Latest / Woodlands Church Academy's Podcast / Sunday Bible School- Witness & Mission; the role of women in John's gospel- Rachel Riddall - Nov25

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Sunday Bible School- Witness & Mission; the role of women in John's gospel- Rachel Riddall - Nov25 · Woodlands Church Academy's Podcast

• 0:17
  SPEAKER_04: And it's not been part of before, it's fine to 10 upstairs, it's more than seven up to five.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_04: So hopefully that we have a chance to ask some questions as well.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_04: Um we're going to try to put one at eight o'clock, so you know I'll head.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_04: Um great this is one.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_04: Um starting with uh public three, which is a philosophy center.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_04: Um here is our club director.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_04: Uh it's formal theological training partner uh with it.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_04: And Rachel's finished the master's, which is very share just some of the things that you find out from that, particularly looking at Jesus Ministry and Mission, and particularly how women involved that.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_04: So I'm just going to pray and then over you race that again.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_04: Well, thank you so much for your work.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_04: Thank you for the chance to study together.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_04: Thanks so much for Rachel and for the time that she'd given, dedicated to uh look at the Johnson's hospital particularly how you all work there with uh women's minds and Richard praying tonight that you all speak to us to all chance to say in Jesus' name.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_04: Amen.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_05: Thank you.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks, Tim.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's uh oh finishing a master has nearly killed me, to be honest, as well as doing everything else, but it's great that I finished, and I'm so glad I did it.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: So um I love John's Gospel, really love John's Gospel, and uh it differs from the synoptic gospels, which is Matthew Martin if you uh aren't familiar with that term in some key ways.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just gonna dive straight in.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: Uh John portrays a ministry of Jesus through seven signs, significant signs that are miracles that point to Jesus' identity.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: He also includes seven I am sayings, I am the light of the world being one of them that's probably maybe quite the famous one when you think about Christmas time.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: And um, it also includes long discourses between Jesus and other people, or just Jesus giving like really long kind of speeches or talks about um teachings to his disciples and the people that are around.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um but another notable difference about John's Gospel, which I particularly love and enjoy, is that he positions women as first hand witnesses and key witnesses to what he's doing, which doesn't so much happen in the other gospels but does happen in John.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: And this is quite unusual because in Greco-Roman times women weren't considered as reliable witnesses in the court of law, their testimonies were unreliable, and so for John, a New Testament writer, to position women in his gospel, talking about who Jesus is and revealing his identity and mission is quite bold and brilliant, and so um I love that.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: So my study focused on five key women in my dissertation, but for time constraints I'm only gonna talk really about four, and um I'm gonna kind of do broad breast strokes of three and then go a bit deeper on one just for time.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: If anyone wants to read my dissertation, you're welcome to.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's a bit boring and long.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: But um so I'm gonna talk about these key women.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um Martha and Mary, who were who are sisters in Bethany.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna just touch on them.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna talk about Mary Magdalene as well, who um was a follower of Jesus, a disciple, not one of the 12 disciples, but a disciple nonetheless, and uh touched on her as well.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm just gonna jump straight in, Martha and Mary, Bethany.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: They proclaim the identity of Jesus in word and deed through their personal interactions with Jesus.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: And if you might not be familiar with their stories, um, if this is a bit new to you, but if you can find this account in John 11 and John 12, and uh their their interactions with Jesus with Martha is kind of like a verbal interaction where she comes to the point in her disappointment and difficulty of proclaiming him to be the Messiah, and then Mary kind of reveals his identity as she um anoints him and and in kind of in preparation for his death and his burial.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: And this this point in John, John 11, John 12, marks this sort of key turning point in the book of John where Jesus moves in this sort of very public ministry where he's kind of performing miracles, doing teachings, and um kind of moving moving around to kind of dialing down and taking a step back after the raising of Lazarus, who is their brother, and as he prepares to enter Jerusalem and prepares to die.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: And uh Mary and Martha display a real honest, heartfelt relationship with Jesus.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: They have a very close relationship with him, it's quite unusual, it's really poignant, and um, they're just very devoted to him.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus is a really close friend of theirs, and um, I I love the way that they interact with Jesus and Jesus interacts with them because they they have their own disappointment at the delay in Jesus' arrival.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: Basically, if you're unfamiliar with the story, Lazarus, their brother, becomes unwell and they send they send word to Jesus to come and kind of do something, basically, because they know he can, and Jesus deliberately delays and doesn't go, and the result of that is that Lazarus dies.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: And so when Jesus finally decides to go, it's all part of his coming plan.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um Martha runs to him and says these sort of words, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: And uh there's there follows this interaction in 11, verse 21 and 32.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: Also interesting, Mary says the very same word a little bit later on, and she moves from this place of disappointment and pain and uh misunderstanding and confusion as to why Jesus has behaved in the way that he has, and through this sort of conversation, she then gets to a point of recognizing that Jesus is in fact the Messiah, the promised one, and uh her proclamation is actually really powerful, it's kind of like a bit like a high point in John's Gospel, where it's just come immediately after Jesus' faith, I am saying, where he's just said, I am the resurrection of the life in John 11, 25, and as a precursor to raising Lazarus in 25 to 43.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: And there's this this proclamation that that Martha, yeah, Martha says to Jesus, you are the Messiah, which comes from that closer appointment.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: Now, Mary has a sort of a slightly different role in that she is kind of um symbolically acting out Jesus' messiahship, probably unbeknown to her by anointing Jesus in an act of devotion and love, preparing him, as I said, for his death and burial.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: And both of these actions of these sisters show the women to be loving, faithful witnesses of Jesus of Jesus, and also collaborators and kind of like followers of Jesus' mission in the world.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: They stuck with him and followed him, maybe not as a close disciple moving around the country like the others were, but from afar.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I think what they teach us is that their love and devotion for Jesus is sacrificial and uh is is it is devotion.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: It is that it is devotion, it's honest, it's heartfelt, it's it's um toughling with the God Jesus, why have you not done what we wanted you to do?
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_01: And it's sharply actually contrasted to Judas, who when Mary anoints Jesus, he's like, Oh, that money could have been spent somewhere else, you know, to the poor.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: And and their devotion and love of Jesus is kind of John contrast with Judas's love of money, which actually leads to his downfall, and that they are like I kind of say that that John is saying, like, this is what a disciple should be like.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: John, Judas, the disciple, is not actually a true disciple, but these women are.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: Mary Magdalene is um the woman who there's lots of Marys in John's Gospel.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: It takes a bit of getting used to, to be honest, because a lot of Marys, but Mary Magdalene is also a follower of Jesus, and uh she she appears in John's Gospel, but where I have focused on is her encounter with Jesus in the garden when Jesus has been resurrected, and um she models to us what it's like to be a disciple, so committed to Jesus and his mission that she followed him in his life, but she also followed him in his death.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: Where some of the other disciples scattered, she kept with him and kept following him.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: Her devotion is rewarded in the moment where Jesus has risen from the dead and the tomb is empty, and the disciples have come and then they've left again, sort of bewildered, as is she, but she goes back and hangs around trying to work out what is going on, and then Jesus meets her, which in her grief she doesn't actually recognise him.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_01: She thinks he's the gardener, which is understandable.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: There are lots that have been written about that as to why she doesn't recognise him.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_01: But he calls her by name, he calls her Mary, and it's a really beautiful, poignant moment in the in the narrative in John's Gospel, where she is kind of felt like she is rewarded for her devotion.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: I would love it if Jesus calls my name, like he calls Mary's name.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: And um, Mary Magdalene is you know, she's the first witness of the resurrected Jesus, and she doesn't keep it to herself, she becomes the one who goes and tells others.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, Jesus sends her, he sends her to the disciples, and um yeah, she she kind of moves as, and it's a bit of a literary device that John uses in his gospel to move people from misunderstanding to understanding, and you see it kind of popping up all the way through John's gospel, and and Mary is definitely part of that.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: She misunderstands who Jesus is, she doesn't quite know who he is, she's bewildered that the tomb's empty, hasn't quite got the faith to realise that Jesus has risen from the dead.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: But her her lack of understanding doesn't stay in that place, she moves to a place of understanding, and then actually to a place of commission where Jesus commissions her to go, and she becomes, as has been described by others, the apostle to the apostles, the first one to witness and see the risen Christ is a woman.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: Come on, and uh, she says to them, I have seen the Lord.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: What a wonderful thing that John includes in his gospel, John 20, verse 18.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: So our fifth woman, well, the fifth woman I've studied, and we're gonna go a bit deeper because that was this bit of an overview, is the woman at the well, the unnamed woman at the well, and we're gonna read her story because it would be rude not to, quite frankly.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: So, because we're at Bible school, I'm assuming that you've all got your Bibles, because you know that's what we do here.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: If you don't have a Bible, you might have it on your phone.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm gonna read it, I'm gonna read her story to you because it's beautiful and profound and also a bit confusing in places, and it's in John 4, beginning at chapter 1.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John, although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized but his disciples.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: Now he had to go to Samaria, so he came to a town in Samaria called Sycah, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: Joseph's well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: It was about noon.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, Will you give me a drink?
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_01: His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: The Samaritan woman said to him, You are a Jew, and I am a Samaritan woman.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: How can you ask me for a drink?
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_01: The Jews do not associate with Samaritans.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus answered her, If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: Sir, the woman said, You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: Where can you get this living water?
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus answered, Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: But whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_01: Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: The women said to him, Sir, give me this water so that I don't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_01: He told her, Go call your husband and come back.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_01: I have no husband, she replied.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus said to her, You are right when you say you have no husband.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: The fact is you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: What you have just said is true.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: Sir, the woman said, I can see that you are a prophet.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: Women, Jesus replied, believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: You Samaritans worship what you do not know, we worship what we do know.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: The salvation is from the Jews.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshippers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: For they are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: God is spirit, and his worshippers must worship in the spirit and in truth.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_01: The women said, I know that the Messiah called Christ is coming.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: When he comes, he will explain everything to us.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: Then Jesus declared, I am the one speaking to you.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: I am he.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with the woman, but no one asked, What do you want?
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_01: Or why are you talking with her?
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: Then, leaving her water jar, the women went back to the town and said to the people, Come to a man who told me everything I've ever done.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_01: Could this be the Messiah?
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_01: They came out of the town and made their way towards him.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: Meanwhile, his disciples urged him, Rabbi, to eat something.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_01: I was going to jump on to uh verse 39.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_01: He told me everything I've ever done.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days, and because of his words, many more became believers.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: They said to the woman, We no longer believe just because of what you said.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: Now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Saviour of the world.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: What a great story, what a great narrative, and yeah, just uh it's so um such a powerful story.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: And John's portrayal as a meeting of Jesus and the Samaritan woman recalls a discussion about theology and true worship and a revelation about Jesus' identity as the Messiah, which positions her, I'd like to suggest to you, as the first evangelist in John's Gospels, because she takes her message back to her community and uh tells what she has witnessed, leading many others to believe it says that in John 4, verse 25 and 26.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: It all starts at the well where Jesus, alone and thirsty, meets a Samaritan woman who has come to draw water.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, interestingly, the journey that Jesus takes is a bit of a convoluted one, and uh, if you kind of look at the look at the map, it's like Jesus deliberately went that way.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't really make much sense that he went that way.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_01: So I suspect Jesus had a plan like he often does, and uh he he stopped at the well, and uh, even though Samaritans and Jews didn't get on, and there was a lot of kind of um uh enity between them, interestingly, the disciples went into the village to get food from them.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: So even though there was enmity, they were still able to get food from them when they were hungry.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that's basically when you're hungry, you'll do anything by the food.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so John notes that the well, interestingly, is named after Jacob the patriarch, which is an interesting um development of the story because it probably isn't the same well that Jacob uh is talked about in Genesis of Jacob because um, and it's probably a literary device that is used to by John deliberately to kind of flag up what is going on here with the well and Jesus and the woman and water, and it draws attention to matrimonial passages in the Old Testament.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: If you know your Old Testament well, you know that a lot of romance and a lot of kind of wedding y stuff happens around wells, and uh you might remember the story between um Isaac and Rebecca, love got off uh from the start at a well, Jacob and Rachel at a well, Moses and Zipporah met at the well, so um my top tip for romance, find a well.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um maybe that won't work anyway.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_01: Interestingly, the well in John 4 can't be the same well where Jacob met Rachel because the geography doesn't work, so that's interesting, and I be thinking most scholars and commentators uh as they reach into this suggest that it's it is John using it as a device to help people think about what is going on here and uh to highlight the significance of water and uh what is you know what the water signifies.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_01: And Jacob draws water if you know the story in Genesis to provide water for his future bride, it's a kind of flirting tactic.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not suggesting that Jesus is doing that with the woman at the well at all, but um and but what what Jesus is doing is kind of like flipping it on on its head.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_01: So Jacob draws water for Rachel, and here Jesus is asking for water from the Samaritan woman, and you know, she's been married five times and is now living with a sixth partner.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_01: It is it is a little bit outrageous that Jesus asking her for water.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: Not only is she a woman, she's a woman who has been in multiple sort of marriages and relationships, also, she is a Samaritan woman.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus crossing multiple boundaries here that a good rabbi should not have crossed.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_01: But what he's trying to get her to understand is that water is water, but what he is going to offer her is life-giving water, the water that never runs dry, the water is based on who he is, and that ultimately Jesus is the ultimate bridegroom as he is for the church.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: So you can see what John might be trying to do here, and actually the water that the bridegroom offers will never run out, never run dry.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's the life-giving water of life that it says in John 3, verse 29.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_01: So when the disciples eventually return, they are shocked by what Jesus is doing.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: They don't have the nerve to actually question him, what are you doing, Jesus?
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_01: But the narrative suggests that they're pretty shocked about what's going on.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_01: And uh and he's crossed a boundary.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus didn't really mind about crossing boundaries and he's crossed a boundary, he's crossed the gender boundary.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um lots has been written about the Samaritan woman's sexual history, the fact that she's had five um husbands, and the one she's with now is not a husband.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, John Calvin, I read this really kind of uh stark quote by John Calvin where he just talks about her as a really sort of promiscuous woman and kind of not really taking into consideration what it would have been like in the time for a woman in that in that time who was vulnerable, didn't have any sort of financial assistance, was relying on men to provide for her.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and the other theologians, sorts of maybe on the more sort of feminist side or kind of sympathetic side, maybe is a better way of saying it.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm not dissing John Calvin, an amazing theologian.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but they suggest things that actually the main point is not that John is trying to highlight her her sin and what is going on in her kind of back mountain background.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_01: What he's highlighting is that Jesus knows.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus understood where she's coming from, understands her background, understands her you know the amount of partner she's had, the amount of husband she's had.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um but we don't know why or why she's had that kind of sexual history or that history, but actually Jesus knows, and it doesn't exclude him from interacting with her and offering her the water of life.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_01: One possible explanation for her situation could be explained by the tradition of the leverage marriage, which Jesus also talks about, and the people come to Jesus later on and say, you know, they ask some questions about this, just briefly to explain what that is.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: That's where a widow would marry along a family line.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: So you keep marrying the brothers until you run out of brothers, basically, so keep dying.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, you know, okay, the brothers are great, pretty horrible if they're not.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but that is one way that you could explain why she had so many husbands.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_01: But whatever led to her being in that situation, what we do know is.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: That attending the well at midday means that she is marginalized and probably quite vulnerable and on the edge of society because you wouldn't go to collect water in the middle of the day on a really hot day where you know it would have been really hot.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_01: And actually, she was there on her own.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_01: Where we know that most women would go in groups, it would be like a community thing where you'd go and collect water, she was on her own.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: So she is a bit of a vulnerable person, vulnerable woman, and um yeah, she probably thought to be alone, but Jesus nonetheless initiates a theological discussion with her, and that that is pretty wild, actually.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's very unusual, very unheard of for a rabbi to initiate a discussion with a woman.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um rabbis were um taught not to talk to women, um, and so for Jesus to do that is pretty radical, and not only does he kind of just ask her for a drink, he begins this conversation which he initiates and which kind of keeps going on, and uh and she incredibly is able to keep talking with him and engage with the theological discussion.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_01: She's not uh kind of isolated and she doesn't sort of say, Oh, stop, stop talking to me, I don't know what you're talking about.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a woman, actually, she's able to kind of engage with what he's talking about, and um, she moves again from misunderstanding to understanding this theme that John has where she misunderstands who he is, she thinks maybe you're just a prophet because clearly you've got sort of inside knowledge to my my background, um, but then she moves into the place in verse 29 of saying, actually, maybe he's the mess, maybe he is the messiah that I've that we're that we've taught been taught about to look for.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_01: The second boundary that Jesus crosses in conversing with her is a cultural boundary.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: As I said, the enmity between Jews and Samaritans was strong.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_01: Samaritans worshipped on Mount Um Gezerim, and Jews uh believe the centre of worship was Jerusalem.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that was this is not just like which church you go to, which denomination is yours.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's like it's way more kind of big and serious than what that and I haven't got time to go into all that.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_01: But basically, it is a big deal, it separates them out quite a lot, and uh they they they wouldn't have um mixed much actually, and I was just teaching this morning the students this is an aside for free, but I was just teaching the students this morning and um on the weekend away, and just thinking about when Jesus talks about the Holy Spirit coming in in Acts 1, and Jesus says, you know, the Holy Spirit comes and you're gonna be filled with power to go to uh Jerusalem, um I can't remember Judea and Samaria and the end of the world.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: So Jesus is saying in Acts 2, or and Acts 1, actually, you're gonna go to Samaria, you know.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_01: Samaria is the place that you don't want to go to because all the Samaritans are there.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_01: This is this, they're part of this too, and yet here in John, way John 4, way before we get there, you've got the first sort of female believer who then takes the message back to her community.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's like a foreshadowing of what is going to happen in Acts 1.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_01: Just like throw that in there.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, it would have been shocking for Jesus to have talked to her.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_01: Doubly shocking because she's a woman, doubly shocking because she is a Samaritan.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_01: And as Jesus reveals who he is to the Samaritan woman through their theological discourse, she moves from that misunderstanding to understanding, and uh she doesn't stay in that place of I'm not sure who you are.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_01: She drops her pot and rushes back to her town and says to them, Come see a man who told me everything I ever did.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_01: Could this be the messiah?
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: So she's not totally convinced at this point, but could this be the messiah?
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_01: Could this be that could this be the people that the man that you've been thinking about?
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_01: And um, she has this strong desire to communicate what has been revealed to her to others.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_01: She doesn't keep it to herself.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's this is not a private thing, a private faith, a private understanding.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_01: This is very public, and even if I mean what doubly interesting is that if she was a marginalised vulnerable person in that community, that might have been quite hard for her to go back to her community and tell everybody what she's experienced, but it doesn't stop her, she still goes, and uh it's so cool, she hasn't quite understood it all, but she's gonna go anyway, and her uncertainty doesn't cast a shadow over her witness, it doesn't limit her witness, it's actually part of her witness, and she takes on this missionary role.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_01: I like to suggest that where she goes and tells others, and uh her invitational words are brilliant, and we still use them today, don't we?
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_01: Come and see, come and see, come and see a man who told me everything that I've done, and it echoes of Jesus' calling as the first disciples that we read about in the Gospels, where he calls um Nathaniel to come, uh Philip calls Nathaniel to come and see Jesus.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_01: It's a discipleship to come, come and see, come and see.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_01: And uh the result of her saying to them, come and see, means that many in her village do exactly that and they rush out to see Jesus.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_01: And the women's witness actually has unprecedented effects in the town, and loads of people come to know Jesus, and they say, We no longer believe just because of what you said.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_01: Now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the saviour of the world, and there's this community that's become Jesus' followers in John chapter 4, right at the very beginning of the gospel account.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: There's this community of Samaritans, outsiders, outcasts, Jews did not want anything to do with him, and Jesus purposely plants a little missionary, an outcast, an outsider, in that community, and they come to know him.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_01: You know, without her, the town would have remained oblivious to the mission of God in the world.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: With her, they meet the Messiah, and the Samaritans become the first community of us kind in John's Gospel, where the identity of Jesus has crossed over an ethnic boundary, and many people believe because of her testimony.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I think John uses her as an example of faith to those that he's writing to, the Judgine community.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it's an example of faith that is fruitful when there's doubt.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's a very human kind of interpretation and display of who she is as uh kind of trying to understand who Jesus is, much like us.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_01: A faith that is powerful when she is very powerless, she's a very powerless person, she doesn't have much power at all, or any power actually, she's completely powerless, and a faith that continues the mission of Jesus in the world.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's Jesus' mission, it's not our mission, it's his mission, and she steps in and continues it.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, even when there are social, moral, and ethical boundaries to cross, she does that, she crosses those and she goes.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_01: As I come into land, um the Samaritan women, Martha and Mary, Bethany, and Mary Magdalene, they each play a key role in the Gospel of John.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_01: John portrays them as trustworthy witnesses.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_01: Don't forget, where they where women were not considered to be trustworthy witnesses in the time that John's Gospel was written, John portrays them in the opposite light, that they were trustworthy, and their testimonies support Jesus' identity as the Messiah, the Son of God.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_01: They each have a role in advancing the mission of God to reconcile the world to himself as they engage with others as a witness to others and they share what they have experienced.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_01: Come and see a man who told me everything I've ever done.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_01: You know, she didn't go and kind of like give earth 3.7, she just told what Jesus had done and said to her, and that was enough to kind of bring the others.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_01: They engaged with Jesus theologically, they searched for truth, they experienced moving from a place of misunderstanding to understanding, and uh finally they told their stories.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_01: They told their stories to those that they met, or John told their stories in the community that he was writing to in his gospel.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I think their faithful witness has ricocheted down the centuries as their stories have been told.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_01: And whether we are male or female, these women encourage us to be people who tell our stories and bear witness to the good news of Jesus and his mission to reconcile the world to God.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_01: Let's follow their brilliant examples, let's be like these women and tell those that we meet about Jesus, the Messiah, the Savior of the world.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_01: And even if we're in that place of slight misunderstanding or not fully understanding who Jesus is, and we're still kind of work it out.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_01: That's okay.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_01: Tell, let's tell what we know and leave Jesus do the rest because it's his mission, not ours.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I love this quote, I'm going to finish with this by John Stodd, who um he's died now.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_01: He was an amazing church leader, writer, author, um, theologian.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_01: He writes this, this is a bit of a colour twist, but he writes this about Jesus.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_01: Without any fuss or publicity, Jesus terminated the curse of the fall, reinvested women with a partially lost nobility, and reclaimed for his new kingdom community the original creation blessing of special equality.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I love to see the way that John engages with that idea in his gospel and lifts up women in a place in the society where nobody else is doing that.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_01: But Jesus did it, and I love that.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_04: We've got about five minutes.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_04: So if anyone's got any questions that they would like to throw to our eminent speaker, then um around uh that.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_04: Anybody got any questions or any comments?
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I have money.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_03: Great presentation.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you already.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_03: I find it a bit frustrating.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_03: Why didn't the Bible see fit to name her?
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, interesting, I know lots have been written about that.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um I don't know.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_01: Would it make a difference if she was named?
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_01: We like her name, don't we?
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_01: I I wish she was, but I don't know why she wasn't.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, I mean there's various kind of uh ideas about that.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe they didn't know her name, they knew the encounter that was passed on, but they didn't know her name, or the name got lost over the over the time of sort of telling the story.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, I don't know.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_01: But there were lots of women who are named, so that hurt.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just wondering if she was marginalized, why when she went back to say why did they listen to her?
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that really resonates.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_01: Like why did they maybe she wasn't as marginalized as everybody likes to make out that she was, and maybe she wasn't this kind of harlot person or this prostitute, but she's just kind of like um I think historically commentators have have kind of um painted her as that woman that is kind of like a harlot or a prostitute or someone you know that has a really dubious sexual past, and maybe she didn't, maybe that wasn't who she was, um, but maybe it was you know it was a tricky past, maybe.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_01: But actually, people did listen to her.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_02: So uh that makes me think that sometimes we don't feel that we have a place where we can stay and be careful, and maybe we can, even if we don't think that we need to be listened to.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely not you know at that level that we need to be.
• 33:40
  unknown: So that's that's how it really struck me.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, sometimes I feel I don't have a voice, and I just think that that we need to do that we could be heard.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely, I think we all resonate with that, and we all think sometimes we don't have a voice, and we have what anything to say or offer or whatever write, but honestly, Jesus in choosing to have that conversation with her, I mean I think it's the longest discourse in John, so you know it's not like a little quick chat, it took a while, and it's all written down.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_01: So there's a reason for that.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's like Jesus I you know, I like to sort of kind of put my perspective on actually there's a reason that John has included that and that discourse happened and he he raised her up.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's like it's it's so Jesus-y and kingdom-y, isn't it?
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_01: That you know, the weak, profound, you know, first loss, all that sort of stuff.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, that's right.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_03: So you know we don't know.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_00: The role of women in the early church when you look at people like Phoebe and stuff.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I I I just kind of take a little step back.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying that um John was a feminist and uh and he was like down on men.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, not at all.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, men are brilliant.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_01: I'm birthed for them, so you know, I'm all for men.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um equality is kind of you know really important.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_01: I I I think well, my theory, I mean, there's lots of things you can read about this, and it depends which type of scholars you read as to what the answers you come and get.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I I just think that John was writing to a community, a church community, and I just kind of have this impression that he's not trying to elevate women's voices above men's, he's not trying to kind of like um make them to be kind of like more important or but I think I think he is trying to bring a bit of kind of I don't want to use the word equality because it's not the right word, but just kind of raise their voices and and and uh create space for them and the stories that you know that he tells are actual stories, you know, and actual interactions with Jesus.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_01: And um I think yeah, I I love all the other gospels as well, and because I've been studying John for the past year, obviously I love it.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_01: If I did it was if I studied Luke from last year, I'd probably love Luke best as well.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_01: But I I just I think it does make way for female leaders in the early church, and like like we said, people like you said, B B Junior, um Lydia.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_01: I think I just think it does, and I I think thank goodness that it does, because it it uh counteracts or kind of creates space in a world that was very male-oriented, society was culture was at the time, and it just means it's because some of these women their stories are told, it means that there were lots of other stories like that as well, but at least there are some stories that are contained in the gospels.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_01: That I didn't have answered that question at all.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_01: Was there a second bit of your question?
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_01: Oh no, that was got excited.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_01: I think maybe how has what you learned on your masters influenced how you might approach your job now?
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_02: Oh gosh, that's a really good question.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_01: That's the killer question, yeah.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_01: I think uh I mean I think the masters was is really good, and I I've taken quite a long time to do it, and I had to have a year off because of stepping into my role this last year.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_01: I had to kind of pause, but I think it's really helped me in my handling of scripture, in my in my reading sort of more wisely, and uh understanding different theological concepts.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think studying the the word of God is just so important, and as a church leader, I I want to make sure that I give due diligence to that.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_01: So I I think probably that's where it's helped me and grow my confidence to handle scripture and kind of to find my corner.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_01: That's the wrong term, you know, I don't mean fight my corner, but you know, kind of like to there's a lot of ideas out there, and there's a lot of theological concepts and ideas and positions, and um I think it's given me confidence to argue where where I'm coming from, or not argue because I don't want to argue, but you know, find the corner.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_02: Stay with confidence.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_01: Stay with confidence, I guess that's my thing.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, stayed with confidence my position on certain things.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_01: Perfect.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_04: Thank you, Rachel.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_04: Um it's it's got the explain that about theological study.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_04: Again, do if Mark uh has got details about the theological studies that that um Rachel did, and if you're doing some uh um post um which what else boxes, Mark?
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_04: There's a master's and then there's a full BA and level four as a level seven.
• 40:01
  unknown: So I'll congratulate the post number.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, quite theology is on.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_04: So um I'm just gonna pray and um uh thank you so much for your word.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_04: Thank you that speaks into our lives.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_04: Thank you.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_04: There's something that uh when you came this world, Jesus, the words you spoke were words that gave life.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_04: Uh living water, and I pray that as we take our time to think and to ponder and to study that we'll find that uh the truth that sets us free, the living water that refreshes our souls.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_04: In Jesus' name we pray.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_04: Amen.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_04: Great.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_04: And so we're we're taking a break from Bible school because of Christmas, so we'll be back in uh in January.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_04: Um