Latest / How to Faith a Life Podcast with Faith Womack / Modern Day Gnosticism in Christian Motherhood?

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Modern Day Gnosticism in Christian Motherhood? · How to Faith a Life Podcast with Faith Womack

0:00
SPEAKER_01: Hi friends, this is just a fair warning that I do cry.
0:03
SPEAKER_01: And this is most definitely the most honest thing I've ever put on the internet before.
0:09
SPEAKER_01: So I just encourage you to before you like comment anything, just listen to the whole thing.
0:15
SPEAKER_01: Um, because I feel like I kind of shared things out of order at some points, but I am really passionate about just this being our raw and real space and not trying to overly have it all together, but just share um as the Lord puts on my heart and kind of ramble along.
0:35
SPEAKER_01: And you guys seem to be pretty receptive.
0:37
SPEAKER_01: So thank you guys for being so kind and gracious with me.
0:39
SPEAKER_01: But I encourage you to listen to the whole thing to kind of get the full picture, um, even throughout the prayer.
0:43
SPEAKER_01: Um, the Lord really meets us there.
0:45
SPEAKER_01: So let's begin.
0:47
SPEAKER_01: Welcome to our third episode of the How to Faith a Life podcast.
0:51
SPEAKER_01: It is early morning here.
0:52
SPEAKER_01: I've got my cup of coffee, and let's dive into some.
0:56
SPEAKER_01: I don't know, is this a spicy?
0:59
SPEAKER_01: Well, it's some tea or spice.
1:01
SPEAKER_01: Let's begin.
1:02
SPEAKER_01: If you're listening to the How to Faith a Life Podcast, where we wrestle with questions on how to live a life of faith, from everything from books to Bible studies, even Bible study tips.
1:09
SPEAKER_01: This is your place to wrestle with the hard questions and dive deep into what scripture really says for the Christian walk.
1:15
SPEAKER_01: Make sure you've subscribed to this podcast on your favorite podcast streaming services.
1:19
SPEAKER_01: Review this podcast so other people can find it, and share with other believers who want to ask the hard questions.
1:23
SPEAKER_01: Now, with all that said, let's begin.
1:26
SPEAKER_01: Something I've been thinking a lot about is Christian motherhood.
1:30
SPEAKER_01: Um, when I actually started here on YouTube, I didn't know about the Bible study community on YouTube.
1:37
SPEAKER_01: And all I knew is I wanted to talk with other Christian moms about fertility, miscarriage.
1:43
SPEAKER_01: I just had a pretty traumatic miscarriage.
1:45
SPEAKER_01: Um I wanted to not feel alone in Christian motherhood and just to kind of learn alongside other Christian moms.
1:53
SPEAKER_01: And what I found really quickly is people don't want to talk about Christian motherhood.
1:57
SPEAKER_01: Um, rather they want to talk about how to clean and um you know, cleaning hacks and other things that are maybe more practical.
2:06
SPEAKER_01: Um, and so I eventually found the Bible study kind of community and got more involved there.
2:11
SPEAKER_01: And here I am today.
2:13
SPEAKER_01: This is what the Lord always had planned for me.
2:15
SPEAKER_01: I just didn't know it existed.
2:17
SPEAKER_01: Um, however, I've always had a heart for Christian mothers.
2:21
SPEAKER_01: I myself am learning every single day.
2:23
SPEAKER_01: As I'm a Christian mom with I have a four-year-old and a two and a half-year-old.
2:28
SPEAKER_01: He's really like two and three-quarters.
2:30
SPEAKER_01: He keeps saying that he's three.
2:31
SPEAKER_01: He's not three yet, but he's really excited for his birthday in October.
2:35
SPEAKER_01: Anyway, I've learned a lot.
2:36
SPEAKER_01: I wear my heart on my sleeve, let's just say that.
2:39
SPEAKER_01: And so when moms say a good mom would not be using harsh chemicals in her house, I go through my entire house and I uh take out all the harsh chemicals.
2:49
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, well, this is what a good mom would do, and I want to love my kids well.
2:52
SPEAKER_01: And my mom was a super mom.
2:54
SPEAKER_01: I will never measure up to this platform I have in my head of what my mom was.
2:59
SPEAKER_01: And I know, like, realistically, she can't be as wonderful as I view her as, but I literally think that she hung the moon.
3:06
SPEAKER_01: And so in my world, I just want to be a mom like that to my boys.
3:10
SPEAKER_01: I want to love them with everything that I have and give them my all.
3:14
SPEAKER_01: And so I think one of the things that Christian moms don't talk about enough is that there's different ways to be a Christian mom, there's different takes on Christian motherhood, and Jesus never tells us, um, the Bible doesn't really tell us what a Christian mom needs to look like.
3:34
SPEAKER_01: And so that's kind of what I wanted to talk about today.
3:36
SPEAKER_01: I know, I know not everybody in my audience is a mother, but I feel like a lot of our views of motherhood um are built from our preconceptions of motherhood.
3:46
SPEAKER_01: And then once we're thrown into motherhood, you know, there's a quick nine months where you're pregnant or adopting or whatever, and then all of a sudden you're a mom and you're like, wow, how did I get into this?
3:55
SPEAKER_01: And there was no preparation.
3:56
SPEAKER_01: And so today I just kind of wanted to talk a little bit about motherhood because I feel like a lot of what we believe about motherhood is built up from like the very beginning, like from the Disney movies, like from the children's books that we read, from the example set by our mothers.
4:12
SPEAKER_01: And I think the world has like the standards really high for motherhood, that mothers do need to be basically the savior of the household sometimes, and have all of the answers and have it all together in a perfect clean house and fresh baked bread from organic grains that she made herself and has been rising from sourdough starter or whatever your preconceptions are.
4:33
SPEAKER_01: I think we're often, let's just say this.
4:36
SPEAKER_01: I think Christians often have a view of Christian motherhood that they've received from the world, but they've just stamped that Christian seal of approval.
4:44
SPEAKER_01: Like this lines up with not what the Bible says, but what I think the Bible says about Christian motherhood.
4:50
SPEAKER_01: So a really easy place to start when we're talking about even just Christian womanhood is Proverbs 31.
4:56
SPEAKER_01: Everybody knows Proverbs 31 is kind of like, oh, she's the woman.
5:01
SPEAKER_01: She's got it all together.
5:03
SPEAKER_01: You know, she's the woman that is praised at the city gates, she's the woman that we're all supposed to be.
5:08
SPEAKER_01: But when you really truly look at the book of the Proverbs, when you really truly study that chapter, it's a lot less of defining what actual biblical womanhood is supposed to be.
5:21
SPEAKER_01: The literature there is wisdom literature.
5:23
SPEAKER_01: The book of Proverbs is wisdom literature, and this is why it's so important that we pay attention to the literature of the book that we're reading, because the Proverbs aren't saying what you actually literally need to look like.
5:34
SPEAKER_01: If we were to look, for example, at Proverbs 31 woman, she's doing things that you can't do all in one year.
5:39
SPEAKER_01: She's doing things things that you can't do all in one season.
5:42
SPEAKER_01: She's doing some things that women shouldn't have been able to do in that day and age in the ancient Near East.
5:47
SPEAKER_01: So, what are we supposed to do with that?
5:48
SPEAKER_01: The Proverbs express what wisdom looks like and continually, time and time again, compare that to what folly or unwisdom looks like.
5:58
SPEAKER_01: So, all throughout the book of Proverbs, there are two women.
6:02
SPEAKER_01: There's the wise woman and there's the foolish woman.
6:06
SPEAKER_01: And Proverbs 31 is kind of like the ending pinnacle of this is what a wise person would look like.
6:12
SPEAKER_01: And I would really encourage many more believers to talk a lot less about like being a Proverbs 31 woman and being just a Proverbs 31 Christian because I really do believe in my heart of hearts that the Lord didn't just plant that to be the one and only chapter on biblical womanhood in the Bible that we hold on to.
6:31
SPEAKER_01: And I really truly believe in my heart of hearts that men are called to the same kind of wisdom there in Proverbs 31 as women.
6:38
SPEAKER_01: Now, some women might be a little like mad at me for saying that because they're like, we had one chapter in the Old Testament and you just took that away from us.
6:45
SPEAKER_01: And what I am saying is I think we need to look at the whole of Scripture.
6:49
SPEAKER_01: And when you look at the whole of Scripture, and when you look at the whole of just the Proverbs, what it tells us is that that chapter is not just for women, it's also for men, it's for all believers, and it's setting this um example, this idea that's not to be ran after, idolized, followed to the exact T, but it's painting a picture of what wisdom looks like.
7:11
SPEAKER_01: It's someone that plans for the future, it's someone that is not fearful of the future, it's someone that takes care of the poor.
7:17
SPEAKER_01: That's really important to the heart of God, especially in the Old Testament in the Deuteronomic law, like caring for the poor.
7:22
unknown: Whew.
7:23
SPEAKER_01: I I really need to make more videos about that because I feel like so many of my subscribers miss that.
7:27
SPEAKER_01: But anyway, um, I it's someone that loves the poor, cares for their family, um, speaks highly of their spouse and their family.
7:34
SPEAKER_01: It's someone that's praised because they're wise, not because they do all the things and they're a super mom.
7:39
SPEAKER_01: All of that to say, we came to talking about Proverbs 31 because it's really important that we don't just take random verses out of context and apply them as every single woman ever.
7:51
SPEAKER_01: A general idea that I've been kind of throwing around in my brain is is this modern Gnosticism?
7:58
SPEAKER_01: You see, I've seen a lot of people, especially on Instagram, um, sharing these posts.
8:05
SPEAKER_01: I mean, people that I love, people that I respect.
8:08
SPEAKER_01: Um, I don't take it as like a knock against them individually, but I because I've believed this too.
8:14
SPEAKER_01: But they'll share these posts that are generally something along the lines of like modern-day feminism has lied to us.
8:20
SPEAKER_01: We all need to be a 1950s housewife.
8:23
SPEAKER_01: That is what biblical womanhood looks like.
8:25
SPEAKER_01: And I'm just going to tell you that we don't see that in the New Testament.
8:31
SPEAKER_01: In fact, we kind of see the opposite.
8:34
SPEAKER_01: And just hold with me for a second.
8:35
SPEAKER_01: Just hold with me for a second if you want to get mad at me.
8:38
SPEAKER_01: Just like hold hold with me.
8:39
SPEAKER_01: There's nothing, absolutely nothing, wrong with wanting to be a housewife.
8:43
SPEAKER_01: I want to be a housewife.
8:44
SPEAKER_01: I want to forever be viewed as that wife that's wearing the apron and barefoot, and she's got her house is all clean and she's wearing pearls and like the pie is in her hands and it's warm and it's ready.
8:54
SPEAKER_01: Like, I want, we all want to be that woman.
8:56
SPEAKER_01: But at the end of the day, that's not what Christ sent us to be.
9:01
SPEAKER_01: When you look at the scriptures, and um, I'm gonna work a lot off the framework expressed in Worthy by um, I think it's like Fitzpatrick.
9:11
SPEAKER_01: Anyway, it's worthy.
9:12
SPEAKER_01: Just type it in on Amazon.
9:13
SPEAKER_01: You'll it's a little black cover with a blue thing.
9:17
SPEAKER_01: I really love their framework of how they talk about this, and so if you're struck or challenged by what I said, um, I would relay you over to them because they've just put it in so much better words in their book, Worthy.
9:29
SPEAKER_01: But where was I going with this?
9:32
SPEAKER_01: This is this is what you get when you follow Faith.
9:34
SPEAKER_01: It's rabbit trail after rabbit trail.
9:37
SPEAKER_01: Um, what they express in their framework is okay, uh, in the garden we see Adam and Eve the fall, right?
9:44
SPEAKER_01: And what happens after the fall?
9:46
SPEAKER_01: Adam is cursed to work the ground, uh work the soil, the very thing that he came from, right?
9:53
SPEAKER_01: And um, Eve, there's a promise given to her that she will bear the messiah from her bloodline, from her womb.
10:00
SPEAKER_01: Um essentially the Messiah, Genesis 3, 15, right?
10:05
SPEAKER_01: And so all of the Old Testament is woman after woman, facing infertility, facing a lot of babies, just constantly looking forward to the Messiah.
10:13
SPEAKER_01: Will I bear the Messiah?
10:14
SPEAKER_01: Will I bear the Messiah?
10:16
SPEAKER_01: Where's the Messiah?
10:16
SPEAKER_01: Where's the Messiah?
10:17
SPEAKER_01: They're just waiting on the Messiah, right?
10:18
SPEAKER_01: And finally in the New Testament, we see the Messiahs come and he enacts a new age with the Holy Spirit and Pentecost, and we are a new church of believers.
10:27
SPEAKER_01: But what does he tell us to go do?
10:30
SPEAKER_01: The focus I wouldn't even say seems, the focus shifts.
10:34
SPEAKER_01: The focus isn't about birthing and waiting for the Messiah, it's rather what Jesus tells us something, he gives us some kind of homework.
10:41
SPEAKER_01: It's go there for and make disciples of all the nations.
10:46
SPEAKER_01: And what what do you do with that?
10:50
SPEAKER_01: Like, I would love to have a biblical excuse of like why I should stay home and just bake pies for the rest of my life because that would be awesome.
10:58
SPEAKER_01: I have not touched my sewing machine for years.
11:00
SPEAKER_01: Like, actual, well, maybe I've touched it, but you know what I mean.
11:03
SPEAKER_01: Like, I I haven't gotten to sew a quill in so long.
11:06
SPEAKER_01: Like, I would love a biblical excuse to do that.
11:08
SPEAKER_01: Not saying that people are trying to use this as excuses, but like, trust me, like selfishly, I would love to find a biblical excuse to be like Joseph.
11:15
SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry, you're gonna have to just make more money and I'm gonna stay home, you know.
11:19
SPEAKER_01: But however, what we see in scripture is a call to go there for and make disciples.
11:24
SPEAKER_01: And that can be through birthing babies, but not all women are married or fertile.
11:29
SPEAKER_01: One thing that you guys know in my story that I've shared in little pieces, but I haven't shared in a while, is that Joe and I have really struggled with um early, early miscarriages, and I have like terrible pregnancies, miserable pregnancies.
11:45
SPEAKER_01: Y'all know I am biologically like I'm dispositioned towards depression.
11:49
SPEAKER_01: And so when I'm pregnant, I am not only depressed, but also very hormonal, very nauseated, which makes me further depressed.
11:58
SPEAKER_01: And I had a terrible time with pregnancy, and that was really, really hard for me, if I'm gonna be honest with you guys.
12:04
SPEAKER_01: Like, God, I I thought I was called to this.
12:06
SPEAKER_01: Oh, I just spit so bad.
12:08
SPEAKER_01: God, I thought I was called to this.
12:10
SPEAKER_01: God, I thought you made me to make babies and and be that, you know, long-skirted pastor's wife in Africa on the mission field.
12:17
SPEAKER_01: Like, what am I doing?
12:18
SPEAKER_01: I'm here in South Carolina and I'm nausea.
12:20
SPEAKER_01: I can't even stand up and take care of my first son.
12:23
SPEAKER_01: Never mind, like be a good pregnant wife and like eat all the organic things that the people on the internet say I need to eat and and then never mind, like also have a perfectly clean house and be volunteering at the food kitchen and be volunteering at my church.
12:36
SPEAKER_01: Like, God, why am I feeling so bad if this is what I was made for and to be?
12:40
SPEAKER_01: And and when I went to seminary, they really, my professors really pushed me, uh pushed against this idea of like that I needed to be this Proverbs 31 woman because it's impossible.
12:49
SPEAKER_01: They're like, Why would God put this one chapter if the Bible is supposed to give us wisdom for the rest of our life, a wisdom literature in the Bible?
12:56
SPEAKER_01: Like, why is there just one chapter that pertains to women?
12:59
SPEAKER_01: You're misusing this faith.
13:00
SPEAKER_01: And that really opened my eyes for my professor to look me in the face and say, like, faith, you're misusing this.
13:05
SPEAKER_01: This anger that you have against the Lord is because you're setting preconceived ideas on the scriptures and you're not just receiving the scriptures for what they say.
13:12
SPEAKER_01: And that was really helpful for me to not only be set free from this like really high impossible standard that I couldn't measure up to, but also to hear that I was actually angry at the Lord for hard pregnancies, miserable postpartum depression, you know, all these things.
13:28
SPEAKER_01: Like I was frustrated with the Lord because I had my idea, something that I thought he like he had made all women for.
13:36
SPEAKER_01: And really I was learning that that's not the end all be all is to just make babies.
13:42
SPEAKER_01: Let's say, you know, what am I?
13:43
SPEAKER_01: I'm 27 and I make babies, you know, for I don't know, the average woman stops around 40, 45, right?
13:50
SPEAKER_01: What then?
13:50
SPEAKER_01: You still have like, Lord will, in another 40-50 years of your life.
13:54
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't stop here.
13:55
SPEAKER_01: You can't be angry at the Lord that pregnancy isn't easier or you're having miscarriages or whatever.
14:00
SPEAKER_01: Like you can't hold it against him, but rather there has to be more.
14:06
SPEAKER_01: What does scripture say?
14:08
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't end there.
14:09
SPEAKER_01: Go check with Paul.
14:10
SPEAKER_01: What does Paul say to women?
14:12
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, Well, that's a really broad question, okay?
14:16
SPEAKER_01: And what does Paul say?
14:18
SPEAKER_01: He says, If it's better if you're single.
14:21
SPEAKER_01: What are we supposed to do with that then?
14:23
SPEAKER_01: And so, really, as I was this is a couple years back when I was making like a series of women through the Bible, and I had just started seminary and really wrestling with these questions, and I was also taking an old testament course and having to write papers on like Proverbs 31 and things like this.
14:36
SPEAKER_01: Um, but I I just really had to wrestle with like okay, so what does the Bible actually say versus what does Christian culture tell me that the Bible says?
14:46
SPEAKER_01: And those things can be very different.
14:49
SPEAKER_01: And I know not everybody's gonna love that I say that, but they they they sh they are very different.
14:53
SPEAKER_01: They're surely indeed very different.
14:57
SPEAKER_01: I believe that there's something along the lines of like a modern day Gnosticism of, well, I know better than you, and I know that Christians are called to basically hit the reverse button on time and go live like very homesteady, um, very basic, just make the babies.
15:19
SPEAKER_01: I don't know how to describe it, but there's just all these like extremist ideas about what biblical womanhood looks like, and that's a very small Jesus.
15:28
SPEAKER_01: Jesus didn't die on the cross so that you then have to earn to be his people, you know.
15:35
SPEAKER_01: Um, Gnosticism, even if you look at the scenes in the early church, they were extremists and they were like, Jesus is coming back in any minute, and they pulled away from the world and they just studied the Bible and literature and wrote literature, and they just were in their own little community and they didn't try and work or really do anything, they just survived.
15:53
SPEAKER_01: And what happened?
15:54
SPEAKER_01: All of them died off.
15:55
SPEAKER_01: All of them had this deep intellectual knowledge, but they had no praxis, they their their faith didn't affect the way that they lived, and that's kind of what I hit is like, okay, so Lord, if I'm pursuing what I thought you called me to, and I'm hitting you know, roadblock after roadblock after roadblock, am I forcing this calling?
16:14
SPEAKER_01: Am I forcing this idea of what I thought it looks like to be a biblical woman?
16:18
SPEAKER_01: And the Lord had me um entirely so humbled when I met a lot of you guys here on the internet, women who are not married.
16:27
SPEAKER_01: Is she not able to serve the Lord because she's not married and not able to bear kids by faith?
16:33
SPEAKER_01: Of course not.
16:34
SPEAKER_01: Of course not.
16:35
SPEAKER_01: If you are unmarried or widowed, if you are um unable to have children, you are not useless to the Lord.
16:44
SPEAKER_01: That would be ridiculous.
16:46
SPEAKER_01: This is a very western thing to say a good Christian is gonna pull away from the world and be a stay-at-home mom and just make babies.
16:53
SPEAKER_01: Like most of the world cannot afford to do that.
16:57
SPEAKER_01: Um, most of Christians in the world, both parents work, and that's just a given.
17:01
SPEAKER_01: Even if you look at the ancient Near Eastern life, even if you look at the first century life, if you look at the women that are mentioned in the New Testament, um Phoebe, Tabitha, I mean, I I I'm drawing a blank on like uh more names that aren't like controversial when you study them, but like they weren't housewives, they just weren't.
17:20
SPEAKER_01: And there is something to be said for those who have shamed me online for um sending like my boys to school.
17:28
SPEAKER_01: Like they don't I mentioned that in our Q ⁇ A video recently that we're sending our boys to a school.
17:34
SPEAKER_01: Now it's a lot more like our boys are forcing us to sit, like they they want to go to school, they want to make friends.
17:39
SPEAKER_01: And if you look at our lives, like behind the scenes, I know you guys just see like camera stuff, but like when you look at our lives, our boys have no family here.
17:47
SPEAKER_01: They I mean they have the church family, but they don't have family.
17:50
SPEAKER_01: Like it makes sense that they want to go make friends at school and they want, you know, friends to invite to their birthday party, other than just like grandma and grandpa that live four hours away and probably can't make it, you know?
18:00
SPEAKER_01: Um, and it was one of those hard things that we had to face because I had this Christian, like Gnosticist, like um extremist idea that like a good Christian mom just homeschools.
18:10
SPEAKER_01: And then you get like Kirk Cameron and others who are coming into the situation and they're like, Yeah, you have to homeschool in today's day and age.
18:16
SPEAKER_01: And that's just not one, it's not possible for all Christians.
18:19
SPEAKER_01: Like, look at the average single mother that's a Christian.
18:22
SPEAKER_01: She she can't stay home and homeschool her kids or force her kids to stay home if you know they want to be in sports or whatever.
18:28
SPEAKER_01: Like, like let's just think practically about this.
18:30
SPEAKER_01: Christianity has to look different for people.
18:34
SPEAKER_01: It has to for it to be God's people.
18:36
SPEAKER_01: We're going to look different.
18:37
SPEAKER_01: There's gonna be some Christians that stay at home and they're, you know, literally making sourdough from scratch every single day, and that's like so ideal and amazing.
18:45
SPEAKER_01: There's gonna be some Christians that kind of are part-time, you know, moms and working.
18:49
SPEAKER_01: There's gonna be some Christians that are single.
18:51
SPEAKER_01: Like Christian womanhood has to look different for us to be the priesthood of royal wait, the royal priesthood of believers uh of that diversity.
19:00
SPEAKER_01: I mean, uh uh when you look at Acts, the literature of the Acts, when the gospel is being spread, when Jesus sends his people out, they go from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria and to the ends of the earth.
19:12
SPEAKER_01: What you don't realize when like you and I read that today is we just hear locations.
19:16
SPEAKER_01: We're just like, ah, ancient places that I have no idea what those mean.
19:19
SPEAKER_01: Cool, okay, speed repast.
19:21
SPEAKER_01: But what the uh first century people, or even just like second century, like what more mod like those days people, I almost said modern, what what they would have understood when they read that, when they received that calling, was they're facing all of these cultural barriers.
19:37
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but those people eat dirty meat.
19:39
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but those people um grew up in the fertility of Artemis.
19:44
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but those people, yeah, but those people, and and Jesus says, break down all of those barriers.
19:50
SPEAKER_01: My people aren't going to be divided by whether or not they make homemade sour dough bread.
19:54
SPEAKER_01: My people aren't gonna be divided by whether or not they're fertile enough or not.
19:57
SPEAKER_01: My people aren't gonna be divided by this, that, and the other.
20:00
SPEAKER_01: My people are who I created them to be.
20:03
SPEAKER_01: And I'm not calling them to be extremists that pull away from the world.
20:07
SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm calling them to go into all the world.
20:09
SPEAKER_01: And so what I find a lot of the time is just be weary of like when you see this kind of idea of pull away from the world.
20:18
SPEAKER_01: You must, if you're a good Christian, you must pull away from the world.
20:20
SPEAKER_01: I should say that.
20:21
SPEAKER_01: It's a it's a you must.
20:22
SPEAKER_01: And if you're a good Christian, you will homeschool, you'll you'll bring it all back to like the basics.
20:28
SPEAKER_01: Like it's just not everybody can do that.
20:31
SPEAKER_01: Like, and not everybody is made to do that and wants to do that.
20:36
SPEAKER_01: Not everybody's gifted to do that.
20:38
SPEAKER_01: Wonderful if you can, but we can't make those extremist statements and assume that God's on our side without actually just like reading the Bible.
20:46
SPEAKER_01: Like when you read the New Testament, there's virtually nothing said about motherhood in the New Testament.
20:54
SPEAKER_01: There is so much to be said about men and women who follow God and what they're called to do and be as his church.
21:02
SPEAKER_01: When you look at Jesus and the way that he treated women, when you look at the way that Paul treated women, when you look at just the early church and women, you don't see them worshiping and exemplifying a certain way to live.
21:15
SPEAKER_01: Like, yes, this woman followed God and she homeschooled.
21:18
SPEAKER_01: This woman followed God and she made homemade sourdough bread.
21:21
SPEAKER_01: This woman followed God.
21:22
SPEAKER_01: Like, it's not, there's no ands.
21:24
SPEAKER_01: It's Galatians 3, what is it, 28?
21:26
SPEAKER_01: The egalitarians love to use it.
21:28
SPEAKER_01: And so some complimentarians hate that verse, but like there is no Jew or Greek.
21:31
SPEAKER_01: There's no homeschool versus public school mom.
21:34
SPEAKER_01: There's no I clean my house versus I pay someone that cleans my house.
21:37
SPEAKER_01: There's no I'm a stay-at-home mom versus I'm a full time working mom.
21:40
SPEAKER_01: Like, there's no divisions like that in Christ.
21:43
SPEAKER_01: He's breaking down all of those barriers, and we as believers are called to be in this world in all of our different spheres and ways and talents and beings and gifts.
21:51
SPEAKER_01: Right.
21:52
SPEAKER_01: And so um, I've just seen that pop up all over social media, and I think it's more of like a politically driven, like um message.
22:00
SPEAKER_01: Of, like, hey, I view it as maybe some people think that this is end times, and it very much could be.
22:06
SPEAKER_01: I'm always like, meh, what if it is?
22:09
SPEAKER_01: What if it isn't?
22:10
SPEAKER_01: But maybe sometimes people think, okay, this is the end times, let's pull away, let's just like get down to the basics.
22:15
SPEAKER_01: And we can't dictate that as like the only way to worship God or to live as a Christian today, even if it's the end times.
22:23
SPEAKER_01: If it's the end times, in fact, I would say you need to be in the world.
22:26
SPEAKER_01: And you need if you if you really truly believe it's the end times, you need to be on every single street corner, even in the public schools, preaching the gospel.
22:32
SPEAKER_01: But again, there's so many different ways to do that.
22:35
SPEAKER_01: And look, here I am dictating what you should do, you know.
22:38
SPEAKER_01: So that's that's kind of where I kind of circle back around.
22:41
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, who am I to speak on this?
22:43
SPEAKER_01: And yet, this is something that's been stewing in my mind and my heart for years as I've gone through this extreme, let's break it all down.
22:52
SPEAKER_01: I had this like mountain of what biblical womanhood looks like, and the Lord just broke it down.
22:57
SPEAKER_01: And I gotta tell you, I first responded with anger.
23:01
SPEAKER_01: God, this is my idol.
23:02
SPEAKER_01: How dare you break it down?
23:03
SPEAKER_01: This is what I was told is a God-honoring idol.
23:06
SPEAKER_01: Let me worship this idol of what I want to be.
23:10
SPEAKER_01: I wanna be that mom that quilts and makes the sourdough bread, which I have still not mastered, by the way.
23:15
SPEAKER_01: And I want to be the mom that like pops out the babies effortlessly.
23:19
SPEAKER_01: Why is this so hard?
23:21
SPEAKER_01: Why am I hitting wall after wall?
23:22
SPEAKER_01: Why is it that we can't seem to pay our bills?
23:24
SPEAKER_01: Why is it, you know, and just having that like outright anger?
23:28
SPEAKER_01: God, I thought this is what you said in your word.
23:32
SPEAKER_01: And God just gently, ever so lovingly telling me, Faith, this isn't me.
23:37
SPEAKER_01: This is an idol.
23:38
SPEAKER_01: This is you fitting me into a box, Faith.
23:41
SPEAKER_01: I cannot be boxed in.
23:44
SPEAKER_01: I am not to be boxed in.
23:46
SPEAKER_01: And so I what really has hurt me, and I'm getting like really personal here, you guys may not care about my feelings at all, but it has hurt me so much to see a few people who have been here from the beginning say, like, she's just chasing the views or the money, and she's sending her boys to school.
24:03
SPEAKER_01: Because what they don't see is me behind the scenes sobbing when my boys asked to go to school.
24:10
SPEAKER_01: Because what that communicates to me is I'm not enough.
24:12
SPEAKER_01: I'm not reading them enough books, I'm not entertaining them enough, whatever.
24:16
SPEAKER_01: And what they don't see is me sobbing when we talk about what if the Lord gives us more kids, and me genuinely wanting it, but not knowing if I will physically be able to endure it again, if I'll have to be hospitalized or whatever.
24:33
SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, they they don't see those things, but they see this is what we're told in Christian cultural Christianity, this is what a woman looks like.
24:41
SPEAKER_01: And and then they see me, you know, saying I'm sending my kids to school, I guess, and that's not enough for them.
24:48
SPEAKER_01: I don't know, I don't know.
24:49
SPEAKER_01: Um, but I know how painful it is for me.
24:53
SPEAKER_01: I can't imagine how much more painful it is for a woman who has been able to bear no kids and does work full time, and people are asking her, Where are your babies?
25:02
SPEAKER_01: You know, when are you gonna start having kids?
25:04
SPEAKER_01: And you know, we have these ideas of what biblical womanhood looks like, and we put them on other people.
25:13
SPEAKER_01: And most of the time, we don't live them up ourselves.
25:17
SPEAKER_01: And I think we need to be a lot more gracious on women and especially mothers.
25:22
SPEAKER_01: Um, I don't know about you guys, but it takes me a year and a half to get out of the woods on postpartum depression.
25:29
SPEAKER_01: Like a year and a half.
25:31
SPEAKER_01: That's basically double what pregnancy is.
25:34
SPEAKER_01: A year and a half to just get out of the woods on postpartum depression.
25:39
SPEAKER_01: Never mind all the other things.
25:41
SPEAKER_01: I mean, they're still in diapers at that point.
25:44
SPEAKER_01: You know, I was giving birth to my second when I was just getting out of the woods with my first depression.
25:54
SPEAKER_01: And I didn't realize, you know, all that was going on hormonally with my body, and um, you know, there's just so much.
26:02
SPEAKER_01: And there's no there's no amount of books that you can read, there's no amount of medication you can take or or counseling that you can go to to prepare you sometimes for the depths of um, you know, whatever that you'll face, whether it's a stress or a panic attack or the just a sheer amount of diapers, you know, like you can't prepare someone for motherhood fully and completely.
26:24
SPEAKER_01: And so um, I just think we need to be a lot more gracious with each other and with ourselves because we have been extended the most abundant, ridiculous amount of grace on the cross.
26:37
SPEAKER_01: Who am I that Christ would have died for me?
26:42
SPEAKER_01: Who am I?
26:44
SPEAKER_01: Who am I that he would deem me worthy to give his life for me?
26:51
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you guys don't see it, but he sees me in the depths of my sin, with those arrogant, broken thoughts, with those angry thoughts, with those just sin-ridden, selfish thoughts.
27:06
SPEAKER_01: He sees me there.
27:09
SPEAKER_01: And he still sees my unworthiness and wants to die for me, and did already.
27:17
SPEAKER_01: Who am I then to project some kind of hey, you need to measure up to be a Christian, to be a part of this club?
27:26
SPEAKER_01: Uh-uh.
27:27
SPEAKER_01: No, I'm not gonna do that.
27:29
SPEAKER_01: Um, when it comes to heresy, um, yes, there's a point where you do need to speak in and be like, hey, the Bible does say this.
27:36
SPEAKER_01: And um, we definitely need to do that in love.
27:40
SPEAKER_01: But I don't think Christians can extend too much grace.
27:44
SPEAKER_01: Once again, when you look at the gospels, when you really truly look at Jesus' life, he wasn't just extending grace and kindness and love.
27:52
SPEAKER_01: Like that that's not where it ended, of like, oh yeah, he's a kind person, he is a gracious person.
27:58
SPEAKER_01: No, he was extending astounding, audacious love and grace.
28:02
SPEAKER_01: Love and grace that quote unquote broke the religious laws of the day.
28:07
SPEAKER_01: Like, how dare you heal that man on the Sabbath?
28:10
SPEAKER_01: Now look at him.
28:11
SPEAKER_01: He's picking up his mat and walking, and you told him to do that, he's breaking the religious law.
28:17
SPEAKER_01: Are you a bad Jew?
28:19
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
28:20
SPEAKER_01: I I probably would be arrogant enough to look Jesus in the eye and say, Are you a bad Jew?
28:25
SPEAKER_01: Because I have been that legalistic in my own lives and in others' lives about what biblical Christianity looks like.
28:31
SPEAKER_01: But that is what we do to each other.
28:33
SPEAKER_01: That is exactly what we do to each other when someone um, I don't know, doesn't look like what we think they need to look like for to be a biblical Christian.
28:42
SPEAKER_01: We are a lot more oriented around canceling those people, especially like if they're on the internet and we don't like personally know them in real life.
28:50
SPEAKER_01: Um, where we want to cancel people, like what they say one thing and we're like, oh, you canceled, you're bad, you're a heretic.
28:58
SPEAKER_01: You yeah, what's the thing that people have been saying lately?
29:01
SPEAKER_01: The uh you're part of the occult.
29:04
SPEAKER_01: Do you realize what you're saying?
29:06
SPEAKER_01: Like, that is you you're you're jumping, dude.
29:09
SPEAKER_01: You definitely jumping.
29:12
SPEAKER_01: Um, we need to be a lot more gracious when we're calling out false teaching, heresy, because if we're gonna be honest, you could go to any single one of our churches, and there's the same kind of false teaching that slips out.
29:29
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I won't tell you where I was, but it was a church that I went to, and in just and I won't tell you if I'm there now or I I it doesn't matter.
29:40
SPEAKER_01: It is a church that I would still send people to because I believe it's a good church, but just in one single Sunday morning, really passively, really kind of accidentally, a single Sunday school teacher um said things that went against the early church councils, like the Nicene uh 325, like like like um stuff that we do not ascribe to in our tradition, you know, um uh said things that were really problematic that I would get like smeared across the internet for, but just really like said one thing here, and I was like, oh, they just said that, and then again said another thing over here, and I was like, oh, they just said that too.
30:22
SPEAKER_01: Oh, okay, I better stop paying attention to this because like I'm just gonna continually notice things that we Christians say that like actually are super problematic and we would cancel other people for on the internet or on Facebook or you know, if they shared whatever that they just said.
30:36
SPEAKER_01: We're just so judgy when it comes to what people are sharing on the internet and sharing um about their lives.
30:42
SPEAKER_01: Oh, she's going to full-time work, or oh, she's staying home.
30:48
SPEAKER_01: Everybody has their what it looks like for them to follow Jesus.
30:55
SPEAKER_01: And it should all fall under the large umbrella of what the homework we've been sent with, the homework from Jesus for lack of a better term, of to go and therefore make disciples of all the nations.
31:06
SPEAKER_01: Preaching, discipling, teaching, baptizing.
31:08
SPEAKER_01: Like that is what we're called to do in whatever vocation we have, whether it is a stay-at-home mom, whether it is Sunday school teacher, whether it is um grosser, whether it is haircutter person, whatever baby, baby, baby.
31:21
SPEAKER_01: If only I could talk.
31:22
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm literally doing a podcast right now and I can't talk.
31:24
SPEAKER_01: You guys get what I'm saying.
31:25
SPEAKER_01: Like, it is going to look different.
31:29
SPEAKER_01: It's going to look different.
31:31
SPEAKER_01: What if we were gracious with each other and a lot less quick to point fingers and say they're a bad Christian?
31:38
SPEAKER_01: Because what happens when you point a single finger at somebody?
31:41
SPEAKER_01: There's three pointing back at you.
31:44
SPEAKER_01: You know, what if we really truly believed just how broken and sinful we are?
31:50
SPEAKER_01: What if we truly understood how desperate we are for a savior?
31:56
SPEAKER_01: We would get caught up a lot less in the oh man, they baptized this way, or they, you know, all the secondary issues, and we would get a lot more caught up in, wow, praise the Lord.
32:09
SPEAKER_01: Praise the Lord, so and so, so-and-so has come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.
32:13
SPEAKER_01: That's it.
32:14
SPEAKER_01: Like, ascribe to the basics.
32:17
SPEAKER_01: Like, we we we should really, like, while the secondary things are important, we should really, really, really cheer each other on in the faith and trust that God's word is alive and active and it's gonna sanctify us and work in us.
32:30
SPEAKER_01: And then if someone has um a faulty view of baptism or women's roles in the church or the Eucharist or worship or ecclesiology, whatever, that the Lord will correct them in and through his word because we truly do believe it's alive and active and it's true.
32:49
SPEAKER_01: You know, I've said this a couple times here on my channel, but I really need to say it more often.
32:53
SPEAKER_01: Hear it how to faith a life.
32:54
SPEAKER_01: We truly believe the Bible is true, it's inerrant.
32:59
SPEAKER_01: And because it's true, we want to be faithful to what it says.
33:02
SPEAKER_01: We don't want to change it to say stuff that we want it to say.
33:05
SPEAKER_01: And because it's true and we're being faithful to it, it will then change us.
33:10
SPEAKER_01: We won't change it, it'll change us.
33:14
SPEAKER_01: So far be it from me to push on somebody else my preconceived ideas of what it looks like for to be a biblical Christian today.
33:24
SPEAKER_01: Um, because I was wrong previously.
33:29
SPEAKER_01: I held to that extreme view and I killed myself underneath it.
33:35
SPEAKER_01: And I sobbed for days and I yelled at God over it.
33:38
SPEAKER_01: I sobbed for months and for years, let's be real.
33:43
SPEAKER_01: I'm not gonna pretend like I know what it looks like to be a perfect godly woman or mother today in 2022 because I know it looks different for you.
33:55
SPEAKER_01: Whether you're here in America where I am in very westernized society, very wealthy, and you have the possibility or the ability to stay at home, or whether you are on the other side of the world and you don't have the option to stay home.
34:09
SPEAKER_01: Um, you are working at home, or um, you are gone all day long and trusting your mother, your elderly mother who's also sick to watch her kids.
34:17
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I hear stories day after day after day of people who have received these kinds of messages, of literally impossible human commands that people have given them.
34:28
SPEAKER_01: A good Christian would look like X, Y, and Z.
34:30
SPEAKER_01: And they're like, I'm trying my best to follow Jesus, but it's not looking like what they say it's supposed to look like.
34:37
SPEAKER_01: And I tell them, go read your Bible.
34:39
SPEAKER_01: Stop blessing other people.
34:41
SPEAKER_01: Just read your Bible.
34:42
SPEAKER_01: Do we truly believe the Bible is true?
34:46
SPEAKER_01: Are we adding to it like the Pharisees?
34:50
SPEAKER_01: That's that's my mic dropping.
34:52
SPEAKER_01: It's not a very heavy or weighty mic, that's why it's the pop sound.
34:56
SPEAKER_01: I'm such a dork.
34:58
SPEAKER_01: Alright, this has been a lot of ramblings, but I truly believe it's something for us to wrestle with and share a lot of grace with.
35:04
SPEAKER_01: I probably am not gonna make friends with this, but it's something that I've been mulling over, and I know more women than not have been feeling this tension of this is actually impossible.
35:16
SPEAKER_01: And what does this mean then?
35:18
SPEAKER_01: Is Jesus saying I'm not enough?
35:20
SPEAKER_01: Can I not follow Jesus then?
35:22
SPEAKER_01: When we look from the left to the right, we get distracted with what humans say.
35:26
SPEAKER_01: But when we keep our eyes on the cross, it puts everything in perspective.
35:30
SPEAKER_01: Our salvation, our need for salvation, our brokenness, our humanness, and our dependency on God.
35:36
SPEAKER_01: But let me pray really quick.
35:37
SPEAKER_01: Father God, we come before your throne humbled.
35:42
SPEAKER_01: God, I know that it's messy to talk about this stuff, and there will be probably at least two or three mean comments when I post this.
35:51
SPEAKER_01: And I'll hate on myself for saying extreme things that people didn't like, and I'll shame myself and obsess about what other people think.
36:02
SPEAKER_01: But God, you know our hurts.
36:05
SPEAKER_01: You know our struggles, you know our individual lives.
36:11
SPEAKER_01: You knew we'd be sitting here today having this conversation over a podcast.
36:16
SPEAKER_01: And God, you are so much more, so much better, so much more sweet than the rules that we make for ourselves, and the boxes that we try and put you in.
36:31
SPEAKER_01: You are so much sweeter than all of the nice comments I could ever receive.
36:36
SPEAKER_01: Your truth and your word.
36:39
SPEAKER_01: Every single word you chose to be there, God.
36:41
SPEAKER_01: It's it's so priceless.
36:42
SPEAKER_01: May we hold on to that, not add to it, not take away from it, but just read it and study it, God.
36:49
SPEAKER_01: Continually feed that hunger in our hearts for your word and for that Christian womanhood and biblicity in our life, God.
36:57
SPEAKER_01: But wait, may we never fall to um the good-sounding lies of the world that tell us we need to do more and be more to earn your love.
37:06
SPEAKER_01: Because it it does seem like we need to do more and be more to earn your love, if we're honest with ourselves.
37:12
SPEAKER_01: It does seem that way.
37:14
SPEAKER_01: But God, we know even if we did everything possible in our human capacity to try and earn your love, it still would not be enough.
37:23
SPEAKER_01: It still would not be enough because your love is that astounding, that undeserved.
37:33
SPEAKER_01: Your holiness, your kindness, your love and grace unto us is just that extreme that we could never earn it, Lord.
37:42
SPEAKER_01: And so, God, we surrender all the times that we try and earn it, we try and measure it up, we try and be good and do good just to feel like we've earned something from you, God, rather than just responding in a worship.
37:59
SPEAKER_01: And so, God, may we come out from this podcast not doing stuff to earn your love, or not doing stuff to try and earn your love, but rather just responding with a worshipful lifestyle, with wherever we are at today following you faithfully, living a life surrendered at your feet.
38:21
SPEAKER_01: Lord, you've had me um studying the woman who anointed your feet with oil, with her tears and with her hair.
38:29
SPEAKER_01: Give me that kind of heart worship.
38:33
SPEAKER_01: That should be my posture and my state every minute of the day because of the sacrifice you made on the cross for me, undeserving me.
38:42
SPEAKER_01: I'm so undeserving of your love.
38:45
SPEAKER_01: Give me that posture, Lord.
38:47
SPEAKER_01: Give us all that posture, Lord, and we will be so less quick to judge or condemn each other, but rather quick to worship and to praise and to cry at your feet.
39:01
SPEAKER_01: How could you love me, Lord?
39:07
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for our for your love over us, for your song over us, for your sweet smile, for your loving fatherly embrace.
39:26
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, God.
39:31
SPEAKER_00: Thank you that we are called your people.
39:38
SPEAKER_00: Thank you that we are your children, your royal priesthood, your holy nation of people who are sent out into this world with our unique giftings and callings to live that out.
39:52
SPEAKER_00: Preaching, teaching, making disciples, spreading the gospel to the nations.
39:58
SPEAKER_00: Lord, thank you for my sister or brother on the other side of the screen who has their unique giftings, their unique callings, and wherever they're headed, wherever they're going, or wherever they're at, just right now, God, you've placed them there as a light.
40:13
SPEAKER_01: Open their mouths to speak your praise and your truth to the hungry ears and hearts around them.
40:20
SPEAKER_01: Whether those people say that they're Christians or not, may we continually always preach the gospel and never take for granted the light and the truth that we carry because we have you in our hearts, God.
40:35
SPEAKER_01: You broke down every barrier.
40:39
SPEAKER_01: You said nothing is gonna separate me from you.
40:43
SPEAKER_01: So I'm gonna send the Holy Spirit to live inside of you guys.
40:46
SPEAKER_01: And that's what we have now today.
40:47
SPEAKER_01: Every barrier has literally been broken down between us and you.
40:53
SPEAKER_01: You could literally not get closer.
40:56
SPEAKER_01: So God, do not, do not let us quench the fire or the flame that you've put inside of us.
41:06
SPEAKER_01: Open our mouths to boldly speak the gospel, the truth, the love and the grace that we've been shown.
41:12
SPEAKER_01: And when we get apathetic to it, when we get used to it, may you awaken that fire stronger and bolder and hotter than ever before, so that we can't help but fall to our knees in those tears again, anointing your feet.
41:31
SPEAKER_01: And that oil lord, it was it was her most valuable possession.
41:36
SPEAKER_01: It was literally basically the worth of her life that she laid at your feet.
41:41
SPEAKER_01: She broke and she poured all over your feet, the dirtiest part on your body.
41:48
SPEAKER_01: God, if I could just pour my life over.
41:52
SPEAKER_01: Just a corner of this earth, a corner of your kingdom planting seeds.
41:57
SPEAKER_01: That would be the greatest, the greatest blessing of my life, the greatest and highest calling.
42:03
SPEAKER_01: And I know the fellow people on the other side of the screen, I know my brothers and sisters feel the same exact way.
42:10
SPEAKER_01: So, God, send us out today.
42:11
SPEAKER_01: Make your calling clear.
42:13
SPEAKER_01: Not your calling interpreted and formed by other believers and what they say about us, but your calling clear in your word because we truly believe it's true, and we truly will be faithful to it and watch as it changes us from the inside out.
42:32
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Lord.
42:34
SPEAKER_01: Thank you that you love us just this much.
42:40
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes we confess it's unbelievable.
42:43
SPEAKER_01: It's hard for us to believe and trust that you could genuinely love us and see us even here, right now, where we are.
42:51
SPEAKER_01: But God, you do.
42:56
SPEAKER_01: And so, God, we respond with a hallelujah.
42:59
SPEAKER_01: Joining in with all the creation and the heavenly course.
43:02
SPEAKER_01: Hallelujah, Father God, you are good.
43:05
SPEAKER_01: Oh God, you are good.
43:08
SPEAKER_01: Thank you that we don't have to look a certain way to be our people, or live a certain way to be considered a good one of your people.
43:17
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, God, that you truly have broken down all of the barriers, and you are more than enough for us.
43:23
SPEAKER_01: And it's in your name we pray.
43:25
SPEAKER_01: Amen.