Latest / We Are More: Sisters Talk Faith & Feminism / Ep. 107: WTF God?

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Ep. 107: WTF God? · We Are More: Sisters Talk Faith & Feminism

• 0:12
  Speaker 1: To the We Are More Pod cast. My name is Alyssa. And my
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: name is Bree. We're two sisters passionate about all things faith and feminism. We believe
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: that Jesus trusted, respected, and encouraged women to teach and preach his word. And apparently, that's controversial. Get comfy. Hello, world. Bonjour.
• 0:34
  I think you should start saying hello in completely random languages from now on.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: I'll have to learn a couple of hellos. Oh, I could say hello in a language of every country that listens to us.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: You should. That'd be so fun.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: Here we go. Get ready. Today, starting now. England. Hello.
• 0:57
  Good. That was great. Thank you. Canada. Hello.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Do you guys feel really included now? You're welcome. You feel like we're speaking right to you?
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: And bonjour.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: Oh, there you go. After your seven years
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: of French. It wasn't seven. It was a lot. It was a good amount. But I know key important phrases.
• 1:25
  Like, if I were to go to France, I would be able to say these key important phrases.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: Mhmm. That
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: one might be helpful. And so on and what have you.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: Okay. So I have a question for all of you. So I work at home. Right? And that means that sometimes my work environment is not
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: professional.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: And our neighbors were having their roof done today. And so, you know, you kind of expect, like, there's workers out there. They're gonna have their music on, whatever. But I am so snoopy. I'm sitting there listening to all of their conversations.
• 2:10
  I've got my windows open. I was so distracted. And there was this one guy, and I don't think he stopped talking for two entire hours while I was working. He's just talking, talking to no one. No one was responding.
• 2:26
  Do you have that guy at work? Do you know what I'm
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: talking about? Did he have maybe, like, a headset in? Was he talking to someone? No. He was just talking about randomness.
• 2:35
  Mentally unstable. Is he
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: on drugs? Maybe. But he was just he was telling stories about other contractors, and he was talking about, like, hey. Are you gonna be there for that thing tonight? I need to know.
• 2:47
  It, like, just but did not stop talking. I'm like, aren't you putting a roof on someone's house? I literally think I would kick them in
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: the teeth, and that's coming from someone who works at a dentist. No. It
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: was just so funny to listen to because you could I'm sitting in my house. I'm not staring at these people. I don't see their body language. But you could feel the vibes. Everyone else hated him.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Because sometimes you just want people to freaking shut up. Yeah. You wanna be able to do your job. Although a lot of us at my office now talk to ourselves.
• 3:23
  And there's a little sign in the side office that says, if you hear me in here talking to myself, just move on by because I'm having a team meeting.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: Are your team meetings productive?
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: If they're by yourself, I'm sure.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I just thought that was very funny. And, you know, sometimes you gotta people watch or people listen, I guess.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Ease drop. Sometimes you gotta eavesdrop.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: Sometimes you do. And I had a good time.
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: Good for you. Thank you. Sounds like a good day.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: It was the highlight of my day. I also built a dresser today. That was not the highlight of my day. Did not enjoy.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: No. I mean, building things is one thing. From IKEA, whatever, you can build a cubicle, a bookshelf. But a dresser has lots of little bits and pieces.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: There were so many parts. No. I didn't enjoy it.
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: No. I'm sorry that you had to do that.
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: You're welcome.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: I appreciate the support.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: I hear you and I see you. Thank you. And I validate your feelings.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: I think you have to actually say something to validate the feelings. And look, I feel
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: like you can't just say, and I validate them. I validate them. And I concur. Do you? And also, you are a fortress.
• 4:38
  And the breath in your lungs is sacred. Wow.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: Keep slaying queen. Alright. Do our transition song. We're going off the rails. So today, we are continuing a little bit from last week when we talked about some of the really hard stories of the bible.
• 4:57
  I actually picked a I've got two today. Bree's got three. And one of mine is a little bit lighter just because I was feeling depressed.
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: Okay. Three of mine are I would I would say they're WTF God. In which I think we should maybe call this episode Quite probably. They're not I mean, I'll get into them.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: But last week we tried I hope we didn't leave you, like, super super depressed. Because we tried to kind of pull in, okay, but here's where Jesus is in all of this. And I've I've been trying to do that on our social media this week as well. Like, weave Jesus into it so that we're not all feeling doom and gloom at all times.
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: Weave Jesus into the blanket of your life. Life. Another good title for the pod.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: Ah, yes. Confused people. So we're gonna talk about some of those stories. And yeah. These are harder parts of the Bible.
• 5:57
  They're the parts that you're not hearing in sermons on Sunday because they don't they're not uppers. I mean,
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: they're just not fun. Or they don't fit nice and neat into a perfectly packaged sermon box Mhmm. You know, That leaves you on an upper, sends you off into the week filled with the holy spirit. Mhmm. You know, these ones make you say WTF.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah. There's a reason that you hear the same names every Sunday. I mean, you hear Paul. You maybe hear Peter. You hear Joseph.
• 6:28
  Bob and Larry. It's because those are relatively easy stories to tell, or they have easy stories to tell anyway. And I'm bored. I'm bored with the easy stories sometimes. Well, buckle up because I have some weird ones.
• 6:44
  Okay. I'm prepared. Let's go. So this
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: is a story in the bible that I personally have not heard of. But now I have. And I'm a little bit confused because there's no clear ending. There's no resolve. It's just crash, bang, boom.
• 7:02
  So there's these two guys named Nadab and Abihu. Sorry if I said those wrong.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: I think they'll be offended from wherever they are. Hopefully, heaven. And they are found
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: in Leviticus 10. And Nadab and Abihu offer unauthorized fire before God. And you might question, what does that mean? What is unauthorized fire? Is it a bonfire?
• 7:29
  Is it other sort of fire? I don't know. I'll tell you. So the text specifically says, which God had not commanded, this fire. So Nadab and Abihu were sons of Aaron, who is the brother of Moses.
• 7:44
  We saw him last week in our last episode when we were talking about yeah. Shut up. We were talking about the golden calf. We heard about Aaron. So these are his sons.
• 7:56
  And they became high priests of Israel back when the priesthood of Israel was, like, just starting. So these are fresh priests. And they're just starting to learn God. They're learning the priesthood. They're making up their rules.
• 8:11
  They're working together with God. Mhmm. So things are a little bit, you know Up in the air. Up in the air in flex. There are also two of the lucky people who have kind of seen God in some sort of way.
• 8:25
  In Exodus 24, they're part of the group that goes up to the mountain to experience God's presence. They saw something that most people never did. And so then they came down and became priests. Good for them. So what really happened in this passage in Leviticus is they offered incense before God.
• 8:45
  Okay. That sweet smelling stuff in a hippie store. You know? I do love some incense. The text specifically says that it was unauthorized fire.
• 8:55
  And it adds later on that God never commanded. Mhmm. And then they get burned up. By god. Right?
• 9:02
  By god.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah. He zaps them. I know we joke a lot about like, hey, we haven't been hit by lightning yet. But man.
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah. They got smoked. And really, they weren't doing anything crazy. They were trying to honor God in some way in a ritualistic kind of way, in unauthorized kind of way, I guess. But God was like, kaboom.
• 9:27
  No more. No more Nadab and Abihu. Goodbye. It says the fire comes out from God's presence and consumes them instantly. God doesn't explain much in that moment.
• 9:38
  Many scholars debate on the reason Mhmm. Of this because it's not clear. In this passage, God says, among those who approach me, I will be proved holy. So basically, you don't get to define how I'm approached. I define how I'm approached.
• 9:53
  So God is creating a boundary for him.
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: We love a boundary.
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: And Aaron, their father, at the end of this passage, says nothing. Mhmm. He remained silent after he just got to see his two sons get zapped by holy fire. Aaron is a weird character. I don't know.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: I can't get a read on him. It all happens at the beginning of
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: the priesthood. The systems were being established. The structure was being established. And I think how many people see God in the Old Testament is angry God. Pissed off God.
• 10:24
  Yeah. Because of stories like this. Unexplained, angry, smoting. Violence. Yeah.
• 10:30
  Yeah. But maybe he's just frustrated.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: Mhmm.
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: Because we are trying to manage God Yeah. In some way. We're trying to show him how he should be recognized or how we want to visualize and represent God Mhmm. When he's like, you freaking little crap heads. I made you.
• 10:53
  I'm gonna tell you what to do. I'm your
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: dad. I wonder too, because fire would have been really commonly used in other faiths at the time. Like, you know and obviously, the Israelites were using fire for sacrifices and stuff. But I wonder if maybe it tied into that somehow. Like, maybe they were pulling from other faiths.
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: Or maybe how remember how they were asking for a king. Mhmm. They really desperately wanted a king. Or with the golden calf from last week that we talked about, they really wanted something physical to represent Mhmm. That they could wrap their heads around, and God's saying,
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: no. Mhmm. I think it's the Bible is so hard because you don't get the whole story. No. And we
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: can interpret it up the wazoo. Right. Or up the kazoo, so to say.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: It's because, like, what were they doing? You know, they're up there on this mountain. They're experiencing God. First of all, what does that mean? Is God walking with them like he did with Adam and Eve?
• 11:55
  Or is is he just is he a fiery bush like he was with Moses? You know? And what were they doing up there? They were we know they were lighting a fire, but were they saying ritualistic prayers? Were they asking for something that God had already told them no one?
• 12:13
  Like, there's so many options here that would clear the story up. But you almost wonder, like, why did this wind up in the Bible?
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: Who thought that it was important enough to record back into the Bible? Like, hey, remember when God zapped these guys?
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: And maybe it makes more sense if you understand the original language, if you understand more bits of the story around it. Mhmm. But singling this story out alone, it's like, what?
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And that's what you have to sit with with the Bible because it is historical text, and it's not day by day. Mhmm.
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: And then you look at the world today too. Lots of terrible things happening. Mhmm. And not a good way to explain why.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: Mhmm. I will say this one feels weirder because, like, last week we talked about stories where people did something for God that God didn't ask them to do. Whereas, like and this follows the pattern. They're doing something for god that god didn't ask them to do, but then god directly punishes them. Whereas those other stories aren't necessarily god being pissed off.
• 13:26
  It's just god saying, okay. Well, live with your own consequences. This one is super direct. So it does it's got a different vibe. It's got a very angry god vibe.
• 13:38
  And I think that's why people have a hard time with the old testament too. And I think a lot of Christians today kind of toss it aside. We've talked a lot about how we feel about the Bible. And I don't think that you should ever toss the whole Old Testament aside, but I do think you have to be aware that this is a different a different vibe with God. And also,
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: I just read the reaction from Moses. So we know that Aaron was silent. But Moses, so their uncle
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: Mhmm.
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: Said to the remaining sons, don't mourn them. Oh, do not mourn them. This is a way to show obedience to God's judgment. So don't feel bad. No
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: tears. No tears. I wonder, though. To me, that says there was more to that story
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: Mhmm. That we just don't understand.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: And it's important to remember that the Bible like, the 66 books of the Bible did not come in one piece.
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: We've talked about this before,
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: but we've never found one ancient text that is all of these 66 books smooshed together.
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah. All bound together perfectly. This is what we decide god decided was the bible. Right.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: That didn't happen. There was a council of people that came together and decided a council of men. Let's be real. They came together and decided, okay, these are the 66 books we're gonna have in the canon of the bible.
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: But also, the people writing these wouldn't have been like, oh, this is the Bible. Right. Exactly. These are individual stories and texts that these people like with Paul, the letters to different specific churches, maybe not knowing in that moment that this is gonna be bound together and become an instruction manual Right.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: For people. Forever. And people are gonna take literally forever. Yeah. And I wonder if in this story, maybe the person who's writing it down didn't say, oh, hey.
• 15:38
  And they were bringing in all of this pagan worship because everybody knew it. And they didn't have to say it. You know, like, something and I'm that's totally conjecture. But I just wonder if this is a partial story intentionally. They just didn't feel the need to tell the rest of the story.
• 15:54
  Yeah. And why it wound up in the bible, I don't know. But I don't think god does things without a reason, At least so far that I've seen.
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: Mhmm. And maybe the reason literally was just I have boundaries Mhmm. And follow my instructions. And you came up to that mountain with me, Mount Sinai? Mhmm.
• 16:16
  And I thought it was clear, boys. But we don't know that part.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: Don't know that part. Okay. So one of the stories I wanted to go into is about Rizpa. That's a fun name. Isn't it?
• 16:29
  And she her story is deeply tragic and also fascinating. Her story is in second Samuel. And basically, her story combines with one of David's stories also. And David is not my favorite bible character. I don't know if you've caught that vibe yet.
• 16:50
  But he, I think, is very impulsive in addition to many other horrible things. But, like, all through all of his stories, that's what you see is this impulsive nature that gets him into trouble all the time. And so her story basically starts with a famine hitting Israel. And David gets told, not necessarily by god, but David gets told that it's because Saul has been violent towards other peoples. And he's like, well, let's fix that.
• 17:24
  So to resolve it, seven of the descendants of Saul are executed. Boo. Just sort of randomly, it seems like there's not a okay. These specific seven descendants. And the bible there's a lot of number symbolism.
• 17:40
  So seven happens a lot in the bible. But they are executed, and then they're basically left out in the desert to be picked apart by animals and what it's violent and unnecessarily cruel the way that these people are just tossed aside. Like, they're nothing. Like, they have no importance. And why them specifically?
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah. What did they do? Right.
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: So Rizba is the mother of two of the the men that were executed. And everybody else, kind of the same as your story where it's, okay, don't grieve them. Because a, David's a little bit spazzy, and he might get pissed if you do. But also, like, this is us following god in theory. You know?
• 18:33
  And she doesn't do that. She literally goes out into the desert and sits with these bodies. Seven bodies. She sits with them for months. It literally says she sits with them for months to make sure that the birds don't come and pick at her sons and stuff like that because she wants to honor her children.
• 18:57
  I know. Picture that. What? I know. This story is very graphic.
• 19:04
  And I we know that the bible is graphic, but because many of us hear about the Bible from church. Or we selectively pick which stories we read. Or when we read all the way through the Bible, we kind of skim it a little bit. Mhmm.
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: Or it's written in language that we don't understand, or it's been translated a billion times Right. To confuse the story.
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: Right. But just think about the real impact of this story. Like, the real people in this story. This mother loses two of her sons. And I don't know if we know their age or not, but regardless, they could have been small children.
• 19:46
  They could have been full grown men with families. Either way, she loses two of her sons for no reason at all. God didn't ask for this. And yet it happened. And no one cares.
• 20:04
  No one is out there sitting with her. No one is in uproar. No one is starting a riot,
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: and they're told specifically not to care.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: Mhmm. So and she's not an important person. I'm not really sure what like, if she was a concubine of Saul's or or how that all happened, But she wasn't important in society. So her disappearing from society and sitting amongst the dead wasn't like, oh, no. Where did she go?
• 20:31
  It was just like, alright. She's gone.
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: It's not important to them at that time. Mhmm. But it was important enough to be written into what eventually would become the bible. Right.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: She had she also says almost nothing throughout the bible. Her story and this is why it's easy to skip. Because her part of the story is in amongst David, and we like to focus on him a lot. She says almost nothing. This is just a story that he hears about.
• 20:59
  Like Sleeping Beauty. Yeah. Like Sleeping Beauty, man. So after he hears her story, he does act. He basically says, oh, hey.
• 21:09
  We we shouldn't have done that. Like, so sorry. And that that's kind of his MO. Let's be real. But she's important because she shows something deeper.
• 21:23
  She shows that the powerless aren't always powerless. She shows the kind of impact that an average person can have. She also I mean, you can relate her to abuse survivors. We can talk about her in relation to current protesting. She's not violent.
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: She doesn't go attack King David and say, alright. You're done for. It showing her emotions and her feelings in and of itself was an act of defiance. Right? Because they told her, no.
• 21:57
  Mhmm. Do not grieve. Do not mourn. And she went and not loudly, but extravagantly Mhmm. Mourned and grieved and felt that loss very deeply.
• 22:09
  And eventually, it made its way back to David. Mhmm.
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: And I think it's such a good contrast to I'm thinking of the protesting in Minnesota specifically. And if you if you're not in The US and haven't heard about that because of lots of immigration things that are going on in The US right now and the illegalness of so much of it and the horror of it, basically the whole city of Minneapolis up and protested. It was amazing and still are having protests. And it they were peaceful protests even when peace was not being given to them. And they were average people who were taking time out of their lives, who were standing in the cold and suffering to some degree because this was important.
• 23:01
  And that's what she did. She had to have been miserable. Think desert heat, and she's sitting amongst dead bodies.
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And you think, I've seen Alone, the show. They're not often surrounded by dead bodies, but
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: Not often? Is that happening on that show?
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: She doesn't have a tarp. Mhmm. Or how is she protecting herself from the sun? Like, how what is she eating? How is she sleeping?
• 23:32
  She's grieving.
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: She's not caring for herself. She's probably having a period out in the desert too.
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: Finding your meal for the day is not easy. Everything about just surviving in that moment Mhmm. It's a miracle that she survived.
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah. You have to think God sat with her through that. And, obviously, things were different. This is pre Jesus, pre Holy Spirit. So the relationship with God and people is a little bit different.
• 24:01
  But we do see through the Old Testament God being with people. And we don't hear that part of her story. So again, this is just guessing. But this woman who loved so deeply and we talk about the passage in the Bible that says you will know them by their fruit. And this is how she's known.
• 24:26
  She's known for enduring love, forgiving of herself, for not backing down even when she was not an important person in society. Also, she's a woman
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: in society. So she's not valued here. Her opinions aren't valued. I also I'm just making the assumption that God didn't create humanity just to despise us. Mhmm.
• 24:55
  So in that moment, if that is truly a daughter of God, he is gonna come down and be with her Mhmm.
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: In that moment. He's gonna help her get by. Yeah. I love the idea. I heard a pastor suggest this one time, and this is a little bit off topic, but I like to picture Jesus walking alongside me in my day to day.
• 25:17
  If I'm in the car and there's nobody in the passenger seat, I like to imagine that Jesus is sitting in the passenger seat with me because it makes him more real. And maybe that's too weird for you. I don't know. But I find that it's comforting to me because I do believe that he's with me all the time. But that's hard.
• 25:36
  It's hard to, like, oh, there's this ethereal being floating about.
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: I was listening to this podcaster one time who says that she's in constant dialogue with Jesus. She's constantly just and it's nothing important. It's like while she's doing her makeup or while she's at work, while she's driving the car, just constantly, as if it was she's hanging out with a friend. And so it's not just this random dedicated time for prayer. You know, like, this is what I'm thankful for.
• 26:07
  This is what I'm asking for. Thank you for my meal. It's constant dialogue. It's a relationship with Jesus. And I think also mentally, that's good for you.
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I think Paul does talk about that. I can't remember the exact verse, but basically, like, being in constant communication with God. Pray without ceasing. That's the phrase.
• 26:26
  Yeah. But I also think that we lose that as I'm gonna say Baptist because that's how we grew up. But a lot of Protestant Christianity, because we do turn God into the lightning bolt God. And I will grant you, apparently, he is sometimes. But 99 times out of a 100, he's not.
• 26:49
  And when you turn god into the one who's just looking to punish you into the one who you're so disgusting and you're lucky he even looked at you. Well, I also feel like there's a level of respect
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: that and obviously, yes, respect to God. But they think that being in constant dialogue with God, like, talking about little trivial things or talking like you would to a friend to God seems disrespectful Because in some of, you think, very conservative Christians, too. The relationship between parent and child. Mhmm. You you just know your place, fall into line.
• 27:34
  You do not speak unless you're spoken to. You're just a child. And in some ways, that relationship gets put on, like, us and Jesus Mhmm. Too. There's a barrier.
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: Well, think of even in the way that we learn to pray. And I don't know if if this is how you guys learned to pray. But for us, it was like, okay. This is a formal situation. You start everything off with dear Jesus, and then you thank him for certain there's like a formula.
• 27:59
  Right? You thank him for certain things. And then you maybe get to ask for one thing. And then you thank him for more things. And then you say, and in Jesus name, amen.
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: But also let your will be done. But also this is what I want.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: But it's just as a formal situation of this is how we pray. Not just like, hey, God. I need you to be here with me in for a minute. That's how I prefer to talk
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: to God is just super casual. I also don't even start with, hey, God. I'm assuming he's already listening. I'm like, alright, bestie. Listen.
• 28:33
  You know. And and as you know, this is what's going on.
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: That's why I don't like to pray publicly ever. I never do. And I think a lot of people think it's because like, oh, she must not have very strong faith.
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: But it's because I don't I don't pray like that. And I don't want to. I don't wanna put on a show. And also, don't wanna add in 47 father gods into
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: that prayer? Yeah. I don't wanna do that. And it just feels very unnatural to me to start off with my dearest Lord. And bless this food to our bodies.
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: Jesus, same. Amen.
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: But I just that's I don't know. I think God sits with us is, I guess, the main message of all of that offshoot.
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: We took it. Just a little, woah. Yeah. Off the highway.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: So now we're back on.
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: We found our way back onto the highway. Wait. I think we, like, teleported here real quick.
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: Alright. What's our next story, Brie?
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: My next story is insane. Alright? It's cray cray. Okay? Like, Goldilocks and the three bears, but there were two bears.
• 29:40
  Is that a crazy story for you? It is gonna be soon.
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: So this one
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: is about Elisha Mhmm. Who was a prophet. And if you're not familiar, the Bible likes to confuse you. There's also an Elijah. Hate that.
• 29:58
  Elijah got sent up to heaven. He was also a prophet. Elisha took over. Picture it with me. This is second Kings two twenty three through 25, if you wanna pull out your Bible.
• 30:11
  Turn there with me. It says, because I'm great at reading. From there, Elisha went up to Bethel. As he was walking along the road, some boys came out of the town and jeered at him. Get out of here, Baldy.
• 30:26
  He turned around, looked at them, and called down a curse on them in the name of the Lord. Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled 42 of the boys. And he went to Mount Carmel. That sounds fun. And from there, returned to Samaria.
• 30:45
  Okay. Let's unpack. Let's unpack. Elisha -Mm on his way to Bethel. He encounters some boys.
• 30:55
  Mhmm. Now, different translations have different interpretations of this word boys. It could mean little children. It could mean youths. It could be boys.
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: But they were young. Mhmm.
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: And also, it's like a mob. It's a mob of them.
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: Well, there's a lot. There's at least 40 some
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: of them. Right? At least 42. So, it could refer to young men, adolescents, even a large group of rowdy youths. 42 is significant.
• 31:25
  42 in the Bible you see often come up as a prophetic number. Okay. Bethel. Bethel. Bethel.
• 31:32
  Is a town that was like a center of idol worship. It had a reputation for rejecting true prophets. So this teasing is happening in a place that was hostile to God and God's prophets. Right. So he's going to this place where he knows already that these people don't like me.
• 31:53
  And it's not gonna be a good time for me. But I'm going because God told me to.
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: It's kind of like a Jonah situation. Another
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: translation, instead of what we just read here, which says, get out of here, baldy. Okay. Baldy. That's hilarious. I know.
• 32:10
  Another translation says that the mob said, go up, you bald head. And they think that they were referring to Elijah Mhmm. When he went up to heaven. Yeah. So they're throwing things at him.
• 32:23
  Like, why don't you go up there too, you bald head?
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: That's such a that's what makes me think this is, like, more kids than anything. Yeah. That's hilarious.
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: You baldy. But then they get mauled by bears. Yeah. So basically, in some form or another, they're saying, why don't you disappear too? Get out of here.
• 32:46
  We don't want you. We're rejecting your message. Go home. Mhmm. So Elisha curses them, obviously, as you would to a bunch of youths.
• 32:54
  He curses them in the name of the Lord.
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: I need to start using this and find out if bears come out.
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: He doesn't just snap emotionally. He's using divine language. Right. He's fully knowing the power that he has. Mhmm.
• 33:09
  And lo and behold, bears two female bears come out and maul 42 of them. It doesn't say murder. It says maul. So at the very least, they're not doing so lot. No.
• 33:27
  And I've seen that movie. I think it's called backcountry. That's disturbing.
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I don't think you win with bears. Also, are bears common in, like, the Israel area?
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: I don't know. And maybe they were, like, protecting their cubs. I don't know. But two female two female bears came out and attacked them. 42 of them.
• 33:47
  Yeah. I don't
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: know what to do with that.
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: It could be a warning story.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: Mhmm.
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: Saying like, hey. This is my prophet. This is the truth. And if you disagree, guess what? Here comes the bears.
• 33:59
  But there's no resolve. That's it. That's how the story ends.
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: Mauling with bears. Yeah. I think this is a good one to talk about biblical literalism because and people are all over the spectrum with this concept. Whether you believe the Bible is all literal or whether you don't. And I think there needs to be some nuance there.
• 34:23
  I don't think there's yes, it's all literal or no, it all isn't. But this one, I just really have to wonder. Like, are we really bears? Bears. I have many questions.
• 34:37
  Too big, big bears. Like like Winnie the Pooh type bears? Or are we talking, like, when Merida's mom in Brave lost her humanity and then becomes a scary bear?
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: Why would Winnie the Pooh be in the bible? I don't know.
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: I was trying to think of bears. That's what came to mind.
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: He's a stuffed bear, and he wears a red shirt. Okay? And he's just interested in honey.
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah. But that might be better for the children. But it wasn't. Because can you imagine Winnie the Pooh coming and mauling you? Have you seen this is a major offshoot.
• 35:10
  Winnie the Pooh is now in the public domain because it's old enough that they've lost the copyright, and they made a horror movie with Winnie the Pooh. I didn't see it, but I know that it exists.
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: I know that it exists. I have not seen it. But can you imagine?
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: So maybe I'm not
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: that This far was based on that. It's hard
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: to even talk about this
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: one because it's like, what what do you do with it? Go up baldhead. And I've been saying that all week. Sometimes phrases or words get stuck in my head. Mhmm.
• 35:37
  Like how you would a song. And that phrase has been stuck in my head. Go up, bald head. I think
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: the Bible has a lot of instances where you see someone have too much power. And I understand that all the theologians in the world will be mad at me for saying this. But, like, I wonder if it's not, hey, this is a warning story or, hey, don't piss off my prophets or whatever. Maybe it's Elisha had the power of God. But Elisha is a human who got mad.
• 36:10
  Human. Who got mad. Who felt embarrassed. Who was maybe scared because he's in an area where he doesn't feel safe.
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: Why doesn't he just go to Turkey and take care of his bald head? We don't know. We don't know. We don't know that.
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: I wonder if perhaps this is more a story of being human than it is some big prophetic, okay, this is God stepping in. Because he has the power of God. So this is the Old Testament. This is pre Jesus, pre New Covenant. And God interacts with people differently in the Old Testament.
• 36:45
  He just does. And so there are several instances where someone has the power of God, and they kind of use it however. Not however they want, but, like, in ways that don't necessarily seem like, okay. God divinely said okay to this. I don't know.
• 37:03
  I just wonder.
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: You know? No. It it is a sticky, tricky, weird story where, yes, it could be a warning to, like, hey, respect my prophets.
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: Mhmm.
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: Or you get eaten. Or it could be
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: a story of, yeah,
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: if you have God in your heart, you have a lot of freaking power.
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: Mhmm.
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: You have the power to command the bears. But what will you do with that power, young Spider Man? Are you gonna use it for the for the good or the bad? Mhmm. And where do the bears come in?
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: Who knew? Who knew there were so many bears in the Bible? Not I. Okay. So the next story that I wanna talk about and I wasn't actually sure.
• 37:42
  I had to think back in my brain and wonder if we've told this story on the podcast before because I talked about it on TikTok. But I don't think we've talked about it on the podcast. If we have, go with me anyway. I'm a good time. So this story is about the daughters of Zelophehad.
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: Say that again for the people in the back.
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: The daughters of Zelophehad or possibly Zelophehad. And this is a story in Numbers. So again, very early in the bible. And this is less of a depressing story because, again, depressing. But it's really interesting and something that we never hear about.
• 38:22
  So basically, there's these five sisters. Their dad dies. And because of the way that inheritance laws work, worked for a very long time throughout history, women couldn't inherit land, money, livestock, etcetera. Very Pride and Prejudice. Quite.
• 38:43
  So their dad had some vast resources, but they're in big trouble now. There's five sisters. There's no sons. Which means all of this stuff, the
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: way that they grew up, all of their resources are going to somebody else. Do they even know? Like, is it gonna be mister Collins?
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: Probably. It's probably mister Collins.
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: And mister Collins has refused to propose to any of them.
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: So it's a rough time. Well, because mister Collins, I think, was a bear.
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: Wow. We're going off the rails. We've talked about what happens to women in this scenario. Right? Mhmm.
• 39:19
  You either get married or you become a prostitute. Those are your options. And now they don't have a father to go try and arrange marriages for them, which would have been the standard at the time. So they got nothing. And they're in big trouble.
• 39:34
  So they go to Moses, which I'm assuming would be a scary thing to do. Moses is their major leader. He has talked to God. I doubt a lot of women were approaching him to talk to him. Women are not valued in the society in the same way, much as we would love for them to be.
• 39:55
  So this would have been an intimidating situation. But they do, all five of them. They get together. They're like, we're doing this. We're going.
• 40:03
  They go to Moses. And they basically use patriarchal language against him in a way. Love that. Brie and I just saw a show about Ruth Bader Ginsburg. And she talked, not real Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the woman playing her, talked a lot about how she used men's rights to gain women's rights.
• 40:25
  She showed men how it would look if their rights were taken away, basically.
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: Or saying like, are you saying that as a man, you're not capable of doing x y z? Mhmm. Don't you think you should have the same rights as a woman? Mhmm.
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: So basically what they do is they say, why should our father's name be erased from history? Because he doesn't have any sons. So his family name goes away after this. Because if they do get married, they're gonna have children that are under other families' names. And so they're like, don't you want our family name to continue on?
• 41:01
  Like, that plays to the patriarchal instincts. Right?
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: Legacy. Yeah.
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: And so Moses doesn't dismiss them. He goes to God. Probably physically. Could be. And says like, well, what do you think about this?
• 41:17
  And God says, they're right.
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: That's bizarre that God would say that. I thought that he wanted patriarchy and complementarianism. I thought that's what the that's what the Christian church has taught me. Oh, no. And what's the point of this podcast?
• 41:40
  What the crap?
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: Bree's having a mental breakdown. Not to worry. We'll get it under control. This is not a story that you're hearing from the pulpit because it doesn't play to what the church wants you to hear.
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: It doesn't fit their narrative.
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: Right. Yeah. This story says that women went to god, you know, to the leader who went to god because they couldn't go directly to god at that time. About land ownership, about independence, about existing without a man. And God said they're right.
• 42:15
  God in Numbers said this. We're not talking about, okay, Jesus was progressive, etcetera. God in the book of Numbers. So the third book of the Bible?
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers.
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: Fourth book of the Bible. God says, no. Women have value on their own. Women don't just need men. That's freaking bizarre.
• 42:37
  I know. So strange. This story gets buried. And it has so much to it. It's got the sisterhood element.
• 42:47
  It's got going to God. It's got Mister Collins. It's got mister and there's five sisters exactly. I know.
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: That's quite a story.
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: This could be a big story. But VeggieTales isn't doing this story. No grapes. No grapes. Your pastor is not telling you this story.
• 43:07
  It's an important story. And when you erase it, you erase the meaning behind it. There are stories in the bible that have conveniently been left out. And when I tell these stories to people, when Brie tells these stories to people, they're like, I don't I've never heard that story. Are you sure that's in the bible?
• 43:27
  I it probably isn't. I don't think that's in the bible. People are constantly telling me, well, I I don't think that's there.
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: But it is. Here's the first. Let's look it up together.
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah. It's right here. Don't let them tell you what's in the bible and what's not. Don't let us tell you that.
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Go look it up. Because there have been definitely things that I've said wrong. But not this one.
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: Not this one.
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: Mister Collins is in the bible.
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: Maybe that one. Women are told in the church that their silence is how they are better Christians. Their faith is tied to their silence, their obedience, and their submission. Mhmm. God doesn't say that.
• 44:13
  God never says that. Paul maybe implies it sometimes if we read him wrong. God doesn't say that, and Jesus doesn't say that. Listen to God and Jesus. It's very simple.
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: Keep it simple, stupid. Do you think it's pronounced Uza or Uzzah?
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: Spell it. Uzzah, u z z a h. I would say Uzzah, but I I don't know.
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: U z z a h. We're gonna call him big ooze. And the ark of the covenant. Second Samuel six one through seven. I don't wanna read that whole thing.
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: It's a lot of verses. Yeah.
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: It's a lot of verses. So here's the deal. David was bringing the ark of the covenant over. David again brought together all the young men of Israel, 30,000 people. Good heavens.
• 45:09
  30,000 people David got together. Did he
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: send, like, a carrier pigeon?
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: Did you know what the Ark of the Covenant was? It was like a box, right,
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: with angels on top, and they had to carry it with so many people.
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: But did you know what was inside it and, like, why it was important?
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: I thought it was supposed to be, like, the spirit of God or something. Kind of.
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: It's supposed to show the promises of God. So the 10 commandments, like, the tablets were supposed to be in there. A jar of manna was supposed to be in there, which is like the bread that fell from the sky, which in my Sunday school class was represented by cotton balls. And I really wanted to eat them. And every time I see a cotton ball, I think of manna.
• 45:47
  Aaron's staff was in there, one that budded. Mhmm. So these are all, like, symbols of God. Mhmm. And God very specifically was like, okay, you have this box.
• 45:59
  You have this fancy thing. There's very specific rules on how I want you to handle it. The earlier instructions are in what we would call the Torah or in Numbers, the book of Numbers. It was never supposed to be on a cart. It was supposed to be carried by Levites specifically.
• 46:19
  It was supposed to be carried there was, like, little handle things on the side that you would shove a pole through. It was supposed to be carried on these two poles by Levites specifically on foot, not on a cart.
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: That is so complicated.
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: So many rules. Well, David had it on a cart. Mhmm. He wasn't following these rules. So they're bringing it up, all these 30,000 people.
• 46:43
  They're going across this bumpy road. Right? It starts to wobble. And big ooze reaches out to stabilize it. Not because he's trying to disrespect it.
• 46:56
  He's trying to keep it from falling. Mhmm. He is respecting it in some way. But you're never supposed to touch it.
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: Mhmm.
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: And that's in the rules too. And so Big Ooze dies. Yeah. And so David then has to backtrack, he's like, oh, crap. Fine.
• 47:14
  I guess we'll follow these rules. So then they had to go back and they had to readjust. They had to get those poles. They had to get the Levites, they had to walk this thing on foot
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: Mhmm.
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: To where they needed it to go, which was questionable. But that's just another one where it's like, I understand in some ways. Mhmm. I understand that God put together these very specific rules on how he wanted this box of sacraments handled. But he wasn't Igguze wasn't really disrespecting it.
• 47:48
  He was he was helping. Right. He was helping David bring this thing where it needed to go. And then he got zapped.
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: Your stories have a lot of zapping today.
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: All three of them, really. It's a
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: lot of violence. Yeah. I I'm telling you, all the problems in the Bible
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: are David's fault. I know. Yeah. It says after that happened, David paused everything. And they tried again.
• 48:12
  They followed the correct instructions. The ark was carried properly. And then there was celebration instead of death, except for the death
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: of Ooze. David is so impulsive. And every single freaking time, his life is a comedy of errors because he does something horrible. Other people suffer. It's never him.
• 48:33
  Other people suffer. And then he's like, ugh. Alright. I'll do the thing. But, like, a lot of people die.
• 48:42
  I wonder what the conversation was too when Big Ooze got to heaven. And he was like, what the crap? For real?
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: I was just following David's direction because if I didn't follow David's direction, I would have gotten zapped by David. Mhmm. And now, I'm getting zapped by God because of David anyways.
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: Yep. What the crap? I do believe, though, that he did go to heaven. That's my guessing. But I believe that he went to heaven and that god was like, okay.
• 49:13
  Here's why we had to do it this way. Mhmm. But then he got to be in heaven. So not so bad. You know?
• 49:20
  So true. Alright. Well, we've gone a little bit over time actually this time, which
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: Don't worry. There's plenty to cut.
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: Yay for us. Now next week, I kind of wanna pivot a little bit. Now I wanna come back to this series because there's a lot of really I don't wanna say good stories in this vein. There's stories. There's stories.
• 49:39
  There's a lot of stories. And I think it's good for us all to learn about them and know about them because I didn't know about all these. But from some comments we've gotten recently and just the vibe of the world, I wanna do an episode on, like, here's how to walk with god.
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: There's a song there. Is there? He walks with me and talks with me. Don't remember. Just because I think it's so easy
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: with the way the world is today to lose your faith. And I can't even blame people. Because if I'm looking at what the church is doing right now, I'd be out too. But I kind of wanna just go over, like, I don't know, the goodness of God and why what we see is not God.
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: Do you want me to sing that song?
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh. Are you
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: gonna sing another song? Okay. Hear me out. I love that idea. Okay.
• 50:39
  Yes. Let's talk about the goodness of God and walking with God And that poem that says, like, when there was only one set of footsteps, that's where you carried me. That's it.
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: Alright. So we'll do that next week. Think of this as your slight reprieve from horror and destruction and bears. Mostly bears. Mostly bears.
• 51:00
  Who knew? Go tell somebody that this week. Tell them that a bunch of kids got mauled
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: by bears in the bible because of Elisha. In god's name. Yeah.
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: And see how they react. See what their thoughts are. I would love to know. Come back and tell us.
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: I actually told that story to my coworker today. I was like, so I have to go home and record a podcast. Can I tell you something about bears? She was like, I've never heard that story.
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: I don't think anyone's ever heard that story. That's a weird story. Mom did. So tune in for that next week. Tell your friends.
• 51:35
  Follow us on social media. All the things.
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: If you know anybody from anywhere who needs two sisters to talk about faith and feminism, get them our podcast. Give it to them.
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: Hand it to them physically.
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: It'll be exciting. Download it onto a floppy disk. No. An iPod. Oh, man of them.
• 51:55
  Yeah. Alright. Do that thing.
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: Okay. Love you. Bye. Bye.