you've now seen it through the lens of being a dad.
And I think what's so important is that men need to also see the partnership that
Jesus is inviting them to and making sure that their sisters aren't silenced. And I think that
I feel for the men just as much as I feel for the women that are saying yes to the call when they
know it's coming at a cost. I mean, I could write you chapters of the cost that it's been just for
me. This is so, it's so hard. And so, you know, I don't want to discount the fact that there are
brothers that are also carrying the weight because they're choosing to speak against the norm,
because they're choosing to say, no, my sister has been given a gift from the Holy Spirit.
She's got to use it, like, in whatever capacity that is. And I'm thankful that Spencer, you even
said that our role in advancing the kingdom of God is advancing the gospel story of bringing hope to
the world. And I want to speak to the mom that's sitting there listening to this, that, you know,
found this podcast and she's knee deep in diapers and the home and the grocery shopping. And I was
there for 12 years. And I remember thinking, this is it. This is what I'm going to be doing is the
mundane of running a house and being chauffeur and chef and maid and nurse and, you know, the list
could go on. And I don't think that God could bring me to a season of being able to be a shepherd
to a congregation until he had to show me what it meant to be a shepherd to five little souls.
So good.
And there are times that I just laugh because I'm looking at an adult thinking, this is a tantrum
that my two-year-old could have thrown and you're thrown it 10 times better. But I really have to
look back to that, that in those 12 years of the crucible of being a stay at home mom and, and I
was already fitting into society's space. Society wants me home. Society wants me not contributing.
And it's such a gift now to be on the other side, to realize that it was in those formative years
of being a mother, learning that my ministry was how I was loving my children in the midst of
defiance and autonomy. How am I loving my husband in career changes and going back to school?
How am I loving my teenagers as they're breaking away from the control? I don't, I can't shepherd
a congregation if I don't know how to shepherd my home.
And I think one of the, one of the things I want to, you said this, but, and it's definitely what
society kind of pushes. If you're a stay at home mom, like you are absolutely contributing.
So many.
I would just like to say that Tara's job is way harder than mine.
Oh, hands down.
It's so much harder than mine.
Like I feel for, I feel for her, her spouses, because I'm like, wow, I get to sit here and
hang out, but I know what's happening at home with those busy bodies.
Yeah. I actually just, I got a text message before we started this is that Leland had a
bag of potato chips and it's so windy, I'm blown away and he lost his potato chips and is crying.
And for Leland and his chips.
Yeah.
That was a really big deal.
So I want to once again stress as we're landing this plane, these were a few stories.
You should go read some books. Like there, there are countless stories that, and even like the
people we talked about, you go read some books on these people. Like they're real living and
breathing disciples that are, have just been consistently like throughout the history all
over the country. We talked about Australia, we're talking about Ireland, we talked about China,
we talked about Pakistan, like we're all over the place, Germany, and God is doing a work.
And I specifically didn't focus on America because there's a lot of stories that we're familiar
with here and we need to hear like, well, there's more than just us and God has been doing a lot.
Also America has only been around a couple of years, but I think it's a lot of people
around a couple hundred years. So there's a lot more churches straight in that. Yeah.
So with that, with that being said, next week we're going to, we are actually going to dive into
the controversy. We're going to take the four verses that people use. And yes, I did say that
correctly. Four verses that people use to discredit women as, as ministers. And we're going to talk
about them and why they might not mean what you think they mean. And then we're going to talk
about like, how do we actually support, elevate and encourage people to embrace the call regardless
of their gender? Yeah. It sounds great. Yeah. Sounds fun. See you guys next week. Okay. Bye.
And that's a wrap for today's episode of Love and Context. We hope you enjoyed this engaging
conversation and gained valuable insights into the powerful message of love within the Bible.
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