Let’s Talk: Lies Women Believe

The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.

Jackie Hill Perry: Welcome, welcome, welcome to the final, yes I said final, episode of Let’s Talk Season Two. I am Jackie Hill Perry. Jasmine and Melissa and I have had fun, have enjoyed talking about applying biblical wisdom to everyday life and we really do hope that you had fun too. The great thing about a podcast is that the episodes don’t go away, they don’t disappear. So if there are any that you have missed, you can go back and find them at tgc.org/podcasts therefore no excuses.

Melissa Kruger: So today we’re going to be talking about kind of an interesting topic to me and it is lies women believe. Now we’re not saying that men don’t believe these lies as well, but it’s just generally what are some lies that we as women tend to believe and they can really affect how we live. So we have some different lies that we’re going to talk about and we’re going to kind of … Look at the lie, why we believe it, and then maybe open up to what are some truths that kind of combat that lie in our lives.

So the first one I thought would be interesting to talk about, and I think this … In our performance-dominated society is just something that most of us struggle with is that I’m defined by what I do. So we don’t go around asking … When we meet someone, I’m like, “Hey Jasmine. My name’s Melissa. What do you do for a living?” It’s just such an easy way we define people.

Jackie Hill Perry: It seems like we’re in a unique season, and it may not be unique, where Instagram kind of creates this picture of … To be a woman in 2020, you need to be an entrepreneur, you need to be just out here getting it, your house is just like fire, you got an open floor plan. Like if you do have children, when you make lunches for them, it looks like … You got sushi, you’re not giving them no Lunchables or no sandwiches. You have some type of online … Like there’s like … Like you’re just an all-around really good businesswoman, wife and mother and that defines you as being special. That’s what I see.

Jasmine Holmes: Yeah. That’s what I see too. I actually … Another lie that we had written down was I should be able to do it all and I feel like that one kind of flows into this one as well.

Jackie Hill Perry: That’s true.

Jasmine Holmes: Just the thought of like … I have to be a good wife and a good mother and a good hustler and a good curator of my Instagram feed and a good decorator and a good everything. Actually last night a friend of mine sent me a post on Instagram and it says one time I was at a Q&A with Nora Roberts and someone asked her how to balance writing and kids and she said that the key to juggling is to know that some of the balls that you have in the air are made of plastic and some are made of glass. I read that last night and I got really emotional because I am so … Resonate so much with that idea of juggling and trying to keep everything aloft because I feel like my worth is in keeping everything aloft and I love the idea that some balls when you drop them they bounce and you can pick them back up and some balls when you drop them they break and so my kids are non-negotiable. I am going to spend my time with them because someday they’re going to be big and they’re going to be gone and there are certain immovable things in my life but cooking dinner every night, having a clean living room every single day, taking out the trash on garbage day every single time, those are balls that bounce.

Melissa Kruger: That’s right.

Jasmine Holmes: And we can catch it next time but I definitely have that vision in my mind often that I have to fight that we need to be able to do and to be everything to everyone.

Jackie Hill Perry: Because really it is … It’s like this addiction to achievement and I was reading Tim Keller’s Counterfeit Gods and he uses a quote that says, “Achievement is the alcoholism of our time.” I think that is a thing but I just always wonder how are people interacting with this because I think what happens then, if you just are a stay-at-home mother or not just single, just working a 9 to 5, doing regular-degular stuff, nothing really spectacular, do you think that your work and your efforts in your ministry even are less than because you don’t seem to be like them? Does that make . . .

Jasmine Holmes: Yeah.

Jackie Hill Perry: Because I’m on the side where I could be looked at as an overachiever too, right? I could possibly be adding to the frustration and the insecurity.

Jasmine Holmes: Same.

Jackie Hill Perry: I wouldn’t want to be, but I just wonder how that makes women feel because truth be told, just because somebody is doing a whole lot doesn’t mean they’re in the will of God. Doesn’t mean that their work is unimportant, but it doesn’t also mean that your work is not as important. All of our work, if we do it as unto the Lord, is good.

Melissa Kruger: There comes a time too when you’re trying to be honest about the fact that you do have struggles and your life isn’t as curated as it looks but then even that is a type of mom. That’s the hot mess mom that gets attention because she shows you a picture –

Jackie Hill Perry: That’s true.

Melissa Kruger: Of her messy countertop.

Jasmine Holmes: She’s honest.

Melissa Kruger: Like she’s honest, like she wants some [inaudible] at 3:00 in the afternoon, you know what I’m saying? It’s just like … That’s hard because I don’t relate to the mom that has everything all put together but the hot mess mom, I’m like … To me, I’m literally what I’m saying, I had an … I exploded at my children today and I feel really bad about myself. I’m not saying it to get likes or follows or whatever. I’m just saying it so people know that I put on Instagram the things that matter to me and sometimes those things look really well-curated but they’re not. Life is real. Then it’s hard because it feels like you have to be so careful that you don’t seem to be … Like giving, glorifying the image of the hot mess mom.

Jasmine Holmes: Yeah, it goes either way –

Melissa Kruger: Yes, yes.

Jasmine Holmes: Yeah, yeah, it goes either way, so how do we then … Obviously we want to root our identity in Christ and not what we do, or even what we do for the Lord because sometimes it’s … These aren’t bad things, they’re all good things.

Jackie Hill Perry: They are.

Jasmine Holmes: I know for me it’s that constant battle of, “Oh, what I do is just simply what God is doing.” When I really believe it’s what God’s doing in me, well then it’s much more freeing, that’s what I would say. I remember Elizabeth [Elliott], when she was back working on translation, she worked for a full year translating into a certain language, an Indian language, and she worked this whole year and this was before computers so there was no save drive. It got put in a suitcase on top of a truck and all of the translation work was lost. Her year’s work was just gone and that would be –

Jackie Hill Perry: She needed a floppy disk.

Jasmine Holmes: I know, I know. It’s such a death to think, “All those mornings I got up and wrote.” We all write, can you imagine it just all being gone. So it made me really think, am I really doing it for the Lord? Like can I hold what I do so loosely that if this year’s labors just got lost, I’d be able to say, “I did it for you, Lord.” He bears the fruit –

Jackie Hill Perry: That’s strong.

Jasmine Holmes: I just do the work, and in some way entrust him with the result.

Jackie Hill Perry: I think we need to get underneath what is the identity I’m attaching to myself in light of what I’ve done and what is it that I’m trying to get out of projecting this identity, right? So if in trying to project this kind of perfection, achievement-oriented self, what do I want people to think about me? Is it that I’m important, that I’m valuable, that I’m special, that I’m better, and it’s like you could have value and worth and importance without that because God has already given it to you. You’ve got that when you were born as an image bearer. You have value, you do have worth, you are already loved and affirmed. You have the affection of God in Christ. So I think that should then free you up from identifying yourself in what you do, because what you do will let you down. So if what you do governs your identity and God forbid you age, God forbid you lose your job, God forbid circumstances change, now you’ve lost your identity because it was placed in something that wasn’t eternal, and so we have to put it back in Christ so that we can be sane.

Melissa Kruger: That’s so good. Because if it’s in him, it can’t be lost. Like if it’s in these eternal truths, I’m a child of God.

Jackie Hill Perry: You are secure.

Melissa Kruger: That I’m a saint, that doesn’t get lost. That I’m a servant of the most high god. Like if I keep those as my identity markers because even if I am incapacitated, I can serve the church by praying for the church. Like if I really am going into it, “What is your will for me, oh Lord?” Whatever stage of life we’re in, there’s a still role of service. I felt this probably the most as a young mom, when you’re in days and days of feeding, changing diapers, cleaning up dishes that never seem to –

Jackie Hill Perry: Tell me about it. Preach my life.

Melissa Kruger: It’s very unseen labor and if I was just basing my life on what I’m doing that seems to produce results, I would have felt like a complete failure.

Jasmine Holmes: For sure.

Melissa Kruger: Instead it was like … If I do this unto the Lord, that’s why it matters. If I’m working heartily for the Lord, my work has value, then it’s like, “Oh, okay. This child rearing thing actually has amazing value.”

Jackie Hill Perry: Whether you have a successful day or not.

Melissa Kruger: Yeah.

Jackie Hill Perry: Like it’s true regardless because the truth isn’t found in you and your effort, the truth is rooted in who God already is.

Jasmine Holmes: That’s right. That’s right.

Melissa Kruger: So it changes … It changes how we work a little bit. I think we can deal with … I would say I can deal with failure better and success better.

Jackie Hill Perry: That’s true.

Melissa Kruger: Failure I can say, “Well, the Lord didn’t want it to bear that fruit.” It’s different if I did something wrong, I’m talking about like if a ministry thing we do or something … It’s just not that successful but we worked heartily for the Lord and it just wasn’t successful, I can say, “Well Lord, this is your will,” but if it’s also really, really successful, I can be like, “Well only you did that.” It does keep us humble before the Lord in our success or in our failure when we just say, “I’m working for you. You bear the fruit. I’m just here as your servant.”

Jackie Hill Perry: That’s good.

Jasmine Holmes: Another one that we talked about was the lie that we have to be married and have kids in order to be valid is the word that I want to use because I have a lot of single friends who are very happy being single, are very fulfilled being single, but don’t feel heard or acknowledged in the church and in everyday life and I know for me when I got married, I did feel like a level-up. “Oh, people are taking me more seriously now.” Then when I had kids, I felt another one, and so I know that their feelings are not … They’re not making it up, right? Let’s talk a little bit about that. How do you think that we enforce that lie and how do you think that we can combat that lie? Because I know a lot of people had asked us to talk about singleness and all of us were hesitant to talk about singleness because we’re all married and we all got married relatively young so we didn’t want to be the three ladies who got married before 25 and be like, “All right guys. Here’s what we got to say about singleness.”

Jackie Hill Perry: Right, right, but we do want to lend validity and dignity to the status of singleness.

Melissa Kruger: Yeah, I think it’s really a shame because what Paul talks about singleness is actually with great praise for it. He says, “Well I mean I guess if you’re going to burn, get married,” type thing, but, “I’d wish you remain as I am.”

Jackie Hill Perry: Yep. 1 Corinthians 7:6.

Melissa Kruger: Yeah, say what that says.

Jackie Hill Perry: It says, “Now as a concession, not a command, I say this. I wish that all were as myself am but each has his own gift from a God, one kind to one another, to the unmarried and the widows, I say that it is good for them to remain single as I am, but if they cannot exercise self-control.”

Melissa Kruger: Yeah, and I think there’s kingdom fruitfulness that can happen in singleness that we as the church should be encouraging and saying we need you in ways that maybe we don’t well enough. I would say part of it is making sure as married people we are engaged with people who are in different seasons of life than our own and truthfully I would say that’s been such a blessing to me to have people in different stages of life because to be quite honest, when I was in the young mom stage, sometimes I wanted to talk to someone who was not discussing potty training. My good friend Angela was a gift to me in that stage. She was in seminary and I was like, “Oh. You’re talking about interesting stuff. All my friends, all we talk about is formula and pacifiers and where you got your crib and I’m just tired of talking about that.”

So I really hope that the church can grow to be a place where singles are ingrafted into family, like that the church should be the primary family in some ways and that yeah, it’s made up of smaller biological families but that it really would operate more as a family and that we would see our single brothers and sisters as vital parts of our community rather than, “Oh, well when you get married you’ll be part.”

Jasmine Holmes: You’ll be a real grownup then.

Melissa Kruger: Yeah, but right now you’re not complete.

Jasmine Holmes: Yeah.

Jackie Hill Perry: I think one … It’s a different angle of the same conversation, that those people who have come from the LGBTQ community and are now in Christ yet still have same-sex desires like me, I think this conversation hits different because marriage is often presented as a kind of like gospel. Like this is how one you change, this is how you [inaudible], but two, this is how we can trust you. Because now we can trust you to talk to our youth and be in our ministry is because you have a spouse, whereas, “Man, why wasn’t it good enough that the Holy Spirit had filled me and that I was bearing fruit and that you saw that one of the fruits of the spirit I had been walking in was self-control? Like why is it that I was such a liability while single but now I’m trustworthy while married?

Jasmine Holmes: Yeah.

Jackie Hill Perry: That’s really one of the … I think problematic ways that the church handles this whole marriage-singleness thing is that we really do think that marriage is a kind of regeneration for some people and it’s not. Marriage is not the Holy Spirit.

Jasmine Holmes: The distrust of single women in general in the church too. Just like, “Oh, you have a single friend? Like you’re okay with her being around your husband because she’s single.”

Jackie Hill Perry: That’s true.

Jasmine Holmes: It’s like, “Okay, but she’s walking with God, right?” And affairs can happen with married people too, right? There is a lot of just mistrust of the sexuality of singles … And I think it’s just not talked about enough. Another thing, I get asked all the time, I don’t know how often you guys get asked this but I get asked all the time, “How can I a single person prepare for marriage? How can I prepare myself for marriage? How did you get ready for marriage?” I’m just like, “I prepared in all the wrong ways.” I thought that preparing for marriage meant learning how to cook, learning how to clean my house, and learning how to submit to my husband, even though I didn’t know who my husband was and what I was going to be submitting to. I mistook having a submissive personality for being submissive to my future husband anyway. In hindsight, at the age of 30, looking back, and looking into the lives of all of my single friends who are at this age, I am so … I don’t want to say envious because that’s a sin, right? But I’m just like … You know who you are in a way that I had to find out in marriage and part of that is beautiful because we’re growing together but part of that’s just hard.

I wish I would have invested more in myself as a single person. I wish I would have gone to therapy then. I wish I would have had mentors who were focusing on me as a person and not me as a potential wife and mother. There were so many sin issues that people never addressed in my life because I was looked at as a marriage prospect and not as a mature adult Christian in need of … Just accountability and community and … So definitely, for women who are still single, there’s an opportunity there to do some work and searching that when you get married, it’s just … You have another person to consider, always, all the time, for the rest of your life, every moment, and part of that is super romantic, we already, Jasmine loves romantic comedies, I love you, I’ve always loved you, that’s my thing, it is my jam. That said, it comes with its burdens.

Jackie Hill Perry: Yeah. As Paul said.

Jasmine Holmes: Yes. I look at my single friends … I have a particular friend I’m thinking about who’s getting her PhD, 28, getting ready to get married, and just has all this stuff ahead of her that I just … My life is different. My life just took a different turn, it took a different path and I’m grateful for it but there’s some goodness in her life that she would not have been able to reap and understand had she had the vision that the only way to gain validity and maturity is through marriage.

Jackie Hill Perry: Yeah. So I guess the truth then is that both seasons, whether you are married or whether you are single, both are good. That’s how we kill the lie that I have to be married to be validated or I have to be married to be happy or I have to be married to have joy. It’s like, “No, you can have that in singleness and in marriage. However God decides to lead your life, whichever direction, you end up in, both are good.” Yeah, only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him and to which God has called him.

Melissa Kruger: Absolutely, and I actually think that is going to … It’s going to fuel contentment. Like saying the Lord’s put me here … So to me, the biggest way to prepare for marriage or if you’re married, the biggest way to prepare in that life, if you’re single or married is to actually walk with the Lord in those. To me, that’s the only way we’re going to be grounded in either because you can be just as discontent married. I sit down with so many married couples and I had one lady look at me and say, “I’m so jealous of my single friends. They still have hope.” Because she was just so … Her marriage to her was hopeless and so she looked at us single women and said, “Well you might still find someone. I’m now stuck in this marriage,” and so I think it’s always helpful to …

I try to look at each person in the church as I only know the parts of the story that they have let me know. Everybody is carrying around a lot of hurts and hard things. It’s so easy for me to look at the person [inaudible] before me and I remember one time seeing this couple and he puts his arm around his wife and they look so perfectly happy … I don’t really know what their morning looked like. They could have had a horrible fight on the way to church and the reason he’s doing that now is kind of the apology. But we don’t know. We don’t know other people’s stories and I think actually trusting the Lord with my story rather than worrying about other people’s stories is one of the ways we’re prepared for whatever season of life we’re in.

I think it’s tough, no matter where we are, we can think the church doesn’t care about my season, but I think all of us have to give each other I guess some grace on knowing we don’t know what somebody else’s season … Because some people are really content in singleness and some people are really just content in marriage and vice versa.

Jasmine Holmes: Wow, which is I think one of the reasons why we didn’t do a whole episode on it which I think is important to say its not because we don’t care about singleness or think that it’s an important topic but there’s been enough talk about singleness without singles in the room. Like we don’t need to have yet another conversation, because all we can talk about is our experience and we’re a little bit removed from that experience and so it’s out of respect, not out of lack of care.

Melissa Kruger: Absolutely. That’s good a point.

Jackie Hill Perry: – really well, Jasmine.

Jasmine Holmes: Thank you.

Melissa Kruger: I think another lie that can sometimes come up in the church … Or in our lives is that we as women don’t need theology. That is kind of a male thing and that why do we need that? What difference does it make in my life? So how have you seen that lie in the church and how do you combat it?

Jasmine Holmes: I literally have a story of when I was 16, somebody in the church told me that I read too many books and that it was going to be hard for me to find a husband that I could submit to because I was going to have too many well-developed opinions.

Jackie Hill Perry: Wow. That’s a mouthful.

Jasmine Holmes: To my face.

Jackie Hill Perry: Sounds like a serpent.

Jasmine Holmes: Yup. Yup. They’re like, “Your opinions are going to be too solid. There’ll be nothing left for your husband to mold.”

Jackie Hill Perry: I think that’s silly and it’s silly because theology is the study of God. We’re all called to study God, to know God, to love God. God has given women and men brains, adequate brains to be able to learn about Him, retain this information and communicate it if need be and there is a need be because the world needs to know about God. I think it’s very simple. I don’t know what it is, what the powers that be seek to gain by undermining women’s ability or … I don’t know. Yeah, I don’t know why this is a … I do know why this is a thing.

Jasmine Holmes: Yeah. I think it’s a fear, trying to draw what’s perceived as healthy boundaries in the church. We see in the word and people are going to be on different sides of the spectrum about women teaching, women preaching, women doing XYZ, but because of those different sides of the spectrum, I think we can sometimes overreach just to make perfectly sure that we’re within bounds. So instead of saying, “Okay, how can women show themselves approved at church? Where can they serve? What can they do?” We focus really heavily on what they can’t do in order to place safeguards in place.

Jackie Hill Perry: I think one observation I’ve made … I don’t think this is as obvious as saying, “Hey, you should know all of that.” But even just … If you take a survey of many of the really popular books, Bible studies and conference themes, many of them can lean very topical and topical is not a problem. Topical is okay. There is like a time and a space for topical, but there is like this easiness about some of the … The ways in which we educate women about the Bible even from women and sometimes I’ve sat back and asked the question of is it because you think that women don’t want more heavy theological books or you don’t think that women could handle it? Because they can, and they do want it and they need to. Like we don’t need another conversation about the psalms, but if we do do that, let’s go deep. Like we don’t have to appeal to our emotions to make it a satisfying experience. Like we can get into the Hebrew and that can be fun. You know what I’m saying?

Melissa Kruger: The reality is life will expose your theology. We all have a theology … Because all that means is the study of God. So we all have a view of God, and it’s either a good one or a bad one. The reality is, when life intersects our wrong view of God, we’re going to have start having serious problems with God. Because if we have a view of God that says, “Well, if I obey you, then you’re going to bless me.” That’s a common lie that we can fall into. Well, the reality is, the most obedient person who ever lived was Christ and he was killed on a cross. We have to look at what the scriptures teach and how they show what is actually true rather than … Sometimes I think we make a promise to ourselves that’s not in scripture and we get upset when God doesn’t fulfill the promise that he never made to us which is you’re going to have an easy life as a Christian.

He does say that in his presence is fullness of joy. He does say I’ve come that you may have life and have it to the full, but that doesn’t mean you get everything you want. It doesn’t mean your life always looks a certain way and so to me it is a terrifying thing not to study who God is.

Jackie Hill Perry: Oh yeah.

Melissa Kruger: Because you will find yourself in places of sorrow upon sorrow because this world is hard and if we don’t have a theology, an understanding of suffering and of what God’s doing in this world, it makes the suffering that much harder. Because then I’m wrestling with the very person who can give me comfort and I can’t get the comfort from him because I’m mad at him for something that he never promised. I guess to me it is so dangerous for women not to be theologians.

Jackie Hill Perry: Absolutely.

Melissa Kruger: It’s not just a lie. It’s like a pit we may fall into that is incredibly dangerous.

Jackie Hill Perry: And to know that … How do I say this kindly? That you can be a theologian for your own intimate walk with God, not just to be a teacher of your children. Because I’ve seen that too where it’s like let me equip me, let me educate you with theology because you disciple your children. Yes I need to know so that I can leave my children in the right way, but why is it always limited to my service to my household and not just the equipping that I need within myself to be able to know and love Jesus or to talk to my neighbors or to talk to my students and my job. Like why does it always have to be attached to my duties that you say that I have as a woman.

Jasmine Holmes: Yeah. Oh man that’s true, I hear that a lot. Because even the message that the two combating messages that I received from some of my little homeschool subculture growing up was don’t learn too much because you won’t be able to submit or you got to learn and you got to be one of the most educated people out there because you’ve got to teach the next generation. It’s like … I am a person, not just a vessel. I am not just a vessel for submission to my husband and I’m not just a vessel of teaching for my children, I’m also an individual who was created for God’s glory to glorify and enjoy Him forever and my enjoyment of Him matters.

Jackie Hill Perry: Do you think that … I guess this lie that women don’t need theology or theology or theology is a male sport reserved for those who have testosterone in their bodies. That like it has led to kind of insecurity in women where when they read, sometimes the reading might be shallow, not because they don’t want to go deep but they’re afraid that they don’t have the potential to understand if they do. Does that make sense?

Melissa Kruger: I think absolutely. The reality is there is a language to theology and so when you get into some of these theology books and they’re using words like eschatology and they’re talking about these phrases that we don’t know what they mean, I think sometimes we as women just back up and say “Oh. I can’t do that.” Whereas instead just say, “What does that mean? Can you tell me what eschatology means? Like what are you talking about?”

Jasmine Holmes: You’re a woman math teacher.

Melissa Kruger: Yes.

Jasmine Holmes: So you’ve seen it in more places than just theology.

Melissa Kruger: Exactly. It’s actually … Because math is a language, and so it was having studied that I realized a lot of times my students couldn’t do the problem because they didn’t understand the words in the question. So when you say find the derivative of this, they’re like, “What’s a derivative?” You’re like, “Okay, we have a language problem, not actually an ability problem.” So I think a lot of times with theology, we have a language problem, not an intelligence problem, because when you just say eschatology just means the end times, then you’re like, “Oh. Oh okay.” So being willing to ask questions and being willing to learn and study … God is the study of all eternity, so this is what we’re going to spend our eternity on so it’s good to go ahead and get started.

Jasmine Holmes: It is. It is.

Jackie Hill Perry: Just because we are women, that doesn’t keep the Holy Spirit from illuminating things for us. If you’re a believer, male or female, if the Holy Spirit is in you, He is the greatest teacher of the text that he inspired. So I think as long as you have Him and trust Him to reveal and to help and to guide and ask him questions of the text as you travel through it, then you really do have I think the ability to be confident in your study of he scriptures, to know God and to study God and to go as deep as you never thought you would go.

Jasmine Holmes: His love should be the thing that’s fueling us. So the more that I learn about the Gospel of Christ, if God says that I’m supposed to be submitting to my husband and that’s what I see with my own eyes and the text, I’m not going to try to be getting out of that. If God says this is what I should be teaching my children and that’s what I see in the ext, I don’t want to get out of that. I think so many times people see women looking at theology as a way to try to like work their way out of doing the things that women are supposed to be doing but it’s like … If the things that women are “supposed to be doing” are in the text, I’m going to obey the text.

Melissa Kruger: That’s right, it actually grounds me.

Jackie Hill Perry: Yeah. Fuels me.

Melissa Kruger: It’s the very thing that … This is my foundation, this is why I have to do it because the text says it and I understand the context around it. All of those things actually make me more believe the truth rather than it being an outside source, it’s from the internal.

Jackie Hill Perry: Absolutely.

Melissa Kruger: I’m like, “Oh yeah. I see it in the text.”

Jackie Hill Perry: It’s right there.

Melissa Kruger: And I believe it. I also think sometimes we as women don’t study theology because men who often study it do it for a job.

Jackie Hill Perry: That’s true.

Melissa Kruger: I think one maybe hopeful thing we can say is no, all Christians should be doing this because I’ll say there are a lot of laymen in the church who know a lot more about football than they know about theology. I think part of it is all of us as Christians getting past, “Oh, you only do that if you are going to be a professional.” No, some people do it do professionally to bless the church, but we should all be wanting to study God.

Jasmine Holmes: For sure.

Melissa Kruger: That’s a good thing.

Jackie Hill Perry: Yeah, we were created for him. One image in my brain as we talk is the situation with Mary and Martha in Luke 10 when Jesus, he was sitting in Martha’s home, and Mary, her sister, was sitting at the Lord’s feet, listening to his teaching. She was learning some good theology right from the mouth of God.

When her sister feels some type of way that she’s not clean enough [inaudible] and putting up the … What do you call it, charcuterie? How do you pronounce that thing?

Jasmine Holmes: Charcuterie.

Jackie Hill Perry: The little meat and cheese plates with olives.

Melissa Kruger: Fancy.

Jackie Hill Perry: When she was filling some [inaudible], Jesus responds and says that Mary has chosen the good portion which will not be taken away from her. I think when that text is taught, a lot of times we lean more into Martha’s anxiety which is a part of the passage, but I also think that another part of the passage is that you see a woman learning at the feet of Jesus and Jesus saying I am not going to take this opportunity away from her. That’s just a beautiful image I think.

Jasmine Holmes: Absolutely.

Jackie Hill Perry: To think about in this conversation that Jesus himself wants us to learn about God.

Melissa Kruger: And he took the time to teach women.

Jackie Hill Perry: Yes.

Melissa Kruger: That’s a beautiful thing.

Jackie Hill Perry: And he will not take it away from us.

Melissa Kruger: That’s right.

Jackie Hill Perry: That’s a [inaudible] close on honestly because all of these lies … I realize one that we can think of that’s the answer, to choose the better portion and to sit at the feet of Jesus by reading his word and learning how to combat the lies.

Melissa Kruger: Amen.

Jackie Hill Perry: Amen.

Melissa Kruger: Well thanks so much for joining us for Season Two. We’ve talked about a lot of different things –

Jackie Hill Perry: We have.

Melissa Kruger: This season.

Jackie Hill Perry: It’s been a party.

Melissa Kruger: Yeah. Hopefully … I think what we all hope more than anything that … We do. Just what Jasmine was saying, we delve into God’s word, we hope that you’ll get some friends and sit around the table and talk about some of these things but the last thing we’re going to talk about are our favorite things and so the question that I’m going to ask this week is … Over the past year or so, what’s been a fun thing you’ve been watching on TV or Netflix or however you get your … Maybe it’s bad to say Netflix these days. However you watch the shows that you watch? What’s something fun you’ve been watching?

Jasmine Holmes: Call The Midwife Season Nine.

Jackie Hill Perry: What is that, Jasmine?

Jasmine Holmes: It’s a show about midwives and every episode has at least two births.

Melissa Kruger: She’s giggling like a teenager in love over there.

Jasmine Holmes: It’s so good. I love it.

Jackie Hill Perry: That’s awesome. Earlier this year I got into … I said it on another episode but I got into The Crown and that’s because I just … I just started getting into all these documentaries about the Windsors and Queen Elizabeth and the other people and so it’s just been … I don’t know, it’s just a cool little interesting little show. Because their dynamic, their world as royals is so different and not even just royals but Europeans. Like they don’t even function like we do. They drink tea all the time, they’re eating baked beans for breakfast. It’s just … Yeah. It was an interesting little thing.

Melissa Kruger: I think the one that I probably look back on as the most interesting, we watched Chernobyl. It was a docudrama, so it’s not exactly historical but it’s based on the events that happened in Chernobyl and I had spent a summer in the Ukraine. Really, I didn’t realize how close it was to when Chernobyl happened, it ws probably five or six years after it had happened and so it was just fascinating to study a culture … I mean the communist system is so different than the American system and to look at what happened. When a tragedy occurred and a cover-up and all of that. So it was really well-done and I just liked looking … I like learning about history through docudramas or on TV. I just think it’s really interesting so highly recommend it.

Jackie Hill Perry: I agree. Well thank you. All of you. Wherever you are, in your car, on the train, on a plane, washing dishes, washing your feet, washing your house, I don’t know. Cooking, what do people eat now? Banana bread. That’s a stereotype, but you might be making it. Whatever you’re doing, thank you for joining us for this season of Let’s Talk. If you find yourself needing something to listen to while we are gone and absent, God is always talking so you can go to him, or you can check out the other shows from The Gospel Coalition podcast network at TGC.org/podcast. If you so happen to want to help TGC produce more resources like this one, head over to TGC.org/give to make a donation. The Gospel Coalition supports the church in making disciples of all nations by providing resources that are trusted and timely, winsome and wise, and centered on the gospel of Jesus Christ.