Latest / Anchored by the Sword / Very Good: What the Bible Says About Women with Jen Oshman!
Transcript
- 0:00Thank you for joining me on this episode of the Anchor by the
- 0:02Sword podcast. I pray that today's episode will
- 0:05leave you encouraged and also challenged in your faith.
- 0:08And I pray that. You would take.
- 0:11The stories that are talked about here today and share them
- 0:16with other people. Thank you so much for joining me
- 0:19and enjoy today's episode. Hey guys, welcome to this
- 0:23episode, the Anchor by the Slower podcast.
- 0:25I am so excited today to introduce you guys to Jen
- 0:29Osmond. She is an author, speaker,
- 0:31church planner's, wife and mom of four daughters.
- 0:34She has a Bible study that is coming out on Wednesday.
- 0:38If you're listening to this in real time, and it is called very
- 0:43good, what the Bible says about being a woman.
- 0:46And this has been a topic that I have walked through and I'm just
- 0:53really excited to dive further into this and to see why God
- 0:57says being a woman is good and a woman's role in the church is
- 1:02good as well. So, Jen, thank you for joining
- 1:04me today. Yeah, thanks so much for having
- 1:07me. I love talking about this so I'm
- 1:08eager to do it. Absolutely.
- 1:11Can you tell my listeners a little bit more about yourself?
- 1:14Yeah. So I, my husband and I just
- 1:16celebrated 27 years of being married and we have four
- 1:19daughters. When we first were married, we
- 1:23finished seminary and went to the mission field with one
- 1:25newborn baby girl, and that was in Japan.
- 1:27I had two more baby girls while there, and we adopted a fourth
- 1:30daughter while we were there as well.
- 1:32So we have spent time overseas for 15 years in Japan and the
- 1:36Czech Republic. And 10 years ago, the Lord
- 1:39brought us back very unexpectedly and abruptly, but
- 1:41to take care of my dad, who was very sick at the time.
- 1:44And so we transitioned back to Colorado, which is where I'm
- 1:46from and where we live. And another unexpected thing God
- 1:49did was use our family to plant a church.
- 1:52So we have a church that is 9 years old or my husband's lead
- 1:54pastor and I lead women's ministry.
- 1:57And then I have also been able to do some writing and speaking
- 2:00on the side. So this Bible study is, I would
- 2:03say it's the fruition of a lifetime, a few decades now of
- 2:06just work, raising girls, being in women's ministry, seeking to
- 2:10understand what the Bible says about being a woman.
- 2:13I love that so much and just real truth right now I kind of
- 2:17feel like I'm in Colorado and the reason I say that is because
- 2:22we are getting so much snow right now.
- 2:25I'm in Ohio and I don't think spring got or winter got the
- 2:31memo that spring is starts this week.
- 2:34Man, and you know what? In Colorado has been so warm.
- 2:37We have gotten very little snow this year.
- 2:39So all of us Coloradans are like, the weather is broken, and
- 2:42I'm sorry that you got it from us.
- 2:43It was. I wish we had it here.
- 2:46We we had it one point this this year we had two about 2 1/2 feet
- 2:51of snow outside. I cannot imagine that's crazy.
- 2:54It was a foot and 1/2 here, but it was in other places it was a
- 2:57lot worse. But I mean, a foot and 1/2 in
- 2:59Ohio. And we're used to, we're used to
- 3:02quite a bit of snow. But in our area, it's like, no,
- 3:06please. I mean, thank God I work from
- 3:08home. Right.
- 3:09And it was just just crazy. So anyways, let's talk about
- 3:14your personal freedom journey. Yeah, yeah.
- 3:17So I was not raised in a Christian home and neither was
- 3:22my husband. And so we have a really
- 3:24interesting story. My mom, my parents divorced when
- 3:28I was 8 and my mom started taking me to church when I was 9
- 3:30or 10. And thankfully, by God's grace,
- 3:33she we went to a sweet church that preached the gospel and
- 3:38received a single mom and her daughter with open arms.
- 3:42And so I heard the gospel and I believed.
- 3:45But I, I would say that, you know, I, I lived a week with my
- 3:48mom and a week with my dad, and that was from 8 to 18.
- 3:52And so it was a pretty tumultuous upbringing.
- 3:54And my spiritual formation was sort of done in fits and starts.
- 3:59I wasn't sort of immersed in Christian community and what
- 4:04that looked like to follow the Lord.
- 4:05And so my life was, you know, basically pretty secular with
- 4:10church once in a while. My dad was also an attorney who
- 4:15was very opposed to Christianity.
- 4:17And so the weeks that I spent with him, he worked hard to talk
- 4:20me out of the faith. So it was a it was an
- 4:23interesting way to be raised. My husband similarly raised in a
- 4:27household with addiction and just, yeah, hard things.
- 4:31So he came to the Lord later in life as well.
- 4:35So when we married young, first of all, I always think it's
- 4:37hilarious to share with people we met.
- 4:39We met literally Gina at the club, but we were both so we
- 4:45like we, we I'm, I'm 6 foot and he's 65.
- 4:48And so we, you know, we locked eyes across the dance floor.
- 4:50We're both tall and we also had some mutual friends.
- 4:54So we started a conversation and it was about the Lord of all
- 4:57things out there on the dance floor and married young and
- 5:01started our family young. But just from that time asking
- 5:04the Lord like, what does it practically look like to walk
- 5:07with you? For both of us as young adults
- 5:10experiencing the freedom of God's unconditional love and
- 5:14forgiveness, that there's nothing that we had to do to
- 5:18sort of perform or produce for his acceptance and approval.
- 5:22But the the hot messes that we were, he looked on with mercy
- 5:26and rescued us and adopted us into his family just freely from
- 5:29the beginning. I think that mercy overwhelmed
- 5:32both of us. And so we started our faith,
- 5:35both of us just in awe of who that God would do that and and
- 5:39from that time, just searching and seeking and hungry for
- 5:42mentors and discipleship people to show it.
- 5:44What does it look like to be a woman who follows God?
- 5:46What does it look like to be a family, parents, a couple who
- 5:49follows the Lord, but always just coming back to that
- 5:52unspeakable gift of the Lord's unconditional and and eternal
- 5:56committed love for me? I love that that is that is so
- 6:01cute. You.
- 6:02You locked eyes at the club. It is pretty funny.
- 6:07It's a story I was hesitant to tell for a long time because,
- 6:10you know, we've both been in full time ministry now for
- 6:12decades. And at first, you know, people
- 6:14are always like, oh, how'd you meet?
- 6:16You must have met at seminary or you must have met at Bible
- 6:17college or you must have met at church.
- 6:19And and I was like, oh, not exactly.
- 6:23But it's a testimony to what God does in our lives.
- 6:26And you know where we started and where he's taken us.
- 6:30That is so fun. I know I haven't been to a club
- 6:34in so long. I was just talking to somebody
- 6:37yesterday and I was like, I don't even know what that whole
- 6:41scene. Yeah, that stuff is like
- 6:43anymore. I mean, I've been with my
- 6:44husband for 26 years. Yeah.
- 6:47So we're the same wise. It was the last time either one
- 6:51of us set foot in a club so we haven't been back.
- 6:55I don't blame you. So what Bible verse or verses
- 7:03have kept you anchored? Yeah.
- 7:06Oh man, so many. The word of God has been a
- 7:09lifeline to me in so many different seasons of life.
- 7:12So I went to college. I had met my husband, but you
- 7:15know, I went away. I went out of state to college,
- 7:17and the Lord definitely had me on a path of bringing me to my
- 7:22knees and surrendering to him. Sort of that life of living with
- 7:25one foot in the world and 1 foot in the church was not
- 7:29surprisingly, leading me to a lot of just discouragement and
- 7:33disillusionment, even depression and sadness.
- 7:36Like I, I was sort of trying to hold myself up and pull myself
- 7:40up by my own bootstraps, you know, six days a week and then
- 7:43on the 7th day visiting church and asking God to bless that.
- 7:46And in his mercy, he did not allow that to be satisfying.
- 7:51He allowed that to be actually very crippling to me.
- 7:55And so the, my freshman year of college was once where I spent a
- 7:59lot of time literally on the floor of my dorm room just
- 8:03asking God for healing for, you know, the pain to be decreased.
- 8:07I think I was grieving my upbringing as I had moved out of
- 8:10state and I was grieving, unbeknownst to me, just that
- 8:16lifestyle, that sort of double headed lifestyle.
- 8:19So January of my freshman year, the Lord was like, it's time,
- 8:22you know, I, I felt him say in my spirit, like, Jen, I can heal
- 8:26you, but you have to give me all of you.
- 8:30You have to surrender your whole self.
- 8:32I, I can only heal your whole self.
- 8:34I can't take part of you and make it all better.
- 8:37And the verse that really took my breath away, that just caught
- 8:41my attention, and it's one that I return to time and time again,
- 8:44because it remains very compelling and convicting to me
- 8:47is in First Corinthians, Paul's letter, first letter to the
- 8:50Corinthians. And it's at the end of chapter 6
- 8:53and it's the very last verse, plus a little bit of the verse
- 8:56before. But Paul says this, he says you
- 8:58are not your own for you were bought at a price.
- 9:02So glorify God with your body and that you know you are not
- 9:07your own. Like I, I, I had believed that I
- 9:11was self-made, that I was self-sufficient, that I had
- 9:14brought myself to college and would launch myself into
- 9:17adulthood in my career. I had been very just self
- 9:20reliant. And that can feel good for a
- 9:22while. Like if you, if you can dream
- 9:25it, you can achieve it. You know, let's do this, but
- 9:28eventually that runs out because none of us is God.
- 9:31None of us is omnipotent. We are limited and finite and
- 9:36fallen humans. And so the Lord brought me to
- 9:38the end of himself and said you are not your own.
- 9:41And there's tremendous freedom in that.
- 9:44There is just huge relief to realize, Oh my gosh, this is not
- 9:50on me. I don't have to strong arm my
- 9:52life and my success and my approval.
- 9:55I'm already approved of in the Lord.
- 9:57But with that relief comes some responsibility.
- 10:01This, this, these words are not my own.
- 10:03This life is not my own. The breath of my lungs is not my
- 10:05own. My education, my socioeconomic
- 10:09status, my neighborhood, my body, my abilities, my
- 10:12limitations, these all belong to the Lord.
- 10:14So how would He have me glorify Him with those things?
- 10:18So yeah, it's a verse that I come back to all the time
- 10:21because it's a reminder I'm not my own.
- 10:22What? What should I do with this day?
- 10:24What should I do with these words?
- 10:25These belong to God. What does he want me to do with
- 10:27them? That's so good.
- 10:30Now, you said you went to Japan. We did, yeah.
- 10:33We lived there for a decade. Did.
- 10:35You plan a church over there as well.
- 10:37Yeah, so my husband pastored American military members
- 10:41stationed in Japan. So we were not military.
- 10:46So we lived sort of a Japanese life and we were, we were not on
- 10:50base and shopped at Japanese grocery stores and paid Japanese
- 10:53taxes, all those things. But our in depth relationships
- 10:58were in English with Americans. So yeah, it was kind of an
- 11:02interesting way to be. That's awesome.
- 11:06How else have you seen God use your lives?
- 11:10I mean, our life in Japan was such a delight.
- 11:12We went to the mission field not long after September 11th.
- 11:16And so we were working in a population of people who really
- 11:21were facing life and death as so many, you know, skirmishes and
- 11:27wars around the around the globe erupted at that time.
- 11:30And things were so intense at that time.
- 11:31So our church in Japan was full of military members and their
- 11:35spouses and their children who were saying goodbye constantly
- 11:39and facing violence and the unknown.
- 11:43And so those years were really sweet because unlike in sort of
- 11:48typical fast-paced American life, these particular Americans
- 11:53were asking, you know, where is God and all of this?
- 11:55Who is God? What will happen if I die?
- 11:57Am I ready to die? What will happen if my husband
- 11:59doesn't come back or my wife doesn't come back?
- 12:02How will I handle my children if he's gone or she's gone?
- 12:05So though things were heavy on a global scale, spiritually,
- 12:11speaking into lives of service members was really a delight and
- 12:16something that we were really grateful for.
- 12:19And just raising our young children amidst all of that and
- 12:21raising our kids to see a community that was living for
- 12:26something bigger than themselves, a community that had
- 12:28given themselves over to serving their country.
- 12:31But not just that are it was a community that was eat.
- 12:34We took tons of mission trips all over Asia with these people.
- 12:37These were people who were eager to pour themselves out.
- 12:39And so our kids saw us, you know, caring, participating in
- 12:43work in Asia that was, you know, caring for orphans and widows
- 12:46and working against trafficking in different countries.
- 12:48And what a gift to raise my kids on the mission field.
- 12:51It was. It was a huge, huge delight.
- 12:54That's amazing because we don't understand what's going on
- 12:57overseas. And I think people are becoming
- 13:00more aware now. But I mean, we just, we have no
- 13:04idea and we've kind of gotten stuck in this Western idea of of
- 13:11spiritual warfare is the Wi-Fi didn't go right or something
- 13:17like that. But in reality, it's going, it's
- 13:21going so much deeper overseas. Yeah, it's true.
- 13:25We after, after serving in Japan, we moved to the Czech
- 13:28Republic where there's less than 1/2 of 1% of the population
- 13:33follows Christ as Lord. And so that's, that's maybe 1
- 13:36believer for every 200 people. Very, very spiritually dark
- 13:40place. And yeah, we've really felt it.
- 13:43It was a heavy place to live. And just give me perspective
- 13:47when we came back to Colorado, which is a very secular place in
- 13:50the United States, It it gave me perspective on how much, you
- 13:55know, actual hope and light is here and how much we can
- 13:58leverage, the Christians can leverage here still, you know,
- 14:01to preach the gospel where there is still some opportunity for
- 14:05that for which I'm very grateful.
- 14:08Awesome. So what made you realize that
- 14:11now was the time for this book to come out?
- 14:15Yeah, very good. What the Bible says about being
- 14:18a woman is a Bible, an in depth Bible study.
- 14:21It goes from Genesis to Revelation.
- 14:23And I study in depth all the passages that speak to being
- 14:27female, the ones that are, you know, really encouraging, the
- 14:30ones that are really confusing, like the Old Testament law, some
- 14:34of those Old Testament stories that feel so heavy, like what is
- 14:36happening here. I look at Jesus and women, which
- 14:40is such a delight, Paul and women, which is actually
- 14:43delightful as well, even though Paul writes some of those harder
- 14:46passages where we're like, what is he saying all the way through
- 14:50Revelation? So I think for me, you know,
- 14:53raising 4 girls and raising them on three continents in a culture
- 14:59in Asia, culture in Europe and the culture in the United States
- 15:01and seeing the expression of the church on three different
- 15:05continents and what it looked like to to be a faithful
- 15:08Christian witness in three very different places.
- 15:12When I moved back to the United States 10 years ago, I think I
- 15:15was surprised kind of by the tone of the conversation about
- 15:20women in the church, as well as maybe the angle that tended.
- 15:25From my perspective, having lived overseas for so long, it
- 15:28felt like the conversation sort of inevitably bent toward
- 15:33restrictive, like, here's where women can't be.
- 15:36This is what women shouldn't be doing.
- 15:37Here's what we don't want from women and girls.
- 15:40And I, I had been overseas for 15 years where it was like all
- 15:43hands on deck. We need every believer preaching
- 15:46the gospel. We need every believer, you
- 15:48know, active in God's Kingdom. And I, I think there is space
- 15:53for different denominations and different churches to have
- 15:55different convictions and, and fall in different places on a
- 15:58spectrum of what roles are reserved for qualified men or
- 16:02qualified women. I definitely think there's room
- 16:05for disagreement there for, you know, that we can back up with
- 16:07Scripture. But the tone of the conversation
- 16:11gave me pause. Just sort of the very confusing
- 16:13nature of the conversation gave me pause.
- 16:15It was like in culture, we were saying, you know, what is a
- 16:18woman? Actually, you can't define it.
- 16:19Anybody who says she's a woman, that's a woman.
- 16:21So the cultural conversation was really strange and untruthful,
- 16:27but then the conversation in the church didn't feel joyful.
- 16:29It didn't feel empowering in general.
- 16:33Of course, I'm speaking in generalities, but the sort of
- 16:35the loudest conversations in the church felt like we got to be
- 16:39really careful. We got to have really tight
- 16:40boundaries. We got to have really high
- 16:42walls, you know? And I was like, this is, I just
- 16:44don't see this in Scripture. So what does the people say?
- 16:47And I wanted to give women in the church an opportunity to
- 16:51find out for themselves. And I think it can feel really
- 16:54overwhelming to ask the question, what does the Bible
- 16:56say about being a woman? And so I wanted to to sort of be
- 17:00that tour guide, but like, let's start here.
- 17:02And then you're going to want to move through here.
- 17:04The student, the reader of the Bible study has to do the work.
- 17:07It is hard work. Each woman will have to do it
- 17:09for herself. But I'm going to give her those
- 17:12tools to get through it and point her in the direction to to
- 17:15get the answers that she's longing for.
- 17:19That is so important because you're right, I was at a place
- 17:23where I kind of felt like I was either supposed to be in the
- 17:26nursery or the kitchen and nobody wants me in either place
- 17:29because I will yell at your children and I will burn your
- 17:33church down. Like I'm just, those are not my
- 17:35giftings. And I've just seen different
- 17:38things throughout the years as well as we all have any, any
- 17:42woman who's been at the church and who's had a desire to serve
- 17:45past attendance has heard some things.
- 17:49So I love the fact that you take it from Genesis to Revelation
- 17:53and show us and let us walk through that whole process so
- 17:57that we can back up whatever we're saying that we're able to
- 18:01do with Scripture and say, look, you may not do this or you may
- 18:06not believe in this, but this is what the Bible says and it
- 18:10doesn't mean what you think it means.
- 18:12Yeah, yeah. I think we live in a sound bite
- 18:15age. And so people pull a verse and
- 18:21make it say what they want it to say.
- 18:22But the truth is, and I and I say in the beginning of the
- 18:24study, like you might be tempted to flip 5-6 weeks in and get to
- 18:29the bottom of what Paul meant in those hard verses.
- 18:32But I really need you to start in Genesis because you cannot
- 18:35interpret those New Testament letters if you don't start with
- 18:38the Old Testament scriptures, which Paul loved and and was
- 18:42rooted in. So we really have to have like a
- 18:45firm understanding of the creation story of what God did
- 18:49in Genesis 1 and two, what happened in Genesis 3.
- 18:52We cannot pull these verses out of context and make them say
- 18:55what we want them to say. The Bible is A1 complete unified
- 18:58story given by one God, and so we have to look at it in its
- 19:03entirety. Absolutely.
- 19:05So one of the key things that we talked about when you're walking
- 19:11through the Bible, any book of the Bible, is to look at the
- 19:13culture. So what do you think those
- 19:17cultural stories told to women about their work and their lives
- 19:20have had that influence over the years?
- 19:23Yeah, definitely. I think context is huge.
- 19:26As you said, we have to look at the culture.
- 19:28So to understand what Moses was communicating in the creation
- 19:32story, we have to understand his culture.
- 19:34To understand those Old Testament laws that feel so
- 19:37hard, we have to understand that culture.
- 19:40It it is not sufficient. If you really want to know what
- 19:43the Bible says, at some point you have to go beyond flipping
- 19:47it open and saying, God, give me a word for for today to really
- 19:51understanding the history and the context of every chapter
- 19:54that you read. So a lot of that work is part of
- 19:57the Bible study. I think for today's culture, the
- 20:02conversation about women and girls is just really
- 20:05interesting. You know, the very, the secular
- 20:07conversation is honestly heartbreaking.
- 20:11Some of our lawmakers, those who definitely set the tone and pop
- 20:15culture. To be communicating very loudly
- 20:19and very effectively that anybody can be a woman.
- 20:23I think it's just incredibly degrading to females and to
- 20:27girls. I just learned yesterday that my
- 20:29state of Colorado has the most biological male athletes
- 20:34competing in female sports in Colorado high school, and that
- 20:39just breaks my heart for those girls.
- 20:40I was a high school athlete and if I had been up against
- 20:45biological males, it would have been infuriating.
- 20:48So I think the the cultural conversation is frustrating to
- 20:52me that we cannot just be honest and even scientific about that
- 20:56conversation. It also though, so set that
- 21:01aside and just maybe the quieter or the more common conversations
- 21:05we're having about women and girls and culture, I think
- 21:09whether we acknowledge it or not, so much of what we believe
- 21:13is that we are self-made. Kind of what I said about my own
- 21:15story at the beginning is like that it's on us that we, we can
- 21:20have it all. We just have to work harder and
- 21:21try harder and we can, we can sort of realize all our dreams.
- 21:26And I think we also come to the end of ourselves and find out
- 21:29that that's not true either. And so my desire is that women
- 21:34would know not not only who they are, but who's they are, who
- 21:39made them, what he's like, what his design is, what his purpose
- 21:44for us is, what his goal for us is.
- 21:47This, this is a very fundamental question we have to answer and
- 21:51we can't skip over it. It's it is key to how we are
- 21:54going to carry out our lives on a daily basis.
- 21:58Yeah, and I was in college and I was at a Christian School and we
- 22:05had a Coed tennis team. But I, I think I was OK at the
- 22:09time. I beat three guys to make the
- 22:10team and then I beat three guys to have a starting position.
- 22:14And then I got cut and told my job was to wash their shorts,
- 22:17take their stats and give them water.
- 22:19And that did not go over well. And so knowing what I've been
- 22:25through and then seeing the way the culture handles women and
- 22:29girls and everything, like, I, I get you.
- 22:33I get so frustrated about it. And that's off topic a little
- 22:38bit. It's it gets really frustrating
- 22:40because it's a very fundamental difference.
- 22:43I mean, come on. Like this is not rocket science.
- 22:46Yeah, I do. I mean, I, you say it's off
- 22:49topic, but I think it's, it's right on topic as many of us are
- 22:54grow up with this sneaking suspicion that it's not good to
- 22:58be a girl, that it's better to be a boy, that, you know, boys
- 23:03can do more things. They have access to more
- 23:05opportunities and now they have access to the girl
- 23:08opportunities. You know, Title 9 that gave,
- 23:11gave girls space and sports and funding and locker rooms.
- 23:14Is, is from the 70s. It's not old.
- 23:17This was not that long ago. And now that's no longer
- 23:20available. So I do think the cultural
- 23:22story, the cultural air that we're breathing makes us wonder
- 23:27if it is very good to be female. And then I think if the church
- 23:32doesn't respond really proactively, I think, I think
- 23:37many churches are responding passively and cautiously.
- 23:42And I get that. I understand that pastors are
- 23:44worried about offending, about saying the wrong thing, about
- 23:48appearing that they don't have compassion or grace.
- 23:52I being married to a pastor and being an outspoken, publicly
- 23:56facing female Bible teacher, I fully appreciate how scary it is
- 24:02and how careful and precise we have to be with every single
- 24:05word. But I think as we have maybe
- 24:09endeavored to be really careful and really cautious, we have
- 24:13been maybe too quiet in the church or erred on the side of
- 24:17being cautious rather than generous.
- 24:21And then women and girls are leaving the church because they
- 24:25feel like they aren't valued there, because they're just not
- 24:28hearing that they are or that their gifts and abilities aren't
- 24:32appreciated. They're just because they're not
- 24:33hearing it. And so, you know, women were a
- 24:39priority for Jesus. Jesus made space for women.
- 24:42Women were present, his birth and his ministry at his death,
- 24:46at his burial, at his resurrection.
- 24:48You know, women were the first to proclaim Jesus is alive.
- 24:51When you start to read the Bible with this lens of like, OK,
- 24:53where are the women? You can't Unsee it.
- 24:56They are everywhere. And for some reason, we don't
- 25:00know that. For some reason that has been
- 25:02quieted. So what I want to help women do
- 25:05is read the Bible with this lens of how much women have been
- 25:10prioritized from the very beginning, from the Genesis
- 25:14story. God's Kingdom does not move
- 25:16forward without women. The image of God must be
- 25:20expressed in men and women. And so I just want to be a voice
- 25:25in the church that helps us respond better, more loudly,
- 25:29more clearly, with more grace and more conviction and clarity
- 25:33so that women know the truth. And that's what we're very good.
- 25:36Yeah, exactly. And that we are supported and
- 25:39that we're not going to conform to the delusions that are being
- 25:45set ahead of us as well. Absolutely.
- 25:50So I'm not afraid to say certain things, but.
- 25:53I don't hear. We need, we need, we need, we
- 25:56need your voice. Every voice is invited to the
- 25:58table. So how can churches partner with
- 26:02men and women well as Co laborers?
- 26:09I think that this is a really fundamental question.
- 26:13I think that as I have been in the US for 10 years, as I've
- 26:16been in women's ministry, I I travel most weekends.
- 26:18I'm in a different church usually every Friday and
- 26:21Saturday, speaking at a conference or a retreat for
- 26:24women. I'm back in my own church on
- 26:26Sunday mornings. But I get the privilege of
- 26:28seeing churches all over the nation most weekends.
- 26:33And what I see, what I hear from women in these spaces is that
- 26:40they kind of what I already said, that they they feel unseen
- 26:45or they feel missed somehow. What I think the church is
- 26:48missing in this moment largely is the truth that we are
- 26:54brothers and sisters. The New Testament speaks about
- 26:57us more than anything as siblings, brothers and sisters
- 27:01in this faith family that we've been adopted into.
- 27:04And the way that you treat a brother or a sister or a mom or
- 27:07a dad or an aunt or an uncle is very different than how many
- 27:12churches are treating the relationships between men and
- 27:15women. I think in today's age and we
- 27:18can, we could go back and discuss history.
- 27:20That plays a huge role. I mean, we're, we're living post
- 27:22sexual revolution. We're living in an age where,
- 27:26you know, the marriage and the family are easily dismissed.
- 27:29I I get why the church has been very eager and quick to sort of
- 27:35protect these things, and I don't fault the church for that.
- 27:37But I think the unintended consequence has been that
- 27:42relationships between men and women are primarily sexualized
- 27:46rather than seen as siblings. And so women are primarily seen
- 27:52as a threat or a temptation rather than as an equal, a
- 27:57sister with gifts and abilities and a calling that needs to be
- 28:01equipped and empowered and unleashed.
- 28:04In the church were super cautious about male and female
- 28:08friendships. And I think that's because we
- 28:12see them first and foremost as sexual rather than as siblings.
- 28:18And the fallout from that is massive when when you look at
- 28:22each other and go, we have to keep an arm's length away from
- 28:25each other, that makes your relationship very different than
- 28:29we should lock arms and do this mission together side by side.
- 28:35And so, yeah, my heart breaks for that because I think we're
- 28:39if you get that very fundamental piece wrong, everything that
- 28:43comes after it is going to be also wrong.
- 28:48Absolutely. What is the one passage of
- 28:51Scripture that you hope women will remember after completing
- 28:55the study? That's a fun question.
- 29:01Well, I guess it's probably the title.
- 29:05You know, God saw all that he made and it was very good.
- 29:08I think we zoom past Genesis chapter 2 and it and it's not
- 29:15good. We, we think like, Oh yeah, I
- 29:17get it. God created the birds and the
- 29:19animals and you know, the, the sky and the sea and man and
- 29:23woman and moving on. We think that the, the Genesis
- 29:26story has nothing to teach us. But Oh my goodness, there is so
- 29:30much in there that we must return to.
- 29:33We have to start there if we're going to have an honest,
- 29:37truthful understanding of what it means to be male and female.
- 29:41And so I guess I, I want to remind women you were made very
- 29:45good. That's the number one preeminent
- 29:47priority truth about you as a female is that you're very good,
- 29:52that you were made in God's image, that it was not good for
- 29:55Adam to be alone, that he needed a helper to carry out the
- 29:59mission that God gave him. And by the way, that word helper
- 30:02is a strong word in the Hebrew. It's the word as there and it
- 30:06means essentially along the lines of being an ally.
- 30:09It's a shield, it's a sword, it's a defender.
- 30:12It's a word that's used more than anything in the Old
- 30:14Testament of God himself. So it's not a derogatory word.
- 30:19It's not a soft word. It's not a weak word.
- 30:21In our English language right now, helper feels like, you
- 30:24know, the intern or the assistant.
- 30:25But in that Hebrew language, in that in the that context, it is
- 30:29a strong word, which is like the mission cannot be completed
- 30:34unless there's help. We need a helper to fulfill
- 30:37God's Commission to humanity. So I want women to realize that
- 30:41we were created not as an afterthought, but as a priority
- 30:46to partner with men to fill the earth, to subdue it, to
- 30:51cultivate culture and cultivate creation, to image God, to
- 30:56glorify God wherever he has placed us.
- 31:00And so I think if we can really believe that, really soak in
- 31:03that truth, it's going to change how we read the rest of the
- 31:06Bible, and it's going to change how we move in the world, and
- 31:09it's going to change how we show up in culture and in church.
- 31:13Amen 100% Jen, I have loved this conversation and this is a
- 31:18conversation I can talk about all day long and they can so go
- 31:22down 15,000 rabbit trails with it but I love it so much.
- 31:27So where can people find you to get more information?
- 31:31Yeah, absolutely. So Jen oshman.com is my website,
- 31:34JENOSHA n.com and Jen Oshman on Instagram, Facebook, pretty easy
- 31:41to find out there. So I would love to have people
- 31:43follow along and just help me in this conversation as we learn
- 31:47more about what God has to say about women.
- 31:49Absolutely. And so you guys, like I said on
- 31:53April 1st, very good comes out. And the thing I love about the
- 31:57Bible study, I love that the publishing house does is it
- 32:01includes seven session videos. So a video with each session of
- 32:06the book. And so you can get further
- 32:08teaching beyond what's written in the book.
- 32:10And it's going to be so helpful for women's ministries and just
- 32:15women who want to know that their true worth comes from God
- 32:20and that they are that very good.
- 32:23So you guys have a great rest of the day and I'll talk to you
- 32:26next episode. Thanks, Gina.
- 32:28Thank you so much for joining me for this episode, the Anchor by
- 32:31the Sore podcast. I pray that the story that you
- 32:33heard today will encourage your faith, challenge your faith, and
- 32:37also help you as you walk in your daily life.
- 32:41If this episode has done that, please feel free to leave a five
- 32:44star rating and review wherever you listen to this podcast so
- 32:48that others can find it and grow as well.
- 32:51Have a blessed week and I'll talk to you next episode.