Latest / We Are More: Sisters Talk Faith & Feminism / Ep. 5: Women Led

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Ep. 5: Women Led · 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's 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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Hello!
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Hello.
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Welcome back.
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What episode is this?
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Five?
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Is it five?
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It's five.
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Ah, we're in kindergarten.
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That's it.
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Welcome to Kinder Roundup.
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I remember in kindergarten a kid threw up on the table.
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In kindergarten roundup?
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No.
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I was talking too much at the blue table so she moved me over to the green table.
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And the day that she moved me over to the green table, Curtis threw up on the table!
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And then the next day I was back at the blue.
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Do you think you like went home and told mom that?
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And mom gave her a call and was like, no.
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I don't think so.
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No more Curtis.
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Stop puking!
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I was like, whoa!
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I don't know why that is such a core memory for me, but Curtis!
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I feel like you've told me this story a thousand times.
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Curtis, if you're out there, I'm not sure if you were my boyfriend or not, but you did
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throw up on the table.
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And that was nasty.
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Do you think that he was your boyfriend?
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Well there is a video of me saying like, oh, and I said, my boyfriend's Curtis.
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Yeah, I remember that.
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But it could have been a different Curtis.
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Although how many people are named Curtis?
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Are there any Curtises out there?
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Yes, I'm sure we attract a lot of Curtises.
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Perhaps!
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Hey Curtis, are you interested in feminism?
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Biblically?
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Oh, I can't even say the word biblically.
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So guys, we're actually recording sort of midday today.
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Yeah, we're fresh!
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So yay!
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Good for us.
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Perhaps not our bedtime, 830 at night!
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I feel like other people are gonna watch this and they're gonna think something's wrong
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with these women that go to bed at 830.
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No, probably most women are listening to this and they're like, I get it.
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You know what I saw?
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Now, okay, I don't know if this is substantiated, but I was watching a TikTok.
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Wow.
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And the woman said that the studies, the sleep studies that they did to say you need eight
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hours of sleep a night were only done on men.
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And women actually need closer to like nine hours of sleep, ten hours if you're on your
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period.
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Makes sense for me.
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I get it.
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There's a lot of thoughts happening in my head, you know?
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Like right now or on your period?
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All the time.
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Oh.
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I need a lot of sleep.
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We're much higher energy than normal.
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Look at how loud we are.
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I know.
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I'm tired all the time.
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Me too.
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At some point.
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So I'm drinking.
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At some point maybe we'll catch up when we're 85.
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We're not gonna make it to 85.
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Oh.
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At the rate we're going, we're likely if we make it to 67.
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Well we're gonna run out of money.
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We spend it all on Disney.
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Yeah.
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Although maybe we could just use Disney as a retirement home.
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Yeah, I think that would work.
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I think Disney should create a retirement home and be very popular.
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Oh my gosh.
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Although then it'd be like sad.
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Like you're not allowed to die at Disney anyways.
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So you wouldn't die at Disney, you'd die at the Disney retirement home.
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But you're not allowed to do that.
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Maybe it would be off property.
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They'd just send Mickey there occasionally.
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Let's get back on topic.
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Okay.
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But I'm having so much fun.
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Today we're talking about?
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Today we're talking about women in leadership.
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Girl preach.
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I said that today at work.
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Intentionally or just for fun?
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I said it and then I was like, ha ha ha.
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We're talking about that later.
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So historically women have been very left out of leadership in churches.
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It's an interesting story.
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So we grew up very conservative, as we have said.
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So the churches that we were in, absolutely no women would have been in any position of
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leadership.
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Like you might have seen a woman teaching younger grades for Sunday school.
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Well they're allowed to teach Sunday school.
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Right.
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Because men think that that's below them.
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But even- Not all men, some men.
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But even Beth Ellison Barr, who we love-
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Beth!
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Shout out.
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So she talks about in her book that she on a normal basis would not have been allowed
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to teach in youth group because those boys were at an age where they shouldn't be taught
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by women anymore.
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Didn't she say like any boy 13 and older shouldn't be taught by a woman?
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Yeah.
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Now I hadn't heard that prior to that book.
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That's not like something that was taught in our churches.
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But the interesting thing is, so my husband Nathan grew up in Assemblies of God churches,
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I believe.
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He's slightly less conservative, pretty chill from my experience with them.
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A little more structured, I think.
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I think they have that upward structure.
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But he said that nobody ever talked about women couldn't be in leadership.
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It was fairly normal to have female pastors, female leadership.
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So that's really interesting to me.
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That is interesting.
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Because I never saw that.
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So today, because we're kind of doing a little mini series, going into the basics of why
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we believe what we believe, why we believe women should be more.
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We are more.
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Do that again.
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You do it every episode.
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So we're going into a little bit of all of the basics and then we'll loop back as time
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goes on and I'm sure we'll dive deeper into each of these topics.
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Because there's just a lot to uncover and unfold.
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So.
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Just like watching your face do weird stuff.
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That's really impressive.
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It's just my face.
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I don't know what to say.
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It's very expressive.
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I'm going to have wrinkles.
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Someday if we record this for YouTube, then people can see how expressive you are.
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Well, someday I'm going to get Botox.
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Oh, that's fun.
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Someday very soon I feel.
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Okay, so I, Bri and I kind of researched and dove into different sections.
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So I'm going to go first.
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And most of my research comes from a book called Tell Her Story.
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I believe it's a newer book.
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I don't know how to say the author's first name.
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His last name is Gupta.
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So go ahead and look it up with that.
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Yeah, maybe we can post like a picture of it online.
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We need to do a book list.
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That's a great idea.
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Yeah, we've talked about it.
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I think I've brought it up.
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You have.
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But the way that I found it is because our favorite Beth Ellison Barr.
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Beth!
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She wrote the foreword for this book.
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So when I googled her name to see if she had any other books that I could read, this popped
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up.
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And one of the like endorsements on the back, it says, tell her story, maybe the final nail
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in the coffin of Christian patriarchy.
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And it's a very research based book.
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So if anything could do it.
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It's just whether people choose to listen or not.
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The first thing that he kind of goes into in part two, the first part goes into some
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specific women.
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But one of the first things that he goes into is talking about how modern churches do not
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operate the same way that their early church did.
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Yes.
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And we say this every single episode.
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But the Bible was written for everyone, but it wasn't written to us here in 2024, listening
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to each other talk about a podcast.
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Hallelujah.
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And as Christians, we have a hard time like recognizing that in so many ways.
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We kind of make the Bible fit our vision of church in 2024.
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So like you go to church, you start with a couple songs, you have your coffee in hand,
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you get into the message, you hear some announcements somewhere in there, you sing another song,
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do a little communion.
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Maybe it's in a little cup and the little bread tastes like styrofoam.
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Oh, why can't we have real bread?
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Yeah.
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You say a prayer and then you're done.
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Yep.
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And then you go home.
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But that's just not what church was for the immediately post-Christ world.
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So it might seem obvious to say that, but it also really needs to be said over and over
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because it shapes how we operate today and it shapes how we see the Christian world and
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some of the supposed rules that we have had so far.
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So one thing to remember is that the church is very new at this time.
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Christ had really just died.
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So Paul was still alive.
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So we're within the same generation.
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I don't know what the exact years are, but it was very soon after.
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And the church kind of had to build itself.
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Like Jesus didn't really leave exact instructions.
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It wasn't IKEA.
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No, no IKEA.
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Although those instructions don't work either.
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No, they don't.
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And I think we want to think that the way that we've structured our church came directly
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from Jesus, but he didn't really talk about it that much.
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He was a rabbi in the synagogue and that would have been structured way differently than
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the early church was structured.
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So the disciples, as they went out and spread Jesus's message, had to really like build
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something from nothing in a lot of ways.
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So what they did was they pulled a lot of traditions from the synagogue because that's
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what they were familiar with.
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But then as they, you know, they might have planted a church and then they went to the
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next town and they planted a church and whatever.
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These were not all Jewish people.
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There were also Gentile people and that means non-Jewish people.
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I feel like I say churchy terms and I forget that they're churchy terms.
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So that means non-Jewish people.
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So anyone who wasn't part of the Jewish faith wouldn't have been familiar with like the
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synagogue and how that worked.
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So the people that would not have been familiar with the synagogue and those rules would have
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probably, you know, once the disciples left or whoever came to kind of plant their church,
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they would have probably bounced to structures that they were familiar with.
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So that would have come from the government, from other like, he calls them affinity groups,
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so other religions, things like that.
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You go with what you know.
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Exactly.
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There's nothing wrong with any of those things because they're all still following Jesus's
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teachings.
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They're all still spreading the gospel.
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It's just done in a different way.
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But one of the things that tended to be common amongst all these churches was that they met
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in homes because the Jewish homes were public spaces.
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Like they had, it wasn't like now where like you're not going to invite somebody into your
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house.
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I feel like I'm picturing Encanto.
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Yeah, that's a good one.
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Where there's like a big public space, but then everybody has their little rooms.
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Yeah, they called it the atrium.
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And they said that usually the church would be held in like wealthier members homes, because
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they might have had an atrium that would fit like 20 to 30 people.
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Because they're probably not having enough money to go buy like a community center.
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No, by chance.
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Would that even be an option?
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Like is there land to build on?
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How long does it take to build something?
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I don't know what the logic of that is.
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So it makes sense for it to be in a home.
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But those people, because it was a much smaller group, you know, you're not a church of 10,000
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like we have today.
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It's 20 or 30 people.
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Those people weren't just showing up once a week, singing songs, listening to a sermon
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and leaving.
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They were living life together.
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They were spreading the gospel together.
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They all had a role.
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I think that's where when we say like the church is not a building, it's the people.
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That's really what I focus on.
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That's what I envision.
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Yeah, with that group of people.
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Yeah, and I think that's, that's what they had to be for each other.
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Because they were also being persecuted.
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So that interestingly, also the term pastor, and I'm not going to try and say it in the
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Greek because it sounds inappropriate.
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I wish you wouldn't.
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It only appears a couple places in the New Testament, which is so interesting to me because
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that's the title that we so significantly banned women from.
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And it's only used twice.
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It's used once in Acts and once in Peter.
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And acts like the body spray.
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Yes, that's what I was referencing.
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It smells really terrible.
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It smells like a middle school boy in here.
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Yeah.
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So I think it's really funny that that we've taken that term that's only used a couple
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times and like said women can't have this biblically.
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But it's hardly ever used.
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And the author of this book also says that if you showed up to an early church and asked
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to meet like the pastor or the leader, they wouldn't know what you were talking about.
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Because they just didn't structure their churches in a pyramid like that.
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There wasn't like one person at the top and everybody else was below them like so many
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of our churches are today.
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That just wasn't how it worked.
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So they wouldn't even know who to direct you to as their leader.
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But there were three main leadership roles and I'll kind of go into each of them and
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then I'll let Bri share hers and then I'll talk about Phoebe afterwards.
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Phoebe.
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Yeah.
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So the first one has to do with Phoebe, who we love.
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We love.
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Also, I just think of friends and I love her and friends too.
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She's pretty great.
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So the again, if I mispronounce this, guys, it's not my fault.
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I think people are going to come after you with pitchforks and feather and tar.
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Wow.
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It's really dramatic.
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Kill the beast.
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Great.
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So the first term is Diakonos.
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And based on the translation, there's going to be different ways that that is said.
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But the kind of general definitions can be servant, deacon, or ministry provider.
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The author of this book really likes the term ministry provider because it kind of encompasses
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a little bit more than servant.
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You know, when you think servant, you might think below everybody else.
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Right.
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Just doing the grunt work.
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Right.
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But this term kind of meant like living in service to the church.
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Okay.
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So you spent your life serving, spreading God's word, things like that.
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So it's not just like making the coffee in the morning.
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You know, it's not being the grater.
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Not that those things aren't critically important to the church.
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That's just not what this meant.
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So the concept behind it was essentially the greatest among you becomes the least.
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So we see that with Jesus.
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The least of these.
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Yeah.
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So we see that many times throughout the Bible.
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And they would have a service oriented heart of leadership.
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And they would kind of set the tone for leadership in the early church.
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These people that would go by this title.
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So this term was also used in the broader Roman world.
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And I always like to look at the history of things like look outside of the Bible too.
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You know who else likes that?
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Our good friend Beth.
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She does love that.
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She's a historian.
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We need to count how many times we mentioned this woman.
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If you hear the word Beth, take a drink of water with me.
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So in the Roman world is used as well, not necessarily to mean servants, but again to
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mean someone in a position of leadership who was serving the broader community.
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Oftentimes it also meant suffering and hardship.
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And you know, I mean, a lot of the disciples were crucified.
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So there you go.
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So Phoebe, who we will talk about later, is the only person named as a Diakonos in
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the Bible.
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A woman.
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That got so dramatic.
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It was a great book.
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I actually, sidebar, I remember when we first started going to that church when we were
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in like middle school, high school times.
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And there were female deacons, but they called them deaconesses.
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Mom was just telling me about this.
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Yeah, and I thought that was totally bizarre.
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Just coming from the world where we came from, which was like very small church for so long.
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I was like, there's women who can do that?
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What?
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Okay, but did you know that they were really in charge of like setting up?
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That's what mom said.
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It's just like, we're going to give you a fancy title, but only because like we need
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someone to make the coffee and set up the sanctuary and do the grunt work.
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We'll come back to deaconess.
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That comes in with Phoebe.
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Precursor.
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We're foreshadowing.
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Yeah, that's what I meant.
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So that's in Romans 16.1 is where Paul calls Phoebe a deaconess.
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And we'll talk a little bit more about her later.
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But she's the only named person.
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Now, this term is used a lot throughout the New Testament, throughout Paul's letters specifically,
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but it's not in reference to someone.
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She's the only person that gets named.
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So this person probably would have served under the leadership of the next category,
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the overseers or kind of the person who usually owned the house of the house church.
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So when Paul used the term deaconess for Phoebe, he's using it while commending her as a leader
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from Corinth.
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So again, we'll get into why later, but this implies that she would have been a key leader
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in her church community.
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So not.
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Someone who was just serving.
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She was a titled leader in her church community.
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She was an important leader.
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So in 1 Timothy 3, Paul talks directly to deacons and he references what their character
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is supposed to be.
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So this section is thrown against women a lot.
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Paul, he gets a bad rap.
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I honestly, I was not a fan of Paul for the longest time.
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Well Paul, if you weren't so confusing.
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Paul is a little confusing, but I feel like he's just been so misinterpreted.
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Because as you really read it, so much of what we've been told about what he said is
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very clearly not what he said.
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Right.
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So anyway, in 1 Timothy, he is writing to Timothy's church.
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And in verse 11 is where he specifically talks to women.
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It's sandwiched between multiple verses talking to deacons, which implies that he's also talking
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to women in this same position.
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And yes, women would have been more rare in these positions just because again, they're
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living in the patriarchal society.
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What?
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Her, um, oh, her beauty brand.
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So it would have been more rare to have a woman in a leadership position because they
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were living in a patriarchal society.
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As are we.
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So talking to the men specifically makes sense.
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But then he does also reference women in the same section.
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So we got to stop taking stuff out of context here, people.
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Yeah, people.
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People.
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So yeah, so this term was not necessarily a super formal office like it is today.
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Like we have deacons at church that lead, you know, certain things in the church.
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It wouldn't have been that at the time, but it would have been a title that someone would
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have gone by.
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So it would have been, he calls it, the author calls it a ministry provider, kind of like
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you would say a medical provider.
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So like someone with expertise.
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I'm a medical provider.
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You are.
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Which frightens me a great deal.
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Sorry.
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All right.
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So then the next term is episkopos.
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What your mouth?
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You can't say that.
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I'm sorry.
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Sorry, grandma.
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And that would have been the overseer or manager.
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It's kind of the best translation.
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So this would have been one of the most formal titles for leadership that they had.
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Again, they didn't have a lot, but this would have been that.
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And in the broader context, because we love that, this also could have been a title used
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for like a temple manager or a civic official, like someone who is kind of guarding the institution
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or the community.
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So somebody pretty in charge.
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This term was not used as much as the last one that I won't say because you keep making
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fun of me for how I say it.
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He does mention it in Philippians, like the two terms together, but he doesn't necessarily
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say how they differ.
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But it does seem like it would be more of like an overseer.
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So someone that was in charge, right?
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And usually this would have been the person that owned the home that the house church
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was in.
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So the person or couple, as sometimes it happens in the Bible, that owned the house because
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they were already running a household, they had the experience to handle finances, to
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handle people, to handle conflict and things like that.
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Or just their space.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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So it would have been the natural choice for this person to be.
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Not saying that would have always been the case, but it likely would have been the case.
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There are no named people with this title that I won't say because you keep making fun
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of me.
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What is it called?
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Episcopal.
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Thank you.
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You're welcome.
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So no men or women are specifically named with this title.
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Again, I'm going to say, I'm going to just one more time.
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No men and no women.
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Nobody has the title.
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Nobody got it.
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No boys, no girls.
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That's singing number two.
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No hard speed.
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We can't cut that out.
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No, that's staying in.
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I have to let you sing at least.
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So the argument that this particular role is only for men, and this would be the one
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that people in leadership are really going to want to hold on to, is because it, again
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in 1st Timothy.
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So 1st Timothy 3, Paul says that overseers must be the husband of one wife.
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So that very specifically, some people think, precludes women from being able to hold this
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role, which then we convert today as kind of the pastor or the leader of the church.
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But what the author says, and I think this is so interesting and so good, he says the
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comment on one wife is less about men specifically leading than about fidelity in marriage.
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So he's talking to men in a broader picture because men would have been most of the overseers.
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Because again, they're in a patriarchal society, this is very normal.
24:39
Men would have primarily been in leadership positions at this time.
24:42
So he's talking to the broader picture.
24:46
But he's not saying, okay, but women, if you're in leadership, you can be the wives of however
24:50
many men you feel like.
24:53
Is that what we're saying?
24:54
Really?
24:55
So he makes a great comparison in the book.
24:58
And if you have the opportunity to read this book, it is very academic, but it is fantastic.
25:04
There's also an audible version.
25:05
So I'm like listening and reading it.
25:08
So it's that it's so helpful because if you're an audio learner, audacious, that can't be
25:17
it.
25:18
Let's go with if you're a visual learner, you have the ability to read.
25:24
But if you learn better by listening, then you can kind of do both things or plus also,
25:29
if you're illiterate, that does help.
25:33
But anyway, he makes great comparison where he says that if a golf course had a sign up
25:41
that said golfers must have well kept facial hair.
25:47
Well I wouldn't be allowed to golf.
25:49
Your facial hair is a mess.
25:52
Unruly.
25:53
That doesn't necessarily mean that women can't golf here because stereotypically women may
25:59
not have facial hair.
26:01
It means that if you have facial hair, then it has to be well kept.
26:08
Those who don't have facial hair would not have the same expectation.
26:11
So if you are a man, have one wife.
26:16
Don't have perhaps seven.
26:19
Well but that would have been common at the time too.
26:21
That's true.
26:22
Polygamy was very common then.
26:23
Essentially, the leader of the home would have been the natural choice to lead their
26:26
congregation and there are several instances where that while women weren't given that
26:32
title specifically by Paul, like they weren't named with that title, there are several instances
26:40
where women are talked about as having a house church.
26:43
Right.
26:44
Including Phoebe.
26:45
It would have been legally allowed in the Roman culture for women to be householders.
26:53
And the book says that as many as 25% of householders in certain areas may have been women.
26:59
Lydia was also a female householder.
27:02
Shout out to Lydia.
27:05
So Lydia was a female householder, a named female householder who influenced her entire
27:10
house to get baptized and acts.
27:12
And then her home became a hub for the Philippian church.
27:18
So while it's not stated that she was the Episcopal, I'm so sorry Lydia, it is implied
27:32
that she probably would have been the overseer of that church.
27:35
Alright, and then the last one before we go, maybe have dinner or finish recording, would
27:40
be in Presbiteros.
27:41
That's not a Presbiteros.
27:42
See, that one doesn't sound bad.
27:43
It just sounds like a pizza place.
27:44
And that would have been like a senior elder, or I'm sorry, a senior leader or an elder.
27:54
So we have elders in churches now, and I feel like a lot of times churches either have deacons
27:58
or elders.
27:59
I don't think you see as many with both.
28:02
Or the elder board is like more, not hidden but not talked about, but maybe they have
28:09
it.
28:10
So one of the churches that we were at recently for a very long time, they had an elder board.
28:18
And something that really bothered me is that no one really knew who they were.
28:23
Even the pastors, if you asked for like, hey, I was wondering if I could contact one of
28:28
the elders or something like that, they literally didn't know who they were.
28:33
It was very strange, very secretive.
28:35
You have these people who are in charge of making decisions for a church that you don't
28:40
know.
28:41
Well, you'd think it would be like elected or something along those lines.
28:45
I don't know.
28:46
It was very strange.
28:47
Anyway, that was an offshoot.
28:49
So this term is not really outlined in detail in the Bible.
28:52
It's kind of one of the most vague terms that Paul has.
28:56
Part of that is because it wouldn't have really been a job description like the other two
29:01
were to some degree.
29:03
It was more just like, like the term elder, like it would have been an older, wiser member
29:10
of the community who maybe the church or the people of the church turned to for advice.
29:17
Yeah, which makes sense.
29:18
Like, hey, this person has more knowledge, experience.
29:22
I'm going to go to them for guidance.
29:26
So since this wasn't an official title, like elder Brianna.
29:32
That's me.
29:33
Elder.
29:34
I've been meaning to tell you.
29:38
Hey, you're older.
29:40
Yeah, but it bothers you more.
29:44
It does.
29:45
I'm sad.
29:46
I'm sorry.
29:47
But because it wasn't an official title, the author of this book specifically says this
29:51
is like the goofiest one to say that women can't hold.
29:55
I love the word goofy.
29:57
So goofy.
29:58
I was going to say a different thing that I thought I shouldn't.
30:03
And there were, this was, it was a formal thing and it was still important to some degree.
30:09
Like there is one point where Paul says, I believe it's in Titus.
30:13
So Titus 1.5 where Paul tells Titus to appoint elders in his church that follow certain criteria.
30:22
It still wasn't like, like a specific leadership title.
30:27
What the author says as well is that if you, if you were known by another title, like if
30:35
you were the overseer or if you were a deacon, you could also be an elder.
30:41
You just wouldn't go by the title elder.
30:44
More?
30:45
You could be more.
30:49
Do you think at some point in this podcast we'll stop doing that?
30:51
We'll run out of more.
30:54
No, I use that on our Instagram all the time.
31:00
Shout out to our Instagram.
31:01
Follow us over there.
31:02
Yeah.
31:03
I posted on Facebook the other day.
31:05
I shared about episode three.
31:07
I think I was like, we are hilarious, but also we are more.
31:15
On Instagram we are, we are more dot podcast.
31:18
And I think Facebook is the same.
31:20
Not sure.
31:21
I need to get the Facebook better.
31:22
I need to figure out how to tick tack like those youths do.
31:28
We can hit the whoa and whatnot.
31:30
The what?
31:31
You haven't heard that?
31:32
No.
31:33
I don't know what it is.
31:34
It's not good.
31:35
I think it's a dance move.
31:38
We're cursing in Shenzi.
31:41
I'm sorry.
31:43
Anyway.
31:46
So there's nowhere in the New Testament that says that women cannot be elders.
31:50
It's not said.
31:52
It's not mentioned.
31:53
There's nothing about it.
31:55
We have made this garbage up.
31:58
Garbage.
32:03
And again, most elders probably would have been men, but that's cultural.
32:07
That's normal for the time.
32:09
And if you look at several of the women that Paul talks about in the Bible and you research
32:14
them and you find out who they were, like Phoebe or Priscilla or countless other ones,
32:21
they clearly would have qualified as elders, even though again, no one is specifically
32:26
named.
32:27
Well, I think we mentioned this back a couple episodes ago, but women, like when you think
32:33
like Christian women 2024, you do think someone like very mild mannered, someone in a maxi
32:42
skirt, like just like very like level headed, calm, quiet, whatever.
32:48
But that's not what the women in the Bible really were.
32:51
Not to say that there's anything wrong with that, but like jail stab someone and her name
32:57
is written down in the Bible.
32:58
She tent pegged him.
33:02
You know who I think about for the stereotype actually is the the Duggar mom.
33:08
Oh, that's what comes to my head.
33:10
Yeah.
33:11
All right.
33:12
So to round this out and pass it over brief because I'm tired of talking.
33:17
One of the things that I think is so impactful that's said in this book, again, if you have
33:20
the opportunity to read it, highly, highly recommend.
33:24
He talks about imagine if God gave us another Deborah today.
33:31
Big Debra.
33:32
Yes.
33:33
Deborah!
33:34
We love Debra.
33:35
I got really loud.
33:36
You got so loud, it didn't know what to do with you.
33:39
So imagine if God gave us another Deborah.
33:42
Would we tell her that she couldn't be an elder or a deacon or an overseer?
33:48
And if we did, what would be our reasoning?
33:52
Because God put her in a position of leadership.
33:54
So what would be our reasoning?
33:56
And you can't even say, well, she led when no men would lead because there were two men
34:02
alongside her.
34:04
She just happened to be the one that the Bible talked about.
34:07
Right.
34:08
The one who did the biggest thing.
34:10
Who is named after a bumblebee.
34:12
She was more.
34:16
And if we did tell her this, if we said to her she couldn't lead, what would we be depriving
34:22
the church of?
34:24
The world of.
34:25
And what are we currently depriving the church and the world of?
34:29
Because I got to tell you, I think God has given us plenty of Debra's and we've told
34:34
them to shut up.
34:35
Do you want to get a hammer so we can nail something?
34:38
Oh, no, don't say that.
34:41
I was thinking of nailing the coffee.
34:44
I'm going to keep that in.
34:45
No, don't.
34:46
I was misunderstood.
34:47
Alright, now it's your turn.
34:48
I can stop talking for a while.
34:54
So when I was researching this topic, I found an article from someone named Angela Harrington
35:03
and she has a book that is kind of about recovering your faith and recovering from church hurts
35:11
so that's very interesting.
35:13
I haven't looked into it at all, but maybe you can.
35:18
But when I first started thinking about this, I'm like, actions speak so much louder than
35:22
words and we say that all the time.
35:25
But when you look back on the actions of Jesus throughout the Bible, like the Bible has changed
35:33
through translations and all of that, but I feel like the actions of Jesus have mostly
35:37
stayed the same.
35:38
Jesus never discriminated, talked down to women.
35:45
He never told them that they couldn't preach.
35:48
He never told them that they were less than.
35:51
He pulled them in.
35:52
He brought them into his community.
35:54
He said, follow me, just like he did for the men too.
35:57
There were plenty of women that followed him along.
36:01
So we should probably be modeling our lives based off of Jesus more than anything else.
36:06
Groundbreaking, I'm looking very deep into your eyes right now.
36:11
So diving into 1st Timothy, 1st Timothy 2 verse 11 in the KJV because that's, you know,
36:25
why does my mind just go?
36:26
I don't know, we recorded earlier.
36:29
I don't know.
36:30
1st Timothy 2 verse 11 says, let women learn in silence with all submission.
36:36
And I do not permit women to teach or to have any authority over a man, but to be in silence.
36:43
So in referring to that verse, many scholars believe that Paul was referring to specific
36:49
women in Timothy's church, not to all women in general.
36:53
And going back to what you said before, like probably the people were coming from different
36:58
backgrounds and different traditions.
37:02
So they may have been causing a ruckus or whatever it may have been.
37:06
So maybe they were distracting people from actually learning the word of God.
37:10
So he's saying, hey, chill out, maybe.
37:13
Well one of the things that I've researched before says that in that passage, the women
37:20
of this particular church, because they hadn't been allowed to learn any of this before,
37:26
they were like constantly asking, well, what does that mean?
37:30
Well, you know, like loudly.
37:33
And all of a sudden they had the privilege probably to speak.
37:37
And so they were disrupting the church as a whole.
37:40
And obviously like that's not conducive for anybody else.
37:43
So they were essentially told like, hey, we want you to learn, which was revolutionary,
37:49
but don't do it where you're going to cause a problem for everybody else is trying to
37:54
learn.
37:55
Paul says women shouldn't usurp authority over a man, which usurp means to steal away
38:02
or to take away something that's not rightfully yours.
38:06
So think overthrowing of government.
38:09
So pretty much also anyone probably in that situation shouldn't take the authority from
38:15
someone else, don't steal someone else's thunder, essentially, is what he's saying.
38:21
So many scholars believe that Paul's words were situational, not like written to all
38:29
of us everywhere here in 2024.
38:32
Is it 2024?
38:33
Literally all day today, I thought it was 2023.
38:36
Like I was writing down 2023.
38:39
When I was working today, I kept trying to write down 2025.
38:43
I don't know.
38:44
I'm living in the future over here.
38:45
I'm living in the past.
38:46
Where are we?
38:49
So she goes on to say in her article that if we choose to believe that the Bible always
38:53
provides universal statements, then we need to be consistent and apply the same logic
38:59
to the rest of the passage, which continues to say women shouldn't braid their hair where
39:05
gold pearls or anything expensive and that women are to be silent.
39:10
So that means no female greeters, no worship leaders that are women, choir members, no
39:16
women reading scripture, no women making announcements, no women teaching Sunday school.
39:21
The list goes on and on and on and the church would fall apart.
39:25
Yeah.
39:26
Can you imagine how quickly everything would crumble?
39:29
Yeah.
39:30
She goes on to say like there's so many passages in the Bible that refer to everyone and all
39:35
and each of you.
39:36
And over time, through translations, we've taken out each of you and everyone and all
39:42
of you and replaced it with absolutes.
39:46
Yeah.
39:47
Yeah.
39:48
So she pretty much says like God's word never changes, but man's translation of God's word
39:53
definitely does and has throughout time.
39:57
And then she goes on to talk about like examples of female leaders in the Bible.
40:00
So you are going to talk about Phoebe later on, but there's Deborah who we've talked
40:05
about before.
40:06
Big Deb.
40:07
Big Deb.
40:08
She was an Old Testament judge, which means that she led Israel before there was a king
40:14
to help them lead.
40:15
But she was leading Israel, which is amazing.
40:20
And Anna or Anna, I'm not quite sure how she wants to be pronounced.
40:24
She wasn't in frozen.
40:25
I don't know.
40:26
Unless she was a prophet who dedicated her life to praying and praising and teaching
40:31
in the temple.
40:32
She was also one of the first people to meet Jesus as an infant and recognize and proclaim
40:37
his divinity.
40:38
Now I read into her story.
40:40
She was like married for seven years and then she was a widow for like 84 years.
40:48
So Anna when she met Jesus was like a hundred something.
40:51
Geez.
40:52
Yeah.
40:53
She's ancient.
40:54
And Holda, who's an Old Testament prophet who is trusted, who is a trusted source of
40:59
interpreting, understanding scripture.
41:02
And she was even sought out by the king of Israel to teach the men about the meaning
41:05
of prophecies from God.
41:08
So there's so many examples of like strong, powerful women in the Bible, but we're teaching
41:12
women now that that's not their place.
41:16
And it doesn't make sense.
41:17
It doesn't add up.
41:19
The first preachers of the gospel were women.
41:22
Well, and I think to bounce off of that into my notes, which I have to pull back up, you
41:28
know, Paul in that verse sounds kind of rough as he says, you know, I don't permit women
41:36
to have authority over men or whatever.
41:38
Shut right up.
41:39
But the interesting thing is as we're going into Phoebe, clearly Paul did allow women
41:46
to teach men because of Phoebe.
41:49
Well that's it.
41:50
Like if you read a singular verse and build your whole faith off of that singular verse,
41:56
you're not going to have a very full faith.
41:58
You have to look into the history and the verse before and the verse after and the whole
42:01
chapter like read more.
42:03
Right.
42:04
So you have to look at who Paul is as a person.
42:07
When Paul writes lists of, and we skip over these a lot when we read the Bible because
42:12
it's just lists of names.
42:13
That probably you can't pronounce them.
42:15
That's very true.
42:16
But Paul talks about all kinds of women that he respected, that he allowed to teach, that
42:24
he worked alongside, that he calls co-workers and sisters.
42:28
And that one statement doesn't erase all of those.
42:32
So you have to make that make sense within the broader context.
42:37
So it makes sense that he was talking to a specific group in Timothy's church.
42:43
Well, and these letters were very specifically to one church.
42:49
So that begs the question, if this is really a sin for women to speak or lead or teach,
42:56
why did Paul only tell Timothy's church?
42:59
None of the other churches would have had this information.
43:01
He would have written the same thing in every single book that he wrote, which is a lot.
43:07
Because Jesus didn't say it.
43:08
So Paul would have had to have that revelation from God and then spread it out amongst the
43:15
people, which is something that he did in a lot of his letters.
43:19
But that's something that's only said once.
43:21
Right.
43:22
So anyway, so Phoebe, we love Phoebe.
43:25
Again, she's the only named deacon in the Bible.
43:29
Diakonos.
43:30
Diakonos.
43:32
And her story is so cool.
43:36
So she's kind of a, I don't want to say a footnote because she's so important, but it's
43:41
really a brief mention.
43:42
So you really have to dig into historical context to understand who Phoebe was and what
43:48
her story looked like.
43:50
So she was the person that carried Paul's letter to the Roman churches.
43:54
So she took the book of Romans, like one of the most important, most impactful books of
43:59
the Bible.
44:01
And she took it from Paul, who was in prison and walked it all the way to Rome.
44:08
Can you imagine?
44:09
No.
44:10
Do you remember that walk that we did in Disney just hurrying up trying to get on the list
44:14
for the Star Wars ride?
44:16
Yes.
44:17
Can you imagine that for days and days and days and days and days and days and days?
44:20
No.
44:21
Like, I mean, weeks probably.
44:23
I don't know how long it took.
44:24
I would shrivel up and die.
44:25
They didn't have Birkenstocks back then.
44:26
They did not.
44:27
I don't know what they had, sandals, but bad ones.
44:30
Bare feet.
44:32
So she was commissioned by Paul to take this letter, right?
44:37
And again, we think of things in our modern day context.
44:40
Like, okay, she's a letter carrier.
44:44
And our letter carriers today, they're not going to open the mail.
44:47
They don't really do anything with it other than take it out of your mailbox.
44:51
They go and rain and sleep and snow.
44:54
They do.
44:55
Thanks goodness.
44:56
So they don't really have a lot of role in what the message of your letter is, or if
45:04
it necessarily gets to its destination.
45:08
One person picks it up, they hand it to the next person, who hands it to the next person.
45:11
Ideally, no one intercepts it.
45:14
But that wasn't the case at the time.
45:15
There was no formal mail system.
45:19
So if you wanted to send a letter, you had to send somebody that you trusted completely
45:25
to get it there, to not change the words inside of it.
45:30
And also someone who was actually willing to do that.
45:33
Yeah, for sure.
45:34
Someone who knew you and loved you enough to do that.
45:38
Sounds like a bad time.
45:40
And also this person, particularly with Paul's letters, this wouldn't have necessarily been
45:44
every letter, but particularly with Paul's letters, this would have been someone that
45:48
delivered the letter, but I don't mean just handed it off.
45:52
I mean delivered as in, gave a speech.
45:58
Not performed, but...
46:00
A theatrical presentation of the Book of Romans.
46:03
She would have read it to them, she would have interpreted it for them, because she
46:07
talked to Paul, and Paul would have probably said, okay, I want you to use an inflection
46:12
here.
46:13
I want you to make this point really important.
46:16
Or diving deep into everything and being like, this is what this means.
46:21
This is what this means.
46:23
And she would have had to take it to every house church in Rome, because remember, there
46:27
wasn't one centralized church.
46:30
And they didn't have a Xerox machine.
46:31
They did not.
46:32
Do we have Xerox machines?
46:34
That's an old reference.
46:35
They don't have a copier.
46:36
They don't have a copier.
46:37
I don't even have a printer, Brianna.
46:40
They don't have a staples.
46:42
Like, get like 17 copies of it.
46:44
There was one copy, probably.
46:46
Yeah.
46:47
And she walked it all the way to Rome, and then she walked it to every single church,
46:52
and then performed it for every single church.
46:54
So Phoebe was the first preacher of Romans.
47:00
And before I get these people that are going to tell me, well, she was just sharing her
47:04
story, and that's okay if a woman gets up and shares her story, but she can't preach.
47:10
And if you don't understand what I'm saying, that's really something that people say.
47:14
It's fine if women get up on stage in church and share their stories, but they're not allowed
47:18
to preach, which is insane because it's the same thing.
47:23
Right.
47:24
But she was interpreting and sharing Paul's words.
47:29
The gospel.
47:30
Yeah.
47:31
And how is that any different from a pastor today interpreting and sharing Paul's words?
47:36
There's no difference.
47:37
There is no difference.
47:39
Phoebe was doing the same thing.
47:41
She was a preacher.
47:42
She was a preacher who was endorsed and sent by Paul himself to share one of his most important
47:51
letters with one of the biggest churches, biggest groups of churches that there would
47:55
have been.
47:56
So yeah, there's a lot to this story, and I would love to do honestly a whole episode
48:00
on Phoebe because I think she's amazing.
48:03
We believe that Jesus, that Paul, that the Bible...
48:08
Stop it.
48:11
That everything in the Bible very clearly points to women not only being allowed to
48:20
teach and preach, but encouraged to teach and preach, encouraged to lead their churches
48:25
on the same level that men are leading their churches.
48:29
And without that, I think the American church specifically is losing out on so much incredible
48:38
wisdom, on a connection with God.
48:42
Women are the future.
48:45
Time number three.
48:47
Teach them well.
48:48
Let them lead the way.
48:49
I'm going to cut all of that out.
48:50
I'm going to leave the one.
48:52
Thanks for listening to episode five.
48:54
Thank you for spending a little bit of your day with us.
48:57
Enjoy following us on Instagram.
48:59
I'm pretty proud of this one.
49:00
I think this is a good one.
49:01
Yeah, this was really good.
49:02
Yeah, follow us on Facebook and Instagram and we will see you guys again in a couple
49:08
of weeks.
49:09
Except we won't see you because this is a podcast.
49:11
You'll hear us again in a couple of weeks.
49:14
Talk to ya later.
49:33
you