Becca Merkel and Pastor Joel critique modern feminism's infiltration of evangelical churches, arguing that both ultra-conservative patriarchy and feminism falsely demean motherhood as menial labor. They trace this shift from Mary Wollstonecraft to Betty Friedan, noting how the pursuit of birth control removes the "anchor" of family while employers abandon wage support for households. The discussion condemns patronizing women's ministries that treat women as needy children rather than active ministers, advocating instead for family-integrated worship where parents hold children through sacraments and domestic crafts like Sabbath dinners become potent gospel tools. Ultimately, they urge pastors to preach courageously without fear of backlash and husbands to hold wives accountable, rejecting the notion that obedience leads to exile in favor of trusting God's commands. [Automatically generated summary]
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Patriarchy, Exile, and Biblical Womanhood00:08:08
Applying God's Word to every aspect of life.
This is Theology Applied.
Hi, welcome.
This is Pastor Joel with Right Response Ministries and our show slash podcast called Theology Applied.
This evening, I have the privilege of having a guest, Becca Merkel, on our show.
And we're going to be talking about biblical womanhood.
We're going to be talking about feminism.
We're going to be talking about the rise of feminism and some of the dangers at the local church levels.
Also, just in regards to the culture, but I want to go ahead and give her a moment to introduce herself and specifically to tell us a little bit about a book that she wrote called Eve in Exile.
So, Becca, thanks for coming on the show.
Tell our listeners a little bit about yourself.
Right.
Thank you so much.
It's great to be on your show.
So, Becca Merkel, I have five kids who are all teenagers and just out of teen years now.
So, high school, college, and I wrote Even Exile a few years ago because I had grown up in conservative Christianity.
And so it's never like I never bought into feminism as a principle.
But honestly, some of the things I saw on the conservative side made me understand why you might want to.
Like some of the ultra conservative anti feminist stuff does an excellent job of making the feminist point, I think.
And so.
That's not at all how I was raised, but I was, you know, like around conservatives.
So I did see it and I saw a really like appalling view of women sort of on the conservative side of things, which I thought was atrocious.
And I could see why people would react out of that into feminism.
I think feminism is, I mean, that would just be out of the frying pan into the fire sort of situation.
I think it is a terrible answer to that problem.
And I saw people on that side as well, but they were not my people, if that makes sense.
Like, I felt like I had friends who had dads who, you know, I thought had a really unbelievably low and unbiblical view of women.
And then I could see why there's that sort of, you know, that kind of exodus out of those kinds of movements.
I understand it.
I think it's horribly misguided, and I think it's a terrible idea, and I think it's wrong headed in many ways, but I do understand what they were.
Reacting against, I guess.
And so I wrote Even Exile because I felt like, in a weird way, I think those conservatives actually agree with the feminists and then they react differently emotionally, I guess.
Like there's this low view of a woman's calling, biblical calling of, you know, being a wife and mother, keeping home.
And the conservatives, Sort of say, yes, we know that it's a low calling and that's what we like.
And then the liberals say, that's a low calling.
We're going to go out and get jobs out in the world.
But it's like they're agreed on the fundamental thing, which is that they've bought the lie that being a wife and mother is a brainless menial task that requires nothing.
And, you know, why would you give your life to something like that?
So I wrote Even Exile, I guess, just to kind of try to answer.
Both of those things a little bit, and then try to articulate what it is supposed to be because I do think that some of the ultra conservative stuff is not at all biblical, it's not what we should be aiming for.
And so, I just felt like somebody needs to articulate a vision that isn't that, but that also isn't feminist.
And so, that was really kind of my motivation for writing the book.
Gotcha.
As you were speaking, I just couldn't help but think of a certain question, so it's kind of a little bit of a curveball, but I'm going to throw it at you.
As a woman who loves the Lord and who loves women and esteems women, but has a biblical view, what do you think about a word like patriarchy?
Does that make you cringe or would you say, no, it's just been misdefined?
How would you define patriarchy?
Is it a good thing?
Is it a bad thing?
What do you think?
That's just such a funny one because, I mean, patriarchy, if we're just going to go by the dictionary definition of what patriarchy sort of means, and of course, yes, I mean, I feel like, yeah, that's just sort of what the Bible teaches, doesn't it?
On the other hand, many of the people who would self identify as patriarchal, I wouldn't want to touch with a 10 foot pole.
So, you know, I think that that gets a little bit muddled.
But I think the father and, you know, husband is the head of the wife and is the head of the household.
And, you know, so what do we call that other than patriarchy?
Like, that's exactly what that means.
But I do think that some people have co opted that title.
That I would never want to be identified with.
So, fair answer.
Yeah.
Fair answer.
Yeah.
I always just think in terms of like, I don't often use the word to describe myself.
There's a couple other guys that I like, have a podcast called It's Good to Be a Man.
And they use like the phrase, yeah, they use a phrase gendered piety.
And I like that because, if nothing else, not even because it's the best descriptive phrase, but because it's obscure enough that nobody can get offended too quickly before I have time to explain.
Whereas like patriarchy is like, Conversation over, you don't get a chance to say, you know.
But patriarchy at its root level, I just think, all right, first, like we live in a world, it belongs to someone.
The Bible says it belongs to a father.
You know, it's the father's world.
We live in his world, and the father of all fathers, he works through fathers.
And he works through mothers also, but he works through fathers as the head of their families.
And the blessings flow from the father of light to earthly fathers.
And those fathers, as they seek to be obedient to him and lead with courage and grace, That blessing falls to their wives, to their children.
Societies are built by families, you know, and by, you know, men who have families to feed.
I think Doug Wilson said that recently on Man Rampant.
And I think that's good.
And I think it's a shame that it has so much of a negative connotation today.
And weirdly, I would probably say the same thing about feminism because it's not like I'm opposed to femininity and it's not like I'm opposed to the feminine.
In fact, I think we should embrace the feminine.
It's just that, like, that word has been now kind of pretty well spoiled for us by the people who grabbed it and used it as their.
That's a great point because true feminism, you would love.
The problem is that feminism is actually often masculinity in women.
It's not feminine.
And if it was actual femininity and the way that God describes the beauty of femininity, we'd be all for it.
So, all right.
Okay.
All right.
Well, let's.
Go ahead.
I'm sorry.
Go ahead.
No, I was going to just agree that at the sort of metaphysical level, that is what the universe is a patriarchy.
So, of course, that's that's hard to, it's hard to escape, you know, even 2021.
You know, you read the Bible and you're, unless we're going to do some exegetical gymnastics, it's pretty, pretty clear that, you know.
So, anyways, so that being said, could you give, you know, because everybody talks about feminism and you hear a lot of pastors and in the conservative, you know, kind of reformed Christian camp, you know, talk about, well, feminism is bad.
Margaret Sanger and First Wave Feminism00:08:22
And I might even be one of those pastors.
And so maybe you could even educate me just what, what, What's the history, not just the definition, but what's the history of feminism?
Because it seems as though it's come in different waves and each one is distinct from another.
And I know that you've gone into length with this.
And so, could you help us just understand maybe the history of feminism and where they were right?
I'm sure that they were right maybe on a few things and then where it got off the rails.
Could you take a moment and do that for us?
Yeah, sure.
I'm without my notes.
So, I might be hopscotching around here a little bit, but really the first kind of proto feminist, I mean, We're talking about the 18th century.
I mean, she was Mary Wollenstonecraft, although I might have put an extra N in there Wollstonecraft.
She was an English woman who was really around the same time as Jane Austen.
And she's called a proto feminist because she, they weren't using the word yet, right?
So she's kind of like a little bit for her time, but she wrote a little tract called Vindication of the Rights of Women.
So she's being Kind of resurrected.
Like there's been a lot of talk about her lately.
I saw a lot of stuff going around about her and whenever the Women's Day was.
I don't know, lately.
Wasn't there National Women's Day?
I thought they got a whole month, a whole, you know, Black History Month.
And now I think there's a Women's History Month, but I think there's a day also.
I really keep up with this.
I thought every day was Women's Day.
Yeah.
So she was a, I mean, she's referred to as a proto feminist, but now she's kind of, you know, The hero, and she went over to France to help with the French Revolution.
So, like, that's what we're talking about there.
So, she was very much a revolutionary.
Um, and that's really what feminism has been from the very beginning she was over helping in France right through the reign of terror and everything.
Because, um, a number of the kind of romantic poets in England went over to help, but then they got kind of like scared and disillusioned and came back once it hit the reign of terror.
And she stayed, she stayed for the whole thing, and um.
Anyway, so she wrote Vindication of the Rights of Women.
And then, you know, fast forward to the mid 19th century, really pre Civil War, I believe, was Seneca Falls.
It was right in the middle of the 19th century.
And that's when there was the first kind of like that was the birth of the feminist movement as we think of it.
And of course, initially at that very early stage, the two twin causes were votes for women and prohibition of alcohol.
So it actually was a very funny.
Strange bedfellows, really.
I mean, because you had the temperance movement and the women's right to vote.
And in fact, that's kind of why they wanted the right to vote, was so that they could enact prohibition, which they did do.
So the prohibition moment in America was really brought to us courtesy of those first wave feminists.
And so it's interesting to me that that actually seems kind of much more uptight.
And straight laced than you tend to think of feminists as being.
So, as far as like votes for women, you've got Susan B. Anthony, and you know, like that whole movement.
And many Christians, I think, now look back on them, and even the Christians look back on them as heroes when I think we ought to know better because it's like we can see where that brought us the not necessarily the issue of the voting, but the feminist agenda.
Margaret Sanger is.
Really, kind of a first wave feminist.
And she, of course, we know her famously for Planned Parenthood.
But her fight really was birth control.
So it was like you had temperance, you had prohibition, you had votes for women and birth control.
So Margaret Sanger's particular fight was basically on that issue.
And we always talk about her as an abortion advocate because she did found Planned Parenthood.
And although that was always implicit and that was always kind of understood.
It was very much kept in the back of, you know, like we didn't, that was not explicit at all.
But birth control was her big fight.
So that was kind of the first wave of, you know, feminism.
And it did span a long time and it sort of covered, you know, those kinds of issues.
And then the sort of World War II really caused the whole movement to come to a screeching halt.
Everybody had other things to worry about.
And then we kind of came out of World War II and And we got the 50s, you know, like that very little wife at home, very leave it to viewer, very, you know, everything is picture perfect.
And I think there's just a lot of stuff that was going on in America right then the rise of suburbia.
I think you have all these vets coming back and just wanting things to be normal and nice and not, you know, crazy.
And so you had this kind of weird moment where it was kind of like the feminists felt like they'd lost everything.
So it was like they had made some kind of progress and then.
Now we're sort of back to square one with this little stereotypical, you know, wife at home thing.
And then Betty Friedan wrote the book, The Feminine Mystique.
And that's the book that launched second wave feminism, really.
And so there was kind of this weird pause.
And then second wave feminism launched, and it was a very different kind of movement in one sense, but it was deeply connected to what had gone before in another way.
She wrote The Feminine Mystique, and it was all just about like this kind of horrible sadness that all the housewives felt, and this like aching emptiness.
And they're all taking antidepressants, and it was all just meaningless.
And there was nothing fulfilling about being at home.
And you just, you know, and she just sort of articulates this terrible boredom with being a wife at home.
And it just exploded.
And all the women were like, Yes, that's how I feel.
And then we were off.
And so, um, Second wave feminism was all about women going out to work, you know, being in the workforce.
That was how you're supposed to find yourself and fulfill yourself by leaving your kids at home and you go out and get a job because that's where you're going to feel fulfilled and you're not going to have this terrible sense of loss of self, basically.
So that's when you have women entering the workforce as a way of self fulfillment as opposed to the kind of earlier war effort, you know, because like in the war effort, you have women who were doing the jobs because somebody has to do the jobs.
But then in the second wave feminism, it was all about go find yourself and find your true meaning out there somewhere else because home is like a black hole, you know, like there's nothing to do there.
So then second wave feminism, and then of course, abortion.
And that's when Roe v. Wade and everything else.
So, sort of second wave feminist heroes would be Gloria Steinem, is very second wave.
And it's interesting because third wave feminists, I don't think even they know what they're.
So, it's like third wave is kind of where we are right now.
And they've won every single battle, basically.
Like the feminists have seriously taken every hill they've tried to take.
And there's not really anything left, but they're still miserable and unhappy.
So, they have to continue fussing about something.
So, now it's kind of LGBTQ rights or something.
Like, I don't even think the third wave feminists know what they're trying to fight for, but they're still very upset.
That's funny.
Second Wave Battles and Roe v Wade00:10:03
So, real quick, just for our listeners' sake, you referenced.
You know, in the first wave, Margaret Sanger kind of being on the end of that.
So at first, it was prohibition and it was women's suffrage vote.
And then Margaret Sanger, it sounds like you placed her kind of like on the end of that first wave and being, you know, we know her from abortion, but being a big advocate of birth control.
And then with that second wave, then you really nailed down abortion.
So both in terms of birth control with Margaret Sanger and then also with abortion later on in the second wave.
Could you explain to our listeners what that has to do with women being empowered?
I know what it has to do, but some people don't connect the dots.
So, what is a woman being able to stop her body from procreation or being able to abort a child inside of her body if the birth control fails as a 100% fail safe of birth control?
Because that's all abortion really is.
And my understanding is like we have birth control and then we have.
Birth control.
Really effective birth control.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, what does that have to do with women being empowered?
I think that it's clearly been a target from very early on.
Because even in the first wave of, you know, even like, you know, pre 20th century, I think it was quite clear that there's nothing that will drop an anchor on your dreams and aspirations more thoroughly than having a child, right?
Because, A man can father many children and never even know, you know, like he's not in any way bound or tied down by it.
If there's no marriage covenant, he can just go merrily on his way and never know how many kids he has.
Not true for women, right?
I mean, you can't have hundreds of children and not know.
You can't have one child and not know.
And then there you are left with the child.
And this is like a lifetime commitment, right?
So I think that that has always been seen by the feminists as deeply unfair, you know.
That it's why should I have to sacrifice my whole life when he gets to go over there and continue chasing his dreams, you know?
And somebody has to take care of the kid.
And of course, that's going to be the woman.
And so there's always been this sense of this is so unfair.
And that's been a real dominant theme of the feminist from the very beginning is this kind of, I don't know, it's like the whiny kid on the playground who's always, you know, complaining that nothing is fair and that everybody else is.
I don't know.
It's just a very.
It's not a winning attitude, but that does feel like it's the, it has been the refrain of the feminist from the very beginning.
But it is absolutely true that children most definitely tie you down.
And even if you decide to get rid of them, it's the woman who's left with the guilt.
It's the woman who's left with, you know, whatever the repercussions are of what she decided to do.
And so obviously, God's solution to this is.
Marriage.
So, I mean, the inequality is no longer there.
But if you're going to have a kind of like a lifestyle of immorality, it is very true that the men get away with a lot and the women don't.
And so I feel like God solved that by, well, and I saw lately, it was hilarious.
Wasn't feminists getting all wound up about something?
And I saw somebody, I can't remember who it was, tweeting, it was some actress.
And it was like, if women have to stay home and take care of the kids, And the father should have to, too.
And somebody was like, Congratulations, you've just invented marriage.
I mean, because it was like the biblical model is that, yeah, the man also assumes responsibility for his children and everything.
But if you take that out and if you want immorality, it is true the consequences fall on the women.
And I think they were wanting to have it both ways.
Like they didn't want to have to submit to marriage, but they also didn't want to have to submit to just the way the world works.
And so, birth control and abortion are basically the way out of that.
Gotcha.
That makes sense.
Yeah, in order for a woman to actually be equal in that sense, there's one big distinction between men and women women have babies and men do not.
So you have to find some kind of method, some kind of way of women to ensure that women don't have babies in order for them to be just like men.
Do you think, with this third wave of, well, I guess it would be second wave, but the second wave of feminism that the house, the desperate housewives, right?
I'm sitting at home drinking.
Chardonnay at 10 a.m., you know, and just bored out of my mind.
And, you know, maybe, maybe should have had more babies, but, you know, that's just, that's just my thought.
But, anyways, but you're bored, whatever.
It's a black hole.
You said earlier that home is like a black hole.
It's not fulfilling.
And work, even though work is, you know, men and women are both called to work, it's just where men are typically going to be working out of the home.
Women are working very hard in the home.
But, but if you don't see that work as fulfilling, you don't feel like there's any significance that comes from that, you know, and then there's this push like, well, I got to be able to.
Pursue a career outside of the home in order to be equal to men and to find fulfillment.
Do you think, in that, I talked to one of our other guests.
We had Aaron Wren on the show and I talked to him a little bit about this.
I'd like to get your take as well.
With women exiting the home and just families in general having less children or no children, men and women both working, don't you feel like employers have kind of like just love that?
Like they can get away with paying less?
Like the idea that as an employer, I've got to pay an employee enough to support a family?
Because they're a one income family now, like the kind of the assumption is, you know, if a man says, well, this isn't enough to, I'm working really hard, but it's not enough to provide for my family.
And the employer's response would be, it never was supposed to be enough to, why isn't your wife working?
Do you have any thoughts on that?
Well, I mean, I have no idea about the data, but that would, I mean, that makes sense because it has become so pervasive that, of course, that's going to leave a mark on the economy.
That's really interesting.
And I just, I haven't.
It just seems like that used to become the mark.
Like, obviously, some jobs are just, they were never meant to feed a family, right?
So, if you work fast food and you're demanding, you know, $50 an hour, it's like, well, like, you're not supposed to, we're not against you making $50 an hour.
You just don't get to make $50 an hour here for flipping burgers.
You have some ambition and work your way.
And maybe you can do it here as a manager and owning a store one day and franchising or whatever.
But there's this push for, well, we've got to make more money and all that kind of stuff.
But back in the day, there were still jobs like the burger flipper or the person bagging groceries.
But it seems like there was, in the 1950s, it seems like there were still jobs that weren't, this is a job to feed a family.
This is kind of a high school job or something.
But then it seems like, Like for career type jobs, it seems like financially the benchmark in determining wages was the cost of living for a family.
Whereas now, I just don't feel like that's even on the radar for most businesses of like, what does it cost to, you know, a modest home with a mortgage, you know, and feeding children.
And I just don't think it doesn't seem like companies or employers think that way anymore.
Like it's not like because we've handed over, we've said, well, we don't want marriage and we don't want children and we don't want families and we don't want our wives to stay at home.
So then employers have said, great.
Yeah.
You don't want it.
Yeah.
I don't know.
That's true.
I mean, I think in many ways, I mean, you almost feel like feminism is such a win for the men that it had to have been a male plot the whole time.
I'm like, then we just get to abdicate responsibility.
It's kind of like, I don't know, you can sleep around as much as you want.
Nobody's ever going to make you marry the girl.
You know, like there's no consequences for that.
You don't have to step up and take care of.
Anybody, you don't have to take care of her or the kids, or if you do get married and she demands the right to go out and have a job so that now you can afford to buy a boat.
So, like, I don't know, I just feel like the whole thing is so hilariously not in the women's best interest that it kills me that they appear to be dumb enough to have gone for this idea.
But sadly, it was the women who drummed up this great plan.
Right.
Well, when, yeah, you're right.
When you, I mean, when you compare it like that, it's like, all right, now you're going to have to work so that I can have these extra things and I don't have to take care of children and I don't even have to have commitment to you.
Then it definitely sounds like a win for the men.
So it makes me think the only way that women found it as a win for women was in comparison to being, having to be married to that man.
So men must have, in order, you know, if men did kind of were the architects of feminism for their own, you know, getting to, you know, get rid of, Responsibility and have a free day and all that kind of stuff.
I feel like the only way they could have talked women into it would have been just lying around the house and just being such a pain to live with.
That when they were like, you know what?
Maybe marriage isn't that crazy.
I do think that the whole prohibition thing was the women, I think they were really motivated by a lot of drunk husbands.
I really think that was the sort of impetus for it.
They were like, we need somebody to stop the madness with the drunkenness that they were having.
Pastor Fear and Drunken Husband Impetus00:15:43
Someone's got to protect us.
And they didn't feel like the men were doing that.
That makes sense.
I was going to ask you that earlier.
I'm glad you brought that back up.
Okay, so moving forward now, so we got a little bit of the history of feminism and different waves and what it's progressed into.
And now it's kind of like we don't even know what women are necessarily fighting for because it seems like they've already won everything.
No women anymore.
So it's very hard to know what we're fighting for.
You're right.
Yeah, that's a really good point.
So, all that being said, catching up to modern day and then kind of taking more of a focus on the church and not just the culture at large.
What are some of the ripple effects, or maybe they're not ripples, what are the tsunami effects of feminism on the church today?
Could you give us a practical example of how there's a negative impact in our evangelical churches?
Oh man, I think it's so pervasive that I don't think many people have incredibly feminist assumptions and have no idea that they do because it's so in the air we breathe and it's so pushed in your face everywhere in every possible venue.
I mean, the propaganda is relentless on this subject.
And I think.
Honestly, I feel like there was a pretty rigorous campaign of cool shaming the Christians, you know, or the people who wanted to hold to a more traditional view.
And I think we bought it.
Like, I think Christians got embarrassed about trying to articulate a biblical position.
And so we just kind of tried to keep that quiet and to ourselves so that it wasn't quite so embarrassing to say out loud.
And I think it's a very short time.
I mean, you do that, you just kind of turn the dial down a little bit and maybe don't say it.
Quite so loud and not maybe into the microphone.
And it just takes that before everybody forgot what you were trying to say.
You know, like it's just, it's gone.
I feel like the next generation, you know, just has bought it completely.
I think Christians with their kids in government schools is a major part of this because, of course, that's what they're going to be taught, you know, all day long, every day for 13 years growing up.
So, of course, that's going to be their assumption.
And I think that, I don't know.
I just think there's been a sort of a slow creep, or maybe not so slow of a creep, of just buying into the feminist argument and then thinking that, you know, well, I call myself a complementarian.
And so that must mean that I'm fine, where you don't actually realize how many things you've taken on board that are just these really poisonous assumptions.
I think it's really, truly everywhere.
Like it feels like it's.
Really pervasive.
And like I said at the beginning, I think that those same poisonous assumptions infect the ultra conservative crowd as well.
Like, I think that they have taken it on board.
They've believed the feminist lie and then they've just embraced it for some reason, where it's like you have this lie about women that the feminists have told.
And then a bunch of patriarchalists believed it and then said, Yeah, that's what we're about.
Women don't need a brain.
And women don't need an education, and yeah, all a woman is for is having babies and making sandwiches.
Yay, that's what we're about.
And that actually is the feminist stereotype.
And the thing is, it was always a lie, but it's like some of the conservatives didn't quite notice and then they just decided to own it, you know?
So that's what I mean about them sharing the same assumption.
So I think the feminist lie is actually really in everything.
So, and I think it really weirdly is even in the patriarchalist camp.
So, so I got, yeah.
So, the ultra you're saying the ultra conservative patriarchal person and the I am woman, hear me roar feminist from you know, are they're both they both actually have bought into the lie just to for clarity's sake.
The lie being that being a woman is unfulfilling, insignificant, boring, dull, right?
Is that the lie that you're getting at?
Yeah, or I would say not being a woman, but um, embracing sort of a biblical you know, perspective function role of women, role of women.
So, being a wife and being a mother and those kinds of things.
Yeah.
And they don't see it as a high calling at all.
They see it as, like, I mean, I've met guys who, I mean, I just couldn't believe that they would say these things out loud, but they would say, well, my daughters don't need an education because they're never going to have to get a job because they're just going to get married and have kids.
And as if, like, being a mother is this brainless occupation that doesn't require anything, you know, like, it just feels like the most minimum wage job we could find.
And so, Why should I give my daughter anything really in particular?
She doesn't like.
I remember one guy saying his daughters never needed to learn math because he was like, because, you know, and I was so mad, but I was like, well, because if they do know math and their daughters, well, if a daughter, we all know if a daughter does learn math, then they're a witch.
Any woman who, I'm just kidding, exactly, witch.
But it was very, yeah, but I, so I get, so you're saying the ultra conservative and the feminist, they both bought into this lie about, about, The womanly role, feminine role, and the ultra conservatives just said, Yeah, we'll take that.
We'll slap our name right on that.
Yeah, you don't have to have a brain.
It's a menial task, and we're for it.
And the feminists, the only difference is they're saying, Yeah, you don't have to have a brain.
It's a menial task, and we despise it.
And that's really the only difference, but they're both buying into it.
Right.
So that's why I feel like it's a really weird.
Assumption that they both share.
It's just, it's purely an emotional response to it.
Like the ultra patriarchalist type says, Yes, that's what I like.
And the other one says, Get me out of here.
But that's an emotional response.
But they actually share the same assumptions about reality, about the calling of a woman in that specific role in a family.
Got you.
That's what you were saying all the way back at the beginning.
I understand now you're saying they both agree on the content, the tenets of the argument.
But one, The difference is emotional.
One is like, yeah, we like that.
That sounds really great.
And the other one is, you pig.
How could you?
And so, one thing that I've noticed, and I want to see what you think about this, if you can affirm this, and if you have any thoughts on it, but one kind of very practical effect that I've noticed in the evangelical church today, from what I would say is an effect of feminism and an effect of, I'm sure, plenty of other things also, but is that we still love femininity.
In the church, whenever we see it in men.
And we love masculinity whenever we see it in women.
So, whenever you see a young girl, and the practical effect is the way that we disciple kids.
And not just the way you're discipling young boys and discipling young girls, but then also the way that adults, brothers and sisters in Christ, are treating each other.
And if there's a man, Who's assertive.
Now, he could be a jerk, he can go too far, but let's just say he's just, you know, he's just a strong, masculine man.
Very often he's gonna be, you know, he's gonna be pulled aside and talk to you about how he really needs to be gentle.
And Jesus was meek and mild, and he needs to be gentle.
And then if a woman, though, is gentle, the same thing we're encouraging this man to be more like, to have more of this gentleness and, you know, quiet spirit, you know.
But if a woman is like that, she's probably going to be pulled aside and be encouraged to think more for herself, to be more ambitious, to be more assertive, to be more type A and to speak out.
And so, what I've noticed is like if we came up with just, if we were to sit here, you know, you and I make a list of 10 traits that we would say are feminine and 10 traits that were masculine, I'd be willing to bet that in the average American evangelical church, if we just got rid of the top two labels where it says femininity and masculinity, And we just took the feminine traits and said, Would you want your male pastor to embody these traits?
I think they'd say, Yes.
And then if we took the masculine ones and just took off a label where it says masculine and took those traits and said, Do you want the young women in your church to be discipled with an emphasis on these things?
I think they'd say, Where have you been?
Let's get you at the next conference circuit.
Would you agree with that?
Absolutely.
I mean, everybody wants women to be fierce, you know.
All over the town, you have to be fierce.
But nobody wants a man to be fierce.
And in fact, fierce in a man would be incredibly like that's insulting.
I can't, you know, that you would call a man fierce as an insult.
You know, you're being way too fierce or whatever.
But yeah, absolutely.
I think it's very noticeable how much that's the case.
Yeah, we would want women to be competitive, like in, not necessarily with each other.
Nobody likes that very much in a church.
But you know what I mean?
If she's like ultra.
Competitive and going after it in the corporate world or whatever, everybody would be like, You go, girl.
And they'd probably pull the man aside and say, He's not spending enough time with his wife or something.
You know, like it's this very thing, you're right.
I think we definitely are watering the weeds and weeding out the vegetables.
And yeah, I think you're right.
So, with that being said, you know, you and I both believe that God calls not all men, but some men who are biblically qualified to be pastors, and that He does not call women to be pastors.
So, pastors, I think that's part of the problem is if pastors are men, but pastors aren't just, right, the male elders of a church, they're not just pastors of half the congregation, right?
It's not like we're the pastors of the men, and then we have our women's ministry, and that's how you get, you know, the leader of the women's ministry becomes a pseudo elder in the church over half of the congregation, namely the women, and it gets divisive, and then all of a sudden, you know, like husbands and wives start having, you know, problems and dissension in their marriage, and it's because The women's leader and their male pastors who are abdicating that responsibility.
So, we believe that God calls men to be pastors.
I know we've talked about this before, and I know that you would agree that God calls those pastors to pastor the whole flock and not just half of the flock.
So, if I'm a pastor, I'm a pastor of the women in my church as well as the men.
And so, what is something that male pastors can do to combat some of these unbiblical expressions and effects of feminism in their local churches?
Right.
Well, that's kind of a funny question.
It's kind of a funny question in that because I don't think women ought to run the church, I also don't think the women ought to be bossing the pastors around about what they ought to do.
But that said, I do see things that pastors are doing where I would think the one thing is don't be scared of the women, because I think that's kind of what motivates this a lot of the time they're scared of the backlash, because I do think.
That when women get offended, it definitely is a gift that keeps on giving, you know?
I mean, like, it's just really hard to get through that.
And I think there are some pastors that are gun shy about it because they don't want to upset the women.
So I feel like that's kind of the first thing would be to not be scared of them.
But I think, kind of paired with that, there's a version, there's the kind of like, I don't know, the Beth Moore kind of women's ministries thing where.
It sounds like that's kind of more what you're describing, where a woman who's so dynamic and she's just got all the women eating out of her hand, and then they kind of tend to go off in a direction that's not great from, you know, authority perspectives.
There's that, but I think there's a really funny other version of it, which is where you have people on the other side of the fence.
They're not likely to go that way, but they still want to call in a woman to do the dirty work for them.
Telling them not to be feminists, sort of, if this makes sense.
I say this like what I'm doing right now.
Is that what you're hinting at?
No, I think that it is like trying to outsource the message because if it comes from a woman, then they can't accuse me of being a whatever, misogynist or something.
And so I have seen that before where it's like, it's this funny thing of like, We believe that men should be the pastors, but then you get the woman to go out there and say the inflammatory thing.
And then, you know, the pastor's like, you go, girl, preach it, sort of.
And that's this kind of like, that's what I mean about not being afraid of the women.
And I think that if you have godly women, they actually want to have teaching, you know, from, yes, a male pastor, and they want it to be biblical and they want it to be convicting and, you know, they want to confess their sins and they want to be growing in faithfulness.
So it's not insulting to women.
You know what I mean?
Like, it actually shouldn't be insulting to women to preach on feminine sin.
Not that that should be every sermon, but you know what I mean?
Like, I, but I do feel like, like Paul is very clear about saying, and women, you need to do this, and men, you ought to remember that.
And I think that many churches are very comfortable preaching against the men, really, you know, like hard teaching for the men, hard teaching for the men.
But then, whenever there's anything difficult to say to the women, They just don't want to go there.
But the thing is, is like a godly woman wants that and she wants to hear that.
And so I think if you have a congregation full of women who won't hear you, then that just shows you you've got a really deeply unhealthy congregation.
So it could be ugly.
But you know what I mean about trying to get the woman to be the hitman for you, sort of?
Yeah.
I totally know what you mean.
Sort of pastors who would never preach on it from the pulpit.
So what they'll try to do is, is like, See if they could get the women to organize a book study somewhere so that they could kind of, you know what I mean?
Where there's that kind of plausible deniability or something.
Right.
But the problem is that the pastor, by doing that, he's already defeated himself and not really just himself, but more importantly, he's defeated the word of God.
He's already basically, what's communicated in that is that the ultimate authority doesn't rest on the word.
The ultimate authority, it's not the message, it's the messenger.
Overcoming Fear of Women in Ministry00:05:46
And so we've already, you know, that same kind of logic.
You know, well, I mean, it's just completely in contradiction to what Paul would say, for instance, to Timothy let no one despise you because of your youth.
Yes, there's something to be said for being qualified, able to teach.
And I think more often than not, growing in an ability to teach the Bible does often come with things like experience and time and wisdom.
So, you know, you can make an argument from prudence and a practical argument that more often than not, nine times out of ten, an older man is going to be probably a better Bible teacher and therefore more authoritative.
But he doesn't bear more authority, for instance, than a younger man.
By virtue, merely by virtue of his age.
It's only because, with that age, that particular man used those years to know the Bible.
The authority is always coming from the Bible.
And so, whether it's old versus young, or, well, that guy can't speak to marriage because he's single.
You know, like, well, what do you do with Jesus and the Apostle Paul?
You know, and in this particular case, we're talking about, you know, whether it's old versus young or married versus single, we're talking about men versus women.
And so, I think when a pastor does that, I think that's one of the problems that I see is that he is.
Subtly and without words, he is subconsciously discipling his congregation, both the men and the women, that ultimate authority in the church of God comes from something else besides God's word.
Yeah, absolutely.
I think that's a huge, huge problem.
And what you were saying about the backlash from the women and those kinds of things, I completely agree with you.
And I think part of the problem is the pastor.
We know that the antidote to the fear of men or The pastor who's struggling with the fear of women, you know, but the fear of man.
The antidote to the fear of man is the fear of God.
And so, sadly, I think part of what we see is we see many men in our pulpits today who don't fear God.
And so, we need pastors to grow in the fear of God.
But I think that's part of the solution: is pastors don't be afraid of the women in your church and preach courageously.
But then, also part of the solution is those women's husbands.
It's not all just the pastor.
Part of the reason why I think pastors are afraid.
Is because they know that there may be some women in the church who are going to react and be frustrated and disgruntled, and they suspect that their husbands will not deal with it.
Absolutely.
Well, I think that's what I mean by if you have that legitimate fear that I can't preach on that because the women will all whatever, that's what I mean about you have a wildly unhealthy congregation because.
You can't have that situation without it meaning that you have a really kind of diseased bunch of family units all together because you can't have all the women react to something like that and have everything be good at home, you know.
So, I think that's absolutely true that it has to be the husbands as well.
And I think, too, like having a high view of women because, um, I think that the whole feminist thing is so patronizing of you know, so patronizing to women, and so like.
Have the expectation that the women in your church can handle stuff like that.
You know what I mean?
Like, because to act like you have to treat them with kid gloves and you have to tiptoe around them and you have to walk on eggshells and never say something that might ruffle their feathers, like, that's actually a really insulting view of women that, like, they can't handle it if somebody says something, you know.
It's sadly true, but we should be better than that.
And I feel like expect more, you know, of the women and the ones who really are.
Hungry for truth and they want to pursue righteousness, they will rise to that.
They really will.
But we live in such a victim happy culture that you could just have people convicted of emotional abuse just for reading what Paul wrote.
It's just, yeah.
And so I think having a high enough view of the women in your congregation that you can do it without talking down to them, which is what I really think this is.
When you act like we're such a tender, vulnerable group over here.
That we won't, we can't bear to hear a man speak to us.
It has to be a very emotive woman who's going to come alongside of us and hold our hand.
Like, that's so embarrassing.
And it's just such a low view of women and what women are capable of.
And I think the women's ministry, the whole women's ministry thing, can perpetuate this view that we're like this perpetually needy group of people who, Never managed to get out of that state.
Like we're always needy and we always have to be ministered to.
And it used to be that women's ministries were the women ministering.
You know, it's like the women who were feeding people, the women who were clothing people, the women who were producing and giving and they were a part of the church body in that way.
But now women's ministries means all the women in the church are apparently this basket case that needs ministering too.
So we all have to cluster around and, you know, monitor them 247.
And I just feel like that's just a sad view of women.
Teaching Younger Women Shoulders to Shoulder00:07:24
Yep, I agree.
I remember your sister saying the very same thing, saying that women's ministry used to be women ministering shoulder to shoulder work.
Yeah.
Right?
And then women's ministry became all about women ministering to each other face to face.
And just kind of like we're just, you know, we're just telling each other what we want to hear and, oh, you poor thing.
But you're right.
I think it is patronizing.
I think it is demeaning that it almost is kind of like a.
Just barely a step up, if even that, from like children's church.
And I know your conviction, you know, with family integrated worship, and that would be my conviction as well.
But I think I like there was an article that John Piper wrote advocating for children being in church, right?
Because if I said the conviction as simple as possible, you know, people are like, well, explain to me, why are you against children's ministry?
And I said, my conviction is very simple.
I think that children should go to church.
That's it.
Because when we ship them off to another room, that's, you know, it's a Christian childcare.
You know, and there might be a Christian lesson, and it's run hopefully by Christians, you know, but it's not church because the Bible is very clear about what church is.
The church is the ordinary means of grace are being administered on the Lord's day.
There's the Lord's Supper.
We're preaching the word, publicly preaching the word, publicly praying the word, publicly singing the word, and publicly seeing S E E I N G the word in the sacraments of the Lord's Supper and baptism.
And if our children aren't a part of that, then you know, we wonder why they fall away from the faith.
And part of it is maybe because every Sunday morning we sent them somewhere else other than church.
And now that they're 18 years old, They're actually going to church for the first time in their lives, and they never got to go with mom and dad.
So, anyways, Piper wrote an article on that, and I think he has like nursery, kind of like a hybrid kind of thing, which I would be fine with.
But about four years old, I think at Bethlehem, you know, that's when they said, okay, you know, it's time to go to church.
And so, with that, he wrote an article because it's, you know, it's a foreign concept for American Christians in our evangelical world today.
It's like, well, our kids can't sit through a sermon, our kids can't do this, they can't do that.
And Piper, you know, It was really good.
He said, like, there are some things that we have a child version of, you know, where it's like, all right, that child's not ready for this, so we give them that, you know, like food, right?
Like, you know, a six month, we're going to give them avocado and we're not going to give them, you know, a medium rare steak, you know, and so, like, there are some things where it's like we give, but then there are other things in God's world that He created that there is no child version of.
And I love this illustration.
He said, there's no such thing as children's thunder.
Right?
There's not like, here's adult thunder.
Yeah.
But for kids, here's children.
No, there's just thunder.
And if you're four years old, the beauty is like, all right, you're going to get the same thunder that mom and dad are going to get, but you can get it while sitting in mom and dad's lap, you know?
And, but it's, it's, it's, there's just these things that are, they strike awe in our hearts.
And that's what the Lord's Day is.
And if thunder, you know, is one of those things, and certainly the word preached and the word, you know, should be one of those things that, you know, the weekly Lord's Day thunder, Thunder from Mount Sinai, that the mountain shakes, and the kids of Israel are there and they witness it.
And mom and dad hold them tight, you know.
And but it's good for them to be there.
So, all that back to women.
My point is the women's ministry.
Like, now, praise God, I'm not aware of any church that like does it as a substitute for Sunday morning where like the women go into another room.
But but it's it it it can be kind of like, hey, um, here's here's big boy church, and and here's this you know, this this dumbed down, you know, uh, softer.
Sweeter thing for you.
And so I'm saying all that to say I agree with you.
If I was a woman, I would probably be offended by that.
I think I would find that offensive.
I know.
It really is.
It really is.
And the thing is, Paul is also clear that older women are supposed to teach the younger women some things.
Like, I don't think the pastor needs to get in the weeds to talk about meal planning.
You know, like he doesn't have to patronize in that way either.
Right.
I mean, he teaches from the pulpit on the, you know, The things that pertain to the flock.
But he does say, you know, like older women, teach the younger woman this calling that you have.
Like, you know, like this is something that you can learn from other women and stuff.
So it's not like women aren't supposed to go off, you know, and perfect their craft.
It's just that that's a very specific thing.
It's a very practical thing that he's telling the women to teach the younger women, which is interesting too, to me, because it kind of presupposes that this is not just a no brainer and everybody knows how and oh my gosh, you know.
What could you ever find to do?
It's like, this is actually something that you can learn, you can get better at, and so forth.
And of course, go to the older women for that kind of advice.
Don't go to your pastor for that.
But I'm glad you said that because Titus 2, a lot of times we use that in the American evangelical church to say, well, there's a precedence for women teaching women.
So, okay, so a woman can't teach men, but women can't teach women.
But what I think we miss, and you just said it, is Titus 2 talks about women teaching women.
But it talks about women teaching women particular things.
And so we take that to just say, like, all right, like we're going to have this separate women's event where a woman teacher is going to come in and teach theology proper, you know, or teach on the Trinity or teach on.
And not saying that a woman couldn't do that, but my thought is just why?
Why can't the pastors of a church, when I think of theology proper, I think the proper context for teaching about, you know, the nature of God and the, you know, Would be the pastors of the church, and that they would be teaching that to both the men and the women.
So, when I think of like, so what is a separate context, you know, where women need to be specifically taught something that it doesn't make sense to have the men there?
It's the specifics.
It's not theology proper.
It's not the gospel.
Now, a woman could say, and this is how the gospel works into this, you know, but it is some of the things like what you're talking about.
It's how to love your husband, how to love your kids, meal prep, things like that.
It feels like talking shop is what that seems like, you know?
And I do think that some of the.
Some of the Titus 2 stuff can start to get very meta because you have like women who get together with the lexicons and they're going to unpack the Greek and we're going to talk about the cultural context.
We're just talking about the nuances of this and what are the implications.
But like that's super weird because what the verse is actually saying is, hey, I'm going to teach you how to make strudel, you know, or whatever.
Like come over and I'll teach you how to make homemade pasta or something.
And so it's kind of like, You know, we studied everything about the verse except for what the verse actually meant.
You know what I mean?
Like, it can just start to get you get this whole thing where it's like swirling around the actual issue, but at no point in there are the older women actually teaching the younger women the actual specifics of what Paul said to teach, you know?
Homemade Pasta vs Regional Restaurant Cuisine00:07:01
And it's for the very reason that you mentioned at the very beginning of our episode.
It's because we think that those things don't have value.
That's why, like, because I'm just thinking, you know, trying to put myself in the shoes of, you know, one of our listeners, as you're saying, like, you know, meal plan or strudel.
And I'm just thinking, like, the average person in the church, including men, because I find myself even doing, like, kind of cringes, like, oh, don't say that, Becca.
Don't, you know, like, that's demeaning to women.
When it's like, no, I'm demeaning women.
I, you know, by saying that the time and the effort that's spent in creating a home and nourishing children and making meals and that, like, Even in my heart, I still, there's a part of me that said, well, don't say that because people find that offensive.
They shouldn't find it offensive.
It's incredibly valuable work.
I know.
And it's very funny to me because everybody kind of recognizes the importance of a food culture.
Everybody thinks it's so amazing if you go to Tuscany and you experience the regional cuisine of whatever.
You know, like it feels very cool.
Everybody wants to have an Italian grandma who makes this incredible whatever.
And we all, you know, everybody like knows that.
But at the same time, like we've lost it completely in our own culture and we have to travel somewhere else to get it.
Or, I mean, just as a random thing, I think it's really weird that now like regional cuisine would be dictated by restaurants and not by moms at home.
You know, like if you think about places like Italy or whatever, where They have centuries of tradition here.
And you know what I mean?
Like, this has been going on long enough that I know about this right now because I'm throwing a dinner party on Friday, which is the different courses are different regions of Italy.
So I have been looking into this.
There's a pasta sauce that is like specific to this one village near Rome, and it's been this for a thousand years.
And there's huge controversies over whether you can put an onion in it.
Okay, it's like this is a whole thing.
And that is something that was developed in the home.
This is women who were making these things, or, you know, like the specific noodle shapes that are specific to that region or the other one, or, you know, whatever.
But this is something that the women made and the women created, and they made something very powerful that everybody would want to go and experience.
Right.
But like here, if you travel anywhere in the States and they say, Oh, hey, you need to, you definitely need to taste what we do here, it's going to be Chick fil A or something.
It's going to be like, you know what I mean?
Like, it's become industrialized and it's something that, like, Where in America would you have a regional cuisine that is something that came from the homes?
In a home.
I mean, it's just not that's a really interesting point.
I didn't even think about that.
Yeah.
And it's sad thinking like if we don't redeem that, thinking like about my children or grandchildren, like you said, you know, everybody knows about that Italian grandma, but our children won't, you know, like if we don't get that back.
So, all right.
Well, I. Great episode.
I really appreciate your time.
Let's go ahead and wrap up.
Could you just tell our listeners how they can follow you, how they can keep up with your ministry, what you're doing, and maybe even recommend?
I just thought of this as you were talking.
What's a good practical book, a good cookbook, or something like that that you could recommend if we have some women listening and they're like, man, I want to get into some of those things?
So could you tell our listeners how to follow you and how they could get on that track?
Okay.
So, well, I, gosh, I'm on Facebook and Instagram, but I rarely post, but you know, I'm there, just Rebecca Merkel.
But I have a podcast with my sister called What Have You.
That's probably where most of the stuff, you know, comes out.
And I apologize in advance to anyone who listens to it, it is a little bit reckless.
So, and we talk about a lot of this kind of stuff there.
So, what have you, it's just wherever you find podcasts, I think you can find it.
And then, what was the other thing you asked?
Oh, like a cookbook?
Yeah, like a cookbook or something that, you know, what are some good resources?
Yeah, golly.
I mean, so many cookbooks, really.
I have one currently that I'm enjoying.
It's just a really beautiful cookbook, but it's called Old World Italian.
And that one just goes through lots of regional specialties.
But gosh, I would just say start getting them and reading them and actually try to get good at what you do.
I mean, because You have to do it every single day.
You have to feed people every single day.
So, why not get good at it?
Why not perfect your craft instead of just kind of slapping out a casserole every night?
You know, the world is full of opportunities here.
And so, I would just say, just try to expand your horizons a little bit because you're never going to get it all.
Like, you're never going to have exhausted the possibilities.
And so, like, I've had, I don't know, I read this book on cheese that was just completely fascinating, but it was just, A bunch of different cheeses, or one that was a breakfast cookbook.
I can't even remember what chef that was now.
And you might only come away with one thing that, you know, was great.
But, but it just, it's like it shows you where to look.
And, and it's kind of like, you know, you start unraveling the sweater and you just kind of keep pulling it.
And, and it'll, that will lead you to another one.
And that will lead you to another one.
And honestly, I think we live in, it's just an embarrassment of riches right now, where seriously, you can just start following people on Instagram.
And you can learn a lot because you can either use Instagram as basically your documentation of selfies and trying to see how many likes you can get.
You know, like this is all about me, this is all inwardly focused.
I'm just trying to get people to follow me for I'm not sure what reason, but just because you can do that, or you can treat it as like it's actually kind of a huge resource.
Like, start following artists and try and get good at that, or start following chefs, or start following decorators, or start like there is so much scope in the home.
That if you're bored, it really is your fault.
Like, it really is.
Because there's just so much that you could be doing.
Titus 2, Barbecue, and Gospel Resources00:05:42
So, yeah.
Great.
I know a little bit of what you're talking about because right now we're planting a new church.
I grew up in Texas, was in California for a while, and moved back home to Texas.
And so, I am pretty much my church planting strategy is building a church on the Bible and barbecue.
And so, we do a big Sabbath dinner on Saturday nights and we have everybody come over.
It's about 20 adults.
And so, Friday night, 24 hours beforehand, All night long, I'm cooking brisket.
And so that's kind of like the quintessential barbecue thing for Texas is, you know, brisket.
And brisket is not easy.
I've cooked close to 10 now, and I keep going to other barbecue restaurants for research.
And I eat their brisket, and I feel like depressed and discouraged because we've got Franklin's over here.
We've got Louis Mueller.
We've got, you know, snows.
We're about 45 minutes.
I don't know if you saw the, there was a Netflix.
Thing on barbecue, and it was Miss Tootsie, and she's like this 84 year old woman who just like shoveling coals and doing barbecue, and she's like 45 minutes away from us.
And so, anyway, so we're like in barbecue Mecca, and I'm trying to, you know, make barbecue, and my wife, of course, is doing everything else, you know, and I just make the meat.
But yeah, but it makes a difference.
Like our 20 people or so, they come in the home, and it smells like barbecue, and there's wine, and, you know, Children are running around and laughing and playing, and we do a big extended family worship afterwards.
We sing hymns and stuff like that, you know, similar to what you guys do with your Sabbath dinner.
People want to be a part of that, it's attractive.
It's and and and you see, like, this was a ton of work, and it's and it has immense value.
And and so, yeah, absolutely.
I think it is an incredibly powerful tool, and I think that it is not.
I mean, if I was the devil, I would have wanted to get women to abandon their posts because I think it's incredibly potent.
And I think it's potent for the gospel.
I think it's potent for the next generation.
And I think that that has been done very effectively.
Like over the last century, I think that women have walked away from something that could be incredibly formative.
And I think if women would go back to where they were supposed to be standing and do what God told them to do with a cheerful attitude and deciding to own it and deciding to throw themselves into it rather than doing the bare minimum and feeling ripped off, I think that that is.
A massive tool for the gospel.
Yep.
Amen.
Godly women, Christian women, we can compete with Red Lobster.
It's not that hard.
We can beat them.
All right.
Well, so let's go ahead and conclude this episode.
Like I told you before we started recording, we have an incentive for our club members.
And so if you're listening to the show and you're not one of our responders, that's what we call our club members, we would love for you to become one of our regular monthly supporters.
This is how we're able to continue putting out.
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Our goal is not just to exegete a text of scripture and keep it in the abstract, but to apply theology and to every single area of life.
We like Francis Schaefer and his Seven Mountains, not just the church, not just the home, but also the civil sphere and also education and the market and vocation and all these different things.
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I think this episode was a great example of that.
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And the question that I'm going to be asking Becca is this Titus 2 speaks to the importance of women working at home.
We've discussed that a little bit on this episode.
But could you provide some simple principles for women who are considering working outside of their homes to ensure, like in some capacity, could you provide some principles for those women who are considering working outside of the home to ensure that this decision does not cause them?
To be in contradiction to scripture or does not cause them to compromise their primary duty in the home.
I know that you, Becca, you work outside of the home in some capacity teaching at school.
And so I know that there's a framework for that in your view, but could you give us some practical wisdom for that?
So that's our question.
Become a responder if you want to hear Becca's answer.
All that being said, Becca, I'll give you the final word.
Any final thoughts that you want to close with or you feel good?
I feel good about it.
Yeah.
Just do what God told you to do, and it won't turn out that you're being ripped off.
I think that's the key.
I think a lot of women are afraid that if they do what God said to do, that they're going to be sent basically to Siberia.
You know, it's like, I guess I'm going to have to go do the horrible, dull, terrible thing.
And that's really not what God's called us to at all.
So I think trust Him and obey, and it won't turn out to be a bad surprise.
So, Amen.
Great.
Thanks for coming on the show.
Yeah.
Thank you.
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