To the We Are More Pod cast. My name is Alyssa. And my name is Bree. We're two sisters passionate about all things faith and feminism. We believe that Jesus trusted, respected, and encouraged women to teach and preach his word.

And apparently, that's controversial. Get comfy.

Hello, world. Hello. Welcome. Welcome. One and all.

You're welcome. Hello.

They're gonna think you had some sort of medical event.

I may have. I don't know.

Bri just lost her mind briefly. It's fine.

I'm in, like, a better mood than I have been as of late because the sun is out, and it's nice, and hallelujah, winter is done.

That's so weird, though. Was thinking about that on the way to pick up my daughter from school today because realistically, it's still April. By the time you listen to this, it'll be the May. It's gonna be May. But currently, it's April and we're in Michigan.

Mhmm. And it's 85 today.

I think I've seen snow in May. Oh, yeah. For sure. Well, I

got married at the May. Mhmm. And I remember one of my husband's family members actually was really upset because it was like an outdoor indoor kind of venue. Like, it had open walls. Mhmm.

And she was really, really unhappy because it

was cold. Wasn't that cold.

But, like, it was the May, and it was still quite chilly. Yeah. It was. Yeah. It is so warm out.

It's legitimately 85. Everybody's in shorts and tank tops. Now we're in Michigan, so people were in shorts and tank tops at, like, 50 degrees. Now they're just stripping.

I saw a man getting ready to paddleboard today on our way And I thought, if you fall in that water here, it's rude. Gonna be like, Amy and Little Women, you're gonna freeze.

Well, it hasn't been warm for that long. No. It's been like a week.

No. It's The water is still ice cold. Mhmm.

Yeah. I am not first of all, I'm just not a water sports kinda girly. Mhmm.

I don't know

if you guys could have predicted that by chance. But also just the idea of falling into freezing cold water. No. No. Thank you.

Just no. Because then you're out in the middle of the lake. You have to haul your body back onto your paddleboard, which I hope you have the upper body strength. Well, one would hope. And then you're wet.

Then what? You're gonna have to paddle yourself back to shore and you're still gonna be wet. To be

fair, I'm semi certain that to get on the paddleboard in the first place, you usually get in the water.

I don't know. I that at

least that's our cousin, Christy, has a paddleboard, and she was on it one time, and she, like, had to haul herself up onto the board

out of the It literally amazes me that she has a paddleboard. I know. She's the least coordinated person that I know. I don't know how she does it, but she does.

She does. To my knowledge, she's not constantly falling in the water, so

She trips over her feet just walking around.

I know. It's a struggle.

But she's gliding through the water like Pocahontas. Yeah. Exactly like that. Or Moana.

Yeah. Like Moana in particular.

I think she'll like listening to this episode. Sure Sharing her praises and her graces.

Hey. Turns out she's graceful in the water.

You know what? We can't all be good at everything. Walking is not her thing. Walking's not her thing. But paddle boarding is.

And I'll tell you one thing for free. Paddle boarding is not mine.

Really? Because no one could have predicted that either.

I've never tried it, but I just feel not called to it. The Lord hasn't called you to paddleboarding? No. I've been called to many a thing. Never once paddleboarding.

Quick question for you all out there.

Has the Lord called you to paddleboarding? I think we can make sweatshirts. We could say paddleboarding for Christ. Ah, love it. Yeah.

Like a club. Maybe a hat. Sure. A button. People love buttons.

People love buttons.

You can put them on your backpack. You can

put them on your shirt. You can accidentally stab yourself,

you know, or others. Whatever works for you.

Whatever works for you.

It's fine. Mhmm.

I like how before we started recording, we were what should we talk about first? And nothing came to mind. And now we're just sitting here having a full blown conversation about paddleboarding. I mean, that's regular in our lives.

We're constantly talking about paddleboarding. I wish I

could have some kind of scan of my brain when we're having these conversations and just watch the little areas light up back and forth like a spaz. I wanna watch there's gotta be like

a little mouse running around in there, being like, what?

Where is she going? What's going on? I'm not going left. I'm not going right. No.

We're going to paddleboards.

The mouse is living its best life, though.

Yeah. Paddleboarding through your brain. Nothing like a mouse in the brain. And I've always said that. Absolutely always.

Yeah.

We did not plan to talk about paddle boarding.

But, you know, we're passionate paddle board advocates. Our conversation generally just goes where the Lord calls us. And today it was paddleboarding, and tomorrow who knows what it'll be. So the Lord did call you to paddleboarding? No, just to talking about paddleboarding.

Oh, got it. With absolutely no prior knowledge or education on the paddle board.

Or way to get out of the conversation about paddle boarding. Transition. Yeah. I don't know how to how to smoothly transition out of that. So here we are.

We're gonna Clean cup moving on. Yeah. We're gonna jump.

My favorite transition is to say clean cup moving on. It really is. She says that kind of all

the time.

Just and then change the subject, and then move on.

But for as popular as that movie is, it's Alice in Wonderland, in case all of you were wondering, I don't think anyone but me understands that reference. Like, in our family, when you say it, people just nod and accept when you say things at this point. But they don't know

what you're talking about. I was wanting to, this Christmas, make a book that was just like Briannaisms. But then I thought it was gonna get really complicated because there is just a wealth of garbage that comes out of my mouth almost all the time.

Yeah. We

know. And so that book would be thick.

It would be a frightening book. But it would also be like you'd have to have a glossary at the back. Be like, this is where this one comes from. Most of it's the Grinch.

Yeah. Okay. Transition. And go. So today, we're talking about an article from our good friend, Mark.

Mhmm.

And it's entitled 30 bible verses on women leading. And so Alyssa and I split those verses up. She took the first fifteen and I took the last 15. And did I read all of them? No.

I just got home from work. But I did pick five of my favorites. And she picked five of her favorites. Because if we went into detail and depth over all of these 30 verses, we'd be here all day. And you don't want to hear that.

Maybe they do. You're buckled in for maybe like fifty three minutes of us. And that's it. That's pretty accurate, actually. I know.

So I'll go first because I did the first fifteen, and that makes chronological sense.

Yeah. In my brain. But what I did a

little bit I did go into depth on five verses, five of her 30, that I thought were particularly, like, interesting for today. They're all interesting, but just the five that were really interesting for me. And then I also made a list of the first fifteen verses and what each woman from that verse was called, and Brie did it for her five verses as well. Because I wanted to make a point of this is what women in the bible were called.

Women in the bible are nothing like the women in the church today. No. I'm not just generally. Not all Yeah.

The expectation of women Mhmm. In the church today.

Yeah. It is so much less than it was in the bible. Mhmm. And I'm excited to talk about it.

Yeah. I'm gonna go through that list first because that just seems like the easiest option for me.

I wish you would.

I will. So let's pull up Mark's article. Then we'll go into depth on a few of them. Pull up, pull up. Is that a real is that a song?

I can't sing the rest of it. It's Beyonce. Oh, alright. Anybody else listen to that song? Cuff it?

That's inappropriate. Thank you. Mhmm.

So verse the first verse that she talks about is Exodus fifty twenty and twenty one, and that one talks about Miriam. And Miriam is described as a prophet. Now I also wanna point out there were a couple of these people that are assumed by biblical researchers to be single. And I wanted to point that out because I think that's really cool to have single women also known and represented. Another Beyonce song comes to mind.

All the single ladies.

Mhmm. Uh-oh.

At least I knew that one. You're welcome. But Miriam is assumed to be single. She's also a prophet. The next one is in judges, and that's Deborah.

She is known as both a prophet and a judge. The next one is Abigail. And she doesn't have a specific title, necessarily.

She was the old lady. She I mean, I assume she was young at some point.

Yeah. At some point, she was probably young. But her husband is the one that and, again, we'll go into some of these, but her husband is the one where David, who would later be king, came to him and was like, Hey, I need your help. And he said, Forget you. And Abigail was like,

Ho, wait, hold on. I was thinking of someone different. I was thinking of Anna.

Yeah, actually, Anna is in this list. So I called Abigail a diplomat. And then she's also kind of called a prophet as well, because she has prophetic speech that she's sharing. Then the next one is two Samuel, through quite a bit of two Samuel. There are wise women listed, and they are leaders.

They are known as leaders. And then in two Kings, we have Huldah, which is just a fun name. Great name. It's a good time.

Mhmm.

And she is both a prophet and a teacher. And she's one of the ones I'll go more in-depth with. And then there's Sheera in one Chronicles. She is a builder, which I thought was really cool. She's like a

builder and a developer. Construction. Career woman.

And also a leader. They also think she was probably single as well. Not for sure. It's hard to know. It's, you know, two thousand ish years ago.

Long time. It was quite a bit of time here. Then there's Esther, of course, from the book of Esther.

And from the Veggie Tale.

And she is a leader but also a savior of the Jewish people. And I know we don't like to use that word outside of Jesus, but that's what she was. That's what she did for the Jewish people. Yeah. The eighth verse is also Esther, so you can just sort of, you know, copy paste.

The ninth verse talks about a great company of women, And we'll go into that one as well a little more in-depth. But they were mighty, an army, and proclaimers of God.

I like that. I'm picturing that scene from Wonder Woman. Did you ever watch that?

I did, but it's been a long time.

I don't know a single gosh darn thing about it, but there was, like, an island of only women and they were all warriors.

That is actually true. You are right. I'm so proud. You. So then ten and eleven are both from Proverbs 31.

And so this is king Lemuel's mother. Lemuel Lemuel, I think it has that.

Lemuel Miranda. That's not it. Oh, wait.

And she's just kind of, like, referenced in the background a little bit, but she is really significant. So she is considered a prophet and a teacher, and she is also the creator of the Proverbs 31 woman. Mhmm. Which is a little bit tricky, of course. We've all had that thrown at us.

It's just interesting because as she talks about the Proverbs 31 woman, the parts that we forget are so often that she's a career woman, that she owns her own land, things like that. And then the twelfth one is in Micah, chapter six, and they also reference Miriam, who we talked about at the beginning, who was a prophet. But she's also named with honor alongside Moses and Aaron. So she's alongside great men that we all have heard sermons on

Oh, yeah.

On Moses and Aaron. Have you ever heard a sermon on Miriam? No, you haven't.

No. Because I'm only thinking of Miriam from Robin Hood. Was it Miriam?

No. It was Miriam. Yeah. You were so close. Pretty close.

And then the thirteenth one that she talks about is Anna. There you go.

There's my one.

She was very old. This is another one that we'll go into a little bit more in-depth, but she was also a prophet, and the Orthodox tradition calls her a god receiver. And we'll get into why in a minute. The fourteenth verse is from John 20, and, of course, it's Mary Magdalene.

Of course. Of course. Anybody want to go back and listen to our last episode? Was it last episode? Episode before?

Episode before. We talked a lot about her, but she was known as a teacher, an apostle, a friend of Jesus. Lots of names that we could add to that, but that was kind of her her most important ones. Apostle to the apostles is another one.

Mhmm.

And then the fifteenth verse that Marg points out is in Acts two, and in there, it's daughters. It talks about your daughters and sons will prophesy. And so they are prophets, and they are holders of God's spirit. So all of these so many prophets in here.

Mhmm.

And what came to mind as I made this list was we so often hold women outside of leadership in churches. And you might say, like, well, I don't hear any pastors listed there.

Mhmm.

Let me tell you guys. These women were all preaching and teaching.

And that's what a pastor is.

They wouldn't have been called pastors because that's not what they called people back then. We've talked through that. It wasn't a term that was used a lot.

And their version of church was so different than what ours is. It's not just like a Sunday type of deal. It was a lifestyle. Right.

And these women were I mean, you've got Deborah, who is literally leading the Jewish people. You've got Esther, who's saving the Jewish people. You've got a whole list of women that are leading their faith community.

Mhmm.

And that, to me, would be much higher up than a pastor. Mhmm. And yet we exclude women from all of those leadership positions, whether it's pastor, elder, deacon, many of which were named in the bible as women. Mhmm. Not pastors because no one was actually named as a pastor in the bible, in case you were wondering.

Fun facts with Alyssa.

So now I'm gonna go into the verses themselves that I researched a little bit more. The first one is Exodus fifteen twenty through 21, and this is where we talk about Miriam. And it says, then the prophetess Miriam, Aaron's sister, took a tambourine in her hand, and all the women came out following her with tambourines and dancing. Miriam said to them, sing to the Lord, for he is highly exalted. He has thrown the horse and its rider into the sea.

A palace horse.

So the NIV version of this now remember that titles of chapters and things like that are not we put them there. We added them in post. Yeah. They're not, like, part of the original scriptures that they found. But I thought it was really interesting.

I tried to look each of these verses up in different versions of the Bible, and in the NIV and the NLT, this section is titled The Song of Moses and Miriam. Which I thought was really cool because it gives a lot of credit to her portion here, where she is she's getting up, she's a prophet, she's leading, she's singing, she's praising God.

Were people in the Bible times just, like, living in a musical?

I feel like we've said that before.

Can you imagine today just, like, breaking out into song with a tambourine and calling other people out to dance in the streets with tambourines?

No. But it does seem to happen, like, a lot.

Yeah. What? What is happening?

They don't have a lot to do. They don't have their phones.

They Maybe. Very few books. It's like Mary. When she found out she was pregnant with Jesus, what'd she do? Break out into song.

She did. Bizarre. Well, I mean, the Psalms are all songs.

Yeah. That's a lot of songs.

The Song of Solomon. Don't read that when you're, like, eight years old in your bunk bed with your sister.

I think they call it Song of Songs now. It was Song of Solomon when we were kids with, like,

the KJB. They probably do call it that now. I don't know.

But anyway, so the title of that section for the NIV and NLT credits Miriam. However, the ESV, which we've talked about in the past, is very problematic and very it was written as a response to the NIV Mhmm. Saying that the NIV was too, like, gender inclusive and too liberal and whatever. So the ESV becomes a lot stricter, and you'll see that in some of the translations that I looked up. But the ESV simply calls it the Song of Moses.

Leaves her out completely.

Because it's more convenient for them.

Well, the moment that you start giving women credit Mhmm. It snowballs, right? You start having to give more women credit. The horror. And so they've distinctly taken her out of that, and they get away with it because that's not part of the translation.

Mhmm. So taking her out, I guess you technically can. The Bible doesn't, so maybe you should follow what the Bible does, But I guess you technically can. Now I also looked it up in the message, which I know it's not technically a translation, but I really like it as a reference point. And in the message, says she led them in singing.

So a leader, someone who is quite literally leading the group. Now, in song, in this case, but With a tambourine. Song was really important to them. This was praising the lord. This was leadership.

And the other versions say that she sang to them. So just a little bit of a difference there. I thought that was interesting. Also, this is such a random little point, but there are several instances here where women are called prophet or profitess. Now, profitess, you can say, is just the feminine version of profit.

But oftentimes, adding that ESS to the end that we do today, we do often, is used against women to make their contribution smaller.

Yeah.

The ESV almost exclusively uses that feminine version. I did not find a single now I can't say exclusively because I didn't look up every verse in the whole Bible to check. But all of the verses that I checked, it used that feminine version.

Mhmm. I mean, because anything feminine equals weakness in our culture, in our society. Particularly in Christianity. Yeah. So that's why we think that.

Right. In this case, the NIV lists her as a prophet and not a prophetess. So I just thought that was an interesting distinction to make. I don't think it's necessarily intentionally done to limit their capabilities because sometimes the NIV and the NLT do list them, not in this case, but in other ones as profit tests. But I think it's important to note that.

Yeah. I also have a problem with the word prophetess. How do you say it?

It's a pain.

It doesn't roll off the tongue It does not. No. Or the lips or the brain.

It doesn't roll off the brain? No. That mouse pushed it and

it just clunked. It clunked. It did not roll or Got it.

Good to know. Alright, so then next I'm gonna move on to Judges, where it talks about Debra. Oh, Big Deb. We love Big Deb. Let's holler her back.

Well, was one of our earliest episodes, I think, that we really looked at Debra and her contributions.

I really like Deborah. She's just such a great biblical leader. She's a powerhouse woman.

She really is. So she is in Judges four, is primarily her section. He sings as well.

She does sing as a She a

NLT calls her a prophet. The ESV says she's a prophetess. And then so, again, I looked this up in a

bunch of different versions, guys.

It was a bunch. If you're not familiar with the story of Deborah, she has a longer story than some of the others. Mhmm. Essentially, what happens with her, she's a judge and a prophet in Israel at this time. And a man named Barak comes to her, and she tells him, like, Hey, I need you to go into battle.

I need you to go take over this area and whatever. I have a Go

do this. All the

things. He says, I'll go, but I'm not going without you. That's essentially the basics of the story. And she says, Okay, cool. I'll come.

But just so you know, the honor of this is going go to a woman because you wouldn't go by yourself. And he says, Cool, let's go.

Mhmm.

A lot of the versions of this story that

you will

hear make that into, like, Illasculating. Yeah. That's not at all what the Bible is saying. So I'm gonna read this to you in a couple different versions, but I think the ESV is particularly interesting here. So I'm gonna read to you from story time.

This is Judges four, and I'm gonna read four through nine. It says, now Deborah, a prophet, the wife of Lepidoth That's a good name. It's an exciting name, was leading Israel at that time. She held court under the palm of Deborah, named after herself, Lovett

Lovett

Between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim. And the Israelites went up to her to have their disputes decided. She sent for Barak, son of Abinoam, from Kadesh in Naphtali. Wow. Wow.

Are you Yes.

And said to him, the Lord, the God of Israel, commands you. Go take with you 10,000 men of Naphtali and Zebulun, and lead them up to Mount Tabor. I don't know if I said that right either. I will lead Sisera, the commander of Jabin's army, with his chariots and his troops, to the Kishon River. This is a lot of names, guys.

And give him into your hands. Barak said to her, If you will go with me, I will go. But if you don't go with me, I won't go. Well, what a tantrum, Barak. Certainly, I will go with you, said Deborah.

But because of the course you are taking, the honor will not be yours, for the Lord will deliver Sisera into the hands of a woman. So Deborah went with Barak to Ganesh. So just think just that last verse there. But because of the course you are taking, the honor will not be yours, for the Lord will deliver Sisera into the hands of a woman. So that's the NIV.

Mhmm. Now I want to jump into the ESV real quick and read that same verse to you. And she said, I will surely go with you. Nevertheless, the road on which you are going will not lead to your glory. For the Lord will sell Sisera into the hands of a woman.

It's a slight change in wording there, but it's honor in the NIB versus glory in the ESV. And I think that's really, it's an important distinction because, again, this story is considered emasculating to Barack, right? He needed Deborah. How dare he need the help of a woman? And she took something from him because he

needed His glory. When it's not his at all. Exactly. It's

belonging to God. Right. And Barak does not seem bothered by this. No. In any way.

He's just like, cool. Let's go. Whatever. Mhmm. But the ESV makes this point of glory versus honor.

And I just thought that was really interesting and a point that I wanted to just sort of, like, sit on for a minute and ask why. Mhmm. Why glory versus honor? Because glory to me means I've done something amazing. Look at me.

Like, glory.

Mhmm.

Whereas honor is almost more of a a personal internal thing.

Mhmm.

So you've got external love and adoration versus internal, you know, I did the right thing for god. Mhmm. And I just think that's a it's a really interesting difference Mhmm. To look at. So the next one that I wanna go into is in second Kings 22.

And that's hold up.

Hold up, banana. I love to just

sit in silence after you do that and make you think about it.

No. I approve.

So this is second Kings 22, and she is primarily featured in verses 13 through 15. And this is a segment of the Bible where a document is uncovered by the king. Like, on national treasure? Exactly like that, actually.

On the back of declaration of independence? Yes, it's exactly like that. So weird that that's in the bible. I know, so strange.

Wow. Didn't know

that was a biblical story. Wow. Nic

Cage. It's not. She's lying. Ignore her. No, but anyway, so the king at the time finds a document, and it's essentially, like, here's a bunch of rules that you should be following that god gave you.

And turns out they're not following them at all.

Oh, well, I'm shocked. They did a bad job. And so the

king kind of freaks out,

and he's like, woah, what

do we do now? So this is what verses 13 through 15 say. The king is talking. Go and inquire of the Lord for me and for the people and for all Judah about what is written in this book that has been found. Great is the lord's anger that burns against us because those who have gone before us have not obeyed the word of this book.

They have not acted in accordance with all that is written here. Now I'm not gonna read the next names, But, basically, he sends his priest and looks like several of his advisers to Huldah, and she is known as a prophet. She's living in Jerusalem. And she it says she said to them, this is what the lord, the god of Israel, says. So she's speaking to god.

Mhmm. The men that were in charge, the priests, they didn't know what to do. And the king said, Go and inquire of the Lord for me. And where did the priests go to inquire of the Lord? Did they sit down

and try and talk to God? They did not. They went and found Huldah. Which is so different. Like, can you imagine being in a car with a man today and being like, hey, we don't know where we're going.

Why don't we stop and ask for directions? And he's like, no, it myself. I'm going to figure out. I'm gonna ask God right now where to go and he's gonna tell me. Rather than just asking?

Like the people with the knowledge? I can imagine that. Yeah. Maybe we should use this as a guide, a roadmap for our lives, as some would I think that would be good. Ask for help.

I just think it's so interesting because we tell women, you can't lead men, you can't teach men, You can't be the main leader in a church. You can't share your faith the same way a man could. You don't have the same place in God's kingdom. And yet, all of the most important leaders in this country didn't know what to do. And so to talk to God, they went to a woman.

Mhmm. They went to a prophet. And she told them what God had planned. That's biblical womanhood, baby. She knew.

Like, because she was talking to God.

Yeah. Because she was a prophet.

And so she taught them what to do. She led them. She became their spiritual guide, their spiritual leader. Mhmm. They couldn't do it without her.

This story doesn't happen without her. The end of the story is explosions without her. And I mean it kind of is anyway, but

Did they have explosions back then?

I assumed something could probably explode. You know, you mix this with this and it explodes.

What are they mixing? I don't know.

But what I've also found really interesting is that they believed her. Mhmm. We're not believing women today. That's the big issue in churches. I mean, many a big issue, but it's one of the big issues.

Women speak, and it's like we're back in bible times where the testimony of women is not considered accurate.

Or they throw at you the verse about women staying silent in the church. Right.

They believed her. They didn't question it. She said, Here's what God says. And they said, Thank you.

Mhmm. You. May I have another? End of story. Like, wasn't this, like, Well, but she's a woman, though,

and whatever. And that's not

to say that this was not a patriarchal society, but they believed her. Because she was a prophet. And later on, I'm gonna talk about Paul and how he said prophesying is, in his opinion, the greatest spiritual gift

above

teaching and everything else. Because she's talking

right to God. Which obviously we can all do in some ways as we pray and as we read our Bibles, but this is different. This is hearing God's actual voice. Being able to interpret it and instruct other people with it. I also thought it was interesting, again, just a translation thing, the ESV says they spoke with her versus the NIV which says she said to them, which is just a little difference.

And again, there are subtle differences in some. Sometimes they're not.

But if you add up all those subtle differences, there's a bigger message. We're losing

the voice of women. We're losing their leadership and their presence altogether. And you have to ask why. Why is it happening?

Power is what they're after. They're not after necessarily God's word and God's instructions and God's guidance because if that was the goal, we would be reading these verses so much differently. Mhmm. And we would be encouraging women to follow their calling from God. Mhmm.

Not from other men. But they're after maintaining their power, and that means limiting the power of women.

Right. And I think you always have to ask a question. If someone is translating the Bible, first of all, you're putting a lot of trust in them. Mhmm. Because I don't speak Greek.

Anytime someone tells you, I'm writing this Bible, I'm translating this Bible because someone did something I don't like? Question that. Yeah. Ask very serious questions. I ask the same questions about the King James version.

Mhmm.

It was written with the express purpose of making people think that the king should be in power.

It was a political agenda. Exactly. You need to So

you need to ask those questions of that version. What maybe is not correct from the original Greek, is not correct from the original Aramaic? And you have to ask that question of the ESV because they said we're writing this in response to the NIV, not we're writing this so we can have a more accurate version of the bible for you to read.

Which is what the NIV was. Right. They went over all of those old ancient texts and translated them maybe a little bit more accurately, or what they thought was more accurately.

You have to be really careful. You have to be careful because the way that you read the Bible is going to influence the faith that you have. Mhmm. So be careful what version you're choosing to read. So then the next one I went through is Psalms 6eight 11 through 12.

This is the one where it talks about wise women. This one is really interesting because no one is actually named. But the NIV in verses eleven and twelve, it says, the lord announces the word, and the women who proclaim it are a mighty throng. Kings and armies flee in haste. The women at home divide the plunder.

So it specifically says they're a mighty throng, which is quite a thing. So that's the NIV. The NLT, interestingly, in verse 11 does not say women at all. Now all the other versions do, but the NLT doesn't. I thought that was interesting.

And I wanted to point that out because sometimes those ones might not be as accurate either, even though those are my preferred versions. As opposed to the ESV, which says the women who announce the news are a great host. So again, that subtle word change where you see mighty versus like a great host. Can you define throng?

I would love to not. For me. A large group.

Okay, great. Like, big scary group of people. And so they're considered mighty. They're proclaiming God.

You're right. It's like, the overall message might be the same. Mhmm.

But the underlying message is not. Subtle differences. And it seeps into the way our churches see women. Mhmm. And we need to see women as mighty because that's what the Bible calls them.

That's what God calls them. Now the NIV here says stop that. The women at home divide the plunder. So essentially it means, like, there were the women out there who saw the battle, and now they're proclaiming that we've won. It's great.

Whatever. And then the women who stayed home are now dividing the plunder. It goes on to say, basically, that the men were asleep. It literally does. And so the women get to kind of, like, divide amongst themselves all of the spoils of war.

But I also found a blog that talked about this one that I thought was super, super interesting. It's the James Jackson blog. And I don't know that I'm necessarily gonna agree with everything that he says, so I don't wanna tell you to go check it out, tell you to go read it. It might be great. I only read this one particular blog, but I thought what he had to say was really, really interesting.

So what he says here is that the women who are proclaiming would be considered a great army. Like in Wonder Woman. Like in Wonder Woman. Like a military victory. Mhmm.

He says, what we're talking about here is not a real army battle. We're kind of talking spiritually, you know?

A spiritual gang?

Yeah. That's what we're talking about. He says, in this case, an army was never sent out. So normally, like, said, it wouldn't be uncommon for women to be the first ones that knew of a battle being won because they might be waiting for their husbands, and they might see them off in the distance and go tell the rest of the city, okay, here's what's going on. Mhmm.

So that wouldn't have been odd. However, in this case, an army wasn't sent out. So there was no army of men to come back and be like, Whoo! We won! Great!

So who was battling? So he says, you know, we can look through these verses and see. God is the one who rode through the deserts. God is the one who protected the widows. God is the one who marched through the wilderness, shed rain abroad, restored his inheritance, and provided for the needy.

So, the women are proclaiming the good news of God when you break that down. So, then, he says, in the Septuagint, if you can read Greek, which I cannot, but he says that the word would be euangelion, and that's good news, is what is translated here, good news. But what that can further be translated as is gospel. So the women are proclaiming the gospel. While the men are asleep, the women are proclaiming the gospel.

This great army of women is proclaiming the gospel.

That, I would like to put

on a shirt. And I just thought it was great. So if you want to look up this article, it is really good. Like I said, it's on the James Jackson blog. And then my last one, that Brie can start talking about all of hers, is Luke two, and that is Anna.

And so she is known as a prophet and the god receiver in the Eastern Orthodox tradition. She's also a saint in quite a few traditions, including the Catholic tradition.

Wasn't she, like, the first person to proclaim that, like, Jesus was Jesus? Jesus.

I believe she was. It was her and I think Simeon Mhmm. We're both in the temple Mhmm. And saw Jesus. And, yes.

So Anna had been basically, was married for seven years, and then her husband died. And so she went to the temple, she's like, meh. I can do this by myself. See you

by and she lived, like, forever.

They think so it says that she it mentions eighty four years, but they actually think it was eighty four years after her husband died that she was, like, serving in the temple. So, yeah, well into her hundreds.

Mhmm.

Her husband is not named, which I think is really interesting. And, also, I wanted to point out that I did read some people considering her the only named prophetess in the New Testament. But that's actually not true. That's not true based on my stuff. Because there are several other.

There's Philip's daughters, I believe.

Now, I'm gonna talk about them.

I'm so excited to hear it. And, also, the woman in Revelation is also considered potentially a prophet. Mhmm. So that's just a little interesting thing. And, yeah, that's I'm gonna stop there on Anna because Brie's gotta get to her stuff too.

I'm taking up all the time.

Yeah. I should keep talking. You time whore. So sorry. Okay, so I went through verses 15 through 30 and I picked my favorite five.

Did I make a giant list? No. Did I look up every different translation of the verses? No. So you can look on this article from Marg, our good friend.

Our good friend.

And you can follow right along with me. Love it. Just pull that up, ladies and germs. And I'm gonna start bottom to top. Colossians four fifteen.

It says, Give my greetings to the brothers and sisters in Laodicea. Love it? Which is how I think it's pronounced. And to Nymphah and the church in her home. So, I think that's interesting.

Again, she's leading a church in her home.

She's a preacher. I've heard so often, Oh, just because it was in their home doesn't mean they were leading the church. But that ignores all of Jewish tradition at the time. Now, again, they didn't have necessarily the title of lead pastor, but the likelihood is that she was leading the church that was held inside her home. It makes sense.

Otherwise, why would they name her? Brie's making confused gestures.

She just doesn't know. But you can't see that because this is a podcast. It's just it blows my mind that still, in the year of our Lord 2025, we're still saying that women can't be teachers, preachers, leaders. Mhmm. When it's so evident in the Bible that they were doing this.

Mhmm. Then. It was radical then. It should not be radical now. Mhmm.

In 2025. They say we're at

a point where women and minorities have the least rights and safety in The United States that we've potentially ever had.

And I'm feeling it. And I

look at our churches, and they're even worse somehow. But when you look at the church of Jesus' time, at the early church, it was the opposite. The world around them was falling apart. It was full of patriarchy. It was full of racism and horrible things.

But the church stood separately.

God told them to stand separately, to be different than the culture of the time, which was patriarchy.

Mhmm.

And now, here today, people are like, No, we should be different. We should be different. This is why patriarchy is important. Because we're living in a world where there's too many women in power, and we need to stand different. And I'm like, No, no, no, no,

no, no. You've mixed

this up. Wait a second. Yeah. I think something also interesting to note is in other translations, they've tried to call Nympha a, like, translate it to a male name instead of a female name. But scholars believe that it definitely was a woman.

Well, did that to Junia as well.

I have her on my list. Yeah. Well, go ahead. I'd love to Let me continue. Not with Junia.

Philippians four two through three says, I urge Eodia and I urge Syntyche, which I googled how to pronounce their names, and I think that's how you say it, to agree in the Lord. Yes. I also ask that you, true partner, to help these women who have contended for the gospel at my side, along with Clement and the rest of my coworkers whose names are in the book of life. So if you look through the history, it looks like these two women who were part of the church of Philippi were having some kind of disagreement. And Paul, in his letter to them, was saying, Hey, just, you know, let's reconcile our differences and just move ahead, agree in Christ.

But

Euodia and Syntyche were leaders in the church, and that's why he was writing to them. He calls them coworkers. Which is something that Paul really likes to do. He calls his buddies coworkers. They're working side by side, which I love.

He's not saying, I'm the leader above you all. He's saying,

These are my teammates. Well, think about that in context today. If you were to say, My coworkers, you're usually talking about somebody on the same level as

you Yeah.

Whereas if you were talking about, like, I'm the boss, and you're below me.

My staff. Yeah, my

employees or, you know, my workers or something along those lines. You wouldn't call them coworkers. Wouldn't be the title that you put on them.

No. But Paul does. Mhmm. Which I think says a

lot. Mhmm.

Romans 16 verse seven says, great Andronicus and Junia. Here we go, Junia. My fellow Jews and my fellow prisoners, they are noteworthy among the apostles or missionaries, and they were in Christ before me. So this says, Junia was an apostle. Mhmm.

Which is right there. Mhmm. You can say, women are in leadership, should be in leadership, should have always been in leadership. Right. But if you're confused like I was, like what the heck is an apostle?

Like what in church we throw this word around like volleyball.

So many sports references today that we don't understand.

What is an apostle? Sent by Christ to preach the gospel.

I love that. Oh, good job, Brie.

Well, I googled it.

Good job.

Sent by Christ to preach the gospel. That's what an apostle is. That's what Junia was. Mhmm. She's teaching, she's preaching, she's leading.

Also, we would call and we like to forget that women follow Jesus, but we call Peter, James, John, all the the 12 disciples, we call them apostles, right? And yet Paul is calling her an apostle, too. Yeah. Equivalent to these men that we hear about all the time in church, but we forgot about Junia. We don't hear about her.

Yeah. Just because she's not mentioned as many times doesn't mean she's any less deserving of an entire sermon. Mhmm.

I actually have a book called The Lost Apostle, and it's all about Junia.

Mhmm. Now, people debate whether she was a male or female based on, like, different translations. They've tried to make her name seem more masculine. But you were saying earlier, like, every translation of this name, it's always been female.

Yeah, historically this is referenced by quite a few of our favorite authors. Historically, if you look at anywhere else in that area where the name Junia was occurring, it was absolutely always feminine. And yet there were a lot of pastors and a lot of church leadership trying to turn her into a man. Because if she's a woman, then we have to say that she's equivalent to the rest

of the apostles. And they don't want to do that.

And then conservatism falls apart.

Yeah. Because it endangers men's power. At the end of the day, they can't have that. So if you say Junia was a woman and she was an apostle, that threatens them. Right.

And I

think a lot of these, you can see it trying to be denied. I mean, as we looked at the ESV versions and things like that, you can see where it's like, Well, let's minimize. Let's whatever. But this one's a hard one to get rid So what do you do? You turn her into a dude.

Yep.

And I've always said that. What do we do? We turn him into a dude. Read your next verse, Brianna. Okay.

The next verse is Romans sixteen one through two. And this is a letter from Paul to the church of Rome. So it says, I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a minister, in parenthesis, Diaconos, of the church of Syncrae.

Good job. We're really good at this, guys.

That you may welcome her in the Lord in the way worthy of saints and assist her in whatever she may need from you. For she has been a patron of many and even of myself as well. So to me, what this says is she was the first deacon, I believe, named deacon or the only named deacon, but it also says minister. I also noted that he said to assist her. I like that.

It's like, help her out because she's more important. She's in charge. Whatever she says goes. Now, Phoebe was sent by Paul to Rome with the book of Romans. Right.

So that to me says alone, like, he trusted her enough to carry out this letter, this super important letter, which became the book of Romans Mhmm. To these people, but also teach it and translate it to them so that they understood. So she's teaching. She's preaching, too. Well, we

talked about that, too, I think, in our episode about Phoebe, where we said she would have had to, in many ways, interpret this for them. Because you write a letter, your inflections are weird. It's like texting. You don't know what someone's feeling on the other end. So she would have had to go and really teach this for them.

This was not They didn't have all the historical context and the you know, different Bible studies and whatever to understand what Paul was saying. They didn't have Google.

They didn't have Google.

So she had to be the one answering the questions. She had to know Jesus and Paul and their ministries well enough to preach this, to teach it, to help them understand because otherwise the message is just lost. Mhmm. Because Paul couldn't give it himself. Absolutely.

He was probably in prison or something.

I think he wasn't. That's exactly what it is.

And I noted that she was a patron. So she supported, like, the church and also Paul.

He says she financially supported me individually. And he doesn't name her husband here. Like, oh, his money is supporting me. No. Phoebe is financially independent and supporting Paul's ministry.

And I think that's really important because so many women today are not encouraged to have their own financial status or have any knowledge of their own finances within their own home, or they don't have rights to them. Not rights, but like You'll see women taken off the account. Yeah. Or they don't have the passwords to the bank account, and the husband just says, You just don't have to worry about it.

Just trust me.

Yeah. Just trust me. And I think it's really important to give women back that power. Don't be left in the dark. Mhmm.

Especially with finances. Know what your deal is. Yeah. Anyways, moving on. My last verse is acts twenty one eight through nine.

It says, the next day we left and came to cis Cesarea. Sure. When I googled it, it sounded like pizzeria. Cesarea. Where we entered the house of Philip, the evangelist who was one of the Thank you.

And stayed with him. This man had four virgin daughters who prophesied. Mhmm. Now this Philip was not the apostle Philip. He was one of the seven, which I googled that who are the seven.

He was one of the Greek speaking Jewish men, including Stephen, who was chosen to minister to the Greek speaking Jewish widows in the Jerusalem Church.

Oh, interesting.

Mark has a whole other article about this story. Okay. So, I think it'd be interesting to dive into that a little bit. Mhmm. But, I noted that Paul considered prophecy to be one of the most desirable of the spiritual gifts.

Mhmm. Above teaching, above all the other ones. And that's noted in Romans twelve six through eight, Corinthians twelve twenty eight, and Ephesians four eleven. And that's all from Mark's article Mhmm. As well.

But prophecy is being gifted by the Holy Spirit to provide guidance, instruction, strength, encouragement, and comfort to the people.

Mhmm.

And these four women are noted as being prophets.

Mhmm. Incredible. Well, I mean, we've got whole lists. It seems like all of these women, not all of them, but many, many of them are considered prophets.

I think there are, like, 18 women, is what I read, noted in the New Testament. And 16 of them are named Okay. Specifically. I think that's what I read.

What I really loved about this article in particular we dive into a lot of different stories, and it's easy to say, like, Well, that's an isolated incident, or Well, there were no good men to lead, or, you know, whatever, like, all the things we've all heard before. This is 30 instances in the Bible. If God says something more than once if God says something once it's important, but if he starts saying it more than once, you really have to take note. And here's 30 instances, and I'm sure they're not the only 30 instances.

No, because Mark says that this article that she wrote is in response to another article that she read that had 35 verses in it.

And not even all of them were the same. Yeah. So, if God's saying something well over 35 times in the Bible, we should take note. We should say, Hey, that's important. And if 35 plus times in the Bible, God says, I want women to lead, too.

Not alone. No. But I want women on equal footing. I want them to lead. I want them to preach.

I want them to prophesy. He says it over and over and over. Take note.

Take note. And I feel like so often, like I said, men are afraid of losing their power. But what if we say, You don't have to lose your power, but we want to also give power to women, We want to encourage the women on the same level as you to teach, preach, lead people, to bring more people to Christ. I

have been thinking a lot about one of the people we follow on Facebook posted something about, as a woman who's a feminist in Christian circles, you're constantly accused of trying to steal leadership, to steal away, you know, whatever. And that's all you care about, is being in power. And the point is not that we need to steal power away, and women should be in power and whatever. The point is that God wanted equality. Clearly.

Clearly through the Bible, God shows examples of women leading and of men leading. So when you only have half of that, when you

only have the men leading, you are losing out. Our faith is losing out on the leadership, the prophesying, the incredible wealth that women have. Mhmm. We have a different voice. Everybody has their own unique calling by God.

And we're telling so many women today that your calling is made up in your head. It doesn't it's not as important as the men's.

Yeah, I've been that's just been something that's been bothering me a lot lately, because I have heard that before, of you just want you to be in power. No, I want to hear a different voice in power. I want new people to be represented. And that includes women, it includes minorities, it includes all a whole spectrum Everybody. Of people.

Mhmm. Underrepresented people whose voices aren't heard and therefore aren't seeing themselves represented in church. And when they don't see themselves represented there, oftentimes they walk away. Yeah. Because heaven knows it's hard to stay, it's hard for me to stay in a church space where I don't feel respected or represented.

It doesn't have to be me. I just want it to be someone who I can relate to, who might advocate for me and people like me. Or even, like, hearing stories about women

in the Bible from the pulpit. How often are you hearing she and her in your Sunday sermons? Not that often. Next to never.

All of these women led. Many of them preached. Many of them prophesied. So stop questioning whether women should or whether they can, and assume that they should and can,

and move forward with that. Because they did, and we will.

So next week, I want to talk about I got a book. It's gonna be a relatively controversial book. But hey. Oh, hey. That's what we do here.

It's called Women and the Gender of God. And that's another thing that's been weighing on my heart a lot as we talk about the current status of The United States. And I know a lot of you are international, but hopefully this is still maybe well, honestly, I hope it's not relevant to you, but I hope it's interesting to you. And maybe it is, unfortunately, relevant to you. But this book dives into how God is represented as masculine, but maybe that's not how it should be.

Maybe gender doesn't have the same bearing on an all knowing, all perfect God.

Yeah. I think it's very limiting Mhmm. To say absolute, that he's absolutely male. Mhmm.

I think that's a super fair point because there are quite a few times in the Bible where God is spoken about in a feminine form, whether it's referring to him as a mother, things like that. Or the Ezra Konegdo. Exactly. So, I would love to dive into the beginnings of that. We certainly will not get through all of it.

Mhmm. But to get that started, just because that's something that I really want to explore more for myself and that I hope you guys are interested in as well.

Yeah. Well, you're welcome. I'm glad that you stayed with us through this bible lesson.

We taught and preached it, in case you were wondering. And we stumbled through it sometimes. Alright. So we'll talk about that next week. And I hope you have a lovely May.

I hope it's sunshiny and 85 degrees for you.

It's gonna be May. Good. We've done

that twice now. I love that. I think we all do. Who

doesn't love Justin Timberlake? Love you. Bye. I love you, Justin Timberlake. Do you?

No. Goodbye. Goodbye.