Let’s Talk: Finding a Mentor and Being a Mentor

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Melissa Kruger: Okay. Welcome to back to Let’s Talk, my name is Melissa Kruger, and I’m here with Jackie Hill-Perry and Jasmine Holmes, and we have been gathering together to talk about all sorts of topics over the past few weeks. Today I am excited about what we’re going to talk about because we’re going to talk about mentoring and when we talk about that topic, we probably need to say we’re not talking about a work mentor or someone who is teaching us a skill or something like that. We’re talking about a spiritual mentor, which sometimes that’s called discipleship.

Jackie Hill Perry: Mm-hmm (affirmative)

Melissa Kruger: Sometimes I’ve heard it called spiritual mothering, especially with women.

Jackie Hill Perry: Yeah.

Melissa Kruger: I’ve heard it called all different sorts of things, but what I thought might be interesting, I would love to hear who has discipled you or mentored you in the faith and kind of shown you, what I like to say it is, it puts flesh on the Christian life and it says this is what it looks like. So I hear the command, be kind, but sometimes we see it lived in a life, and that teaches us more than the, be kind sometimes can. So who’s mentored you in the faith.

Jasmine Holmes: For me, I’ve mentorships started really young, I’m really privileged to be able to say that. I had a particular friend, Ms. Pat, I was like seventeen, Ms. Pat was in her forties. She lived down the road from us, so I would get on my bike and ride to her house and she went to our church, and we always laughed because Ms. Pat is also a psychiatrist who went to our church. So I would go to her house and lay on her couch and let’s talk about life. And she was always really patient with me and really just proactive in my life. And looking back now as I’m much older, I’m just blown away by the amount of respect she had for me in spite of my youth and in spite of the things I was bringing to her that probably seemed really small to her. She always made me feel heard and seen.

Jackie Hill Perry: I’ve had different seasons of different kinds of discipleship. I think the most significant season was from a woman named Santoria, because I lived in her house, this was when I was in LA, so from 19 to 21 just about. But my discipleship was a bit like boot campish. But I think that’s because I’m just a very stubborn, rebellious person, and so Santoria was the right one, because I remember she told me, I mentioned this in an earlier podcast how she told me that I was on my way to being a famous hypocrite and how it was her calling in my life to ensure that my message and my life matched. But one of the things that she did early on when I moved in, is one day I woke up to get on the computer, because this is when desktop computers were still a thing. There wasn’t a twitter, praise God. I think My Space was still kind of popping, and so I got on the computer and she had a post-it note and it said before you get on this computer I need you to do one chapter of Nancy Leigh DeMoss’s Seeking Him.

Jackie Hill Perry: And I was like, first of all how does she know my schedule, how do you know what I do? And so I had to get off the computer and I did that and that was everyday. Everyday she gave me an assignment and when she got off work we would walk through the assignment and then through that week, whatever the assignment was, she would challenge me to make sure that I actually lived it out. And so if the assignment was James, taming the tongue, then if I didn’t tame my tongue, she would say, “Remember on Tuesday, we read about taming the tongue. This is where you apply that.” So it was intense, but I think God was using Santoria to just anchor me and secure me in the faith to be honest.

Melissa Kruger: That’s amazing.

Jackie Hill Perry: Yeah.

Melissa Kruger: Every day.

Jackie Hill Perry: Oh, every day, all day. She’s sees all my sin.

Melissa Kruger: You got like boot camp mentoring.

Jackie Hill Perry: God did it, I needed it though. And I think I would have been a hot mess, I would’ve been out here preaching the gospel well, but not living none of it.

Melissa Kruger: I love that, it’s like the Lord prepared you for the ministry he was going to give you.

Jackie Hill Perry: Yeah.

Melissa Kruger: So soon after really coming to faith.

Jackie Hill Perry: Yeah, immediately.

Melissa Kruger: Yeah.

Jackie Hill Perry: And she knew that, she saw it and so he gave me someone who would be hard on me, because he knew I needed it.

Melissa Kruger: That’s good. One of the mentors for me was when I went to college. I was involved in InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, and so they had staff workers on campus and the female staff worker just said to me my freshman year, “Hey, can we get together?” And we started getting together every single week. We went to a place called Peppers Pizza.

Melissa Kruger: And we would sit there every week and initially we just talked about life and then we might study. I remembered we studied 1 Peter one semester and what she would do is at the end of every semester she would say, “Can we meet next semester?” And then that went on for three years. And so over three years we just met once a week in the same place and talked about God and talked about ministry and talked about faith and it was just a gift.

Jackie Hill Perry: Was she older?

Melissa Kruger: She was, but she wasn’t that much older. Although she seemed older because she was a graduate, she had graduated, so but she was probably 25.

Jackie Hill Perry: Okay.

Melissa Kruger: And I was 18.

Jackie Hill Perry: Oh, that’s a big gap, kind of.

Melissa Kruger: Yeah, yeah especially in those years. So it was a gift of time that I think now when you’re in the life of the church to meet once a week with someone…

Jackie Hill Perry: …is a lot.

Melissa Kruger: Yeah, it seems really intimidating. One of the questions I have for you, we had different experiences, I think there are two types of mentoring. There can be this more formal, which is what Dee Ann did with me. Formal every week, we knew our time limits. This is when we’re going to meet, this is the day, this is when it ends. She said we’ll meet for this semester, and that’s what we did. There were boundaries, there were good boundaries. And then there is more informal mentoring. As we look at that, do you all have any thoughts on that? Have you mentored someone formally or informally? Which one do you like better?

Jackie Hill Perry: An informal would be just kind of spontaneous, right?

Melissa Kruger: Yeah, kind of like Jasmine, just riding the…

Jackie Hill Perry: Oh, yeah.

Melissa Kruger: …riding the bike over to the house, “Hey, I’m here.” And then it kind of just happens more when you’re sitting over a coffee, you may get that piece of wisdom you need.

Melissa Kruger: I had my high school teacher who did the FCA group that we talked about early. She was more like that, I would just go to her classroom and we would just have conversations. She wouldn’t have said she was mentoring me.

Jackie Hill Perry: Yeah.

Melissa Kruger: It wasn’t this…

Jackie Hill Perry: It doesn’t feel official.

Melissa Kruger: Yes, it wasn’t official.

Jackie Hill Perry: I think it depends on the life stage of the person and even the season of life. So by life stage, are they retired, are they in college? Season of life, are they really, really busy right now but they’ll be freed up in six months. Just because I feel like for me when I was mentoring more actively was before I had children, before I got married. As my life stages have changed, I can’t mentor in the same way that I was mentored, because I just don’t have the same time. And I think it can sometimes feel like I’m not doing enough, you know what I’m saying, because I don’t have the same amount of availability that Santoria had, but she was a single woman. That was literally her job was to pour into women, versus me, I just don’t have that kind of margin.

Jackie Hill Perry: And so when I do enter into mentorship relationships, I actually establish those boundaries up front. I am available for you to this degree, and just so you know, so we’re clear, you can’t just pop over my house whenever you… I mean maybe in sixty years I might be more godly and have an open door, but I’m not there yet, so we can meet for coffee anytime, you can come over while I’m doing laundry when I invited you.

Melissa Kruger: I actually think boundaries are really good.

Jackie Hill Perry: Yeah.

Melissa Kruger: A woman asked me to mentor her and I realized at the end of this failed mentoring relationship that we both had different expectations going in.

Jackie Hill Perry: Yeah.

Melissa Kruger: She wanted a friend, I wanted to help her grow spiritually.

Jackie Hill Perry: Oh, that’s different yeah.

Melissa Kruger: And that’s very different, she kind of wanted to just come and hang out, and I was giving her these assignments, and she wasn’t doing them, because she just wanted us to be friends and then I was like, wow, she’s not really putting into this and we didn’t have a scheduled time to meet. So the relationship just kind of petered out into this, “Heeeey, how ya doing? We should get together sometime.” But it was awkward, because it didn’t kind of have a set beginning and ending. But yet it had been kind of a formal ask. So I feel like if the ask is a formal, “Will you mentor me?”

Jasmine Holmes: Right.

Melissa Kruger: I think it’s really helpful to put boundaries on that.

Jackie Hill Perry: Yes.

Melissa Kruger: Like, well do you want to read a book together and we’ll go through this book together. And then we will reevaluate at the end. I’ve learned through my failures, that’s really helpful…

Jasmine Holmes: Yeah.

Melissa Kruger: …to do so that expectations get met. That you know why we’re meeting. And for how long, and maybe even when.

Jackie Hill Perry: Yeah.

Jasmine Holmes: Yeah.

Jackie Hill Perry: I think so.

Melissa Kruger: It’s going to be Tuesday evenings. I think that’s helpful.

Jasmine Holmes: Yeah, I am in a little bit of a different situation because my parents are both really strong believers, so I grew up with people who were assigning me things and people were checking in on me all the time. People who were keeping me on track constantly, consistently. It sounds, the way that I’m saying this right now, sounds like it was kind of annoying, sometimes it was. But I’m actually really grateful for it. So I already had my dad coming and knocking on my bedroom door and, “Hey, how you doing?” Like checking in, let’s talk. “What’s going on?” I had my mom, I’d come home after a date, “How’d it go?” “What happened? You good? We good?” So every other mentorship relationship that I have had I have really enjoyed the informal, drop in, drop out aspect because, I mean I lived at home until I was 24 so I had that consistent checking in, mentorship a lot.

Melissa Kruger: Yeah.

Jackie Hill Perry: Yeah.

Melissa Kruger: I got somebody watching me.

Jasmine Holmes: I do, I do.

Melissa Kruger: It’s tough, both of you had live in mentors.

Jackie Hill Perry: Mm-hmm (affirmative) Hers was like life long.

Melissa Kruger: Yeah, life long.

Jasmine Holmes: Life long.

Melissa Kruger: You had somebody seeing every way you’re spending your time.

Jackie Hill Perry: Yeah.

Melissa Kruger: And everything you’re doing.

Jackie Hill Perry: But you know what it did for me, is that I think that her awareness of my life, my weaknesses, where I was growing, where I wasn’t. I think it taught me or showed me that that’s actually the reality of God’s awareness of my life. And so I think my being accountable to her at all times, just kind of made me so much more teachable with anybody. One, when you got somebody correcting you all the time. But also just an awareness and a submission to God. When she was out of my life God is still here, and he still sees and knows everything. And so I think it was just really helpful to just be aware that God is seeing all my stuff.

Melissa Kruger: I think that’s a really good point. A mentor cannot replace God in your life.

Jackie Hill Perry: Yeah, no.

Melissa Kruger: Sometimes I think we want a spiritual mentor as someone who is going to make us grow spiritually.

Jackie Hill Perry: Yeah.

Melissa Kruger: And we kind of almost idolize it. Well all my problems are because I don’t have someone like Jackie was describing.

Jackie Hill Perry: Yeah.

Melissa Kruger: Who’s everyday giving me an assignment to read and tell me, “Hey, you’re missing the mark here.” I like to use the image of two trees that are beside each other. I remember my dad when I was a kid, I came outside and there was this tree that was completely bent over from a storm. And I think the kids in the neighborhood had all been jumping on it. So we were helping the tree stay bent over. And he took out a rope or something and he tethered that bent over tree to a stronger tree. And he tethered them together so that it was going to help that bent over tree grow straight.

Melissa Kruger: And that’s the image I like to keep in my head of mentoring, because it’s not that… it was the rain, and the sun that made that little tree grow straight. The older tree was just standing beside. That’s all they’re doing, just standing beside, but I as a mentor can’t make a younger Christian grow. Yeah, I mean that’s up to the Lord to grow them. But for the younger Christian out there who wants a mentor I think we have to reckon with, they can’t make me grow spiritually.

Melissa Kruger: It’s always God who’s doing the growing, and so even if we don’t have a physical person, I know for the first five years of my marriage we moved every year. So I wasn’t at a church long enough to actually find a mentor. How would you encourage a woman who’s out there, maybe in a situation where everyone in her church is the same age, or maybe even younger. How can you get mentored spiritually if there’s not necessarily a physical person you can ask those questions to?

Jackie Hill Perry: A few things. One I think it is a smidge concerning if I’m in the local church where no one is willing to be a Titus 2, or able to be a Titus 2, older teach the younger. And so for me I think first and foremost look for a church that has a culture of discipleship. If not that, I think there’s a lot of ways. We got books, we got podcasts, we have YouTube, I think if your pastor is married, reach out to his wife. Those kinds of things, yeah I think that those are some of the options that many people have had to take.

Melissa Kruger: Yeah, that’s good.

Jasmine Holmes: I like what you said about the state of the church. It is my first inclination when you said, “Oh, there’s nobody there to do it, or it’s not available.” I was kind of like, well find somewhere where it is available. And I was worried that that was too like…

Jackie Hill Perry: No, it’s true though.

Jasmine Holmes: …a little too hard core. Yeah, I mean being willing to go to a place and sometimes there’s not a place to go. I totally understand that, I get that. But living where we live, in the time that we live in, we have a lot of options at our disposal.

Melissa Kruger: So, if I’m that younger woman, and I want you, Jasmine, to mentor me, how do I go about doing that. Do I say, “Hey, will you be my mentor for the rest of my life, and be my best friend for the rest of my life?”

Jackie Hill Perry: Sounds a lot like marriage.

Melissa Kruger: I know it’s intimidating.

Jasmine Holmes: I’ve honestly never been asked to mentor anybody.

Melissa Kruger: Well, you mentor me.

Jasmine Holmes: I’m sitting here, like y’all have like all these parameters, and ideas, and never, never.

Melissa Kruger: Okay, hear that. If you live in Jackson, you’ve got…

Jasmine Holmes: Jasmine Holmes.

Melissa Kruger: She’s ready.

Jasmine Holmes: Roll up.

Jackie Hill Perry: And according to the hospitality podcast, she’ll make some hot chocolate for you. You jut got to bring the milk.

Jasmine Holmes: You’ll have to watch my kids, but you can come for sure. I think I’m fine with drop-ins like we were talking about. Don’t drop in on me and I’m like yeah, drop in if I’m doing laundry and grab some laundry.

Jackie Hill Perry: Which is discipleship too.

Jasmine Holmes: Well, that’s good for me then, because I’ve got a lot of laundry.

Jackie Hill Perry: It is, inviting people in to… because one thing I learned from my pastor in Chicago, Brian Dye, who has a discipleship conference. So my whole life in Chicago was me learning about discipleship. Is he talked about how in Matthew 28, Jesus says, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations.” And how that goal is as you go, and so he always would say, “You don’t have to change your day to day life to disciple, you just invite people into your day to day life.” So, as you go to the grocery store, invite them with you. They can learn stewardship. If as you go work out they can learn how to run track or something. I think people think they have to create programs to do discipleship but Jesus just had his disciples just with him, healing, eating, chilling, going to weddings, they was just there and they were able not only to learn from Jesus, what he taught, but also see it lived out in his life.

Melissa Kruger: That’s good, and what he also did too, he limited it.

Jackie Hill Perry: Yeah.

Melissa Kruger: He didn’t disciple everyone…

Jackie Hill Perry: Everybody. Yes.

Melissa Kruger: …that he came into contact with. He chose 12 that he walked and really did life with, rather than, oh, everyone you meet now. Can you imagine how many requests, “Hey Jesus, can we get coffee?”

Jasmine Holmes: Oh my goodness.

Jackie Hill Perry: You have to say no to somebody.

Jasmine Holmes: Yeah, he did.

Melissa Kruger: I mean, he limited and built the church through building up 12 people. So sometimes I think we think that we have to have these huge ministries or these huge impact or whatever, and sometimes I think oh, wow, Jesus built the church by investing in 12 people, day to day, again and again. You know and he obviously preached to the 5000 and taught, you know he did other bigger things too. But his day to day, faithful building up of the church was these men who would go in Acts.

Jasmine Holmes: Yeah.

Jackie Hill Perry: Now have you had the experience of discipling a Judas. Where yeah, they followed you, they discipled you, I mean you discipled them, they followed you, you invited them into your home, you poured into them, but then they betray you? How do you overcome mentorship relationships gone bad?

Melissa Kruger: I haven’t actually had a mentor relationship, you know where it was that close friendship of discipleship, pointing one another to Christ. I have had that in friendship, and that is difficult.

Jackie Hill Perry: Yeah.

Jasmine Holmes: It’s hard.

Melissa Kruger: There was one situation in particular with a person who was in our home all the time, dear friend, and some things came out and it was just very difficult because I felt like I had been lied to.

Jackie Hill Perry: Mm-hmm (affirmative)

Melissa Kruger: For years.

Jasmine Holmes: My mom was mentoring somebody, who was in our home all the time and I was there. And yeah, same thing, it went really sour and it was really hard. And it takes me back to that Matthew 18 principle, where they just had to have it out. They had to have a really hard conversation. And they had to go their separate ways and it was really tough.

Jackie Hill Perry: Yeah, I had one, not recently but recently and it made me not want to disciple again. It made me not want to mentor again, because it felt like, dag, like I was giving a lot of time and energy for you to do what you’ve done and said. And I eventually just had to have, after seeing my therapist, have to have a conversation because my therapist had to show me that I was hurt.

Melissa Kruger: Yeah, yeah.

Jackie Hill Perry: I’m a shutter down person, where I just stop feeling. And so I had to see in process, oh, you’re hurt by her. You’re not just mad, you’re hurt. And so I have to reach out, but I think I had to empathize with the fact that I knew her past, I knew the things about God that she didn’t believe, and I think thinking about that reminded me why she treated me the way that she did. You know her issue, you know her struggles, so those things, maybe your time is over but continue to pray. And so we’re good now.

Melissa Kruger: And one of the big hopes in that too was it didn’t mean you were a failure of a mentor. I think that one thing that can be intimidating for older women to mentor is they think, What if she doesn’t grow spiritually? What if it doesn’t work, so to speak. And that’s where the good news of it is, we’re leaving their growth up to the Lord. We’re faithful. I remember the story of Elizabeth Elliot, her first year missions work, before she was married. She spent the entire year translating the Bible into maybe, whatever language she was working on at the time. And that’s a lot of work. Everyday you get up and you do this translation work. Well, the whole manuscript got put on top of a bus and somehow it got lost.

Jackie Hill Perry: Okay.

Melissa Kruger: And there was no, she hadn’t saved it on the external hard drive. There was no hard drive.

Jackie Hill Perry: Google Drive.

Melissa Kruger: It was just lost, so it was a years work,

Jackie Hill Perry: Wow.

Melissa Kruger: That she had been faithful to do and it was just gone. And I think sometimes in our mentoring relationships, we’re faithful to pour into people who may squander what we’ve given them.

Jackie Hill Perry: For now.

Melissa Kruger: Yeah, we don’t know what will happen.

Jackie Hill Perry: Yeah, because I mean seeds have been planted, and so that’s the hope, is that at some point if God is not watering it now, that he will again. And I think even when we talked about earlier, like that cumulative conversion kind of thing where it’s like, maybe God will send someone else to build upon what I planted and then someone else and maybe 15 years from now they actually begin to bear the fruit of everything that I was trying to say, or show.

Melissa Kruger: So as we think about mentoring or discipleship, one question I have for both of you is what are we actually trying to do? What is the whole purpose and the goal of what we’re trying to do?

Jackie Hill Perry: So in Ephesians 4, Paul talks about how God has given us the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds, the teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry to build up the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God. And so for me I think that the aim of all discipleship and all mentorship is that. To equip the church to look like Jesus. To know Jesus and to be unified with each other.

Jackie Hill Perry: And it doesn’t feel like it should be that big of a deal, like I’m just having lunch. They’re just coming over and sitting on my couch, but you have no idea how one word of encouragement really does help somebody keep going, or someone love their neighbor. Which then loving their neighbor could bring someone else to the faith, and that person comes to the faith. They might plant a church, which then saves two hundred and some people, which one of them becomes missionary. Our little, menial, discipleship efforts really do work out to do very big things I think in the kingdom of God.

Jasmine Holmes: Absolutely, absolutely, it’s such a reminder that we’re not the center of the story. We’re working together within the body of Christ to accomplish God’s purposes and mentorship, discipleship is one of the ways that we do that.

Melissa Kruger: Yeah, I like to say that I’m not here to make a disciple of Melissa. I’m here to make a disciple of Jesus and that changes things.

Jackie Hill Perry: Oh yes it does.

Melissa Kruger: Because sometimes the people we mentor are serving in ways we don’t serve. And so if I’m trying to convert them to me, I’m going to be upset if they’re not teaching, or doing the ministries that I feel called to. Versus, saying, “I’m here to help you grow in the faith to equip you for the ministry the Lord has given you. That’s a very different, I think of John the Baptist when he said, “I must become less, he must become greater.”

Jackie Hill Perry: I’ve learned this from a woman that discipled me and still kind of mentors me in many ways, named Melody from Chicago. And she kind of got me in the season where I was engaged, motherhood, so she just kind of helps me with that. And one thing she always told me is she said that anybody can discern sin in somebody but it takes real wisdom to discern gifts and gems and you pour into that, and so I think what I learned from her is that she discerned the things that God wanted to do with me and the gifts that God had given me and the skills that I had. And so she would challenge me in those ways. And so I think discipleship does take a bit of intentionality and wisdom, and just prayer. Praying for the person that you’re walking with. God this week I know I had a plan for us to go through Ecclesiastes but is there another route that I need to go, is there something that they’re dealing with that I may be unaware of, direct me with that. And so yeah, and stuff like that.

Jackie Hill Perry: So I speak at a lot of conferences with a lot of older saints, and one thing that I run into actually, is the insecurity in them. That when we say in Titus 2, older women teach the younger. They feel as if they’re not equipped or they have nothing to teach. What is that, why is that a thing, and how do we even as younger women encourage the older in that way?

Melissa Kruger: You know I think a lot of older women haven’t been mentored themselves and so I think there’s this question in their head, what does she want me to do with her. And I think they feel all the fears of what mentoring isn’t. I think they feel like they have to be perfect, I think they feel like they have to know the Bible backward and forward, and truthfully often the older we get the more we realize we don’t know the Bible well at all. So we’re more intimidated when we hear, “Oh, I’m supposed to teach someone something.” And so, I think too, the older we get, we forget what we’ve learned along the way, so sometimes I tell older women you just don’t even know all that you know just because you’ve walked through life, walking with the Lord.

Melissa Kruger: However, I will say, I also don’t always think being older in age equates to spiritual maturity. So I’ve seen a lot of 28 year olds who are really spiritually mature, and maybe it’s because they were like Jasmine, raised in a Christian home, they had been invested in. So you’ve been taught mentoring by being mentored over and over and over again. And you’ve seen good ones probably and ones that you wouldn’t repeat.

Jasmine Holmes: Yes.

Melissa Kruger: So you’re equipped to mentor just because that was the life you grew up in. And the same thing for you, you have this woman who invested in you well. So I think it gives you a vision for it. I think a lot of women sadly, really have had no one spiritually invest in them, and so sometimes they don’t know what to do.

Jasmine Holmes: Yeah.

Jackie Hill Perry: Yeah.

Melissa Kruger: And so I think that’s where we do need some training of, what does it look like to help someone grow in the faith.

Jackie Hill Perry: Yeah.

Jasmine Holmes: Mm-hmm (affirmative)

Jackie Hill Perry: So Melissa, you’re so humble that you won’t tell the saints that you have a book actually about this topic called, Growing Together, Taking Mentoring Beyond Small Talk and Prayer Requests. Do you have resources or even ideas in the book that would give people context for how to move forward in mentoring relationships.

Melissa Kruger: Yeah, that was actually my goal in writing it. I had so many older women with the very question, they didn’t feel equipped to mentor a younger woman. And so that was why I wrote it, because it’s not a book about mentoring, it’s a book to help an older woman walk with a younger woman so the chapters are meant to be springboards for the conversations. And there are questions in the back, if you feel like you don’t even know what to ask this younger woman. So you read the chapter about why God’s word is important. And then there are questions in the back just so you can say, “Hey, which of the things about reading God’s word do you struggle with the most?” And so I’ve tried to make it as easy as possible, because I believe the women have it in them, they sometimes just don’t know how to get it out.

Jackie Hill Perry: That’s good.

Jasmine Holmes: Yeah, that is good.

Jasmine Holmes: So the whole time we’ve been talking this little voice in the back of my head has been whispering, “What about Titus 2, what about Titus 2.” Because growing up my ideas about mentorship really sprang from that verse, those verses, that chapter in Titus. And what it says, older women are to be teaching younger women and then how it says older women are to be discipling younger women, and I’d love to hear your thoughts about the limits that Titus 2 places on teaching or the, I don’t know, the parameters of mentorship for women. Is it different for the parameters of men? Can you only teach what’s in Titus 2? So on, and so forth.

Melissa Kruger: Just so we all know where we are I’m going to read a little bit of what it says in Titus 2.

Jasmine Holmes: For sure.

Melissa Kruger: It says, “Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers, or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good and so train the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.”

Jackie Hill Perry: I’ll take a stab at it, just because I haven’t actually really studied this verse exegetically or nothing. But I guess for me when I do read it, I feel like the way I’ve heard it taught often times what has been landed on the most is teach them to be submissive. Teach them to be workers at home rather than I think the first verse, not the first verse but the third verse seems to just to say, “Teach what is good.”

Jackie Hill Perry: There is a lot of good things to teach. Teach people not to be drunk, cool. Teach people to be reverent, awesome. I think Titus is hitting it way more than just how to serve your husbands, especially considering the fact that the entire world is not married, and so there are things to be taught that single women can obey and listen to, and respond to. But I don’t really know what I’m talking about, so.

Melissa Kruger: I agree completely with what…

Jackie Hill Perry: Thank you.

Melissa Kruger: Well, I think this is a specific exhortation, not a limitation, and that’s different. So I think that this is a specific exhortation when you are a woman who’s raising young children, you know we have to be commanded to love our children and our husbands, because we will want to love everybody else in the whole wide world, but they are sometimes the most difficult to love. So I think this is Paul saying if you are mentoring a younger woman who happens to be married and happens to have young children, remind her that it’s important. It’s not saying the only women you mentor, are to be married.

Jackie Hill Perry: Are the only thing you teach.

Melissa Kruger: Yeah, and basically when you look at these words, look at what it says, good, love, self-control, kind. That’s half of the fruit of the spirit. And so I think what Paul is saying, make sure they bear the spirit in the home. But if I’m mentoring someone who’s in the working world, I’m going to mentor her, reminding her, bear the fruit of the spirit in your working environment.

Jasmine Holmes: Absolutely.

Jackie Hill Perry: Mm-hmm (affirmative)

Melissa Kruger: Bear the fruit of the Spirit when you’re going to the grocery store and that cashier is mean to you. Bear the fruit of the Spirit, wherever the Lord places you. And I think this is just speaking to, make sure you bear the fruit of the spirit in your home.

Jackie Hill Perry: That’s good.

Melissa Kruger: Sometimes that’s the hardest place.

Jasmine Holmes: And it’s also a corrective. I’m going to be obnoxious and answer my own question. I studied this verse a lot this past year, because of the little voice in the back of my head, and I decided to go back and read Titus 1, which I’d maybe read once or twice. I’ve read Titus 2, thousands of times.

Melissa Kruger: Context.

Jasmine Holmes: In verse 10 of Titus 1 it says, “For there are many who are insubordinate, empty talkers, and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision party. They must be silenced since they are upsetting whole families by teaching for shameful gain what they ought not teach.” And it goes on to talk about how these people are going from house to house and just upsetting entire families and turning things upside down. Before he even gets to verse 10, in verse 5, he talks about the qualifications for elders, for an overseer as God’s steward must be above reproach, he must not be arrogant, or quick tempered, a drunkard, or violent, or greedy for gain. But hospitable, a lover of good, self controlled, upright, holy and disciplined. He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it. Then it goes into talking about the circumcision party.

Jasmine Holmes: And so as I reread Titus 1 and Titus 2 and Titus 3 in context, I saw this different picture emerging, like you guys said. Paul admonishing in a particular context and admonishing against super specific sins. And I saw Titus 2:3-5 and Titus 1:5-9 as mirroring and complementing each other. Titus 1 doesn’t have every single qualification for what it means to be a godly man and a godly mentor to other men. And neither does Titus 2 for women. And that might sound really obvious to a lot of people listening, but if they’re like me, maybe it’s never dawned on them before and I just remember having that lightning bolt moment as… I’m not trying to find an excuse not to obey Titus 2, I want to obey Titus 2, I want to be kind and I want to be good to my husband and good to my children. And I want to build up my home, but I also don’t want to take something beautiful and turn it into a restriction, when that’s not it’s original intent.

Melissa Kruger: Absolutely, that’s good. It’s always good. Sometimes these verses get plucked and we jut lifted that one verse and we start trying to interpret it without looking at what’s the context it’s set in. And that changes everything. Well this has been such a good discussion, thank you both. I hope if you’re listening that you will consider, is there somebody in my life that I should pour back into and kind of pass the baton of what I’ve learned to someone else. Or is there someone in my life that I look up to and I say, “Oh, wow, she’s got a great prayer life.” I want to ask her if she’ll mentor me in prayer. Just take a moment to think about that today. Who could you invest in and who could you ask to invest in you, because I think discipleship is just the way of spiritual growth that we often miss. And we need one another, and so it’s a great way to grow in our faith. And I would always suggest just ask someone to get coffee. That’s the least intimidating way. Rather than will you be my mentor.

Jackie Hill Perry: Or tea if you’re like Jasmine.

Jasmine Holmes: I do like tea.

Melissa Kruger: That’s true. Or tea.

Jasmine Holmes: Or hot chocolate. Whatever makes you happy.

Melissa Kruger: Yeah, hot chocolate.

Jackie Hill Perry: Whatever’s your thing.

Melissa Kruger: Come over to my house while I’m folding my laundry and help me.

Jasmine Holmes: Change a diaper.

Jackie Hill Perry: Yes.

Melissa Kruger: Whatever it might be, so we encourage you to just think about that and do that. And now it is time for favorite things. So I’m excited about this one. Today we are going to talk about what is the favorite place you’d like to go back to and visit.

Jasmine Holmes: I have two. One is more exciting than the other one. So my favorite place within the United States to visit is San Diego, I love San Diego. I’ve gone there with my family, I’ve gone there by myself with my friends, I’ve gone there with my husband, I haven’t taken my kids back yet, but I love San Diego. And it’s actually where Phillip and I saw each other again after the first time and decided that we kind of liked each other. San Diego was the place where I was like, God, I kind of really like him, he was kind of interested in somebody else, let’s see what happens. And so it will always have a really nice warm fuzzy memory attached to it.

Melissa Kruger: Did you go over to Coronado.

Jasmine Holmes: Yes, I loved that. I love Coronado, and we stayed in Escondido and it was just so beautiful, I just love it, I want to go back as soon as possible. The other place is Israel, we went on a two week tour in Israel and it was like… I know right, it’s like San Diego, Israel. We went on a two week history/Bible tour in Israel and it was phenomenal.

Melissa Kruger: I want to go. Have you been to Israel?

Jackie Hill Perry: Not yet.

Melissa Kruger: Okay. We should do a Let’s Talk Israel.

Jasmine Holmes: I’m all about it.

Jackie Hill Perry: I’m with it.

Jasmine Holmes: It’s great, it’s good, it’s a good place.

Melissa Kruger: What about you Jackie?

Jackie Hill Perry: I think I’ve been to a couple places in the world, but I think one of my favorites is New York, just because as many times as I’ve been to New York, I feel like I still don’t have a grasp of the city. There’s still so many more neighborhoods and restaurants and coffee places and boutiques to see. I think next to that would be London, because to me London feels like a European New York. And so those are definitely it.

Melissa Kruger: I love London.

Jasmine Holmes: I lived in Oxford for a year when I was a kid.

Melissa Kruger: Did you.

Jackie Hill Perry: I’ve told people, if I was single I would live in London for minimum of a year, just to do it.

Melissa Kruger: I love the U.K. and actually my place is, we spent six months on sabbatical in Cambridge, England so it’s about 45 minutes south of London. Which is great, because you can just take the train up. Cambridge is this wonderful city with this university, but it’s really small. And so there was this specific place I loved to go that was called the orchard. So if I’m riding on my bike and if I go left I would be in the middle of this city with this market that’s been there since the 1200’s, but if I go right I’m in the middle of a cow field riding to the orchard where there are like blackberry bushes growing on the side. And then you get there and it’s this tea place with these sling back green chairs under apple trees.

Jackie Hill Perry: That’s cute.

Melissa Kruger: We were there in the fall and my kids kept saying can we climb the trees and pick the apples. I was like, my kids are going to be the monkeys, these proper British people, and my kids, the American kids are the ones climbing the trees. So I went up and asked, and they were like of course they can climb the trees and pick the apples, that’s what they’re here for.

Jackie Hill Perry: That’s nice.

Jasmine Holmes: I love that.

Melissa Kruger: And so it’s just this place.

Melissa Kruger: Yeah, it was just this place we loved to be, it was a great time. My kids were young and it was really a fun place to be. So I’d love to go back.

Jackie Hill Perry: That’s awesome.

Melissa Kruger: Well, thanks so much for joining us for this episode of Let’s Talk. Next week we will be covering the topic of building friendships with people who aren’t just like you. This is probably something we all need to be challenged on, so be sure to tune in. You can subscribe to Let’s Talk through Apple Podcast, Spotify, Stitcher or wherever you like to get your podcasts. Check out our other shows from the Gospel Coalition Podcast Network at TGC.org/podcasts. The Gospel Coalition connects Christians to resources that apply the truth and beauty of the gospel to all of life.