Latest / We Are More: Sisters Talk Faith & Feminism / Ep. 2: Our Strong Biblical Sisters

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Ep. 2: Our Strong Biblical Sisters · We Are More: Sisters Talk Faith & Feminism

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Welcome to the We Are More podcast.
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My name is Alyssa.
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And my name is Bri.
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We are two sisters passionate about all things faith and feminism.
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We believe that Jesus trusted, respected, and encouraged women to teach and preach His
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word.
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And apparently that's controversial.
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Get comfy.
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Hi and welcome back to the We Are More podcast.
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I'm Alyssa and this is my sister Bri.
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Hello, you're welcome.
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If you tuned in last time, thank you so much.
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And I hope you enjoyed hearing our stories.
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If you didn't, you should go back and listen to that because we're kind of funny.
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Today we are going to be talking about the forgotten women of the Bible.
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We're just going to kind of go into a few of them.
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Let me tell you, there's a shocking amount of them.
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There are a lot.
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I'm looking at that book and that's a big book.
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In my lap is literally a book about every listed woman in the Bible, pretty much.
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And there's just pages upon pages upon pages.
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So we're going to talk about a few of them today and why their stories are important.
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And I'm sure this will be an ongoing series that we come back to and go in more in depth
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with.
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Yeah, that's a little bit of what we're doing today.
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So what kind of inspired this for me was today I was listening to a sermon.
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I looked up, I don't know if you all have heard of Junia in the Bible.
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If you haven't, she's one that we will definitely touch on if not today soon.
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And I wanted to find a sermon on Junia and she, it just didn't exist.
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Like, all of YouTube, there were some, um, like some documentary style pieces.
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There was one sermon and it was from this church.
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I believe it's called beachfront church in California, which sounds like a beautiful
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church.
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It sounds great.
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Do you think that their windows just all face the ocean?
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If they don't, that's a sin.
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God's gonna smite them.
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But it was about, and it, you know, I don't think the pastor was necessarily giving like
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this strong feminist message or anything like that, but he was just talking about these
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women that we don't talk about in the Bible.
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And I'm not a crier and I was like tearing up because it was just like, oh my gosh, someone's
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talking about them.
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I'm hearing the word she in a sermon and that never happens.
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We hear about Paul and Abraham and Noah and James and John.
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And I mean, every Sunday, how many sermons have you heard on Paul?
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I think it's one of those things too, that you don't notice until you start hearing the
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word she.
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And then you're like, that sounds a little abnormal to me in church, in a church setting.
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Yeah.
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Which is heartbreaking.
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She think of how many women are sitting there and they've been erased.
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We've been erased.
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So I got emotional.
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You know, you can weep if you need to.
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In my car, in the pickup line.
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It's okay to have an emotional moment.
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I cry literally all the time.
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You do.
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Did you cry today yet?
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I think we may have even spoken about this in the last podcast.
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How much you weepier.
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You are weepy.
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The baby.
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So one of the things that Bree and I talked about is, like I said, how little women are
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spoken about in church.
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And we talked a little bit about Mother's Day because Mother's Day is well known as
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the one time that you may be here like Mary preached about.
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You might hear Eve preached about for a hot minute.
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But even within that, that it always comes back to men.
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And it'll be like, well, we'll talk about Mary for a minute.
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But you know, she's not that interesting.
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So really what we're going to talk about is...
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I think they said something along the lines of like, how can men appreciate the women
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in their lives or the women in the Bible and how should they respond from a male perspective?
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And on this woman's story rather than like, let the woman's story shine.
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Women are important because they're women.
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Or because they are daughters of God.
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Yeah, it always has to circle back to how can men respond to this instead of just like,
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yeah, here's her story.
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It was amazing.
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Wasn't she amazing?
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And leave it at that.
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That kind of reminds me of that one church service.
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And it was the sermon on like Jesus and women and both of us really ten stop.
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And all of a sudden we like our shoulders dropped and we like physically you heard like
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this sigh of ah, when he didn't say like, oh, because you're a woman, here's what you
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have to do here.
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There's the rules that you have to obey.
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It was like, you're a woman and Jesus loves you and you are amazing and you were created
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in the image of God and you are beautiful and wonderful.
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Drop the mic.
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That's it.
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And he was on stage.
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Literally the end of this message was he kind of said all of those things and he said, and
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that's all I want to say.
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And then he left.
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And the congregation you could tell there was like this, you're waiting for a butt.
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Yeah, there was an unease because I think anytime women are spoken about, you have to
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bring in the power dynamic.
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Pastors love to tell women, well, yeah, but you're secondary.
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Well, yeah, but he's in charge of you.
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Jesus loves you, but submit to your husband.
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Just not as much.
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There's always a like, you're a great butt.
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And I think the whole congregation was waiting for that in different ways.
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You know, there's people like us that were just absolutely in love with hearing great
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things about women of the Bible with no caveats.
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And then there were people that were sitting there like, hey, you didn't tell women to
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submit this time, right?
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My wife is going to lose her mind.
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Who's going to make my sandwich?
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Ah!
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Is it, I mean, that's the reality for so many Christian women is your husband is supposed
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to be in charge.
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He's supposed to be the leader.
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And yet you have to treat him like a tiny baby.
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It's really annoying and weird.
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One of the things that the pastor from the beachy church, I don't think you can say that,
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the sandy church.
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Beach front.
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Beachy church.
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They can't see your facial expressions.
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Someday we'll film this and then you can see her face.
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It's funny.
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My wrinkles.
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I don't know that we'll film that close.
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My haggard appearance.
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Maybe they'll see your increasing gray hairs.
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That'll be fun.
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We'll have like a time lapse.
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How long does it take before she comes all gray?
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Depends on how often you dye your hair.
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But one of the things that the pastor from the beach front church said at the beginning
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of this really lovely message was that we often relegate the stories of women in the
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Bible to women's ministry.
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So we only talk about even the main characters, Ruth and Esther, who have literally their
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own books of the Bible.
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We don't talk about them in main church.
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We maybe talk about them at a women's retreat.
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We maybe talk about them in a women's Bible study, but we very strictly don't speak about
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them in front of men.
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And he said, he, I mean, he didn't say that stupid.
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I'm saying that stupid.
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He said, men, the women of the Bible have something to teach you too.
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I think that's so critical.
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You know, like if I have to learn stuff from all the men of the Bible who let me tell you
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are not perfect men, like they're not always great.
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I hate to break this to you, but they're not all perfect.
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Like we were talking about this just a little while ago about Joseph and I want to be honest,
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Joseph was really annoying.
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If you like really put him into real life experience, like he's your little brother.
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He's a menace.
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Oh yeah.
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He's a menace and a stinker.
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His father goes to the rest of his brothers and he's like, I like that one the best.
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I'll get the rest of you.
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I'm going to take you on a shopping spree.
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I'm going to get you nothing.
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I'm going to spend all my money on a fancy coat for my precious little boy.
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Like of course they hate him.
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And then he came to them with his dreams and he's like, you're all going to bow down to
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me.
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I hate that kid too.
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I know.
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I'm just thinking of like, if that was our little brother, I would, Brandon, I'm so sorry,
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smack you in the face.
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But the thing is like, I think that's okay to say.
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I'm sure that we're going to get crap for this if people are listening.
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I think the story still has value, but I think if you put it in real life context, like make
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it feel real to you.
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Yeah.
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He was a little bit of a stinker.
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And again, his brothers, you know, they kind of overreacted.
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They did sell him into slavery.
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That may have been a slight overreaction.
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The little is better.
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I've never sold you.
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That's a positive.
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You're welcome.
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Or Brandon.
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We don't know where Brandon is.
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But I didn't sell him.
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But like, I think it's okay to talk about Bible characters because they're not characters.
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Like talk about the people of the Bible and the real life reality of their situation.
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And Joseph was an annoying little kid.
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I mean, that's what he was for a lot of his story.
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But I can still learn from him to circle this back to the main point.
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Bringing it back around.
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As women, like we can still learn from him.
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So the stories of the women of the Bible and as I'm reading through so many of them, like
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they're not all perfect.
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There's a lot of stuff in here.
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That is not what we're saying.
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But men can still learn from their stories.
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Perfect, imperfect, whatever it is.
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So we have to stop relegating their stories to the five person women's Bible study that
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happens on Tuesday nights.
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Or a women's retreat where really the goal is embroidery.
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No.
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I've never been on a women's retreat.
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What do they do?
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Someone's going to invite you to a women's retreat now.
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Pass.
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So I feel like we should start talking about what two women did you pick, Alyssa?
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I really like their names.
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So our brother, we have a brother, we've referenced him that we have kept around thus far.
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We've kept around who we haven't sold him.
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Nope.
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Brandon.
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So Brandon picked up this book for us called All the Women of the Bible.
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And first of all, I think that's really cool.
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We've gotten a lot of support from our family in doing this podcast.
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And I wasn't sure what the overall reaction would be.
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Because we do come from a very conservative background.
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Now they haven't listened to it yet.
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Well, we haven't posted it yet.
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We haven't posted it.
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As of right now.
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So we'll see how that goes.
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But so far, everyone's been really encouraging and helpful.
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And I thought it was really sweet of Brandon to get this for us.
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But it literally start to finish lists every single woman referenced in the Bible, even
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if they weren't named.
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So like this one is Rebecca's mother.
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One of them is the great harlot, which is exciting.
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That's my tattoo.
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I hate family members.
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I actually don't have any tattoos.
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Pilots wife, Potiphar's wife, a lot of them are listed as wife or daughter.
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They're still in here.
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Because even though the authors of that part of the text didn't feel the need to name them,
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their story was still significant enough to tell.
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Exactly.
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So I think we'll use this book quite a lot.
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It's a really helpful reference.
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Thanks Brandy Cakes.
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But I picked two women that we wanted to talk about today.
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Actually, I've got like a list of like seven.
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Yeah, but you get two today.
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Oh, what if we what if we are under time?
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Can I then go?
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Because I'm going to tell a huge story about Deborah.
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You are very excited about it.
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Big Deb.
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So the first one I wanted to look at is Pua.
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Now not from Moana, Brianna.
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Not from Moana.
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Oh copyright.
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Sorry.
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Pua.
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So if you've never heard of her, that's okay, because I hadn't heard of her until we were
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downstairs eating tacos and I was researching for this.
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But she along with another woman named Shifra, and if I am butchering these pronunciations,
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someone who speaks ancient Aramaic will have to come yell at me.
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I like that word Aramaic.
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Thank you.
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Wow.
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I took a Bible class once.
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You are very learned.
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Thank you.
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So anyway, these two women, they were Hebrew midwives in Egypt, right around when Moses
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was about to be born.
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And so the Pharaoh at the time, if you don't know the story, had basically said, all right,
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we're going to kill all of the Hebrew baby boys.
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And I hate, I literally hate even saying that.
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I have a little boy and it just shatters everything in my soul to put that into reality and think
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of what these mothers and fathers were dealing with.
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Yeah, making the Bible real too is a little bit traumatizing.
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It is, especially, I mean, the early Bible, the Old Testament is rough.
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So anyway, they were midwives.
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And the Pharaoh had ordered all of the Hebrew baby boys killed.
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And so what he ordered specifically Pua and Shephara to do, because they were midwives,
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he said, all right, when you get there, when the mom is having the baby, look at it first.
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And if it's a boy, kill it.
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And if it's a girl, let it live.
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And I mean, first of all, can you imagine getting that order from the Pharaoh?
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I mean, this is the king, like you got to be scared of him, right?
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These midwives, I can't imagine the midwives are being called to Pharaoh a whole lot.
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Their whole job is to bring babies into the world and he's telling them to take them out.
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That's insane.
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Well, and they're Hebrew, so they're already like in slavery.
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They're already dealing with all that.
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And now what?
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And I mean, you got to think too, if you do what Pharaoh says, maybe he'll give you money.
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Maybe he'll free your family.
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So there's a lot of conflict there.
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But what these two women did was basically, basically not do it.
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They believed in God.
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They wanted to follow God.
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And they said, we're not doing this.
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We know that God's promises are on their way.
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So we're not doing this.
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And Pharaoh caught on, as you do.
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He heard it through the great by?
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He did, probably.
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I won't sing that song either.
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Please don't.
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Copyright.
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And he called them again and he was like, Hey, what's going on?
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Baby boy just run down the street.
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I thought I told you.
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And they said, I love this lie.
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Okay.
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So the lie that they came up with and I want, did they plan it?
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Was this just obviously not, was like, words are coming out of my mouth and there's no
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filter.
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And they said, no, no, no, Pharaoh, you don't understand these Hebrew women, they're built
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different.
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We get there.
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Baby's already shot out.
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One good person.
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Whoa.
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The Egyptian women, it takes them all day, but the Hebrew women, they're strong.
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They just push them out.
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And the Bible doesn't say how Pharaoh responded to that.
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Like, I mean, he was a man.
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He, at this time, men were not present for birth.
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Maybe he didn't know.
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He didn't know where they came from.
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Maybe not.
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So it doesn't say how Pharaoh reacted to that, but he didn't kill them.
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He didn't quite catch on.
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No, he, so they, you know, went their own way and God blessed them and gave them families
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of their own.
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Now that didn't fix the whole situation.
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Pharaoh still went after the baby boys again and successfully the next time, unfortunately.
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But I thought that this story was so impactful because so much of the Old Testament is death.
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So much death.
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And a lot of names I can't pronounce.
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Yeah, that's in the New Testament too.
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But these women brought life.
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They literally potentially saved the Hebrew population.
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Like, when you really pull it into context, if they hadn't done what they did, potentially
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an entire generation of Jewish men would not have existed, which leads to King David, which
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leads to Jesus.
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So what they did is save God's people so that Jesus could be born and save humanity.
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Right.
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Oh, Pua.
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And Shifra.
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We can't forget her.
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Oh, Shifra.
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She's important too.
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But Pua is more fun to say.
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And if you're wondering where this is in the Bible, because I think it's important to references,
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it's Exodus 1, 15 through 21.
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And they are named, both of them are named, which I think is very cool.
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They're just so impactful.
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And I literally had never heard of these women before.
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I literally did not know that Pua was a biblical name.
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Okay, you know in Beth Allison's, Beth Allison Bar's book, where she's talking about the
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surrounded by a cloud of female witnesses, you're always going to have a Pua by you.
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Surrounded by a cloud of female witnesses, including Pua.
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I just think it's really cool to like bring light to these women that, I mean, how, if
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you pulled the whole world right now, there's somebody talking about Paul in the whole world.
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There's somebody talking about Peter James John, Matthew.
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Exactly.
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Yeah.
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How many people are talking about these women?
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Definitely not Pua.
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You have to get over the name.
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Let's just take a minute and thank Pua.
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And Shifra.
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It's just an incredible impact.
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And I think you could do a whole sermon, even though it's six verses.
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It's not a lot.
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People have done a sermon on a lot less, I would say.
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Do you want me to do my other woman before you do Debra?
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Well, I think Debra is going to take us out with a bang.
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So maybe you should just start.
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Or maybe.
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They're right.
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That's going to say take us out with a ten stake.
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But it wasn't even Debra.
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It wasn't Debra, but it was a bang.
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We're going out with a hammer.
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Alright, so the next woman I have affectionately named Salami.
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I think it's pronounced Sal-o-me.
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But I'm going to be honest, I don't know.
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But I'm going to be honest, I'm more accustomed to Salami.
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Alright, Salami it is.
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Again, the people that speak Aramaic, they can come for us.
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You're so learned.
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Brie, if only you had gone to chapel in college like four times.
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I took a religion class.
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I do not remember Pula.
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I had to take four.
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Pula was not in our religion class.
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I think I took four.
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We had to take biblical hermeneutics.
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I don't even know.
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Is that anything to do with the harmonica?
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Yeah.
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We just played the harmonica and said biblical over and over.
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And hymns.
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And hymns.
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Old testament and new testament.
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Oh, there was another one too.
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I don't remember what it was.
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You guys were a little bit more religious than me.
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Yeah, like two whole years more religious.
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Anyway, so Salami.
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She was the wife of Zebedee.
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She was also the mother of James and John who were some of the disciples.
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And it's thought that she might have been the sister of Mary, Jesus' mother.
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I think that's unconfirmed, but it's kind of a theory.
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So she may have also been Jesus' aunt.
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So we'll talk about this a lot over time, but there was a group of women that followed
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Jesus along with the disciples.
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Like came with him everywhere he went.
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Climbed up the mountains, got in the boats, sat in the crowd while he was preaching, all
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the stuff.
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And that, learning that on its own was like world changing for me.
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Yeah.
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Oh yeah, groundbreaking.
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Because that's just never ever spoken about.
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I'm just thinking about like the philanographs at church.
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And you just have your 12 disciples in your mind.
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That's what's like my internal picture.
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Yeah.
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But there were a lot of women and they're talked about in the Bible.
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It's not like they were making this up or they've disappeared or anything.
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They're definitely in the Bible and spoken about.
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And she was one of them.
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So imagine her walking alongside, you know, as Jesus is feeding the 5,000 in the Garden
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of Gethsemane and you know, all these major moments.
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Women are there too.
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I think that's really cool.
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She also helped Mary Magdalene bring spices to the tomb of Jesus.
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She was there when Jesus returned after he had died.
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And he told these women like, hey, I'm back.
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Guess who's back?
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I'm sure you can't do that.
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And so she also went to the male disciples and told them what they had seen.
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And of course, as the story goes, they didn't believe them and just had to come back and
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prove it.
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But I think she's super interesting.
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Her character is really interesting because she went to Jesus and I had always heard this
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story told as James and John went to Jesus and said, hey, we want to sit at your right
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and left hand sides in heaven.
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Turns out it was her.
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She was being told.
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She was a mom.
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Now you can fault her for that for sure.
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She was being human.
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She was being human and she was going to Jesus whose message like she was trying to understand
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but you have to remember that like, this is all very new to them.
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Jesus' ministry wasn't that long.
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So this is very new to them still.
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And she wants the best for her kids.
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And so she goes up to them and she says, hey, can they sit on your left and right side?
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And I just picture them like hiding behind her like clothes, like peeking around.
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We're like, Jesus, can we please?
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Mom said.
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Someone's going to get mad at you for that.
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It's okay.
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But that's just sort of, you know, you bring humanity into it.
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And that's what I picture is just like, they're kind of standing cowering behind her because
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they want this question to be asked.
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So they asked their mom to do it.
25:22
But also that shows the incredible faith that she had for Jesus.
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Not knowing all of the stuff that like we know, but now and what he's gone through and
25:33
whatever like she believed he's going to be up there in heaven.
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And I want my kids to be up there too.
25:38
Well, and think about, you know, when Jesus went in and chose his disciples, we kind of
25:43
picture him just like walking around town pointing at people and be like, you and you
25:48
and you and he picked both of her sons.
25:52
Now I don't know how many kids she has.
25:54
It doesn't say, but Jesus was going to take two of her sons with him.
25:59
And instead of being like, ah, that's a bummer or well, good luck.
26:05
Here's a packed lunch.
26:06
She picked up her life.
26:09
She's like me too.
26:11
She said, bye friends, bye house.
26:13
I'm going to go live a pauper's life and follow around this guy that I don't know a whole
26:19
lot about.
26:20
That's incredible.
26:21
That's incredible.
26:22
And to do that as a woman who was not going to be appreciated for it, not going to be
26:29
celebrated for it.
26:30
She's not going to have her own book of the Bible.
26:33
No, I mean, her name isn't known.
26:36
For some people it is.
26:37
I'm not saying no one's ever heard of her, but I think a lot of people have heard the
26:40
name Salami.
26:41
Yes.
26:42
It goes good with a charcuterie board.
26:46
Remakes of my Salami Rose.
26:48
Yes.
26:49
I've seen a TikTok.
26:50
Proud of you.
26:51
And I just think that's really cool.
26:53
I think she is one of many of the women that followed Jesus around faithfully with the
27:00
disciples with Jesus and that Jesus valued just as much because he wouldn't have let
27:05
them come along.
27:06
He would have said, no, you stay.
27:09
You can do work here.
27:10
You know, whatever.
27:11
You can stay here.
27:12
They didn't do that.
27:13
Your job is best at home.
27:15
Right.
27:16
Like that was never said to these women.
27:17
No, it was like, come follow me.
27:20
I'll teach you how to be fishers of men.
27:23
And women.
27:24
And women.
27:25
And I wish that I was a fisher of men.
27:30
In a different context.
27:33
All right.
27:35
That's all I have.
27:39
I have a, like I said, I have a list of seven other women so we can go into them later.
27:43
Let's hear about Deb.
27:44
Let's hear about the story of Big Debra.
27:51
So Debra, I just thought was really funny because I never really thought about it as
27:57
a biblical name.
27:58
Like Debbie.
27:59
Debbie doesn't sound biblical to me.
28:02
I'm gonna guess no one ever called her Debbie.
28:05
I am now.
28:09
Debra and JL.
28:11
You can find their stories in Judges chapters four and five.
28:16
But pretty much, have you ever heard of like the Gen Z version of the Bible that's been
28:21
going around right now?
28:22
They have their own version?
28:23
I want a version.
28:25
Yeah.
28:26
But with their slang words.
28:27
Oh no.
28:28
Essentially, it's what I created here.
28:31
So let's get into it.
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The beginning.
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Okay.
28:36
The Israelites are crying out to the Lord for help.
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They're saying help us.
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We want to be free.
28:41
Help us.
28:42
Debra was leading the Israelites at the time between Ramah and Bethel who were two men.
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So I think it's pretty significant that she was up there also leading Israel.
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Also in the middle.
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In the middle.
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Yeah sandwiched in between.
28:59
But like the middle is kind of the most important if you think of thrones.
29:03
You put the king in the middle.
29:05
The queen and the princess on the side.
29:08
They're so right.
29:09
Sorry.
29:10
Get back into your Gen Z flow.
29:13
Let me get back into this flow.
29:16
Ramah means hill or height and Bethel means house of God.
29:22
Debra means bee like a buzz buzz.
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Like she's putting in the work.
29:29
You go, Deb.
29:30
Debra was a judge.
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So the Israelites would go to her to have their disputes reconciled and taken care of
29:38
whatever.
29:39
But Debra was also I believe like a prophet.
29:42
So she was trying to set Israel free from the Canaanites.
29:48
So she told this guy Barak, not our president.
29:51
It's not currently our president anyway.
29:55
Different Barak.
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But she said the Lord said to take an army up to Mount Tabor.
30:02
Tabor?
30:03
Tabor?
30:04
Girl do I look like I speak all the languages?
30:07
And keep saying something about Aramaic.
30:09
I don't know.
30:10
We'll title this episode Aramaic.
30:13
Take the army up to Mount Tabor and shoalade the enemy to him or something along those
30:19
lines and that will help set the Israelites free.
30:22
But this guy Barak was like pass.
30:25
Thank you.
30:27
He's like I'll go if you go Bee but I also won't go if you don't go.
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That's what the Bible says.
30:34
The Bible says that word for word?
30:37
Go but similar.
30:42
So she said fine I'll go but because you're not trusting God the way that you should the
30:48
honor of this will not be yours.
30:50
It will actually be to a woman.
30:54
And so Barak was like bet.
30:56
No, no, no.
30:58
You're a millennial.
30:59
Stop that.
31:00
So Barak went into battle with 10,000 men and most likely also women.
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And Deborah, our main bee, was right alongside him.
31:13
She was a warrior.
31:14
Proud of her.
31:15
Yes.
31:16
And in chapter 4 verse 14 it said then Deborah said to Barak go this is the day the Lord has
31:23
given you.
31:24
Go.
31:25
Yeah.
31:26
She says some other things too but Barak's like okay so lots of events happen.
31:32
There's lots of names.
31:33
Judges are unclear to me.
31:34
It's just full of a lot of names.
31:37
But Barak was pursuing the enemy and he was taking them out with the Lord's help obviously
31:42
but there's one guy named Sisera.
31:44
Um Alyssa you looked it up.
31:47
It was Sisera is the Suppliant Commander.
31:51
Yes for the Canaanite army.
31:52
I don't know 100% what that means.
31:54
Okay.
31:55
For the Canaanite army.
31:57
So he ran off on foot and he stumbles upon Jayel's tent.
32:01
Also a woman.
32:03
Also a woman.
32:04
And she was the wife of Heber the Canite.
32:09
Okay here's where I have no idea what I'm saying with the names.
32:14
Who can pronounce those?
32:16
But there were some kind of alliance between him and that family so he felt safe with Jayel
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and he's like hide me woman!
32:23
And so she's like come in here come be safe I will hide you.
32:27
And then she like hides him under this blanket.
32:30
She's like be safe.
32:33
Tap tap.
32:34
And he's like okay woman I'm thirsty!
32:37
I've been fighting all day!
32:39
Get me some drink wench!
32:43
So she gets him a drink and then she tucks him back safely under the blanket and gives
32:47
him a little pat pat you're safe!
32:49
And he's like go and guard the door!
32:51
Guard the door!
32:52
Obviously.
32:53
Because I'm scared!
32:54
And she's like don't worry about it.
32:57
He's like if anyone asks if like I'm around here tell them I'm not here.
33:01
Lie to them.
33:02
And she's like okay I will wink wink like a big wink.
33:06
And he falls asleep.
33:07
Of course he did.
33:08
He's an idiot.
33:09
He's an idiot and he could probably pass out anywhere.
33:13
And meanwhile he's sleeping she grabs a tent stake and a hammer and she thump thump thump
33:23
drives it into his temple and kills him.
33:25
Did he wake up halfway through this?
33:28
Girl I don't know the bible doesn't say that but it does say a hammer and a tent stake.
33:33
Imagine that.
33:34
No thank you.
33:35
And so then Barak comes back around and he's like hey have you seen Cicero?
33:39
And she's like oh you know what I think I did see him.
33:43
Come over here I think I'll bring you to him come here.
33:46
And they go into her tent and he's there with a tent stake.
33:49
I choked.
33:50
In his head!
33:51
Ow!
33:54
I just want to understand.
33:58
She didn't feel the need to explain to Barak that like yeah I murdered him he did.
34:04
You'd think she would be all like high on energy or something.
34:06
Nope she's chill.
34:07
She's like oh yeah I'll show you to her.
34:09
This is at least the fifth person she's staked.
34:13
She was actually a serial killer.
34:16
But then so yay JL killed that guy and that ultimately led to liberation of Israel from
34:24
the Canaanites.
34:25
And at the end in chapter 5 Deborah, big Deb our main B, and Barak celebrate in a big musical
34:34
number.
34:36
The bible's big on musical numbers.
34:39
Lots of musical numbers.
34:41
And that's the story of Deborah and JL.
34:43
When we get to heaven can we ask them to perform it for us?
34:46
Can you do the play?
34:47
Please?
34:48
We'd like to see it.
34:49
Do you have that tent stake with you?
34:52
Didn't you say too that it's like one of the hymns?
34:56
Oh when I was reading because you said that it ended in some kind of song so I'm like
35:01
looking for this song before I got to chapter 5 obviously where it's nothing but a song.
35:06
But in verse 14 when she's like go this is the day that the Lord has given you it reminded
35:13
me of the hymn like this is the day that the Lord has made I will rejoice and be glad in
35:17
it buddy.
35:18
But how cool.
35:19
How cool.
35:20
Their story is very cool.
35:21
I mean you think about the women that are preached about and they are not preached as
35:25
like warriors and strong fighters, killers, judges like they are intense.
35:34
But women in churches now are told to be like mild mannered and soft and mean.
35:39
But that's obviously not what God is calling us to be.
35:44
Well it's not.
35:46
I mean I read a lot of these women and I'll read more.
35:50
Not one of them that was celebrated was quiet, mild mannered, just serving her husband and
35:57
doing nothing else.
35:58
Staying in her lane.
35:59
None of them.
36:01
They were strong and honestly even culturally they had to be strong.
36:07
It was a patriarchal society but they were going through some stuff.
36:12
They were putting in the work.
36:14
And you look at these women and why had we never heard of them?
36:18
Just like reading her story I could just like hear all of like the drumbeats of the war
36:24
and all of that and I'm like wow these are powerful women and I did not know this story
36:29
before.
36:30
Well think about like you said that pastors have done sermons on less than six verses.
36:36
This isn't six verses this is like a full chapter, two chapters in Judges and I mean
36:42
I would guess that a huge part of our audience would have never heard of either of these
36:48
women.
36:49
Well maybe the pastors aren't putting it in their sermons because they can't pronounce
36:53
all the names that are mentioned.
36:55
That's because I edited out almost all of them.
36:57
Deborah is pretty easy.
36:59
Big Deb.
37:01
Big Deb.
37:02
They could just start calling her Debbie and then it would be fine.
37:05
They'd be like oh yeah we have a Debbie in our congregation.
37:10
And she's right over there.
37:13
Debbie's like this isn't about me.
37:19
Even like we said the major women of the Bible you hear so rarely about and people like Bathsheba
37:27
you'll hear her mentioned in David's story.
37:30
She's like a side character and she's we'll do a whole thing on her because I have words.
37:40
She's treated like I have words.
37:42
Yeah we're on a podcast you have nothing but words.
37:45
I have a lot of words.
37:48
But she's treated pretty badly in history.
37:51
I mean really she's treated like she's the one that screwed up David's life and without
37:58
her he would have been just fine when really that's not at all the story.
38:03
And we said we'll come to that.
38:05
But as Bathsheba's life went on she had huge influence.
38:11
Like she ruled alongside David and had major influence over the Israeli people.
38:18
We're not talking about that.
38:19
That's not even part of her story that we reference.
38:22
I hate that.
38:24
Because she turned really a very tragic life into power, authority, influence for God.
38:35
She took those lemons and she said I'm making sorbet.
38:41
Yes in the desert she made some of that.
38:43
Can you imagine how delicious that would be?
38:45
In the desert?
38:46
Yeah.
38:47
She made sorbet.
38:48
But I think we just need to talk about these women whether they're powerful and strong
38:57
and warriors or whether they are...
39:00
Like we talked earlier about Lot's wife.
39:03
She's held up as very much the... if you don't know the story of Lot and his wife, Lot was
39:09
living in Sodom and Gomorrah.
39:13
Which was this horrible sinful town, right?
39:18
And I don't know what they were doing.
39:21
I don't wanna know.
39:23
Bad stuff.
39:24
Think about that like island in Pinocchio.
39:28
I assume.
39:29
Lot worse.
39:30
And Lot came...
39:35
I read about this today.
39:37
Lot came from somewhere else into Sodom and Gomorrah.
39:41
So he wasn't... that's not where his family was, that's not where his home was.
39:45
But Lot's wife was from that.
39:47
That's where she grew up.
39:48
That's where her family was.
39:49
That's where her whole life was, right?
39:52
And God told Lot I'm going to destroy this city.
39:56
It's so sinful.
39:57
I'm going to destroy it.
39:58
Much like the flood.
40:00
Old testament is rough.
40:01
Wrathful God.
40:02
Let's take it out.
40:06
And so they flee.
40:07
And God tells them don't look back.
40:11
She does.
40:13
And so she gets turned into a pillar of salt.
40:15
Which is a unique punishment.
40:17
I'm thinking Anna from Frozen but salt.
40:22
You know we hold her up as this pillar of sin.
40:29
Of sin and not having faith in God, right?
40:35
Again, we just take all... that takes the humanity out of it.
40:40
She was a person.
40:42
She did not grow up believing in the Israelite God.
40:48
We don't know what her religious situation was.
40:51
The Israelite God wouldn't have been as impactful to her as it would be for someone like Lot.
40:58
And who actually was a terrible person in general.
41:03
But of course she looked back.
41:07
Her whole family.
41:08
Her whole family.
41:09
Her whole life.
41:10
Of course she looked back.
41:13
And was that sinful?
41:14
Sure.
41:15
Did she get punished for it?
41:17
Obviously.
41:18
She was a person.
41:20
And we really like to especially take women and any flaws that they have, turn them into
41:27
villains in the Bible.
41:29
Magnify it.
41:30
Yeah.
41:31
I mean look at Bathsheba.
41:32
Look at her.
41:34
Look at Job's wife.
41:36
We just... we don't do it to the men.
41:39
We like to forget about their sins and to forgive them.
41:42
But the women we eternally punish.
41:47
So we'll talk about them.
41:48
We'll talk about their stories.
41:49
Yeah.
41:50
And I think putting it into real life context.
41:52
Like you said, that was her home.
41:54
That she grew up in her whole life.
41:56
Her family.
41:57
Think about that in your situation.
42:01
Your home with all your pictures and all your memories and all your kids and all your family
42:05
members.
42:06
And it's being destroyed.
42:10
Would you look back?
42:11
And I mean the story doesn't say the woman stopped, turned, and ran back towards the
42:17
flames.
42:18
She just glanced over her shoulder.
42:22
Probably with tears in her eyes.
42:23
She's terrified.
42:24
Right.
42:25
And she became soaked.
42:29
So yeah, moving forward, let us know what kind of women in the Bible that you want to
42:33
know about.
42:35
Some people or stories that you're interested in.
42:37
Remember we're learning alongside you.
42:41
So give us grace.
42:42
Give us grace.
42:43
That's the M
42:46
That was song.
42:47
I made that one up.
42:48
But this has been fun.
42:49
I've really liked looking into these ones.
42:50
Yeah.
42:51
You can pretend that this is a women's retreat if you want.
42:52
We can embroider.
42:53
I think it's gotten too late at night.
42:54
Guys, it's 842 and that's 42 minutes.
42:55
Past our bedtime.
43:07
So after this, Bree's going to do some embroidery.
43:11
Then we're going to go to bed.
43:14
Love you.
43:15
Bye.