Episode 311: The Misleading Tactics of Complementarianism feat. Lydia Kaiser

Today I'm talking with Lydia Grace about her incredible new book, Bible Truth About Women. Lydia grew up in the ultra-conservative IBLP circles and went to seminary to answer her own questions about what the Bible really says about women's roles. What she discovered was shocking: there are ore than 120 misleading tactics that complementarians use to prop up male authority that simply isn't in the original Greek. This is the comprehensive resource we've been waiting for that addresses every major passage about women in one place.

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LINKS MENTIONED: 

• Get Bible Truth about Women by Lydia Kaiser! Kindle available now, or Pre-order the paperback
• Bare Marriage podcast playlists for people getting introduced to our podcast

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction: Bare Marriage Helpful Playlists
• 2:05 Introducing Lydia: The Book We've Been Waiting For + From IBLP to Seminary
• 9:49 The 20 Categories of Misleading Tactics
• 12:55 The Impact Of Misleading Tactics On How The Church Views and Treats Women
• 16:24 Key Principles To Keep in Mind to Interpret the Bible
• 24:37 The Eternal Subordination Heresy Debate
• 32:02 God is Freeing Women and Revival is Happening!
• 38:32 How Jesus Elevated Women
• 46:02 Authority in Marriage: What Jesus Actually Said
• 54:11 The "Head" Debate: What Kephalē Really Means
• 1:06:10 How Complementarianism Hinders the Gospel
• 1:11:47 Advice for Those in Complementarian Churches

Transcript

Sheila

What does God actually think about women? Does God care about us? Are we truly equal in Christ? That's what we're going to talk about on today's Bare Marriage Podcast. I'm Sheila Wray Gregoire for baremarriage.com where we like to talk about healthy, evidence based biblical advice for your sex life and your marriage. And, you know, so many of you come to me because of issues with sex. 

You know, you've read the Great Sex Rescue. You really appreciate a revolutionary way of looking at things and looking at data. But you have questions like, because this has broader implications, like if women matter in sex, if women's voices should matter in marriage, then maybe that has implications for how we see women in the Bible and how we see God's idea of gender roles. 

And so that's our way to be talking about today. And I'm really excited to bring you another interview with a totally new book that's coming out next month. And I read this and I was like, oh, this is the book that we needed. It is so comprehensive. It's so easy to understand. And I'm so excited about it. Before we get started with the interview, though, if you are one of those people that has just come here recently and you're like, I really want to know more, I get questions all the time of like, what podcasts are the most important for me to listen to or I want to I want to send the podcast, the Bare Marriage Podcast to my sister, but I don't know what to tell her to listen to or I want my husband to understand what I'm learning, but I'm not sure what to get him to listen to. And so I've actually created several playlists, playlists for husbands who are trying to understand, playlists about great sex, about complementarianism, about some of the toxic books we've read, even about understanding why evangelical advice so often is toxic.

So those are our five playlists, and I have a post including all of the playlists, but I also have the playlist just on my YouTube channel. So if you go to my YouTube channel at Sheila Wray Gregoire and you click on playlists, there are the top five things that you will see in our starter packs. And so check those out and send them to people that you know so they can learn about the Bare Marriage Podcast too.

And now, without further ado, let's get to our interview. Well, I am so pleased to welcome to the podcast today, Lydia Grace. Hello, Lydia 

Lydia

Hi, Sheila. Thanks for having me.

Sheila

Yeah. And I, I am going to embarrass you for a minute here. Okay? So prepared to be embarrassed, but I read your new book, the Bible Truth for women. And it is just so well done.

Lydia

Like, okay. Thank you.

 Sheila

Seriously, people, you've got to take a look at it, because what Lydia does is she goes through all the main parts that people will talk about with Grace. Two women select the origin story. So the creation story she looks at, she looks at how Jesus treated women. She looks at the early church. She looks at how we often talk about the marriage passages, like she looks at all the different things she even brings in, like the Southern Baptist scandals and everything and how it all relates so it's just such a good all in one comprehensive book. 

And I haven't seen that before, where it brings in absolutely everything. But looking at the Greek, the context, how it's been used in contemporary time and just makes such a strong case that egalitarianism is not just one possible belief, it is really the only one, if you take the Bible seriously. 

Lydia

Right? And, you know, I thought about making four different books because it was really hard to get everything into one book without just, you know, making it a monstrous volume. But I knew that there would be people who would be constantly, they've got this, this proof text in their head, and they'd be constantly saying, but what about that verse over there? You haven't addressed that verse, you know? So I had to include everything. And at times say, okay, I know that we're working on this passage and you're thinking of that verse over there. We'll get to that in part four, you know. So I had to somehow get it all in there.

Sheila

Yeah. I just really, really appreciated it. And seriously, people like it if you're looking for a good book that explains egalitarianism, explains why you know your church should adopt, explains why it makes sense both in the church and in the home and everything, and brings you closer to Jesus. Please pick it up. But let's start with your story, because I found this fascinating, because one of the things I was laughing at the beginning of the book is what you're saying. I'm a conservative, but like, hey, try.

Every stretch of the imagination. I'm a conservative. But people keep labeling me, you know, liberal or progressive. And I just want to say, I'm not saying anything wrong with being liberal and progressive, but I think coming from a conservative, this is really interesting.

Lydia

Right? Well, I have like I'm critiquing the church from inside the church, you know, I'm not coming from outside and criticizing it. I have lived it. I have been in all of these circles and bought into it and, and all. And so I am the last person to, you know, come at it from the church. It is terrible.

I love the church, and I believe that we all need to support fixing the problems, not abandoning the church. And that's what I'm hoping to do with this book. And I've been really gratified that there are people who have been, you know, my beta readers and my proofreaders and I have come back and said, wow, this healed parts of me that I didn't even realize were still wounded.

And it's restoring my relationship with God. And so I can do that.

Sheila

Yeah, yeah. So great. So you grew up really in very conservative circles like IBLP, Bill Gothard, the whole thing, the Pearl, Michael and Debbie Pearl, for those of you who don't know. Well, why don't you explain what IBLP is? For those who don't know.

Lydia

Institute of Basic Life Principles. And they were in the Chicago area, and we also lived in the Chicago area. It is very convenient for our church to hop on a bus and, you know, go to the conferences. And there we heard three days worthdays’ worth of just pounding on authority themes. Not Jesus, we're not talking about Jesus here. We're talking about the importance of authority and respecting authority and who's who's an authority over who else and and on and on.

And yeah, things got really worse and abusive in our home. My father was a pastor, and from the time we got on the bus, even within the next few weeks, it was just terrorism because it was all about his authority. He's the head of the home, the, you know, the head of the church and you know, everybody is supposed to submit to absolutely everything.

And if any of us, especially us women, gave an opinion, we were just sassy and needed to keep our sassy mouth shut. And, you know, it was just a horrible institution. And I can't believe it's still going that it hasn't been totally shut down.

Sheila

Yeah. And just for the record, Bill Gothard, the founder of it, was, I believe, credibly accused of multiple instances of sexual abuse that were just they weren't able to be prosecuted because the statute of limitations had expired for the lawsuit.

But yeah. Very, very, very bad stuff. Okay. So you're in this super conservative milieu of the church. How did it start making sense to you?

Lydia

Oh, boy.

It was well into my late adulthood as I began. Well, overall, these scandals have been coming out for the last, especially since 2018 or so, and I've been thinking about what is wrong with the church, what is wrong with so many marriages and I just came upon an explanation for one passage. I think it was First Corinthians 14 about women being silent in church.

And, you know, there's always been a few things about that verse that were odd, you know, like, why does Paul permit women to speak in the same chapter, but then totally silence women? You know, it doesn't make sense. And yet we've been taught to just gloss over it and ignore it. And I came upon an explanation for that verse that made the entire chapter make sense.

And I was like, wait a minute. If we've done that with this verse, what about the other verses? And I've always been a very curious person and something of a researcher. So I began looking at the other passages, and then I realized, I can't check what people are telling me. I can't check with what I'm reading, you know, is this person right? Is this person, right? You know, they're talking about the Greek. I'm like, I need some better tools, I need, I guess I'm going, I'm going to seminary. I left my job, I became an Airbnb super host, and started a seminar on hermeneutics, which I think everybody needs to take at least a hermeneutics class. If you think that you study the Bible and you want to lead other people and be a Bible teacher at all, then at least take hermeneutics.

So that really opened my eyes about all the difficulties of translation and things to watch out for. And so from then I just started, you know, taking it passage by passage. And I honestly did not know how it was going to end up. There are several times when I thought, okay, I've hit a wall here. This is a clincher passage.

The whole complementarian thing must be true, you know? And then I would get a revelation, a very unexpected explanation, and one that just made the entire Bible fit together so much better. This happened time and again. Finally I became convinced, like, wow, we've I've covered 90% of it. The other 10% surely will come along since everything is beginning to fit together. So even though I wasn't positive, I'd have all the answers. By the time I finished, I was getting the inkling that it would all come together, and sure enough, it did.

Sheila

Yeah, I love that.

And in your book, you, you know, you quote all the experts that we've had on this podcast to, you know, you've got Marg Mowczko, Cynthia Westfall, like Terran Williams, like so many different people who have really delved into the Greek and the context, and you're just pulling all of these resources together in one central place. And I really, I really did appreciate that.

Lydia

So. Right. I couldn't have done it without standing on the shoulders of these people that you've mentioned. And they are far better scholars, far more experienced than I have. What I bring to the table is a handy dandy reference book for misleading tactics. The 20 Categories of misleading tactics, because people think, well, how could our Bible be so you know, surely God preserved his Word, and we should be able to trust what we're reading in the English.

And so I'm trying to break it down to, okay, you know, here's a particular misleading tactic that's used in this passage, this passage in this passage, so that people can understand how this happened and, and understand why, you know, so that's what I bring.

Sheila

No, and I really appreciated how you broke down. Yeah. Just the different tactics that complementarian scholars will use to prop up male authority and male leadership even when it isn't properly in the Bible. And so I'm not going to mention all 20, I'm just going to read a bunch of them just so that our listeners can get a sense of what you're talking about.

But here are just a few number one, interpretive arguments that sound good but are actually illogical. And you have 12 examples. We'll be talking about one of them in a minute. Poor translations that obscure the best meaning. You have 11 examples of that widely repeated teachings that are not in the Bible. We have 11 examples of this. Can you give me an example right now, and do you have any, any quick ones that you could go to?

Lydia

Oh, like man was created before woman, therefore he has more authority or woman came from man, therefore he has more authority. And so if that's not actually in the text, then you can find another verse in the New Testament that explains why you know that's not true, right? Yeah. For some reason, it's just been said so many times that we just assume it's got to be in the Bible there somewhere.

Sheila

You know? You know, what's going to get me to be the idea that God chose Deborah because there were no men available.

Lydia

Right? Right.

Sheila

That's nowhere in the Bible nowhere, nowhere does it say that she was the last choice.

Lydia

You know.

Sheila

It never says that. But it's widely taught that Deborah was only chosen because there were no men. Okay. But translation of the feminine word to wives instead of women. You have two examples of that and a non-gendered singular pronoun into women, where it affects theology. Cherry picked verses which seem to limit women contrasted to neglected verses which empower women, five examples of that. A loss of a theological debate among fellow conservatives but leaving the erroneous theology in marriage books and seminary textbooks, which then impress tens of thousands of Christian laypeople and upcoming preachers. We'll talk about that one, too, because that's really super interesting. Addition or omission of a word or phrase which strengthens a restricted viewpoint for women, ten examples. Negative and uncompassionate assumptions about Bible females that interfere with exegesis good applications from the narrative. Nine examples of that, and so on and so on. So these are all the tactics that you're talking about in the book that complementarians often use. And it actually isn't a good way of interpreting Scripture.

Lydia

Right. You have to understand that when these things pile up and you get one little thing and another little thing, it's like a house of cards and you think you've got this big, strong house, but every single one of them is weak, and not one of them should be used to support the other. But they are.

Sheila

Yeah. And it matters. Like this stuff really matters. And you keep bringing it home to see how this affects regular people. But when women are not considered fully equal, that has repercussions on how women are treated. And it hurts women. And it also hurts men who aren't able to develop their characters properly because they lead entitled lifestyles. Like it hurts both, both genders.

And you open with a whole bunch of different stories that you've personally witnessed. Here's just one of them that I think a lot of our listeners can identify with.

Carol had an idea that she was excited about and brought it to her husband. He quickly said no, and when she tried to answer his objections, he told her that she was pushy out of line and unable to take no for an answer. Deflated and frustrated, Carol felt she must accept that her husband had the final say in all decisions, and it was her role to submit, even though she would have yielded to his wishes anyway. After a kind discussion, they often missed the opportunity for meaningful, patient and connecting conversations about life. Because her husband was taught that he must be a strong leader and on the lookout for when his wife might try to grasp his authority.

Lydia

Yeah.

Sheila

Yeah, that's what so many women like to experience and real intimacy is lost.

Lydia

It adds so much dysfunction, both in communication and intimacy and just relational health. It just throws a wrench into every aspect.

Sheila

So this affects real people. It affects marriages. It affects girls as they're growing up. And in trying to figure out their dreams for their life and whether or not they can pursue careers or whether they even have the right to make those choices, or whether the dad has to make that for them. It affects women who get married too young to bad men because they're pressured into it, because that's their main role.

You know, it affects women who are especially gifted, but then they aren’t given an opportunity to use those gifts and they're devalued or diminished. I mean, it affects us in so many different ways.

Lydia

Yeah. And I'd like to just emphasize how much it hurts men as well. You mentioned one aspect, but another one is that it puts all this pressure on them to where they feel defensive. You know, if you're questioning me I have to be right all the time. If I'm a good leader, I'm going to come up with all the right answers.

And if something bad happens or you're questioning me, then I'm not a good leader. I've got to prove myself, you know? And it. Yeah, just adds a whole lot of pressure and defensiveness. Yeah, absolutely. Nobody should carry that burden all by themselves to be the be all and end all for how everything goes in this marriage and family and yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sheila

The idea that a that a husband is held responsible if the wife falls away from Jesus or if the kids don't follow Jesus, that God is going to hold the husband responsible

Lydia

And if you say that enough, then the women also start putting it on them. They're like, oh, well, if it goes wrong, it's all on him, you know? And so then she abdicates her responsibility to study the word, to be in prayer, to do research and give good input and things like that because she's like, oh, well, it's on him, you know.

So then he feels that too. And it just goes back and forth. It just becomes a horrible, vicious, ugly cycle.

Sheila

Yeah, absolutely. Okay. So let's talk about a couple of principles of when you're trying to figure out what the Bible is saying and trying to figure out what the Bible is meaning by something. We hear so many people say, no, I just take the plain reading of scripture.

Lydia

Right? Yeah, that's oh my goodness, I've heard that so many times. And you know, there is nothing in the Bible that is plain or clear and doesn't need careful study and comparison to other scripture to work out apparent discrepancies. So to claim this issue is right there in plain English and in the Bible is inconsistent with all the study everybody puts into everything else.

Sheila

Yeah, because first of all, the Bible was not written in English.

Lydia

Right? He didn't fall out of the sky in English. Right? Right.

Sheila

And I love the people who say that about King James two, that it's an inspired word. King James Version is not inspired.

Lydia

Well, you know what? That's actually kind of racist too, because if you have to believe that the translators of the King James Version, these, these men, and in the Reformation era who were creating the, translating from the King James Version, that they had special revelation from God as they made this translation, what about every other translation in the world and every other language?

I mean, yes, we depend on the Holy Spirit when we do our work, but are we saying that these guys who translated the English Bible had more? You know, divine inspiration or something, you know, when you really stop to think about it, it's, you know, it was very English centric and Aryan.

Sheila

I never thought of that before, but you're right, it’s a very racist way of looking at it, isn't it?

Lydia

Right...

Sheila

Okay, so tell me the difference between translation and interpretation.

Lydia

So when you're translating, you're taking particular words in this language and trying to find the same meaning in the other language with the same words. But it's difficult because you don't have word for word, you know, you're going to have a Spanish word that's like an English word but just has a little bit a different connotation or nuance or something.

You know? So when you're translating from one to the other, you really have to think about what this person is trying to say, what are they? What is their meaning, what is in their hearers, what are they hearing? And I really had to think a lot about that in order to translate the correct meaning. And whereas people just think that, oh, just take this word and you know, and they talk about, well, this is a word for word translation, whereas this is a thought for thought.

I'm sorry. They're all thought for thought. If we, you know, if we try to do word for word, you'd have a very clunky and unintelligible translation.

Now interpretation is where you read the translation that has been given to you by the translator, and you interpret what you think that the translator was translating or was, was saying and we all bring our own interpretation to that, to, you know, I will read a word and it'll have an entirely different connotation and nuance and meaning to me than if you read the same word with your background.

And so, when people teach the word and they're reading this English translation and they don't understand some of that background of the translation, then they're more likely to put all kinds of their own interpretation onto the passage. And that's something to watch out for, especially if, you know, people are saying, well, this word, you know, if you break it down, here's the etymology of the word.

Well, you know, the word understanding doesn't mean to stand under. So we can't always look at etymology. You know, you have to really think about what was intended, how we know that's what it was intended, and so on. And be very careful with interpretation and realize that just because someone is a great teacher, and let's say someone is really well known to be a great teacher, and all these other areas does not mean that they're really, that they have a lot of experience and ability to interpret passages on another topic such as gender, you know, these, these issues, they may not have studied it well.

Sheila

Absolutely. Just one example. Okay. Here are two examples of how words change and how we have to remember that words change charity.

Lydia

Right?

Sheila

Right. Like First Corinthians 13 used to use the word charity. Right.

Lydia

And now we yeah. Now we think of it as giving money or, you know, we don't think of it as loving acts like they did.

Sheila

But yeah, like, like that's a very, very, very different, different thing. Another one is clean teeth. I thought that was super interesting. I'd never heard that before. But they use the phrase that they had clean teeth in the, in the prophets. And what did that mean at the time?

Lydia

Well it means that you're starving. You know we get, we think of clean teeth as wonderful hygiene. But when, if they had clean teeth that meant they had no meat. Then there in their diet, they had no meat stuck between their teeth. Right. And so that brings up a whole other subject. And that's idioms. And so that's a particular idiom people didn't know for a long time that that's what was meant by that idiom.

And, and we're still discovering documents from the first century, you know, Egyptian papyri and all that. That helps us to discover what idioms were and what people thought when they heard a particular phrase in the first century. And so we don't know that we know all the idioms, yet we're still discovering. So just because my grandfather, great grandfather, this wonderful preacher from the 1800s, you know, look at Jonathan Edwards or whoever, you know, surely they were great preachers, but they didn't have the information that we have, and we need to be willing to continue to learn what first century culture was about and about language. And we need to keep our minds open on that.

Sheila

Okay, I want to spend most of our interview talking about the latter part of your book about marriage, etc. but there's a few things that I want to talk about that are earlier in your book. So there's this one quote and it's an example of misleading tactic number one. And let me just read that, which is interpretive arguments that sound good but are actually illogical. Okay.

Lydia

Okay.

Sheila

And you talk about this with regards to how women are equal in value, but they just have different gender roles. And you say this; it is illogical to say that men and women are spiritually equal but have different roles but then say that one of these roles always has spiritual authority over the other. That's just illogical.

Lydia

It is. And, you know, if you're talking to, say, a pastor or something, it's you can't really say, sir, that is illogical because he's going to get defensive. But the truth is, so many of these things that are said, if you actually, you know, think about it, sit down and critically think about it. They don't make sense.

Sheila

Exactly. And you say this; you said simple logic and math says that there is either spiritual equality or there is no spiritual equality. If there is spiritual inequality in any area, such as one being over the other, then there is no spiritual equality.

Lydia

Right? I mean, I hate to repeat myself here, but I mean, we really do need to drive this home so that you can't say that there's equality and then say that there's no equality and, you know, have both be true.

Sheila

Exactly, exactly. Okay. I want to talk about another misleading tactic which was number six which I thought was super interesting. about when there's, there's a public debate on a subject. And the debate is largely won by egalitarians and complementarians even admit that they were wrong on this and yet they don't change their materials. And this is one of my huge, huge pet peeves, is that when we point out, hey this hurts people. They.

Lydia

Even admit and the data driven evidence that. Yes. Discovered. Yes. In the opposite direction. They won't retract it. Yeah.

Sheila

So, this debate that we're talking about happened largely in 2016. But it was, it was right around then there was that it came to a head in 2016. But it was grumbling for quite a while, and it was around. What you call the Eternal Functional Subordination Doctrine, I've usually talked about it as the Eternal Subordination of the Son Heresy, but it's the same. It's the same thing. But do you want to explain?

Lydia

They added the word function. Yeah. To try to soften it or change it a little bit. Again, another one of these deceptive tweaks.

Sheila

Yes. So can you explain that heresy or that debate?

Lydia

Okay. So people were saying, especially people like Wayne Groot, were saying that there was.

Sheila

And just for context, Wayne Grudem is one of the founders of the whole BMW, the Council for Biblical Womanhood. He wrote Recovering Biblical Manhood Womanhood with John Piper. He's the one who wrote the list of what is 93 or 87? Or however many things’ women aren't allowed to do in church, like.

Lydia

Yeah, yeah, okay. All right. Okay. So consider the source. Yes. Yes. Okay. So he comes and he starts teaching this hierarchy in the Trinity. And it kind of sounds logical when you first hear it because we think of when we say father, we think of a figure that's over the son. You know. So of course it seems like God the Father would be over the Son. And while Jesus was a human, he left many of his divine rights and abilities and submitted himself to the father as a human. And the Bible says he learned obedience. So that was for a particular time and season. But Orthodox Christianity has debated this for centuries. It led to the Nicene Creed and all the creeds of the fourth and fifth centuries, that there is not a hierarchy in the Trinity, that all three persons of the Godhead are equal.

They have the same will, and you can't divide them and say that they have different wills like God the Father says, Now Jesus, my will is that you go to the cross and Jesus is like, oh, you know, I mean, I'm talking like at the foundation of the world, right? Oh, I'm not sure I like that plan, you know.

But okay, I'm going to submit to you and go with that plan even though it's going to. No, that's not how having God the Father and God the Son came up with this plan together, and we're both in favor of it. Otherwise, you've got divine child abuse, you know. Yes. And then when Jesus was in the flesh, of course, he was like, wow, this is really hard.

And God is there with his father. Is there no other way? We do damage to the Trinity by putting that thinking on and the three persons of the Trinity for every other. I mean, it destroys everything that we believe in as far as our salvation. I'm sorry. I should probably not rattle off a bunch of theology words here, but, you know, soteriology, what we believe about God and man and what we believe about salvation, all of these things, there's damage done if you believe in a hierarchy in the Trinity. And so this was all re litigated in 2016 and 2017 and they backed off of it. But it's still in the systematic theology books and in many of these seminaries. And like the Southern Baptist seminaries, you know, there's six huge seminaries that are something like 20%. I probably should make sure I've got that right.

But new preachers are coming out of these seminaries, and they're led to believe that if they don't believe in a hierarchy like Trinity and thus a hierarchy in marriage, that somehow, they don't believe in God, that, yeah. Yeah.

Sheila

And it's interesting how those things are linked. And Beth Allison Barr has made this has made this case, I think, in her first book, The Making of Biblical Womanhood, that that the Arianism, phallus like heresy, the whole eternal functional subordination only came back relatively recently when Complementarianism needed a new way to argue that it was okay for women to be subordinate to men, because for centuries the argument was, well, women are inferior, so of course they're subordinate. But when you could no longer argue that women were inferior, you had to come up with a different argument.

Lydia

With a theological sounding reason. Right? Right. So it's just all this new sophistry that's actually not right. Yeah, exactly.

Sheila

So that's what they came up with is, well, Jesus is equal with God, but he's subordinate. So women can be equal with men but still be subordinate. So complementarians were willing to throw away a central doctrine of Christianity. They were willing.

Lydia

To, in order to maintain this power. Yes. Yes, it is horrifying. Yeah. And you know, not everyone who believes this is in on a great conspiracy. I don't want to say this. All of the wonderful men who are complementarians and you know, are trying to do their best. They don't know that they've also been deceived. And you know, I just want to make sure that people don't feel like we're just, you know, throwing a whole lot of people under the bus here. There's really just a few that have foisted this on a lot of people. Yeah.

Sheila

And, and in 2006, I mean, Kevin, was it Kevin Giles.

Lydia

Yeah.

Sheila

Yeah. Kevin Giles wrote a lot about this and really spearheaded the debate to make people see that this is a heresy.

Lydia

So yeah. And I, I really like Butner's book too because he avoids, you know, so many people that say, well, you're calling us Aryans and we're not. And, you know, they think that's the only argument and, and Butner brings it. He's like, okay, we granted that point. Let's not go into that anymore. Let's focus on the one will of all three persons. And so he kind of refocuses the argument where I think it really belongs.

Sheila

Yeah. And so that. Yeah. And so this debate was largely won in 2016, 2017. So did a lot of complementarians and theologians backing away from this that they had previously supported. And yet it wasn't taken out of books. And you gave the example.

Lydia

So we're still going to be encountering it for decades to come because of this.

Sheila

You gave the example of Timothy Keller's book The Meaning of Marriage and where he actually uses it, this, this.

Lydia

Concept, general subordination of a son.

Sheila

Yes. To justify why husbands are in authority over their wives and why wives are subordinate.

Lydia

And Kathy, his wife also, you know, referred to that. Yeah.

Sheila

And they didn't take it out even though it's still in there.

Lydia

Yeah.

Sheila

Even though this was largely.

Lydia

And Timothy Keller is a wonderful teacher and I just love his manner and, you know, so much of his teaching. And so I know I hate to be critical of him, but yeah, there's a terrible flaw here that really needs to be retracted.

Sheila

Yeah. And that's, that is probably like that is the one of the founding arguments in his book. Like, it's the foundational argument, I think, in his book about men and women's roles. So that is kind of scary. We've talked before in this podcast, too, about how there's some anecdotes they give about sex, which are actually quite harmful, which they never intended, but they just didn't understand what they were saying about sexual pain disorders.

And when it was brought to their attention before Tim Keller passed away, they just refused to change it, even though, you know, people said it. So I found that quite sad. So this is a common thing. Okay. So that's just one example of that particular misleading tactic. You go over so much about Jesus and about the church. But one of the things when you talk about all the abuses that have happened in and in the church and you talk about John MacArthur and James McDonald and the counsel for biblical men and womanhood and the sexual abuse crisis in the SBC and all of this, you said this.

Could it be that God is about to free women, to humbly lead countless micro churches? But there needs to be some housecleaning first, Christ will purify his church, even if it means public exposure of wrongdoing, whether it be moral or structural. Do you think that's what's been happening? Because this is what I feel like.

Lydia

I do, I am so excited about, for example, the revivals happening on these college campuses and, you know, notice unite us or Unite US. They are our women lead, you know, Jennie Allen and Tanya Pruitt, they're on the platform persuading these young people to come to Christ, give their lives to Christ. And yes, they bring a man up, usually a local pastor to lead in the salvation prayer or, or, you know, also speak, which is good because young men and women need to hear from both men and women.

But again, this is a huge movement led by women. And, you know, you have all these surveys coming out like the Pew Research Center, Arna, talking about how women are leaving the church or not in the church and what's wrong with these women? Everything. Wait a minute. Go look at crew. Go look at all these para church organizations and see the number of young women who are involved.

And I think that, yes, we've got perhaps more liberal young women than we used to, but we also have tremendous on fire women who are willing to give their all, but they need a place where they're free to do it. And so they walk into the church, and they see that they'll be marginalized here. Why would I throw 110% of my zeal and my fire here?

I can, you know, go to the lead thing at Cru or something. You know, that's what I see happening. And I think that I'm excited about the micro church movement, about realizing that we all don't have to sit in a big room and look at one man. You know, we can sit in small groups and I'll share. First Corinthians 14 says, when you come together, every one of you should bring, you know, teaching.

How can you do that in a group that's even over 50 people, you know? So all of these smaller groups, women led, but they're studying the Bible. People are growing, they're learning how to exercise their own faith and talk about it in this, in these smaller groups. I think that's a new thing. And God's doing a great thing.

And first he's got to get some of these big megachurches and, and, and scandal out of the way first.

Sheila

Yes, I think so too. And I do think God's been shaking the evangelical church for the last ten years, like just incredibly shaking it and bringing things to light and everything that can be shaken will be shaken, right? Like, you know, Ravi Zacharias, James MacDonald's like, all of these names have fallen because God will not be mocked.

Lydia

And, and there's these wonderful organizations that are talking about, well, how do you make sure that your church is above reproach and that everything is transparent and, and, and these are all very good things people need to, you know, look at I've listed them in the book. People need to use them. They need to question their church and make sure all these things are in place.

However, I keep hearing these people talk about, well, we've got to put everything on the table. We've got to look at the church and see what's wrong with it and what has gone wrong. And let's, let's consider everything and leave. Leave nothing on the table as you know. Well, they're leaving women on the table. They're not, you know, they're listing all of these things that are wrong and that need to be fixed and need to be watched. And empowering women is not on the list. Yes. And they're missing something that is huge.

Sheila

Yeah. It’s like, why do you think so many abuse scandals happen to you? It's because women aren't at the table.

Lydia

My goodness. Yeah, exactly.

Sheila

I also find it so interesting that when you look internationally, God is doing such a work with female leaders like Iran, in China, like the church, the church in so many nations is actually largely women led. It's growing like crazy, but it's because of women. And so, yeah, God's going to use his daughters.

Lydia

And you know, one of the, the podcasts that I love to listen to that is with the Kansas City Underground, one of the men who started the underground, he used to be one of the pastors at a megachurch, and he was sent on all these trips to India, and he was working with these people, and he would make return trips.

And he found that this, this little lady who had no formal education but was learning the Bible and going to all these little groups and teaching what she knew was basically pastoring a network of churches and he realized, I am crippling American women, you know, because they don't know that they could do this. And people look, we look at the, the, the senior lead pastor or teaching pastor, whatever church.

And we think, oh, he's such a good speaker. I could never do that. And but people look at this Indian woman and, and think, oh, I could do that. And that's what we need to do. Every one of us needs to feel empowered to do that. And so one of the things I love to do is when I'm visiting with a woman and she talks about the different people in her life that she might be trying to influence or help.

And I'm like, you are pastoring them. Don't let anybody take that title away from you. You are a shepherd to these people and I, I, I ordain you, pastor, but not receive that ordination from God and go ahead and formally be responsible for these people. Go ahead and be bold and bring them Scripture and realize that you have God who has given you a position there and pastor them.

Yeah.

Sheila

That's beautiful. Okay, let's get into how we look at some of the passages with regards to marriage, just simply because that's what we normally talk about here on Bare marriage. But I want to talk with Jesus first as the foundation. And you said this, we are assuming as we are looking at the Bible properly, you say we are assuming that Peter and Paul are disciples of Jesus, not the other way around.

Lydia

Right.

Sheila

And I love that. Explain why that's important.

Lydia

Okay. Well, so many times we take what's written in the epistles and apply it back on to Genesis or back on to Jesus, and we need to be doing the reverse. He's the one that came. God in the flesh and taught and demonstrated. And so let's just get the order correct. And so many times we cherry pick those verses in the epistles and then try to interpret the Gospels with them.

And yeah, that's backwards.

Sheila

Exactly. Yes. Jesus is the word we interpret Scripture through Jesus. Yes, exactly, exactly. Okay. So tell me about Jesus and how he elevated women. Can you give me some examples of that?

Lydia

Oh my goodness, you really have to look with fresh eyes at every single interaction that Jesus had with women, with fresh eyes on what the first century culture was. You know, I probably hear three times a year from a pulpit or some other place that the Samaritan woman you know was sleeping around or, you know, a woman of the world and, you know, that's just not in there. 

And the fact that Jesus had two longer theological discussions that are recorded in the gospel, one was with Nicodemus, and the other one was with the Samaritan woman, if you take the number of words. So he had this fantastic conversation with this woman. And the way the whole thing is cast is that and this came from John Calvin.

He portrayed the entire conversation as being mocking and questioning and trying to evade, you know, being found out for sin. And you know this. I'm sorry. There, when she realized that she's talking to a prophet, when he told her about her life, she could have asked him anything. she wanted to know. And the first thing she thought to ask him what she really wanted to know is, how can I worship in an accessible or acceptable way?

And I believe that God saw her heart and divinely made that appointment because of all the people in that region. She was the one who God said, hey, look at this heart. I'm going to bring her to Jesus, and she's going to be my first witness, that he's the Messiah. But after that point, every other person said, now don't say anything. Be quiet. Don't say who I am, don't say who you are. But he let her go and tell the entire city. Yeah, and you know, there's so many negative assumptions made about her that we just don't elevate her in that situation. You know, we're told that she came to get water at noon because she was ostracized by the town.

Where is that in the Bible? That is a huge assumption, a huge leap. You know, there's a dozen reasons why she could have needed water at noon, you know, but it's got to be because she's a prostitute, right? Yeah. So, yeah, just elevating women like this woman to go and evangelize a city, to be the first one to tell the world that the Messiah has come.

And it just gives me goosebumps, doesn't it?

Sheila

You are just so I love that. I absolutely love that. I also, I had never thought of this before, but what you said about the serial Phoenician Woman was so interesting. The one who came to Jesus and begged for help for her daughter. And they get into that weird conversation about, you know, throwing.

Lydia

The.

Sheila

Food to dogs, etc., etc. but the point that you made is this is the only time that he let someone else win a debate.

Lydia

And I have to give credit because I read that from a podcast called, We Who Thirst . The name is changed, but if you search, we have thirst. The girl's name is Jenkins, and the book was almost finished, and I had to make room for that because it was so incredible. She pointed out that, well, I had actually, I was taking a course in seminary on the book of Mark, and I just covered that story and I thought there were some odd things about it, and noticed that Jesus had just been talking to the disciples about how the Jews are not superior.

And so then they go to this next place, and he's actually trying to hide out from all the crowds, and they encounter this woman and, you know, everybody interprets this. Again, this is just an interpretation that's put on the passage. It's not really in there that Jesus is just ignoring her to test her faith, to see how hysterical she'll get.

And begging him, really? Is that how our Savior treats us? Let's not answer her prayer for a while. Let's just see how really desperate and hysterical she gets in crying out for me. No, I think that he's looking at the hearts of his disciples standing there with him and these other people standing there with him and realising, I can drive home this point and I'm going to let her draw a crowd. 

We're going to get a scene going here. Big Ole scene. You know. And then he says what they're thinking, and I think he's saying it with a twinkle in his eye toward her, maybe a little wink. So she knows I'm being sympathetic here, but I'm just verbalizing what all these dudes standing around here are thinking. This is a Gentile woman, and we do not throw the bread of children to the dogs because you know, they refer to them Gentiles as dogs.

And so Jesus says this, and, you know, and without understanding this context, we read that that man Jesus was kind of harsh. I mean, he's kind of rude, but no, he was verbalizing what they're thinking. And then she answers him, and this is what I learned. You know, the point that I got from Jenkins, because I wasn't in my seminary commentary that she, you know, refuted him.

And that's how they did it back then. They had the ripest post day refutation, you know, the back and forth when you're debating. And she says, no, my lord, even the dogs get the crumbs. And so he's also, you know, been trying to tell his disciples of the Gentiles that we'll get to have the kingdom as well.

And so he says, you're right. And so he sends her away with not only her daughter being healed. You know, what could he have done? He could have just said, okay, your daughter's healed and that's it. But he sent her away with the dignity of having debated him and won. And then he commanded her in front of everybody.

And that's how our Jesus is to us, every, every one of us. When we go to Jesus, he doesn't just see the thing that we're coming to him about. That's our big problem. He sees what we really need 2 or 3 layers down. And sometimes that's just a little affirmation and dignity to, you know, get up there and go do what? What I've called you to do, you know. So yeah, I love that.

Sheila

That’s beautiful. I love that I just never heard that interpretation. I think that makes a lot more sense. Yeah. Okay. So let's move on to the issue of authority because this is where everything really hinges. Right. Like absolutely, you know the complementarians and preach that one of the main purposes, the Christian life is to figure out who we're supposed to submit to and who is supposed to exercise authority, because if that is the big thing that Jesus was all about, which is so odd because Jesus actually expressly like, as explicitly as he possibly could, said the exact opposite, couldn't have.

Lydia

Being even clearer for those who love clarity, he says, do not exercise authority. And I've heard people say, well, he was just saying, have authority, but don't be a jerk about it, you know, you know, be nice about exercising. No, he actually said, do not lord over each other nor exercise authority over each other in my kingdom.

Sheila

Yeah, The kingdom of God does not have people going around being in authority over each other. And yet we have made marriage all about that. Okay, let me read this literally, this passage from your book. You're talking about authority and you and how Jesus says not to exercise it. It's not supposed to be about that. And you say, if we can't figure this out at home, how are we going to figure it out elsewhere?

Creating a practical and spiritual authority with two people in a marriage is contrary to the teaching of Jesus. It is unnecessary, harmful and a poor witness. If Christians cannot display mutual submission between just two people in a marriage, they are unlikely to be able to serve well elsewhere in Christendom.

Lydia

Right? And you know what kind of witness is that in the world? We can't even have two people together without hierarchy, or we just can't get along. Yeah. So what is that? What does that say about us?

Sheila

Exactly. And yet and yet we've made these huge doctrines about how men are in authority over women and, and how and I hear people say, well, how else are you going to make decisions if there isn't a tie breaker? Like it's impossible to function as equals. It's like you're telling on yourself, buddy, because the majority of people do it. If you can't function as equals with two people, just two people who are running after Jesus together, that's your problem that says something about you.

Lydia

You know? Yeah. Yeah. So this was really troubling me because I needed it, I felt like this was crucial to the entire topic. And so I did it in a seminary research paper. I did an entire study over where do we find the word authority in the Bible? What type of authority is it? Who's having authority exercised over them, or who's exercising the authority, and what kind?

And I was astonished by the results. I mean, I had pages and pages of every possible thing. And even in the church there's only two mentions of authority. And it's in Corinthians chapter ten and chapter 13, where Paul says that he has the authority to build up and not tear down. That's the only time he's saying, I have authority in the church.

So all these church leaders, even though we've bestowed this, these offices, unquote, on which is not actually even a biblical thing either. They are to be looking at humbly serving others with their words and their deeds, and then hoping the others will follow their example. That's the only authority that we have over a fellow human being. We have authority over the spirits of darkness. You know, we have authority over the world, over many things, but not over each other.

Sheila

Yeah. Yeah, that's really profound. And then when we look at the Ephesians five passages, which is what people often used to say, that men are in authority because after all, women have to submit. You said the common interpretation of Ephesians 5:22 is, well, yes. All you people out there submit to each other. Sure. But wives, you especially have extra submission for your husband, more than he has for you, or a different kind of submission than he has for you. Okay, why is that interpretation wrong?

Lydia

Okay, so there's so many misleading tactics done with that passage. I hardly know where to begin. I'll try to just keep it to what they did with verse 21 and 22 by dividing them where that phrase that said that you all should submit one to another, then it should continue, the sentence should continue and say, and wives to your own husbands, but instead they divided it.

They put a heading that says household coats, and then they have wives submit to their own husbands. So they've taken away the context that came before the entire chapter before, and the whole, which I won't get into, but they've taken away the context. And then they add the word back and submit back in there, which they can get away with, because that is what's meant.

The problem is it shouldn't be there because it was relying on the earlier word to submit, which means everyone is submitting in the same way. But adding it again just makes it sound like extra submission and maybe a different kind. And so yeah, the whole thing is very deceptive.

Sheila

Yeah, exactly. And I mean, I think people miss how revolutionary this passage actually was because you, Paul, is writing into this Roman culture where men literally have authority over their wives. They can murder them and they wouldn't be prosecuted like they own their wives

Lydia

Yeah.

Sheila

And into that, he says, submit to one another and right that he says, husbands, love your wives, and you need to give yourself up for her, and you need to give. You need to love her. Has your own body, and you need to do all of these things. And he spends far more time talking to the husbands than the wives. And, and, and I think we miss that because.

Lydia

We actually turn it on its head. Yeah. Because like what you're saying is the revolutionary part of this passage is that husbands were also being told to submit. But we make it, we pull it into today's context and make and actually go backwards with it and make it seem like women are to submit more, because we don't grasp the significance of men having been told all. Also to submit. And I think one reason why Paul might have said to your own husbands is because he was protecting them. I think it was probably a limiting exclusion, because otherwise, as we see even today, with all the scandals, men in power have the ability to get women to do things that they wouldn't normally do. You know, and women need to know, no, you don't have to submit to everybody you know, all those men out there to try to just rein it in to your own husband when in this whole mutual submission thing and, and then to, you know, the other women and stuff. So I think that, you know, Paul was very concise with his words sometimes. And I think that if you take that whole context in there, you realize he added that phrase to protect women, but instead we magnify that phrase and we just turn the whole thing on its head.

Yeah.

Sheila

I find the first Corinthians seven is so empowering to women as well, but it's actually weaponized against women. It's one of the most weaponized passages, like the whole, you know, the husband must fulfill his marital duties to his wife and the wife to her husband, for the husband does not have authority over his own body, but yields to the wife and likewise, you know, like but it's back and forth and, and the only time authority in marriage is explicitly mentioned. The only time decision making in marriage is explicitly mentioned in the New Testament is in First Corinthians seven, and which.

Lydia

Is.

Sheila

Mutual. It's completely mutual.

Lydia

Yeah, yeah.

Sheila

And yet we use that passage to tell women that men own their bodies and that women don't get to consent in sex.

Lydia

But they have to do it whenever the man wants him to, because you're not charging your own body and yeah, yeah, that's when the purpose of the passage was the mutuality of it. Yeah.

Sheila

Okay. Let's move on to the word, Head because this is a. Fun one. Controversial. And yeah. And I think there's, there's kind of like three different interpretations of head. You know there's, there's the one that the Eden Podcast uses which is that Kephale the Greek word for head, is it means literal head. So it's about the head body metaphor. It's just literally about unity. Right. Then there's people who look at it and say it means more like a source, like the head of a river. So it's like, it's like the husband is the one who takes the initiative, who does, does these sorts of things to support the wife and to, you know, to, to be life giving to her. And then there's the one that says that the husband is an authority. And of those three, the first two are logical. If you look at the actual Greek, the third is really a stretch. And yet that's the one that complementarians tend to.

Lydia

Well, you do know French right. Yeah. Okay.

Sheila

So well not perfectly but yes. Yes. Okay.

Lydia

But so do you, you know that the French don't consider a head to be a metaphor for the CEO or the boss or the head honcho. Yeah. So that was, that's huge. Yes. That was huge. Huge to me. Because you know it shows how we are taking our own. Just like the word charity. We're taking our own interpretation again here of this word and putting it onto the Greek instead of looking at how they used it and how, you know, if we go to Ephesians and look at how it was used.

Sheila

Yeah, I know Ephesians one Ephesians Four like over and over again, it's the head body metaphor, right?

Lydia

And it talks about how Christ is the head, the source of the body, who holds all the ligaments and everything together. And he is also overall things in the universe he’s supreme, you know. So to me, it's pretty clear that it's, it's using it in two different ways. And then for one thing, got Jesus as the head is the source.

He's and especially as you understand first century thought and Aristotle, you know, and all these guys, he thought, you know, even the semen came from the head. Everything that was the source and the provision. And to me that's beautiful. And that, yes, our husbands are often because, you know, we are weaker often in, in body and in and in situations where we're giving birth and caring for children and we all need a provider and protector.

And the fact that Jesus is our provider and protector is a separate concept than that Jesus is the supreme leader of, you know, the universe. And when we just mix that metaphor of the head into being the boss, we lose the entire beautiful picture of him being the source and the provider, and also how our husbands should view us as someone that they want to provide and protect. And we appreciate that. And we also bring our own assets to the table. Right?

Sheila

Yes. Because women's bodies naturally make us more vulnerable. They just do. Right? When we get pregnant, when we have babies, like, we just naturally are more vulnerable at times in our lives and men are not. And so they have the privilege of not having those vulnerabilities so that they can care for us and in our most needy times, like, yeah, that that's just biology, right, right.

Lydia

And but unfortunately, God knew this would happen, that men would take advantage of that, of that superior physical strength instead of saying, okay, the disparity here helps us to find some ways that I can contribute, and you can contribute and we help each other. They look at it as, oh, I'm physically superior here. Therefore I can dominate and in Genesis 3:16, when God told Eve of the three worst things that are going to happen to you because of the fall and sin in the world, one of them is that men will dominate women.

Yeah. And so this is no surprise to God. So why are we surprised when someone like me when I come home says, hey, there's been some misleading tactics used here in order to preserve power and domination. People like, whoa, what are you saying? Honorable? You know, but no, this is not a huge problem. This is not a shock to us that men have done this.

Yeah, I don't want to say all men are terrible or anything, but there have been a few who have done what they needed to do to maintain the status quo, the power. And yet, sadly, here we are. Here we are. Yeah.

Sheila

I want to bring attention to one thing that you point out with regards to head too, because this is really important because of what often happens in the comment section on Facebook for me. But you said this, you said the LSJ. Greek English Lexicon, which is the most exhaustive ancient Greek lexicon in existence. List 48 possible metaphoric meanings for Kephale, which is this Greek word for head that we're talking about, and not a single one of them is authority.

Now here's what's important. The LSJ Greek English lexicon is not primarily about the Bible text. It's about Greek literature, the secular dictionary.

Lydia

Right. It's a secular lexicon.

Sheila

And when Paul was writing, there wasn't Scripture. So when he was writing, he was writing in Greek to people who knew Greek and who spoke it based on, like, all this other Greek stuff and their culture. Yes. Right. And so the point here is that when we look at lexicons, that look at the meaning of words that are in Greek literature, all Greek literature at the time Kephale doesn't mean authority.

But when you look at Strong's Concordance, which is the Christian one, and people are forever leaving screenshots of this in my comments, Strong's says that it means authority, but this is a decision that Strong's has made and it's circular reasoning they're saying, because it says that that men are in authority over women in first Corinthians 11.

Lydia

And then this word has authority.

Sheila

It means authority, you know.

Lydia

Right. And there's several places in my book where I point out that these translation decisions were made based on ideology. Yes, yes. And they let their ideology affect their choices in their translation rather than just translating it and letting the translation affect their ideology.

Sheila

And so I just want people to hear that, like when you look at secular Greek literature at the time, Kephale did not mean authority. It is only when Wayne Grudhum and other Christians try to make it mean authority that they make all these arguments like it's not based on secular, on the literature that was there when Paul was.

Lydia

Right at that time. And it didn't take too terribly long for that to evolve. And there are but they're mostly military examples. And so they're much later. I mean, my goodness, I listen to this exhaustive stuff about all of the church fathers and how, you know, it was used in their times. And right there, we're talking five, 600, some 800 years after. Yeah. You know, Paul wrote this. I'm sorry. Let's stick with the first century and what his audience understood it meant

Sheila

Well, one of the funniest things I read was like, in a thousand years, when people are looking back over today, they're not going to know the difference between butt dial and booty call.

Lydia

Like. Oh my goodness. And you know, The choices again. It happens so much like first Timothy 2:11 and 12 when he's talking about, I do not permit a woman to teach for three reasons from the Greek why that should be. I do not right now permit this woman, a particular woman. I think that he had in mind to teach.

And if we, you know, I'm sorry, just pick a dozen other doctrines where you would have three reasons why it should be translated. You know, this way, it would be. But because this particular passage is about this topic, I'm sorry, I'm just a little suspicious that it doesn't say right now because it's this topic and they don't mind throwing in a little confusion there.

Yeah, yeah.

Sheila

Yeah, especially when in that passage there's a word that's not used anywhere else and that's authentein.

Lydia

Authentein, Yes, yes. Yeah. It's just not at all fair. I mean, the inconsistencies and the. Yeah, the misleading tactics are. Yes. They're just me. I think I came up with 124 in my book, and I stopped because the book can only be so long. But, you know, the 20 categories of misleading tactics that I numbered and then the number of examples add up 124. But there yeah, there could be more. Yeah.

Sheila

It's crazy. Okay. So one of the theological points you make with regards to this head thing is you said that like in Ephesians when God is using or when Paul is using this head body metaphor, the whole purpose of it is that Jesus elevates the church to do his work on earth with his full authority. So you ask this, does complementarian teaching elevate wives to minister in every way with full authority? Or do they say I do the important work and you do the lesser work and support me?

Lydia

Exactly. And so we're missing this huge concept. I mean, Jesus said, I'm going back to heaven. The father and you are all going to do greater things than I have done. And where do you see that? And so, you know, if somebody thinks they're a church leader, this is what they should be saying. Hey, let me help you and elevate you so you can do even bigger, greater things than I'm doing, you know, do we see that in complementarian circles?

No. It's sad. Yeah, exactly. But we're missing. We're missing God's heart here in the whole thing. And it's just astounding that the God of the universe would do this for us. And we're missing it.

Sheila

Yeah, yeah, we're missing the whole point of the passage. We're missing the whole beauty. I know I had Marg Mowczko a couple of months ago, and she was talking about this, too, like we're missing the whole beauty. Of what? Of what Paul is writing about, what Jesus is trying to do for us.

Lydia

Marg Mowczko put me on to this. And when I first read what she wrote about, you know, God is elevating us and inviting us onto the throne with him. I was like, what? And I kept checking it. Check it out. I just started bawling and I went to sleep thinking about waking up. I woke up thinking about it and I was just like this concept and so I just appreciate her work so much. I just, you know, gotta give her kudos. Tell everybody to go to margmowczko.com. Yes. We need to spell that. Put it here.

Sheila

Yes, I will put it on the podcast notes. It's MOW gosh I don't even know how to do it. It's like a memory for me typing, I think. Right. Mowczko

Lydia

Yeah, oh so yeah because I do it constantly. Yeah. Yeah. So any questions you have about her website are just exhaustive but so again I feel like I'm not the scholar that she is. But I just organize some of this information differently to present it in a way that I grew up in these circles, and I know what the opposition is, I know what they're, what they say, what they think to everything. And so I feel like I can answer it like, you know, I but the prohibitive passage is the qualification passages, you know, and I, I know how they frame those and what, what, how we need to counter them. Yeah.

Sheila

So tell me how complementarianism hinders the gospel today.

Lydia

Let's go with five reasons. Okay my brain is like, oh, there's so many ways. Well half the church is held back from fully participating in using their gifts and to bless their homes and communities. Yes, there are some women who are especially good and gifted at taking care of children and women's ministries. And yes, they need to do that. And I'm not saying that their work is less important, but they are also, there are women who are gifted in other things where they should be freed to lead. So the church suffers and which means homes and communities are suffering. And second, again, these younger women who are in a society who affirms them every day that they are equal to men, walk into a church and realize that they will be marginalized there and so they're not participating in the organized church. And so that's, I think, the gospel.

Sheila

I think we missed the significance of that, honestly, that the church is the only place today where women will be told that you're less than. Like thinking about how horrifying that is, right?

Lydia

That when you grew up like me you just took it in stride. But when, when you grew up completely free, you walk in and you see only men doing certain things and having these positions and you know, it doesn't, it doesn't take long to feel like, oh, I'm not really wanted here, I'm not really appreciated or I'm not going to be enabled to really do all I'm capable of. God’s gifted me to do this. So I'll take my giftings elsewhere. So and then third, women are mistreated emotionally, spiritually, and even physically abused by men who go overboard with the belief that they're responsible before God to control their wives and other people. You know, and that's just an unspeakable tragedy. So when our marriages are not healthy, because all of this is going on, the spiritual abuse, like you must because of this. And that is very it's repulsive and it makes the gospel repulsive. So that hinders the gospel. And then we got to talk about missions. You had the missionary kid on recently. That was a fun interview. I think I heard it the first time too, but when missionaries take this message and it's been half it's been called out for a long time now.

There's a book, it was by Jane McNally, published in 1999. She was a missionary in India, and her book is called abuse. And this is a long title because there's 1999 Abuse of Christian women in India and Remedy in 12 Biblical Studies on Equality of Man and Woman. And so she spent her life in India noticing how this discriminatory society, you know, this long held that when Christianity is brought, the men just like, yeah, we're familiar with that, you know, I mean, back when the British colonized India and they stopped the sortie, the Hindu practice of burning a woman on her husband's funeral pyre, that was a good contribution.

But then they also brought this submission of women as what they believe was taught in the Bible. And so they actually perpetuated the long held discriminatory attitudes in that country. And so McNally, she uses much softer language, you know, than we would use today. We would say, now that was spiritual abuse. But she says that this book is attempting to uncover problems that, where there are where there is theological and institutional mistreatment within Christian homes and communities, you know. Yes. Oh, nice. You know, you know, but just basically, we're women were mistreated and held back and she's like, oh, we're not we're not helping the gospel here. And so missions are a huge thing. And you can find lots of more current examples. But I just picked that one because I, I, I was impressed that here's someone talking about it before the turn of the century even.

Yes, yes. And then finally, you know what we were talking about a few minutes ago, that possibly the biggest tragedy is just that our view of God has suffered, and the character of God is misunderstood and maligned, affecting the work of every believer. And it leads to other erroneous doctrines which I shall not mention right now, because that would be like opening another can of worms here.

But what you believe in your view of God, and how harsh he is, and you know, would God subject half of humanity to the other half? If you have no problem accepting that you have no problem accepting a number of other things that are even worse and that are Unbiblical. But you'll find reasons. You find reasons for this in the Bible and find reasons for that in the Bible.

And I see some of these things on social media where these people are just mocking Christianity. And I'm like, okay, I'm just a chump. And they just say one thing that's not the real gospel, that's not the real Christianity that's called and I give it a name and then back out and like, I'm going back again. But this is heartbreaking.

It does impede the gospel. Yeah.

Sheila

So what advice would you give to women or men who are in complementarian churches? Because I have so many people writing to me desperately wanting to like, give their pastor the magical thing that will make their pastor understand that women are equal. What do you think?

Lydia

I think that it that's a really uphill battle that's, you know, pushing a rock uphill and that unless a man is open to it himself and willing to look into it himself, I mean, it's helpful, I think, for him to hear it a few times, for him to be have questions, you know, for people just kind of just be given little quick things to help them realize there could be some holes in the argument, like, wait a minute.

The husband and one wife thing were also used for deacons, but Phoebe was called a deacon, so that can't mean that women, you know, can't be deacons because they can't be a husband. You know, just throw something really quick like that out once in a while to help you know them, understand that there's some logical problems there.

But trying to persuade these poor guys, they have a lot against them. And coming out there, they often try to run a church. They've got, you know, 20 hats that they're wearing and to go out, go over and study this unless it's a high priority to them, they're not going to do it. They have no motivation to do it.

I mean, why should I share my power, you know, and they have no one who wants to come out with them? Well, I've changed my beliefs on this. And now all my friends and other preacher friends and they all are going to, you know, say I've gone off the deep end and leave me and reject me and question everything else I teach.

You know, who wants to throw a hand grenade into their career? You know, they just have no motivation to even investigate this. And so once in a while I'll, you know, run into a man who will express his beliefs on this. And I'm just stunned. And it's because God moved in their heart and they listened. Their hearts were soft enough to listen.

And so they decided whatever the answer is, I'm going to look into it. And they honestly did the work. And it is work. It is. It's not easy you know, like I said, there's just so many passages that you have to address. So I would not have high expectations that you could hand your pastor a book and that that would be the magic bullet, because there's so many other things going against him.

But you can pray for him, and you can notice the men that you do meet who do seem to have an opening or a soft spot or they get the guy who doesn't perhaps soften their heart and are ready to hear. But yeah, I don't, I don't go beat your head against the wall.

Sheila

Yeah, yeah. It's okay to shake the dust off your feet. And if you're in a church where the pastor just won't listen, maybe it's time to leave that church, too. You know, God's doing great things, and we need to go where God is moving. And I think God is. God is moving in some amazing ways, maybe outside of the mega-church structure too. So.

Lydia

Right. Yeah, yeah.

Sheila

And of course, if you do meet someone who is open, give them Bible Truth for Women by Lydia Grace.

Lydia

It's called the Bible Truth About Women.

Sheila

Oh, sorry. The Bible truth about women. Yes.

Lydia

The Bible Truth About Women: What they don't tell you. Yeah. Yeah. Great. And right now when you go to Amazon you have to put even in my, you have to put my name and even to get it to come up. But my hope is that enough people will search for it, so that it'll start showing my show to more people. And that's how we can get the word out is, is getting those algorithms going there on Amazon?

Sheila

Yes. So it launches next month. We believe in February. And so this is out a little bit early. But you can really help get this book moving and get it moving up the algorithm if you preorder it. I can't tell you how much preorders help authors. And so we're actually going to air this episode before the book officially launches so that you can put it in your cart.

You can pay for it now on Amazon or wherever else you order it. We'll have the links in the podcast notes.

Lydia

And well, and you can also get it if you're an e-book person, you can get the e-book now and you can leave a review. And my goal is to get 50 reviews in the month of January at least, and kind of get again, that helps with the algorithm. Yes. And then you can also go to my website, LydiaKaiser.com and sign up for our newsletter.

And you learn more tips and things about this and in ways that you can help spread the word so that when the book comes out, we can launch big and get it out there.

Sheila

Awesome. So we'll put all those links in the podcast notes. And yeah, this is just a book. The people, the people need to read. I think it's extremely helpful. It covers all the big arguments and all the big ways and brings in what's currently going on too, in churches. And it's just really helpful. So take a look at Bible Truth About Women, Lydia Grace Kaiser and wherever, wherever books are sold, I'll put the link there and you can help get this book moving.

And then hopefully we'll see it make a real difference, because I know that's your prayer for it. Lydia.

Lydia

Yes, I see so many of you who have blazed a trail, and you've taken some hard hits coming out in front and you're putting out the data driven evidence and other people who are approaching this in different ways. And I feel like this is just one of those missing pieces to the puzzle. And if we all work together here, we can make a difference.

Sheila

Yeah, exactly. Well thank you, Lydia. We really appreciate having you on.

Lydia

Thank you for having me, Sheila.

Sheila

I'm so glad Lydia could join us. Honestly, this is a really, really important book. And please take a look. I've got the link in the podcast notes when you preorder it, it just helps her a ton. And then as soon as it's ready, as soon as it's out, you'll get it that day and you'll be able to enjoy it and really benefit from it too. Because we need to change church. We need to get back to what Jesus wanted. And this has implications for our marriages, for our families, for our churches and our communities. We just need to get healthy. And so take a look at that book. Take a look at some of our playlists on the Bare Marriage Podcast and of course, our books, The Great Sex Rescue and The Marriage You Want are always there.

So thank you for joining us. We'll see you again next week on the Bare Marriage Podcast. Bye bye.