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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, and good evening, good morning, good afternoon. What if Victor and I don't like each other? That's really stuck in my head.
Speaker 2:Apparently. You know how sometimes words get stuck in your head or songs get stuck in your head? That happens to
Speaker 1:me a lot. But usually, it's weird phrases. It's weird phrases that are so niche that absolutely no one else gets it. Like, I do because I know you. But other than that It's from The Corpse Bride.
Speaker 1:That was quite a strange movie. I didn't hate it, but
Speaker 2:it was quite odd. It was quite odd.
Speaker 1:I feel like it went on for a long time. It did. It was a little unnecessary. But I liked it.
Speaker 2:I liked the music in it.
Speaker 1:Very Nightmare Before Christmas vibes.
Speaker 2:Get those corsets laced properly. I can hear you speak without gasping.
Speaker 1:Someday we'll just do a whole episode where Brie just quotes things. And I absolutely guarantee you, she could go on for an hour. So could you. Also, we
Speaker 2:could definitely, and we've done this before, quote all of Pride and Prejudice. Yeah.
Speaker 1:We could. Problem is, though, when I sit down and I'm like, okay, I I wanna be funny and quote this or I can't remember anything.
Speaker 2:I know. Oh, no. When you're full of pressure Mhmm. The only thing that comes to my mind is, like, from Sweet Life of Zach and Cody. When she's like, I'm on my knees.
Speaker 2:I'm on my nose.
Speaker 1:You do say that quite a lot. We've taught my children the weirdest stuff. Both of them will say, what's that? The winds of change.
Speaker 2:Which is from Monsters Inc.
Speaker 1:What's the other one they've been saying all the time lately?
Speaker 2:I was on the bus this morning, and he tried
Speaker 1:to kill me.
Speaker 2:Does anyone out there know what that one's from?
Speaker 1:You get an extra bonus point. If you do
Speaker 2:I'll give you an extra kiss.
Speaker 1:That was always our mom's bribe
Speaker 2:when we were children. And I don't
Speaker 1:know why We did it. It was effective for a surprisingly long time. I think we're just like, well, just do
Speaker 2:it. Whatever.
Speaker 1:I was doing that today, though. I used that today on my kids because they were supposed to find their remote. And I didn't even say it. And my son goes, if we find it, we
Speaker 2:get an extra hug and kiss.
Speaker 1:And I was like, yep. My daughter was not impressed.
Speaker 2:Youth.
Speaker 1:But the reason that that was stuck in Brie's head today look. We have a transition. Baba dooba dooba. Is because we are kind of going off of the phrase, the book that Brie has been listening to for the last week, God didn't make me to hate me. And I think that is such an interesting topic.
Speaker 1:We kind of got on the topic partially from some TikToks that we saw. And partially because someone suggested on our TikTok that we talk about how the phrase self love isn't in the Bible. And it just I went off on a tangent of just what that means. And Brie read a whole book. So we've really gone off the rails.
Speaker 2:To be fair, I have an hour of the book left. I mean, that's pretty close. But I'm pretty gosh darn through it. And I love it. If you all want kind of an upper now it's if you were raised in strict Christianity, kinda like we were, this book is gonna stretch you a little bit.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. Because there's language in there that you might feel uncomfortable with or ideas that you might be uncomfortable with. Mhmm. But I think it's really good.
Speaker 1:The one chapter that I was listening to, she was talking about drag queens. Mhmm. And comparing that to Jesus' ministry and everything. And that was super interesting. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I think it's important, though, because we talk a lot about how especially the Baptists, but just Protestant Christianity in general, kind of is at war with every other religion. And they're afraid of every other religion. So, like, you almost can't look outside of the bubble. Like, you're locked in church and you can't look out the window.
Speaker 2:Well, growing up in pretty conservative Christian faith Baptist. You know, we were little Baptist girls. They would say, Don't even get close to sin. Mhmm. And through that, somehow things became sin that were never supposed to be sin.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And I feel like a lot of that is getting close to other religions. Yeah. I remember trying to witness to my friend who was a Jehovah's Witness. Mhmm. And I sent her home with one of my Bibles, and her mom sent back the Bible and sent one of their, I don't know, Jehovah's Witness books.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. And that stayed in the garage, and I wasn't allowed to look or touch it.
Speaker 1:It's just one of those things that you know, and maybe at that age too, you were really young, you wouldn't have been able to understand. I was 11. That's pretty young. But as you get older, like, we still have that sense of fear of anything outside of of the
Speaker 2:four walls of the Baptist church. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And I think there's so much beauty to be had outside of those walls. There are different versions of the Christian faith that we never get to see if we stay all cuddled up in our cozy corner.
Speaker 2:Well, you think your faith is black and white, right and wrong. Mhmm. But then you look at all of the different flavors of Christianity. And then from there, we have all of the different flavors of other religions too. There's so many ways of thinking, people who think they're absolutely right.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And I think let's not be afraid of it.
Speaker 1:Let's be inquisitive. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Let's wonder why. But also just be welcoming and loving to everybody. And we started talking about that last week where we talked about dehumanizing people and how Jesus would never do that. He humanized everybody, literally. Well, technically technically, we're in the middle of a series.
Speaker 2:Technically.
Speaker 1:And that's things that your pastor wouldn't talk about from the stage. And I think self love is definitely one of those things. Because, boy, do the Christians love to hate themselves. It's like in their DNA. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Suffering. Suffering is part of your faith. You think, like the title of that book, God Didn't Make Me to Hate Me. But in some ways, they want you to hate yourself. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And they want you to think that you're unworthy and that Jesus came to die. Mhmm. And that's all He came to do because you were so awful. You caused this. But in reality, Jesus came to show us also how to live.
Speaker 2:And I don't think He would have created us if He just wanted us to suffer, if He just hated us to begin with. Because He knows everything. Why would He create something if He knew that he was gonna hate them? That seems silly.
Speaker 1:I see so many examples of this too in the Christian faith. Think of songs that you've heard. Save a wretch like me. That word wretch. Or you'll hear Christians say, well, you're either in the middle of a trial or you've just finished a trial or you're starting a new one.
Speaker 1:It's this constant state of misery. Find joy in the suffering. Yeah. As though that is what you are called to. And I think we part of this maybe comes from the fact that, like, the Bible is made up of really dramatic stories.
Speaker 1:But it's like any other book. Like, if you pick up a fiction book, it's not like, oh, and today I made dinner. And I lived my normal life. And I went for a walk. And then I chatted with Barbara down the street.
Speaker 1:That's not what it is. It's a dramatic moment. Because that's what is interesting.
Speaker 2:I will say lit fic, I do feel like is slow. And they may talk about their conversation with Barbara.
Speaker 1:Well, maybe Barbara was interesting. Maybe Barbara murdered her husband.
Speaker 2:Now that would be a Freda McFadden book.
Speaker 1:But I think that the Bible is made up of those dramatic moments because those are usually the most impactful. But we don't hear we don't hear the day to day, you know? Just because we see the suffering of Paul, for instance. Now Paul did some serious suffering, but we don't see his day to day where he had, like, a good moment. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Or where he chatted with Barbara, or where he had dinner with someone, or whatever, you know?
Speaker 2:I do feel like suffering is glorified. Mhmm. The more you suffer must mean the more faith that you have. And I just feel like we also need to talk, like, yes, there is suffering. But there's so much joy to be had in life.
Speaker 2:And God made the world to be joyful too. And the more that we spread some love around, maybe there'd be a little bit more joy.
Speaker 1:Well, I think about the amount of time that God took to create the world. Not actual time. I understand, like, the timeline. But the care, I guess maybe care is a better word, that God took in creating the world. Because you look at the world around you and you see all these incredible animals, different species of trees, the way that the sky looks when the sun rises and sets.
Speaker 1:For heaven's sakes, the rocks, guys. The rocks. And how unique and beautiful everything is. He wouldn't have done that if everything was suffering. If everything about life is supposed to suck just because you are essentially paying for your sins.
Speaker 1:I think that's what this all boils down to is we want to have to pay for our sins. On some level, we can't accept Jesus loved me, died for my sins, and now God sees me as perfect. Because isn't that
Speaker 2:what the Bible says? But also, even through your sins Mhmm. Even through all of that, like, even people who haven't quote unquote gotten saved, he loves them just as much.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And he sees them. Even though they haven't maybe turned their heads towards him. Mhmm. He still loves them. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I have some really interesting quotes from some different pastors. Some of them are older pastors. Some of them are more current. But it's kind of this idea of, like, you suck. And we've said that before.
Speaker 1:Like, when you walk into church, the message is often you suck, you suck, you suck. And coming to church maybe will make you a little bit better. But mostly you're terrible and go forth and preach the
Speaker 2:gospel. And you're so lucky.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. You're so lucky that God would want you. And I'm not saying that it isn't an incredible thing that God wants you. But I think the word lucky is really strange in that sense, because God wants everyone. Are we fortunate that God wants humanity at all?
Speaker 1:Of course. I guess what I wanna say is it's not I don't know. It's not lucky. It's just God. It's just the character of God.
Speaker 1:So anyway, some of the quotes that I have, one of them is from John Piper, who major pastor, written lots of books. And he said, people find it hard to believe that we Christians think we're as bad as the Bible says that we are. There's a lot to unpack there. But let's start with as bad as the Bible says that we are. The Bible absolutely talks about sin.
Speaker 1:Right? There's no way to get past that. Absolutely talks about the fact that Adam and Eve sinned. That brought sin and pain and suffering into the world. Prior to that, there was none.
Speaker 1:That being said, the Bible doesn't say that we're bad. It doesn't say that we're horrible.
Speaker 2:God created both Adam and Eve with care. Mhmm. And he called them good. He said, this is amazing.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:They're made in my own image, both of them. And then even when they stumbled together, side by side Mhmm. He took care of them. Mhmm. I think something that in the book, God didn't make us hate us, it is by an Episcopalian priest.
Speaker 2:Her name is Lizzie McManus Dale. And she talks about the importance of how God created clothes for them. Mhmm. And we kind of skip over that part. But even after they committed their sin, he took care enough to make clothes for them.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. Stepped away, said, hey, you're naked and you're ashamed now. You shouldn't have to be. But I'm a make clothes for you. He cares about you.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:He loves you. Well, and he created them and called them good, knowing full well what they were going to do. I think we forget that part a lot, that God knew sin was going to enter the world. He didn't create people and then whatever happens happens. He knew full well what they were gonna do.
Speaker 1:And yet he still stayed in relationship with them. He still called them good. He still cared for them throughout their entire lives and stayed with us. Because God calls us his children, and he loves each and every one of us more than we could possibly imagine. I don't really like that phrase because it's not descriptive enough.
Speaker 1:But think of, like, the person that you love the most in the world that you would do absolutely anything for, whoever that is, whether that's your kid, whether it's your spouse, your sibling, your aunt, your uncle, your neighbor. Maybe it's Barbara. Manatee. But whoever it is, think about that person. And God loves you infinitely more than you love that person or than that person loves you.
Speaker 1:I would never call the person that I care the most about a wretch. And I would never want them to call themselves that. It would break my heart if they did.
Speaker 2:Yeah. That's true.
Speaker 1:John MacArthur, who is another major pastor now note that these are all men. I'm so sorry. That's just how it goes. He said, the heart of man is so desperately wicked that it cannot be trusted. Now this does come from a verse, and that's Jeremiah seventeen nine, which is Old Testament.
Speaker 1:And it's considered prophetic literature. So it's like like he's trying to dive into the the heart of God, the word of God. But it also does contain some laments, things like that, like from Job. But we use this and many other phrases, I think as a form of control. Brie and I were talking about this earlier.
Speaker 1:And the church the church really likes to control you and your life and what you do. Because the more hold they have, the more tied you are to that space financially and with your time. So they'll use verses like this to say, don't listen to yourself. Hate yourself. And it so this verse says here, I'll read it to you.
Speaker 1:Jeremiah seventeen nine. This is the NIV. And it says, the heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? Now if you kind of look a little bit deeper into this verse, it basically says that Jeremiah is trying to tell people, look to God first.
Speaker 1:Not you suck, But look to God first. What does God have to say? Because God wants to guide you. God wants to give you good things. But not never trust yourself.
Speaker 2:I think that's where the church really goes wrong. Because they teach you to ignore your intuition. Mhmm. Ignore your body. Hate yourself.
Speaker 2:Call yourself wicked. Call yourself abuse yourself. Mhmm. So that you're right. You're kind of silenced into submission to the church so they can hold some kind of power over you.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. And I think that's a really dangerous place because we find in those high control religions, in a lot of churches out there, there's a lot of abuse. And I feel like rather than God wanting that for his people, perhaps perhaps perhaps he doesn't.
Speaker 1:Well, you're right. It's it tells you to question every little thing. Every little thing that your your heart tells you. But then, in the questioning, call that a sin. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Because you shouldn't be questioning God. You shouldn't be questioning the church. You shouldn't be questioning your pastor because they know everything. But but then you do. It's a shame loop.
Speaker 1:It's really, I think, super difficult if you get into this space of I hate myself because the church told me to hate myself.
Speaker 2:I also feel like this is really strong for women specifically. You think about the purity culture and you think about body image, which nobody wants to talk about from the pulpit. Let's just talk about that. But women, even in our culture today, are told that their value is directly tied to the way they look. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And you'll see that even from, like, the bro culture. There's a documentary on Netflix called Into the Manosphere. And there's one of these, like, male influencers. Mhmm. And they're interviewing him, and they say, where do men get their value from?
Speaker 2:Well, they get their value from their wealth, their status, their power. Mhmm. And he asks how women get their value. And he says, women get their value through beauty. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:But that only means that women in this man's life only have value if he specifically finds them attractive.
Speaker 1:And really probably only from the ages of about 18 to 32. And I'd like
Speaker 2:to think that this is an extreme thought, but it's not. And I feel like it's even a little bit, not directly preached about, but kind of tiptoed around Mhmm. Where you have to look your best at church, and you have to wear a nice dress or some kind of, you know, nice outfit, appropriate outfit, but it can't be too sexy Mhmm. Because you don't want to cause your brother in Christ to stumble. And you have to put on your makeup because your bare face alone, you don't look put together.
Speaker 2:You look disheveled. And you can't wear the sweatshirt church because you don't look put together. And your value is based on how you look.
Speaker 1:Well, it is even a little bit church sponsored because, like, one of the churches that we were at several years ago, they had a weight loss group for women. Not not for men. This was a weight loss group for women. And it was it wasn't like the church put it together, but it was definitely church staff started it, but they were volunteering their time. So it was like, they were trying, you're right, trying to tiptoe around this.
Speaker 1:Or the last church that we were at, they had a running group and a health group and, like, all these different things where, yeah, your body image is super important. And if you're not exactly who you're supposed to be physically, it's also you suck. You also have to
Speaker 2:conform to their idea of God's idea of perfection. And it just so happens to align with whatever they agree with. Mhmm. So anybody that's outside the lines think the LGBTQ plus community, etcetera, there's so much dehumanizing
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Of those people groups. And I feel like you have to look to the Bible and look at Jesus' life because he came to show us how to live as much as he came to eventually die for us. But see who He moved towards. See who He spent His time with. Because the church today seems to be confused on that.
Speaker 2:They think holier than thou. They think follow these rules. They think this is how God wants it to be. But then you look at Jesus when He came down, think about who He was the most severe with, and it was the hyper religious people. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:The people who supposedly were following all the rules, the Pharisees. He criticized them the most for what they were doing, and he moved towards the tax collectors and the prostitutes and the people who were being dehumanized Yeah. At the time. And he spent his time with them. I think we have to
Speaker 1:talk too about how this can long term impact people. Because it's not when you deal with religious trauma and religious control like this that is not Jesus centered, it will have an impact on you. Even if you don't think that it does or that it will. They have done studies and they say around one third, twenty seven to thirty three percent of US adults have experienced some form of religious trauma. Now that can span many things, but part of that is high control religions.
Speaker 1:Part of that is self love. They say that ten to fifteen percent are currently suffering from religious trauma. So like one out of every ten people that you walk past on the street is currently being religiously traumatized. That's a massive percentage. And you have to ask, where is this coming from?
Speaker 1:Because it's coming from many a source. Trust me. But if you're hearing from the pulpit, hate yourself. Even if it's subtle, they're not gonna they're not I hope they're not saying hate yourself from the pulpit. If they are, like, run away.
Speaker 1:But what are we saying in church that might have that impact? And some of the verses quoted a lot is something like from Isaiah, where it says, even your best works are filthy rags. Or from Jeremiah, the heart is deceitful above all things. In Luke, says, deny yourself. This is all in the Bible, but it depends on how we read the Bible.
Speaker 1:Do we read the Bible filtered through Jesus? Or do we read Jesus filtered through the Bible? Because if we read the Bible filtered through who Jesus was, then all of these things kind of make sense. Isaiah, which is Old Testament, is say is a person looking at his best works and comparing them to God.
Speaker 2:Okay? Like,
Speaker 1:if I'm comparing my best works to God, I also suck. But that's not how God sees you. It's how you may see yourself sometimes. But never confuse that with God seeing you that way. Because God sees you as his perfect creation.
Speaker 1:And everything that you do, he's your cheerleader. He's up there like, oh my gosh. That's amazing. You got a promotion? You're the best.
Speaker 1:The way that ChatGPT talks to me.
Speaker 2:Yes, queen. Kill it. Yes. What did it say about you that you ate? Yeah.
Speaker 2:I didn't even know what that meant. It's hip language. Yeah.
Speaker 1:We're not that hip. We're too old for that. But even, like, in we just talked about Jeremiah. But in that verse in Luke that says to deny yourself, there are moments where, yes, you have to think of others first. Absolutely.
Speaker 1:We talk about that all the time. But in thinking of others first, it doesn't mean that you need to think Of yourself last.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I think we always in our minds, in our human little minds, we have to have order to things. And if I have to think about my neighbor, I can't be also thinking about myself. Mhmm. But that's not true.
Speaker 2:You can have both. Mhmm. You can have both. You can think about the greater good for everybody, and that everybody includes you. Well, God wants the best for you too.
Speaker 2:You're right. And the Bible
Speaker 1:directly addresses this. We don't like to say that that's what it's doing, but there's three places in the Bible that basically say love your neighbor as yourself. That's in Matthew 22, Mark 12, and interestingly, Leviticus 19. That one I didn't know about. I looked it up.
Speaker 1:But basically they all say love your neighbor as yourself. In Leviticus, in the NIV, it says do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the lord. So this has been a command since the beginning. For a hecking long time.
Speaker 1:Yeah. This wasn't just a Jesus thing. Like, obviously, it did get reiterated. But this has been around a long time. This was the foundation that God laid.
Speaker 1:Love your neighbor as yourself. And you can't love your neighbor well if you hate yourself.
Speaker 2:Because if you're supposed to love them as yourself,
Speaker 1:that means you have to treat yourself well. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:You have to respect and honor yourself. And that includes not just taking a bubble bath with a candle.
Speaker 1:Although that's
Speaker 2:nice. That is nice. That means looking in the mirror and seeing that person and saying, I love you. And that's really difficult for people to do. Because in today's culture, we're taught that we're never enough.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:Not even just religiously. In society. In society. Yeah. The beauty standards for everybody, but I'm a woman, so I can relate to women, is outrageous.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:You have to spend tons of money on your skincare because your skin has to look young and youthful as long as you possibly can.
Speaker 1:Not for us. We're aging rapidly. Yes. Rapidly. It is.
Speaker 1:It's insane. And it sucks up your money. It sucks up your mental health and your time. And I'm not saying that you shouldn't look however you wanna look. Feel comfortable in your
Speaker 2:own skin.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. But don't do it because you hate yourself. Do it from a place of like, I just this is how I like to look.
Speaker 2:This is how I felt like honoring myself today. Mhmm. I like myself with big, juicy, fricking lips. So I went and got some stuff put in them. I don't know.
Speaker 1:That was a really exciting example. I don't I don't have that. It's just one of those things that we we focus on the love your neighbor well, frankly, you
Speaker 2:know what? The church has
Speaker 1:kind of ignored this entire verse lately. Yeah. That's true. But if you were sitting in church and hearing this preached from a pulpit, it would be focused on the love your neighbor part. And that's okay.
Speaker 1:Like it is okay to say sometimes I prioritize my neighbor. I always try to love my neighbor. Those are good positive things. Love each other. Be in community with each other.
Speaker 1:Care for one another's needs. Fight for legislation that cares for one another's needs. But don't forget the second part of the verse. We love to just rip little bits out.
Speaker 2:All of us has been doing a lot of social media lately, and I go in there and comment back to people. And so so you just made a video on divorce. Mhmm. And we've made several videos on several topics that make middle aged men very angry. Really mad.
Speaker 2:But specifically, you were talking about divorce and how God doesn't hate divorce.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Sometimes it's necessary. He hates what might lead up to divorce. Abuse, neglect, just not communicating with each other. He hates that. But the actual divorce, sometimes that's necessary.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. Someone commented and said, next year's gonna be justifying murder. I saw that. And I responded and I was like, we read the Bible through a lens of love God and love others. And shockingly, murdering someone doesn't show a lot of love.
Speaker 1:No. No.
Speaker 2:No. So No. No. We Sometimes won't be just telling divorce
Speaker 1:can be showing love. Yeah. It can be showing love to yourself. It can be showing love to your children. It could even be showing love to your former partner.
Speaker 2:And saying, I love you enough to let you go. Mhmm. Which people say all the time.
Speaker 1:Right? And even that is a great example of how we're taught to hate ourselves. Hate everything you do. Divorce happens. Now, the fifty percent stat is actually a little inflated.
Speaker 1:I've heard it's more like 32% or so. But regardless, divorce happens sometimes because of abuse, sometimes just because of bad situations or people that don't work together. But we're taught even though at least a third of our churches, and oftentimes, actually, evangelicals have a higher divorce rate, at least a third of our churches are full of people who are divorced, and yet we tell them to hate themselves too.
Speaker 2:I've commented back to a few people on that post and said, I think so many people are terrified of committing what quote unquote they would call the sin of divorce.
Speaker 1:That
Speaker 2:they forget that through that, they're living a miserable, awful life that they could be doing a couple more sins. You know? Hating themselves, hating others, being angry, and passing that on to their children, the other people in their lives. Mhmm. I think just divorce and be done
Speaker 1:with it. This was quite the
Speaker 2:tangent. Yeah. Sorry.
Speaker 1:God doesn't want you to hate yourself. I don't often like to be like, and god thinks this. But I can 100% guarantee. I will go on the ledge for this one. God does not want you to hate yourself.
Speaker 1:Everything throughout the Bible tells me that God loves us so deeply, so intentionally, that there's no universe where he could ever want you to hate yourself or your actions. Even if your actions are sinful, sitting around and being like, oh, I hate myself for that. I hate myself for that. I hate that action. Does that improve your situation?
Speaker 1:Do you become better from that?
Speaker 2:I think you get a little depressing.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. God sent his son to die for us. If there's anyone that God maybe loves more than you, it's Jesus. Right? And yet he sent his son here knowing full well what was going to happen to him.
Speaker 1:Not just his death, but living a human life where he experienced pain and grief and difficulty. And God watched his son go through that because he loves you so much. And you wanna twist your brain a little bit. He didn't just send his son. He sent himself.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. Because there's the trinity.
Speaker 1:And it's freaking confusing. Very confusing. Ian left his spirit here as well to help us, to reside in us, to guide us down a good path. If he hated us so much,
Speaker 2:I think he would have said see you, bye, by now.
Speaker 1:The moment would have come. Especially now, man. And if God doesn't want you to hate yourself, then my gosh, don't.
Speaker 2:God told me not to hate myself. And so I'm a buy myself a snickerdoodle.
Speaker 1:Self love, man. I believe we talked about this last week, but I'm not a 100% sure what we talked about last week. But the Christian church does like to do a little thing called rebranding.
Speaker 2:And they'll call something love, but say something totally opposite.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. Loving your neighbor means caring for them. And what does it mean in action? The church will give you all kinds of examples of how to care for usually the other people in your church, but your neighbor in general. Maybe you can mow their lawn.
Speaker 1:You take them out to dinner. Do actions and kindness to care for them. You sit with them and talk to them and go with them to get their nails done or things like that. If that is love to someone else, and the Bible says, love your neighbor as yourself, what is love to yourself? And I think love also ties into joy.
Speaker 1:I think the church likes
Speaker 2:to tell you to be joyful. Mhmm. And especially around Christmas time, they talk a lot about joy. But what does that mean? Because in all of your suffering that you have to have, you also have to be able to be joyful as well.
Speaker 2:But sometimes it's in the little things. Mhmm. Sometimes not everything in your life is going very well. Mhmm. But there is a TikTok account of a British woman who prepares lunches and dinners for her very particular 11 year old.
Speaker 2:And then you scroll through the comment sections, and the comments are just wonderful. They're like,
Speaker 1:He ate the whole lot. He ate the whole guys, he ate the whole lot.
Speaker 2:And that is a very niche reference to what I've
Speaker 1:been doing lately for joy. For joy.
Speaker 2:And sometimes joy is just being able to laugh at something and be silly. Mhmm. And it's just for you. And it's a TikTok account of a British woman. Or a very gay man who makes very hilarious cakes.
Speaker 1:I think that's an important point is give yourself permission to find joy. Because if the church's message is joy in suffering, and I think that actually does come from the Bible as well, but I don't know about all of you. I don't find a lot of joy in suffering. So true. Like, in the moments where I am suffering, I am not joyful.
Speaker 1:But I don't think that those references mean masochism. I don't think they're like, love the pain. I think they're give yourself permission to find joy in little things.
Speaker 2:Give yourself permission. Because on the seventh day, God rested. Rest a little bit. Mhmm. There's such a and especially in The US too, we have what we call hustle culture.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. You have to be busy all the time. Your kids have to be doing 17 sports. You also have to be having 17 kids. And you have to have a job.
Speaker 2:You have to be making good dinners. You have to be doing something all the time. But sometimes you need to just take a little rest bite.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And maybe that is a bath, but that's also doing something. Sometimes you just have to
Speaker 1:sit down. But lest you believe that our talking about joy is just us saying stuff, it is actually in the Bible. I feel like who is it reading rainbow where he says, you don't have to take my word for it?
Speaker 2:Is that where that comes from? Oh my gosh. I don't know.
Speaker 1:I think it's reading rainbow. But regardless, this is actually in the bible. In Hebrews, it's talking about Jesus. And it says, for the joy set before him, he endured the cross. So Jesus did go through suffering.
Speaker 1:It's not that he didn't go through anything, but he did it with the goal of joy. In John, Jesus says, I came that they may have life abundantly. This is Jesus talking. He didn't say life after they die. And I think that's how we usually interpret it.
Speaker 1:And I'm not saying that's not part of it too. But so that they may have life abundantly. So that the people that I love might live life well. I think so many people live life waiting for the inevitable end. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:You know what? Sometimes me included. And they can't wait to get to heaven. I remember as a little girl, I wanted this sounds so morbid. But I wanted to go to heaven as a young child because I was like, it'll be so much more joyful
Speaker 1:if I was a kid. Know? Adults are so boring.
Speaker 2:Yeah. But we forget that God gave us life. And life is beautiful, and God gave it to us as a gift. He wants us to experience the good things. Think about like Adam and Eve just running around naked, eating really good fruit, and naming things like platypus and flamingo.
Speaker 2:Like, that's joy. God wants that for us. That was the intention. And somewhere along the way, things got muddled, but he wants good things for us. He wants us to dance if we can.
Speaker 2:Preferably not naked. Just from from my point of view, I would prefer if all
Speaker 1:of you out there weren't dancing naked and then saying the We Are More podcast told me to do it.
Speaker 2:I hear there's a thriving nudist community nearby.
Speaker 1:Well, you can go join them if you wish. I don't want to. I think one of the most compelling parts of this too is in Galatians where it talks about the fruits of the spirit. We love to quote these, and we'll get, like, one sermon on each one, but then it feels like a list of rules, like a list of things to complete. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness.
Speaker 1:I forget the rest.
Speaker 2:Self control. That's a great one.
Speaker 1:Yeah. That's the best of We have this list in Galatians. Right? And it does certainly include joy. But if we take that as a list of like, alright.
Speaker 1:Gotta do this today. Gotta be joyful today. Gotta be peaceful today. Gotta do this. Gotta do like, that's exhausting.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. That's like the Proverbs 31 woman. Okay? That's exhausting. Yeah.
Speaker 1:But I don't think it's a list of here's things to complete. I think it's another one of those things that when you focus on God, these things emanate from you.
Speaker 2:These things do happen.
Speaker 1:There's been so many quotes from you today. Instead of striving to be love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, self control. Did I miss one? Was that all of them? She's counting.
Speaker 2:There's isn't there seven?
Speaker 1:Girl, I don't know. It's the seven deadly sins. Is it
Speaker 2:also the seven fruits of the spirit? Skip this part.
Speaker 1:Just act like you meant to do that. I meant to do that. But when I read those, and I see these as pieces of God's character, as pieces of who God is that he gives to me as a gift. Because he loves me so much, he gives me love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, self control.
Speaker 2:If you live in the posture of love
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:These things come naturally. Mhmm. They flow out of you. If you live your life and you read your bible with the lens of love God and love others, it's just gonna happen. Stop looking for opportunities to change other people.
Speaker 2:Stop looking for opportunities to judge someone. Stop doing everything else you're doing. Just quit. Just quit. And just start loving yourself, loving others, loving God.
Speaker 2:Not necessarily in that order. All at once.
Speaker 1:If you read the Bible as a rulebook. Mhmm. If you read the Bible as a rulebook, it is too much. It is exhausting. You cannot have all the fruits of the spirit at once.
Speaker 1:You cannot be the Proverbs 31 woman.
Speaker 2:It's just impossible. We saw a TikTok the other day. She said, if you look to the Bible for justification for hating other people, for being racist, for, you know, x y z, you will find it.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:But if you look at the Bible thinking about love, and because that's what Jesus told us to do, you're gonna find it. And that's how we should be reading the Bible. I think a lot
Speaker 1:of us go through life assuming that the more suffering we experience, the holier we are. I actually posted about this on our TikTok recently that the concept of, like, God will never give you more than you can handle, which is not biblical at all. We would love for it to be, but it's just not. And so in that, we assume if God gives me a lot of suffering, if God gives me the crappiest life.
Speaker 2:He must think I am so capable.
Speaker 1:He must think I am the strongest person he ever made. No. Okay? No. The goal is not suffering.
Speaker 1:Suffering does exist. We live in a sinful world. Suffering exists. Sacrifice exists. Sometimes things are hard.
Speaker 1:But that's not the goal. The goal is not for you to be suffering so much that you earn 45 jewels in your crown in heaven. Okay? That would be pretty, though. The goal is joy.
Speaker 1:The goal is love. The goal is to be able to look at a sunset and think, oh my gosh. My creator's amazing. The goal is to create deep, lasting, good relationships with people.
Speaker 2:And sometimes that forces you to question some things Mhmm. That maybe you grew up with. Religious systems that are gonna be called into question. And that's deconstruction, baby. That's deconstruction.
Speaker 2:And don't worry, because God can handle it. Yeah. God can handle all of your questions. He can handle all of your doubts. He can handle your lamentations.
Speaker 2:Such a God biblical wants us to get angry and lash out and call him names. Because that means we're turning to him. Right?
Speaker 1:We should put that on the TikTok. People will really like that. Yeah. They love when we talk about really anything.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Oh, yeah. They love us.
Speaker 1:They love us on Instagram.
Speaker 2:On TikTok, they tend to like us. Actually, yes. Our TikTok audience is quite nice. On Instagram, people hate us.
Speaker 1:It's okay. It's fine.
Speaker 2:There's one or two people like us.
Speaker 1:Actually, a note that I would love to end on before we talk about what we're gonna talk about next week, ponder that as I talk. Oh, crap. Is that it is important to speak up about things that the church doesn't wanna talk about. I have had a lot of pushback recently. Brie has had a lot of pushback recently about some of the things that we say because they challenge existing belief structures.
Speaker 1:That's why we're doing this series right now. That's why we do the things that we do on social media, because it is important to say the truth loudly. Because if you don't, if you let fear take over and you say, I can't say these things because people might get upset, then those people win. And for heaven's sake, I cannot let the middle aged men of Instagram win.
Speaker 2:And they're not. Don't you worry. So next week. I think it's time to dive into some of the hard passages of the Bible. The ones that your pastor isn't talking about that are making you a little bit uncomfortable or making them uncomfortable and dive into, okay, this is what it says.
Speaker 2:Ow. Why is this in the Bible?
Speaker 1:Yeah. I'm thinking of I know I mentioned this last week too, but Daniel after Daniel is thrown in the And lion's when they pull him out, like, put the advisers and all of their families into the lion's den. And you think about, like, the kids who didn't do anything wrong. There are really hard parts of the bible that you have to sit with the discomfort. Because if you ignore them completely, eventually somebody's gonna come up to you and say, well, what about this?
Speaker 1:And it's going to wreck you. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And we're not looking to justify these things. No. Bad things happen even outside the Bible. You know? Think about our history.
Speaker 1:Think about our current.
Speaker 2:Yeah. But how do we see God in those situations? How do we handle God in those situations? And maybe we start questioning God in those situations, but it's important to talk about.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And we're gonna get comfortable being uncomfortable.
Speaker 1:Probably we won't, but we could sure try. Alright. So tune in for that next week. Follow us on our social medias if you haven't. We are mostly on TikTok and Instagram, and you can
Speaker 2:just search the hashtag we are more. And should we make merch?
Speaker 1:No. No. Brie's been making merch lately on ChatGPT. It's been frightening.
Speaker 2:And I think it's great.
Speaker 1:It is very funny. We should post about it at least.
Speaker 2:I have one shirt that says, if we're all supposed to be part of the body of Christ, why are you being the butt?
Speaker 1:That is my favorite one. Except ChatGPT put someone's back on it, and I really think there should be a butt on it.
Speaker 2:I think that's explicit content.
Speaker 1:We are explicit content. That's true. Okay. We'll talk to you guys next week. Love you.
Speaker 1:Bye. Love you. Bye.