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We are Alyssa and Bri, two sisters who believe God wants more for women than we've been taught. Join us as we dive into the intersection of faith and feminism, learning together as we go.
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.
Speaker 1:And apparently, that's controversial. Get comfy. Hello, world. Welcome to the We Are More podcast where all I'll be talking about is my butt cheek.
Speaker 2:What an opener.
Speaker 1:Yesterday, we were at a family reunion in which I had to be outdoors.
Speaker 2:Yeah. We don't love that.
Speaker 1:I'm not an outdoorsy person. And lo and behold, it rained, and we all had to huddle under one of those pavilions that you see at a state park. Mhmm. And there were bees there. And I thought, bees are my friends.
Speaker 1:They make honey. And if I don't react, they won't react. They reacted. Yeah. Just the one, though.
Speaker 1:For me, there was, like, 17 other people there that got stung. There were a lot. But I was just sitting there minding my own business, and then my butt cheek got stung.
Speaker 2:It was like this hilarious moment. And I'm trying to be serious because she got stung by a bee. And my daughter was sitting next to her. She goes flying. She goes and runs over to our dad, and he's huddling behind him.
Speaker 2:Brie gets up and goes flying to the horrific bathroom that's over there. You know it's bad
Speaker 1:when you are there's two stalls in kind of a woman's bathroom. I don't it it was the most I don't pee, okay, in places that are disgusting. I don't pee on planes. I've never peed in a porta potty. That's not my thing.
Speaker 1:This was essentially a porta potty with brick walls. And I went in there. One of the stalls has no door whatsoever. The other stall doesn't have a lock. And I dropped my pants, you guys, to make sure that nothing had crawled up in there.
Speaker 1:I didn't care who came in.
Speaker 2:And I said, what's going on? Meanwhile, I'm still under the pavilion. This is at, like, a metro park. And I'm still in the under the pavilion. And I'm trying to get our 93 year old grandma to get up and move because there were tons of bees over where Brie had been sitting.
Speaker 2:And grandma, if you're listening, I know you're not, but grandmother, she refused to get up. She was like, I'll be fine. They won't sting me. I was like, you're 93, woman. Get up.
Speaker 1:They'll sting you. And if that bee stings you, it'll probably take you out because it's awful. So I finally got her up and moved her. She's okay. She's still kicking.
Speaker 1:Unstung. Maybe the bees just confused my butt with a flower.
Speaker 2:Yes. That must be the problem. Mhmm. So we are gonna be hearing about Bree's butt. Well, I am.
Speaker 2:I don't know about you guys, but I'm gonna be hearing about it for- Ever. The foreseeable future.
Speaker 1:I've been going around the house saying, guess what? My butt hurts for two days now. The kids are
Speaker 2:having a great time. I did try to smack her on the butt earlier, and then I got a lecture. So that was fun. But our dad got stung twice. It was a bloodbath.
Speaker 2:My daughter had a bloody nose that would not end. Our dad was mysteriously bleeding from the head. Stuff happened, man.
Speaker 1:It was pouring rain. And also, a spider started crawling on you, jumped over to me, started crawling up my leg. Tried to climb up her pants. Which that's why I had to go drop my pants because I was like, what if that spider's in my butt? No.
Speaker 1:I killed it. Yeah. But what if there was another one? But turns out it was Bea.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It was definitely a Bea.
Speaker 1:And this is why we don't go out in nature.
Speaker 2:We're not good at it.
Speaker 1:We do not do nature. I don't enjoy it. I don't think it's fun. I get that it's a gift from God. The gift was not meant for me.
Speaker 2:It's a gift for others.
Speaker 1:The gift was for everybody, but not to everybody.
Speaker 2:I know those there are those of you out there that understand.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Like, I love the idea of nature. And maybe one day, I'll change my mind. Because back in the day, I used to love the idea of reading, But I didn't actually like the practice. Now I do enjoy reading.
Speaker 1:But I like the idea of nature. I like its beauty and its majesty. And I like the idea of, like, going on a wilderness walk and like
Speaker 2:but there are so many things out there that can kill you. I like a manicured version of nature. I like to sit on my porch in a rocking chair. Okay? I like to walk down the sidewalks in the city that I live in and walk down to, like, the river and whatever.
Speaker 2:I enjoy that. That's a good time. But there are sidewalks, and there's minimal animals in nature. I don't even like sitting on this porch. I like to sit on the porch.
Speaker 1:No. I'm kinda pleasant.
Speaker 2:There are some bugs.
Speaker 1:But that's that's how we feel. I don't even like
Speaker 2:a butterfly. She is petrified of butterflies, actually. And guys. Life update from Alyssa, and then we'll actually get onto a topic at some point. So I am redoing the stairwell in our house because ChatGPT gave me a great idea of what to do with it.
Speaker 2:And I like I don't know if you guys have caught on to my aesthetic yet, but I like spooky vibe things. Right? Not gross. Not weird, but just dark, gothic, you know, that kind of feel. And so I bought I found on Etsy, like, bug specimens.
Speaker 2:And so I bought a bumblebee. And I think it's a damselfly, but it looks like a dragonfly, and a really beautiful teal butterfly. And they're all, like, actual specimens in shadow boxes. And I find it hilarious because Brie was just stung by a bee, and she's terrified of butterflies. Alyssa hates me.
Speaker 2:But I didn't get a bat.
Speaker 1:Good news. I that's some lore for you. I am traumatized by bats. I do not like them. I do not want to be near them.
Speaker 1:I don't like even the suggestion of a bat.
Speaker 2:So I didn't buy the bat. Thank you. Yeah. Now today, before we run out of time talking about absolute stupidness
Speaker 1:It's not stupidness. This is real life. Okay?
Speaker 2:I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1:Some people have fears, and our fear is nature. Our fear is nature. And the things that are in it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. The bugs and the bees and the bats.
Speaker 1:And not like the sexy kind.
Speaker 2:The sexy kind of bats?
Speaker 1:The birds and the bats.
Speaker 2:No. Not that kind.
Speaker 1:That's a dark day.
Speaker 2:We're talking about Jehosheba.
Speaker 1:I just made a really funny joke, and you missed it.
Speaker 2:Good. So today, we're talking about Jehosheba, who is found twice in
Speaker 1:the bible but only across three verses. I desperately wanna call her Jojo Siwa.
Speaker 2:I would not make that her nickname, but, you know, live your best life. So she is found in second Kings 11 and also second Chronicles 22. And like I said, literally, it's across between those two sections is three verses that we get of her. Her story's tiny. It's only mentioned a couple of times.
Speaker 2:So it seems maybe insignificant. But in fact, is quite significant. Mhmm. It's super important. So let's tell her story, and then we'll talk about why it's important and the lore around her.
Speaker 2:The big why. Yeah. The big why. And so what we have learned No. That comes at the end.
Speaker 2:Okay. Gonna wait until we've learned something.
Speaker 1:Okay. Alright. Well, I'm pretty sure we've already learned some things.
Speaker 2:About bats. Mhmm. So Jehosheba and I hope I'm pronouncing her name correctly. There's no way to know. But she was a princess of Judah.
Speaker 2:So she had a lot of connections. She was the daughter of King Jehoram. And I'm gonna hope I pronounce all of these right because there's a lot of names going on. She was the sister or possibly half sister, historians aren't sure, of King Ahaziah. And she was also the wife of Jehoiada.
Speaker 2:That was an exciting one. Who was the high priest at the time.
Speaker 1:You're doing a much better job than I was. When I was reading her passages Second Kings. In second Kings earlier, my names went like this. And Jehosheba.
Speaker 2:That sounds good. Mhmm. I'm excited by that. Yeah. Anyway, so she was connected to the royal bloodline and also to the priesthood.
Speaker 2:So she was she was a well connected woman. She had a lot going on. And that becomes important in her story to have kind of that dual role there. So the background is a little bit messy. Judah's royal family, the area's royal family, is kind of falling apart.
Speaker 2:King Ahaziah, who is Jehosheba's brother or half brother possibly, is killed. Now his mother, whose name is Othelia, I'm gonna go with.
Speaker 1:I liked the way you said it earlier.
Speaker 2:Othelia. No. Othelia. Moving on. Alright.
Speaker 2:So it's it's the king's mom, and she kind of decides that she would rather rule on her own. As we do. It seems like there's probably not another male heir of an age that would take over. And so she probably would have been ruling for a little while anyway, but she's like, nope. This is mine.
Speaker 2:No. Now we don't know if she was Jehosheba's mother also because as I said, King Ahaziah and Jehosheba may have been half siblings. But Athaliah does something truly awful. She orders that every royal heir be murdered. She does something truly awful, but also we see it all over the bible.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah.
Speaker 1:Why are they always killing babies in the bible?
Speaker 2:I don't know. It happens a lot, and it's something that makes me very uncomfortable.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:But she she orders this, and technically, she's in charge right now. So people start to do her bidding. I feel like she probably did this too because
Speaker 1:maybe all of the possible other heirs were at an age where it was easy to take them out now. Yeah. Whereas if she waited, it would be harder. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And maybe they would have a following of people that were loyal to them or something.
Speaker 1:She has very much praying mantis vibes.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And you have to think too, this would have been, like, a really selfish choice. Because she's probably at an age if if her son was Ahaziah, she's probably at an age where she can't have kids anymore.
Speaker 1:Or at least she's a little bit older.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:You know?
Speaker 2:And so it's unlikely that she would produce another heir, which means that by killing off all of these heirs, that kills the family line. That kills this royal line.
Speaker 1:Who comes after her? She doesn't really care.
Speaker 2:That's the thing. That would throw this whole community into chaos. So there's far reaching implications here. But people still did what she told them to. Because the belief at this time and honestly often in our current world is that the person in power should be followed without question.
Speaker 2:And so they did what she asked. And almost all of the heirs are killed off. Now Jehosheba becomes part of this story because she sees this happening. And she finds one child. And I don't know what the scene is like.
Speaker 2:Is this a bloodbath? You know, guards are running around and she sees a kid and she scoops it up and runs. Because we literally get three verses. Right. Like, you don't know.
Speaker 2:Are are people sneaking around doing this? I don't know. But she finds a one year old. We assume he's about a year old. And she secretly takes him and his nurse, so the woman that's raising him, and hides them inside the temple.
Speaker 2:Now remember, her husband is the high priest. So she's got connections.
Speaker 1:This is Joash. Jehoaida is who she saves?
Speaker 2:No. I'm sorry. Yes. Joash is who she saves. Jehoaida is her husband.
Speaker 2:So she hides the child and his nurse in the temple, which you've got to think would be kind of difficult. The temple isn't closed off. People go into it, and kids aren't generally quiet. Well, you also have to think, what kind
Speaker 1:of terms is this? How long is this gonna go on? How do you get food? How do you function without being noticed?
Speaker 2:Mhmm. And there's a lot of people. There's other priests. Yes. Her husband's a high priest, but there's other priests who could have been loyal to her mother or stepmother.
Speaker 2:And people going in and out that could have been bribed to tell the queen, you know, all these different things. But they hid Joash in the temple for six years. That's a long freaking time. Think of being this kid. You can't go outside.
Speaker 2:You can't have friends. You don't know why. You're just living fully inside these four walls. We don't know how big that temple was. With minimal communication, probably with minimal education.
Speaker 2:That's really sad. It's wonderful that she saved him, that he grew up, that the further story happens. But, like, I just think of him as a kid, you know, like a six year
Speaker 1:old kid. I also think about his nurse or whoever was caring for him. She didn't have to do that. Mhmm. She could have left and lived her life, probably.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Done something else that was a little less risky. Yeah. But she chose to stay in a situation that made her not safe
Speaker 2:because she thought she was doing the right thing. She could have probably also turned him into the queen and gotten riches for herself. Mhmm. That's a great point. I'd never think about her in this story.
Speaker 2:But so after six years, the Athalia is still Athalia? I don't remember how I said her name before.
Speaker 1:Big f. Yeah. No. That's bad.
Speaker 2:So these six years are going on, and she's been on the throne this whole time. Now she's pretty murdery, so you can't imagine this has been like a great time for the tribe of Judah.
Speaker 1:Who are you picturing when you tell the story? Because for me, it's like a little bit of the evil queen from Snow White and also the praying mantis from A Bug's Life.
Speaker 2:No. You know who I'm picturing is Yzma from Emperor's New Groove. Oh. Yeah. Right?
Speaker 2:See? Even you know, got her own crunk and everything.
Speaker 1:Let's call her Isma. Alright. Isma. Alright. That's not her biblical name.
Speaker 2:My dad is the name we have given her. It's her given name. Okay. So she's been on Isma's been on the throne for six years. The tribe of Judah is probably having a bad time.
Speaker 2:Now, the bible doesn't say that specifically. We get
Speaker 1:three verses of this story. Doesn't give us a lot whatsoever. So
Speaker 2:I think you can imply that, and this is our interpretation here. Read it for yourself. It'll take you about four seconds. But my interpretation would be based on the things that happened next, that this wasn't a good time for them. They were struggling.
Speaker 2:Now when Joash is about seven years old, Jehoiada, who is Jehosheba's husband, gathers a bunch of military leaders together and says like, hey, here's the real king. We've been keeping him all this time. I have a secret. Promise not to tell? There's a lot of Disney references in this one.
Speaker 2:Now you have to assume that the military leaders had to have two things going on. And here's why I assume she was a bad queen. Because, a, they had to have no loyalty to her for what happens next.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And, b, they had to have a lot of faith in Jehoiada and Jehosheba.
Speaker 1:Also because this kid now is, what, six years old? Seven. Mhmm. So they're saying, I'd rather have this seven year old on the throne than whoever we have going right now. Right.
Speaker 1:That's gonna give the people a better opportunity.
Speaker 2:And there's no way they recognized him. He was a year old when he disappeared. And now he's seven. So they they have to trust Mhmm. That this is who they say he is.
Speaker 2:But they do. And it says that the people immediately support Joash as their king. And when Isma hears the cheering because now it it seems like it's probably not just military leaders now. A crowd has come forth.
Speaker 1:Well, it's, you know, the rumor weed. Things spread. Wow. So many references. I'm really struggling today just with my brain is going, patting, pow, patting.
Speaker 1:You ever have that happen to
Speaker 2:you guys? Just me? So she hears all this cheering, and it says she rushes in yelling, Treason, treason. I wonder like, I'm trying to I'm trying to picture the scene. And I'm imagining the queen running into any scenario by herself.
Speaker 2:That probably doesn't happen. Right? She's got guards. She's got people. But it seems like all of her people have turned on her.
Speaker 1:It seems like she possibly has lost control. Yeah. But she's like, I'm panicking.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And she's shouting treason when in fact she was the one that committed massive treason. Right? And she's executed right there on the spot. The people are like, nope, we're done.
Speaker 2:No trial, no nothing. Just we're done. We found the real king. You're out. And so Joash becomes king.
Speaker 2:And that's the story. It's a short one. Like I said, feel free to read it. It'll it'll be very quick quick devotions tonight. But this story is really important.
Speaker 2:And here's why I think it's in the bible, first of all, and also why we're even talking about it. It's because this family line coming from Joash is what fulfills part of the promises of Jesus. Because part of the prophecy that leads to Jesus is that he'll be from the line of King David. Joash is from the line of King David. So presumably, unless there's some other family member somewhere that we don't know about, presumably, if this whole family dies, there is no more line of king David.
Speaker 2:And so Jesus cannot be born from that. And so all of these promises that the Jewish people have been holding onto kind of fall apart. Everything kind of falls apart. Because if that one little thing was a lie, what else is a lie? What else can't we believe God in if God didn't do what he said he was gonna do?
Speaker 1:And it happened because of the courage of one woman. Mhmm. The like, why did she do that? That's the biggest question that I have is, did she do it out of compassion because she saw this one year old and thought they don't deserve to die? Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Did she do it because she thought it was the right thing to do to preserve this line? Did she do it because she just had a little bit of chaos in her that morning and said, I don't know. Let's see what happens. Let's hide him for six years. That didn't make her life easy.
Speaker 1:That also, same as the nurse who made the choice to put herself in danger, she also put herself in danger.
Speaker 2:I think for us, we like to do things knowing what's gonna happen. Yeah. You know? We, like, we wanna predict, okay. Here's my five year plan.
Speaker 2:Here's my ten year plan. Whatever. And that gives us some sense of control maybe. Or even when we're witnessing to someone to be like, okay. Well, my end goal is that they get saved.
Speaker 2:And then, you know, whatever. But with her, it is interesting because she she probably would have known that promise that that Jesus would come from David's line. But was that what was in her head in that moment? Because it's probably not.
Speaker 1:Right? Also, just the chaos that's going on Mhmm. On around you. This woman is saying, kill off all the babies so that I can be queen forever. Huzzah.
Speaker 2:I think sometimes you have to do what she did and do the good thing just to do the good thing. Not because you know what the next good thing is or the next good thing is or whatever. You do the right thing because this one thing is the right thing. You take one step.
Speaker 1:And the bible is full of women doing that. Mhmm. You see that in Moses' story. You see that in Jael's story. You see that in Deborah's story.
Speaker 1:You see that all throughout the Bible. And unfortunately, these women don't get a lot of recognition. Mhmm. Instead, we hear about King David. Instead, we hear about Moses.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. Instead, we hear about Abraham. Like, all of these men, that's what you hear when you're in church from But the there's these little sprinkles of all these women who, without these women, we would not have our story. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Literally without Jehosheba, Jesus' promises don't happen. Think that through. The prophecy of God that God set up at the beginning of the earth, right, to promise Jesus was coming doesn't happen without her. And we don't even know her name. I didn't know her name.
Speaker 2:And we don't know
Speaker 1:how to pronounce her name.
Speaker 2:Well, that's fair. I'm pretty sure on this one. This one seems pretty simple. Some of the other ones are iffy,
Speaker 1:but I think hers. We have Yzma and Jojo Siwa. What happens when you put
Speaker 2:these two together? Death. And she does this a similar thing to some other women in the Bible. Like Moses's mother, who puts him in a basket in the river. Pharaoh's daughter, who then finds Moses.
Speaker 2:Esther. There are other women in the Bible who do very similar things to what Jehosheba did, and we remember their stories. We don't preach about them very often, but we do remember them. There are VeggieTales episodes on them. And it's interesting.
Speaker 2:And maybe it's just because their stories are a little bit longer and hers is so short, so you have to kind of imply some things, create a story in your own head. But it's interesting that she is critical to the Bible. She is critical to Jesus. Could God have made Jesus exist without her? Sure.
Speaker 2:Would God have been keeping his promises? No. Sure. And part of it too, I think, is her lack of importance. You know, she's only in three verses, but she's also not a big deal.
Speaker 2:I I know that sounds weird. But as a person in her time, yes, she was well connected for a woman. Yes, she did have a lot of outlets. But realistically, she doesn't become queen after this. She doesn't rule at all.
Speaker 2:She doesn't give a speech. She doesn't defeat an army or a military captain. It's kinda like, I've got another Disney reference. Are you ready? In Sleeping Beauty, Sleeping Beauty herself only says, I think it's like less than two dozen words throughout the entire movie.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. That's what it feels like. Yeah. Like, she's she's the main character in this story. She's so important.
Speaker 2:But we hardly know who she is because she doesn't get a lot of page time.
Speaker 1:And I also think about the writers of the bible too. They don't want to give credit to a woman. Mhmm. Because that questions male authority.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And actually responding to some Instagram messages last night, they were like, there are no women preachers in the Bible. Obviously, there should be no women preachers then. And it's frustrating because my response to that was like, read the Bible again.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Read the Bible again because it's hard to find them sometimes. Mhmm. But it is full of very powerful, very influential women that without them, things would not happen. That's quiet faithfulness. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:That's doing the right thing just because it's the right thing. It's not flashy. It's not Joseph's many colored coat. But it's moments where you just do the right thing because it's the right thing to do. And where are we doing that in our lives?
Speaker 1:Knowing that we don't know what's next, knowing that we might not get the recognition that we know we deserve. Mhmm. But we're doing it anyways.
Speaker 2:Yeah. You wonder if if she knew what a big deal it was that she was doing that thing. And if she did, and we don't know if she did, but if she did, there's always that part of you when you do something really good. You're like, okay. Like, I'm a boy.
Speaker 1:I bought a 20 in the donation book today. So I don't know if you saw that.
Speaker 2:And you do. You kinda feel like even if you don't brag about it, like, you feel good, you know? And there's nothing wrong with that. But if she felt like that, imagine being her. She's up in heaven now, I'm sure.
Speaker 2:And looking down, and you know I did something amazing. I did something amazing. And then you look down and nobody knows who you are.
Speaker 1:Also, I get three verses in the Bible, and I dedicated, at minimum, six years of my life Mhmm. To this. Carrying this secret, carrying this burden for six long years. You wonder what the day to day of that looked like
Speaker 2:for Probably very difficult. That was probably a constant thing she was dealing with because she would have been someone around the queen. She was either the daughter or the stepdaughter of the queen, so she was consistently in her presence, having to deal with that. And also, like, sneaking off and bringing food to the temple for this child. And making sure that the people that she surrounded herself with Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Were careful. Just constantly on edge Mhmm. For six years. And that's not to
Speaker 2:say that you do good things to be recognized and to have, you know, your name known in history and whatever. Most of us will not do that. But it's worth asking why we remember the people we remember. Why do we remember the men and forget the women? Why do we know their names and we don't know the names of women?
Speaker 2:Why do we hear he from the pulpit and not she? It's worth wondering why and digging into why because you lose part of the story. This is a miracle that God helped create. This is a miracle that we have lost.
Speaker 1:It's not flashy. Mhmm. We're not parting the Red Seas. But he put the right people in the right places at the right time to make sure that Jesus could come.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. And think of her bravery here because no one else did this. There were plenty of people in the palace at that time. My un I mean, this is an implication, but you have to assume there were quite a few kids being straight up murdered. And you have
Speaker 1:to think about the bystander effect. Mhmm. Right? People they do this all the time. You look around and you say, I know that's wrong, but you're not taking a stand.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Because it would be uncomfortable. Other people around you aren't making a stand either. Other people around you aren't saying, hey. This is wrong. Please stop.
Speaker 1:Or taking action. So things just happen.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. Well, that's an argument we actually get a lot on our social media where people will say, well, the religious leaders for two thousand years have been doing it this way. Who are you to question it? And I think that's such a silly argument.
Speaker 1:Because I'm not complacent, you butthole. But that's the point
Speaker 2:is sometimes you have to do the thing that looks like the wrong thing. Isn't there a quote from something we watch all the
Speaker 1:time that was like, just because it has been doesn't mean that's the way it should be? Probably. That's my quote of
Speaker 2:the day. Alright. I love it.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna cross stitch it. Good quote.
Speaker 2:Brie's determined to learn how to cross stitch, and I'm really trying to, like, squish that in her.
Speaker 1:To be fair, I think it'd be hilarious to put the most ridiculous things into cross stitch. And I'm talking a big game, but I'm not making any money moves.
Speaker 2:Cross stitch artists are, like, well known for putting absolutely ridiculous things
Speaker 1:into cross funny. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:But what we don't need in this house is a bunch of thread laying around. Get ready. So I also wanted to find out more about her in context because, obviously, we only have three verses. And so I was hoping, I was hoping, that there was something out there in the world. We always like to look at other faith traditions and historical context and stuff like that to see if there's more out there about this person.
Speaker 2:Unfortunately, there's not a lot. So in the Jewish tradition, she is remembered a little bit more. So she is listed among the 23 great righteous women of Israel, which is a big deal. Like, I mean, one of 23. That's that's a pretty good percentage.
Speaker 2:That's uni. So she in that list is in the company of women like Sarah and Miriam, Deborah, Ruth, Esther, things like that. And she's remembered specifically because of her courage, because she helped preserve David's line and led to Jesus. Right? So she is, to some degree, remembered in that tradition.
Speaker 2:I couldn't find any evidence that she's focused on, that there's a holiday, you know, in her honor or anything like that. So there's nothing that's specific to honor her, but at least she she does make it onto this list. It's like, you know, when you go on BuzzFeed, and it's like, the top 10 things you need for fall. These are the top 23 women you need to know, I guess. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Now in rabbinic traditions, she's focused on this and this bothered me. Maybe it'll bother you too. But she's only really remembered for what she did for men.
Speaker 1:That seems like that's never happened before.
Speaker 2:So out of character. Right? And so it's basically what her actions preserved as opposed to who she was as a person and her bravery and things like that. So, like, she preserved David's line. She preserved God's covenant with David, you know, things like that as opposed to who she was.
Speaker 2:And I think we do that a lot with the stories of women of like, well, here's what they did for the men. Yay, I guess.
Speaker 1:Or here's how they relate to a man's story. Not a story on their own, but here's how they connect to a man. Because that's where they find their value Mhmm. Is how they're connected to a man. And you can even see that in today, in taking your husband's last name.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. Or this isn't as common anymore, but like when you would write a woman's name, like a wife's name, you would be like, missus John Smith.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. Right. And you lose your identity completely in that. Yeah. It's I think we have to remember that the Bible was written and we talk about this a lot, but the Bible was written in a patriarchal society by likely pretty patriarchal men.
Speaker 2:We also lost a lot of books of the bible because a council was convened, And you can look all of this up. And they decided, okay, these 66 books are what equate to the bible. So we lost things like the book of Mary Magdalene.
Speaker 1:Or Judith. Right. We lost them. We don't have them anymore because we didn't think the stories of women were important. I also find it ironic just to talk about this story and the juxtaposition of two women against each other.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Othelia, which is what I'm gonna call her, was a woman Yeah. Leading. She was taking out people so that she could lead. She was, I think, the only female ruler in the house of Judah. But you also have people like Deborah, who was also a judge and a leader.
Speaker 1:And we forget those women Mhmm. In the Bible. That back in the day, yes, was a patriarchal society, but there were definitely women stepping up and leading. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Yeah. You have to wonder what brought her to that point. What brought Othelia to that point? Because she wasn't his the king's wife. She was the king's mom.
Speaker 2:So that puts her in a different position.
Speaker 1:Did
Speaker 2:he she said the king mother? Yes. And she said, alright, it's my turn.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Now that my son's dead, said. It's my turn. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And yes. It's horrific. The horror the whole story is The horror. The whole story is horrifying. But what led her there?
Speaker 2:That's what I would love to know is like, what decisions across time was it just a bid for power? She just wanted as much power for herself as possible? Or had she been abused by the men in her life? Did she think she was gonna do a better job? You just wonder.
Speaker 2:And and we can't know. But it's an interesting thought because women at that time were so pushed aside, were so abused. And she would have been the wife of Jehosheba's father. But because we're not sure, Jehosheba is list or she's talked about as the king's daughter, but specifically the king's daughter, not the queen's daughter. So she could have been the daughter of someone within the king's harem, basically.
Speaker 1:One of the king's sister wives. Right.
Speaker 2:And and so Othelia was dealing with that too. There's there's a lot going on. Not that it justifies anything, but just that it's interesting. You know, it's an interesting thought.
Speaker 1:And, you know, people are complex. And I think we forget about that a lot of times when we tell the stories of women and how amazing they are or men and what they've done. We forget that they're human and they have complex emotions and that not everything they do is amazing and perfect. Sometimes they're why did I forget the name of that bug that I've been talking about? Praying Which, if you don't know why I'm saying that, praying mantises, mantises.
Speaker 1:The female after she mates with the male to so she can get prego, she eats the man. The man.
Speaker 2:You know, you gotta do what you gotta do.
Speaker 1:Not the male praying mantis. The man. Our
Speaker 2:message here is not be like a praying mantis. Just in case you you hadn't caught on
Speaker 1:to that. But it is amusing.
Speaker 2:Now another part of this story that I think is worth exploring is that Jehosheba made a choice that was potentially very detrimental to her. And I don't just mean like, oh, it was inconvenient. Now she had to raise a kid. I mean, think it through. She is the princess.
Speaker 2:She has some major connections. All she had to do was back off and say, I didn't see that kid. She wouldn't have been blamed. It wouldn't have been her fault. She didn't do anything wrong in theory.
Speaker 2:Right? And she could have cozied up to the queen. She didn't have any claim to the throne, so she wouldn't have been a threat. And she could have been best buds with the queen and had tons of power for herself. She was an important figure in the royal house and the religious house.
Speaker 2:She could have been a big deal. She could have gotten more than three verses. Maybe. But she chose not to do that, and she chose it over and over every day. It's easy to say I made one good choice.
Speaker 2:It's harder to say every day that I live a very hard life. I could be living an easy one. Some of us do have to do that, to have to make the right choice every day and kind of slog through it when we could make a different choice and live just a little bit easier.
Speaker 1:How often are we as women doing that? Hey, look at Alyssa and I. It would be a crap ton easier if I just said, you know what? Fine. Let me live with the patriarchy.
Speaker 1:Let me find a good husband and be a quiet little wife. Or if I just wasn't so aggressive with my thoughts, feelings, and emotions, My family would like me a little bit better. There are so many ways that we could say, life could be easier. But instead, we're sitting here making this freaking podcast. Because we're choosing our hard.
Speaker 2:We are at a time in history that I think is critically important. And I think back to the verse in Esther that basically says, you were made for today. You were made for such a time as this. We are living through a part of history that's gonna be remembered. It is.
Speaker 1:Reflecting pools and all. We are gonna remember this time. And you wanna look back and say, what side of history was I on? Was I the one quietly doing the right thing? Was I protecting the people around me?
Speaker 1:Was I loving the people around me? Was I being the hands and feet of Jesus here on earth while I could be? I hope you can say yes with your full chest. Your full one? Mine.
Speaker 2:They talk about that in churches all the time. I can't tell you how many sermons I heard on that exact topic. And yet
Speaker 1:And yet. You walk out
Speaker 2:of those churches, and you hear about the abuse in that exact church. I have to walk out of this life knowing that I fought for the right things.
Speaker 1:I don't think you're gonna walk out.
Speaker 2:Roll out? Be rolled out? Roll out. Hey. Float out?
Speaker 2:I don't know. I don't know what you do. It's hard to say. Whatever I do on the way out. I have to know that I did as much as I could to love God and love others.
Speaker 2:And sometimes that's hard for me. Because as you all know, I'm a massive introvert. And loving others is not easy.
Speaker 1:She's a
Speaker 2:liar. I am not a liar. I have a shirt. It says introvert. It's embroidered on it.
Speaker 2:And if I've got a shirt,
Speaker 1:my shirt says all love.
Speaker 2:It just says
Speaker 1:love, I think. Oh, does it say all? Oh, yeah, it does.
Speaker 2:How appropriate for this episode. I didn't mean the shirt I was wearing. I mean,
Speaker 1:I have a shirt. I feel like so often, every single one of our podcasts could just be summed up into this. Mhmm. Love God and love others. But that is so difficult
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:To get across Yeah. To people. Because people I mean, scroll through our comment section Mhmm. On the social medias. People are so obsessed with the idea that you can't just love.
Speaker 1:You can't just have the doors wide open. You have to have the Costco membership card.
Speaker 2:You know,
Speaker 1:you have to, you have to follow all these stipulations. They're like, our faith doesn't allow you to just
Speaker 2:love. Mhmm. There have to be walls up. And and there there just doesn't need to be a wall. It's really simple, guys, because if anyone's gonna create a wall, it's not gonna be us.
Speaker 2:It's gonna be Jesus. Right? If anybody gets to decide where the boundary is, it's not you. So live without the boundary. Let Jesus put up the boundary.
Speaker 2:If somebody has sin going on in their lives, that's on God. That's not on you. You don't need to point it out to them. You don't need to discuss it on social media. You don't need
Speaker 1:to talk about it in church. Listen. And let within reason. Within reason. There are certain things that Within reason.
Speaker 1:Are moral issues. Mhmm. For example, the Tate brothers that we talked about last week.
Speaker 2:Right. But
Speaker 1:if people aren't doing anything wrong,
Speaker 2:leave them be. Mhmm. I think specifically the people too who are seeking God and I see this all the time. You see people genuinely seeking God and the church turning them away. And I'm not talking about the performative seeking God like we talked about last week, but people who genuinely are looking for God, who are begging for God.
Speaker 2:And they can't get to him because you put up 55 walls in their way. Don't be the reason someone doesn't get to god. Don't let your decisions, your rules because let's say you're wrong. Let me use an example that I talk about all the time on social media, the LGBTQ community. Now we are affirming here.
Speaker 2:We don't believe that that is wrong biblically, morally, anything like that. That being said, a lot of churches do. And so people will say, okay. If you are part of the LGBTQ community, you don't get to walk in the doors here at this church. Or maybe you get to walk in the doors, but you don't get to serve.
Speaker 2:Or you can serve, but you can't dedicate your child on stage. You know, stuff like that.
Speaker 1:You can serve, but we don't want people to know that you're serving. We still want your labor. We still want your money. Mhmm. But you can't be seen.
Speaker 2:Right. Those people are going to turn away from God because of you. And what if you're wrong? What if you're wrong? Just sit with that.
Speaker 1:And also, I look at Alyssa and I. What happens if we're wrong? Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Not much.
Speaker 1:We never are. But if I loved someone, even if it turns out Jesus says, you know what, that was a sin. But you still they still got saved. Mhmm. You know?
Speaker 1:They're still gonna be welcomed into the gates of heaven. If I'm wrong, I still loved people.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:I still showed Jesus' love. If you're wrong,
Speaker 2:oh. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Someone goes to hell for eternity because of choices that you made. Or someone lives their life in hell Mhmm. Here on Earth because of you.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. Like, can you live with that? You made their
Speaker 1:life a living hell. I
Speaker 2:just don't think I can live with that. And I'm not saying that it's always easy because you are gonna look at people who are legitimately doing wrong, who are legitimately harming others. And you're gonna say, I don't know how to love you. And I'm not saying stand in their space and love them right right up next to them. But it's not always easy.
Speaker 2:It's certainly not easy to look at the people you hate the most and say, god loves you as much as he loves me. But that is what we're called to do. Mhmm. It's what Jehosheba did. She sacrificed, yes, six years of her life in this particular case, but also her influence, her power, her connections.
Speaker 2:She sacrificed a lot of things not knowing what would come of it, Not knowing that Joash would eventually become king.
Speaker 1:She chose to value that life. Mhmm. And stand up to authority. Mhmm. And say, I'm not gonna do what I was told to do.
Speaker 1:Which is very interesting because the bible is littered with those kinds of stories. People saying and standing up to authority and saying, no.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. What I particularly love is when women do that. Mhmm. Because I get told to sit down and shut up by men quite literally every day. Every day.
Speaker 2:You put yourself out as a feminist on the Internet, men will tell you to sit down and shut up. Guaranteed. It's like death and taxes. Okay? And the reasoning is that women are supposed to obey men.
Speaker 2:That's what they say. Respect authority. Right. But she didn't do that. And so many women throughout the bible think of the daughters of Zelophehad.
Speaker 2:I just did a video about them the other day. And they they changed inheritance law in Israel to be more favoring towards women because they stood up to authority and said this is wrong. The bible is full of women like that that are amazing and wonderful and inspiring, and we should talk about them more. And, man, I need a pastor like that in my area because there's just not one.
Speaker 1:And there are so many. There's so many wonderful pastors out there on the social medias that are saying a lot of the same things that we're saying here on this podcast. So I encourage you to go find them. Yeah. I wish there was one near us.
Speaker 2:Yeah. If if one of you is thinking of moving to Michigan, hit us up, and we'll tell you what city to come to. I'm willing to drive a bit. A bit. Not A bit.
Speaker 2:Not like a lot. We're we don't like the outside. We'd have to roll our windows down. It's a thing.
Speaker 1:The air conditioning in my car is a little shady.
Speaker 2:A little bit. Okay. So next week, we are apparently getting ready for spooky season. Well, I am. Our house is already getting ready for spooky season.
Speaker 2:Like, I've bought a lot of Halloween y things. Weenie. So this is a story that I did not know from the Bible, but it's about a woman, and she's known as the witch of Endor.
Speaker 1:For
Speaker 2:any of my Star Wars fans out there, that's very funny because Endor is all over Star Wars.
Speaker 1:I think it's funny because I just sang a song that could have been from Star Wars It wasn't. But it wasn't.
Speaker 2:Not at
Speaker 1:I think it was Jurassic Park.
Speaker 2:I'm not sure it was that.
Speaker 1:I'm pretty sure I'm right. Anyway,
Speaker 2:so this story, I would encourage you to read it before next week. It is super, super weird. Oh, you got some homework. So it's found in first Samuel 28, and it's after Samuel dies. And the witch of Endor is actually, like, a medium.
Speaker 2:And Don't give
Speaker 1:it all away. Sorry. She
Speaker 2:she's a little spooky. We're gonna get into some spooky topics. Some topics that seem like they shouldn't be in the Bible, I guess.
Speaker 1:Especially because as little Baptist kids, we've run so far Mhmm. Away from anything involving that. Mhmm. So it's interesting to hear that aspect seen in the Bible.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I actually follow these two women, and I I wish I could shout them out, but I don't remember their names. But they talk a lot about how Christianity has lost its mysticism and how the original Israelites would have had a lot of, like, mysticism as part of their faith.
Speaker 1:Well, even, like, our practice of communion. Mhmm. When you take a step back super freaking weird. Super freaking weird.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I think pieces like this we don't talk about because it does invite some of that discomfort that we have with with mysticism, with that unexplainable part of faith.
Speaker 1:Which I feel like we should get comfortable being because we believe in a big god in the sky.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. Maybe not the most logical thing
Speaker 1:in the world. Listen. The world is weird. Look at platypuses. They are quite weird.
Speaker 1:So we're gonna get comfortable being uncomfortable together.
Speaker 2:We're gonna get comfortable with platypuses. Platypusi?
Speaker 1:I'm not gonna say what
Speaker 2:I was gonna say. Yeah. That was gonna go to a bad place, wasn't it? Okay. So if you wanna learn about witches from the Bible, tune in next week.
Speaker 2:We will
Speaker 1:be talking about that. Another great episode from witches in the Bible. We're talking about witches by these two witches.
Speaker 2:So I hope you enjoyed learning about Jehosheba. Follow us on social media if you don't. You can find us at the hashtag we are more, and we'll talk to you next week.
Speaker 1:You're welcome, and enjoy your evening, and enjoy that
Speaker 2:you didn't get a bee sting on your butt.
Speaker 1:My butt is so firm.
Speaker 2:Okay. Love you. Bye. Bye.