Therapy & Theology | Why No One Wins When a Woman Is Devalued

foreign to a new series of therapy and theology the title of this one is one of my favorites let's stop avoiding this conversation six topics women have big questions about today is episode one and we're specifically focusing in episode one on why it doesn't help anyone for a woman to be devalued so welcome guys this is to be here yeah this is so fun together and talk about important issues today this is Dr Joel munamale with me and then of course we have Jim Kress licensed professional counselor with a whole bunch of other degrees behind his name I always joke and say that Joel brings the theology Jim brings the therapy and I bring the questions and issues so you're welcome you're so honest about that yes yes so why is therapy and theology needed and specifically why is a series devoted to women um important for us to cover I think it's important to bring the therapy and the theology because you deserve good answers both spiritually and emotionally and so we're going to definitely tackle that from these questions we're going to tackle it from both of those important perspectives and lenses and of course you know that therapy and theology is part of proverbs 31 Ministries and proverbs 31 Ministries exists for women to know the truth and live the truth because when they do it changes everything so the purpose of this entire podcast not just this series is not to give specific personalized advice to individuals this should not take place of going to see a licensed professional counselor that can help you navigate the nuances of your relationships your issues your past all of that but rather we want to provide a safe place to talk about real things that you you may be facing provide therapeutic and the theological there you go theological wisdom so you can be empowered to seek out the help and healing you may need and this is on a personal note I will say that incorporating the therapeutic wisdom of Jim and the theological wisdom of Joel has tremendously helped me in my own healing Journey so thank you both and I'm so excited to share you with the world so Jim and Joel what are some of the challenges that you see women facing in ever increasing measures right now Jim we'll start with you yeah we are in several really different pandemics there is a global covet pandemic that is going on and no matter when this series is watched who knows when it really ends that pandemic we're also we've talked about this as a whole other topic and yay one topic that's coming up which is on a porn endemic the pornography rates we're already bad enough but skyrocketed during um during covid and the pandemic and the impact especially since what this series is about on women I don't think we know yet how bad it is and then of course we're in truly uh look around we are in a global mental health pandemic so these mental health issues have come to the surface and I could list off I won't but a myriad of like big one I saw in the counseling office was everybody went home you up in my space right now I mean like I said you need social distancing at home so I felt like whoa where do I get my space brother rather organically but then there's the reality of just the major life change and shift that these things like Proverbs 20 verse 5 says the purposes in our hearts are deep Waters so we go down deep to draw them out these surf I watch things just become uh the buoyant and they begin to come up to the surface and people are like what's going on well it's just I think a lot is going on as the environment and we couldn't keep certain things at Bay and a lot of us were scared anxiety issues around a pandemic huge like I can't control this and as we've said too many times the brain is wired for confidence in knowing so everybody's afraid of well what's coming next you can't prove you can't really predict what is coming next and I think part of that is going to be too the idea if we say that people are down on what they're not up on we can read all we want on the internet and learn but there's a sense of I've never it's a historical I've never been through this before well I remember of course we're recording this in the latter months of 2022 and who would have thought at this point that we would still be referencing covid-19 and all of that and that's not where we're going today but what I do want to focus in on is we're very much seeing a severe uptick in mental health issues and emotional trauma and I remember Jim when uh just probably when the pandemic was first starting I was asking you why are we seeing such a rise in the numbers of women being devastated in their marriages or in women really suffering and their suffering seems more apparent and I remember you looking at me and saying well Lisa they are spending so much time at home they're forced to see some issues it's like draining the lake and then you really see what's there whereas busyness and busier routines were definitely helping to make at least it less likely that we had to face some really tough things but now we're facing them that busyness is a proven believe it or not because I admit I struggle with my own anxiety issues I do I'm not afraid of that and I have the resources and resiliency to deal with it anxiety don't worry about just get resilient get the resources to deal with it and what happens is when I'm there like you say everybody going home and facing this is the busyness is a major distraction it's like I say you're water skiing on top of that Lake the pandemic or other things happen and suddenly you let go of the rope and you're just sinking down in the water that's been there the entire time and that's what that pandemic did it's there been there the whole time and I think also now busyness is kicked back in so now we're dealing with the stresses of not being able to unsee what we see or what we saw and the stress and strains of returning back to busier schedules is placed on top of these emotional traumas that we have to deal with so you know I think 10 or 15 years ago I don't ever remember me or my friends discussing hard topics around emotional trauma and mental health issues such as narcissism gaslighting codependency and even emotional abuse a couple other words triggers addictions we just didn't talk about those things because maybe we didn't have the language to or maybe it seemed like topics that were reserved for psychological settings not everyday carpool lines right but now I feel like people are starting to become very aware of these topics and not just in our Christian circles they're becoming aware everywhere and so we didn't have the language before to talk about it and now we are more hyper aware that it exists but it's I think being more talked about because we're becoming more aware that there are more and more toxic relationships and being able to talk about it or have the nomenclature to name those problems we all know this doesn't mean I have the resources and tools as Saint Paul would say to go put into practice I just am more informed sometimes that's worse what do I do with all this information I have but I remember one time you were saying to me you know I really questioned why weren't we talking about these before and why am I now 53 years old and I'm just now getting educated of how to even have the vocabulary to have discussions around this or to even name the real issues that exist and I remember you saying Jim Lisa you need to give yourself some Grace because when you know better you will do better and I really agree with that statement I think issues around mental health are both enlightening and very challenging but also for me I'm seeing so many women my age facing the shock of an unknown future because some relationships aren't making it some relationships have become unsustainable because of the of the level of toxicity in those relationships and I'm seeing more than ever maybe it's because of my personal story or maybe just the numbers are higher I don't know but I'm hearing for more and more women my age and of all ages really facing unwanted divorces so part of the challenge that we're also facing with the Mental Health crisis is our own heartbreak you know it's not just past trauma now we're experiencing current trauma and certainly when you walk through a severe relationship issue there's going to be a lot of heartbreak and it's really going to make some of those emotional issues maybe even mental health issues even more apparent and hard to deal with because you're compounding it but an equally challenging thing to navigate is the lack of theological awareness when it comes to the Christian's response to separation to relationships falling apart and specifically to divorce many people say extremely hurtful things because I think it's assumed that Christians will make sure that all relationships last for all time but we don't even see that with relationships in the Bible so I don't know why we would think that we would see it in today's everyday life right and a lot of people say hurtful things either because they don't know what to say or they feel compelled to defend God's word the problem is if we are violating God's word in an effort to defend God's word we're not really honoring God's word as it was intended so when when people weaponize verses around these hard topics hoping others won't catch divorce fever or you know toxic relationship fever or whatever it is it's just a mass of women out there that are needing answers I don't see a mass of women out there so eager to lose relationships I don't see a mass of women so eager to divorce their husbands I don't see a mass of women out there looking for the easy way out to family members they I don't see them trying to peace out or tap out I'm sure those situations exist but what I see is women who need therapeutic and Theological help to navigate not only the mental health issues that are being talked about today but also the personal things we're facing that are compounding the mental and emotional challenges we're facing and that is heartbreak yeah not so good Lisa and I just to build some bridges I think historically we've always thought about emotional and physical health as one compartmentalized category right and then all of a sudden there is theological or spiritual health in a different category and yet the biblical vision of a human is not a demarcation of these these different categories God created is this whole human beings with physical spiritual and emotional all combined together and so it's vitally important that we understand that our spiritual Health directly impacts our emotional which flows into our physical and it is a circle that changes in different seasons and one of the things that I've been so intrigued by is in a society where we have more and more information so what you said earlier Jim in a society that has more and more information it's not surprising for me that anxiety is on the rise and here's why I actually think that the more information that we have could potentially be destructive for us and actually destabilizing for us if we don't know how to think about the information if we don't know how to connect this information with how God intends for us to rightly view it and so Lisa like we're talking about when it comes to women and how they understand their identity and their value and their worth and and and biblical institutions like marriage for me one of the things that keeps coming up is what appears to be a disconnect between what the Bible actually says about the Dig dignity specifically of women and then the heartache you're just describing it the heartache around what the personal experience has been in this area so some of this the discussion has been around if for a question like do women actually have value and worth in and of themselves or is there value and worth only connected to their identity their role their functioning as a woman as a wife as a as a mother in their work or in their vocation who they are in Social settings like this is creating a bit of confusion it Crea it makes you feel unstable another thing I've seen is a misuse which turns into misunderstanding which eventually flows into misapplication of scriptures when it comes to biblical Concepts and ideals like marriage or work vocation being a mom you see there's a a real danger of women being hurt confused or living in the tension of being told to live up to the ideal of a Biblical institution we can talk about marriage for example while those people who are asking them to do this and we'll get into this later actually miss God's heartbeat for the person who uh the people who are within this actual relationship so for me one of the most important things for us in our time together is to think rightly about the scriptures and have a holistic view of God's ideal of what it means to be a a woman made in the image of likeness of God and I think the other thing I love the way you phrased all of that and not only God's heartbeat but also look at the life of Jesus I call it the Jesus context and how did Jesus interact with and treat women that were in very challenging situations and even though the Bible is probably not going to identify specifically certain terminology of mental health issues but they were there there was emotional heartbreak there was betrayal there was rejection there was treating women like an out outcaster even treating women as sub-human and and giving women no rights to to speak up and no ability to process what they were going through because the social standards at the time required women just to stay quiet stay quiet and fulfill their roles and their value was in the Fulfillment of the roles that they played um so I want to go there I want to talk about some of these verses that have been weaponized and Jim I would love for you to add in anything from the therapeutic standpoint that you're noticing and what really happens and maybe let's start with this question to you Jim what really happens when a woman is devalued or a person is devalued over and over and over inside of her personal relationships in the social context and just the overall feeling that this is right not because it feels right but because everyone is doing it well sadly maybe most importantly for me of what I see is for that precious woman to start believing the data if not indeed the words or accusations not just of the devil but of this person that she is in a relationship with and somehow it's like those those violent words like a plane land and their landing and she doesn't know what to do with them she's maybe scratching her head saying well what if they're right what if that's true it really sets up a term we've used on this podcast many times and I love the term I think it sets up her to hustle for her worthiness maybe if I do more sets up people pleasing co-dependency Works righteousness and yeah theological circles so she begins to move and think maybe and doubt her own reality and a classic one I've used right it's not original with me but you know for her sometimes stresses when her gut says no but her mouth says yes or her gut says stop but her mouth says go or yeah I'll do that but she will begin to find and try to find and you know in grace and mercy who could blame her but she'll try to to find an external solution to that internal problem those external voices become internal and she starts believing that and after a while it can be false identity but can feel like our own identity and I think everyone loses when a woman is devalued absolutely it's not just the woman but it is everyone that woman's life has the potential to enrich but if she feels less than constantly she will no longer start believing or she will no longer keep believing that she has the ability to enrich people's lives beyond what those people want her to do for them and I'll go a step further with that Lisa I think it also is destructive for the social structure of our human existence yes right like it is actually a stripping of the fabric of what keeps our society together and women have a crucial role to play in that and so yes it's individual but absolutely is it corporate and cultural so Joel let's go ahead and look from a theological standpoint where's the biblical support for this and and why is it important from a theological standpoint to get this right and why everyone loses when a woman is devalued yeah I'll I'll start actually with one of uh Jim's sayings that is one of my favorite things that he says he says that our words frame our reality and boy is this true emotionally but incredibly theologically so you open up in the first couple chapters of Genesis and and we've here's the other danger we've become familiar with some of these verses to the point that we've allowed our modern cultural context to inform a historical Biblical context and so what I want to do is kind of take a step back okay I want you to say that one more time because I really want people to hear what you just said yeah at times when we're in the Bible what ends up happening is we because we get familiar with it we can allow our modern cultural context to inform words that are rooted in a historical biblical and social context so two key examples I'm going to sneak in a third potentially but one is is this famous kind of you hear the weddings and um and engagement ceremonies but um God made a woman from Adam's what his well side some some versions say sides some say rib right so uh Genesis 2 verse we'll start in verse uh 20. so the man gives name to all these livestock to the birds of the sky to every wild animal but for the man and we're gonna get to help her later but for the man no helper was found corresponding to him so the Lord God caused a deep sleep to come over the man and he slept and God took one of his I'm reading from csb one of his ribs and closed the flesh at that place then the Lord God made the rib that he had taken from the man into a woman and brought her to the man now some translations say rib some of the more nuanced translations are going to say side well why this is the Hebrew word Salah and uh I was doing some word study uh in this and Jim we love when you do I found something interesting and y'all I've been through a lot of school you know undergraduate mdiv PhD like I've done a lot of school in this area and we love that you've done a lot of schools but here's the tragic and I'm trying to connect some dots even even in formal theological training that I think I need to confess and just say I this wasn't taught to me in my Genesis survey class in my in-depth Genesis uh Hebrews so I'm just pointing out if you're like Joel I feel so bad like I never I don't want you to feel bad I just want to invite you into the learning process and one of the things I learned about this Hebrew word is that it is intimately connected to the stability of an object or a person so so Elise I know one of the things that you love is um is uh what do we call it renovating homes and we had a situation in our house where we wanted to take a wall down and we asked you hey what do you think and one of the first things you said was Joel you got to be careful make sure that wall isn't what load bearing load bearing which means that there's a beam that goes up up to the very top it's a stabilizing beam yeah because if that wall is load bearing you take it down the you must put a supporting beam which is expensive especially if you're going to get it up into the ceiling but it is required because if not the structure will not be stable so think about this from an architectural standpoint and nobody thinking oh I think I'm just gonna take the risk of not putting this before right like because that could be catastrophic for for everybody inside of that home even guests that you have in so let's make the connection here the the rib and I'm going to put our modern kind of understanding a rib like you could crack a rib no big deal it's gonna be super painful but you can keep living right um but you take the side of a person that actually gives them the stability to walk and to be held together there is no functioning at that point at that standpoint this is the imagery that the biblical language the Hebrew language is giving of the creation of women from the side of man and so then you have a different frames okay so is it more like like a a bigger portion of the man has been taken yeah I think so I think it's a massive portion of the man a massive portion to the point where maybe he requires a stabilizing Force I'm gonna yeah I think that's the biblical now we can't go too far in the literal standpoint of it but I think this is the the imagery that we're supposed to get and it's super important because it establishes the value and the worth and the identity of these two people right um it refuses to allow one to be superior and the other inferior because it puts the man in a position of actually uh intimate weakness without the woman present and so the social structure is a social structure where both are brought together in order to bring a whole and when both are brought together and bring a whole it brings honor and glory to God because it Bears the full image of God right by the way do you realize you seriously just gave a wonderful in my opinion description of why maybe there's so much verbal and emotional abuse that may be coming from men toward women because you take her away and I talk about their sexual objectification she's just an object but there's emotional relational object I don't even certainly don't see her bearing the the Imago day the image of God but if I can make her just an object like and she doesn't have that strength coming my way I love when you said that I thought boy that ties right into especially emotional abuse it's so good and so that takes us to our next verse uh Genesis 2 starting in verse 17. actually it goes after that verse 18. then the Lord God said and he's talking to Adam and Eve he said or it's talking to Adam it is not good for man to be alone then he says this I will make a helper corresponding to him now I'm gonna again go back to what have we done culturally with this word helper I I did a poll I asked some friends and you know we're working a women's ministry and we ask some friends that are in the office like when you hear the word help or at least what do you think of when you hear helper well before we started studying this yeah um I would say one one who helps another with stuff that she can help with and so my original image of this helper in the context of my life was that I need to help take care of the home I need to be the nurturing force with my kids I need to wash the dishes and do the laundry and run the errands and and all of that and I don't think any of those things are what we're not supposed to be doing I think though instead of focusing on the roles that we play activities I want to focus on the value and I think we've missed the value tucked inside that word helper and the Hebrew word helper is azer and as we look at this word use and so it's we have this thing that we talk about Lisa often when we're doing theological study the law of first mentions you know this is the first time that this word is being mentioned it's being used it's this deeply Rich Hebrew word we need to to really ask and pause and consider okay if this is the first time it's used how is it used elsewhere what is the weight of the usage of this word really intriguing when I was studying this is the the overwhelming majority of the time that azer is used later on in scripture it's a descriptive word to describe Yahweh God who is stepping in to intervene to help Israel who is in the midst of being destroyed typically in a military situation so it's not a passive word at all no it is amazing it has militaristic overtones it has Authority it brings stability it is and I think I want to go back to that Israel is on the verge of losing their stability the the Canaanites and the Philistines are about to whoop them and Destroy them right and now you have Yahweh who comes in as a stabilizing rescuing figure to bring them out of their plight this is the the picture this is the image from the very beginning prior to the fall we didn't even get to Genesis 3 yet of God's ideal heartbeat for for a woman for her value for her worth and so as we think about helper I think it's vitally important that we connect that word helper to its natural context Biblical context and now all of a sudden you go wow um there's something sorely and really tragic and damaging if we don't have this person this gender this this woman uh present not just in our personal lives but societally in our culture and I think it's important to when we were looking at this together um I remember you saying that it's it's not the picture of a servant rising up in a temporary fashion to suddenly help the king it is more like an ally fellow King who is coming in to help support when necessary aid needs to be gotten from somewhere and so I think that's really important too because again it speaks to the value of the helper and so I want you know people might just be and I hope you are you're like hey wait a minute where did you get that that thought of an Allied King well Genesis 1 26-27 it says that God made man and that that Hebrew word it includes women man and woman he made them in his likeness and image these are two Hebrew words shalam and daemud now this super intriguing again with this these are words to describe a king who would have Offspring and his children would be referred to as being in the Kings likeness and image and so again this is the picture that is being painted of Adam and Eve together prior to the fall they both are um are reflections of royalty uh and so yeah one king is about to to fall this this stabilizing figure of equal worth and value comes in over the hills and I just think from the Israelite standpoint what a pleasant sight what a breath of fresh air what what hope fulfilled when you think All Is Lost to see the azer the the helper the the person who's going to bring stability and and uh and help you and and that I think like regardless of where else we go in this series like if we just get this one part and aspect of God's vision for the identity and value and worth of a woman I think it can have um such a Redemptive and really important um consequences for all these other aspects that we'll discuss in the coming episodes and episode two of the series we're really gonna go after emotional abuse what is it and how it contributes to the silencing of a woman but Joel before we end this one and Jim I want your perspective too um is there a place in the Bible where we see a woman described more as a valiant Warrior woman not just as a homemaker or a caretaker and again I'm not talking about throwing the baby out with the bathwater here you know I love being a caretaker I love being the nurturing force in my home I actually love doing laundry I really do but I think my value if I can keep my value in mind that my value is that I am made in the image and likeness of God the Imago day and then even I'm going to just kind of bait you toward the answer I want you to follow suit but even the name of our ministry proverbs 31 I've often heard her described as a wife of noble character and again I think that's beautiful but there's also this sense that she is a woman of Valor that's right and I think if we only assign her value to a role like she's a wife of noble character then we're missing the reality that she's also a woman of Valor and her worth is found in the Valor the woman of Valor that God established her to be so Jim from an emotional standpoint the women coming into your office they're dealing with hurts they're dealing with heartbreak they're dealing with feeling devalued maybe in a relationship maybe in family of origin maybe in their job maybe even in their calling and they're feeling devalued what does this do to a woman and how could this information help her yeah it's a great question and you know many places to go one is I'm always mindful the great book we've talked about the body keeps the score uh so that in the body she can begin to develop mental health issues stress GI tract problems I mean the body just remembers so inside we call that somatic or somatizing like in my body it's like I'm I'm going to be the woman who throws grenades hopefully not and but I might swallow grenades so the impact is noticing around sleep around so many different issues so to pay attention what can go on there and then in the psyche or the brain the soul the mind of beginning to believe the accusations we know that Satan's the accuser of everyone but to begin to believe these and internalize them and basically do something to their own mind their own belief system where they begin to believe lies it's their books written called The Lies Women Believe and I internalize them and suddenly the more I do that as Aristotle would say that we are what we repeatedly do and think really so suddenly my operating system changes and I've internalized these and that's part of the problem and I think the the other part is it is just inside you've referenced family of origin we've said if it's hysterical it's historical to look and maybe that questioning like maybe Dad was right because Dad either sinned by Omission or commission he said these things about me or Mom did or someone else we always want to look in life through all of your journey how you've been named you dummy you idiot you we could say really derogatory words not to be funny we won't say you've heard them out there so the idea is I begin to believe how I have been named God's word tells us very clearly how he names us but I'll internalize these things as though I'm living under the name of this versus in Jesus renaming Peter you know even it's like believing these names and of course that will flow in Generations I believe that I might if I don't have my own identity in Christ especially that I can believe that and how am I going to interact as a person a friend a spouse and a mother I think it's going to it's wide-ranging impact so again no one wins when a woman is devalued Satan thinks he wins for the moment he loses in the end but he thinks he wins and when a woman is devalued from a psychological standpoint a mental health standpoint an emotional help standpoint it's traumatic when a woman is devalued and also from a spiritual standpoint it is traumatic and Trauma is not something that just happens to you it happens in you that's right so good so Joel let's go to the woman of Valor yeah so proverbs 31 the wound of Valor and then I want to connect us to Jesus because at the end of the day we need to we need to really get to did Jesus believe any of this you know otherwise it's not going to make any sense but interestingly probably 31 is all about this Valiant Warrior type woman she is a woman that and so again what we do is we take help or we think Homemaker right but actually the picture that that's here is a a season where the men have gone out to war and that this is the background the men have gone off to war and now these women step in and they're handling business they're handling budget the way that the ancient home was run if you're handling the home you're handling the land you're handling the Commerce that's taking place in the marketplace I mean these are women of status they're women of stature they're women that are are doing valuable valuable work in fact so important that the way that proverbs 31 lays all this out it actually refuses if we read it rightly to to locate women in a corner that says oh they're just a homemaker oh they're places in the home and it's not to say that those things are bad it's just saying that those things aren't what define the woman those things aren't God's ideal of saying that's the only thing that brings you value and worth and again it goes to this militaristic picture of a valiant kind of warrior woman and I think it's important that we see it by the way maybe handling it no fun here I'm not trying to be funny maybe handling it dynamically better than the man would because that was true in our own marriage where a therapist said well intended you know you need to take the finances away from Jim he needs to step up my wife had the finances organized it's all in our testimony and our story and I was a nightmare to hang I had no business handling the finances that way in her gift set but maybe the there are men in relationship with these women who they would even feel I know they come in my office and say that men do if they're honest how inadequate they feel in the presence of a woman of Valor and value that's such a good point Jim because then again it's a reframing it's a reframing of what we understand as oh that's exposing my weakness to oh my goodness that's the helper I need it I agree right yeah um but here's the thing Lee said that I find fascinating in Jim about Jesus is that Jesus in his Earthly Ministry refuses to um to to bend to the cultural norm of what a woman's role or A Woman's Place was going to be in a society in an ancient culture that was known to honestly subjugate and devalue women Jesus is subversive in a sense lack a better word it's kind of rebellious in this area he refuses to bend to anything other than the ideal of of God the father in it and so there's these two stories that I think are really important one takes place in Luke 10 38-42 there's these two sisters and we know the story it's Mary and Martha it's really interesting that the text tells us that that while Martha is doing you know all the house stuff which is fine Mary understood that there's something special about Jesus and she goes and sits at the feet of Jesus this becomes a social like stigma situation it's bad it's alarming it's alarming why because when she sits at the feet of Jesus she's declaring that she is a disciple disciple and Jesus is a rabbi so disciples in this context are male male disciples sit at the feet of a male Rabbi and all of a sudden you have a woman who sits at the feet of Jesus you would think that Jesus would say whoa Hold Up Wait A Minute Mary love you you have value and worth I just need you to join your sister Martha in the back right and he doesn't in fact when Martha gets all upset about this Jesus responds and says um uh let me let me find this Jesus Martha's distracted by much serving and and she went up to him said Lord do you not care that my sister has left me to serve her alone tell her then to help him but Lord answered Martha Martha you're anxious and troubled about many things but one thing is necessary and catch this Mary has chosen the good portion which will not be taken away from her he EV he elevates Mary now interestingly later on they have a brother his name's Lazarus Lazarus dies and this is John 11 17-27 and this is what I find a beautiful Redemptive reversal because I don't know how Martha was feeling but probably not super great when the Messiah basically rebukes her right like I missed that one right Jesus comes and as Jesus comes it's so intriguing that in this situation Mary it says that but Mary remained seated in the house and Martha runs out to Jesus Martha said to Jesus Lord if he had been here my brother would not have died and then Jesus and Lisa I want you to talk about this Jesus says to her what is so alarming what is so unexpected what is so um fantastic and you would expect him to say to Mary who got it right in the first instance but he says it to Martha he says this Mary Martha I am the resurrection of the life whoever believes in me though he die yet shall he live and everyone who lives and Believes In Me shall never die do you believe this and she says yes Lord I believe that you are the Christ the son of God who is coming into the world yeah because of old Peter isn't it amen the Earth of Christ and I think you would expect maybe even Beyond him to say that to Mary you you would expect him to say it to someone who could multiply that message out and who was allowed to multiply that message out and so when he which of course would be the men right but when he says you know Jesus only gave the seven I am statements in the Book of John right I would fight that this is one of the most important if not the most important and so for him to declare to Martha that he is the resurrection and the life to me that speaks to her value that she is a woman and that Jesus is okay with her multiplying that message out to speak what she has experienced from Christ and before anybody's like well is that just a one-off is this just a random moment in scripture uh no we talked about Mary sitting at the feet of Jesus Luke 10 39. you've got John chapter 4 with the Samaritan woman that it's a detects us that it was necessary Jesus had to go through Samaria which for a Jew going through Samaria was one of the most like un um uh what would you say like I'm cool don't do it and like rejected you would never do this because it was almost like from the Jewish standpoint it was forbidden it was forbidden like you because you'd be unclean you'd be unclean exactly and here's a Samaritan who's a half breed half Jew half Gentile and Jesus sits and drinks water with her at the well and and then commissions her she goes back in and tells of this Messiah um they're the women at the resurrection and before you get to the woman at the resurrection you've got the women who stay at the cross Matthew 27 and John 19 Mark 15 you've got this overwhelming presence of these women in Jesus's Earthly life and Ministry but Lisa one of the ones that I think is so incredible is that in Luke 23 27-31 we've got the names of these women right but then Luke specifically says this that there were many other daughters of Jerusalem and then Mark 15 41 says and there were many unnamed women that were at the foot of the cross as Jesus the son of God is dying and I think what this does is it speaks to the ministry and to the life lived of Jesus of honoring cherishing and championing women why else would a slew of women a crowd of women when the disciples the male disciples are nowhere to be found why would they be the ones to be at the cross I think it's be to how seriously Jesus loved and cherished and valued and elevated women in a culture that would have looked at him like he was crazy and to bring it back to the Imago day as we wrap up the image of God it must be Joel that women shine a very specific and unique light on part of the reality of the image of God that is unique to a woman just like a man must shine a unique light on the image of God from a man's vantage point from from a man's makeup and so while we would never want to devalue a man we certainly don't want to devalue a woman who is made in the image of God because I dare say one of the biggest reasons that we lose out is that we are devaluing part of the image of God yes and that's something we should never do now imagine this Joel imagine if that Samaritan woman who really if you look at it that's the beginning of Jesus public Ministry so she is the first evangelist right so imagine if the Samaritan woman had stayed silent imagine if Martha had stayed silent imagine if Mary had stayed silent imagine if they had stayed silent what we would have all lost out on imagine if they would have stayed silent and why would you ever want them to and that my friends is a good place to land this episode of therapy and theology

Channel: Proverbs 31 Ministries with Lysa TerKeurst

Views: 61,763

Keywords: lysa terkeurst, therapy and theology, proverbs 31, therapy, theology, womens issues, mental health, emotional abuse

Id: 2jeQVaQt23I

Length: 44min 54sec (2694 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 20 2022