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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.
Speaker 2:Hello, world. Hello, world. How are you today? It's a lovely rainy day. It's been rainy forever, I think.
Speaker 2:I know. Is it rainy where you are? Michigan has had a ton of flooding lately and gloominess and raininess. And don't get me wrong. I like a rainy day.
Speaker 2:Oh, she's gonna sing. She's dancing. She's not singing for you, though, and you can't see her dancing.
Speaker 3:I love a rainy day.
Speaker 2:It's lonely. It's I love
Speaker 3:a lonely day. Oh, I mixed up the two. I'm raining on the inside. That's some Amy Grant for you.
Speaker 2:Yep. Go back and listen to our Amy Grant episode if you wanna hear more about her. We did a whole episode on her. I think God might be
Speaker 3:cursing us with the next flood, but it starts in Michigan. Michigan specifically is cut Yeah. We do have several boats here, so I think that's positive. I don't know that we have a full arc. I think that's found in what?
Speaker 3:Kentucky?
Speaker 2:I think it's in Kentucky. Yes. But I don't think it floats. So, you know. Could we engineer it to float?
Speaker 2:You and I? No. I don't think you and I can engineer it to float.
Speaker 3:Okay. We'll have to climb a tree.
Speaker 2:That'll do it. Hold on. Let me workshop. So if you guys are prepping for the flood, how's that going for you? Did God give you step by step instructions and you have to use beaver wood or something?
Speaker 2:Isn't that what it is? It's something ridiculous. Is
Speaker 3:there such a thing? I don't know. But I feel I'm pretty
Speaker 2:sure that's what the Bible says. It's something really strange that no one's ever heard of. Paper mache. Yes. Let's build a boat of paper mache.
Speaker 2:Could be good. Brie and I, yesterday, on a totally different topic because how much more can we talk about beaver wood? I'd prefer we stop talking about beavers altogether. Yesterday, Brie and I went to see the musical Suffs. So good.
Speaker 2:It was just like, I was weeping, and I'm not a crier.
Speaker 3:You guys know that. But it was so good. We walked into it kind of blind. I knew that it was about, like, the suffragists.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. I didn't know that.
Speaker 3:It's a musical, and there's very little dialogue. Mhmm. It's full musical, like, opera level musical. And our cousin told us just to go in blind. Like, don't go listen to the soundtrack.
Speaker 3:Don't go look up what it's about. Just go in blind. And I think that was the best move.
Speaker 2:It was. Because it was so impactful. Everything about it is so good. If you're super sensitive to language, there's maybe a song you should skip.
Speaker 3:And maybe a hat that I bought.
Speaker 2:But overall, it's so well done, so interesting. It taught me a lot about the history of that movement because I feel
Speaker 3:like we don't learn a lot. You know, just like the very, very basics. Like, the nineteenth amendment, it was ratified in 1920. And some of the key figures are like Susan B. Anthony, and that's what you need to know.
Speaker 3:Right. But there was so much more to it. Although, I will say my reference is really the mom from Mary Poppins.
Speaker 2:Yeah. That's really what we got. Yeah. Because you don't learn about this stuff in school. And it is, as women, our history.
Speaker 2:This is how we got the rights that we have today, why Brie and I can sit here and have this podcast. Why you can enjoy wearing pants. And being able to get a home loan or have your own bank account. It's because of these women. And it's so important to know that history.
Speaker 2:However, Bree's very tired of learning. So
Speaker 3:we were driving home last night, and we're like, we really need to look into this stuff. We need to study the history of it and yada yada yada. And I was like, all we ever do is learn. So
Speaker 2:much learning.
Speaker 3:All we do is stay informed and learn.
Speaker 2:You know, sometimes you just have to give up and go to Disney. Yeah. We haven't talked about Disney in a while. So everyone out there, give up. Go to Disney.
Speaker 2:That's my message for you for the day.
Speaker 3:The new title of this podcast. Completely unrelated to everything we're gonna talk about today.
Speaker 2:We're actually talking about really sad things today. So in your mind, think of Disney.
Speaker 3:Think of Disney. Think of Disney, and then have a box of tissues near you in case you need a bleed.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. We're talking over the next couple of weeks, maybe the next few weeks, depending on how depressed we feel the need to be, about some of the hard passages of the Bible. Because there's a lot of the Bible that is not just challenging. It's, like, impossible to deal with. And you'll see a lot of people I've gotten several comments online recently saying, like, the bible is misogynist and horrible and all these things.
Speaker 2:How could you ever want to follow it? And if you don't know this stuff, if you don't know some of the horrible things that are in the bible and someone comes at you with
Speaker 3:that and they're like, what about this verse? What about this verse? That can break your faith apart. And these are sections of the Bible that traditionally you don't hear about in church, or they're glossed over, or you don't know all of the finer details of it because it's not easy to talk about in your thirty minute sermon. And especially at the bigger churches that Alyssa and I have come from in the past where it's nondenominational, anybody's welcome.
Speaker 3:The goal is not to make
Speaker 2:you leave and cry. The goal
Speaker 3:is to leave you on an upper. Right. You know? So you send you off into your week with a smile on your face and God in your heart. But it's harder to do when you hear about God smote someone.
Speaker 2:And that's why it's important to get into your bible and understand things outside of church. Churches so often, they're like, do your devotions. Do your devotions. And they'll give you, like, a little devotional. And it's the same super inspiring stuff.
Speaker 2:It's the happy peppy whatever. But it's important to dig into the deeper parts because there's a reason they're there. They tell us something too. So we have obviously the benefit of a longer form podcast, so we can sit here and talk to you guys about it. And we're gonna try and not be super doom and gloom.
Speaker 2:There is hope here too, even in the really tough stories, even in the really horrible bits. I think reading through as much of
Speaker 3:the Bible as you can and understanding the full context of it, not just like, I read the whole Bible 13 times.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:Okay. Did you read the whole Bible and understand the historical context of it? Understand the social aspects of it? Who it was written to? Why it was written?
Speaker 3:That's that's gonna take you a lot longer. Yes. So read as much as you can and fully understand the full picture Mhmm. Of God. Really understand the character of Jesus and the character of God and the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 3:You know, all those three guys.
Speaker 2:I think too, one of the things that I've heard recently is, do you read the Bible through the lens of Jesus? Or do you read Jesus through the lens of the Bible? And it seems like, well, should be the same thing. But if you take who Jesus was and you read the rest of the bible thinking, this is who we're supposed to be. This is who we're supposed to follow.
Speaker 2:Now I'm gonna read all these stories from that perspective. That's a much better and fuller way to read the bible, keeping that in mind. But today, we've got several passages. We'll see how many we get through. We might shove some to next week depending on how much we talk, which is usually a lot.
Speaker 3:So these stories are all things that people did in the Bible that God didn't ask them to do. Mhmm. And I think it would be an interesting topic to go into maybe even next week, things that people did that God did ask them
Speaker 2:to do. So a lot of the parts of the Bible that are really difficult, people do in God's name. And I think we're seeing that today. So you'll see that through all these stories where people will say, I'm doing this for God, but God never asked for it. So the first story that I wanna talk about today is in Judges 11.
Speaker 2:Now Judges also contains one of our favorite stories, that of Big Deb. Big Deb. That being said, that's not what we're talking about today. This story is about Jephthah, who is a man that was in the middle of a battle. He was leading a battle, and he prayed to God.
Speaker 2:He said this is Judges eleven thirty. He said, and Jephthah made a vow to the Lord. If you give the Ammonites into my hands, whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites will be the lord's, and I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering. Now what does this sound like to you? Because to me, it sounds like when I want a promotion and I'm like, God, if I read my bible every day, will you give me this promotion?
Speaker 3:Or God, I really want to find a husband. So if I go to church every Sunday, you'll give me a husband.
Speaker 2:Yep. It's bargaining with God. Now this story gets much worse. But the point at this point is just that God didn't ask Jephthah to make that vow. When most people read this story, it's like, okay.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, he was talking to god. He was counting on god, blah blah blah blah blah. Right? God knew ahead of time whether he was gonna win this battle. It wasn't because Jephthah said, and I'll sacrifice something to you.
Speaker 2:Now they believe that Jephthah, at this point, probably thought that when he got home, a goat or something would come running at him. Because that would have been common. That's worthy of winning a battle. Right. A goat.
Speaker 2:What a small offering to the Lord for winning a battle. And it's almost silly because not only is he bargaining with God, in a way, he's conning God. Right? Like, God, I'll sacrifice something to you. I was already going to because that's part of my faith.
Speaker 2:But I'll I guess I'll do
Speaker 3:it again. And I can't even tell you what that thing is. Mhmm. I can't decide now. Just something.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And God, you get
Speaker 2:to surprise me with it. So then in verse 34, Jephthah comes home. He's won the battle. And who comes out to meet him first? It's not an animal.
Speaker 2:It is his daughter. She's not actually named in this story, which I think is a little bit tragic. But she's all excited. Dad won the battle. Dad's home.
Speaker 2:He's alive. There were no cell phones up until he comes marching through the door. They may not have known that he was coming back. She's all excited. She's his only child.
Speaker 2:She comes running up to him, and he starts tearing his clothes. He says, oh, no, my daughter. I'm devastated. Blah blah blah blah blah. And she probably is like, you good?
Speaker 2:Like
Speaker 3:What's going on? You just won the bout. Right? Like, I didn't hear the
Speaker 2:news wrong. And so he explains to her what he's done, the vow that he's made to the Lord. And her response is really strange and interesting. And I guess we'll dig into this a lot more, but, like, I guess it kind of speaks to her level of faith in God. But there's more to it than that.
Speaker 2:She says, my father, you have given your words to the Lord. Do to me just as you promised now that the Lord has avenged you of your enemies, the Ammonites. But grant me this one request, she said. Give me two months to roam the hills and weep with my friends because I will never marry. Now he does let her do that.
Speaker 2:She gets two months and then he kills her. Like, he sacrifices her. That is legitimately the story. That is what happens. We never even know her name.
Speaker 2:Doesn't that rip your soul out? Mhmm.
Speaker 3:I can't even wrap my brain around this story. I really can't. Now this
Speaker 2:is one I have heard before, not in church, but it is one that I have heard before. And it's always presented as, look at her amazing faith.
Speaker 3:But also in the same breath, think about her in that moment. Her father, who she loves and respects, won this battle in the name of God. Mhmm. And now he's slowly explaining to her, like, I'm gonna have to kill you. Mhmm.
Speaker 3:It's not really an option Yeah. For her. And also, she didn't have
Speaker 2:a voice or a say Mhmm.
Speaker 3:Really. So she feels like she probably doesn't have a choice.
Speaker 2:Right. Could she even have said no? She wasn't being asked. Could she have run away? She should've.
Speaker 2:She was in the hills. But the big part of this story that no one ever seems to talk about is that god didn't ask him to do this. And I think that's how we have to deal with some of these dark parts of the bible. And there are things that are dark that god does ask of people. Don't get me wrong.
Speaker 2:But this one in particular, god didn't ask for. And he didn't come back to Jephthah and say, hey. If you don't do this thing that you vowed, I'm a kill you, or I'm gonna kill her anyway. He didn't say that.
Speaker 3:He didn't say, I'm gonna send you back into battle. I'm gonna go
Speaker 2:back in time and make you lose this battle. This was all Jephthah's choice. And it's just like today when we use God's name for things that we wanted. But this is God's will. But this is God's will.
Speaker 2:I'm doing this for God. Are you? Or are you doing it because you get what you want out of the deal?
Speaker 3:Are you trying to manage God?
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:And I think that's what it comes down to in a lot of these stories. We want so badly to have control. And I think that might have been the the real sin with Adam and Eve was that they wanted to be like God. Mhmm. And in some ways, we wanna be like God.
Speaker 3:We wanna have ultimate control over our lives and control over the people's lives around us too. And our brain, our little human brains, they don't want to let go. Let go and let God. They don't wanna give up the power. Mhmm.
Speaker 3:And also our brains don't understand that level of power.
Speaker 2:Right. Because Jephthah could have just said, God, please help me. And I think that would have been just as impactful. Mhmm. But he couldn't just do that.
Speaker 2:He had to bargain with God so that there was a sure thing. Because if you just say, God help me, God might help you and not do what you wanted.
Speaker 3:It's a lot harder to pray, let your will be done. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Now I think it's a really interesting parallel here because a lot of times, religion and religious men will say things like, God told me this to women. Right? Like, how many of you have heard either yourself or a friend have a guy say, god told me I was going to marry you? And always in those situations, it takes away women's autonomy. It takes away women's ability to choose for themselves.
Speaker 2:She did not choose this for herself. Funny. God didn't tell me the same thing. Yeah. How weird about that.
Speaker 2:Strange. Once he tells me, I'll get back to you. I may have lost your phone number by then. But every time you're right. It's about control.
Speaker 2:It's about controlling someone else. I'm going to use god's name to control you. It's what's happening in our politics today. It's what's happening in our churches today. It's what happens in our families today.
Speaker 2:God told me you have to do this. My husband and I just went through a situation where we were dealing with a very complicated relationship. And he said to them, here's what's hurt me. And they came back with, we prayed to God and God told us what you were doing wrong. God doesn't do that.
Speaker 3:How did God tell you that?
Speaker 2:You don't have control. Stop trying to control God. That's the whole message of this story. Stop trying to
Speaker 3:put words in God's mouth. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Now, I think, to give you a little bit of hope and and joy no. If you're reading these stories through the lens of Jesus, if you're jumping back to that, when Jesus comes to Earth, he does not demand things of people. He doesn't say, alright, let's barter here. I'll do this for you. You do this for me.
Speaker 2:He simply gives. He simply provides. He says, show up as you are, and I will care for you To everyone, to everyone who shows up for him. You don't have to do anything other than just be there.
Speaker 3:Jump back to that woman that we talked about with the blood disease. Mhmm. All she did was have to touch the hem of his robe. Just the hem of his robe. And she didn't offer anything in return for that.
Speaker 3:He just gave.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It's hard to not think you have control. It's hard to not think that you could bargain with God and get what you want out of the deal. If you pray to Jesus, he may say no, but he will still be there with you through it. And that's better, even though it doesn't make me feel better.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:Okay. So I have three stories that I wanna talk about. One is really dark. The other two are less dark. What do we wanna start Ah.
Speaker 3:The dark one. Okay. Okay. So I first heard about Gehenna from reading the book God Didn't Make Us to Hate Us by Reverend Lizzie McManus Dale. What a big name.
Speaker 3:It's quite a name. But Gehenna is often what's used when the Bible talks about hell. Mhmm. Jesus says Gehenna referencing quote unquote what we picture as hell. And the Bible doesn't talk a lot about brimstone and fire and hellfire.
Speaker 3:You know, the stuff that we picture today Mhmm. Like a red devil and everybody burning alive. That's more stuff that we have made up later on. It's like fiction works, like Dante's Inferno Mhmm. Etcetera.
Speaker 3:But Gehenna was a real place. And it was a valley between the tribes of Judah and the tribes of Benjamin. And we first hear about it in Joshua. And it's this place where there were a group of people. They thought they were making offerings to God.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:But they decided to make these offerings in the form of their living children.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:And they were burning their children alive. And God comes back and says, what in the actual crap? I never asked you to do that. In the Bible, God says through the prophet Jeremiah, I did not command these children to be killed nor did it come into my mind. Therefore, the days are surely to come, says the Lord, when it will no more be called the valley of the son of Hinnom, which is what Gehenna translates to.
Speaker 3:But the valley of slaughter. Jesus's words later on when he says Gehenna, he's referencing this place that people actually know of to be hell on earth. Right. And how much more do we get out of
Speaker 2:the Bible when we learn this dark stuff? Because now Jesus is referencing something that happened Mhmm. A very long time ago that we don't understand. Sitting here, this wasn't an impactful historical event for us. It's like if in two thousand years, someone talks about nine eleven.
Speaker 2:For us, it was very impactful and important. But for your average person in two thousand years, they may not even know that it was a thing. A lot of the church today is doing so much of what they did. That's a very difficult statement because, obviously, this is horrific. When you really think about the reality of that, not just, like, from a story perspective, but the reality of what that situation may have looked like.
Speaker 2:And yet the church today is willing to sacrifice other people's children. They're willing to let them be held in what equates to concentration camps in The US. They're willing to say, you are less than me. Your children are worth less than my children, and I will sacrifice them because I'm saying God told me to.
Speaker 3:And in their eyes, they think, this is honoring to God. Mhmm. This is my version of worshiping God. But God didn't ask you to hurt people.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:In fact, he very specifically said to love people. And he gave you the greatest example of loving people through Jesus. But you're right. We get to pick and choose who is worthy of that love. Who gets to be fed?
Speaker 3:Who gets drinking water? Who gets a roof over their head? Based on just our little human brains who we think is worthy of that. Yeah. And God said, no.
Speaker 3:Everybody's worthy of
Speaker 2:this. Mhmm. And God never asked, where were you born? He never said, are you in this income bracket? Or did you pull yourself up by your bootstraps?
Speaker 2:Or have you ever tried drugs? None of that. God provides. Jesus provided. When Jesus fed the 5,000, he didn't ask them how much do you make a week.
Speaker 2:He didn't ask them why didn't you bring food for yourself? Why haven't you taken care of yourself? He said, I will care for you. The only way that I can deal with that story and obviously, like, you can't blame God for that one because God really directly says nope in that one. That being said, the only way that I can handle it is to say those children were immediately in the presence of God.
Speaker 2:They were immediately in heaven. And they're up there. They're dancing around. They're swimming in diamonds, I think. Ow.
Speaker 2:Isn't that the diamond Sea or something in heaven?
Speaker 3:To be honest with you, that sounds very painful.
Speaker 2:It does sound very painful, but I'm pretty sure that's the imagery. But they are okay. They are okay. Their parents, not so much, but they are okay. There's so many stories in the Bible that I cannot deal with until I think that part through.
Speaker 2:And that no matter what, God redeemed the rest of their time. God held them. God never left them Yeah.
Speaker 3:In that moment. He brought them
Speaker 2:home. Mhmm. It doesn't change the fact that it's horrific. Nope. And I think we have to think about that in our world today.
Speaker 2:There's so many horrific things that go on, and people say, why would God allow this? Why would a good God allow this? And the pretty simple reality is that people exist and people have free will and people do horrible things to other people. But God doesn't leave you in it. Doesn't make it better.
Speaker 2:Doesn't make it okay. But it's still true. Mhmm. What a horrifying story. It's awful.
Speaker 2:And not one that I had ever heard. When you brought this up, I was like, what are you even talking about? Like, how is that in the bible? So this one is horrifying on every possible level.
Speaker 3:Because the other two are so pleasant.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So many I just I'm just gonna tell you. Okay. So this is in Genesis 19. So we're going real far back in time.
Speaker 2:And this is the story of Lot. Now the part of the story of Lot that we've all heard is Lot and his wife and children were living in Sodom and Gomorrah, which were two cities that were living in deep sin. I think there's some assumptions of what was going on there, but they're just bad stuff. Right? So God basically says, I'm fireballing these cities.
Speaker 2:And he tells Lot, who I believe was an Israelite, get out. You and your family, get out. And when you go out, don't turn back and look. Just move forward. Now Lot's wife is from Sodom and Gomorrah.
Speaker 2:This is her home. These are her people. They start to leave, and she turns back to look. And she turns into a pillar of salt. Like I said, this is a story you've probably heard.
Speaker 2:This probably isn't new. But I do think she gets blamed a lot for a lack of faith. But let's remember that God wasn't her God of her youth. Whether she was of that faith now, I don't know. But
Speaker 3:that was her home. We've talked about this before too. Yeah. This is her people. Mhmm.
Speaker 3:Her home. Her everything. Yeah. That'd be very difficult not to turn around. And even I would compare it to I know we've talked about nine eleven a lot.
Speaker 3:But if you go back into that time, there are a ton of people who's taken selfies of themselves with the Twin Towers burning in the
Speaker 2:back. Mhmm.
Speaker 3:And I don't know if they just wanted to like, this is a historic event. Let me take a quick selfie of myself. Mhmm. But, again, that's your home. Mhmm.
Speaker 3:Can you imagine not turning around look at all the people that turned it on on the TV. Mhmm. How could you not look?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So that's the part of the story we know. There's more. There's less.
Speaker 3:There's a
Speaker 2:lot more, actually. So in Genesis 19, there's two different stories. When you only hear that part of the story, Lot is often seen as like, oh, he didn't turn around. Look at him and his faith. Even when his wife turns to salt beside him, he, like, seabies her and keeps going.
Speaker 2:Right? But Lot pretty much sucks. In Genesis nineteen seven, a mob comes to attack them. And in order to keep himself and the rest of his group safe, he offers his daughters to them. He only has daughters.
Speaker 2:He offers his daughters over to them. He's like, take them. I don't even care. We're good. Take them.
Speaker 2:I'll have some more kids. So that's a horrible part of the story. But then the story keeps going. So the mob does not take them, and they get to a cave. Now we've talked a lot in the past about women's place in society at this time.
Speaker 2:There was no safety for women without a husband and without children. They didn't have a way to earn an income other than prostitution, which is a short lived career, especially back then. And they were desperate. These girls were desperate. So they said, how do we keep ourselves safe?
Speaker 2:Obviously, our father doesn't give a crap about us. He's willing to sell us off to a mob. This story is bad. Okay? The next part, it's bad.
Speaker 2:You might wanna skip if you're sensitive to assault and other things. Like, this might be a a moment to skip. But basically, the daughters get Lot drunk, and he sleeps with them. Really, he rapes them. And one of them becomes pregnant and has his child.
Speaker 2:Usually, when this part of the story gets told, there's a bunch of blame on the daughters because they were active in planning this. Right? They said, this is what we're doing. It's awful. No one wants this, but this is what we're doing.
Speaker 2:Not a lot of blame on Lot as though he is the victim in this situation. But let's talk about Lot's actions here. First, he tried to sell off his daughters to a mob. His daughters were well aware that they would be tossed at the first notice. Not just because of that, but because they would have known his character.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:They knew who he was. They felt disposable to him. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And did they get him drunk? Sure. But many of us out here have been drunk. Right? Being drunk doesn't change who you are.
Speaker 2:It doesn't make you do things you would never do. That's a well proven fact. It simply makes you a louder version of who you are most of the time. So this action was not something he wouldn't have done. This was not against his moral character.
Speaker 2:This was something he would have done, just maybe not drunk. Maybe maybe he would have. I don't know. This is a story where god didn't want any of this. God didn't ask for any of this.
Speaker 2:It's a story of what happens when people are unprotected, when people have to step in and protect themselves.
Speaker 3:We've talked about this before, and it's super uncomfortable. Right? Because they did get him drunk and tried to manage the situation. But at the same time and similar to Tamar. Right?
Speaker 3:Yeah. Tamar and her father-in-law. Similar to that situation, a woman's only value for so long. This isn't just in Bible times. This is like up until recently.
Speaker 3:And even still some people see this today. A woman's value is her ability to produce children. Mhmm. And without that, especially in this time, you're not safe. And in Tamar's
Speaker 2:case, Tamar is in the lineage of Jesus. So she's kind of, like, held up for her actions. She chose the same actions as these women.
Speaker 3:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:She fought for herself. She protected herself in a horrible way, but in the only way that she had the power
Speaker 3:to do.
Speaker 2:That's exactly what these women do.
Speaker 3:Yeah. What do you do
Speaker 2:in an absolutely desperate situation? And not only were they protecting themselves, they were protecting their sisters. What would you do not just to protect yourself, but to protect your sisters? They know that this is the only way to ensure that they are safe. Because maybe they give him a son, and he'd care about that.
Speaker 2:He doesn't care about them. Horrible. And God didn't ask for it. But this is what happens when women, especially, in a broken system just have to survive. And God does not condemn them for it.
Speaker 2:Tamar was not condemned. These women are not condemned because god is with you through it even when it's awful. Now you contrast this again with Jesus who tried to fix those broken systems, who didn't just look at a single woman and say you have value, but who brought women into his inner circle, who said to Mary Magdalene, you, as a woman who is not even trusted to witness in court, you go tell everyone that I've risen. When he trusted the woman at the well to go preach that he was the son of god, He was changing systems to protect women. He was living outside of culture to protect women.
Speaker 2:He moved toward them. He helped the vulnerable. He didn't leave these systems in place. And that is what we are called to do, not just to fix one individual life. I think we do that a lot when we're like, I'm gonna donate to this missionary.
Speaker 2:Or I'm gonna pack this Christmas box for one kid. Or I'm going to donate $25 a month to help this child get an education. All of those are great things. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying like, we do that too.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. But if you're doing that and you're not fighting for systems to change, you're not fighting for laws to change, you're not doing it right. You're not following Jesus. You're helping one person when you could be helping a lot of people. So so many.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Alright. This is a story that you've definitely heard before.
Speaker 2:Okay. I'm ready. The golden calf. Oh, yes. And I'm seeing on the Internet today.
Speaker 3:Yes. The Internet with our lovely president asked the golden calf. So crazy. So so crazy. Okay.
Speaker 3:So if you, for some reason, haven't heard the story or if you didn't know all of the details of it, This happens when the Israelites have escaped Egypt. They're following Moses. And Moses goes on to Mount Sinai to chat with God. Say, hey, what's up, God? Nice little chat.
Speaker 3:And that's where he's like getting the 10 commandments. This is in Exodus 32. I don't know if I said that or not. But the Israelite people have just escaped slavery. They left their home.
Speaker 3:Have they seen some miracles? Yeah. Absolutely. But they're kind of terrified. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Right? They're wandering through the desert. They're following this guy who has a crazy staff That turns into a snake sometimes. Into a snake. They're in search of freedom, but freedom is not there yet.
Speaker 3:Mhmm. They're being told promises, but haven't seen them fulfilled yet completely. Their comfort is gone. Mhmm. And now Moses, their one leader, is gone.
Speaker 3:Yeah. For longer than they anticipated. And again, this is that situation where they're trying to manage God. Mhmm. They think they're worshiping God, though.
Speaker 3:So they go to Aaron, who is Moses' brother, and they say, make us gods that will go before us. So they're looking for that protection. Yeah. They're uncomfortable, and they want some kind of physical form, some kind of safety that they can see and they can touch. So Aaron says, give me your earrings.
Speaker 3:And he takes all the gold that they have, and he melts it down. And it it does say that he, Aaron, forms a a golden calf. How? I looked that up. I was like, how?
Speaker 3:Gold, I guess, melts at a lower burning point, and you could have done that. And he could have done, like, metal casting and hammering. I don't know. He forms it into a calf. Got it.
Speaker 3:Which the Israelites would have been familiar with because animal imagery was common Mhmm. Mhmm. In their religion that they came from. So like a golden calf, a calf in general, was a symbol of strength and fertility and divine power. So this would have been something that they were familiar with, they were borrowing from and trying to place on God.
Speaker 3:But again, they're scared. Yeah. And they want something physical. But they also think that they are honoring God
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:In a way that they're familiar with. So they do more sacrifices to this golden calf. They have like a feast around this golden calf. And what's weird is that Aaron, who does kind of know better, collected all this gold, melted it down, made the calf. He then says, these are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.
Speaker 3:So he says that to the calf. Odd. Right? Yeah. Confusing.
Speaker 3:Yeah. God didn't ask you to do that. Well, Moses comes down and he's pissed off. He's like, what the crap? I leave you guys for ten minutes.
Speaker 3:He breaks the 10 commandments, which he went all the way up into the mountain to talk to God about. Brought them down, then he just goes, boom.
Speaker 2:Isn't that such a man thing
Speaker 3:to do? My gosh. Have you seen the videos on the internet of guys getting really upset over sports? And they're like, and men aren't emotional. And then they will throw things at their TV.
Speaker 3:Punch the wall. Break the TV. That's crazy. Anyways, that's Moses. He breaks the 10 commandments, breaks the golden calf, turns it into dust, makes everybody drink it.
Speaker 3:Which is quite a punishment.
Speaker 2:It's it's an exciting one. It's odd.
Speaker 3:But that's the story of the golden calf. And again, this is where people think they truly are honoring God. Mhmm. But God then comes back and says, I never asked you for
Speaker 2:this. Right.
Speaker 3:I never asked you to worship me in this way. I didn't ask you to and people will pull this and say like, a false god. They were worshiping a false god. Mhmm. But they were trying to worship God God.
Speaker 3:Mhmm. In a way that they were familiar with. So it's confusing. Yeah. That's a
Speaker 2:confusing That's interesting. I've never heard it presented like that, that they were trying to worship capital G God
Speaker 3:just by
Speaker 2:doing something that, you know, came from pagan religions, things like that. We do that. Mhmm. We do that a lot. I mean, we've talked about this before.
Speaker 2:Like, what
Speaker 3:do what do we idolize Mhmm. As Christians thinking that we're worshiping God? Mhmm. And we've talked about this before,
Speaker 2:but like the Bible. Yeah.
Speaker 3:In a lot of ways, people of faith, Christian people, turn the Bible into this idol, thinking that you can't throw it away. You have to be respectful of it. This is God's word. And really, this is a translation of a translation of a translation. Right.
Speaker 3:Right. And you can go back and listen to our episode on that.
Speaker 2:We really dive deep into that one. Or even there's a lot of it. Like voting Republican.
Speaker 3:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Like, that is a holy tenant that you have to follow. Or the idea of church. Yeah. Or wearing a cross necklace.
Speaker 3:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:All of these things that were like, no. No. No. Order to be seen as a Christian. Back in the day, that Christians wouldn't go into the movie theater.
Speaker 3:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Or Yeah. Things like that. In our family, nobody goes to public school. You know, like, it's that kind of thing that God didn't ask for, that you're doing, you think, for capital g god. I also think if we're talking about finding a physical manifestation of god because it's hard to follow a god you can't see.
Speaker 2:Let's be totally honest about that. I can't blame the Israelites for that. It is hard to follow a god you can't see. And they didn't have Jesus yet. Moses left them.
Speaker 2:Aaron should have known better, and he
Speaker 3:was still like, alright, whatevs.
Speaker 2:Who have we put on that pedestal today?
Speaker 3:I could tell you one. Is it perhaps the person who posted a golden statue of himself on the Internet?
Speaker 2:We want a king, just like the Israelites wanted all through the Old Testament. We want a king because that king will tell us what to do. They will give us black and white.
Speaker 3:Just that idea that, again, managing and controlling God, wanting something that our brains can And not wanting to release that power. Yeah. Not wanting to say, God, you're ultimately in control, and I guess whatever you plan on having happen will happen no matter what I do. Right. No matter if I try to bargain with you or not.
Speaker 3:So
Speaker 2:let it be. Mhmm. You'll hear this a lot in church. And I don't think they take
Speaker 3:it as seriously as they
Speaker 2:say they do. But you'll hear, you do whatever you can do and let God do what God can do. But we also like to do what God can do. When it comes to things like fighting for systems of change, do whatever you can do. But do it through the lens of Jesus.
Speaker 2:Just like you're supposed to read the Bible through the lens of Jesus. Live life through the lens of Jesus. Live, laugh, love. Would Jesus have fed the people? Yes.
Speaker 2:We see him do that. We know he would do that. Would Jesus have judged others? No. He said, neither do I condemn you.
Speaker 2:How does Jesus live his life?
Speaker 3:Would Jesus have surrounded himself with only those religious elite people and sought power? Mhmm. No. He didn't do that.
Speaker 2:A note that I kind of wanted to end on before we talk about our next week's episode too. I have another story. We don't have time for another
Speaker 3:story. Have a full story.
Speaker 2:Have a full another story too.
Speaker 3:Fine. We're pushing it to next week. It's about someone named Nadab and Abihu. Can you
Speaker 2:do it in three point two minutes?
Speaker 3:No. Well, there you go.
Speaker 2:When we saw Suffs yesterday, I there's there's so much that's impactful. If you guys get a chance to see it or, like, even just listen to the music, it's all over the Internet. You can find it. But there was one scene because it's all about these incredible women, right, who sacrificed their lives. Some of them literally their actual lives to fight for the rights of women.
Speaker 2:And sometimes you see that, and you're like, that's overwhelming. I can't sacrifice my whole life. I can't do what these people did. But what can you do? There's a scene in the play where it's kind of it's towards the end, and the suffragists are trying to ratify the nineteenth amendment.
Speaker 2:They need one more state to ratify, and that's Tennessee. And they're gonna lose. They know they're gonna lose. So they're all standing up there and they're like, okay. Flip the vote.
Speaker 2:Flip the vote. Flip the vote. I don't actually remember what exactly they said. There's like a chant going on. I don't know.
Speaker 2:Let them flip. And as one of the congressional men, I don't know what his title was, is about to place his vote, He either says yes, let's pass this, or no, let's not. And he determines whether they win or lose, the right to vote. He gets a letter from his mother. And basically his mother says, I spent my life raising you.
Speaker 2:I did all the things. I was a mom. I was a wife. I did all the things I was supposed to do. And now I'm begging you to give me a voice because I spent my life loving you.
Speaker 2:I'm begging you to give me a voice and let me vote. And so he he votes yes and it passes. And she didn't dedicate her entire life to this movement, But she did everything that she could.
Speaker 3:In the song, she's like, I've never written a telegram before. But here, I I made the really long journey to, I don't know, the post Into tone. Yeah. So that I could send this. And I I'm desperately hoping that it reaches you in time because this is that important to me.
Speaker 3:Mhmm. And it just gave me chills Yeah. All over. Do what you can do. You're right.
Speaker 3:And this is what Alyssa and I are doing.
Speaker 2:Yeah. There might not be a giant world of things you can do, but you can do something. And in these stories, it's full of pain and suffering. And I think if someone had just stepped into those moments, what could have happened? Now historically, that would have been difficult.
Speaker 2:But today, if you can step into people's worst moments, what could you do? Do everything that you can do. And then let God do the rest.
Speaker 3:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:So next week, we are gonna jump back into this topic. I've got, I think, two more, actually. Bree's got another one. We'll we'll fill it out with some more stories. And some of them will be god did ask for this.
Speaker 2:I have one more that's not. So you're just gonna have to tolerate that little little difference there. Rude. Sorry. But I actually even though these are hard, I like diving into them because it gives you guys more information as you walk out into the world.
Speaker 2:And it gives us that too because some of this is stuff I did not know. Mhmm. It gives us the opportunity to learn it. And Brie does hate learning, but we're doing our best.
Speaker 3:We just always have to stay informed and learn.
Speaker 2:Just learn things when you listen to us. We're fun. We're funny. I I won't give you a test. I promise.
Speaker 3:Here's the thing. We're learning so that you can listen, and you can say, Okay. I learned something, baby. But also go out and learn things for yourself Mhmm. Too, and then teach us.
Speaker 3:And that is community, baby. That would
Speaker 2:be great. I would love to learn something from you guys because then I wouldn't have to research it.
Speaker 3:Mhmm. Actually, someone commented on one of your posts about Junia and responded and said, oh, there's actually another woman who was considered in the Orthodox tradition, the first female apostle. And that would be interesting to do a video on.
Speaker 2:Yeah. That was really cool. And again, the things you learned from other other faiths or other flavors of Christianity. Flavors of Christianity.
Speaker 3:This one's vanilla. Well, ours is very vanilla.
Speaker 2:Not not ours, you and mine, but you know what I mean. Alright. So we'll talk to you guys next week. Follow us on social media. If you don't, you can find us at the hashtag we are more.
Speaker 2:We would love to see you there for a little a little fun chat.
Speaker 3:Yeah. If you had to build an ark or find a paddle boat this past week, let us know. We would we would love to know that. Okay. Love you.
Speaker 3:Bye. See you later.