Jamie Grant

Heather Parker

In this second episode with counselors Jamie Grant and Heather Parker, they talk about the gift of anger, how it is a gift to us as we learn to notice what’s going on within our hearts when it arises. In this conversation they explain where anger comes from, inward and outward anger and the possibility that anger is masking other losses.

Connect to Episode 1: Does My Anger Matter to God? if you missed it.

This episode is available on video as well.

00:22 Introductions

Kay >> Hi. I’m Kay Daigle of Beyond Ordinary Women Ministries. Welcome to our podcast and video episode.

We have today guests who have returned. Two weeks ago in our podcast we welcomed Jamie Grant and Heather Parker, who are both licensed professional counselors. We have been talking about anger. We’ve been talking about all sorts of things, and we’re extending that today to a second session because there was so much information that they gave us that we want to dig a little bit deeper into anger, particularly as Christians.

So, Heather, tell us a little bit summarize a little bit of what we’ve already heard and talked about before we go into a new area of anger.

Heather >> Sure. So in the last one, we talked about the perception. Well, first we talked about anger—how do we see that in the image of God and really highlighting that God is slow to anger. There’s a real there’s a lot of restraint and it’s not long lasting. That is the truth of how we see anger in God.

That’s not always how we’re taught. Sometimes we’re taught that he is a rageful God but Scripture tells us otherwise. So we kind of hit a little highlight on that.

We spoke of the perception of anger in the church—that oftentimes anger can be viewed as sin or it’s bad. And if it’s sinful and it’s bad, then we’re bad.

Yeah. Jamie, you can jump in at any time too. Yeah.

We talked a little bit about just the perception of it really highlighting the difference between God-given anger that shows us something’s not okay. It exposes what we’re passionate about and shows us something’s not okay. It’s not sitting well with me and can eventually inform how we want to approach that. And really highlight the difference between that and a rage or acting out or the quick-tempered what we often see in families and society. And even often in our churches.

We talked about, yeah, just how anger—sometimes people in leadership will want to make sure that people stay away from their anger. And that comes out in an element of control and that can look a lot of different ways.

But overall, the messaging around anger as being bad or negative starts really young and is often widespread, especially in Christian circles.

Yeah, anything I leave out, Jamie?

Jamie >> I think that was a great recap. I think what made it a nice kind of segue into what we talk about today is you know, if there’s, as you were saying, like these beliefs around anger as being bad or if I’m taught anger is bad and therefore I internalize this message that I’m bad because I’m experiencing this emotion of anger.

There’s also some other messages that we get as children because we’re you know, this isn’t going to be a parent finger-pointing episode or session. But we are—we’re sinful people raised by sinful parents in a sinful world. So we’re going to get messages around our emotions based on how we’re brought up. If there’s this thing that I’ve split off from me yet, it’s part of being human, it’s going to go somewhere.

And so looking maybe in this episode, a little bit of what happens when this quote unquote bad entity, you know, we’re experiencing has either nowhere to go or has no place like what happens.

Kay >> Great. So we know that where is it going to go? I mean, where does our anger go? We’re used to the outward anger for sure. That’s what we see so much in our society right now is just outward anger. People who are actually enraged, as you’ve talked about.

So you want to talk about that? You want to talk about inward anger? Where do you want to start?

Jamie >> I’d love to start like at the beginning just before we look at where it goes, like because I think this example will show us from a sort of like a neuro-biological perspective of what happens.

And so if you look at an infant when an infant is born, they don’t have a lot of ways to communicate except by crying and that’s their means of communicating to their caregiver, hey, something’s off like my diapers wet or I’m hungry or I’m cold, I’m tired, overstimulated, whatever it is, I cry. And that’s really necessary and God-given because it’s the infant’s way of protesting. Something is wrong. And so when I can do that as an infant, the design is like caregiver attends to my need. And so it’s a very important and of course, survival component of life of being human.

Well, there have been studies and books written about what happens when a child’s cries or protests are not met. And, you know, initially they’re going to—if you’ve ever been around an infant that you’re not attending to—their cry is going to get louder or their protest is going to get louder. Eventually, it’s going to turn into sort of this rage full, like meet my need. And there is, again, a very specific purpose because as an infant, our survival depends on a caregiver meeting our needs.

When that escalated protest is still not met, what an infant does, what our brains do (this is not conscious, this is wired in) is we will begin to prune away the protest or the cry for our needs to be met.

And what ends up happening is a baby will eventually stop crying so they can have needs. They can be in soiled diapers.They can be an awful conditions and like not cry about it. That’s not because they’re a good baby. That’s because their brain is literally trying to keep them alive.

And if you’ve you know, again, if you’ve seen an infant wailing and throwing a fit, you can see how much energy it takes. Like you’re their faces red. They’re sweaty eventually, like they probably crash out from exhaustion. It’s actually the body the brain body’s way of preserving my life energy. It’s this survival mechanism of going, what my needs aren’t met.

So I’m going to I’m going to prune away this response. And that’s really important to understanding later as we get older where anger goes. You want to add anything to that, Heather?

Heather >> No, I think that’s the fundamental part of understanding why we have such complicated relationships with anger as adults. Because we’re not even aware this is happening as infants. And yet it is. And then we become very acquainted with the just the complexity of our relationships to anger as adults. But understanding everything you just shared is like and really important to knowing why and where that comes from.

Kay >> So are we ready to move on to outward anger versus inward anger?

Jamie >> Sure, we can. I let me add on here and then, Heather, I’d love for you to for you to jump in you know, so probably I’m going to guess, you know, the majority of your listeners didn’t maybe experience the far the extreme form of neglect. So, you know, that they were left in, you know, extreme conditions and their brains were not probably pruning off their anger or protest at this very, very young age. But I think there’s also like that sort of underlies the neuro-biological process that often we relate to later in life.

So growing up, when there’s different ways that I receive messages about my anger and again, I’m reminded of Heather’s story of her daughter receiving this message. So obviously these children that told her, you know, she’s angry is she’s not a Christian.

They have received the message about their anger, maybe overtly. But there’s so many covert ways or unspoken ways we learn about what to do with our emotions growing up. And, you know, as children, we have two needs. We have to have connection to our caregiver. Again, that’s we’re dependent on that for life. And then we have this need to be who we are and sort of this authenticity.

So there’s authenticity and attachment.

And so growing up, if I learn that when I have when I’m angry, let’s say if I come, then I’m really angry at my friends or something. And I’m maybe told by my parent, “Oh, there are people that have it worse.” Or a lot of people that I talk with relate to this message of “You’re crying or I’ll give you something to cry about.”

Maybe relate to being really upset as a kid and being told to, you know, go to your room until you can come out calmly. And these are just a few examples of ways that we learn that our own anger jeopardizes our attachment relationship with our caregiver because now I’m cut off emotionally from this person that I’m dependent on.

So what I do is I go internally and this is again, this is not conscious, but my brain is going, oh, attachment is threatened. Let me put this anger away. But it doesn’t it actually doesn’t go away because again, it’s like part of being human.

So I like to liken it to going into a pressure cooker. And that’s I think kind of where we can see it.

Heather >> Yeah, I think this is also where it gets into so much of what Jamie’s referencing the need for connection. You know, so much of that depends on your environmental expectations and demands. And so, you know, in some families, it going outward is a part of that. Like that’s how the family does things. The louder you get, the bigger you get, the more space you take up, then you’re more likely to get your needs met that way.

Some families, the louder you get, the bigger you get, the more space you take up, you won’t get your needs met. Learning to absorb the anger and hold it inward becomes the mechanism of survival or the strategy to get through that.

And so it’s just it’s such a there’s so many layers to how that takes place. That’s why I’m looking at the organic part of how it starts, like Jamie was referencing as a baby and then realizing how our environment also begins to play a part on how that’s expressed—out or in.

I think that part of it has to do with, you know, you’ve got all these layers of you got your family of origin, and then you’ve got your educational environment, and then you have your little community and then you have your spiritual community and then you have you.

And so it’s like all these filters are playing a part in what’s acceptable and what’s not acceptable. And this is where I think it informs where people end up moving towards acting out or acting in depends on what’s going to keep them the safest and have them in a position to have the most attachment or connection that heavily informs which way they go.

I’m also reminded of like the sermon that you referenced Kay, by Tim Keller. He describes this as three different ways. He’s talking about the gift of anger and the God-given gift of anger like we were talking about earlier. But he says that, you know, there’s no anger, blow anger and slow anger.

And no anger is kind of like what I’m thinking. about as we’re talking about this, this acting in. It’s where I absorb it all. I pretend like it doesn’t exist, I shame myself for feeling the anger that’s there and it all goes inward. That often manifests in depression. If you think about the organic word of depression, it means to push down. Oftentimes depression is actually anger that is just being acted in and pushed down.

And so there’s that way of holding it in. Then you’ve got the blow anger, which is the quick-tempered method of I’m going to put it out on everybody else because it feels so intense. I’m not going to hold it myself.

Either way, whether it’s acted in or acted out. It’s a way that we’re trying to control or disconnect from our own protest from this place of this is not okay with me.

And that it’s truly only in the gift of slow; being attuned to what is happening in me. exploring the reality of what’s coming up and being able to tolerate it, that we can really access the gift of it. Yeah. That’s kind of where my mind goes to how that shows up tangibly.

Kay >> Want to add anything to that, Jamie?

Jamie >> No, it’s I’m curious what your next question might be.

Kay >> Well. I’m just, you know, my mind is going around as I’m listening to the two of you of people who are dealing with their anger inwardly and dealing with it outwardly. And so as we think of you, you know, you’ve mentioned several times that people always label anger as sin, which would not be correct because it’s a God-given emotion. It’s part of being the image of God.

But would you see either one of these inward or outward as worse or is it just— I mean, I think of the person doing outwardly sometimes hurts other people because of that.

Does that make it a worse way to handle it? Are they both just the way that our body handles it?

Jamie >> Yeah, I don’t know that there’s a worse. I think this is kind of what was coming to my mind earlier. I think we tend to think that outward, like any kind of expression of anger, outward is bad. And this, again, goes to some of the messaging that we’ve internalized either in our families of origin or our faith circles.

That expression of anger is bad. And so in even going back to growing up in an environment where an expression of anger may have jeopardized connection to my caregivers. If again, we’re using the premise that anger is a God-given emotion, it has gifts of informing us and giving us information about our greater environment and how we fit into that, if I’m internalizing that, that that’s a bad and that I’m bad. And that is actually also a very neuro-biological, I’ll say, like this is part of the neurobiology of attachment.

So what a child can’t stand is, first of all, they can’t simultaneously like love and hate a caregiver or a parent. Those are two very conflicting emotions that they can’t. They don’t have awareness to hold those together. So if I’m feeling angry as a child at my parent and that’s jeopardizing my connection with them, what’s going to happen is, no, I’m not I don’t have the awareness or the words for this. But it’s not like, “Oh, my parents doing something that’s actually not good or healthy or for me or bad.” What gets internalized is “I’m bad,” because that is necessary in order to maintain this love or this connection with my caregiver.

So what we call shame, this “I am bad,” is actually like so many times these internalized messages of kind of hate and contempt for the self, what I am feeling, who I am. We actually become very, very violent with ourselves. And it can be to the point of self annihilation, whether through words or actual, like, you know, attempting to take myself out of this world and like annihilate myself.

So I don’t think we can call outward, you know, displayed rage worse than inward, because the reality is God loves all people. So if I’m doing this to myself. And I don’t want anybody here with depression— like I’m not calling this a sin by any means. In fact, that’s one of my soapbox areas.

We’re looking at human responses— two ways that we’ve been taught to relate to ourselves. Where I get heated and sort of angry is these messages were given to us. We didn’t get the choice. We didn’t have consent and telling ourselves we were bad. This is a means of survival.

So it really breaks my heart when we get to adulthood and people are still internalizing these messages from childhood or from growing up in environments that told them parts of themselves were not okay.

Kay >> You want to add anything to that, Heather?

Heather >> No, I think that’s very well said.

Yeah, it’s heartbreaking, truthfully, because the acting inward on ourselves, I think use the words like self annihilation—and that’s just as devastating as people who are acting out on to others, annihilating others. It’s different sides of the same coin. You know, they’re both really harmful and impactful.

Something that is really interesting to me is that a lot of times people will associate, they’re acting out rage with anger, and there may be traces of the true God-given protest that something’s not right.

But oftentimes when it’s a rage and it’s being acted out in a pattern like that, what’s really underneath it is grief. And that can feel really terrifying. For some people, the rage is more is trying to control the grief, stay down. And so I know that’s probably another podcast for another day, but it’s an important piece of the acting out is there may be elements and traces of a protest but often what’s underneath the acting out is a grief that hasn’t been honored.

Jamie >> Yeah, that reminds me of a book that I actually I have listed as a resource. It’s no longer in print that you can still get it on Kindle. I will occasionally find like an old copy of it at Half Price Books or something, but it’s called Faces of Rage. And the subtitle is, I think I’ve given away all my books so because I loved it so much, I think it’s The Eight Losses that Lead to or that Underlie Anger essentially. And David Damico is the author. He’s a Christian author, and he looks at anger from a Christian perspective and really highlights the losses that underlie anger. And that loss can be is simple, if you will, as, you know, losing connection to a caregiver.

If I’m having emotions. And he gives lots of examples. You know, there’s an example in the book. It’s been years since I read it of maybe like an elementary-ish age child whose parent dies. And in an attempt to I’m going to say soothe the child. It’s a lot more complex than that. The grandma comes in and she’s like, you know, well, it’s going to be okay. We just got to get up and kind of move on with our lives.

And it’s like there’s so much loss there that’s going invalidated, if you will, which is one of the things that I mean, that can certainly lead to, you know, rage inward or outward later on in life, because how confusing. Like, what do I do with all of this inside of me?

Heather >> Yeah.

Kay >> Yeah. Grief is grief is really, really hard. And I know that my dad died when I was 33, and I picked up the message that, “Well, he’s in heaven. We don’t really need to grieve. We’re just going to celebrate.” And it took me years, years to grieve him because of that, because I would just push it now, push it inside and not deal with it.

I don’t think I became angry, but it was I mean, the grief was there, and I think that’s common in the church. That’s a common way to deal with death. And I don’t think it’s healthy.

So you you’ve mentioned I don’t know if you mentioned it in this episode or the last one, but you mentioned that anger can be a gift.

And I really like the idea of us concluding on this particular topic because I love that thought that anger can be a gift to you if you take the gift. So Heather, do you want to explain how that’s true?

Heather >> Yeah, let me start by saying this because I feel like this is this piece of this. And I feel like Jamie and I align on this, based on our conversations, there are a lot of models that hold anger as a secondary. Like it’s really hiding something else. It’s not quite so significant. It’s really a symbol of something else that’s going on.

That’s not really where we approach this. We really approach the gift of anger and the gift of grief as that’s what holds our aliveness. Like, when you think of being human and being alive, having the gift of life, anger moves us towards what matters.

Grief honors what has also mattered or what wasn’t there and should have been there. And so when we kind of hold this place, that grief and anger is it’s part of what being alive as a human is about. And so the gift of anger, if we can really slow down and become curious about what is it? I love the reflection Jamie did, just taking a moment to pause and think, what is coming up in me?

Like what about this is not okay with me? What about this is feels wrong? And giving it some space and becoming curious about it can provide clarity on, oh, this is what matters is, this is what my passion is about. This is what this is how I can in my love for, you know, whatever this is, I can make create movement. There’s agency in that.

And so for me, the gift of anger is that it creates the movement towards life. Really living a full life. And we’re not talking about the acting out anger or the turning inward and acting in anger. But if we really give it space, there’s just so much clarity in it— and movement. And so that’s when I think of the gift.

And I think of when Jesus flipped tables. You know, there was it wasn’t fast, it wasn’t flippant. It was he had had enough if he had seen enough and he had had enough and he said no more. That’s pretty powerful. And if we’re able to step into those places with a calm confidence to say no more, like that’s a gift. So that’s how I hold it.

Jamie >> Yeah, I love that. I’m so appreciating you’re highlighting the gift of life, like aliveness that it gives us. And I’m thinking of it on that smaller— is probably not the right word—but a more like individualized skill. Like, here’s an example for my own life that comes up is like recently I feel like I’ve seen more doctors than I would care to see in a short amount of time. If you’ve had interaction at all with our medical system, you know how frustrating it is.

I was having a really hard time getting any one doctor to sort of take ownership of some of the things that I was experiencing. And I was really, really finding myself angry about this and felt very uncared for and to the point where I at one point in my mind went like, I might as well just give up.

Like, I guess I’ll just suffer through whatever it is I’m suffering through. And I thought, wow, hold up. I mean, I’ve done enough of my own internal work to be really present to what was kind of happening in the moment. I’m like, wow. I’m like throwing myself under the bus just because somebody else won’t take it in, won’t care for me in the way that I want them to care for me.

When I can slow down and listen to, like, what is the message of my anger there? The message is I want to be cared for that message or that way of going about being cared for as an adult is not by expecting like somebody else to take care of me.

It’s like, oh, I get to take care of me now. My voice matters. My needs matter, me being taken care of matters, but it has to matter to me. I can’t expect anybody else to, you know, for my, you know, medical or whatever issues to matter to a doctor more than they matter to me. And so in that, it gave me this gift of going, “I matter and I get to care for me.” It’s okay if a doctor thinks that I’m sure they don’t even think about like me, but my thoughts are like, “Oh, gosh, they’re going to think I’m annoying or I’m going to, you know, they’re going to think I’m a hypochondriac or whatever.” And I have all these messages going.

Okay, if they do, like, what does that really matter?

Quite honestly, they’re probably not thinking that, but it gives me this gift of my own aliveness. Like, Oh, I get to matter to me. And so many times I think we’re adults walking around with expectations that other people are going to meet the needs that we had growing up, that we split off because our protest wasn’t answered or whatever was happening in the environment at large.

But we get this gift of when we listen to anger getting to show up for ourselves in ways that, you know, we may never have before. And in that it’s really honoring who I am and who God’s made me to be. It’s like I’m sure you’ve heard the old— I think it’s given as a joke sometimes—there’s a person stranded on a roof and they end up dying in the floodwaters rise and they die and they go to heaven like “God why didn’t you rescue me? And God’s like, well, I sent a boat and you didn’t, you know, you were like, no, I’m waiting for God to rescue me. And I sent a, you know, a helicopter and you’re like, “No, I’m waiting for God to rescue me. Like, what did you think the boat and the helicopter were?”

And the way I look at it is like, God’s given us anger as the people in the helicopter to go, Oh, there’s something going on here, and you get to matter to you because you matter to me.

Kay >> That’s great. Heather, if you want to add anything.

Heather >> I don’t know that I need to add anything to that.

That’s a great way to summarize it, for sure.

Kay >> Yeah, well, just give a final word to our audience before we close. Heather, what would you say to the women and men out there that are listening or watching this about anger.

Heather >> I would say be curious. Be open to the possibility that it’s not what you’ve been told and to the possibility that it’s more than what you’ve been told. Get to know what it feels like, and when it’s authentic and the ways that you shut it down. Get to know the ways that you might act it out.

So I would say just be curious about it, and try to hold the framework that it is okay. It is. We are made in his image and he expresses and experiences anger, the Trinity expresses and experiences anger. And so just get to know that in yourself. That would be that can be the hardest part.

Kay >> Yeah. Yeah. What about you, Jamie?

Jamie >> Yes, that’s for sure. Getting to know it in yourself, particularly as leaders in a church setting, in this in the case of this audience. Because if it’s not something you’re familiar with, we run the risk of hurting people more by giving messages of, you know, just make a different choice. Just put your anger away from you or don’t be you know. Don’t be depressed or pray more about it.

I mean, those things are all fine and good. But I think it’s a very partial—like it’s like a tiny piece of a much bigger story of human beings. And if we don’t get to know our own humanity as leaders, how are we going to lead the humans who are in our flock? How are we going to shepherd them well?

Often ways we respond are not choices. They are survival strategies. And they require time and care and being with rather than trying to make somebody into what we think they’re supposed to be, which is I’m not going to well. That would be a whole other podcast, but yeah, so just making space for the humans that we care for.

Kay >> You know, I know for me it’s really been through the Scriptures that I’ve recognized that it’s a positive to show your anger. The Psalms are so full of, particularly David, speaking his anger to God about what’s happening in his life. And that’s, that’s a real pattern for us to recognize the anger and to speak to God about the anger, as you said. And realize that he invites us to share our anger with him.

And he can help us work through it. He can help us see how it’s a gift and do all the things that you have been encouraging us to do in this podcast. So thank you so much for the time that you’ve given us, for the wisdom that you’re giving us, for the insight that you’ve given us into anger. And once again, you can contact them. Heather is at WaterstoneCounseling.org and Jamie, tell us again because I don’t have it written down.

Jamie >> It’s MetanoiaDallas.com.

Kay >> And you can also consider the book by Chip Dodd, The Voice of a Heart: A Call to Full Living. Tim Keller’s sermon The Healing of Anger and the Faces of Rage by David Damico are suggestions of other resources that you can go to.

And as I’ve said, our Beyond Ordinary Women Podcast has many other topics we have connections on our website at BeyondOrdinaryWomen.org to all sorts of resources to help assist Christians.

So we’ll look forward to seeing you next time.

Jamie Grant

Counselors Jamie Grant and Heather Parker answer the question, “Does my anger matter to God?” They discuss about how it is so often misunderstood in the church in this conversation with Dr. Kay Daigle.

Heather Parker

Because anger can masquerade as depression, we often fail to deal with it correctly. Trauma in children may cause anger that leads to other issues as they become adults. This insightful conversation can help us recognize anger and appropriately get help to deal with it.

This is an important topic for not only Christian leaders as they help others, but it is for all of us, knowing that we all deal with anger and that it matters to God.

This episode is available on video as well.

00:21 Introductions

Kay >> Hi. I’m Kay Daigle of Beyond Ordinary Women Ministries. Welcome to this podcast and video episode. Today we’re talking about anger with our guests, Heather Parker and Jamie Grant. Welcome, ladies.

Jamie >> Thank you.

Heather >> Thanks for having us.

Kay >> Well, I’m excited about this conversation, and I feel like this is an important one right now. But let me just introduce these gals quickly. Jamie is a licensed professional counselor, and she graduated with a degree in counseling from Dallas Seminary. And she specializes in working with adults with complex trauma. She practices in a private practice here in North Dallas.

And Heather is in Birmingham. And she practices at Waterstone Counseling. She’s also a licensed professional counselor and supervisor and she specializes in helping people overcome trauma.

So both of them work with people with trauma issues and that’s how we started talking about what to talk about. And they brought up anger as a possible topic. And I was so delighted that you did that, because our society is just full of so much anger right now. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much anger in my lifetime. And I’m old. So, you know, this is this is a very unique time, at least for the last, you know, century, I would say as far as anger is concerned. There’s just a lot of hatred and a lot of anger toward anyone that doesn’t agree with whoever it is. So all sides have anger.

And so let’s just talk a little bit about anger.

Let’s begin with us being Christians. I think it’s great to set the standard for where God comes from on anger, because we know God gets angry. God talks about God’s anger and he talks about it in the Bible. So what does the Scripture show us about God’s anger, You want to start us out, Jamie?

Jamie >> Sure. And without, you know, having a kind of list of the different references, just kind of a general idea of the God’s anger in the Scripture. I mean, so many times I hear people or I have heard people delineate or make this delineation between the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament. The God of the Old Testament seems so full of anger and wrath. And, you know, Jesus comes along and has like this compassion.

And so I think it’s really important to remember the God of the Old Testament is the same. God is the God in the New Testament. And, you know, Jesus, God and the Holy Spirit are all one. So there is no delineation; God is not divided in himself.

So the anger that we see in the Old Testament I think, points mostly to this is this is a part of God. And this is perhaps going to sound, maybe raise some questions or eyebrows for people like— God is angry. Yeah. And I think this is a really important part of why we’re talking about this anger is something we certainly see in God throughout Scripture speaking in the New Testament terms with Jesus over turning the money changers tables in the temple.

You know, Jesus had pretty strong feelings toward the Pharisees and the woes. And so if we’re made in God’s image and anger is a part of what informs God, then anger is a part of what he has given us to inform us..

Kay >> Good. Heather, do you want to add anything to that?

Heather >> You know, I think what comes to my mind is like if if we look at how it’s referenced in Scripture. In reference to God’s anger is usually slow. It’s usually restrained, and it’s usually not long lasting. So it’s what we’re seeing, I think, in society looks a little different right now. And so when you think about God and his anger, I love Tim Keller says that anger is love in motion.

And I feel like that when I think about God’s anger. That’s not what I was raised to believe. I don’t think I was taught that as a young believer, but it’s been a part of my own growth of beginning to look at the truth of what his anger showed up as and how it presented. And so that’s just what comes to my mind when I think about God and how it’s exhibited. It’s it’s not quick tempered. It’s not volatile.

And so I think that’s an important delineation.

Kay >> Yeah.

Jamie >> And I had one thing on that, too. Kay. I think there’s a very important differentiation to make between anger and rage. So and I love that you brought in, Heather, the slowness of God’s anger because the rage— I think what we see so much right now, especially in front of us, is this behavior of rage, which is very reactionary.

It’s not slow. Not informed. It’s a reaction. And it’s a behavior of acting out, which we’ll get into more when we talk about like what anger is. But I’m really just appreciating, Heather, you highlighting the slowness of God’s anger.

Kay >> You know, James talks about that. We’re to be slow to anger because the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God. And so there’s definitely a difference. God is trying to bring righteousness to the world. And when he’s angry, he is often dealing with the unrighteousness that’s going on and his determination to improve the world, not destroy it.

He is slow to anger. You’re right. I mean, hundreds of years he told the Jews that he was upset at them because they kept going back to idols. And yet he waited and waited and waited, giving them every chance before he actually judged them for what they did.

So how has being made in God’s image change how we think about human anger?

And that kind of flows from what we were just talking about. But do you want to add anything as far as us being in God’s image?

Heather >> I love this question because I think there’s a way that as humans, we’re taught that we should be above or different in some way, as if anger is bad or wrong. And yet if we’re made in his image, it’s going to be a natural part of who we are.

But I think it’s having clarity on what that means because like we were just speaking earlier, it doesn’t mean rage. It doesn’t mean acting out in that way. But if we’re  in his image, then our anger is a natural part of being who he made us to be. And it serves a really important purpose. And so, yeah, I’m trying to think of the right words to say, but it’s definitely something that I was taught was not okay.

And so to really explore this idea of who he is, and how does this look in him, and how does it look in me. And knowing that that’s an organic way that he made me has been really empowering and freeing and helps me. Like there’s a closeness that I feel in a way of yeah, just not being made to be bad or wrong for that being there.

Kay >> Which really takes us to my next question is about how anger is perceived by people. And you’re talking about how you always perceived it and you’ve changed your mind. But what are what are some ways, particularly for Christians, since this is really our audience, how would you say that Christians often perceive anger Jamie?

Jamie >> Funny because Heather and I talked about this question and tossed it around and I’ll speak to what comes up for me around the question. And part of that is like, I don’t know. I don’t know if I want to speak to everybody’s perception or kind of the church’s perception or individuals within the church perception of anger.

So I’m going to speak just from my experience and even my experience interacting with people within the church. And the perception that I am aware of is that anger is a negative emotion. It’s negative in general. It’s not positive. It doesn’t do any good. It’s of no use to be anger. It’s not nice. These are actual phrases or ways I’ve heard anger described that it’s not God’s best.

I’m pretty sure I could probably say that I’ve heard at least a few a handful of people say that it’s sinful. In that’s it’s really hard because it’s like there’s this cognitive part. I think that we’re like, well, we’ll know like it’s there, but we have to do something with it really quickly. Like, we have to put it away.

Don’t let the sun set on your anger and then taking that kind of into this very literal means of handling it rather than allowing ourselves kind of slowly again, bringing that back to becoming informed by it. So I think maybe the perception of anger is that anger gets conflated with the behaviors associated with anger. So this acting in or acting out. And I think those actually might be what people are referring to with sort of assessments about anger, but that’s actually anger itself is an emotion, not a behavior.

And Heather had also some thoughts on that question.

Heather >> So personally, my background is pretty diverse in different denominations and faith of the Christian faith. And so I’ve been exposed to a lot of different dynamics and being a part of like pastoral care groups like within our church and walking with people through really hard situations. I agree with Jamie. We can’t give a general assessment that this is how the church as a whole sees things.

But it’s not uncommon for us to be taught that if there’s anger, it’s a lack of spiritual maturity or a lack, as you know, you’re being quarrelsome or you’re being you’re causing dissension. And it can go from there to a lot more specific. Things that I’ve heard come out of people’s mouths from people in authority or in leadership and the effects of that is that it shuts down people from their inner knowing, you know, sometimes it is the Spirit in us telling us something’s not okay.

But when we’re told you’re being quarrelsome or you’re causing dissension, or the message is, don’t be you shouldn’t feel what you feel. And sometimes it’s couched even a little nicer, like you should have a quiet and gentle spirit and as if anger means you don’t.

And so yeah, it’s kind of a soapbox place for me. I can feel really angry around this because I don’t like how it shuts down that part of us that is created in his image.

And again, delineating, we’re not speaking of the rage and the uncontrolled fast temper. That’s not what we’re talking about.

Jamie >> And I want to add on to that, too, because there’s this important component of this is such a human part of us are anger, are our emotions. And they’re not just arbitrarily there. Like they’re given to us and given for a reason. And so if they’re there for a reason, if they’re important, if this is if my emotions are intended to be to inform me of something and I’m taught that certain ones are bad, then what ends up happening, I find, is that we internalize, we as people internalize this message that I am bad.

And so then there becomes this wall of shame built around anger, in this case, in not wanting to not wanting to touch it, because we’re we don’t want to be bad. We don’t want to be sinful, disqualified. And what ends up happening, and we’ll talk about this later as well, but the anger, it’s not like it goes away.

So it ends up, you know, just going right to us. We end up directing it at ourselves. And we’ll again, we’ll talk about that later. But yeah, that’s part of I think the concern is that I internalized this message that I’m bad when I hear the message that anger’s bad.

Kay >> God is angry at sin and we should be angry at sin, too. I mean, to say that anger is always bad really goes against the Scriptures because there are things that are evil. There are things that are sinful because they hurt people and people are hurt by and there’s no love there. And that’s the kind of anger that we want to avoid.

But there is an anger of what’s bad that is natural to us because God has put it there. Would you say that’s the case?

Heather >> Well, I just had this like I haven’t thought about this in a while, and it just came to my mind as such a picture of what we’re talking about, these messages that are not always— they’re so subtle that we grow up in and we don’t even realize that they’re happening. And this is specifically around anger when something is hurtful or not right.

My youngest went to a private Christian school, growing until around fifth grade, and she came home one day in elementary school in tears. And she was telling me about being on the playground. And these little girls had said they would play with her and then they got out there and said, no, we just changed our mind. We don’t want to play with you. And were really ugly to her.

And so my daughter expressed anger and she just she said, “That’s not right. Like, I’m really mad at you for telling me something and then doing something different.”

And these little girls circled around her and said, “You’re getting angry. And this is elementary school.

She says, “Yes, I am angry at you. You weren’t honest.”

And the little girl said, “Well, we don’t think you’re a Christian if you’re angry”

Those were four little girls. That messaging comes from what they’re surrounded in or surrounded by. And so if you think about that organically happening at such a young age and the messaging is if you expressed your anger as something that you’re not okay with, something that’s wrong or hurtful, then you’re not a believer. That it shows like the depths of this messaging.

I hadn’t thought about that until we just started talking. I was like, “Oh, this is a perfect picture of it.”

Oh, yeah, it was. It was really hurtful.

Kay >> Do you think that sometimes the issue of anger can become a tool for controlling, controlling people in the church particularly? Let’s talk about that sure.

Jamie >> Yeah. I think what was coming to mind, too, from your last question, you know, I had so many questions kind of inspiring in my mind over what you were talking about. And when we talk about, you know, one of the things that we do as people is anything that we don’t own of ourselves.

So if we’re talking in this case about anger, like here’s this message: don’t own anger like a you know, kindergartener, or going, well, you’re not a Christian if you’re angry. That’s a pretty like you were saying this a pretty deep message. It didn’t come from the start with the kindergartner. They’re hearing it somewhere.

So anything we don’t own in ourselves or take the time to be within ourselves serves as a potential tool to be projected onto other people. And I think what we don’t take time with in ourselves for various reasons, but we’ve become afraid of it.

Like, I think there’s a lot of fear of anger. I know I’ve experienced a lot of fear of my own anger, a lot of fear of other people’s anger with me. And so if I’m really afraid of this thing, you better believe I’m going to do everything I can to control it and make it go away.

If I’m in a position of leadership, and particularly in the church and afraid of my anger, and unwilling to kind of be with that part of myself, it’s probably a pretty good chance that I’m going to project that or project the fear of it or the badness of it out onto other people.

And that’s really damaging! And it’s unfair and it’s sinful.

Kay >> Do you want to add anything to that, Heather?

Heather >> No, I think that that says a lot.

It’s, you know, we can only go with other people to the places we’ve gone with ourselves. And I think that’s exactly what Jamie’s saying. And there are a lot of people who are just—we’re either taught to be afraid of it, afraid of our own or experiences of something called anger that’s actually not. That’s rage or volatility or, you know, that we end up wanting to stay away from it completely.

And there’s another piece that keeps coming to my mind is like when you said control. If the God-given purpose of anger is movement is to take action to do something, love in motion. And whether it’s leadership or in relationship, someone doesn’t want action to be taken, they will try to control by shaming around your anger or shaming either overtly or covertly around this gift that God’s given us. So there are subtle and not so subtle ways people want you to stay away from your God given anger because that’s going to create movement and change. But not everybody wants that.

Jamie >> It might also inform us that something’s wrong.

Heather >> Right.

Jamie >> And the person that’s trying to control that does not want you connected to a sense of there’s something wrong here.

Heather >> Yes.

Jamie >> That would shatter their control or the sense of control.

Heather >> Yes.

Kay >> And I’m sure we’ve all seen that.

Heather >> Yes.

Kay >> And not just in the church, but in various places, but it happens in the church, too.

Heather >> Just absolutely.

Kay >> Just as it does everywhere.

Let’s talk for a minute about just what anger actually is. We’ve really kind of talked about how it’s presented how it’s how we perceive it. And how things that we call anger are not anger. So how would you describe anger.

Jamie >> Without going into sort of the neurobiology of what anger is and where it kind of originates, I had the idea of maybe just having us here and the listeners can do just a really brief kind of little exercise and like a reflection.

If you’ve followed the news at all in the recent—maybe I should probably know exactly like when this started, but you know, since 2026 started, just take a moment to reflect on what has happened and happening in Minneapolis.

And doesn’t matter what side of the political spectrum you fall on. But just take a moment and kind of connect if you can to your internal sense of what you notice when you think about what has happened and is happening in Minneapolis in particular.

Kay >> Yeah..

Heather >> Yeah. It makes me think of like that protest, like the knowing, like something’s not sitting right with me.

Chip Dodd authored a book called The Voice of the Heart. And I love the way that he talks about anger is that it exposes what we’re passionate about. Like what matters to me. And if you think about even, like, us talking about the image of God and who he is, you know, his anger it’s exposing his passion and what matters to him, which is us.

And so it’s like when Chip references this in his book, he talks about how if we can begin to notice what we’re passionate about, just like Jamie inviting us to take a minute to really notice what’s coming up, then once we’re able to identify what is this that matters to me and what’s not sitting right? So it gives us—when we really sit with authentic anger, it opens up a space to be able to name this is not okay with me.

And then it can give us a lot of clarity on what that is and what steps we want to take. Is there a boundary that needs to be set? Is there some delineation that I need to say this is where I end and you begin? So the gift of anger is this getting in touch with what matters to me. What am I passionate about? What is not sitting well with me? And what steps do I need to take?

That’s an amazing gift—like that’s clarity. And so for us to fragment away from that is like— I would think that is sin as well because you’re not listening to a God-given gift that is full of wisdom and can be full of direction.

Kay >> Okay, well, we’re going to continue this conversation, but take some time to think about this before we come back in two weeks with the rest of the conversation. But I think you’ve given us some real thoughtful questions to just see in our own hearts between now and then what’s going on and to try to understand that anger can be a gift as Heather was just talking about, and what are what our reactions are.

Now, this podcast we’re talking right now in late January, and the things in Minneapolis have just been going on, particularly this week. We have no idea of what is going on by the time that this drops in a couple of months. So you can think of something else that’s coming up in the country and the world, n your community, in your family. You can do exactly what Jamie was asking you to do, just really sit with that and think about it.

So we look forward to that. Let me go ahead and I’m going to give us some resources real quickly and mention them again at the end of the next one as well. But Heather has already mentioned the Voice of the Heart: A Call to Full Living by Chip Dodd. And also she’s mentioned Tim Keller, and he has a sermon on the healing of anger.

Heather can be found at Waterstone Counseling and Consulting in Birmingham.

Jamie, why don’t you give us your contact information?

Jamie >> Sure. Yep. I my practice is in North Dallas. The name of our practice is Metanoia, which metanoia is the Greek word for the journey of change. So it can be found at metanoiadallas.com.

Kay >> That’s great. And we of course also have other resources at BeyondOrdinaryWomen.org. And this particular episode and the next one will be posted on our Godly Living page. You can go to our resources at the top and go down to Godly Living and find other resources that deal with that.

So we hope to see you at the second part of this where they’re going to get into a lot of other things about anger and what to do with it. And I can’t even explain it myself because I’m not a counselor, so I’m not going to try to describe what they’re going to talk about, but you don’t want to miss it. So thank you for coming.

Jamie >> Thank you.

Heather >> Thank you.

Dr. Nika Spaulding

Do you value the “boring” parts of the Bible? If you’ve ever read through the Bible or have encountered sections that you might consider boring, this episode will give you reasons to care about them. According to BOW’s guest speaker, Dr. Nika Spaulding, Leviticus, the genealogies, and other scriptures can actually be places of learning, encouragement and joy. Her conversation with Dr. Kay Daigle will blow your mind as you see the riches that these passages hold.

This episode is available on video if you prefer it.

00:20 Introduction to Nika and the topic

Kay >> Welcome to the Beyond Ordinary Women Podcast and video. I’m Kay Daigle your host. And today I’m joined by Dr. Nika Spaulding.

Nika >> Wow. The Doctor! Wow!

Kay >> Yeah, well, we are so happy about that. And congratulations to you on that. That’s a big deal.

Nika >> Thank you, Dr. Kay.

Kay >> You’re welcome.

Well, Nika is a frequent guest. We have her often because she always has so many good things to say. And she has a Th.M. from DTS as well as a D.Min. from Northern Seminary. Today we are going to talk about valuing the so-called boring chapters of the Bible.

Nika >> Yeah.Kay >> Now, Nika, who needs to hear this?

Nika >> Everyone. Everyone needs to hear. And I mean that! You know, you and I always talk about what is it we want to talk about? What do we want to bring to Beyond Ordinary Women. And it tends to just kind of grow out of whatever research I’m doing at that time, whatever I’m studying and learning.

And right now I’m doing this thing where I’m teaching through each book of the Bible, one chapter at a time. So I’m halfway on a little bit more than halfway through Exodus. We’ve done all of Genesis. We’ve done all of Exodus. And it made me realize how tempting it would be to skip some chapters. Like, if I’m being honest, there’s some chapters and I’m like, “Huh, I’m not as excited about this chapter as I would, you know, Abraham sacrificing Isaac or whatever.” There’s just certain parts of the Bible you think, “Really?”

And yet I have found because I’m forcing myself to do it, I’m discovering these so-called boring passages like genealogies, the tabernacle instructions, places like that. What I’m discovering is actually they are critical chapters to one, our understanding of the Bible. But also there’s so much like good juice to squeeze out of that fruit for our spiritual formation and for our development. That shouldn’t surprise us if Scripture tells us that all Scripture is God breathed inspired by God and useful for these things.

And so I really do believe this is one of those videos for everybody, whether you’re teaching through the Bible, studying the Bible, coming to the Bible for the first time, confused about the so-called boring parts of the Bible. This is a video for you.

Kay >> Yes. I wish I had had this video when I started with my group, that is reading through the Bible in two years, because we’ve already made it through a lot of those chapters. And I thought you were very positive just to say not as excited about these chapters because I think many of us aren’t even excited at all.

Nika >> About, you know.

Kay >> We just want to get through these chapters. This gal who is reading through the Bible with this group told us that she puts her finger under every name because in the genealogies or other times where they’re lists of people just so that she reads every single name and doesn’t just skip over it.

Nika >> Yeah. Yeah. And I think that’s great. I not only do I teach through it, but I read those chapters. So maybe part of my dread is I have to pronounce all of these ancient Hebrew names. And so I’ve made a habit when I make my way through it, I go, “Nailed it,” Whether I nailed it or not, because it’s my Hebrew is not that strong.

But I if you would have told me ten years ago, I would have told you, these are boring parts and I’m not excited. I after a decade of studying the Scriptures, I have learned enough that often God has something in store for us in those chapters. And so it really is maybe anticipation if I’m coming to it going, I don’t know yet at first glance what’s in this chapter waiting for me, it’s rare that I get to the end of my studying know nothing there was nothing in there for me.

So I’ve actually found there’s really beautiful things in there, which is what we’re going to talk about today. Like what do what do you do when you come to these so-called boring parts of the Bible? How do we get these beautiful hidden and maybe not so hidden for some people, but hidden for some of us gems out of the Bible.

Kay >> Right and there are some scriptures that tell us that we should be reading all parts of the Bible, right?

Nika >> Yeah, that’s exactly right. I, I mentioned the 1 Timothy passage where it says that all the Scriptures, God breathed— this idea of inspiration. So we have human authors that wrote the Bible. And if it was just human authors, I’d probably be like, “What does Moses know? No, he didn’t get them all right,” you know? No, there is no singular human author that I think every chapter, every paragraph they’ve ever written has been amazing.

But when you add that God himself is also the author of the Scriptures, and he’s telling us about his own Word, that all of it is from him, written not necessary to us, but for us and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training your righteousness. Suddenly then, that’s why we don’t skip these chapters. Because if we’re going to believe God at face value. And then you get to Psalm 119, a incredible psalm all about the beauty and the goodness of the Scriptures. And the psalmist is saying I meditate on it day and night and there is this joy and delight that I get from doing that.

And he doesn’t say I meditate on the parts I like or I meditate on, you know, the better parts. The Bible itself is meditative literature. And when you spend time in it, suddenly the face of God starts looking back at you and the parts of the Bible that—and I would say like the parts of the Bible that maybe are boring to us are also because there’s thousands of years and a cultural divide. So genealogies to the ancient audience, immediately they’d go, “Well, those are valuable. That’s obviously valuable.”For us Westerners, more individualistic societies, we don’t naturally understand that. But at the Scripture itself in these passages tell us, “Hey, this is what the Bible is. It’s God’s Word given to us as this beautiful inheritance. And if you meditate on it, joy and delight and goodness is there waiting for you.” Well then that’s a pretty good invitation from God to look into these passages.

Kay >> Right? I love that. So what’s your first example of a passage like this?

Nika >> I want to start with the Tabernacle because that’s where I’m at. I’m teaching through it right now. I just finished the first set of the Tabernacle. And part of the reason why I think people find the Tabernacle boring is I think they’re willing to read all those tedious instructions one time. But the way this is set up is you read them all one time, (chapters 26-31).

And then we have the Golden Calf incident and some narrative there of, “Oh, what’s going to happen?”

I mean, the people have just said, “Hey, God, we’re with you.” And then by the time Moses comes down the mountain with the instructions they’ve completely forfeited. I mean, they’re just, you know, they run away from God.

So then we get the Tabernacle instructions almost identical. I mean, like literally it’s like this almost identical passage. And this time they’re actually following. So this is the blueprint, and then this is them following the blueprint.

So when you feel deja vu in the Bible, it’s not probably a mistake. There’s a reason why you’re feeling it is repeating itself. And so I think some people would be tempted to move past it because it’s there twice.

And then for our, you know, type B not so detail-oriented people, there’s a lot of detail. I mean, there’s like the cubits. Yeah. I mean, down to the colors. The all of it. I mean, yeah.

Kay >> Yeah. You kind of think, who cares? Yeah.

Nika >> Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kay >> What’s the difference?

Nika >> Yeah. Well, and then you think who cares in the sense of— if these details mattered then (and they do), do they really matter today? We’re not building a tabernacle. We are now, you know, the tabernacles of God, right? Got Jesus comes and becomes the tabernacle for us and by his Spirit. So you kind of have this theological development where you go, I get why it was important then but does it really matter today?

And actually, I would say yes. Actually all of those details point to really beautiful truths about what it means for God to desire to dwell with these people.

So the first thing you have to do when you read the Tabernacle is come to understand it’s a rebuilding of Eden. So when we think of even what the tabernacle is, it’s not just a fancy tent. Like God’s not just like super into interior design, right?

There is a theological truth to that where when God created humanity, place them in the garden, he gave them meaningful choice, but he desired to dwell with them and they forfeited. And so when God goes and rescues Israel out of Egypt, he’s offering them the same invitation that Adam and Eve had.

And the Tabernacle then becomes a mobile Edenic-type space where God and man can meet again, where the Spirit of God is going to meet. So when you think of it like that, suddenly the details start to point backwards to Eden.

You think of like it talks about, you know, you’re going to make the tabernacle in the Most Holy Place and you’re going to embroider cherubim, which are angels. Well, the cherubim are part of the Eden story. They’re there guarding Eden. When you think about the colors and the ornateness of it, it’s like God’s using the best of creation to make this tent. Why? Because God is bougie (9:34) and likes gold? Like you don’t know. It’s because God is saying this tent is going to represent the best of creation, which is what Eden was.

And maybe my favorite detail of the whole tabernacle is it even tells you how to orient it, whether the face east, west, you know, all of that. And when you think of the biblical story going east of Eden is bad, Okay? So when they fail, they get banished East of Eden. Right after that, when Cain kills Abel, God sends him farther east.

I call it like east-er of Eden, like even farther east. So in the Bible, directionally, when you’re moving east away from Eden, it’s because of a separation between you and God. So God has them orient it where people actually walk back toward the west to get into the Most Holy Place. You have to move actually back toward Eden, back in the westward direction, back in that direction.

And so I say all of this that you have these details and you think, well, that’s weird. Why does he care what direction it faces? Like is that just about sunlight? And it’s like, no, he’s making a theological point that you can always go home. He’s making the point that though they forfeited Eden in Genesis 3, God’s desire is always for humanity to go home, to be with God, which is the culmination of the whole biblical story, like when we get to Revelation.

And so right there in those Tabernacle instructions, God is telling us, I want you to be at home with me. So you can read those boring parts and say, Okay, it has to face east, west or whatever. Or you can say this is an invitation to go home where you have always belonged with the Lord and all of these details speak to a God who desires for humanity to be with him.

Kay >> Yeah, I love that. I love that. That’s just a beautiful picture. The Garden of Eden and the garden in the temple.

Nika >> Yeah.

Kay >> The Tabernacle, of course, becomes the temple later. And so many of those same details are true in the temple.

Nika >> Yeah. One of my favorite details at the very end of the first of the tabernacle instructions, I think this is so neat at the very end, I can I always say like, “What is Moses feeling? He’s been up on the mountain with God. He’s just freed the Israelites. They’re already grumbling and complaining so they’re already kind of a pain in his side at this point.”

God invites him to come up to Sinai to get all these instructions. And I’m thinking to myself, if I’m halfway through the instructions, I’m going, “I don’t know how to do metalwork. I don’t know how to embroider. You know, I’m already on I want I need some help. You know, I’m going to need some real help here.”

And so right at the end of the instructions, God, says to Moses, “Hey, I’ve picked these two guys, Oholiab and Bezalel, and they’re going to be filled with my Spirit to help you make these things exactly how I’ve told you.” And what’s interesting is he says, “I’ve given them wisdom, understanding and knowledge.” There’s these three Hebrew words wisdom, understanding and knowledge in order to make the Edenic tent for you.

So when you get to the temple, it’s exactly what you’ve said, that Hiram becomes the guy like the Oholiab in that case, and it says, “I’m going to give him wisdom, understanding and knowledge,” same three Hebrew words, and you think, Well, that’s pretty cool. So the tabernacle is the temple.

Even more cool as you get to Proverbs 3, and it talks about how God created the world—so going back to the creation account, which is what this, is with wisdom, understanding and knowledge.

So the Bible writers are not dumb, they are so smart. And they put these details in there to say to us, “God has created a good world. We continue to make it bad. And yet God makes a way over and over again through the Tabernacle, the temple, through Jesus and through the eventual restoration, when all things are made new, that God wants us to be in a world built on wisdom, understanding and knowledge. And we always get the chance to be with God. He never is like, “You guys stink.”

All right, good. Look, he’s always coming and finding us. And so all these details, all these details about the Tabernacle basically scream at us, “God desires to be with his people.” That Emmanuel. God with us. It’s not just a reality in Jesus, it’s that God’s disposition toward humanity has always been to dwell with us.

And so when you read these Tabernacle instructions, you’re going, “Oh, God really cares about being with us. He really is trying to teach us about what it means to be at home with him.” And so there’s just something about that, that it speaks to a God of relationship, a God of love, a God of grace, a God of mercy, and something this boring tabernacle is yelling at you that God loves you.

And I just I think that’s really something.

Kay >> It really is. Thank you for telling us all about that. I think that that makes anyone listening to this far more appreciative of the tabernacle and the temple and the way that they look toward Jesus as well. I love all of that. So that is the tabernacle.

What is the “what else?”

Well, I think we’ve already talked about the fact that the genealogy, and maybe we ought to get into that.

Nika >> Yeah, let’s do it.

What I like about the genealogies is we clump them all together and then throw them out together when each of them are like, Hey, hi, I’m a little different than the other one.

So there are actual genealogies in the Bible that become really apparent quickly that they hold a lot of value and the ones I’m thinking of are at the beginning of the gospels, right? You’ve got Matthew’s genealogy and you’ve got Luke’s genealogy, which are very different than the ones that you’re going to see in the book of Numbers and all of that.

So what I would say is when you approach a genealogy, make sure you approach it on its own terms. And what I mean by that is what is that genealogy doing in the story? Because depending on what it’s doing, you’re going to get something a little different out of it.

And so perfect example of what I just talked about. The Matthew genealogy, it connects first of all–there are women in the bloodline, which is so rare in the ancient world. Like women do not get mentioned. So the fact that Matthew, who is a Jewish man, who knows that, includes women, means that God wants to tell us something about women. I think that’s vitally important.

But God also is making sure in that genealogy, Matthew, is making sure Abraham and David are mentioned. And what that is telling to a predominantly Jewish audience is Jesus is the fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant, and Jesus is the fulfillment of the Davidic Covenant. So that Matthew is very much taking a very known Jewish thing, which is a genealogy and making sure people see, hey, the promises of God, find their yes and amen in Christ. And by the way, God loves women and always has go look up Jesus, His great grandmothers and all of that.Luke’s genealogy is actually less regal. He’s not as concerned about the Davidic and the Abrahamic promised. Same Jesus, two different genealogies with differences, which makes us kind of go, “Huh, there’s something a little different here.”

Luke’s genealogy, rather than focusing on the regal side of Jesus family, goes all the way back to Adam. And it’s as if Luke is saying all of humanity is in Christ. So where Matthew wants to emphasize the covenants and say, “Hey, the fulfillment of what God promised Israel is in Jesus,” Luke says, “Hey, all of humanity is bound up in this man who’s going to save humanity and in a couple of chapters in my story. Same guy, two different genealogies, two different purposes.

And so that same idea of what is this genealogy doing, we can go backwards in the Old Testament, say, “Okay, what is this genealogy doing?” Sometimes the genealogy is helping us move the story along. And so it’s like, “Hey, we’re here in the time in history and now we’ve got to get a couple hundred years ahead.”

So the genealogy moves us very quickly. But what that shows us is God can move us forward with events. He doesn’t have to use people. And what that shows us is God really values people. that for God, the events are important, but the people that move history forward are really important to God.

And then we get to like the Chronicles and they have all these genealogies. If you’ve ever read the problem with so many Protestant Bibles is Chronicles comes right after Kings and you’re like, I’ve already read this before and now you’re putting all these genealogies in here. Poor Chronicles—it just gets such a bad beat in the Bible.

So in the Jewish collection of scriptures, 1 and 2 Chronicles are actually at the very end of the Old Testament and there’s a reason for that. And when you understand what Chronicles is trying to do, it actually helps you read the stories differently.

But those genealogies focus on Levites and the line of David. So Levites are the tribe that do all of the temple work, so they’re the ones that do all the tabernacle in the temple work. So they’re really concerned about that part of Israel’s history. And then the Davidic line is of course, a line through which the kings come in, which the promises of the king.

Why would Chronicles focus on that? Well, because Chronicles is actually written at the end of the Old Testament, and it’s a reminder that despite the exile, despite their failure, despite their rebellion, God is still maintaining the temple and the Davidic line because the promises of God carry forward and they carry forward through people again, they don’t carry it forward necessarily through events.

It’s through these people that God has continue to show His faith on this Israel and that God is continuing to show His faithfulness to the people that that are in his covenant. And so these genealogies, I get it. I love that story about she puts her finger on them because I think about it, if you were in the Bible, I just think this is mind blowing.

Like we’re going to get to the new heavens and the earth. We’re going to have people from every like eon of, of God’s people, right? You’re going to meet people that were alive in the days of Deborah. We’re going to meet people and somebody’s going to be like, oh, my name’s so-and-so. And you’re like, oh, Okay. And they’re like, I’m in the second genealogy in Chronicles.

You may recognize me from there. Anything that’s amazing and like that is amazing. And to think about that person where God is saying, I value that person so much that in the book, that’s really a book about me, I include these people that I so deeply love. And so when we’re reading through The Chronicles or any of the genealogies, they do serve a purpose.

So that’s why I’d say it’s like the first thing you have to do is find out what is the point of this genealogy. And then that helps me to read it in the context that it’s in.

But to your woman who puts her finger on the names, it teaches us something about our God and his value of humans. Because there are so many texts, religious texts, that they don’t include people like this. They don’t care. Their god, their deity’s, not concerned. People are not important.

But when God says, “You are my image and I’m going to partner with you to bless the world,” he wasn’t kidding. So much so that in his beautiful book that he coauthors with all these humans, he’s like, “Oh, and don’t forget about Bill and Tim and Sally. Don’t forget about these people because I am moving through time and space to bring about the salvation of the world through actual skin and bone human people.”

And so when you’re reading your Bible and you think,” I don’t know if God cares about me. I don’t know if, you know, my life is valuable. I don’t know if God is distant.”

Suddenly the genealogies are now yelling at us: God loves his people and he partners with them in the world, and he tells his story through them. God allows humans to tell his story, which is the humility of God is always for me. And so those I always say I love what you’re what your gal is doing.

And I think you know, and yeah, it’s a beautiful exercise to do that.

Kay >> After she said that, I’ve noticed that I’ve tended to just kind of get through. I mean, I wasn’t really skipping.

Nika >> Sure. Yeah, yeah.

Kay >> I was noticing them, but I wasn’t noticing them very well.

Nika >> Yeah.

Kay >> So I’ve really slowed down.

Nika >> I do think if someone got to 1 Chronicles, and they skipped the first nine chapters because they’re all genealogies, I probably would look the other way. In the beginning, I’d probably look the other way. So here’s what I’d say. If you’re there and you’re reading plan and you’re like, I hear you all, but goodness gracious, there’s a lot of names here.

Here’s what I’d say to you. Let yourself meditate on the generations of God’s faithfulness. That not one generation represented there ever saw that God had forsaken them, not one of them. And that’s where I think the meditative part of that is to slow down and say, “What is God doing through these people?” But I do think that’s the one part of the Bible that if somebody said, “What’s the least read part in my Bible?,” that would be the part.

And so the beginning of 1Chronicles would definitely be the part that I’m like, kind of understand why people skip that. But the generations of God’s faithfulness there. So when we talk about will God be faithful to us?, well ask all those people. You can’t. But, you know, if you could, I think they’d tell you we never saw God forsake us.

And that matters.

Kay >> Well, and I think about how this was written to a people who had been dispersed out of the land. They had been taken out of the land, and God had always promised he would bring them back.

Nika >> Yeah.

Kay >> When their hearts return to him. They would bring them back. He would. And he does. And this is all recorded, I mean, it’s really so valuable just for that. Just to know all these people came back, just as God had said.

Nika >> Yeah, I mean. yeah, the devastation of the exile is the devastation. Right? We think of the Exodus, the enslavement. And that is one thing where you say, “Okay, evil was acted upon them by Pharaoh.” So God’s rescue of them is big, and it becomes a paradigm for redemption. The exile becomes a paradigm for failure because you go, “Well, you kind of brought this on yourselves, you know,” if you’re really reading the story.

And yet God at the end of Deuteronomy 30. At the end of all of these books, he’s consistently saying, “I will, I will bring you home. I will bring you home.”

I mean, even one of my favorite stories in the book of Jeremiah. Jeremiah is this prophet who’s telling them like, “Hey, guys, it’s too late. You know, you’re going to drink the cup of God’s wrath, and then the nations are going to drink the cup of God’s wrath because God is good.” And then about Babylon, “Don’t worry, just because Babylon is God’s a vessel for judgment now, like God will judge Babylon too.”

But there’s this really small story that if you move too quickly, you’ll move past it too quickly. And it’s where Jeremiah buys a piece of land in Israel. And he knows they’re about to be exiled. I mean, he knows they’re going to be exiled 70 years. They’re going to be away from land. But it’s as if to say Jeremiah is going “I believe God. I believe that we are going to come back to this land. So I’m going to buy a piece of land because I believe that someday our nation will come back here and this will be land that I own.”

So yeah, those names in Chronicles. Those are not just the names. Yeah. They’re not just a random set of names because God cares about people. Those are people that God is saying, “I told you I’d bring you home and I’m bringing you home.”

The Davidic line was always intact. There’s also this story at the very end of Jeremiah, where the king has been carried off into exile last we saw, things are not going well for him. And then all of a sudden, for reasons no one knows, the King of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzer, was like, “Why don’t you come eat at my table?”

But suddenly a son of David is sitting at the king’s table and you’re like, huh? Like, you know, except to say, “God’s like, oh, I still have I still have my promises on David’s kids.”

Like, I haven’t. Just because they’re not in the land does not mean I have forsaken my promises. And so those names just like, suddenly they warm your heart because it’s about faithfulness.

It’s not about random people.

Kay >> That’s right. So you have any last words for everybody?

Nika >> Yeah, I think one is really helpful to read the Old Testament in the order. It was sort of meant to be read, and I don’t say that as like any I’m Protestant. My Bibles have always, you know, they’ve always. But I think if you move 1 and 2 Chronicles to where it belongs, then suddenly this book, that feels very redundant because you’ve just finished 1 and 2 Kings, it doesn’t feel as redundant.

It’s what we’re talking about. Suddenly it becomes a story of despite it all, God was faithful.

So that’s, that’s the first thing is like let the Bible present itself to you the way I was meant to meant to be presented. And then, like, does help with some of these things.

But I think the other piece of it is if you’re moving too quickly through the Bible, I would argue, yeah, these are boring parts. I would grant that, which is why the Bible is meditative literature.

If at first glance you’re like, “Oh, that was a weird chapter and anything out of it was about embroidering the tent. I don’t know. I learned there are horns on the altar. I’m about horns.”

But if you go, no, let me really slow down. Let me ask God to show me something. Let me read with people.

Which is what I love about what you’re doing, Kay. Like reading together is so critical to the way that’s how the Bible was designed. It was designed to be read together. There’s internal clues that it’s meant to be communal literature.

So if you slow down and you read it in community, and you ask God to show you things. And you believe him when he says that all Scripture is written by me. Suddenly these boring parts become the kind of literature that you can then say, Hey, “I’m seeing the faithfulness of God here. I’m seeing that God loves me and wants to dwell with me. I’m seeing that despite humanity’s failure, God continues to remain faithful to the promises.”

And these are foundational truths to what it means to be a believer. I mean, these are not small things that we’re learning. It’s not like, Oh, I learned what to do with a random goat that’s dead. Like Leviticus talks about this like, don’t eat it, you know, like there are random parts of the Bible that your going, yeah, I learned what to do with dead animals. It’s like, Okay, that’s not what God is saying.

He’s saying, “I want a people who is set apart for me to demonstrate to the world who I am and I am the God of love. I’m the God that goes with you in exile, the God that loves you. And I’m the God that even when you guys do bonehead things, I don’t give up on you.” And those are foundational to who we are as the people of God.

<p>And so that’s why I’d say is slow down, receive the Bible as God, you know, sort of we understand we’re supposed to receive it. Do it in community, and then expect something beautiful to come out of it. And if you do that, I think you’ll suddenly go, I don’t really think there are too many boring parts of the Bible.There really are just parts that I don’t understand yet. And then as I spend that time, as I mine out of it, then there’s this gold that comes out of it for me at the end of them.

Kay >> Well, Nika we’ve loved having you, as always. Nika has been a frequent guest, as I’ve said, and she has a number of resources on our podcast and video you can search for her at our site, BeyondOrdinaryWomen.org. Go up to Resources on the pull down the menu and go to the Media List and then you can search her name, and everything that we’ve done with Nika will be on there.

I would also suggest for those of you who are teachers who might have really been attracted to this particular topic, that you can go up to the same pull down menu on Resources, go to Leadership Development, and then Studying and Teaching the Bible. And that page will not only have this video on it, we’ll have link to the podcast of all sorts of resources there that will help you as a teacher or if you’re just studying the Bible it will help you.

So we have loved having you today and we’ve enjoyed this great conversation about something that most people think is boring and now we know it’s not boring anymore. So thank you for sharing that with us.

Nika >> I love it. Yeah, I love doing anything with you guys, so I’m always honored to be a part of it, Kay.

Kay >> Well, we’ll look forward to next time we have you on and for the rest of you, we will see you then.

Debbie Swindoll

Kelly Arabie

Debbie Swindoll joins BOW Ministry Team Member, Kelly Arabie, to discuss spiritual leadership in a fragile world. Too often people are afraid of being hurt and protect themselves by portraying a facade instead of sharing their real selves, even in the church. Debbie suggests a better way.

If you are a leader in your church or community, this conversation will benefit you.

This episode is available on video as well.

Time Stamps

Kelly >> Welcome to the Beyond Ordinary Women podcast. I’m Kelly Arabie. I’m your host today. And our guest is Debbie Swindoll. Debbie is a spiritual director, Pastor of Spiritual Formation at Journey Community Church in Allen, Texas, and the Executive Director of Grafted Life Ministries.

As founder of Grafted Life, Debbie envisioned and coauthored ten studies for spiritual growth. And she currently writes and speaks and consults on issues of relational theology and spiritual leadership.

Debbie’s training is with the Talbot School of Theology’s Institute for Spiritual Formation at Biola University. And we are thrilled to have her with us today. Welcome, Debbie.

Debbie >> Thanks, Kelly. When you said all of that, I’m like, “Boy, am I tired!”

Kelly >> Well, you know of what you speak. So and today’s podcast is on Spiritual Leadership in a Fragile World. And so, Deb, I know you have a lot of experience, decades with spiritual leadership.

Debbie >> Yeah. You know, some let me just start by saying, what is spiritual leadership? I think we’re very practiced and maybe mind full of being good leaders. You know, how do we get leadership training? How do we develop our skills as leaders? To be better prepared to lead other people-whether that’s we’re in the pastorate or where some other kind of leader maybe we’re just a small group leader. But we’re mindful of skills to make us better.

We purposed to talk about spiritual leadership today because I think that there’s a maybe an under emphasis on the spiritual a part of leading in the church. What I mean by that is a life that’s really grounded in their own relationship with God and is very aware of God in the world, in their own lives, in the life of the church, in the life of other people. And they’re moving in that space all the time.

So in some ways, the skills that we get as a leader we may practice as a leader are only there to serve the awarenesses we have of God in our life and in others lives and how they’re serving that awareness.

So there’s this spiritual world that exists and are we attuned to that? Are we aware of it and open to it and moving in it? And that’s kind of the spiritual part. That’s kind of the extra thing that I think is a part of spiritual leadership.

So that’s kind of the context we’re talking about. In this topic, which actually spiritual leadership in a fragile world that’s kind of almost the special sauce, right?

That helps us to actually navigate in a fragile world.

Kelly >> So what are the issues that you think in our culture make it a fragile world today?

Debbie >> Well, what isn’t there I would highlight to think is there’s a lot that contributes, I think, to our human fragility. But the first thing I’ll mention is isolation.

A lot of like neurobiological studies now are looking at the effect of isolation, even on the human brain and how much isolation and disconnection from community makes us very fragile. It makes us open to depression. It increases anxiety, it does a lot of things. And our brain function is actually diminished when those things happen.

So there’s like a fragility that comes and we see this isolation coming in many ways. I think our relational capacities are diminishing. Some of this is the technologies that we have now— this thing right here, you know, it’s through our phones.

Right. I was driving down my street yesterday. I was coming into the neighborhood and I saw a man and a boy walking together, and they were kind of conversing. And behind the man was a woman on her phone. And I think I want to say a girl. I think that’s maybe a girl beside her. And this is what we see all the time now.

Go to a restaurant. If people are sitting at a table together, and two or three or all of them are on their phone. And you experience that in your own house, I’m sure. I mean, Curt and I have been known to call each other from another room or text each other from another room rather than just getting up and walking and going.

We are—our time in face-to-face connections is much lower and getting more and more like that. And more technology is coming where we can converse with A.I. rather than real person. So there’s that, and that’s very isolating to us, snd that causes a lot of fragility. So that that’s one thing.

I think the other thing that highly influences our own fragility is the amount of conflict that we have and how we’ve escalated conflict in our society.

So the political polarization is one huge example of our inability to actually talk to one another and be present with one another when we disagree about something. And our inability to just dialog with one another, to let somebody else have another opinion, to accept complexity in our world makes us very fragile.

Like now, if there’s any little thing that is pressing me some opinion that I don’t agree with, I’ve got to retreat. I’ve got to fight back. I have to go in some kind of combative kind of mode, and that’s really operating out of a very fragile position.

So the isolation and then the just the nature of our very polarized and competitive society, I think both of those things contribute There’s other things, but I think those are big right now in our world that’s progressing our fragility.

Kelly >> I would agree. I think we’ve lost an ability to connect relationally. The longer we go, the less we have that capacity and that capacity is diminished for sure.

Debbie >> Yeah.

Kelly >> So what does it look like to lead people spiritually in a context of isolation and relational disconnection?

Debbie >> I think that we need to, first of all, understand how important good relationships are to us. Like, good relationships are really the foundation of how we were formed as human beings. I think that this is what’s so fascinating, about the time we live in because we have all this neuroscience and interpersonal biological information now that we didn’t have 20, 25, 30 years ago was just beginning that field.

And good relationships, attached relationships, actually form our brains. They help our bodies to develop.

But bad relationships also cause us to be unhealthy like they, they can form our brains in very dysfunctional ways, but it’s also relationships that transform us. And relationships are kind of the bedrock of how we function as people. And this is why the Scriptural Record will say that, you know, we were meant to be in relationship with God and in relationship with others in a loving way. And this is the foundation of the entire law. This is the foundation of our life.

So we need to be mindful that if we’re going to become more resilient and stronger, we are going to need to develop our relationships. We’re going to need to work on our relationship with God and with other people.

And all that relational building starts with one concept, and it’s trust. There really isn’t good relationship healthy relationship, certainly not attached relationship without the foundation of trust.

So I think as leaders, we need to think about, first of all, what are the concepts that help us trust God? So what are the concepts that we need to be highlighting. God’s love for us. The fact that God knows us perfectly, the fact that we’re clothed in Christ. So no, we shouldn’t have any experience of shame because of this clothing and Christ.

We could come to God. We can talk about anything. He’s the most trustworthy place we’re ever going to find. So maybe highlighting and inviting people to work through some of these God image things I think is really foundational.

And then I think, how do we start creating relationship with one another that are more trusting and have like a foundation of trust? I’ve been thinking about this the last probably six months, maybe a year. And there’s like five things that I think are interesting to like highlight on this.

I think the first thing is how do we give people an experience of joy?

And by that, I mean because joy in a relational sense is when I experience that someone else is happy to be with me. So it’s this exchange of we’re happy to be together, whether I’m in a bad mood, whether I’m in a good mood, whether I’m sick, whatever, that person is happy to be with me. So how are we welcoming people in a space where we’re giving them an experience of joy?

That builds a lot of trust and attunement with us as human beings. I think of felt safety. In attachment theory, felt safety for babies is like a really good thing. How do we create felt safety? Like when they have a need, we show up. You know?

I think with us as adult humans like things like listening with empathy or sensitivity to people signals. Like if someone’s across the room from me and crying or sitting in a group with me and crying, I’m going to pay attention to the fact they’re crying. Like, I’m just not going to ignore that and give them a fix it thing. I’m going to be like, “Oh, I see that you’re hurting.” How can I be present with you? So sensitivity to the signals that people are giving.

Welcoming their voice, listening, giving them space to talk, to express and all of that.

And then providing that emotional tune that when they’re happy, I want to be happy with them. When they’re sad, I’m going to be sad with them. And I want to receive that from others in that place.

And then the experience of grace. I’m on your side. Mm. Yes. I wish that was more ubiquitous in the church, but it’s really not. It’s like sometimes it’s like. And again, we’re so almost habituated it in our society now. Like, you’ve got to choose sides.

But in the church, we’re always supposed to be on their side. Christ is always on our side. He’s always for us. So when we’re on somebody’s side, we’re. We’re not here to correct them. We’re here to connect them. So we’re not here to correct their behavior. We’re there to connect them with God. So we are their advocate, not their adversary.

And then a space to just hold people, just making room. How do we make room for people? Give them the space for things to get messy, and we’ll still be together with them watching for how God’s going to work that out.

And I think the last thing is just having faith that you may not get better or you may not be everything you want to be in the next 60 days.

And New Year’s is coming up. We’re all going to make those New Year Resolutions.

Kelly >> Right.

Debbie >> And in 60 days we’re going to know we fail, you know.

Kelly >> Right.

Debbie >> That’s going to be the tipping point.

We’re in the long game and we need to be able to hold faith for one another. And to know that we have a God as eternity to work all this out.

Can we stay with each other? Can we stay and say, “I trust God’s doing something and I’ll wait here with you while we figure that out.”

So that’s just some ways there’s other ideas, but that’s some ways that we can start to build trust. And when we have trust in relationships, it brings a whole lot of resilience to our life.

Kelly >> Right.

Debbie >> Yeah.

Kelly >> And those relational connections are so important in a covenant community, in a small group environment, in a, you know, in a faith environment. I think many churches are lacking that today.

Debbie >> Yeah. Well even think about a leadership team.

Kelly >> Right?

Debbie >> Like, you know, what’s the fragility on the leadership team? Are they able to have open and honest communication with one another?

I mean, I think the pastor is possibly one of the most lonely places because there’s this pressure like, I can’t have problems. I can’t be messy. And where do I bring my stuff because people are expecting me to have all the answers?

And this is a little backlash of being in a leadership position. And yet we’re the same everybody but just the same. We have problems. Our family fall apart. We get sick. You know, we have weakness. We have the same limitations everybody else has. We need space and trusting relationship just to just let that stuff out.

Oh, yeah.

Kelly >> How has that worked for you personally?

Debbie >> Well, I’m an introvert, so I don’t need quite as many, but I have I have the core. I mean, I have to have the core. And for me, it’s it is a feeling of I have a sense of when I’m careful. To me, it comes out in that word. Like I said, I have to be careful. Like, I can’t be all of who I am today in this situation.

But I have to have places where I don’t have to be careful. Where careful isn’t on the table. And God’s provided those, but I have to be willing to lean into them and nurture them and give them time in my life because I need that.

I mean, I have a spiritual director, I’ve had therapists, I have very close friends that I fall apart with. And, I’m truly honest, even when I’m discouraged in my relationship with God, or some other close family relationship where, you know. So the real stuff, I have to take somewhere and I have to keep nurturing those relationships and making that really a spiritual discipline in my life.

Kelly >> You’re able to give to others and minister to others out of what you yourself have in your own capacity, attending to your own spiritual life, attending to your own journey, in your own relationships. Really, before I think you have any sort of capacity to lead others. You can’t lead others into a place you’re not able to go yourself.

Debbie >> Right. And what I found, especially in my own spiritual direction in ministry, if I’m not processing something, if I am not aware and dealing with what’s in my own life, I become fragile when other people are giving me their stuff. Like I have much more vulnerability to act out rather than to actually be able to be present.

Like, I’m going to get jerked around by my own issues I’m not dealing with.

Kelly >> Right.

Debbie >> Yeah.

Kelly >> Right.

Debbie >> Now, people as leaders really don’t want that to happen. And trust me, people that go to leaders really don’t want that to happen.

Kelly >> Well, and if you don’t attend to it, it’s going to come out. It’s just going to.

Debbie >> Come when you think, if I ignore it, it’ll go away. But it never goes away. Yeah, right.

Kelly >> That’s true. That’s true. So we’ve talked about a few things that create good relational connection. How do you think leaders create that space in small groups practically? You’ve mentioned the five things that are components of that. What does that look like in trying to create that in a small group environment or just in close relationships?

Debbie >> You know, I think that one of the things that we need to just come to grips with in reality is that it’s an incremental journey. It’s not like you’re going to go in with people that have never known each other before. They don’t have any history with one another. Or maybe in the church they have some history with one another and it’s not good.

So you’re going to have to start small like in our life with God curricula, Grafted Life. We just start with listening. First of all, we make a covenant with one another about and we kind of expose in that covenant process like, well, what’s gone wrong before when you’ve been together with other people. And what would it feel like or what would you imagine it is to have a safe community? And what would you want to be present?

That’s always a really nice way to kind of get the cards out on the table at the beginning of what you want, and what would serve you. And then you just start by simple things like really practicing listening to one another without fixing, without having responses. We’re so bad at listening, but most of the time our head is going with like how we want to respond rather than just being present and just hearing.

So we practice listening. And then you then you might add down the road when everybody’s feeling like they’re heard and they’ve been seen, maybe they’re known a little bit more and then, “Oh! Well, I can actually share something and I won’t get something back that causes me to feel shame or to feel like I’m not enough.” Whatever that thing is that will pull this isolate us back out of community.

Then maybe if you just you just start with some simple kinds of ways to respond and I always think, you know, the best response is when I thought I wonder what God would want to say. Like, I know what I want to say, but that might not be helpful at all.

Like, I just seem to take a pause and say, “I wonder what God might be doing here.” That’s beyond what I feel is the right thing for that person to do.

And so it’s incrementally over time practicing these kinds of relational skills with one another. That begins to just slowly open people up and help them risk a little bit that, “Oh, maybe there is something more. Maybe we can have better relationships with one.”

It’s practice. It’s a lot of practice. And it’s and honestly, it’s probably a lot of repair because we’re not going to do it well. But can we go back and say, Wow, I didn’t do that very well, or can we evaluate what we did and be able to hear, “Oh, that didn’t go over so well when I did that. I’m sorry, I’m going to take that in.”

I better be willing to change the way I relate to other people and hope that they’re willing to change the way they relate with me.

Kelly >> Yeah, this way of being with each other and safe community that you’re describing really feels foreign to a lot of people.

Why do you think it’s so difficult to be in relationship with others in small groups together? And the compulsion that we feel so often to fix, advise and rescue?

Debbie >> I think that this is a symptom of our fragility. Mhm. Like we’ve been hurt. So like I said, we were formed in relationship and we were formed by broken people. Now we, some of us have had very warm and loving and cared for experiences as a kid and growing up, and we get a leg up.

But it doesn’t make us perfect right. Somewhere along the line someone has betrayed us, someone has hurt us, someone’s gossiped about us, someone has shamed us, we’ve had experience is that we’re all bringing into the room. I always like to say we have tablets that are already written on. And so that’s the stuff we’re actually acting out of. And that creates those pockets of fragility that when we go into the room, we’re careful.

We’re careful that we’re wary. Well, what is going on? So I’m going to hold back. I’m not going to bring my whole self. I’m going to be self-protective, We see this in the garden as kind of the end of the creation story is that once the fall happens and relational brokenness enters, self-protection begins. Self-protection is now the mode, and self-protection will always keep us isolated.

So we’re afraid! That’s the bottom line to your question. We’re afraid. We’re just afraid. And we don’t want to be hurt again. We don’t want the vulnerability. Relational vulnerability is a very risky business.

Kelly >> Yeah.

Debbie >> And, and so we, we hedge your bets as much as we can to make sure that we’re not hurt again. We don’t want to be disappointed. We don’t want to feel shame. We don’t want to feel exposure.

That thing that happened in the garden where Adam and Eve were naked and unashamed. The road back to that you know! Because after the fall, they were naked and ashamed. And that’s what we live with most of the time. Whenever we’re vulnerable, we risk shame.

Kelly >> Right!

Debbie >> And shame is a very difficult thing to feel.

Kelly >> Yeah. So how do we move past that fear? What is the possibility of a healthy, small group experience in moving us beyond shame and fear?

Debbie >> God! I believe we can try. And, you know, we can go to therapy. We can get better at relational thing. We can work that all on our own. And there will be some success. But ultimately, in the church, we don’t have to do it alone. Like we have the ultimate opportunity to heal both central relationships in our life at the same time, heal our connection with God. And heal our connection with others and experience those things almost simultaneously.

One of the concepts that I learned from a gal named Lisa Miller, who wrote a book called The Spiritual Child, is she talks about a shared spiritual experience and how protective this is to us as human beings, how resilient it makes us. And I’m going to just give you my explanation of that.

In the body of Christ we are invited into a shared spiritual experience, which means I can be in relationship with you, Kelly, and we can be talking. And if we have in our moment of communication and awareness that it’s more than you and me, it’s also God. It’s also God present with us. We can listen for God together. We can look to God together. We can do the most obvious thing. We can pray together, we can talk to God together.

Now we have a shared spiritual experience. Now we are not dependent on just our ability as human beings, broken as we are, and fragile in our places to come together we are held in an encounter with God who brings the foundation for our relationship. When this grows, then true resilience has a chance to blossom.

And now it’s like, it’s okay if I don’t have the answer. As a spiritual director, I often have someone go, “And this is my problem,” and I’m like, “I got nothing for you. I don’t know the way out of your problem, I have no advice. I’m not blessed. Be advised anyway. But you know, I have no advice for you. Like I have nothing. But I know God. And I am willing to travel with you while we look for God together and see what God’s going to do.”

And now we have a very secure thing we’re doing because we’re connected now with the God who knows everything and has a plan and is the Good Shepherd. And all of those things loves us so much and is inviting us to the more now we travel that road together, not just fixing each other or gaining or depending on our own wisdom as human beings, even though we have that and at times it’s very good.

Kelly >> Right.

Debbie >> But now we have this ability to be present with God and one another. When you get that place in a relationship, when you get to that place in a small group, when you get to that place on a leadership team, now you have something really special.

Kelly >> Yeah.

Debbie >> You have something incredibly spiritual that brings a whole new level. It levels you up significantly.

Kelly >> Yeah.

Debbie >> But again, that takes practice. How are we going to be with a person and with God? How are we going to grow our awareness that big? Yeah, and so but again, it’s incremental. It’s just a journey. We just keep moving toward it. We keep the mess up and we go back and we say, “Okay,” maybe it’s after the meeting and we say, “I wonder where God was in that?”

And then after a while in the meeting we ask, “I wonder where God is in this?” You know? So it’s just we continue to grow and massage this thing with one another and inviting our awareness of God in it with us.

Kelly >> Yeah. This is a really different way of being in relationship with each other, with God and that shared spiritual experience. I think is what we’re all longing for when we come to a small group experience, a Bible study. Even at church we’re longing for that shared spiritual experience and it’s wounding when we maybe bring our authentic selves and we don’t find love, or we don’t find safety, or we don’t find trust.

I think that’s why a lot of people move away from faith communities because they haven’t found that. But it’s worth it. It sounds like you’ve had some experiences that have been very positive and the research is there for moving towards one another in these, in these places.

Debbie >> Yeah, I mean, it is transformational. I mean, the first time I really experienced it was when I was in seminary. And we had a cohort model and this was practiced we were taught how to actually be together in this way. And I had never experienced. I was in my forties, I’d never experienced anything like that before. And I thought, Where’s this been all my life?

Kelly >> Yeah.

Debbie >> But hopefully you don’t have to go to seminary to have that. You don’t have to go out somewhere that we can learn to do this in the local church where we are.

But we might need a little training. We might need someone to hold that in some experiences to help us to learn these kinds of skills, not only better relating with one another, but better relating with others and God at the same time. Right?

Kelly >> Yeah. And that really was your vision how many years ago when you felt like God gave you really the vision for the curriculum that you created, the studies that you created?

Debbie >> Yeah. And it really was because we’d had this—I was with a bunch of colleagues who had been in the program at Talbot with me, and we’d had this incredibly life-changing experience.

When I say life changing, there were comments at the end of the program like, “You don’t look the same, like your face looks different.”

Like, I mean, it was like the first time I was there, I thought, Oh yeah, they do. They look softer. Like some of the hard edges in their countenance have kind of been like softened and rounded out. And it was incredible. Like, they literally changed like the Scripture says, “You’re a new creature.” They start becoming like new creatures. Right?

But we hadn’t had that experience in our local church. And we’re like, how do we get that? Like, how do we do something that’ll help people experience real life change in their local church?

So, yeah, so we wrote a journey that would hold people in a similar way that we’d been held in our seminary program. And help them to have the time to look at Scripture and what it says about relationship, to practice being in deeper relationship with God, to know themselves better and, to then practice in community how they could share, how they could listen, how they could learn over time to notice God in their midst and to lean more into that than just their own ability to fix or advise or rescue another person right? Yeah.

Kelly >> And what did you see? What have you seen happen with that?

Debbie >> The same kind of thing that happened to me in seminary. That’s what’s so amazing to me. And it’s not it’s not that the curricula is like the secret sauce. I mean, this is the thing that always it’s so great for me.

It’s not like, hey, every question is exactly perfect. It’s more like, no, the questions just provide space for you and God to have a conversation. And the group time provides kids space for you and others to have conversation, to practice the relational dynamics, to understand what’s holding you back from being in relationship with others, to explore some of your own vulnerabilities to and to and over time for attachment to grow, for you to feel like, oh my goodness.

I heard someone say recently like, they got into a Life with God group and they’ve been in it for a while, and then they went back to their old group and it was like shocking to them because it didn’t feel safe at all. Like the way they were doing community in this other kind group that they had been in was like a it’s a very pronounced difference.

And that’s where we want people to get a taste. We want people to get—you said earlier, like, you know, how do you get people to do this?

You know, they need a taste of it so they can go, “Oh, wow! There was more here. Like, wow!” It’s like the light bulb goes on. Like, “This is different, and I like it and I’m getting stronger. I feel less fragile because I have people and a relationship with God in my life is giving me a much firmer foundation for just living my regular life with my regular problems. I’m not isolated and alone. I have community that is beside me.”

Kelly >> Yeah. And creating that takes a little bit of time.

Debbie >> It takes a lifetime.

Kelly >> It’s incremental. Like you said, you start in.

Debbie >> One plateau, but we’re all still we’re all still doing it. We’re deepening, and we’re finding new places in our own hearts that want to pull us out, you know? So there’s always new terrain to explore over time. About what is the what’s the trigger that pulls me out of that, that that yanked me back to one as self protect and not just enter in and be present and known and seen.

Kelly >> Yeah. Yeah. So I have I guess one final question. We’re talking about spiritual leadership in a fragile world. What is it like to be a spiritual leader in a covenant community like that? How has that been different? If I’m a leader in my church and I’m willing to go into this small group and I want to I want to offer this small group experience to others, and yet I’m participating in that small group experience as well myself.

What is that experience there?

Debbie >> Yeah. And I’m going to lean a little bit into what it felt like to be a spiritual director, too, because there’s a lot of similarities when you go into relationship with other people. I think in the past, because I led a lot of Bible studies earlier in my life, and the mantle of leader sits a little heavy sometimes.

What if I get this wrong, you know what if I tell them the wrong thing or whatever? I would say that for me, spiritual direction and being a Life with God leader is free. It’s lighter. It’s not a burden because it’s not up to you as the leader. You’re just try to like hold the space for people, to be mindful of what the covenant is, and remind people and bring them back and say, look, “This is how we want to be together. Let’s stay here together.”

But the weight of what is happening is on God.

Kelly >> Right.

Debbie >> And so you don’t have to have all the answers. You have to just be willing to stay in, sometimes the waiting place with other people.

Kelly >> Right.

Debbie >> And to say, I’m here with you to practice joy. I’m happy to be with you even when we don’t have the answers today, or even when you continue to wrestle with this issue with God. So it’s more like staying power than it is like some great wisdom or something you’re supposed to have as a leader.

Kelly >> Right.

Debbie >> Can I say consistent? Can I stay present? Can I stay? And see, but what’s incredible about it is it’s so humbling because God does more well. Some of the stories are so amazing. And you get to witness it, to be a witness to what God is doing is should be the joy of every leader.

Kelly >> Yes.

Debbie >> Because it is unspeakable joy like it is. I’m going to have to weep kind of joy because what God just did, I could have never done. But God just put together all the things he wove together. And that person just put it all together and they just shared their story and you’re like, unbelievable.

Kelly >> Yeah.

Debbie >> It’s an incredible journey to watch that happen in other people’s lives.

Kelly >> Well, how do people find your studies?

Debbie >> They can go on a website, GraftedLife.org, and there’s a there’s a Grafted Life studies area. They can explore them. They can certainly reach out to us. And we’re happy to talk with them about it and introduce them, answer their questions. So we really invite you to contact us. And, you know, we have a lot of people that they could actually talk to that have done and get some firsthand testimonies and yeah.

Kelly >> That sounds great. And we have information for you here on the podcast at BeyondOrdinaryWomen.org and we have information about the Life with God Journey as well. So thank you for being with us today, Debbie. It’s been great to talk and I look forward to next time.

Debbie >> Great. Thanks so much.

Sharifa Stevens

Dr. Beth Felker Jones

Why are we Protestant? Have you ever wondered what the differences are? BOW’s guest for this episode is Dr. Beth Felker Jones, Professor of Theology at Northern Seminary, sits down with BOW Ministry Team Member Sharifa Stevens to talk about being a Protestant. They discuss how it intersects and differs from other Christian traditions. What are the major beliefs that differ?

We so appreciate that Dr. Jones approaches this topic with grace and humility, not with an adversarial attitude.

This episode is available on video as well.

00:21 Introductions

Sharifa >> Hello and welcome to Beyond Ordinary Women Ministry. I am Sharifa Stevens, one of the hosts of Beyond Ordinary Women. And today, I am very excited to talk to Dr. Beth Felker Jones. Dr. Jones. I love saying that, so I’ll say that every time. Dr. Jones with a Ph.D. from Duke University, is a midwestern writer and professor of Theology at Northern Seminary.

She writes theology and fiction, has published numerous books and writes regularly at her Sub Stack, which is entitled Church Blogmatics. I had to say that slowly. A lifelong book lover, as she writes about relationships, identity and redemption. Dr. Jones’ latest book is entitled Why I Am Protestant. And we’ll be talking about that book today. You can discover more about Dr. Jones on our website BeyondOrdinaryWomen.org.

Welcome, Dr. Jones.

Dr. Jones >> Thank you. Delighted to be here with you.

Sharifa >> Thank you so much for being here. Let’s jump right in, shall we?

Dr. Jones >> Yeah.

Sharifa >> Okay, so in your book, as you were writing your book, Why I Am Protestant, who did you imagine reading your book as you wrote it? Who are your ideal readers?

Dr. Jones >> This is really bad writing advice, but I have trouble imagining my reader and I tend to just write. Really, it’s awful. It’s awful writing advice. But I suppose I hoped I was writing for other Protestants who might be thinking through both the joys and challenges of being Protestant, as well as for Christians in other traditions who might want to understand something more about the Protestant tradition. So that dual audience to mix it makes it a little bit trickier.

Yeah, I just wrote what I was feeling, and that’s really what I did. So, yeah.

Sharifa >> What prompted you to this feeling? What prompted you to write the book in the first place?

Dr. Jones >> Yeah. Well, the book was written by invitation of Intervarsity Press. So really grateful for that invitation. And it’s in a little series. There’s also a book called Why I’m Roman Catholic, perhaps, by Matthew Levering, and in future, there’ll be a Why I Am Orthodox volume. And Intervarsity Press’ desire was to have a series here that is clear about conviction from theologians in these different traditions, but is also peaceful and kind and ecumenical.

There are some kinds of books like this out there that are more fighting words. Right? And this is intended more as a heartfelt testimony to my own tradition than as a why I’m not these things and those things. So I was grateful to be tapped by IVP to write the book. But I had wanted to write a book like this for a long time because it’s the case that I understand why a lot of Protestants consider not being Protestant. Nonetheless, I’m persuaded that that’s where I want to be. So. Yeah.

Sharifa >> This is a loving treatise. I mean, it’s so bathed in graciousness and care and love and protection for the Protestant tradition. And so, as opposed to being a polemic against other traditions.

Dr. Jones >> Yeah, that’s the goal.

Sharifa >> So you met the goal, you exceeded it.

Dr. Jones >> You’re very kind. So.

Sharifa >> I have so many quotes that I like from your book. So I’ll just be quoting and then asking you about them.

So one of the first things of many that struck me was a sentence you wrote that said Orthodoxy is not primarily about getting our thinking right. Orthodoxy is built on and lives through right relationship with God. How?

So how do we have a right relationship? So, I mean, you explain this further in your book, and I guess I just want to give our audience an opportunity to hear your beautiful breakdown of orthodoxy as a concept. But how does one have a right relationship with God without thinking right? Can one or how do those work together?

Dr. Jones >> It’s not that there’s no thinking right involved, right?

Sharifa >> You’re a professor!

Dr. Jones >> The point of primarily like listing the right things, right? Checking off the right boxes. The 20th century theologian George Lindbeck says that (I’m kind of paraphrasing him here), but I’ll give his exact example. He says this if you shout Jesus as Lord while cutting off your enemy’s head, you are not living the truth, right, of Jesus is Lord.

And you can believe that all you want. Check the right box, right? But you are actually denying the truth that Jesus is Lord if you shout it while cutting off your enemy’s head. I think most of our examples are a little less serious than that one, but it really is about being who we are as people who belong to God.

You know, I think of parents who say to a child something like, “Remember, you’re a Jones.” Right? By which they mean not just or not even primarily, our family believes certain things. Right? But that we expect you to act in a certain way in this world on behalf of our family. And that’s what we’re called to do as image bearers.

Sharifa >> That’s so lovely to me, especially because I think we can hear a word like orthodoxy and it can sound dusty or—

Dr. Jones >> Old, hard. Yeah.

Sharifa >> Yeah. And what you are saying in your book is that orthodoxy is action. It is not mere intellectual ascent. It is the intellectual assent that guides your life, your life choices, your ethics, your relationships, with other people with the earth around us. It is not stodgy.

Dr. Jones >> When done right. Yeah. It shouldn’t be. Yeah.

Sharifa >> Or right praise involves relationship inherently.

Dr. Jones >> Mm hmm.

Sharifa >> It involves knowing whom you praise and how and where. So I just I really appreciated that. So thank you.

Dr. Jones >> You’re saying it very beautifully. I could listen to you talk for a while, so.

Sharifa >> Thank you. Okay, so another this is a pithier quote. But you said, “God cannot be caged.”

You said that God cannot be caged in the context of how we as a broken and fallible church can hope to understand God and in our reach for understanding God and ourselves can limit God. Right? So can you set up the context for this assurance that God cannot be caged when it comes to our faith?

Dr. Jones >> You know, a lot of this book ended up being about the brokenness of the church which wasn’t necessarily what I thought it was going to be about when I started writing. But it’s easy for us to believe, I think, when we see that brokenness, to suppose that God is somehow bound to that. Right? As though the truth about God were identical with the errors and the horrors, right, of some parts of the church.

And so I want us to put our confidence, right, in God and not the church. The church absolutely matters. We can’t get away from it. God loves it. God wants to work in it in the world. But it’s God who is God, right? It’s God in whom we have our faith. And if I were called to a place by faith in what we might be called, the God of the church, right?, I would despair pretty quickly. Nonetheless, God reveals himself to us in the Scriptures and in the person of Jesus Christ as good. Right? And so when faced with the not goodness of certain actions of the church, certain experiences in church, I don’t despair or I pray against despair, knowing that God is God.

Sharifa >> That’s good. Because a God that is good cannot be caged even in our brokenness, representing him.

Dr. Jones >> Yeah.

Sharifa >> Okay. So I’m going to go to this next favorite quote of mine. Appreciate your writing, “Scripture is not God, nor does it have the same status Jesus does. But between the first and second comings of Christ knowing Scripture in the power of the Spirit is our primary mode of revelation to Him, and it is to Him together with the Father and the Spirit (I love your Trinitarian emphasis) that Scripture testifies. God also speaks through nature through reason and in the community wisdom of the Body of Christ. But Protestant theology recognizes Scripture as different in kind from these other sources of revelation.”

So I have a vast question for you. Why is the emphasis on Scripture or Sola Scriptura such an important Protestant distinction?

Dr. Jones >> It really is for the reason we were just talking about. Right? Scripture reveals to us the truth about the God who cannot be caged, the God who is good, the God who is unfailing love, and the God who calls the church to better than the church has often been.

And so in the quote you just read, a scripture doesn’t stand alone. There are other ways that we know God but Protestant theology is kind of most basic claim is that we have to refer all of that back to Scripture or Scripture first and we don’t make any claims about faith or practice that don’t fit right with the people Scriptures.

So there really is the character of God as revealed in Scripture, right? The God of the Scriptures in whom I place confident faith. And again, for me, then it’s a reminder in the face of other claims about God, non-biblical claims about God, other uses of God’s name. In the face of those we can rely on Scripture for the truth about who that is.

And of course, that’s complicated because Scripture’s complicated, right? It’s a deep rich thick document, but I find it an enormous source of, again, I’ll use the word confidence in being able to place faith in the God revealed therein about.

Sharifa >> How would you contrast that confidence and that you Sola Scriptura anchor, I’ll call it. How would you contrast that with other traditions? What’s different?

Dr. Jones >> Yeah, that’s a great question. So of course other Christian traditions also place Scripture at a central place, right? Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox Christians and other traditions. We share this. Protestants share the Scriptures with those traditions and we share a biblical faith.

But there is a clear difference in terms of thinking about authority for theology. So while Protestants, starting with the Reformers in the 16th century through today, say Scripture alone, right, meaning we don’t make claims that aren’t based in Scripture. Everything else has to be read through Scripture as we can get through. The Roman Catholic church is clear that authority for Roman Catholic theology comes from Scripture and tradition or Scripture and the church together. Right?

Sharifa >> Right.

Dr. Jones >> So it’s just a clear difference in thinking about the way God chooses to work in the world and reveal himself in the world.

There is, in Roman Catholic theology, a greater confidence in the church than I have just expressed. Right? I’ve said I want to put my confidence in God where the church gets me down and Roman Catholic theology will insist in our confidence in God’s work in the church, which I just can’t find historically persuasive. So certainly we share the Scriptures and we share biblical reasoning, had really important biblical ways of thinking. But there’s a basic distinction about where theology starts. Does it start in Scripture alone or does it start in Scripture and church together? With confidence in the church as the right interpreter of Scripture?

Sharifa >> Now, that makes so much sense. Thank you so much for elucidating on that.

Speaking of church, this is the passage where you write, Biblically speaking, ecclesiology is (and ecclesiology is in the study of the church). “Ecclesiology is not the clearest of doctrines. It’s not that Scripture fails to equip the church, but the biblical witness does resist systematization around many ecclesial, logical questions that now occupy contemporary theologians.”

Tell us what is the good news about the Bible’s resisting of systematization concerning churches ?

Dr. Jones >> I think the good news here is about central helping us to sort out central matters versus peripheral matters. Right? The central matters about the church and Scripture are that we need each other. The church is the body of Christ, and we’re called to share the good news with the world.

Peripheral matters, and in my judgment, include things like how should we structure the thing?

But that means then that there’s freedom for contextualization and for diversity based on context as we think about things like structure and officers and ministers and a whole lot of other things that are interesting and important, but less central than the church is the body of Christ called to share the good news with the world. Yes.

Sharifa >> Okay. Man, that was so succinct.

Dr. Jones >> Well, thank you.

Sharifa >> How do you do that? Okay, that’s great.

Dr. Jones >> I’ve answered some of these questions before, but I’m not always so succinct. So you know, we’ll see how it goes, I guess.

Sharifa >> I just loved reading that passage, though. When you said resist some systematization. I was like cheering because the Spirit of God grants us so much freedom.

Dr. Jones >> So much freedom. Yeah.

Sharifa >> Right? But I think that’s intimidating to some of our brothers and sisters. That kind of freedom can be intimidating, but it’s so loving and trusting of the Spirit of God to say—

Dr. Jones >> And it reflects God’s love for the world and for I think, context and diversity that doesn’t want every church to look the same because God loves cultures and places and traditions and languages and all kinds of local flavor right which are beloved to God. And then when we try to take our local flavor and make it required for everyone, we violate God’s love for all of that difference.

Oh, yeah.

Sharifa >> Exactly. I like to think of the Spirit of God on the day of Pentecost, where everyone and the Spirit could have operated in such a way that everyone spoke the same language after the Spirit’s coming. And the Spirit part of the grace of the Spirit is that people could hear what the disciples were saying in their own language. It’s dignity bestowing.

Dr. Jones >> So beautiful. And you know, a lot of Bible scholars will point to Pentecost as a kind of healing of the fragmentation of the Tower of Babel. And it seems like the obvious way to heal that would be to put everyone back in one language.

Sharifa >> Exactly. Yes.

Dr. Jones >> But God doesn’t tell us the obvious way. Instead, it’s to draw all the nations in.

Sharifa >> Yes. And the nations continue to be the nations in Revelation. And they are speaking. They are in every tribe and tongue. They are worshiping in their language. So even when everything is consummated, we don’t lose these aspects of ourselves. There’s so much freedom. And so anyway, that quote made me cheer because of course, there’s going to be diversity. And of course, I’m an advocate for the diversity of the body of Christ. So.

Oh, speaking of what makes Protestantism specifically good for women.

Dr. Jones >> Great question. Scholars actually love to argue about which is better and or worse for women, Protestantism and or Catholicism. And I think certainly there are aspects of both traditions which can be good for women. And certainly we’ve seen in both traditions harm to women, right? So I don’t want to deny that or claim that, you know, no other tradition can be good for women.

But the Protestant emphasis on the priesthood of all believers is claimed very early on during the Reformation by Protestant women. As a kind of authorization of their voices as theologians, as teachers, as contributors to the Reformation. And I think ultimately we see that.

Sharifa >> Well, I need to stop you because I don’t think a lot of people know this, that in the 16th century there were women’s voices who were saying, we believe Scripture when it says we are priesthood of all believers.

Dr. Jones >> Yes. And then they say so that’s why I’m talking.

Sharifa >> Yeah.

Dr. Jones >> I mean, it’s not a huge number of women that it’s you know, it’s not unmixed. But certainly we have these voices, particularly from some powerful women. Right? Are getting on to the Protestant bandwagon and claiming exactly that.

And so I think it makes perfect sense then that we will see in Protestant churches later what I think is a reclaiming of the early churches extended to women, all offices and ministries. As Protestant churches start to ordain women in even the 19th and also the 20th centuries right that the logic of the priesthood of all believers is at play.

And even in something like the Azusa street revivals. Right? That radical kind of democratization or equalizing power of the Spirit is really claimed as the reason that leadership is not going to be restricted to just one class of people.

Sharifa >> So what you would what you would say is that Protestantism, even though there are pros and cons in every tradition when it comes to how women are spiritually formed and supported and also represented in the traditions of various church traditions.

And in Protestantism, because there is an emphasis on a lack of hierarchy, even within the offices of church governance that gives rise to a more egalitarian view of women.

Dr. Jones >> I think it should give rise to such.

Sharifa >> Yeah, let’s put it that way.

Dr. Jones >> More than it has always. Right. But I certainly would—

Sharifa >> It leaves room for that.

Dr. Jones >> Yeah. I would want to press my fellow Protestants to consider what the priesthood of all believers means for gender. As for other things. Yeah. And at least we can say, here’s this thing in our DNA as Protestants, which we’ve seen claimed in certain ways and which we should grapple with in an important way. So.

Sharifa >> Yes, thank you. That’s an important clarification.

Okay, we’re going to wrap up, but oh, I don’t know which question I should why don’t I let you choose. I have two more questions. I will let you choose which one you answer.

Dr. Jones >> Exciting. Okay.

Sharifa >> Yeah. So question number one is what do you think is the biggest challenge of the Protestant church in the United States currently? Question number two is what would you say to a fellow Protestant who claims that Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox churches are not Christian.

Dr. Jones >> Can I answer both really fast?

Sharifa >> You can answer both. Yes.

Dr. Jones >> I’ll try. So first, I think the biggest challenge for Protestantism in the United States currently is Orthodoxy, and by that I mean right praise of the true and living God, who is not a nationalist or a partisan God, whether you’re partisan, whether your partisan politics are Democratic or Republican, and who is the God of all the nations. And to recover a Christian orthodoxy, that’s about who God is and not about whatever our politics are that we want. It’s pressing on us hard. Yeah.

For those Protestants who have been taught that Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox Christians are not Christians, I would just say you might be surprised if you take a closer look at shared belief across those traditions. And certainly all three of those traditions believe in the Lordship of Jesus Christ, and the efficacy of what he has done on the cross and in the power of his resurrection.

And all three traditions have beautiful things to offer to the body of Christ as a whole. But I’m a convicted Protestant. How’s that for short?

Sharifa >> So that’s really good. You did so well, Dr. Jones.

Thank you for taking so much time to talk to us about your book, Why I Am Protestant. I would like to give you the opportunity to tell our audience where they can find you. Where can they find your work?

Dr. Jones >> Sure. So the easiest thing might be to Google me, Beth Felker Jones, or all my links are on my sub stack at BethFelkerJones.substack.com which is also titled Church Blogmatics. There are links to my books writing about all kinds of things and other things that I care about there. So thanks so much for having me.

Delighted to be in conversation.

Sharifa >> I am so glad I got to talk to you, Dr. Jones. I’ve been an admirer of your work for many years.

Dr. Jones >> I’m deeply honored.

Sharifa >> For our audience, you can find other podcasts and videos pertaining to church theology and practice and church issues by logging on to our website at BeyondOrdinaryWomen.org, then clicking resources, then scrolling down to church issues.

Thank you all for listening. Thank you for watching and have a blessed day.

Kay Daigle

Julie Pierce

Julie Pierce reminds all who are leaders in any position of the importance of unplugging like a pro, taking time to decompress. In this conversation with Kay Daigle, Julie schools us on why it’s so difficult to do. As an experienced leader and now a coach, Julie has lots of tips for ways to unplug that work no matter what your role or leadership position entails.

Unplugging like a pro is doable and so necessary for the care of your soul and those who depend on you.

This episode is available on video as well.

00:21 Introduction

Kay >> Hi. I’m Kay Daigle. Welcome to the Beyond Ordinary Women Podcast and video series. My guest today is Julie Pierce. Julie, we are so glad to have you back.

Julie >> I am thrilled to be here. Always loved being on the podcast with you.

Kay >> Well, we love having you and you have such a wealth of information. I just want to get started so that the people who are listening can learn from you and learn how to unplug like a pro, because that’s what we’re talking about today. Let me tell you just a little bit about Julie. Julie does have a history of working on church staffs and leading communications and marketing efforts.

And Julia and I met quite some time ago now on a church staff. We were working together on a church staff and those were the roles that she had. But she’s also done leadership development in churches, and she now coaches executives and teams.

There’s a lot more about Julie on our website, so I don’t want to go into every single thing that she’s done, but it’s a lot and she has a lot of experience in this area. And I know that you’re going to want to hear everything that she has to say.

You can find out more about her on our website, BeyondOrdinaryWomen.org. Go to the dropdown menu where it says About Us and go down to Video/Podcast Contributors and you can read more about what she’s done. So Julie, this is a prevalent thing that people don’t unplug.

How would you describe what’s going on in our culture that people don’t unplug?

Julie >> Yeah. Well, I love this topic because I desperately needed to learn how to do this. In other words, I learned the hard way.

Kay >> Yeah.

Julie >> And like we do so many of our lessons, right?

Kay >> Yeah, pretty much I’ve learned everything I know, I learned the hard way. I messed up badly and learned. Yeah.

Julie >> Yes. And so this was one of those things for me. And I think particularly now, we hear these phrases all the time. We’re accessible 24/7. Everything is going 24/7, whether it’s the news cycle or accessibility to anything and everything. You know, places rarely closed down, whether it’s Sunday or at all. You know, there’s, there are so many expectations as to be accessible and available all the time.

Kay >> Yeah.

Julie >> And we also live in a time where little things that can be blown up into huge things and everyone has this heightened sense of urgency all the time. And so we don’t have a proper understanding or proportion for what priorities really are. And so it just adds on this pressure. It doesn’t matter if we are in a full time staff position, part time or a volunteer position.

We feel that pressure all the time. And so it’s not a flaw that we individually experience. It’s really this collective experience right now in our culture and in our world. And so it’s no surprise that what the end result of that is, is that we end up burning out. We end up burning up relationships in our lives.

We end up physically ill. All kinds of things happen with our physical health, much less our mental health. Are all of this accessible availability, pressure to not unplug really does have all these dramatic consequences that can end up having just, again, dramatic consequences on our lives, on our ministries, on our relationships that, quite frankly, we were never designed to be that way, ever.

So it’s really against God’s design. It’s something we have to be intentional about, to be almost countercultural with.

Kay >> Yeah. Well, you know, I really have found that people in ministry are just as bad, if not worse, than people in secular jobs. And so when you threw this out as the topic, I was all over it because my experience of just working with people on church staffs shows me that that’s the case.

And you can even, you can even be a volunteer, I know some volunteers that are just at the church all the time. Like, it is like it is as bad as a job it is. They don’t feel like they have time to do anything else.

Why do you think ministry people are like that? Do you have an idea?

Julie >> Well, I have opinions all day long. I don’t know if they’re worth anything but buy my opinion on this is I think when we add a spiritual layer on to this. We feel like we are doing God’s work. Well, Jesus wouldn’t turn them away. Well, they’re asking for this one thing. So who who else is going to respond how to if I’m not the hands of feed of Jesus in this, then we add on all of this pressure on to it that I think in some ways makes it worse.

All right. So that’s just my opinion. I don’t know. What do you think? Why do you think that is?

Kay >> Well, I think that is definitely true in some cases for sure. Definitely. I mean, I always had this sense. I mean, I ended up burning out at one point, and I felt like. You know, I went to a counselor and she was very helpful. And she’s like, what is it that you think would happen, Kay? What do you think’s going to happen if you don’t do this?

And I’m like, I don’t know how the whole thing fail? She’s like, so you don’t think God has it? Well, I do, but I guess I really don’t.

So I agree. And I’m sure that’s not the only reason for it in some cases. I also think that there’s just a lot of competition in churches, the stuff because of all of the accessibility. It’s like here you’re competing not just with the church down the street, but with the church in New York City or someplace.

Julie >> Yeah, that.

Kay >> Yeah, that you need to be doing what they’re doing somehow.

Julie >> Yeah, that’s a great point, Kay. There is this unspoken competition or comparison that is constantly going on.

And I think also this work really matters, right? We care deeply for God’s people. And it is really hard to say no to an opportunity to serve and love and care for—whether it’s the least of these, whether it’s the people on our path. Like it’s really hard to say no to an opportunity to care for our neighbors. Right? And so I think that’s another layer to it.

Something that you said about your counselor’s wise advice. Gosh. My counselor sometimes is a little sassy. And so, like, whatever he said that was like, yeah, that sounds like what something mine would say.

But I remember as I was years ago when I was on staff at a church and I was preparing for an extended time off for a sabbatical. And the closer we got to it, I just kept I would say the words out loud to people around me. Well, I think we’re going to have to cancel this thing.

I think there’s exactly 0% chance I am going to actually take this sabbatical. Right? And I just kept like getting closer to it and watching the countdown happen and going, yep, this never going to happen. And one day something else came up and I was lamenting to my husband, “Well, I guess this is the thing that I’m going to have to cancel it for finally.”

And he looked at me and he goes, “What in the world? But let me just tell you this. When you’re on sabbatical, the Lord is still on his throne. And he is going to take care of this whole place without you here. And it’s going to be just fine.”

And I just looked at him like, well, I mean, do you not know what I’ve been doing for the last nine years? Do you not know? I mean I was just so put out. But that’s the truth of it, right?

Kay >> It is.

Julie >> Somehow in our desperate again, care, our deep care and passion for the mission. For what God’s doing all of these things, we get our own stuff mixed up in there. And then we start to think, well, I’m the only one holding this thing together barely by a thread. And so if I step out, the whole thing’s going to fall apart. So I don’t think that’s possible, right?

We just started to get this inappropriate view of the Lord’s sovereignty and our involvement in his work and. Yeah.

And stuff where we need our good counselors and our wives husbands going, “Yeah, you’re not that important. Thank you very much.” Yeah.

Kay >> Well, you said you had to learn how to unplug. What did you learn?

Julie >> Yes. Well, a couple of things I learned. There’s lots of reasons why it’s difficult for us. I think one of the things that I realized, even when my body wasn’t there, my mind still was. And so I would tell myself, well, it’s easier if I just go ahead and send that email. It’s easier if I just go ahead and do that thing while it’s on my mind instead of just adding more work for me whenever I get back. Right?

So that was, again, a lie. I was telling myself that was keeping me plugged in to whatever the circumstances or the project or whatever.

Another thing I realized is it’s really hard to turn down or to turn off that adrenaline when we have been running at such a pace. When it’s just been go, go, go, go, go, it’s really hard to turn it off or turn it down to slow. So slow. And I had to really learn how to downshift, if you will, to like in a car like you, if you are driving a manual transmission, you couldn’t just go from I don’t know, fifth gear down to like neutral. Right? Like, you just can’t you can’t just skip all the gears in between. And so I had to learn how do I actually slow it down so that when I do unplug, I don’t run into a wall because the adrenaline has been going so much inside of me.

So those are just a few things that I took realize that that’s part of what makes it so hard for us to actually unplug, whether it’s a long weekend or a holiday extended holiday break.

Or even a vacation that we actually paid for to be on that we can’t go and actually be unplugged and be present for because our mind is still back here at work and because we’re so actively engaged in it. So.

Kay >> So how do you turn your mind off?

Julie >> Well, I think there are a few. For me, to get to actually unplug it takes a lot of prep, a lot of prep. And so then one of the things that I think is really important is asking ourselves, how do I need to prep Okay? If we think we’re just going to show up to a vacation or an extended holiday and just be like, oh, carefree. And like those people in the movies like, that’s just we’re just fooling ourselves.

And so I think the prep is critical. And so I think there’s three things that we have to prep.

I think the first thing we have to prepare is we have to actually prepare at our work. And again, this applies whether you’re a volunteer leader or whether you’re a staff leader. It doesn’t matter it’s still your work. It’s still the work of your hands. And so we have to prepare there.

And so the first thing that we have to do is and this is so simple, but so many leaders just don’t do it. We have to put it on our calendar so it is blocked off. It seems so silly, but it is the first critical step so that stuff doesn’t get piled onto there. That then we’re having to rearrange or take that call on vacation or go ahead and be present just for that one meeting. We’ll just come in for that one thing and then we’ll be back on vacation. We have to actually block that time out on our calendar.

We need to go ahead before that time off, before we know we’re going to be out and schedule meetings with our key volunteers, our key staff. You know, a month and two weeks and then a week of just for those touch points to make sure we hand things off and give them as much heads up and prepare ahead of time. I’ll see leaders maybe do that the week of, but really they’re having conversations they should’ve had a month ago.

And so if we will back it up even further and do those meetings a month out, two weeks out, the week of then we’re actually preparing people and able to hand things over and make sure that it’s also mentally for us, reminding us at every one of those meetings, hey, I’m handing this off. Look how it’s being taken care of. So-and-so’s got it. Right?

Instead of the day before. Okay, has everybody got everything right. Like that is not helpful to our brain. Yeah, that is sad. Just causes more stress on the inside and makes it harder to unplug. So we have to prepare at work.

I think we also have to prepare for the rest. So often we just show up and we expect to just be able to relax. It’s so hard for me to relax, and if I don’t do this part of the preparation, then you can just forget it. I’m going to just be mentally somewhere else.

And so I mean by preparing for the rest is that we I’ve got a few coaching questions and it’s actually in this resource that your listeners are going to be able to have access to. It’s called How to Unplug Like a Pro. But I have a few coaching questions that I think are critical to sit with and answer before you even start planning this time away.

And those questions are things like, What do I actually need on this time away? What kind of physical, mental, emotional rest do I actually need while I’m away so that you can plan around that.

If you plan a vacation that is, let’s just say, has the intention of conquering a country over the course (and you know what I mean by like, we’re going to conquer this city, we’re going to conquer, we are going to see everything there is to see and we are going to eat every bite and we’re going to see every place and take every picture).

And so you’re up at like five in the morning every morning, and you don’t hit the bed until midnight. Every night, and you do that for four or five days straight. And what you really needed was a nap every day you’re going to come back from that time away, no more rested than when you got there.

And so if we can back it up and really prepare for that rest and ask ourselves, what do I actually need? What does my body need? It may be that you’ve paid for this really amazing, cool vacation but what you need every day is a long nap, right? That’s okay. Like but what do you need so that you can prepare and plan for that?

And then what’s asking yourself the question, what’s keeping me from unplugging what’s keeping me? Is it that I don’t actually trust that person to handle it, that I delegated things to?

Okay. Well, then you need to work that out with that person, right? Or delegate it to somebody else. Is it that I just constantly get those notifications on my phone all day long? Every day? Okay, well, silence notifications or take the apps off altogether for that amount of time. Right? Just asking yourself, what is keeping me like pulled back in, keeping me from being present and then addressing it? Right?

So asking those couple of questions of yourself and really being honest with them and then preparing for that rest based on how you answer those questions.

And then finally, and this, (gosh, this is a big one that again, I learned the hard way and maybe you learned this one, too) is you have to also not just prepare the work and not just prepare for the rest, but you’ve got to prepare for reentry.

I can’t tell you how many times early on in my career we would go on a little vacation just a few days away somewhere, and our flight would return that night before I was going back into work the next morning, like late at night.

Now, partly, I was young and maybe I could bounce back a little, but I was also just dumb. And we were trying to soak up every last second of that few days of vacation time that we had. Right? And so we would get back the night before late, and then we’d have to be in at work like the very next morning.

And there was just no space for reentry back into our lives, much less back into work.

And we did the same thing at work, like we reenter from time away, hopefully unplugged and getting good rest and refreshment. And then we walk right in Monday morning to 700 meetings on our calendar. And we never get to just like take a breath and go, hi, how are you? How did things go a while? We just jump back into it.

And so we have to prepare for that reentry as well, give ourselves a little buffer, a room to actually deal with our personal stuff. We need to take care of like errands or grocery or just unpacking. And then also give ourselves just a little buffer back at work to just reenter. And we connect with our teams, reconnect with the projects, okay, what’s the status, where are we?

And then jump back into the work. So that was a lot of talking, but those are kind of the three areas I think that is the key to really unplugging is that preparation.

Kay >> I think those are there’s such great practical ideas that can I can see the more you implement those, the easier this whole unplugging would be because you planned in advance and you planned at the end not to be so tired when you come back that, you know, you’re killing yourself. You have to so plug in when you get back because you’re just exhausted. My husband says there’s a difference between a vacation and a trip.

Julie >> One million percent agree with that.

Kay >> Yes.

Julie >> Dramatic difference.

Kay >> Yes. He always says there’s just a big difference there. And it’s, you know, what do we want to do? Do we want to go on a vacation, or do we want to go on a trip And I think when you recognize those things in advance, as you’re suggesting, that that helps, because if it’s been a trip that you had things to do, all these places to see, all these, maybe you’re visiting friends or family, even you know, that’s going to be a different situation.

Julie >> Absolutely. And so my husband and I used to always joke that it’s a trip if our children are attending this expedition. It’s a vacation if it’s just me, you know, but that’s a different story. Okay.

But I agree. I mean, even on a trip, though, if we’re coming into that trip knowing I have bone tired, and I’ve got these babies that have not slept through the night and I don’t even know how long, I have no idea.

Well, even on a trip, we can work real hard. And that preparation ahead of time to arrange some kind of way where we can get a night or two of a full night’s sleep or a really long nap where nobody’s coming and going and meeting us. Right? Or everybody else is going off and doing that fun thing. Yay, go do it, but I’m going to stay at home and read a book because I need just a minute away from all of you people, right? What it is that we need to recharge right? And actually get a breather even if it’s a trip, not a vacation.

Kay >> So yeah. And a lot of what you’re talking about is knowing yourself, what you’re going to need, what you are not going to do well. You know, what would happen to make you do better? To come back better.

Julie >> Yes.

Kay >> To be more rested, all those kinds of things. I love that, There’s such practical ideas.

Julie >> Well, and I think with the knowing yourself, I used to have a lot of FOMO, like fear of missing out. Like we are at this amazing place with these amazing people, and I don’t want to miss something. And I would just come back exhausted. And so I just know, like for me when I’m on, like, the thing we plan around our vacations is a nap almost every single day.

I love to sleep, okay? I love sleep more than just about anything else in this world that the Lord has given us. I love sleep. I love sleep. I love sleep. It’s so I don’t care if we’re missing out on this one more amazing thing like I just I just want to take a nap in the afternoon.

Like, I just want to take a little nap. That feels like vacation to me is being able to take a nap. And so whatever that is for you, like figuring out, like, what is it that will help you rest and refresh? It may not be a nap. For some it might be a hike. For somebody else, whatever. That’s fine.

But figure out what your things are and make sure you weave that in so that you actually come back refreshed.

Not yes, it matters for you, but it also matters for the people you serve. And however we look on vacation we are modeling for our team what we expect of them. So if we are constantly available and texting and emailing and jumping just into that one meeting or whatever it is we are modeling to our team with our behaviors. Even if our words say, No, no, take that time off, I want you to unplug. Well, what we’re modeling to them is I want you to unplug, but really I expect you to be available because look at me, I’m also available all the time.

And if we’re modeling to them, hey, we’re going on vacation, we’re going to unplug, but actually we come back exhausted, we’re not doing anybody any good. Like they need us to catch our breath.

Kay >> Yeah.

Julie >> Can you tell that I care about this, Kay?

Kay >> Yes, I do. I don’t think I love sleep quite as much as you do.

Julie >> Gosh I love sleep.

Kay >> But sometimes I like being alone.

Julie >> I also love being alone. Yeah.

Kay >> And, you know, that’s good. I remember that years ago, we took a trip with our kids to D.C. And so I wanted to get up in the morning and go to a certain site, you know, and they really weren’t very interested. And they said, I think we’re just going to stay here and sleep. Well that was great. I got to go by myself.

It was really a nice break.

Julie >> Perfect, and everybody was happy.

Kay >> Yeah, everybody was happy. It was really good. I wasn’t forcing them to go with me and they weren’t forcing me to stay there and wait for them all to wake up. You know.

Julie >> Yes.

Kay >> It was really nice.

But I can see how the way that you model this makes a difference for the people that you have left in charge. And I think those are really important points. If you’re leading a group, leading a team, you’ve got to show them how to unplug as well.

Julie >> Yes. And you’re also show—if you keep touching base and just dipping back in the whole time, you’re not just modeling—this is what it looks like. You’re also saying to them, I don’t trust you to actually take care of this. Yeah, I don’t trust you have what it takes. I don’t trust that you will follow through.

That’s what you’re saying to them.

Kay >> Yeah.

Julie >> And I mean, what a punch in the gut when you’re the one there working on it, taking care of it, making sure everything is goes off without a hitch. But your supervisor keeps communicating with their behaviors, “I don’t trust that you’ve really got this.” It’s so yeah. It really undermines everything you’re trying to do with them. So.

Kay >> Yeah, yeah. As the leader, you’re training people, you’re modeling for them as you said. You’re entrusting things to them. Otherwise you’re really just micromanaging.

Julie >> Yeah.

Kay >> Well, any other final tips or tools that you want to leave with our audience as you think about what’s going on with them?

Julie >> Yeah, you know, my favorite tip and again, this is just one of those silly practical things that leaders will tell me later, “Oh, my gosh, that was the thing that was so helpful.” So I hope that’s helpful for all of your listeners. One of the things that I always do before the last on the last day before I’m checking out or whether it’s the holidays, vacation, whatever it is, I always do a final brain dump.

And I will either get a blank sheet of paper, a blank whiteboard, a really large posted on the wall, whatever works best for you. And I will just dump out every last thing the last 10% right? I’m worried about this. I’ve got to make sure this gets taken and I will just everything, even stuff that’s maybe future whenever I get back, I just I don’t want to forget it.

I dump it all out and then I actually take every single thing and I assign it a date for after I get back

Kay >> Oh!

Julie >> So that again talking about reentry so that whenever I show back up that first day after my time away I don’t show up to this big pile of mess that I dumped out before I left. Right? Instead, I’ve taken the time to actually sort through it and go, oh, actually, that doesn’t need to be done at all.

I’ll send that in a quick email, or I’m going to assign it to a day whenever I get back so that now my brain can again actually relax and unplug because I know that’s been taken care of. Right? I know that it’s been assigned a time for me to actually deal with it, so I don’t have to worry about it right now.

So that’s just one of those. Again, it sounds like a silly thing to do, but it is so, so helpful.

Kay >> It sounds like a wonderful idea just because I do know that things go on and on in my mind if I’ve got those things pending. But if you had a date and you knew that you were going to deal with it, then instead of just dumping in your lap when you get back. How wonderful!

That’s great, Julie. Did you come up with that idea yourself?

Julie >> I don’t know. But if I borrowed it from someone else, I’d be happy to give credit away.

Kay >> Oh, I just think it’s brilliant. It’s a brilliant idea that I would have never, ever thought about.

Julie >> It made all the difference for me. The brain dump is one thing, but then my brain is still holding on to when am I going to get that done? When am I going to get this done? So if I can go ahead and assign it to that date, then it releases the internal worry that happens for me.

Kay >> And when I’ve got that worry going on, I’ve got something like that. That’s when I wake up and I can’t go back to sleep.

Julie >> Again, sleep is a priority.

Kay >> Even though I can’t do anything about it while I’m, you know, lying in bed.

Julie >> Yeah.

Kay >> It’ll just it’s bothering me and I cannot sleep as good. That’s not good for any of us.

Well, thank you so much for sharing all of this. I know that some of you out there could probably use, you know, some of the coaching that Julie does. You can get in touch with her at Julie Pearce. Let’s see, JuliePearceLeadership.com and Pierce is P-i-e-r-c-e. I know there’s more than one way to spell that. So I don’t want you to miss getting in touch with Julie. And she mentioned earlier the resource that you would be able to access if you sign up for her newsletter. So if you go to that website I know that you can do that as well.

And she had a lot of questions. I looked through her entire document where she was trying to help people unplug. And so if you feel like you would like a little bit more help with some more of those questions that she was asking awhile ago, I really would very much suggest that you go there and look at that. It would be like Julie coaching you herself.

Julie >> Yes. These are literally the questions that I just pulled from old coaching notes whenever I would work with leaders who were getting ready for just to whether it was take a vacation, take a, say, sabbatical, go, you know, off on the holidays, whatever it was. And so I just kept pulling of these questions from my notes. And then I just pulled them together.

So it is very much like we’re coaching together.

Kay >> Yeah.

Julie >> as you work through this research just to prep for that time away.

Kay >> Yeah, that’s the way it seemed as I read through it. I feel like you’re asking me these questions, you know, and there were really good, insightful questions.

And for many of you out there, you’re not thinking of going somewhere right now, but you may want these questions later on. So go ahead and download it. Will they be able to download it?

Julie >> Yeah, yeah.

Kay >> Go ahead and download it now so that you’ll have it available to you when you’re ready to really unplug. And I know Julie and I both have benefited when we have unplugged, and we really highly recommend it.

So thank you so much, Julie, for sharing your experience, your ideas, and just your guidance for all of us in this area because it’s a tough one in our culture, I think.

Julie >> Well, Kay, again, thank you for always paving the way for all of us by bringing your expertise to this podcast. You have helped so many leaders over the years, myself included. And so I am so thankful for you and your voice and just your wisdom that you share with all of us every day. So thanks for inviting me to be a part of it. Always a thrill.

Kay >> We love hearing you. We’ll have you again soon. I know.

And for those of you out there, we’re so glad that you joined us. I would suggest that you go to our website as well, BeyondOrdinaryWomen.org, and go to the pulldown menu on Resources. From there if you go to Leadership Development and from there go to General Leadership and then you can get to a section called You As A Leader.

And this is going to be posted in that area, You As A Leader. If you’re interested in other ways that you can become a better leader, this is the place for that. You particularly, what you can do to be a better leader to your soul care, your unplugging and all those other things that are really important for leaders. That’s where you’ll find those.

So we invite you to browse around on our website and we have many other topics as well. So thank you once again, Julie, and we hope to see you soon.

Dr. Sandra Glahn

Dr. Lucas Rogers

Don’t miss this important conversation if you are a leader in your church!

Dr. Lucas Rogers shares with Dr. Sandra Glahn what he has learned from his research on conservative churches rethinking women in leadership. His extensive study of churches going through this process provides wise and practical advice for any church leadership considering this issue.

Dr. Rogers is available to consult with churches who are interested in being true to the Scriptures while being open to other interpretations. He suggests that it’s not where the church ends up, but the process used that will determine the health of the church.

This episode is available on video for those who prefer to watch.

00:33 Introductions

Kay >> Hi. I’m Kay Daigle. Welcome to the Beyond Ordinary Women Podcast and video. We are so happy that you’ve joined us today. We have two special guests. We have Dr. Sandra Glahn with us. Welcome Sandi.

Sandra >> Glad to be here as always.

Kay >> Yeah, it’s always a treat to have you. We always look forward to having you. Dr. Glahn is a professor at Dallas Seminary. She is a professor of Media Arts and Worship there.

She’s written over 20 books. She has so much to say about her that you just need to go to our website and read her bio because she has done a lot and she has produced a lot of work. And you can find her in many of our videos. So hopefully this won’t be the last when you watch go on to BeyondOrdinaryWomen.org and search for her name. And you can connect with some of her other conversations that we’ve had.

And Sandra invited another friend to be with us, the third male that we have had on our podcast. And it is Dr. Lucas Rogers. Welcome, Lucas.

Lucas >> Thank you so much. Great to be here.

Kay >> We are so happy to have you. Lucas is the lead pastor at Easton Bible Church in Hainesport, New Jersey. And he has both a master’s and doctorate degrees from Dallas Seminary as well. And we’re really happy to have you.

And despite the fact that you’re only the third man, we really appreciate it.

Sandra >> That’s true.

Lucas >> Well, it’s my honor.

Kay >> Well, since our ministry is Beyond Ordinary Women, we have tended to focus on women in these conversations. But we’re so happy to have you. And I’m going to turn around over to Sandi and Lucas to talk about our topic today, which I’m very excited about. I feel like many, many churches need to hear about the research that Lucas has done.

Sandra >> So Lucas has done a hard look at the best practices for churches that are reconsidering where they stand on their position on women in ministry leadership. So let me start out by lobbing a question like why don’t you share with listeners how you and I met and how you ended up diving into this topic?

Lucas >> Yeah, well, I first started my doctorate back in 2017, and it was during that time that looking into different topics and, and I think we’ll probably get into a little bit about why I chose this one, but really I was interested in women in church leadership. And so, Dr. Glahn, that’s when I reached out to you and asked if you’d be one of my readers on my dissertation and which is obviously aware of your work and all of your research that you had done.

And it was, that was the beginning of that relationship. And it’s been a great journey.

Sandra >> And the topic of your dissertation was?

Lucas >> Was essentially, women and church leadership. But really the question that it was seeking to answer is looking at churches, and specifically churches that are theologically conservative. I come from a Bible church tradition, all of my life. I went to Dallas Seminary and looking at churches, they kind of shared that DNA, if you will, of conservative theologically, biblically. And then recognizing that over the last two decades or so, more and more of those churches are reconsidering and revisiting their position on women in church leadership specifically.

And the question that I wanted to wrestle with was, why is it that you’ve got churches that on paper all look more or less the same. That on paper they would all affirm the same things biblically, theologically, and yet when it came to this issue, they were landing in different places. And so it became clear to me that just to say, well, we’re reading the Bible and this is what the Bible says just wasn’t sufficient.

And so I wanted to kind of delve into that more and try to unearth what are some of the factors that are going into the way these decisions are being made. What are some of those factors that are influencing how churches and elder boards specifically are wrestling with the question and how they’re interpreting and then applying the Scripture in their churches?

Because it just isn’t uniform. It doesn’t look the same at every church anymore. And that was just something that really fascinated me.

Sandra >> Well, I mean, there are a zillion topics you could choose. You’re a guy. What made you choose this topic?

Lucas >> Yeah, I think, you know, one of the advice I was given is find something that’s personal to you. You’re going to spend a lot of time delving on a topic when you’re writing a dissertation as we can all attest to.

And so for me, interestingly, enough, in 2017, when I was beginning this process, I had the opportunity. I was invited to observe at a church there, elder board, walking through this kind of deliberative process. They wanted to revisit how women were serving and leading within their church. They wanted to unpack, you know, what did the scriptures say? Where they getting it right in a sense, this kind of the way they wanted to approach it.

And so I got to observe that firsthand. And just to be candid, I walked away kind of disappointed. I walked away just feeling like they didn’t have the tools and the resources necessary to even begin the conversation and to begin the discussion. And it wasn’t necessarily, you know, it certainly wasn’t a moral failing. These were not bad people, but there was just a lack of understanding of even how to go about research, about just being aware of some of the biases that they were bringing into the conversation.

And so, I walked away from that thinking, how can I help? You know, how can you know, even if I was in a position where—regardless of whether or not I agreed with their final decision—just the process of the decision making mattered to me.

I felt like that was something that the churches, if we’re going to be having these conversations, we need to know that as we’re making these decisions, the process is a good one, right? It needs to be effective. It needs to be constructive.

So that was where I began. I think for me, there’s always a variety of factors that come into when you’re deciding on a topic. For me, that was a very personal one. I think also my experience in churches, it had become clear to me that there was a hedge that had been set up around the law.

And so for churches that, you know, they would read some of these passages, I’m sure we’ll discuss at least a little bit 1 Timothy 2 and other places where Scripture, at least historically and traditionally in some of these Bible churches, have read that to be very restrictive of women in leadership.

I was part of churches that went way beyond some of those applications.

So you might have a church, for example, that will limit women to saying, well, women shouldn’t be pastors or should be elders. But I was part of churches where women weren’t allowed to, you know, even get on stage. They weren’t allowed to make announcements. They weren’t allowed to hand out bulletins in the sanctuary. And to me, this was a hedge that I could find no biblical basis for. And so that was something that bothered me.

And the more I observed that, I just felt like—how are we treating them? You know, what are we communicating to women and their value and their worth within the church?

And then lastly, as a pastor, I just have a deep passion for church unity. And this was an area that even as my journey over these last several years in terms of like my own personal conviction beliefs, it just seemed to me that how we have these conversations matters both within the church and outside. And it became something really I was very passionate about is how to help churches have the conversation in a way that still reflects the grace and the goodness of God and love for one another.

Even if we agree, we can agree to disagree or even if we disagree, we can do so in a way that’s gracious and loving to one another. And so that was all part of the motivation of tackling this topic.

Sandra >> So it sounds like you were way more concerned with how we get there than where we land?

Lucas >> That’s true. That’s true. I have my convictions. I have my own beliefs and I, but for where? For the project itself, the way I wanted to approach it was thinking about if I was going to be help a church that wanted to reconsider this, that wanted to revisit this, how can I help equip them to do so in a way that at the end of the day, wherever they land, their church is healthier for it and that they can still even engage and appreciate other churches with other perspectives instead of having these rifts.

And, you know, we’re in a society right now where there’s so much vilifying and if anyone who disagrees with us in the slightest way. And so that was something I really wanted to try to push back against, if there was any way of doing so.

Sandra >> Especially if they’re in our own camp. Right. It almost seems like

Lucas >> Absolutely.

Sandra >> punish our own for talking with the other. Right?

Lucas >> That’s right.

Sandra >> So what were your hunches? I mean, what did you suspect? You had to frame the question? What were your hunches going in that you thought might be influencing where people landed?

Lucas >> Yeah, I started with three as I was sort of thought about my time observing the elder board. I was sort of going, okay, what did I see there? And it seemed to me that the one and none of these I think if you stop and think about cognitive bias, you think about how we approach questions and how we come up with our answers.

Anyone who’s done any kind of research in psychology are going to be aware of some of these factors at one level. One is that our past influences the way that we see the present and the future. And so.

Sandra >> Everybody. Right?

Lucas >> Everybody.

Sandra >> Not just the “others.”

Lucas >> No, it’s true for all of us. So I was interested in, okay, what are the experiences within those churches that may have shaped the way that they approached the question? The second one was thinking about how do they view everybody outside of the church? So how do they view culture. Is culture an enemy? Is culture something that they’re trying to influence this culture? Something to run away from? What is kind of their posture towards cultural engagement?

It seemed to me that churches would be really influenced by it if they thought a position or a view reflected too similarly to the culture. And if culture was an evil, that might be something that they would run away from. Conversely, if they thought, how do you engage the culture, they might be more inclined to take a position that in some ways they someone might say, reflects the culture. So what is the dynamic there?

And then thirdly was what’s their chosen biblical hermeneutic?

One of the realities of you know, for years, you know, when I first started going back to the data was back in 2006, I was introduced to this idea that there’s a there are different ways of reading Scripture, that there are actually different lenses that we all bring to the interpretive exercise. And so I was interested in what are the underlying either conscious or even subconscious hermeneutics that these churches have adopted? And are they even aware of them as they’re seeking to interpret and then apply the Scriptures.

And so those were the three.

Sandra >> Only at churches like within Orthodox Christianity, correct?

Lucas >> Right. Yeah, correct. Yeah. So when I started it was yeah, exactly. It was elder-led, conservative kind of from that Bible Church DNA.

Sandra >> Okay, and talk to us.

Kay >> I just want to say I love so much that you’ve done this and you just describing those churches. I think I’ve been in all of those churches.

Lucas >> Right.

Kay >> All of those churches. I mean, I can think of one church that I was in that I think they feared dealing with this. Really, sort of a hidden agenda that the elders would deal with if something came up. But they didn’t really want to come up with a paper on it, a position on it. They just sort of avoided it.

Another church, the elder group, tried to do this, and it all kind of fell apart, and nothing really happened. And, you know, I’ve been in the churches that you know, you can’t call a woman a minister much less a pastor, you know? So I feel like I’ve sort of been the gamut that you’re talking about. But all of these are definitely orthodox conservative churches.

Sandra >> Yeah. Believe the Bible, but woo! Oh, yeah. Okay.

Lucas >> Yeah.

Sandra >> So you said hermeneutics, plural.

Lucas >> Correct.

Sandra >> Can you can you kind of give us some approaches like a people who have a high view of Scripture, what are some approaches you’ve seen them take to Scripture?

Lucas >> Yeah, I think I mean, I think there’s two ways of thinking about hermeneutics. One is kind of in a formal academic sense. And then one is just the reality is, as we were saying earlier, is that we all have a hermeneutic that we’re bringing to Scripture based on who we are and our own experience and even personality. Right? All of those things, how we’re wired comes in to how we interpret Scripture.

But I think it’s important that what hermeneutics does is it’s acknowledging that there’s a gap between Scripture as God has breathed it. And that is as all of these churches that I looked at was confessed to, is that it is inherent, infallible, the Word of God.

But there’s a gap between that the Word of God as it is, and then my interpretation, my understanding that that is not infallible. And with so there’s the informal reality of that. Then there’s the, the more formal and there’s a lot of different research now, and it’s been going on for quite some time. There’s been something that scholars have been aware of for a long time.

But how we interpret Scripture, even within that high view of Scripture, can differ. So you have different models. For example, you have some that are like the redemptive historical model. You have a philosophical and theological model, you have historical literal model or cultural, you know, looking at the context. So these are different ways of approaching the Scripture in order to understand it, and then to interpret it and then to apply it.

And what I found from my own experience was a lot of times that’s just not really realized. It’s not known even by elders, other leaders within the church. What they’ve been given is often assumed to be the only model that there is. And so I was interested in looking at these different churches and going, okay, which one are you actually leaning on for your interpretation, and do you realize it?

Sandra >> So talk to us then about how do you frame it? Like so you got a question. How what’s the best approach? Where are the best practices? How am I going to come up with the data? How do you go about it?

Lucas >> Yeah, I chose three churches that I was familiar with that I had connection with in some way. And that all had, as I said, a very similar DNA. On paper all three of the churches would look very similar. They all had very similar histories in terms of like coming out of that Bible Church tradition. And all three of them in the last ten years had gone through a deliberate conversation. These were all elder-led churches among the elders.

Revisiting this question, how should women be serving within the church? What is the Scripture say? And yet all three landed in different places, and that’s what fascinated me.

So you had one church that after this process said, no, we want to say women should can be pastors, they could be elders like Scripture supports that. We’ve read it wrong essentially for all these years because they’re coming from very traditional male dominated leadership. And so they, you know, using the language of egalitarian, they said we’re going to be an egalitarian church

Then the second church that I looked at, they went through another, you know, their own process. And they said, well, we want women to be pastors. We want them to teach and to preach, but we’re still going to reserve elder for only men. So it’s sort of like this, this next step.

And then the third church that I looked at, they went through a process and said, we’re going to stay with our traditional conservative reading of Scripture. And so to this day, they do not permit women to be elders or pastors, and they would never use that language, Kay, to your point, you know, not even women Ministers, much less Pastors.

You had three churches that all had their own process. That were all very similar, and yet landed in three different places.

And so what I did for my research was really just try to embed myself in the culture of these churches as much as I could.

Now came a lot of interviews. I talked to everybody that I could convince to talk to me within those churches, within their leadership, their pastoral staff, their ministry staff, the elders who are part of these decisions. I tried to avail myself of anything that they had published about their decisions, any of that process that was available online. And just try to understand as best I could their history, what their process looked like. And through those conversations, unearth some of those influences, factors that I suspected were there.

Sandra >> And so what did you learn?

Lucas >> Yeah, I mean, what I learned is that yes, there are influencing factors. This isn’t a surprise in one sense, but what I found with those churches is, and I kind of take up each one individually if I can.

So, you know, one of them, I call them the leadership church. This was a church that, you know, as they set about to have this conversation, they started with this question of why do we want to have this conversation?

And they are a church that really wanted to empower women to live out the full potential of their leadership. They believe that that they wanted to unlock the leadership potential of the women within their church that they felt and believed had been stifled and limited for a long time.

If you look at these three factors, experience, cultural engagement and biblical hermeneutic. For them, it really began with the experience and so what happened was they had started—they had women on staff who are uniquely gifted and leadership and teaching. And over time, this began to press on their convictions because they saw God using these women in really powerful and dramatic ways. And so that led them to revisit their biblical hermeneutic.

They said, we see these women they have these gifts. They’re leading, and they’re teaching. Okay, is it possible that we need to rethink the way that we’re reading Scripture? And so there was an openness as they then approached the question with Scripture.

And so they didn’t go into it trying to, you know, say, this is what we want to find within Scripture. But there was this, again, this revisiting process because of what their experience led them to.

And so they began with experience that then began to shift the way that they looked at scripture and they began to investigate different hermeneutical models. And as they were looking at their biblical hermeneutic, they were open to other models.

And one that they wanted to look at was static. It was very much frozen in time. If Paul says that this is happening, then that’s what should be happening today.

And the other model was a what you might call a trajectory model. And this is looking at our Scripture from the beginning and through the end how there’s a progression of greater freedom, more grace, or a different expressions of grace throughout Scripture.

And so that openness to other hermeneutical models then began to change their conversation.

And in the midst of that, it also made them because they weren’t afraid of the culture. While there were some who were pushing back and saying, look, you’re just buying into what the culture is telling you. This is during the MeToo movement.

They were saying, Actually, we’re just not afraid of the culture. We want to be able to engage the culture. And again, that allowed them to have these open conversations in good faith. I would say like one of the descriptions they gave me repeatedly was that they wanted to be open, open minded, and they wanted to be open hearted around these conversations and allow the Spirit to lead them and guide them.

And so it was very open and they took a lot of time. There’s a lot of prayer involved.

And so it began with looking at their experience with women who were just demonstrating great leadership and teaching. And that then influenced the way that they that they read the scriptures and the hermeneutic models that they were open it.

The second church, I’ll call it like the missional church, and this is one that they were interested in how do we make sure that we are engaging with the culture? So they began with the culture where they were not afraid of the culture. They wanted to engage the culture.

And as part of that conversation, they wondered, are we are we a safe place for women? And that they begin to have conversations with women on staff and even women from other ministries and discovered that women didn’t feel safe often within their church. The women felt stifled, that they felt limited, they felt disrespected and undervalued. And they gave a lot of stories around how that was communicated to them from the leadership even. And so there was a real.

Sandra >> How’d that go?

Lucas >> Yeah. It was really heartbreaking for them. And so, you know, you have this moment where the elders are sitting down with these women and are hearing these stories from them. And there’s really just this conviction and a heart of repentance that comes over the whole elder board going, we have not treated these women the way that they should as sisters in Christ.

And so for them, the conversation sort of began with the cultural and then moved to experiential because now they’re aware of how women were treated and how they felt within the church. And that then again led to this openness when it came to how are we going to read the scriptures to make sure that we’re honoring women and valuing them the way that they should be?

And then the third church really began with experience as well. And for the third church, you know, their past is very much part of their identity. It’s who they are. And so because of that, they look at the past as a buffer against the dangers of the culture. And so there’s really no gap between how Scripture has been interpreted in the past and the truth of Scripture. So that whole idea of a hermeneutic and that gap between what God’s Word said and then understanding and interpretation is all but lost.

So the past then becomes very much the hermeneutic for how they approach Scripture. And it becomes a buffer and a defense from the culture that they want to make sure doesn’t begin to permeate the church.

And so you have these influencing factors with all three churches, but in all three different ways, and it leads to different interpretations of the scriptures in different applications, again, in all three ways.

And let me just say, I have great respect for all these churches. My research was never intended to, you know, in any way denigrate or hurt anyone in these churches. I have great respect for each one of them. I simply wanted to observe and say, okay, what are the processes that you are going through? What are those factors that you may not even be aware of that are playing a part in how you’re making these decisions?

Sandra >> So you’ve been doing a bunch of consulting with churches since. What’s your advice now based on your findings?

Lucas >> You know, the questions that I would start with, one is why do you want to have this conversation? I think that the you know, the motivation behind it really does, again, influence a lot of how you’re going to approach the conversation.

So if your elder board or your leadership team, whoever it is within your church, I will say you need to know that you’re on the same page in terms or at least understanding what the motivation is. What is it that you want to get out of this process?

With each one of those churches what I appreciated was that they did each have this shared sense of why. The first church wanted to, each one of them wanted to be true to Scripture. Be clear about that. But the first church was saying, hey, we see a missed opportunity with really unlocking women’s potential leadership. So there was that motivating factor.

The second one was, we want to be a church that’s safe for women and missional in that sense. We want to be true to Scripture. So what is that going to look like for us?

And the third church said We want to be true to Scripture, and for them they wanted to be true to their past. That was their driving value.

So why is it that you want to engage this conversation? I mean, you have to be very honest with yourself about that.

I think if you’re not honest with that piece of it, then you can’t answer the second question, which is, are you willing to change your mind? Are you willing to be pushed? Are you willing to consider other perspectives genuinely? Right?

One of the churches that I consulted with, they realized that they were at a place where some of those on their leadership board were simply when they asked that question, when they pushed, they said, no, we’re not. We’re not willing to we know what the outcome of this deliberation is going to be, what this investigation will be. So they realized they had to table the discussion. It just wasn’t going to be done in good faith.

And so I think starting with why and then are you willing to really engage in this investigation in good faith, being willing to change your mind, being willing to be challenged and not to vilify everybody who disagreed with you. All right, that’s all part of that.

And then third part of that, that advice I give is that you have to take your time if you’re going to have a good process for making this kind of a decision, having this kind of deliberation, then you have to take the time necessary. One of the churches that I consulted with, they felt a time crunch and they tried to really push the discussion as quickly as possible.

And it’s when you’re coming from a tradition that oftentimes these churches have long histories, even if it’s a newer church, you have people who have long histories in Bible churches or conservative churches that only have seen it in one way.

If you try to change something quickly, or even if the process is done too quickly, you simply don’t allow space for more consideration, more deliberation, more exposure, to different ideas. And frankly, you end up losing credibility with those people who know you make the decision.

Sandra >> Interesting.

Lucas >> I think that credibility is a big part of it. I always encourage churches. At some point you have to think about how you’re going to be transparent with your church around the conversation. If you try to have this conversation all in back rooms, and then come out with a decision—whether they love the decision or not—you again, you’re going to hurt your credibility. You’re going to hurt really just the overall health of your church because there are going to be people who are going to question. And they’re going to be hurt that they weren’t at least involved or at least have a voice.

Sandra >> You didn’t even ask me.

Lucas >> You didn’t even ask me. It will feel very authoritative, very heavy handed, even if you have all the greatest rationale in the world.

Even if you spent two years, if you didn’t let people in on the process, you’re going to end up hurting your church. One of the churches that I talked with, one of their regrets was—and I think they went through a really good process overall—but they said we didn’t involve the congregation, we didn’t involve the membership early enough.

And it wasn’t that they needed to have an all congregational meeting, where everybody was able to grab a microphone. But along the way, being intentional about letting people know, hey, we’re having this conversation. Here’s why, here’s why we think it matters, and then informing them and updating them along the way. Giving people space to think and to respond at times is really vital if you’re going to try to maintain that unity of the church.

Sandra >> So I can echo that. I talked to a pastor who said we went through this whole process. We’re happy with how it ended. But if we had it all to do over, we would do a lot better job of communicating. Even, here are the books the elders are reading. Here’s we’re discussing this in this six month period—just more of a transparency about how they were doing it rather than we, the officials are going to come down from on high with a decision you have to live with.

He’s like, you know, we were wrestling, honestly, but we should all let our people know, yeah, and maybe they could have wrestled to even if they if we weren’t asking them their opinions, they would have had at least the same resources.

Speaking of which, what are some resources that you used in the process?

Lucas >> A lot.

You know, where I began was one, there’s just there’s so much research out there that’s available. If you do a little bit of research, starting with just the experience—how experience shapes the way that we interpret the present and the way that we then respond or move into the future.

You know, one of the things that I suspected as I was looking into this was for a church like the church that I would say is more traditional and conservative and have held their position. One of the things that I was interested in is how when you look at your history as a church, it’s really easy to go well, this is almost like a sunk cost. You know, this is how we honor the past. This is who we’ve always been.

Sandra >> Talk about the sunk cost, because that’s not a familiar term to everybody. But I think it’s a really important one in this conversation.

Lucas >> Yeah. So the sunk cost fallacy is really just this idea of a bias where the more we have invested in something, the less likely we are to change our direction. Right? So I have this investment that I’ve made, and I’ve put a bunch of money into it, and I see it going downhill, but I can’t live with the idea that I’ve put all this investment into it so I actually double down.

And so this is a, you know, it’s a fallacy that we buy into. And I think it actually plays out. It’s a very common one when it comes to like what we’ve experienced. So we’ve experienced something where we’ve said this is what’s right, this is what’s true, this is how we have to think. This is how we have to interpret scripture.

And over time, even if we start to think, oh, maybe we didn’t have that right, we can’t afford the loss. We feel the loss of the people that has taught that who came before us, we feel the loss of those who have invested and all of who our church has been for so long.

And in this way we feel like it’s dishonoring and it’s a hard decision to realize, you know, I want to change my mind because I have all this investment in who we’ve always been. And so that was something that I think, you know, you have to be aware of if you do have that long tradition and you’re really tied to. And for a lot of good reasons, like who your church has been, there’s a lot of good there.

Yeah. And are you losing that? Are you willing to do that? So there’s a lot of research on that and just that reality, that one. And that’s one of the biases that I think creeps in.

Also just within cultural engagement, obviously, there’s a lot of different things you can read. And Dr. Bock has Cultural Intelligence, that’s one of the more recent ones.

But, you know, some of the books that I found really helpful, the first one that comes to mind is The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt. That’s a book that just talks about how we come to thinking about different topics in the world and the different biases that we bring to them, almost like different flavors that we have. And just being aware of those is really helpful for having these types of conversations within obviously within the topic itself.

One of them there really made an influence on me from the very beginning was R.T. France’s Women in the Church’s Ministry. This is based on a series of lectures that he did, and the subtitle is “A Test Case from Biblical Interpretation.”

And what I love about R.T. France is just his candor throughout these lectures. And he really approaches this question of how are you interpreting Scripture. And he kind of calls us to task to say, you know, you are not as infallible in your interpretation as you think.

I think it’s a great place to open a conversation for anybody who wants to revisit this, just to say, Hey, let’s just take a step back and really consider how much do you really know, how much certainty should you really have?

Sandra >> And that didn’t make you walk away deconstructing it all?

Lucas >> It didn’t. It didn’t. It actually was really, maybe it’s because I’m a philosophy major at heart. But actually, I found it really refreshing that he was willing to say we can uphold inerrancy of Scripture and not give our interpretations that same level of credit. And I think that’s really important. God’s truth is true and Scripture is true, but my interpretation is not 100% accurate. Right? And so there’s always room to grow and to learn.

The other two that are just kind of really well rounded and again, you know, I came at this not trying to argue for a position. But I would say wanting to just get a well-rounded exposure to the conversation, the two just as a starting place, one is Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. This is John Piper and Wayne Grudem.

And then you have to turn around and read Discovering Biblical Equality: Biblical, Theological, Cultural and Practical Perspectives. Ronald Pierce and Cynthia Westfall, editors of that.

So those are two works that are really in dialog with each other, not always in the most friendly of terms, but they are.

But it’s a great way to just go, okay, what are the different voices? What are the different topics and pieces of these arguments? Just as a starting place.

Sandra >> And they’re both within the inerrancy camp.

Lucas >> Both within the inerrancy camp. But I think that’s really important to see that you have both sides that, you know, they’re both conservative. They’re both orthodox. They’re both going to be within that. you know, like you said, Orthodox. But they’re going to see things very, very differently. And that’s a healthy thing to see and to be exposed to.

Sandra >> Yeah. So you said that one piece of advice is, you know, even why are you asking some questions? Is there anything else like inviting women in? Does that make a difference?

Lucas >> Absolutely. Yeah. No, I appreciate you asking the question. Yeah. So part of taking more time is to give yourself what I missed that earlier. Part of what I was thinking about in terms of who are the voices that you’re inviting in, you know. So it gives you more time to read more broadly, ask broader perspectives and being open to different perspectives and open to different voices, I think that’s really important again.

So going along those lines of those two different books that I read recommended there is you’ve got to have voices from different perspectives in different camps in order to really understand and appreciate all the different angles of the conversation.

And so, you know, one of the things that the churches that I would say their process was longer. They along the way discovered what different avenues they needed to pursue. They gave themselves that space to go, okay, you know what—because we’re not on a time crunch. I want to run over here and I want to see if we can go down this rabbit hole. Perhaps some sense and invite this person to talk. or to I want to encourage everybody to read this article.

And so they definitely had a much broader scope of exposure than, for example, one of the churches that I talked to that tried to do literally in three months. And it was literally a three-month process. And because of that, there were so few voices. There’s a basically ended up being a debate within the elder board itself.

And it was it was a couple of guys arguing with a couple of guys. And in the end, they didn’t really get anywhere in any sort of healthy way.

So, yeah, no, absolutely. I think you have to have as broad exposure as possible, I think. And you can do that within an orthodox conservative, you know, framework without question. Yeah.

Sandra >> Anything else you want to add we should know?

Lucas >> I mean, I would just encourage anybody who’s looking into this— take the time and this is this is the conversation I think every church should have. If your church hasn’t gotten to this point yet, they need to at some point.

And the reason I think that is because we’re at a time right now where so much is changing with our world rapidly. And there are so many different ethical questions that are coming into churches from every different angle.

This is one, though, that is so as you know, before we got in this call, you were talking about a church that you’re consulting with right now. They’re seeing their church started to get split over this. That’s happening all over the country.

And this is one that if churches are going to be able to be a positive voice, to be sort of light within the culture, then we have to be healthy. And part of that is understanding, not shoving these kinds of conversations under the rug, but bringing them to light and doing so in a way that is going to bring unity and not division even within the church.

And that’s what’s interesting is, you know, I think a lot of times there’s this fear of disunity. And so it’s like, let’s try to shove this under the rug. Let’s not have this conversation. We’re afraid of what this would do to our church.

And I think it’s actually the opposite. I think the healthiest churches are the ones that are going to say, we’re going to lean into the hard conversation but we’re going to do so with humility and we’re going to do so with self-awareness. We’re going to do this with transparency and try to see this as an opportunity for spiritual formation even within your church.

But I think when that becomes the heart of your leadership, then I think that there’s real potential there for at the end of the day, your church being healthier and stronger for it.

And I think there’s an opportunity there that we need to have.

Sandra >> That has ramifications for a lot of other issues. Right?

Lucas >> Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely.

Lucas >> Thank you so much. I appreciate your work. I appreciate you joining us. Dr. Daigle, anything you want to add?

Kay >> I just want to say I totally agree, very much appreciate the research that you’ve done, the time that you spent on this. And it’s a benefit to the church in general. And just saying that for the churches, I can’t speak for them, but when they watch this or when they finally come to the decision to make a decision about this, I think that they will benefit from that, just as you pointed out, that this is an important conversation to have. Shouldn’t just be swept under the rug. It shouldn’t be hurried.

And those are some of the experiences that I had a hurried kind of where the church that it kind of fell apart. And they were trying to hurry because I think some of the elders were going to leave and they were going to need to get new elders who had not done any of the research because it’d only been the circle of the elders involved. And so it was being rushed and they did finally bring a group of us as women in to talk to them.

Lucas >> Uh-huh.

Kay >> There was division among the women, but many of them had never studied the topic. So they were

Lucas >> Right.

Kay >> blind. They were just talking from, this is the way I feel about it. It was nothing about their real biblical research.

Lucas >> Uh-huh.

Kay >> I really see the value in everything that you brought up. And these practices I think would really be helpful for any church.

So thank you so much for bringing this to light and doing all the work that you did.

Lucas >> That’s my pleasure.

Kay >> We have other videos on church issues that you might be interested in, other podcast on these. So if you go to BeyondOrdinaryWomen.org and look under resources, you will see that we have church issues listed, and that’s where this type of conversation falls in. So I would just encourage any of you out there who are on church staffs, or you’re elders in churches, or you have influence in a church that you bring this up, how important this is and just bring it to the light instead of just trying to hide. Let’s just not deal with it.

Sandra >> Ignore and it’ll go away. If only.

Kay >> Yeah, it’s not the way to go. So thank you and we will look forward to seeing you again on our Beyond Ordinary Women Podcast.

Dr. Nika Spaulding

This episode is available on video as well.

00:32 Introduction to Nika and the church calendar

Kay >> I’m Kay Daigle. Welcome to the Beyond Ordinary Women Podcast and video. Today, our guest is Nika Spaulding. Welcome, Nika.

Nika >> Thank you. I’m excited to be here.

Kay >> We’re glad you’re here. You know, I was looking at your bio. You sent us a new bio the other day, and it occurred to me that I never really asked you about having a zoology degree from the University of Oklahoma. What is that about?

Nika >> Oh, so I will say I was originally pre-med. So while having a zoology degree is incredible, I originally thought I was going to go to med school. And O.U. weirdly doesn’t have a biology program. They have a zoology program that feeds into a med school which is so strange because Oklahoma State has a biology program that feeds into a vet school.

So it’s not I don’t know why we’re you know, part of the reason why, though, I actually know the real reasons because we had world class scholars in that field at O.U. and we have world class research facilities, so they just kind of combine them. But even though I don’t use my degree, I am utterly fascinated by the animal kingdom.

And so it was a really fun degree for me to get. And it always surprises people when they find out that’s my bachelor’s degree. So I joke, though, with that degree, I’m not even qualified to like work at a zoo unless I’m in the gift shop. So I would have to go on to a lot more school.

But, you know, there’s always time if I decide to go that route.

Kay >> Well, I love that. I wasn’t sure if you started zoology because you just wanted to go in that direction and then God changed your mind or if there was something else behind it.

Nika >> So it’s definitely med school. And then to this day, I mean, even when I was a kid, if I saw blood, vomit, anything that doctors see on a routine basis, I get weak in the knees, I get sick to my stomach, I get all of these things. And I really was like, that’s okay. I’m going to push through.

And so I was on my way to the MCAT in college at O.U. and God was like, you really, you really don’t get it, do you? And I finally was like, all right, Lord, what is it you would have me do? So took a hard left into theology. So I don’t know anybody who has a zoology/theology degree other than me.

I don’t know anybody. And so, you know, but that’s all right. Maybe there’ll be more someday.

Kay >> I don’t know either. You’re just unique. Probably in the whole world.

Nika >> Sure. Well, it took me a while to figure out. I should probably follow God, so maybe I’m not unique in that way. I just went a weird route to that, but. Yeah. So it’s fun, though.

Kay >> Well, that’s fun. Well, you also have a master of theology at DTS, and you have a DMin from Northern Seminary. So you have definitely made up for not having some sort of Bible degree, I suppose.

Nika >> Yeah.

Kay >> at O.U. So we are talking about the church calendar today, and I’m sure many of our viewers are as ignorant about the church calendar as I was years ago, because I did not grow up in a church that observed the church calendar.

So would you tell us what it even is?

Nika >> Yeah. Yeah. One, I love that you call it the church calendar, because sometimes people call it the liturgical calendar. And, you know, theology is great, but theology has its own vocab that often makes it difficult for people to know what we’re talking about. And so I prefer we just use words that make a lot more sense. So it’s the church calendar and the reason why you can call it the church calendar is for thousands of years, the church all across the world would celebrate seasons that revolved around the life of Christ.

And the idea was, as churches all over the world and throughout history would be oriented to the seasons of Jesus’s life as opposed to whatever the other seasons are. So throughout history, you might have seasons based on when the produce comes in. You know, you kind of think of farming communities that have like their harvest or their lives revolve around the moons or things like that.

In America, we sort of have, you know, Christmas, you know, Presidents Day, Super Bowl Sunday. But, you know, sort of our liturgical calendar is a little different. But the idea is life is busy, life is crazy. So what if we orient our year around the life of Christ and then use that time to really focus on these different seasons?

And so we’ve actually, we’ve done two previous podcasts on part of the liturgical calendar, the church calendar. And so we’ve talked about Advent together, which is a season before Christmas, where you’re really preparing yourself to receive the gift that is Jesus at Christmas. And then we talked about Lent, which is the season before Easter, where you’re really preparing yourself for the truth of Easter.

I mean, you know, we talked in those podcasts of—if you’re just kind of doing it how to do, and then all of a sudden Easter Sunday comes and you’re like, “Oh man, life changing, eternity changing, cosmic changing moment on the cross me. And then you go back to work on Monday.” We argued Hey, maybe you didn’t get the most out of that Easter season.

And so those two seasons are just two of the entire church calendar. And so and then one of the things I love, if you look up and we’ll put this and I know we’ll put this in the resources for you all—the church calendar, any time you Google it, I have never seen it in a straight line. It’s always in a circle.

And the idea behind that is it’s a cyclical every year, year in and year out for 2000 years, the church is saying this is how time moves and it’s all moving toward the culmination of time. But if you think about it, let’s we’ll start with Christmas because that’s in January. Well, Christmas is obviously at the end of December, but.

Kay >> Christmas is the beginning of the church calendar.

Nika >> Yes, yes, yes, yes. Yeah. So you have yeah. So you have Christmas Day.

Kay >> Yeah, and let me just throw this in you have sent us a the graph with the circle and we’ll probably show that as you’re talking.

Nika >> Yeah. Good.

Kay >> So they’ll be able to see it unless they’re listening on a podcast. But if you are listening on a podcast, you can always go to our website and I will actually try to post this on the page where the whole podcast is posted.

Nika >> Love it.

Kay >> So you can look at it.

Nika >> Yeah.

I know for those of you listening, if you’re listening as a podcast, then chances are you’re like me and you’re driving, in which case don’t do this. But if you’re just, you know, vacuuming around your house or you’re waiting in the carpool line, Google real quick, go to the United Methodist Church and Google the Christian calendar or something because it is so helpful to have it in front of you.

Do not do that if you’re driving, but if you’re listening. So if you think about Christmas Day, you know, December 25th, which there are, I will I do want to there are some church traditions that celebrate Christmas at different times. But for the most part Christians throughout history celebrate it on December 25th. Well that actually kicks off what we call Christmas season, Christmastide.

And so during those couple of weeks before the Magi come and visit Jesus, that’s Christmastide which I don’t know about you but I love more Christmas and so you know the idea of one day and if you’ve ever seen you know that my true love gave to me 12, you know the 12 gifts of Christmas and you’re like, why would you get 12 gifts at Christmas?

Well that’s actually because of the 12 days of Christmastide after December 25th. And so you have that season of Christmas and then we have what we call Epiphany Sunday, which is the Sunday where the Magi come. We celebrate Jesus. After that we kick off what’s called ordinary time, and there’s several weeks of it. Ordinary time is always green in the calendar.

And we’ll talk about why as we keep going. After ordinary time then we kick off a season of Lent, which starts with Ash Wednesday. And if you’re from New Orleans, then you have Mardi Gras. You get all of your all of your sins out of the way, so to speak. And then, you know, and that is kind of the I say that tongue in cheek.

I’m sure there are some that do. But the reason why you sort of party on Tuesday is because starting on Wednesday, Lent is a season typically of fasting, self-denial, so that you can focus on what Christ has done for you at Easter. Then you have . . .

Kay >> And I think Mardi Gras has become pretty universal these days.

Yes. Everybody likes Mardi Gras.

Nika >> Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there’s something to be said for like the culture of Mardi Gras. I will say, I have I remember growing up and people like you ever want to go to the Mardi Gras? And I’m like, no, not even a little bit. I have no desire to do that.

But I do think this I it is an interesting phenomenon to say that people were serious enough about their self-denial of Lent that they got all of theirs all of their partying out of the way to where I’m like, at least even in that which I don’t recommend—you just get all your partying out of the way before a season of denial.

But that tells you something about people practicing in these communities that they took Lent seriously. And so Lent is several weeks where you’re focusing on Easter coming, and this and the color for Lent is purple so Advent and Lent, the seasons of Waiting are purple.

And then you of course, have Easter. The color for Easter Day is gold is typically set apart. Either Christmas and Easter are both gold or just Easter, depending on your tradition. Of course, Easter, the day we celebrate the risen Christ, and then after Easter is Eastertide and so you are in a season where again, one day is just not enough to celebrate what Jesus does for you on Easter.

And then 50 days after that, we have Pentecost, which we as Christians, we’ll talk a little bit more about this. It’s a red day and red is from this is from fire, because on Pentecost in the Scriptures, fire comes and hangs out over people’s head. And we’ll talk about why that is. But we celebrate Pentecost is the day the Holy Spirit comes the birth of the church.

So that’s a red day. And then we kick off a long season of ordinary time long season of green. And so when you think of the colors, you have purple for the seasons of waitings, gold for the high holy days of Christmas and Easter, green for ordinary time, which is I when the first time I heard about ordinary time, I was like, oh, so the boring time, like the time when nothing happens.

But I would argue perhaps it might be some of the most important seasons to prepare you for the high holy days. And then we have red for Pentecost. And so—and then again every year we just go through this cycle where we’re saying our life is centered around Jesus so that our calendar reflects that reality. Because it’s so easy for us to say our lives revolve around Jesus, but then our lives revolve around work, carpool, PTA, sports, you know, all of the things that pull us away from Jesus.

And so this calendar, this church calendar is a beautiful way every week to remind us where we are in time as it relates to Jesus.

Kay >> You know, it also makes me think about the fact that for churches or people who have never been introduced to any of this or they’ve never tried any of this. If you read through the Bible, you know that basically God had the Jews have a calendar of the year. Their New Year was wrapped around God.

And then they had these other feasts of the year that they were supposed to all participate in. So this isn’t like new to some sort of high liturgical church.

Nika >> Yeah, that’s right.

Kay >> And even the churches that don’t do the whole church calendar, of course, do Easter and Christmas.

Nika >> Yeah. And they and they even do. It’s interesting, even if they only do Christmas and Easter, they’ll also do you know, they’ll do like seasons where they’re, you know, doing fundraising. And that’s an important time where the whole church is focusing on, you know, giving or something like that. Or they’ll do a sermon series.

And again, while that may not be what the high church calendar looks like, it’s still a dedicated season where you’re focusing on one thing. And that’s really all this is. And it’s something that then you join with churches all throughout history. So, okay, you’re exactly right. The idea that the church invented the church calendar is silly because really God invented it and then he gave it to his people. And then and naturally and in fact, almost all of our days as the Christian church calendar flow out of really the Jewish calendar.

So what was Passover for them? Became Easter for us because that’s when Jesus died and rose again. Their Pentecost becomes our Pentecost, and there’s was the giving of the law at Sinai. Ours becomes the giving of the Holy Spirit and the birth of the church obviously they don’t have the birth of they don’t have a Christmas equivalent for themselves, but they did have three major feasts a year and every week a Sabbath.

And you just didn’t violate those. I mean, you oriented your entire life around these days, these high holy days to the Lord. And so it’s God’s idea that we would orient our lives around him. And so rather than because we mentioned neither of us grew up in high church environments and neither of us really pastored in them until recently for me.

And because of that, I think sometimes there’s a skepticism people have, or maybe there’s a fear I’ll sometimes hear people go, well, that’s just that’s what the Catholics and the Methodist do. I’m Baptist, or that’s what you know. And sort of and I think in that skepticism, I would want to encourage people there’s something beautiful about the church calendar because it is so easy to forget God.

And I don’t mean that like in some like, oh, I don’t know who God is. I just mean it’s so easy for the demands of life. Think about that. We talked about this when we were talking about Advent. The Christmas season-I mean, I’m already making plans for a party two months from now because if I don’t get it on people’s calendars, it’s not going to happen.

We do a yearly favorite things party and it’s this big, huge thing that we do at my house for all of our friends. But again, my roommates and I had to talk about it in October so that we get on everybody’s calendars because there’s this intensity in that season that has nothing to do with preparing your heart for Jesus.

Now I like to think that there’s nothing wrong with my party. But the point being, if I don’t also celebrate Advent, then the stress of Christmas takes over and I forget this is actually an invitation to intimacy. And so that’s why I like calling it the church calendar, because this is something the church has done forever. It’s not necessarily something that has to be done in high church, and it’s a beautiful gift from the Lord.

Kay >> Right. So, as you said, we have these other podcast/videos on Christmas, on Advent and Lent.

Nika >> Yeah.

Kay >> So let’s go through the rest of the church calendar, and you explain to us how each one came to be, what it means, how it’s celebrated. What can you tell us?

Nika >> Yeah. So Pentecost is one that if you hear the word Pentecost, you might think of the domination like Pentecostals or a faith tradition. But that’s really not the main meaning of Pentecost is actually an event in the Bible. So if we go to Acts Two, this is where this day moves from a Jewish calendar day to a Christian calendar day in Acts Two.

And what’s happening there is the original Pentecost. You had Passover, which was the beginning of the birth of the nation of Israel. God rescues them from Egypt. It becomes a Passover event that becomes their beginning of their calendar day for them. Because, again, like ours is the birth of Jesus. And for them it’s the birth of the nation at Passover.

Fifty days after Passover, they would celebrate Pentecost now it also happened to coincide with the Harvest Festival. So it was also a recognition that God would cause the rain to grow and all of that when they were settled in the land. But part of what they would celebrate at their Pentecost, was if you remember the fire at the top of Sinai and God gives the tablet and the commands and He gives the Lord to Moses and it’s a really incredible moment.

So there’s sort of this like fire element to Sinai and they would. And so every year they would celebrate Pentecost as a celebration of God providing for them in their crops. And also because there is the wheat harvest, they would celebrate that and then they would celebrate the law coming down as they became a nation really incredible, really beautiful celebration.

Fast forward in the life of Jesus. Jesus dies on a Passover week, so he dies on one of the high holy days. So 50 days later is naturally going to be Pentecost for all of the Jewish observers in the life of Jesus.

Well, on this particular Pentecost, though, the Holy Spirit comes. If you remember, says there’s like fire over their heads, which is a clear callback to Mount Sinai. It’s a clear callback to what God did at the original Sinai when he brought the law down. Now he’s doing it as that was a birth of a nation. Now this is the birth of the church. And so there’s this correlation here.

And then you know, Peter gets up, he makes this incredible sermon, and all these people are gathered and it’s like thousands join them that day.

So Pentecost for Christians is the day where we celebrate the birth of the church. The day we celebrate the Spirit being poured out on people, the day we celebrate really the diversity and the beauty of the church. And so it signals to us God is always doing new things.

And so when we’re celebrating Pentecost, we wear red because it harkens back to the fire, which I love, because there’s nowadays you get to wear red in the church calendar. And as someone who went to O.U. I do prefer to wear red. And so I would always be so excited for the red days, so we wear red.

But it’s a reminder that, you know, God had promised the Israelites through them he would bring the nations together, that this is part of God’s promise. And so when the church is born that day, it’s a fulfillment of that promise in many ways, what’s happening that used to be only for Israel.

And of course, outsiders were always welcomed in. But it was a predominantly Israel focus, salvation of the Lord in the Old Testament. Suddenly in Acts, it just blossoms out, and we see the missionaries go everywhere. So if you enjoy being a Christian as a gentile, I would say Pentecost Sunday should be really important to you because it’s the day that the church explodes into growth and the Spirit of God goes out. It’s just an incredible day.

And so that’s why we celebrate Pentecost Sunday. And for us, it’s a reminder God is doing new things and we should be grateful for that.

Kay >> And as you said, grateful that God has brought the Gentiles into the church with the Jews. So, yeah, it really should be much more talked about than it is. I mean, even if you’re not going to celebrate all of these, it does seem like we should really make that a major celebration. Just like Easter and Christmas are.

Nika >> Yeah, it makes me sad because I think the reason why we don’t is there are theological debates about what speaking in tongues is. There are! And because that happens at that original Pentecost and there’s a lot of theological debate, I think a lot of church traditions steer away from it. You know, they kind of put some distance there.

And I think, gosh, there’s so much more going on than speaking in tongues. There is so much more about who we are as the people of God going on. So I think it’s a real miss when we ignore it. And I think it’s a real miss if we only address it in terms of the theological debate. Because what the beautiful thing about the church calendar is, it unites us.

There are a few things today. I mean, Kay we talk about this off camera. It feels like there’s just division everywhere. And so to have something as beautiful as this that has the potential to unite us where we say, oh, of course, we have theological differences, that’s what it means to be Christian. We don’t agree on everything. But we do agree on this that this is the church’s birthday.

I mean, I think if I were a youth group person, I would throw a birthday party every Pentecost Sunday, and just invite the kids to celebrate the birthday of the church. And so, yeah, so here’s my appeal for those of you who lead in ministries, celebrate Pentecost Sunday.I think it’s a really important part for the formation of your people.

Kay >> So I don’t want to forget to ask this question. So I may ask it now? Even though we haven’t talked about ordinary time yet. But if somebody’s listening to this who isn’t on a church staff and has no authority to implement any of this, how would you suggest that they celebrate on their own? Or would it maybe going into ordinary time would be a good way to talk about it.

I don’t know. Yeah, I’ll leave that to you. But that is a question that I have and I didn’t want to forget to ask.

Nika >> Yeah, I love it. Yeah. So I think it would—one, I think all of worship is about formation. So if the idea is am I loving God more, am I loving myself, am I loving my neighbor more? So I would say if you’re listening to this and you want to say you, no you know, you’re not calling the shots.

You’re not going to you know, it’s going to be about you. Maybe your roommates, your family. I would say–One, if you have children, I would encourage you to celebrate it. By marking it as a really important day with a birthday cake, with some way of saying this is the birth the church. And I would talk about all the nations that are represented through Pentecost, you know, we have all these Bible verses, every tribe, tongue, and nation.

Like right now I am sitting in Yukon, Oklahoma. My parents live in a brand new neighborhood. It’s brand new. And there’s a park like 50 yards from me where little kids can play. And already in the little kids handwriting are the letters KKK and the N-word. So I’m planning before I leave town to take some acetone and try to remove that. We live in a world where young people today are being taught to be comfortable with hate, to be comfortable with discrimination, to be comfortable with other-ing people.

And I would say Pentecost is this great moment in our calendar that forces us to say there are no others in Christ. The dividing wall of hostility has been knocked down. So what I would encourage people to do for Pentecost Sunday is take a moment to celebrate that all of these languages will be represented in the new heavens, in the new Earth, and maybe pray for the people in your life who speak a different language than you. Or to reach out to them and say, “I’m so glad you’re my brother and sister in Christ.”

Right? If it’s about formation, then I would say doing something more than just thinking about it, but doing something to celebrate diversity, to celebrate the bigness of God’s gift of the church is how I would encourage people to celebrate Pentecost in their own way. But especially if you have littles, because it bums me.

I’m like, this is so profoundly sad to me that this is what’s happening in my parent’s neighborhood. And so, yeah, that’s what I would say is take time to push back against the darkness of the world. On a day that diversity should be celebrated from our churches.

Kay >> I think that’s really a good word. Yeah. Okay, so what is ordinary time you’ve talked about a little bit, but yeah. Yeah. I mean, it just sounds ordinary.

Nika >> Yeah, yeah. Or even the fact they call it like it’s ordinary, which it does stand for, like ordinal time. This idea is like this, you know, it’s just this long chunk of the year, and it’s two really long chunks. So you have a smaller chunk that’s you know, between basically Christmas and Easter and then or Lent, really. And then you have a long chunk that is after Pentecost, before you get to Advent and you know, as a person who was a pastor, as a resident theologian, it’s so fun to have high holy days like to think about preaching for Pentecost is so fun.

You know, you’re like, this is great. You get to say so many superlative things. So then you get to ordinary time and you’re like, ha, it’s not, it’s not not fun. It’s just what am I going to do during this season? And then you realize, wait a minute, actually, when I do preach on Pentecost, there’s kind of only one sermon I’m going to preach, and that’s from Acts 2.

And when I am preaching out of Christmas, I am going to preach on Jesus is born. And when I am preaching on Easter, I am going to preach that Jesus rose from the dead, because that’s what you preach on those days.

So ordinary time then becomes an invitation to say, okay, what does dedicated maturity and growth look like in the in-between spaces?

And so what ordinary time? The reason why it’s green is because it’s like growth. So you think of it like when things are growing and sort of this natural element to it. It is a season for developing rhythms for spiritual life. And because you’re focusing so much in the high holy days on these big, big moments, ordinary time becomes this invitation of how do we walk with God in the ordinary moments of time, which frankly is most of our lives.

You know, when you think of your life and you kind of if you were to have a timeline, you would have big you know, this is the day my kid was born. This is the day I got married. This is the day of, you know. There are those big moments in life. So we need high holy days but most of our life is the day in, day out walking with God.

And so ordinary time is actually an invitation for sustained period of rhythms of worship, rhythms of connecting with God. And I would argue that if you use ordinary time, well, then when you get to Advent you’re so ready because you’ve been walking with God.

And so when you import even more beauty into the Advent season, you’re going, “Yeah, yeah, I’ve been walking with God. So I’m excited to add more prayers to already my daily prayers. I’m excited to add more worship experiences because I’ve already been walking with God every day.”

And so this is what I would say is ordinary time is an invitation to cultivate the rhythms of life that produce growth. And that is why it’s green. It is necessary for what we do.

If we were always in the high holy days, that’s not what it’s like to walk with God. And so these are these extended seasons where we say, okay, walking with God is not all fireworks and cake and, you know, celebrations. It’s not always family. You know, you think of these big day. Sometimes your whole family gets together and I’m like, “What is it look like in the middle of August to worship God?”

And the answer is day in, day out, cultivation of maturity. And so our ordinary time is absolutely critical. And if you’re a church leader, it’s also the time where you get to preach whatever you want because there’s not a high holy day that’s telling you, you know, if you’re if you’re not preaching, Jesus rose from the dead on Easter, you might be doing something wrong.

But in the ordinary time, you can preach out of, you know, Ruth, because, no, it doesn’t matter. You get to preach whatever you want during that time. So. Yeah, yeah.

Kay >> Yeah. And you gave me this question. So what?

Nika >> Yeah, yeah.

Kay >> So what? I guess it kind of summarizes some of the things you’ve just mentioned, but yeah. So what, why should we do this?

Nika >> Yeah. If you can’t tell, I’m obviously energetic about it because I was so changed when I finally started worshiping around the liturgical, the church calendar. So I went from a mega- church where church calendar was a very foreign idea. I knew about it because of seminary. So I knew, you know, I sort of you’re kind of always aware of what other church traditions are doing. It wasn’t something I participated in.

And then I moved into a space where we did orient our time around it. In fact, one of the first things we ever did was we made a video explainer of the church calendar because we had so many people joining us who had come from that background who are like, “Now, what are we doing? Why are you all in purple? What are we doing?”

And it was during that season of year in and year out worshiping around the church calendar that I was so grateful that it was just built into my life opportunities to slow down. To say, “Okay, this isn’t just another Sunday, this is the beginning of Advent, so I’m going to focus on these virtues” or “Oh, this isn’t just another Sunday this is Pentecost Sunday, and I’m so grateful there will be folks speaking Swahili and Mandarin and Korean in the new heavens and new earth.”

And I’m so grateful for that. And I’m so grateful English will be spoken there because we weren’t the first recipients. You know, we’re the long line of recipients of folks going out and being missionaries toward us. And so part of my energy here. I’m a normally energetic anyways, if you guys have heard me, you’re going to be like, Yeah, right.

She’s always excited. But I would say there is a I’m kind of bouncing in my chair because I want so badly for people to experience the fullness of God. And this is one of those ways that it’s really simple, but it’s really profound because it’s just an invitation to consider because time becomes an instrument of moving you toward God.

And so we mentioned this at the beginning, Kay. You were so right to bring this up. God has always oriented His people toward him because we’re forgetters. We just are I mean, when he rescues them out of Egypt, the first thing he tells us before we even get to Sinai, he’s like, “Hey, guys, every year I want you to celebrate this.”

And it’s in the middle of the narrative. I mean, the story is incredible. You’re like, Oh, my goodness, the plagues and the sea and the rescue and everything. And he’s like, “Do not forget to celebrate this every year.” And you’re going, it was kind of a break up of the narrative. I mean, like, the flow is going pretty good and you realize, Oh yeah, because it’s that important that God does not want them.

You get to Leviticus, there’s all these laws about sacrifices, of course, and then there’s chunks about keeping God’s time. If you look at the Ten Commandments, the Sabbath is included in it because we are forgetters. And so in order to remember what God has done for us, we have to have to.

It’s you know, before we started recording, we were talking about how we’re people that forget in real life. Like we forget, you know, Kay was saying she has to set an alarm to be sure she doesn’t forget what she’s doing.

I have to not only set an alarm, but have to put in the alarm why I set the alarm. Because then when it goes off, I have to be like, “What was I supposed to be doing right now?”

So we need like it’s almost as if the church calendar becomes your alarm for you. It’s set up for you. And so that’s part of this. And then the second, it’s about intimacy. It’s not another thing you have to do. It’s a thing that you get to do that allows you to say, okay, I want to be intentional in this season to grow closer to the Lord, I want to be intentional to focus on God’s grace, or I want to be intentional about that.

And so it’s not about you have to do this. I mean, certainly you can orient your time however you want. But if you order your time around Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Super Bowl Sunday, spring break, you are going to get out of that what you’ve put into it.

Your life will be revolved around sports and entertainment and distraction. And so the invitation in the church calendar is to say, yeah, Super Bowl is not bad. I hope the Lions are in it this year. There’s nothing wrong with Valentine’s. You get half-off chocolate the next day, but it’s not the same thing as preparing your heart for Easter.

And all of that. And so that’s all I’d say.

And then finally saying, we’ve talked about this so many times, we live in a painfully divisive time, especially in the church in America right now. And this is a way to unite believers. There is something really beautiful about a Sunday where I put on the blue or excuse me, purple collar.

And I know that there are Christians all over the world who are also putting on the purple collar. And there are Christians all throughout history who put on the purple collar because we said this time belongs to God. And we are marked by God and we want to usher the people that we lead and worship back toward God.

And there’s something profoundly beautiful about God’s people when Jesus says, “I want my people to be one as the Father and I are one,” this is a small way we can try to practice that as Christians in this world. And so there are a hundred a hundred ways for why it’s so. But these are the ones that I want to put before you encourage people to celebrate the church calendar.

Kay >> I love that. So do you have any recommendations for somebody leading even if it’s just a ministry within the church? Like when I did women’s ministry, what could I have done to encourage women and help them see the beauty of the church calendar?

Nika >> Yeah. One, I would just acknowledge the time. So even if your church-at-large isn’t doing it, you can just say to guys hey. And part of what makes it difficult in women’s ministry Kay and I both know this is often you’re on break during some of the high holy days. So I recognize you often go on break during Christmas and things like that.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t acknowledge it. “Hey, hey folks. Next week we’re taking a break for Christmas, but it will be the first Sunday Advent. And I just want to bring that to your attention.” And the first Sunday of Advent we focus on, you know, whatever it is that we’re focusing on. Two–you can you know, I used to when I was first a women’s minister, I was so dumb, I didn’t know anything.

And so I used to think decorations were a colossal waste of time. And then I realized there is a value to hospitality. There is a value to setting a space that tells people we thought about you and we welcome you here. It can go too far. Don’t get me wrong, some of what I was responding to was, yeah, there was a little.

Kay >> It can take up so much time from you.

Nika >> It can be too much. And I would argue there are certain people like Kay and I who shouldn’t have been anywhere near it. So that’s also not good use of Kay or my time. But all that to say, your hospitality, you challenge them—“Hey folks, we’re going to do purple this next month, or in green. And so let’s find ways of putting green around there. And then let’s acknowledge why it’s green, why we’re decorating it.”

And then I would just say, you know, there’s so much that gets caught and gets taught. And so you don’t have to teach these things necessarily all the time, but you can at the end of time, you know, right before you wrap up your time (getting ready to pray, sending them out to small groups or however you guys organize it) and just say, “Hey, folks, Lent is coming up, “I would encourage you to think about one thing you can give up so that you can spend more time with the Lord.”

And you say that enough weeks in a row and suddenly people kind of go, “Oh, this Lent thing, you know, there might be something to this.”

And then I just think there’s something to remind your people. It is ultimately God’s time. I think of what it’s like to parent today. I’m an aunt. I mean, I’m going to leave here and one of my nieces is skipping school today for some reason, I don’t know. But I’m super excited about it. It’s not my responsibility. So I’m going to take her out to lunch. And, you know, she’s playing hookie. That’s between her and her parents. They can figure that out.

But that being said, I mean, we as a family went out last night to go watch a sports event. And she was late because she had soccer. And if it’s not soccer, it’s my nephew’s clarinet and baseball and my other niece has soccer, too. And it’s on and on and on and on and on and on.

And so there’s a hustle and a pull on women’s time that I’m not going to villainize. I’m not going to be like, oh, your kids shouldn’t be playing sports because you should be at church, you know, seven days a week. I’m not. My name is Nika Spaulding and I grew up playing sports.

I’m never going to say that. But I do think it’s helpful in the midst of that hubbub to be reminded this is though God’s time.

And so you know, as long as God’s time comes first, then how you spend the rest of your time? I think it’s as long as it’s not, you know, obviously, as long as it’s pleasing to the Lord.

And so I think we need to remind people we actually run on God’s calendar. In the culmination of time, it will be a reminder this is all God’s time and space and everything. All that we have, all that exists is the Lord’s. And so I do think it’s important for that.

And then finally, just don’t underestimate the power of ordinary time. If you’re leading a ministry and you’re like, my entire calendar is going to be green, great. Explain what ordinary time is, and invite women to consider one spiritual rhythm that they could work on in all of these weeks so that when Advent rolls around, when Lent rolls around, they are going to be in a place of spiritual growth that prepares them for an encounter with the living God.

And so there are so many ways that you could do this. And then finally and we can put some recommendations we’ve done this on the other podcast, but we can put some recommendations on books about this or resources, where you can also just recommend books and resources for your women.

I think like I’m pretty sure there’s Bible project videos on I know there’s my project on Advent and I don’t know if there’s one on Lent, but there are easy, accessible resources that can help explain this stuff to your women that don’t even have to take time during your time.

You know, you can just let them know about it and on their own time they can watch, study, read all of that.

Kay >> Well, you will be able to find those things at BeyondOrdinaryWomen.org. And if you go to resources and the pull down menu, there’s a media list, but there’s also extra resources. And we will get a list from Nika and put that on there. I think you can probably also find it on the media connection as well.

So before we go, let me also mention that Nika has started a series of books called Theology in Ten that we talked about recently and you can find that at NikaSpaulding.com. Or you can also listen to our conversation about it if you’re just interested before you go to NikaSpaulding.com. And that conversation is called Making the Complex Simple.

So you can go to our blog page and put that name in the search engine and you will be able to find that conversation that we had recently.

Okay. Nika, thank you for this. I really enjoyed talking to you about it. I’ve, you know, I have been celebrating Advent and Lent and Christmas and Easter for a long time, but really had sort of not paid any attention to Pentecost or Ordinary time.

It just was there something to do. It’s just an ordinary time.

Nika >> Yeah.

Kay >> So I’m going to pick up my game here and do a little bit more this time. So we appreciate your being here and we will see you again soon.

Nika >> Thanks Kay.

Kay >> And thank you, all of you who have joined us. And go to our website and just search for anything that you’re interested in. This particular episode and our others are on the Godly Living page. If you go to resources, you go on the dropdown menu, you go to Godly Living, you will be able to find these other resources. We’ve talked about, about Lent and Advent as well.

Gwynne Johnson

Kelly Arabie

Gwynne Johnson and Kelly Arabie, authors of Soul Thirst: Discerning Your Divine Design, explain how seeking to fulfill our needs in the wrong places harms us and our relationships. They provide a roadmap to enable women to recognize what they are thirsting for in place of the only one who can provide true satisfaction. God alone quenches our soul thirst.

This book is a blend of accessible story and biblical life principles that have transformed women around the world as they come to understand God’s design for the human heart.

You can also watch this episode on video.

00:20 Introductions

Kay >> Hi. I’m Kay Daigle of Beyond Ordinary Women Ministries. I’m so excited to welcome you to this episode of our podcast and it’s also on video. We are just delighted to have you joining us, and I’m thrilled with our two guests today—Gwynne Johnson, Kelly Arabie. I’ve known both of them for many years now, and I consider them good friends of mine.

Kelly and I actually met at D.T.S., where we were both starting DTS, I think the same semester and went through the same program. Definitely. So I got to know Kelly really well there. And Gwynne and I have crossed paths in many situations. We’ve been on a couple of boards together, so we’ve worked together on things. And I really have respected all of her ministry that she has done through the years.

If you want to know more about Gwynne and Kelly and their backgrounds, go to our website BeyondOrdinaryWomen.org, and go to the pull down menu that is About Us. And look at Video Podcast Contributors. And you can read more about them, although I think they will probably talk some about some of their experiences as we go through this conversation today.

So thank you both for coming. Welcome on our podcast.

Gwynne >> Fun to be with you.

Kelly >> Yes, thanks for having us.

Kay >> Thank you. And you know, I did want to mention Gwynne and I are part of a group of women, and I just want to mention that because to me it’s been such a helpful group, all of us who had been involved in ministry for years and we started gathering somebody invited us to gather together at Christmas and we so we started having Christmas luncheons together and we just became good friends and we pray for one another.

We support one another and encourage one another and challenge one another. And it’s been a great encouragement. So for those of you out there, you don’t even have to be leaders, but everybody needs a group like that. So I just wanted to throw that in there too.

Today we’re talking about Gwynne and Kelly’s book Soul Thirst that they co-wrote.

And first, I just really kind of wanted to ask Kelly, what was it like to co-write this? How was your process here? Is it hard to do two people doing different things?

Kelly >> You know, it was really fun. And I would say being able to collaborate with Gwynne and the conversations that we’ve had over the years were just such a blessing and a gift. It was a gift that Gwynne invited me to this project. And I’m sure she’s going to talk a little bit about, you know, how this started with her ministry. But in 2008 was one of the first times that I think I went through Developing a Discerning Heart.

And as part of that, Gwynne came and spoke to our small group, and we just talked about the study and how amazing it had been. And then she said she was looking to write this for a popular audience and asked me to help with that. So it has been really a wonderful journey.

Kay >> Gwynne, do you want to add anything to that?

Gwynne >> I’m laughing because she said 2008. People today asked me, how long have you been working on this? That’s been at least ten years. But now I know it was 20 already. Well happened is that Covid came along and it gave us both some opportunity time-wise to really focus in on what we had been doing and to really try to bring it to fruition.

We still kind of are and we’re still working on it, but we’ve been working on this for a long time and we feel like we both feel very strongly that this is something God has asked us to do. I tell my friends that this is my last Ephesians 2:10 project. If you remember the verse that says their good works that God prepared before for you to participate in.

And I believe that first writing the curriculum Developing a Discerning Heart was something God had me do that God has blessed. And I feel like this book, this project that Kelly and I have been working on, is maybe the last assignment he’s giving me, maybe not. But anyway, I’ll be delighted to finish it and to get it on Amazon and make it available to a popular audience.

Kay >> Well, tell us more about Developing a Discerning Heart, because you have now mentioned it, and now I know it’s more of a curriculum type, and this book is different. So, Gwynne, tell me about that first. First, tell me how you came to develop Developing a Discerning Heart.

Gwynne >> I guess it’s good for me. Most of my ministry life has been in teaching the Bible and I taught for many years with Bible Study Fellowship. And I’ve done a number of other things. I think in terms of spiritual gifts, teaching is my gift. But many times as a teacher (and you know this Kay), that women would come to me and pour out their heart and their difficulties in just the most painful circumstance. And I would know that God and the Scripture had help for them to help them navigate those waters.

But honestly, it was often like they’d thrown a thousand piece jigsaw puzzle on the middle of the table and don’t know how to start. And give them the word of God in a way that didn’t seem like putting on a Band-Aid aid. And I was sharing that frustration with a mutual teaching leader at a particular time. I had spoken with another heartbroken woman whose husband had just left her and the children, and I was just struggling.

And she said, Well, you know, my pastor is doing a series. He’s been to Institute of Biblical Counseling with Larry Crabb and Dan Allender, and they’ve encouraged him to share their material, and he’s doing that. And it just so happened we were not living far from that church.

So I started going and there I began to discover the principles that about how to know how God designed us and I came to understand not only how to help others, but it was a huge step in my own personal journey with God.

And as I began to learn and be transformed by many of the principles that I was learning (again, I’m a teacher, so I’m always wanting to share it with someone else). And that’s actually the beginning of Discerning Heart. My husband and I were on staff at Dallas Seminary for a period of time, and while we were there, I was not teaching in Bible Study Fellowship, but I was invited to teach a course for how to counsel women.

This was some of what I’d been talking about, what I’d learned through the Larry and Dan seminar. And I developed the beginning of this outline, and I began to teach it because it had had such impact in my life. Because of that being publicized in the Dallas Seminary magazine, a girl who was a missionary, Wendy Wilson in Austria, saw that and invited me to come to Romania and teach that course.

<p>And so I went to Romania shortly after the wall came down, taught the course, and what happened was the women in Romania had been deceived so much, all they believed was the Bible. And of course, I love to teach the Bible.So I came back to the States and began to revise the course that I had taught through the seminary. I began to revise it using the characters from the Scripture to develop the principles right out of the Scripture Exposition.

Really, I personally think that’s probably why the course has been so well received internationally. Because all the truth that we develop comes right out of the Scripture. And so as we did that and we began to field test it, working with Entrust which was BE International at the time, now Entrust International.

We were amazed that God could use this very simple, clear really statement of how God designed people to allow women to look at their own hearts and draw closer to the Lord and find satisfaction and so as we did that, we ended up changing the name of How to Counsel Women, became Developing a Discerning Heart, and God has blessed. We have it now in at least seven of the languages of Eastern Europe and Africa.

But it was a very, it’s a college-level curriculum, ten sessions, which usually took, you know, several hours. And many times people had asked me, could we not get this into a more popular format? But it was difficult because much of the power in the course came from the interactions that we had as we listened to one another in a small group.

And so that’s really, I think, what Kelly and I, the strategy that we had. And I asked Kelly, “Is there a way that we could do this?” And Kelly suggested this idea of having fictional people in a small group go through the course. Kelly, why don’t you fill in a little bit of how that hit you?

Kelly >> Well, you know, when we talked about the material, its story is a way to deliver content in a way that is accessible and real. You know, recently I read some information by Eugene Peterson, and he says that, you know, “story is the Holy Spirit’s favorite literary genre.” That story is God’s revelation in the way that he reveals it to, you know, his self-revelation to us.

And so I have been there through the small group myself. I led a couple of other groups through it. And then my experience in pastoral counseling and Gwynne’s experience in pastoral ministry, you know, we just had encountered so many women who were transformed and through the curriculum. But we wanted to make not just the didactic teaching there on the page, we wanted it to come alive and to let our readers see how women could interact with the teaching.

So a lot of the stories are just stories. They’re fictional. But we have come in contact with a lot of people who lived through some of the same things that we wrote about.

Gwynne >> And one of the things that I’ve really appreciated. And so in format, what we do is we alternate chapters where we have a fictional chapter and then as we go through the curriculum with the group, we’ll have a nonfiction chapter. So the chapters tend to alternate between fiction and nonfiction. And then Kelly develops, which is such a wonderful thing, not only the interactions that the women enjoy, but they can also we can also share in a book what they’re thinking as they are processing the process and the information that we’re delivering.

So it allows us to have sort of a mini-small group experience, but within a reading situation. So that was our strategy.

Kay >> Well, and I think it comes across very well. I enjoyed reading it and learned a lot so let’s talk a little bit about that.

We’re calling this you’re calling the book Soul Thirst, and what exactly is soul thirst then?

Gwynne >> Well, thank you for asking. That’s a great question. And we decided to center on the concept of thirst. We talk about four capacities that’s part of our divine design. But most of us have been familiar with the mind and the will and emotion. Those are not new concepts to us. But within Dan and Larry’s material, as they began to share with us, was the concept that we were created for relationship with God. Well, we all know that Augustinian quote that “our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee.”

But we forget that when we fell in the garden, when Adam and Eve got us started on this journey of brokenness, there was created within every heart a vast emptiness. And that emptiness is painful and motivational. That is to say, how can I get away from this pain?

And that pain is the pain of the thirst. The soul is thirsty. What the soul is thirsty for is God, but it doesn’t know that that’s what it’s looking for. And so what we emphasize in this book and in the dialog with the women is while the way we go to quench the thirst may be sinful, the thirst itself is legitimate and not sinful.

So often when we something happens and we feel the pain of a heartbreak, we feel it’s our fault. And sometimes it is. But the pain is often related to the fact that we are not connected with God in the way that we would want to be. And sometimes it’s just the pain of a fallen world.

But the pain is designed to draw us to living water. I think of the woman at the well when she encounters Jesus. She’s been trying to quench the thirst of her soul with men through her life, and Jesus offers her living water. And even in just that moment, he awakens in her an awareness that there’s another way to meet the deep thirst of her soul.

And so that’s really why we emphasize the concept of thirst, because when I recognize that it’s not sinful and I learn how to turn to God in the midst of thirst, then I can choose with my mind and with my will. I can choose actions and obedience toward God so that my emotions can reflect constructive movement rather than simply acting on my emotions and trying to get away from the pain as quick as possible in ways that perhaps really are not productive. So as we begin to deal with each of those, how they relate to our desperate search to quench the thirsting of our soul.

Kay >> So this book, I mean, if you really want to get the most out of the book, it requires a lot of a self-exam and action.

Gwynne >> Yes.

Kay >> So you’re examining what you’re thirsty for, you’re examining what wrong thinking you have. You’re, you know, it all seems to go together, the thirst. And go ahead and name the other three.

Gwynne >> The thirst is motivational in that we are, it is a driving factor that moves us into something. And then with our mind, we think, how can I quench that thirst with my will? I choose those actions based on what I believe. And then I’m going to experience the consequences in my emotion of what I think and what I choose.

So it’s thirst, mind, will and emotion—those four capacities.

Kay >> And Kelly, you do a great job as you develop your characters in this material as far as giving some various thirsts that we as women may often have. Do you want to just tell our audience a little bit about what some of those might be? And they might be able to identify with those and realize that this would be helpful to them.

Kelly >> Sure. We really wanted to offer people this is a relational journey and we wanted to offer people an opportunity for reflection. Yes, there’s examination, but I think too often we don’t stop and examine ourselves. And as Gwynne said, the understanding of ourselves and our understanding of God go hand in hand together.

So in our story, most of the thirsts or many of the thirsts that are examined are relational.

<p>We have women who are in difficult marriage situations. We have women who are single. We have women who have had childhood trauma. And for a lot of them, they’ve simply pushed their emotions down. They’ve dismissed we call it deadening, distracting or dismissing.And you know, a lot of our healing happens relationally. So the women are invited along into a journey where they examine their relational wounds and they have the opportunity in relationship with each other to find healing in a relationship with God and as they walk alongside one another.

That’s been part of my own journey, and I know that it’s been part of Gwynne’s as well.

Kay >> And ideally, I would think that Soul Thirst, even though it’s not the curriculum laid out as the original was, that it would still be helpful to do it with friends, right?

Kelly >> Oh, absolutely. Yes. One can do it as an individual reflective, a study. But it’s best done in community. We are created as the body of Christ to live in community and getting together with a small group of friends to dialog about this is really our intent to be purposeful and intentional in that.

Kay >> Gwynne, do you want to tell us about the various resources at the back of the book that would be helpful to those who have the book?

Gwynne >> Yes. Because as you go through the book and because the chapters alternate with fiction and nonfiction (and with permission from the mission), we have substantial parts of the curriculum that are in the book with the same kinds of illustrations. And so at the back of the book, we have, I believe it’s an 11-week study designed for group participation.

And then because we also know that sometimes when you get a book, you end up working with it yourself. So we also did a self study with, I think, a six-week timeframe where an individual could take the book and use it for themselves.

And then also in the back we give a shout out to the mission and where a person could actually get in and study the curriculum itself with the mission if they so wished, or also then to take other people through the curriculum as well. So kind of getting at it from a lot of different directions.

Kay >> Right it sounds like you’ve kind of covered all the bases for what people might want.

Gwynne >> My hope is that we can help people develop a template for thinking about life. I found that (and Larry Crabb said this), that it’s a new way of thinking. It’s thinking about God with a reality of his care and love for us and his great desire to meet us in the difficulties and challenges of this life. I think I wrote you this note that the curriculum is teaching us how to count it all joy, as James 1 says, even if I’m not feeling it all joy.

Kay >> And that’s such a hard thing to do.

Gwynne >> It is. It is. And often when we’re in a difficult situation that doesn’t feel joyful, if we can stop and identify the thirst. And the thirst, really, sometimes I define it as saying, “What would life have been like if I still lived in the garden? What would this relationship, what would this circumstance be like if we still lived in the garden?”

Well, most likely whatever is going on, it would not have happened.

We had a precious— our daughter-in-law and grandson, not daughter but granddaughter and son became pregnant a couple of years ago and found out she was carrying a trisomy 13 precious baby Oliver, who lived only 30 minutes. He’s enjoying heaven while we’re waiting to get to know him. But my first words to Reagan as we talked it over, I said, “Honey, this isn’t the way it was supposed to be.”

I always kind of go back to the garden because then you go, “Oh, so I’m not crazy for feeling like I want to whatever fault broke down and cry.” So that going back to how would it have been like in the garden. “And now I’m not in the garden, so where do I go from here?”

The thirst is because we don’t live—we live in a broken world and not in the garden.

Kelly >> And that question has just been really wonderful to meditate on over the years. And as Gwynne and I have talked through various situations, this is just part of her thinking. She just automatically runs so much of, you know, any circumstance through that grid and would ask, you know, “What would this have been like if we lived in the garden?” And then asking Jesus, “When did you feel this way?”

Allowing yourself to think through, you know, what Christ, how Christ related to a particular situation is just also a valuable valuable peace.

Gwynne >> Well, and that peace, Kelly, thanks for reminding me, because what happens then as you think about how it would have been in the garden and you think about that we’re not in the garden. And then you think about the fact that the Lord Jesus left heaven’s glories and encountered our broken world.

And when you ask, “When did he experience this,” you are drawn inexorably to, first of all, worship and love him more, but also to experience through the Holy Spirit the comfort that only he can bring in unique situations. But he is faithful as you come to him and ask him, when did you feel this way? What He gives you through the spirit is greatly enhancing your relationship with him.

Kay >> Do y’all have some final words of encouragement just for the women out there.

Gwynne, you want to go first?

Gwynne >> Well, I loved what you said at the beginning, and even as you mentioned our group, that prays for one another, I just don’t think there’s anything that can replace women to women fellowship. That’s why all of us have been involved for years, and as you and your listeners are, involved in women to woman ministry, I absolutely believe that women do desire relationships with other women and that they and in those relationships can find the kind of comfort that God wants to give us.

And I always joke about, if you remember Esther, when she was captured by the King and put in the harem, she gathered around her choice maidens that walked with her for a year before she went into the King. So women have always been surrounded by and encouraged by other women. So just find a way to connect with other women.

And nowadays, with Zoom—Kay and I, we’re all on Zoom together and on text. And you can do it long distance.

Kay >> Absolutely. And that is true in the very fact that we are recording this on Zoom. When we first started this ministry, we used to bring people here live. Well, when Covid came, we could not do that. So and then people started using Zoom for everything, and we thought, “Well, we shouldn’t just be sitting around. We could do this on Zoom!”

And of course, that expanded our reach of guests, people and wonderful speakers that we would have missed out on if we had not been willing to try having conversations this way. And it’s just worked out great.

Well, Kelly, what about you? Do you have any words of encouragement that you want to add?

Kelly >> Well, I would just say that telling our stories is important that, again, I’ve been reading Eugene Peterson, and he says that God reveals himself to us in the kinds of stories that we tell and that we tell our friends who we are and what it is like to be human. So in sharing our story, it’s just a very, very important part of our journey to be real, to be open and honest.

And we tried to show that in this book, characters who are becoming aware of themselves and are willing to be honest in relationship with one another. I think that is really, really important.

And also just, you know, the encouragement that we have through this book. Really in John 7:37, when Jesus says, “Come to me, all you who are thirsty.” It says, “Jesus stood and shouted to the crowds, “Anyone who is thirsty may come to me. Anyone who believes in me may come and drink. For the Scriptures declare ‘Rivers of living water will flow from his heart.’”

And in the Holy Spirit we have that. So we just invite that, it’s an invitation to the Lord and an invitation to fellowship with him into one another. And that’s really what our heart’s desire for this book is.

Kay >> I love that. That’s really wonderful reminder of taking our thirsts to him. And I read, I read the book very quickly, you know, getting ready for this conversation, but I know that if I had had the time to really reflect as I went, to really examine as I went, it would have been a really great practice for me to go through this because I’ve not ever heard this put in exactly the same terms that you have done so in the book.

And I really appreciate it. I know it can help many, many women. And as you said, Gwynne, we’ve run into many women who told us these stories for years. And to actually have a resource for them to go to would be great.

Gwynne >> Well, Kay, I hope, as I said at the very beginning, about a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle thrown on the table. We would hope at the end of the book that you would at least know what the straight edges and the corners look like. So you could begin to piece together situations that not only you encounter, but that others encounter in order to turn them toward the Lord and find comfort from him.

Kay >> I am just pretty sure I’m going to be giving this book to people, you know, for that very reason. Where can I find the book? Kelly, where is the book available?

Kelly >> It’s available through Amazon. We also have our website at SoulThirst.net, and we will have a link on the website as well to that. But you can find it on Amazon.

Kay >> Great. That’s easy for everybody I think. The name of the book again is Soul Thirst and what is the subtitle?

Gwynne >> The tagline is Discerning Your Divine Design.

Kay >> Discerning Your Divine Design. And in this context, your divine design are these four aspects thirst, thinking, choosing and feeling. Correct?

Gwynne >> Yeah.

Kay >> So I really highly recommend this. And let me just mention a couple of other resources we have that might help you as you grow as a person and move through hard times. Elizabeth Woodson and I had a conversation about Embrace Your Life, which is a book that she wrote.

And we have a conversation between me and Sharifa Stevens that is part of our Reimagining Discipleship series. And it’s The Kingdom Perspective, which is sort of about how you pray and how you think toward what would be God’s perspective as I move forward. So I thought maybe those two would be helpful to some of you out there as well.

You can find all of these resources at BeyondOrdinaryWomen.org, and you can just browse and look at our many offerings that we give you all for free.

And we’d love to see you again and look forward to having you again.

And thank you, Kelly and Gwynne, for giving us your time today and for writing this great resource for women.

Kelly >> Thanks for having us.

Dr. Nijay Gupta

Dr. Kelley Mathews

Dr. Nijay Gupta, author of Tell Her Story, joins BOW Team Member Kelley Mathews in this fascinating discussion of persecuted women in the early church.

What can we learn from their stories? How do their stories encourage our faith and our own courage? What can we learn from them? What do we miss when we fail to study them?

These women’s stories provide models for us today to stand up for Christ, to know that he is better than anything that comes into our lives, and to be willing to cling to him no matter what happens to us or our country in the future.

This episode is available on video if you prefer watching.

00:22 Introductions

Kelley >> Welcome to the Beyond Ordinary Women Podcast. I’m your host Kelley Mathews. And today I have with me Dr. Nijay Gupta. He is a professor at Northern Seminary and a prolific author. Welcome, Nijay.

Dr. Gupta >> Hi, Kelley. Looking forward to our conversation.

Kelley >> So this is going to be fun, I think. I mean, well, fun. That’s relative, I guess. But it’ll be intriguing I think.

Nijay has written a lot of books. He’s been a professor for a while. A lot of his books have to do with Paul and the New Testament letters that he wrote. But he’s also written one particular book that is specific to our topic today, and it is called Tell Her Story came out a couple of years ago, and it basically tells about the women in the New Testament who were really involved in leading and participating in the mission of the church.

So it has become quite popular, from what I understand. I certainly enjoyed it.

Dr. Gupta >> Yes, thank you.

Yeah, it’s funny. I, you know, just had an idea to write this book, and I sent it to an editor friend of mine, Anna Gissing, and she was so excited. And then it just sort of took off from there. So a big thank you to Intervarsity Press for publishing it.

Kelley >> Oh, they’re great.

So one of the women in that book we’re going to start with. Our topic today is specific, not that broad of women involved in the church, but specifically ones who were imprisoned for their faith. And one of the women you cover in the book does hold that honor, I suppose. And we’re also going to talk about one who is post biblical days who are still in the early church and maybe will hit a third one.

So, Nijay, tell us who Junia is and why we need to know about her.

Dr. Gupta >> Yeah. A lot of my work on this subject owes a debt to Romans 16, which is the last chapter of Paul’s big letter to the Romans. And I used to think of Romans 16 as a bunch of kind of hellos that Paul gives at the end of the letter, almost like end credits in a movie. And you sort of get up, you don’t pay attention.

You leave the movie theater. And so I had a friend in seminary who actually memorized the whole book of Romans, and he asked me, how should I memorize Roman 16? And I said, You’re at the end. Just finish it off. But there’s that sense of you’re preaching through Romans. You kind of, you know, have so much to work with.

Just in the first four chapters, let alone get to chapter 11, let alone if you get to chapter 15 that I don’t know if I hear from any very many sermons on Romans 16. But what’s amazing as a Roman 16, you have dozens of names mentioned. People where they say, greet so and so, greet so and so, and actually it’s hard to tell who might be a man’s name and who might be a woman’s name. Like Persis, Tryphaena, Tryphosa.

Some of the stuff, they’re just names are unfamiliar to us. But right there in Romans 16 verse seven, you have these two people, Andronicus and Junia. Now, we probably won’t get into the entire controversy, but there’s been a long standing discussion about Andronicus we know is a man, and Junia sometimes appears with an S at the end of her name.

Now, if you open up your Bible and you look at Romans 16:7 and Junia has an S at the end, that means that the translators intend for us to think this is a man’s name. And if it has an A at the end, then it’s intended to be a woman’s name.

Well, skipping over the whole controversy,

Kelley >> Yeah.

Dr. Gupta >> the vast majority of scholars agree that this is a woman.

And it’s interesting when you read all the details. At first glance, it doesn’t appear to be all that important. But when you really take stock and understand exactly who this person is, Andronicus and Junia are actually very, very important. We learn a few things about them. One, it says that they’re Jewish, which is interesting because Paul has kind of a tendency to have a special appreciation for his fellow Jews who are believers in Christ and leaders.

Secondly, he says that they’re in Christ before Paul, which means they became believers before Paul. He became a believer pretty dang early.

Kelley >> Right he’d been around awhile.

Dr. Gupta >> Yeah. It says something special about them. I get the sense that they could have been either part of Jesus earthly ministry, which is amazing before he died. Or perhaps they were commissioned during his resurrection appearances. We learn about that in 1 Corinthians 15, book of Acts chapter two, one and two. And then two more things it says. One very well discussed and on the other not so much.

One as it says they’re prominent, noteworthy among the apostles. Now that can be taken in two different ways. It could be they’re taken as noteworthy to the apostles, but they’re not apostles or it could be taken that they’re noteworthy among or as apostles.

Now there’s been cases for this and that I won’t go on the whole controversy, but what I will say is I think that, taken as noteworthy as apostles, is the more natural reading of the text for me.

Kelley >> Right.

Dr. Gupta >> And then you have other folks that counted as apostles like Barnabas and Mark and others so we think maybe there were even hundreds of apostles because they’re people that Jesus commissioned for ministry, and we learned that he appeared to hundreds of people. He could have commissioned them for ministry. So I think of an apostolic community.

Okay, last detail and this one gets ignored. It says their fellow prisoners with Paul.

And very few sermons talk about this, very few commentaries talk about this. But as I was researching for my book, this is a huge deal because Paul kind of takes pride in being in prison for the Lord. And it’s a kind of place you don’t want to be.

And it’s a kind of thing where one thing I say about Junia because thinking about women in the early church—just whenever I talk to churches, just to kind of get their imagination going—she had to be in prison long enough for Paul to commend her. So it’s not like overnight, but short enough for her to live. Think about that.

Kelley >> True. Okay, so a couple of years ago, I got to visit Italy and we went to, it’s called the Maritime. Is that it?

Dr. Gupta >> Mamertine. Yeah.

Kelley >> Mamertine in Rome. And it’s the prison where traditionally Paul was held. And so, you know, they let you go down into it. It’s a carved out a hole in a rock with a tiny hole at the top where they would let people in. And so you think of men living there. I mean, I want to say maybe 30 people could be crammed into that space, like without personal space.

It’s horrible. Like, we wandered in and, you know, you look around, it’s unimaginable by today’s standards. And then you think of women being in there with men and just the further dangers that they would have encountered. So, yeah, this was no easy stint, you know, in the local clink.

Dr. Gupta >> Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, one of the problems with Bible translation and reading the Bible is we bring to the Bible certain assumptions, modern assumptions, because we just assume it was like the same now as it was back then. So when you hear jail or prison, you know, you kind of think of what jail or prison is like in America today. And it’s really not like that at all in the Roman world.

So when I was in elementary school, we went on a field trip to the local jail in my small hometown, and I don’t remember much about it, but I remember two things. I think this wasn’t what I was supposed to have learned from this. Number one, they had lollipops. I remember that. And number two, they had cable TV.

Kelley >> Oh, boy.

Dr. Gupta >> Yeah. So today we differentiate between jail, which is kind of short term, you know, more minor crimes than prison, which is a bigger deal.

In the Roman world, they didn’t really have jail. They really just had prison.

And when I think of prison today, I think of like The Shawshank Redemption or I think of Alcatraz where you have we went to Alcatraz not too long ago, my family. And you have these individual prison cells. And as you kind of hinted and noted, that wasn’t what Roman prisons were like. There were a few like prisons that were built as prisons in the Roman world, like the one that you mentioned. But in many cities, there weren’t official prisons.

They would just recommission another building to be a prison. And they really didn’t have individual cells you wouldn’t you wouldn’t be in a cell by yourself unless you were like a special person of interest that they wanted to make sure didn’t die.

So really, you would be in what we get from some of the ancient sources is you kind of mentioned this is you’d have a room that fits ten, but they’d have 30 in there or 40. So we actually don’t have a ton of information about it except maybe some like fiction things that kind of ramp up the drama.

But what we learn about it is poor ventilation. So people died of suffocation, disease. No lighting. You mentioned underground. So they don’t have artificial lighting obviously unless they have like a torch or something which they don’t want to give fire to the people. People are chained. We know that from the New Testament.

But here’s what’s really interesting. Men and women would not have been separated, and I always thought, oh, they have a women’s prison. They have a men’s prison because we do that in the modern world. But they didn’t. Actually exceptionally few women were in prison statistically. Very, very, very, very few.

If you were a woman and you committed a crime worthy of prison. Well, let’s put it this way. If you committed a petty crime, you would probably be beaten or you’d be sent home to be punished by your family, if you’re a woman. If you’re a man beaten, fined, whatever.

Really prison was for major crimes, because you have to use Roman resources on these people and prison wasn’t an end in itself. Nobody was given life in prison. You could be life exiled. Ovid was exiled. John at Patmos. But nobody was put in prison for life.

Now, you may end up being in prison for a long time waiting for a trial because you’re kind of low in the pecking order. And then when you’re in prison, there could be random beatings, flogging, whatever, but you could also be assaulted by other prisoners as well.

And so when we think of a woman in prison, in many ways it’s actually riskier than a man because she’s worried about being assaulted and there just aren’t a lot of women in prison. So she doesn’t have any strength in numbers. There’s no reason to protect women. You’re fearful of the guards. You fear for other inmates.

This is one of the reasons I think, that Junia probably would have been one of Paul’s heroes, because he’s thinking she went to prison, she got out, and then she went back into ministry.

And if I went to prison as a woman in the ancient world for Christianity, I’d be like, I’m done. Afterwards I’m like, I’m going to retire, give me a mansion, whatever. And she went right back into ministry.

Kelley >> What do you think were egregious enough activities that would put a woman in prison?

Dr. Gupta >> Yeah, as I said, these are major crimes. These are crimes against the state. These are crimes that earn you a trial with a magistrate. Right? And so when we think about big crimes, we can rule the really sinful ones out. So not murder.

Kelley >> She’s there as a Christian. Yeah.

Dr. Gupta >> Yeah. Not like grand theft horse. You know, like, we’re not talking like we’re talking about things that Paul would consider noble, right?

So then I think we have a few options. And these are kind of guess this is kind of guesswork, but that’s you know, we have such little information we have to guess. One is teaching a dangerous philosophy. I don’t think that’s very likely because even when Paul did this with the Mars Hill counsel, he didn’t get thrown in prison.

It would just be like a weird cult. Kind of like in America. You kind of monitor—weird cult not dangerous, just monitor, but weird cult dangerous, you know, let’s send the FBI in. So I think it’d be like that where I doubt it would be a dangerous philosophical teaching. But take, for example, Socrates. He’s teaching against the gods, and he ends up being executed.

A second option, which I think is probably more likely because this is what Paul got in trouble for, is inciting a riot or civic strife. So they’re not so much worried about what this person is teaching or doing, but the effect of what they’re doing.

Kelley >> Okay, she might have been, she may have been involved in kind of like Paul, teaching something that then resulted in a mob or something to that effect.

Dr. Gupta >> Exactly. So you know, so I ended up writing this fictional set of letters between Junia in prison and the church in Rome, like as if like Paul writes letters from prison. So I thought, what if Junia did? So I wrote these letters and I read them in class sometimes. And the inspiration for kind of how I constructed the narrative was Paul’s experience in Ephesus, where, you know, he’s teaching the stuff and then people are upset because they’ve lost some income, because magical books are being burned and all kinds of stuff.

And so they kind of come after him. And then, you know, someone says, hey, let’s chill this out before the Roman soldiers arrive and, you know, lock everybody up or worse, I imagine, something like that.

So what’s really interesting about that, Kelley, is Junia can’t do that sitting behind a desk at a church. She can’t do that sitting at home. She’s got to be a public facing figure to be rounded up because if it’s like, oh, Andronicus was doing these things and then Junia is just sort of lumped in together, we don’t really see that happening in the ancient world if it’s just sort of the tagalong wife, she’s left out in the dust, there’s no reason to lock her up.

It would really be, and we’re guessing, but it’d really be she’s got to be equally implicated in whatever.

Kelley >> Okay.

So active, public, that sort of behavior, obviously courageous enough to be willing to risk this sort of thing. And so that’s all we really know about Junia, because she is a brief mention among other people whom Paul appreciated in Rome.

So we all transition from her to a second into the second century. We’re going to go, I believe, they were in Carthage—Perpetua and Felicity.

Dr. Gupta >> Right.

Kelley >> Perpetua is a wealthy young woman, married, we think, married with a child. It’s true, though, maybe one or two still nursing that kind of thing. And her slave woman, Felicity, who is with child so we’ve got these two very I mean, their womanhood is accentuated in this story. And yet they are in prison because they are Christians.

So can you tell us any more give us a little bit of their story?

Dr. Gupta >> This is really interesting because when I went in search of stories about women in prison in the ancient Roman world, other than Junia and Perpetua, there isn’t a whole lot and there’s very little with named women. That’s because ancient literature just doesn’t focus on women. And especially when you get in the Roman Empire, you know? Yeah, there just aren’t these kinds of stories.

So even Roman, modern Roman historians, classic scholars have to rely actually on the diary of Perpetua for most of what we learn about women’s experiences in prison. She’s the most extensive account and certainly the most extensive firsthand account.

Kelley >> Okay, I love the fact that we have a woman’s writing that still exists from 1800 years ago. Yeah. And so, yeah, I didn’t mean to interrupt, but I wanted to accentuate that. What we know of her comes from her own hand and the appendix maybe as she would say, that somebody added on to the end to give us the rest of the story.

Dr. Gupta >> We learn a lot of interesting things from her story. We learn that the Roman Empire obviously was non-discriminating when they throw people in prison in the sense that she is thrown in with men. And that was actually one of her concerns in the story is that she has a baby, and she’s worried about her baby.

She’s worried about herself. She’s worried about her purity being compromised. And so she kind of requests to get put, you know, in a safer place. Now, this tells us another thing, which means if you had money and connections, you can get things done, maybe not get out, but you could maybe, you know, create a little better environment for yourself.

So she does. In terms of kind of her circumstances, we do have to differentiate first century Christianity and second and third century Christianity. Because in the first century, Christians really aren’t on the radar of the Roman Empire. It’s this upstart, you know, cult, cult meaning new religious group. And they weren’t really calling themselves Christians until the end of the first century.

They would be mistaken for kind of an offshoot, kind of a subcategory, let’s say, of Jews, zealous Jews for this person named Jesus. When we get to Perpetua, we have to think in terms of like now Christianity is a thing that that the Roman Empire is aware of and concerned about because, you know, the Roman Empire was pretty tolerant towards new religions or foreign religions as long as they kind of respected the Roman way.

And I just want to pivot really quickly a story of Polycarp. So Polycarp is a second century Christian leader who, you know, gets on the radar of Rome and they arrest him. And it’s really kind of a funny story. If you read the story. Polycarp, it’s really enjoyable.

He’s super old. These police arrive at his house and he’s like offering them food and then he’s they’re come to take him and he’s like, I need to pray. They wait for him to pray, and he’s really entertaining.

And then he gets taken the Colosseum. And there’s a really interesting moment where, you know, the emperor says, “You have to swear. You have to swear by my genius,” which means by the spirit of, you know, the emperor, and say to the other Christians, “Away with the atheists.”

And Polycarp turns to the pagan crowds and he says, “Away with the atheists,” to them instead. And then Caesar’s like, “burn them up,” you know, “Let’s kill this guy.”

And it’s this, you know, there’s this story that’s often retold of these heroes kind of dying peacefully, even though they’re being tortured, et cetera, et cetera.

Similar story with Perpetua, where they weren’t necessarily going out looking for Christians, but by this time they are concerned with a cult that is so anti-worshiping the Roman gods, the Roman emperor and that sort of thing.

But what’s really fascinating and I don’t know that you know this, you wouldn’t have any way of knowing this, Kelley, but I’m writing a follow up book to Tell Her Story. You may know that. And actually, the first chapter is about Perpetua.

Kelley >> Perfect. Here we go.

Dr. Gupta >> And what I say. So I’m leaking some of this.

Kelley >> Dump it all. Go. Let’s hear it.

Dr. Gupta >> I’m leaking some of this. So the second book is going to be about women prophets in the Bible. And the hook for the idea is in the Roman world, you definitely had a hierarchy of power and women were lower on that hierarchy. However, there was a loophole, and the loophole was prophets, prophets and soothsayers and oracles. I mean, these people basically operated independently of power systems because they had a direct line to God, or the realm of the divine.

And so all that to say, it’s focusing on prophecy. Now, I consider Perpetua a prophet, but I’m defining that pretty broadly because she could compel visions from God at will.

So the hook for my book, the very beginning of it, says, Did you know three women were wildly famous and second century Christianity, wildly famous celebrity Christians? One was Perpetua and two were (they were actually heretics), but they were women, part of something called the New Prophecy, which is the Montanist movement.

There’s two women Maximilla and Priscilla, not the Priscilla from the New Testament, but these three women were wildly famous. They were celebrity Christians in the second century, and they were all prophets. Two of them were condemned. One of them is praised, Perpetua. Anyway, something you probably didn’t know.

Kelley >> Had not made that connection. No. How was Perpetua such a celebrity in the second century when she was.

Dr. Gupta >> Second and third century. Yeah, I fudged it a little bit because I wanted to just sort of yeah, no second and third century.

Kelley >> And I say that for the audience because she was killed in 203. Which is technically the third century.

Dr. Gupta >> She was. I’m reaching a little bit there.

Kelley >> Right around then. Yeah, okay.

So she’s in prison. She’s got her slave girl with her. They’re both condemned to die in the arena, which was a favorite way for the Empire to get rid of their dissidents, that kind of thing.

Tell us a little more about Felicity’s experience.

Dr. Gupta >> It would be odd to put a slave in prison. Slaves were expendable. And so you wouldn’t waste government resources on a slave, no matter how educated they were, no matter how. So I think this must be a special circumstance. The special circumstance being they rounded up a group of catechumens, which means they were in training.

And so she must have been lumped together and somehow kind of was just taken as a package with these other catechumens.

I’m honestly not as familiar with Felicity as I am Perpetua because of the work I’ve been doing lately on Perpetua.

But it would be odd, I mean, what these stories reveal and why they were passed down from generation to generation is what people were willing to do for the sake of their Christian faith. And what tended to rise to the surface of popularity was the more extreme examples: imprisonment, martyrdom, speaking out against authorities.

But I think there is a perhaps a flavor, just a taste of that sense of the early Christians defying the structure system of the Roman Empire, saying, we’re going to focus on a slave, we’re going to focus on a woman slave, we’re going to focus on a pregnant woman slave. If there’s someone that you don’t send into battle inside the Roman Empire.

But obviously today you don’t send a pregnant woman.

Kelley >> Even now.

Dr. Gupta >> Yeah, yeah, yeah. Into battle. And yet this is what the early Christians are saying is, you know, “We don’t do what other people do. We are willing to risk everything because of our passion for Christ.”

This actually reminds me of a story. This is getting a little bit nerdy and in the weeds here, but reminds me of a story from the era of the Maccabees. So the Maccabees were these freedom fighters that were fighting for the sake of Judaism in the second century B.C. and they were fighting off a tyrant named Antiochus.

And there’s all these stories about heroes. And one hero is this mother of seven sons. And this tyrant is trying to do everything to get these people to recant their faith.

And one of my favorite moments (I want to say this is in fourth Maccabees, but I don’t remember exactly) is they say to her like, “We’re going to kill your children and then we’re going to kill you.” And most of us would say, “Don’t kill my children.” And she says, “As horrible as that would be, I stand by my faith.”

And then they’re like, “We’re going to gut you.” And she rips out her own intestines and throws it at them and says, “Take, take my intestines.”

Now, the fact that that’s a woman in that story in the second century B.C., this before Jesus, is fascinating because you just don’t see stories like this you have the Amazonian women, you know, you just don’t see stories like this.

And both in early Judaism and in early Christianity, you have stories of these incredibly daring, courageous it’s literally death defying in the sense that, you know, they survive. They’re experiencing, you know, you know, pious transcendence while they’re being martyred. You have these women in of the faith in our stories.

Kelley >> Yeah. In the second century, right before Perpetua and Felicity, about 25 years before them Blandina is another slave woman. She was outside of Rome or over in Gaul, modern day France. She again was sent to the arena. There’s a whole story about her, and she pretty much laughed in their face like fine, do your worst.

And she was there with mostly men who again rounded up with her, and her courage inspired the men to die honorably. She lasted till the end. Apparently, the story goes that she ended up being crucified. They just stuck her on a pole right there in the arena, and the image that reminded them of Christ so much like that was an inspiration to the people in there.

And so her story has lived on because one of the things that these women are showing that is anti-cultural or countercultural, as we would say. The virtues in Rome, as you well know, were gendered and courage was male, strength was male, honor was male.

And there were ways for women to show that, but not it was not their dominant thing. They had piety and other sorts of virtues assigned to them. But what these women are showing us is that no courage can be female to courage, strength, honor. They’re just human virtues.

Dr. Gupta >> Absolutely.

Kelley >> They’re not gendered. And that all of them, all of these women displayed these virtues because of their faith in Christ. Really brings honor to him and also inspires the rest of his followers.

Dr. Gupta >> Yeah, you’re absolutely right. And I’m certain that these second, third century accounts go back to the Old Testament and women like Moses’ mother. Women, you know, who courageously save, you know, Moses’ life. Moses’ sister, who follows, you know.

Kelley >> She’s smart.

Dr. Gupta >> You know from the movies, Miriam who follows the boat, the little boat, and, you know, make sure he’s okay. The courage of the Egyptian princess who takes in this child. The courage of the midwives who are protecting you know. The courage of Rahab, who hides these spies at the risk of her own family.

You have this over and over and over again.

Shout out to my colleague, Ingrid Faro and Joyce Dalrymple, who co-wrote a book coming out called Redeeming Eden, which show women at strategic points in the story the Bible tells of salvation. Fantastic book coming out this year.

And then in the New Testament, I think we do see this pattern of courage. I think of, for example, Mary, the mother of Jesus, showing up to the cross. I’ve talked to numerous historians about this. We don’t see a lot of women standing in front of crucifixions in normal Roman accounts. They just it’s not a place where you would find—it’s not a safe place.

Yeah. And to have Mary there and have these other women there when the men were actually hiding. It says “Strike the shepherd, the sheep will scatter.” It’s interesting.

You have that courage. You have Mary Magdalene, you have you know, you have Euodia and Syntyche in Philippians 4 where Paul says they contend or fight side by side with me for the faith gospel. I mean, they got to be doing really risk taking, really dangerous things for him to use that language. He’s using language of battle when he’s doing that. And so he’s saying these are warriors.

Kelley >> Good point. Yeah. I think the language that we have in our New Testament, Old as well, the words become common to us. And so we gloss over them and don’t necessarily see the connection of what was the significance of using that word to describe these people. Coworker is another word he uses for Euodia and Syntyche. And he uses that same word with Timothy and Mark and those sort of guys..

So yeah. So women in the early church and biblical times and beyond, we’re just as courageous, just as active.

Dr. Gupta >> Risk taking.

Kelley >> And spreading the gospel and defending Christ, and just living for him in really extraordinary and dangerous ways specific to these women who experience prison and sometimes martyrdom.

Dr. Gupta >> I remember coming across, kind of by chance. I was reading Saint John Chrysostom’s homilies on, I think it was Colossians.

Kelley >> You’re a nerd.

Dr. Gupta >> I know – occupational hazard.

And what’s interesting is in modern Pauline scholarship, scholars, we won’t get into it, but they don’t think Paul wrote Colossians, Ephesians and therefore those texts get kind of sidelined in academic conversations. That’s not what I think. But those ideas are out there.

And if you go back to Chrysostom, he didn’t talk about authorship issues but he says the prison letters are more precious than the non-prison letters because Paul courageously wore the bonds of Roman imprisonment. And in those moments his thinking would be clarified about what’s really important.

So Chrysostom goes on this whole sidetrack of saying blessed be the bonds. Blessed be the bonds that Paul wore. And he wishes he could kiss the bonds. He wishes he could wear the bonds. There’s this whole idea of like suffering for the name, right? We get this in Philippians One. It’s been given to you as a gift, not only to believe in him, but to suffer for his sake.

You have in the Book of Acts where they were praising God when they left prison counting it an honor to suffer for the kingdom and so forth.

And I think Paul would have had a special circle of honor for people that went to prison for the gospel. And he had a special respect for them.

Kelley >> And the uncertainty of.

Dr. Gupta >> Uncertainty, degradation, anxiety, all of it, of imprisonment.

I think it’d be worse for women than men. And so for someone like Junia, I mean, Andronicus face the same things and we should acknowledge that. But for Junia to do it means that she has to realize she belongs to Christ. Her life is not her own. And she’s called to, as Paul says, not to live for themselves, but for the one who died and rose for their behalf.

That’s what she was doing.

Kelley >> Like you said a minute ago, when you read the words the suffering, you know, in the Scripture, I think that as 21st century people we think one thing of suffering. And often we just think any confrontation is suffering or any pushback. You know, it could be real weak or it could be some actual I lost my job versus, you know, or I lost a relationship—actual suffering.

But the stories of the physical and the life-threatening and the just your whole life could fall apart because you chose to stick with Jesus. You were aligned with him. Your faith was in him, you’re team Jesus, not team Caesar. It made a huge difference in how your life went forward. And every person that we’re talking about, basically, they are a witness to say, well, Jesus is better, even though he might not look like it right now, Jesus is better.

That’s my new catchphrase. I love it. I stole it from a friend of ours. But yeah, I appreciate your insight, the historical perspective that you bring to us. We can’t wait for your second book, this next one that’s coming up, not your second, just your next one.

So yeah, maybe if you have the title, we will put that in the show notes or you can tell us when to be looking for us, okay?

Dr. Gupta >> It’s called well, it’s tentatively titled (IVP does a great job with titles), but right now it’s called God Spoke Through Her and hopefully late 2026 or early 2027.

These things take time.

Kelley >> A year, year and a half. Okay, that sounds good. Well, thanks for being here. This will be a great addition to our library. Beyond Ordinary Women has plenty of resources that are free to access for anyone who’s teaching or leading women. And we even have some that relate to the early church and these sorts of things.

So thanks for being here, Nijay. And we’ll catch you again soon.

Dr. Gupta >> My pleasure. A great conversation. Appreciate it.

Kelley >> You bet.