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We're so excited to bring you episode 2! Join us as we talk about some of the lesser-known women of the Bible and bring to light their importance in God's kingdom. We'll talk about Deborah (or Big Deb, as she is affectionately known), Jael (tent pegs are involved), and Puah and Shifrah (who may have saved the Israelite people). If you're tired of never hearing women mentioned from the pulpit, this is the podcast for you.
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.
Welcome to the We Are More podcast.
My name is Alyssa.
And my name is Bri.
We are 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.
Hi and welcome back to the We Are More podcast.
I'm Alyssa and this is my sister Bri.
Hello, you're welcome.
If you tuned in last time, thank you so much.
And I hope you enjoyed hearing our stories.
If you didn't, you should go back and listen to that because we're kind of funny.
Today we are going to be talking about the forgotten women of the Bible.
We're just going to kind of go into a few of them.
Let me tell you, there's a shocking amount of them.
There are a lot.
I'm looking at that book and that's a big book.
In my lap is literally a book about every listed woman in the Bible, pretty much.
And there's just pages upon pages upon pages.
So we're going to talk about a few of them today and why their stories are important.
And I'm sure this will be an ongoing series that we come back to and go in more in depth
with.
Yeah, that's a little bit of what we're doing today.
So what kind of inspired this for me was today I was listening to a sermon.
I looked up, I don't know if you all have heard of Junia in the Bible.
If you haven't, she's one that we will definitely touch on if not today soon.
And I wanted to find a sermon on Junia and she, it just didn't exist.
Like, all of YouTube, there were some, um, like some documentary style pieces.
There was one sermon and it was from this church.
I believe it's called beachfront church in California, which sounds like a beautiful
church.
It sounds great.
Do you think that their windows just all face the ocean?
If they don't, that's a sin.
God's gonna smite them.
But it was about, and it, you know, I don't think the pastor was necessarily giving like
this strong feminist message or anything like that, but he was just talking about these
women that we don't talk about in the Bible.
And I'm not a crier and I was like tearing up because it was just like, oh my gosh, someone's
talking about them.
I'm hearing the word she in a sermon and that never happens.
We hear about Paul and Abraham and Noah and James and John.
And I mean, every Sunday, how many sermons have you heard on Paul?
I think it's one of those things too, that you don't notice until you start hearing the
word she.
And then you're like, that sounds a little abnormal to me in church, in a church setting.
Yeah.
Which is heartbreaking.
She think of how many women are sitting there and they've been erased.
We've been erased.
So I got emotional.
You know, you can weep if you need to.
In my car, in the pickup line.
It's okay to have an emotional moment.
I cry literally all the time.
You do.
Did you cry today yet?
I think we may have even spoken about this in the last podcast.
How much you weepier.
You are weepy.
The baby.
So one of the things that Bree and I talked about is, like I said, how little women are
spoken about in church.
And we talked a little bit about Mother's Day because Mother's Day is well known as
the one time that you may be here like Mary preached about.
You might hear Eve preached about for a hot minute.
But even within that, that it always comes back to men.
And it'll be like, well, we'll talk about Mary for a minute.
But you know, she's not that interesting.
So really what we're going to talk about is...
I think they said something along the lines of like, how can men appreciate the women
in their lives or the women in the Bible and how should they respond from a male perspective?
And on this woman's story rather than like, let the woman's story shine.
Women are important because they're women.
Or because they are daughters of God.
Yeah, it always has to circle back to how can men respond to this instead of just like,
yeah, here's her story.
It was amazing.
Wasn't she amazing?
And leave it at that.
That kind of reminds me of that one church service.
And it was the sermon on like Jesus and women and both of us really ten stop.
And all of a sudden we like our shoulders dropped and we like physically you heard like
this sigh of ah, when he didn't say like, oh, because you're a woman, here's what you
have to do here.
There's the rules that you have to obey.
It was like, you're a woman and Jesus loves you and you are amazing and you were created
in the image of God and you are beautiful and wonderful.
Drop the mic.
That's it.
And he was on stage.
Literally the end of this message was he kind of said all of those things and he said, and
that's all I want to say.
And then he left.
And the congregation you could tell there was like this, you're waiting for a butt.
Yeah, there was an unease because I think anytime women are spoken about, you have to
bring in the power dynamic.
Pastors love to tell women, well, yeah, but you're secondary.
Well, yeah, but he's in charge of you.
Jesus loves you, but submit to your husband.
Just not as much.
There's always a like, you're a great butt.
And I think the whole congregation was waiting for that in different ways.
You know, there's people like us that were just absolutely in love with hearing great
things about women of the Bible with no caveats.
And then there were people that were sitting there like, hey, you didn't tell women to
submit this time, right?
My wife is going to lose her mind.
Who's going to make my sandwich?
Ah!
Is it, I mean, that's the reality for so many Christian women is your husband is supposed
to be in charge.
He's supposed to be the leader.
And yet you have to treat him like a tiny baby.
It's really annoying and weird.
One of the things that the pastor from the beachy church, I don't think you can say that,
the sandy church.
Beach front.
Beachy church.
They can't see your facial expressions.
Someday we'll film this and then you can see her face.
It's funny.
My wrinkles.
I don't know that we'll film that close.
My haggard appearance.
Maybe they'll see your increasing gray hairs.
That'll be fun.
We'll have like a time lapse.
How long does it take before she comes all gray?
Depends on how often you dye your hair.
But one of the things that the pastor from the beach front church said at the beginning
of this really lovely message was that we often relegate the stories of women in the
Bible to women's ministry.
So we only talk about even the main characters, Ruth and Esther, who have literally their
own books of the Bible.
We don't talk about them in main church.
We maybe talk about them at a women's retreat.
We maybe talk about them in a women's Bible study, but we very strictly don't speak about
them in front of men.
And he said, he, I mean, he didn't say that stupid.
I'm saying that stupid.
He said, men, the women of the Bible have something to teach you too.
I think that's so critical.
You know, like if I have to learn stuff from all the men of the Bible who let me tell you
are not perfect men, like they're not always great.
I hate to break this to you, but they're not all perfect.
Like we were talking about this just a little while ago about Joseph and I want to be honest,
Joseph was really annoying.
If you like really put him into real life experience, like he's your little brother.
He's a menace.
Oh yeah.
He's a menace and a stinker.
His father goes to the rest of his brothers and he's like, I like that one the best.
I'll get the rest of you.
I'm going to take you on a shopping spree.
I'm going to get you nothing.
I'm going to spend all my money on a fancy coat for my precious little boy.
Like of course they hate him.
And then he came to them with his dreams and he's like, you're all going to bow down to
me.
I hate that kid too.
I know.
I'm just thinking of like, if that was our little brother, I would, Brandon, I'm so sorry,
smack you in the face.
But the thing is like, I think that's okay to say.
I'm sure that we're going to get crap for this if people are listening.
I think the story still has value, but I think if you put it in real life context, like make
it feel real to you.
Yeah.
He was a little bit of a stinker.
And again, his brothers, you know, they kind of overreacted.
They did sell him into slavery.
That may have been a slight overreaction.
The little is better.
I've never sold you.
That's a positive.
You're welcome.
Or Brandon.
We don't know where Brandon is.
But I didn't sell him.
But like, I think it's okay to talk about Bible characters because they're not characters.
Like talk about the people of the Bible and the real life reality of their situation.
And Joseph was an annoying little kid.
I mean, that's what he was for a lot of his story.
But I can still learn from him to circle this back to the main point.
Bringing it back around.
As women, like we can still learn from him.
So the stories of the women of the Bible and as I'm reading through so many of them, like
they're not all perfect.
There's a lot of stuff in here.
That is not what we're saying.
But men can still learn from their stories.
Perfect, imperfect, whatever it is.
So we have to stop relegating their stories to the five person women's Bible study that
happens on Tuesday nights.
Or a women's retreat where really the goal is embroidery.
No.
I've never been on a women's retreat.
What do they do?
Someone's going to invite you to a women's retreat now.
Pass.
So I feel like we should start talking about what two women did you pick, Alyssa?
I really like their names.
So our brother, we have a brother, we've referenced him that we have kept around thus far.
We've kept around who we haven't sold him.
Nope.
Brandon.
So Brandon picked up this book for us called All the Women of the Bible.
And first of all, I think that's really cool.
We've gotten a lot of support from our family in doing this podcast.
And I wasn't sure what the overall reaction would be.
Because we do come from a very conservative background.
Now they haven't listened to it yet.
Well, we haven't posted it yet.
We haven't posted it.
As of right now.
So we'll see how that goes.
But so far, everyone's been really encouraging and helpful.
And I thought it was really sweet of Brandon to get this for us.
But it literally start to finish lists every single woman referenced in the Bible, even
if they weren't named.
So like this one is Rebecca's mother.
One of them is the great harlot, which is exciting.
That's my tattoo.
I hate family members.
I actually don't have any tattoos.
Pilots wife, Potiphar's wife, a lot of them are listed as wife or daughter.
They're still in here.
Because even though the authors of that part of the text didn't feel the need to name them,
their story was still significant enough to tell.
Exactly.
So I think we'll use this book quite a lot.
It's a really helpful reference.
Thanks Brandy Cakes.
But I picked two women that we wanted to talk about today.
Actually, I've got like a list of like seven.
Yeah, but you get two today.
Oh, what if we what if we are under time?
Can I then go?
Because I'm going to tell a huge story about Deborah.
You are very excited about it.
Big Deb.
So the first one I wanted to look at is Pua.
Now not from Moana, Brianna.
Not from Moana.
Oh copyright.
Sorry.
Pua.
So if you've never heard of her, that's okay, because I hadn't heard of her until we were
downstairs eating tacos and I was researching for this.
But she along with another woman named Shifra, and if I am butchering these pronunciations,
someone who speaks ancient Aramaic will have to come yell at me.
I like that word Aramaic.
Thank you.
Wow.
I took a Bible class once.
You are very learned.
Thank you.
So anyway, these two women, they were Hebrew midwives in Egypt, right around when Moses
was about to be born.
And so the Pharaoh at the time, if you don't know the story, had basically said, all right,
we're going to kill all of the Hebrew baby boys.
And I hate, I literally hate even saying that.
I have a little boy and it just shatters everything in my soul to put that into reality and think
of what these mothers and fathers were dealing with.
Yeah, making the Bible real too is a little bit traumatizing.
It is, especially, I mean, the early Bible, the Old Testament is rough.
So anyway, they were midwives.
And the Pharaoh had ordered all of the Hebrew baby boys killed.
And so what he ordered specifically Pua and Shephara to do, because they were midwives,
he said, all right, when you get there, when the mom is having the baby, look at it first.
And if it's a boy, kill it.
And if it's a girl, let it live.
And I mean, first of all, can you imagine getting that order from the Pharaoh?
I mean, this is the king, like you got to be scared of him, right?
These midwives, I can't imagine the midwives are being called to Pharaoh a whole lot.
Their whole job is to bring babies into the world and he's telling them to take them out.
That's insane.
Well, and they're Hebrew, so they're already like in slavery.
They're already dealing with all that.
And now what?
And I mean, you got to think too, if you do what Pharaoh says, maybe he'll give you money.
Maybe he'll free your family.
So there's a lot of conflict there.
But what these two women did was basically, basically not do it.
They believed in God.
They wanted to follow God.
And they said, we're not doing this.
We know that God's promises are on their way.
So we're not doing this.
And Pharaoh caught on, as you do.
He heard it through the great by?
He did, probably.
I won't sing that song either.
Please don't.
Copyright.
And he called them again and he was like, Hey, what's going on?
Baby boy just run down the street.
I thought I told you.
And they said, I love this lie.
Okay.
So the lie that they came up with and I want, did they plan it?
Was this just obviously not, was like, words are coming out of my mouth and there's no
filter.
And they said, no, no, no, Pharaoh, you don't understand these Hebrew women, they're built
different.
We get there.
Baby's already shot out.
One good person.
Whoa.
The Egyptian women, it takes them all day, but the Hebrew women, they're strong.
They just push them out.
And the Bible doesn't say how Pharaoh responded to that.
Like, I mean, he was a man.
He, at this time, men were not present for birth.
Maybe he didn't know.
He didn't know where they came from.
Maybe not.
So it doesn't say how Pharaoh reacted to that, but he didn't kill them.
He didn't quite catch on.
No, he, so they, you know, went their own way and God blessed them and gave them families
of their own.
Now that didn't fix the whole situation.
Pharaoh still went after the baby boys again and successfully the next time, unfortunately.
But I thought that this story was so impactful because so much of the Old Testament is death.
So much death.
And a lot of names I can't pronounce.
Yeah, that's in the New Testament too.
But these women brought life.
They literally potentially saved the Hebrew population.
Like, when you really pull it into context, if they hadn't done what they did, potentially
an entire generation of Jewish men would not have existed, which leads to King David, which
leads to Jesus.
So what they did is save God's people so that Jesus could be born and save humanity.
Right.
Oh, Pua.
And Shifra.
We can't forget her.
Oh, Shifra.
She's important too.
But Pua is more fun to say.
And if you're wondering where this is in the Bible, because I think it's important to references,
it's Exodus 1, 15 through 21.
And they are named, both of them are named, which I think is very cool.
They're just so impactful.
And I literally had never heard of these women before.
I literally did not know that Pua was a biblical name.
Okay, you know in Beth Allison's, Beth Allison Bar's book, where she's talking about the
surrounded by a cloud of female witnesses, you're always going to have a Pua by you.
Surrounded by a cloud of female witnesses, including Pua.
I just think it's really cool to like bring light to these women that, I mean, how, if
you pulled the whole world right now, there's somebody talking about Paul in the whole world.
There's somebody talking about Peter James John, Matthew.
Exactly.
Yeah.
How many people are talking about these women?
Definitely not Pua.
You have to get over the name.
Let's just take a minute and thank Pua.
And Shifra.
It's just an incredible impact.
And I think you could do a whole sermon, even though it's six verses.
It's not a lot.
People have done a sermon on a lot less, I would say.
Do you want me to do my other woman before you do Debra?
Well, I think Debra is going to take us out with a bang.
So maybe you should just start.
Or maybe.
They're right.
That's going to say take us out with a ten stake.
But it wasn't even Debra.
It wasn't Debra, but it was a bang.
We're going out with a hammer.
Alright, so the next woman I have affectionately named Salami.
I think it's pronounced Sal-o-me.
But I'm going to be honest, I don't know.
But I'm going to be honest, I'm more accustomed to Salami.
Alright, Salami it is.
Again, the people that speak Aramaic, they can come for us.
You're so learned.
Brie, if only you had gone to chapel in college like four times.
I took a religion class.
I do not remember Pula.
I had to take four.
Pula was not in our religion class.
I think I took four.
We had to take biblical hermeneutics.
I don't even know.
Is that anything to do with the harmonica?
Yeah.
We just played the harmonica and said biblical over and over.
And hymns.
And hymns.
Old testament and new testament.
Oh, there was another one too.
I don't remember what it was.
You guys were a little bit more religious than me.
Yeah, like two whole years more religious.
Anyway, so Salami.
She was the wife of Zebedee.
She was also the mother of James and John who were some of the disciples.
And it's thought that she might have been the sister of Mary, Jesus' mother.
I think that's unconfirmed, but it's kind of a theory.
So she may have also been Jesus' aunt.
So we'll talk about this a lot over time, but there was a group of women that followed
Jesus along with the disciples.
Like came with him everywhere he went.
Climbed up the mountains, got in the boats, sat in the crowd while he was preaching, all
the stuff.
And that, learning that on its own was like world changing for me.
Yeah.
Oh yeah, groundbreaking.
Because that's just never ever spoken about.
I'm just thinking about like the philanographs at church.
And you just have your 12 disciples in your mind.
That's what's like my internal picture.
Yeah.
But there were a lot of women and they're talked about in the Bible.
It's not like they were making this up or they've disappeared or anything.
They're definitely in the Bible and spoken about.
And she was one of them.
So imagine her walking alongside, you know, as Jesus is feeding the 5,000 in the Garden
of Gethsemane and you know, all these major moments.
Women are there too.
I think that's really cool.
She also helped Mary Magdalene bring spices to the tomb of Jesus.
She was there when Jesus returned after he had died.
And he told these women like, hey, I'm back.
Guess who's back?
I'm sure you can't do that.
And so she also went to the male disciples and told them what they had seen.
And of course, as the story goes, they didn't believe them and just had to come back and
prove it.
But I think she's super interesting.
Her character is really interesting because she went to Jesus and I had always heard this
story told as James and John went to Jesus and said, hey, we want to sit at your right
and left hand sides in heaven.
Turns out it was her.
She was being told.
She was a mom.
Now you can fault her for that for sure.
She was being human.
She was being human and she was going to Jesus whose message like she was trying to understand
but you have to remember that like, this is all very new to them.
Jesus' ministry wasn't that long.
So this is very new to them still.
And she wants the best for her kids.
And so she goes up to them and she says, hey, can they sit on your left and right side?
And I just picture them like hiding behind her like clothes, like peeking around.
We're like, Jesus, can we please?
Mom said.
Someone's going to get mad at you for that.
It's okay.
But that's just sort of, you know, you bring humanity into it.
And that's what I picture is just like, they're kind of standing cowering behind her because
they want this question to be asked.
So they asked their mom to do it.
But also that shows the incredible faith that she had for Jesus.
Not knowing all of the stuff that like we know, but now and what he's gone through and
whatever like she believed he's going to be up there in heaven.
And I want my kids to be up there too.
Well, and think about, you know, when Jesus went in and chose his disciples, we kind of
picture him just like walking around town pointing at people and be like, you and you
and you and he picked both of her sons.
Now I don't know how many kids she has.
It doesn't say, but Jesus was going to take two of her sons with him.
And instead of being like, ah, that's a bummer or well, good luck.
Here's a packed lunch.
She picked up her life.
She's like me too.
She said, bye friends, bye house.
I'm going to go live a pauper's life and follow around this guy that I don't know a whole
lot about.
That's incredible.
That's incredible.
And to do that as a woman who was not going to be appreciated for it, not going to be
celebrated for it.
She's not going to have her own book of the Bible.
No, I mean, her name isn't known.
For some people it is.
I'm not saying no one's ever heard of her, but I think a lot of people have heard the
name Salami.
Yes.
It goes good with a charcuterie board.
Remakes of my Salami Rose.
Yes.
I've seen a TikTok.
Proud of you.
And I just think that's really cool.
I think she is one of many of the women that followed Jesus around faithfully with the
disciples with Jesus and that Jesus valued just as much because he wouldn't have let
them come along.
He would have said, no, you stay.
You can do work here.
You know, whatever.
You can stay here.
They didn't do that.
Your job is best at home.
Right.
Like that was never said to these women.
No, it was like, come follow me.
I'll teach you how to be fishers of men.
And women.
And women.
And I wish that I was a fisher of men.
In a different context.
All right.
That's all I have.
I have a, like I said, I have a list of seven other women so we can go into them later.
Let's hear about Deb.
Let's hear about the story of Big Debra.
So Debra, I just thought was really funny because I never really thought about it as
a biblical name.
Like Debbie.
Debbie doesn't sound biblical to me.
I'm gonna guess no one ever called her Debbie.
I am now.
Debra and JL.
You can find their stories in Judges chapters four and five.
But pretty much, have you ever heard of like the Gen Z version of the Bible that's been
going around right now?
They have their own version?
I want a version.
Yeah.
But with their slang words.
Oh no.
Essentially, it's what I created here.
So let's get into it.
The beginning.
Okay.
The Israelites are crying out to the Lord for help.
They're saying help us.
We want to be free.
Help us.
Debra was leading the Israelites at the time between Ramah and Bethel who were two men.
So I think it's pretty significant that she was up there also leading Israel.
Also in the middle.
In the middle.
Yeah sandwiched in between.
But like the middle is kind of the most important if you think of thrones.
You put the king in the middle.
The queen and the princess on the side.
They're so right.
Sorry.
Get back into your Gen Z flow.
Let me get back into this flow.
Ramah means hill or height and Bethel means house of God.
Debra means bee like a buzz buzz.
Like she's putting in the work.
You go, Deb.
Debra was a judge.
So the Israelites would go to her to have their disputes reconciled and taken care of
whatever.
But Debra was also I believe like a prophet.
So she was trying to set Israel free from the Canaanites.
So she told this guy Barak, not our president.
It's not currently our president anyway.
Different Barak.
But she said the Lord said to take an army up to Mount Tabor.
Tabor?
Tabor?
Girl do I look like I speak all the languages?
And keep saying something about Aramaic.
I don't know.
We'll title this episode Aramaic.
Take the army up to Mount Tabor and shoalade the enemy to him or something along those
lines and that will help set the Israelites free.
But this guy Barak was like pass.
Thank you.
He's like I'll go if you go Bee but I also won't go if you don't go.
That's what the Bible says.
The Bible says that word for word?
Go but similar.
So she said fine I'll go but because you're not trusting God the way that you should the
honor of this will not be yours.
It will actually be to a woman.
And so Barak was like bet.
No, no, no.
You're a millennial.
Stop that.
So Barak went into battle with 10,000 men and most likely also women.
And Deborah, our main bee, was right alongside him.
She was a warrior.
Proud of her.
Yes.
And in chapter 4 verse 14 it said then Deborah said to Barak go this is the day the Lord has
given you.
Go.
Yeah.
She says some other things too but Barak's like okay so lots of events happen.
There's lots of names.
Judges are unclear to me.
It's just full of a lot of names.
But Barak was pursuing the enemy and he was taking them out with the Lord's help obviously
but there's one guy named Sisera.
Um Alyssa you looked it up.
It was Sisera is the Suppliant Commander.
Yes for the Canaanite army.
I don't know 100% what that means.
Okay.
For the Canaanite army.
So he ran off on foot and he stumbles upon Jayel's tent.
Also a woman.
Also a woman.
And she was the wife of Heber the Canite.
Okay here's where I have no idea what I'm saying with the names.
Who can pronounce those?
But there were some kind of alliance between him and that family so he felt safe with Jayel
and he's like hide me woman!
And so she's like come in here come be safe I will hide you.
And then she like hides him under this blanket.
She's like be safe.
Tap tap.
And he's like okay woman I'm thirsty!
I've been fighting all day!
Get me some drink wench!
So she gets him a drink and then she tucks him back safely under the blanket and gives
him a little pat pat you're safe!
And he's like go and guard the door!
Guard the door!
Obviously.
Because I'm scared!
And she's like don't worry about it.
He's like if anyone asks if like I'm around here tell them I'm not here.
Lie to them.
And she's like okay I will wink wink like a big wink.
And he falls asleep.
Of course he did.
He's an idiot.
He's an idiot and he could probably pass out anywhere.
And meanwhile he's sleeping she grabs a tent stake and a hammer and she thump thump thump
drives it into his temple and kills him.
Did he wake up halfway through this?
Girl I don't know the bible doesn't say that but it does say a hammer and a tent stake.
Imagine that.
No thank you.
And so then Barak comes back around and he's like hey have you seen Cicero?
And she's like oh you know what I think I did see him.
Come over here I think I'll bring you to him come here.
And they go into her tent and he's there with a tent stake.
I choked.
In his head!
Ow!
I just want to understand.
She didn't feel the need to explain to Barak that like yeah I murdered him he did.
You'd think she would be all like high on energy or something.
Nope she's chill.
She's like oh yeah I'll show you to her.
This is at least the fifth person she's staked.
She was actually a serial killer.
But then so yay JL killed that guy and that ultimately led to liberation of Israel from
the Canaanites.
And at the end in chapter 5 Deborah, big Deb our main B, and Barak celebrate in a big musical
number.
The bible's big on musical numbers.
Lots of musical numbers.
And that's the story of Deborah and JL.
When we get to heaven can we ask them to perform it for us?
Can you do the play?
Please?
We'd like to see it.
Do you have that tent stake with you?
Didn't you say too that it's like one of the hymns?
Oh when I was reading because you said that it ended in some kind of song so I'm like
looking for this song before I got to chapter 5 obviously where it's nothing but a song.
But in verse 14 when she's like go this is the day that the Lord has given you it reminded
me of the hymn like this is the day that the Lord has made I will rejoice and be glad in
it buddy.
But how cool.
How cool.
Their story is very cool.
I mean you think about the women that are preached about and they are not preached as
like warriors and strong fighters, killers, judges like they are intense.
But women in churches now are told to be like mild mannered and soft and mean.
But that's obviously not what God is calling us to be.
Well it's not.
I mean I read a lot of these women and I'll read more.
Not one of them that was celebrated was quiet, mild mannered, just serving her husband and
doing nothing else.
Staying in her lane.
None of them.
They were strong and honestly even culturally they had to be strong.
It was a patriarchal society but they were going through some stuff.
They were putting in the work.
And you look at these women and why had we never heard of them?
Just like reading her story I could just like hear all of like the drumbeats of the war
and all of that and I'm like wow these are powerful women and I did not know this story
before.
Well think about like you said that pastors have done sermons on less than six verses.
This isn't six verses this is like a full chapter, two chapters in Judges and I mean
I would guess that a huge part of our audience would have never heard of either of these
women.
Well maybe the pastors aren't putting it in their sermons because they can't pronounce
all the names that are mentioned.
That's because I edited out almost all of them.
Deborah is pretty easy.
Big Deb.
Big Deb.
They could just start calling her Debbie and then it would be fine.
They'd be like oh yeah we have a Debbie in our congregation.
And she's right over there.
Debbie's like this isn't about me.
Even like we said the major women of the Bible you hear so rarely about and people like Bathsheba
you'll hear her mentioned in David's story.
She's like a side character and she's we'll do a whole thing on her because I have words.
She's treated like I have words.
Yeah we're on a podcast you have nothing but words.
I have a lot of words.
But she's treated pretty badly in history.
I mean really she's treated like she's the one that screwed up David's life and without
her he would have been just fine when really that's not at all the story.
And we said we'll come to that.
But as Bathsheba's life went on she had huge influence.
Like she ruled alongside David and had major influence over the Israeli people.
We're not talking about that.
That's not even part of her story that we reference.
I hate that.
Because she turned really a very tragic life into power, authority, influence for God.
She took those lemons and she said I'm making sorbet.
Yes in the desert she made some of that.
Can you imagine how delicious that would be?
In the desert?
Yeah.
She made sorbet.
But I think we just need to talk about these women whether they're powerful and strong
and warriors or whether they are...
Like we talked earlier about Lot's wife.
She's held up as very much the... if you don't know the story of Lot and his wife, Lot was
living in Sodom and Gomorrah.
Which was this horrible sinful town, right?
And I don't know what they were doing.
I don't wanna know.
Bad stuff.
Think about that like island in Pinocchio.
I assume.
Lot worse.
And Lot came...
I read about this today.
Lot came from somewhere else into Sodom and Gomorrah.
So he wasn't... that's not where his family was, that's not where his home was.
But Lot's wife was from that.
That's where she grew up.
That's where her family was.
That's where her whole life was, right?
And God told Lot I'm going to destroy this city.
It's so sinful.
I'm going to destroy it.
Much like the flood.
Old testament is rough.
Wrathful God.
Let's take it out.
And so they flee.
And God tells them don't look back.
She does.
And so she gets turned into a pillar of salt.
Which is a unique punishment.
I'm thinking Anna from Frozen but salt.
You know we hold her up as this pillar of sin.
Of sin and not having faith in God, right?
Again, we just take all... that takes the humanity out of it.
She was a person.
She did not grow up believing in the Israelite God.
We don't know what her religious situation was.
The Israelite God wouldn't have been as impactful to her as it would be for someone like Lot.
And who actually was a terrible person in general.
But of course she looked back.
Her whole family.
Her whole family.
Her whole life.
Of course she looked back.
And was that sinful?
Sure.
Did she get punished for it?
Obviously.
She was a person.
And we really like to especially take women and any flaws that they have, turn them into
villains in the Bible.
Magnify it.
Yeah.
I mean look at Bathsheba.
Look at her.
Look at Job's wife.
We just... we don't do it to the men.
We like to forget about their sins and to forgive them.
But the women we eternally punish.
So we'll talk about them.
We'll talk about their stories.
Yeah.
And I think putting it into real life context.
Like you said, that was her home.
That she grew up in her whole life.
Her family.
Think about that in your situation.
Your home with all your pictures and all your memories and all your kids and all your family
members.
And it's being destroyed.
Would you look back?
And I mean the story doesn't say the woman stopped, turned, and ran back towards the
flames.
She just glanced over her shoulder.
Probably with tears in her eyes.
She's terrified.
Right.
And she became soaked.
So yeah, moving forward, let us know what kind of women in the Bible that you want to
know about.
Some people or stories that you're interested in.
Remember we're learning alongside you.
So give us grace.
Give us grace.
That's the M
That was song.
I made that one up.
But this has been fun.
I've really liked looking into these ones.
Yeah.
You can pretend that this is a women's retreat if you want.
We can embroider.
I think it's gotten too late at night.
Guys, it's 842 and that's 42 minutes.
Past our bedtime.
So after this, Bree's going to do some embroidery.
Then we're going to go to bed.
Love you.
Bye.