Today's Heartlift with Janell
Sometimes the story we tell ourselves is not really true. Sometimes the story others tell about us is not really true. On "Today's Heartlift with Janell," Author, Trauma-informed, board-certified marriage and family specialist, and Professional Heartlifter, Janell Rardon, opens conversations about how emotional health and mental fitness effects absolutely every area of our lives. When we possess and practice healthy, strong, resilient emotional health practices, life is so much better. Read Janell's newest book, "Stronger Every Day: 9 Tools for an Emotionally Healthy You."
Today's Heartlift with Janell
321. True Mothering Extends Beyond Biology, Part 2
Dr. Sandra Glahn shatters misconceptions about the goddess Artemis of Ephesus and reveals how cultural context transforms our understanding of biblical passages about women's roles in the church and family.
• Artemis was not a fertility goddess but actually "nobody's mother" – a virgin huntress who was known for killing women and children.
• Artemis worship dominated Ephesus during Paul's ministry there, influencing the spiritual climate he addressed in letters like 1 Timothy.
• Paul's instructions in 1 Timothy address false teachings circulating in house churches, potentially connected to Artemis worship.
• Paul never directly attacked Artemis by name but presented Jesus as better – a wise approach for engaging culture.
• Women were created to multiply, mother, and rule – but multiplication isn't limited to biological reproduction.
• The Genesis command to "be fruitful and multiply" is never repeated in the New Testament; instead, we're commanded to multiply disciples.
• Women like Lydia, Priscilla, and Phoebe were key church leaders without mentioning children.
• Deborah "arose a mother to Israel," showing mothering as a broader concept of spiritual nurture and leadership.
Order Sandra's new book: Nobody's Mother
Visit Sandra's website: Dr. Sandra Glahn
Begin Your Heartlifter's Journey:
- Visit and subscribe to Heartlift Central on Substack. This is our new online coaching center and meeting place for Heartlifters worldwide.
- Download the "Overcoming Hurtful Words" Study Guide PDF: BECOMING EMOTIONALLY HEALTHY
- Meet me on Instagram: @janellrardon
- Leave a review and rate the podcast: WRITE A REVIEW
- Learn more about my books and work: Janell Rardon
- Make a tax-deductible donation through Heartlift International
As I've listened to the stories of thousands of women of all ages in all kinds of stages through the years, I've kept their stories locked in the vault of my heart. I feel as if they've been walking around with me all through these years. They've bothered me, they've prodded me and sometimes kept me up at night. Ultimately, they've increased my passion to reframe and reimagine the powerful positions of mother and matriarch within the family system. I'm a problem solver, so I set out to find a way to perhaps change the trajectory of this silent and sad scenario about a dynamic yet untapped source of potential and purpose sitting in our homes and churches. It is time to come to the table, heartlifters, and unleash the power of maternal presence into the world. Welcome to Mothering for the Ages, our 2025 theme, here on today's Heart Lift. I'm Janelle. I am your guide here on this heartlifting journey. I invite you to grab a pen, a journal and a cup of something really delicious. May today's conversation give you clarity, courage and a revived sense of camaraderie. You see, you're not on this journey alone. We are unified as heartlifters and committed to bringing change into the world, one heart at a time. Hello, heartlifter, and welcome to part two of my conversation with Dr Sandra Glahn. She's a professor of media arts and worship at Dallas Theological Seminary, where her emphases are first century backgrounds related to women, culture, gender and the arts. She has authored or edited more than 20 books. Yes, she has.
Speaker 1:In our first conversation well, actually it wasn't a conversation I shared from Sandra's introduction in her new book Nobody's Mother, artemis of the Ephesians in Antiquity and the New Testament.
Speaker 1:I am beyond honored to be having this conversation with Dr Sandra and for her giving us her time and energy and particularly sharing her story in such vulnerability and authenticity her struggles through infertility and how that led her on a journey to understand God's view of women and of mothering.
Speaker 1:She writes one must never think the US women's movement single-handedly introduced the idea that women belonged in the public, vocational, ordained ministry of the church. To say such an impulse started in the United States or that it started with feminism misrepresents history. It was not the feminist teachings of the past few decades that first spurred Christians to argue for women in public ministry. In fact, the impulse began in the church on the day of Pentecost, when a sign of the Spirit not a sign of male failure, not a sign of male failure was the public proclamation of men and women together, proclaiming that God was doing a new thing. So if women once held church office, what happened? Wow, her writing is so, so empowering, so, heartlifter. We're going to just stop there. I know I want to keep digging, but I want to get into my conversation with Dr Sandra.
Speaker 2:So let's welcome her to the show.
Speaker 1:Sandra. Oh, my goodness, this book Nobody's Mother. Oh, what a great title. Artemis of the Ephesians in Antiquity and the New Testament. Well, the subtitle is overwhelming for all of us. Well, I can say I'm a wannabe academic, I have been called, I have been told by a male pastor. I can't, I am not a scholar.
Speaker 1:I can't teach on the book of Ezekiel. I remember being in the church when he said that to me and I would now know what I would say, but then I was not where I am today and I just felt this small, you know, because when you're told these things enough, you start to believe them and then you know that I'm just a practical theologian, I'm not really a scholar.
Speaker 2:Just Just. Jesus was just a parable teller.
Speaker 1:I don't even know what that means, but I have since really denounced myself as an academic. But I'm not. I am not. I am an academic. We all are wannabe academics. We all are very wise, and you are here to affirm that in us. Nobody's mother. Where did that come to you?
Speaker 2:Where? Where did that come from? Where, yeah, so why would I care who Artemis of the Ephesians is?
Speaker 1:Why would you care?
Speaker 2:So the first place where that comes from is correcting just the simply wrong idea that Artemis is a fertility goddess, and that also which is rooted in the idea that she's a nurturer, which if you read Homer, that's laughable. Like she's killing children and women Massacring. Yeah, massacring, wow. So yeah, she's not a friend to woman, she is. I mean, I love Wonder Woman, but for sure, artemis, no, it's not that. No, itis, no.
Speaker 1:It's not that.
Speaker 2:No, it's not that. She's not that, but Wonder Woman is based on her. We borrow some things from her, like her bow and arrow and her short skirt so she can run better, and her hunting and her commitment to not marry yeah.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, yeah yeah, because she is known. She was known as the goddess who worshiped in the ancient world, but the twin sister of Apollo, the goddess of hunting and wilderness and the protector of unmarried girls. So you're coming to denounce that and just say we read about her just so everybody knows we do read about her in Acts 19. We do.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So you're like what does that have to do with the Bible? Well, it has a lot to do with the bible, actually. So, and particularly to the question of what that pastor told you about ezekiel and women teaching, it's actually um so well, you asked a question. Well, who's nobody's mother? Artemis is nobody's mother. She's not not a fertility goddess, she's not a nurturer. Who is she at the time of the earliest Christians, in Ephesus? Well, in the same way that there's a stereotypical Barbie and there's a weird Barbie, but they got the same backstory, artemis generically is who you just described. Who is Artemis of the Ephesians? If we look at Acts 19 and the big brouhaha that happens in Ephesus relating to her, they are not chanting for two hours. Great is Artemis. They're chanting.
Speaker 1:Great is Artemis of the Ephesians, of the Ephesians and heartlifters. I'm just going to lean in here for a moment and say stop listening and go read Acts 19, because I needed to. It's been a while. I know the name Artemis, but in preparing to talk with you, sandra, I was like, okay, this is why I do this show just for me, so I can become an intellectual Good for you. Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's reason to learn right, right.
Speaker 1:I love to learn, and so I think it would be wise to stop and read Acts 19. Okay, and then come back to us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so if you open 1 Timothy, the first letter of Paul to Timothy, chapter 1, just verse 3. Yeah, got it right here, Paul says to his protege Now, this is a personal letter, this is not a letter to the church, but he says to Timothy I left you in Ephesus to teach certain people, not to teach false doctrine.
Speaker 2:So then, when you ask, well, what's going on in Ephesus? We don't have to start with the inscriptions, we don't have to start with the temple of Artemis, slash Diana, although those are helpful. We can go straight to Acts 19, and it gives us a whole lot of information about the spiritual climate in Ephesus in the first century, and I think we have probably focused in evangelicalism at least too much on Rome in the first century, which Rome's an important city, but Paul is spending a couple of years in Ephesus, huge harbor city. It's like New York Harbor in that a lot of ships are coming in and out, and so it's the center of commerce, even if it's not the capital, it's the center of wealth, even though it's not the capital, and so Paul sees that as completely strategic.
Speaker 2:He can grab a boat, he can walk a whole lot.
Speaker 1:He has great access.
Speaker 2:It's a crossroads, so he sets himself in Ephesus and we know from Acts 19 and, of course, from archaeology and inscriptions, that the Temple of Artemis is enormous and central to the city, in the same way that Bethlehem is connected with the birth event of Jesus.
Speaker 1:Yes, ephesus, and you've been to Ephesus I have. You've been there A number of times, yeah, a number of times.
Speaker 2:The Ephesus is connected to the birth event of Artemis and Apollo, but actually you can't find Apollo anywhere because it's really her city. So let me put a pause on that and let's get some backstory, because that will be relevant. So we read Homer because you know so Homer's a great guide on some do.
Speaker 2:One reads Homer to find out what the gods and goddesses are up to. Yeah, so he, as the story goesemis, is the daughter of zeus, so zeus is married to harrah, but zeus is a cheater slash, rapist, slash, womanizer. In fact, my, my editor, said your next book should be zeus, everybody's father, zeus in antiquity. Oh, my god, you should are you going to?
Speaker 2:except that I don't want to spend a couple years on zeus, but anyway, go with me on this. So Zeus cheats on his wife Hera who's very powerful, by the way, with Leto. Leto conceives twins, and when she goes to give birth, nobody in the empire wants to give her shelter, because nobody wants to hack off Hera, right. But she finally finds a friendly place right outside of Ephesus.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:Artemis is born first. Gods and goddesses are like little bonsai people in that they have full use of their faculties, they're fully mature. They're just tiny. They're not like cherubs or babies, right? So she is born little and she accompanies her mother for nine more days as mom writhes in pain, giving birth to Apollo.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:So then we see her going to sit on daddy Zeus's knee and stroking his beard which is the equivalent to batting your eyes at your dad and getting your way. And he says what can I give you, dearest? You know, I'll give you harbor cities. I'll give you 30 cities. In fact she said you know what, I'm not really that interested in cities. Make me always a virgin, immune to Aphrodite's errors. I don't want to do love or sex. She doesn't hate men, she just really protects her virginity and has even been known to kill somebody who accidentally comes upon her bathing. All right, and so Artemis is born first. Her brother is born nine days later. But Artemis in Ephesus is very connected to midwifery and the birth of it, in the same way that if you go to New York Harbor today and you see the Statue of Liberty, then you can go to Paris and you see the same statue. But only one of those cities has a connection with immigration.
Speaker 2:So, in one city, a god or goddess could take on a very local flavor. We see something similar with the Virgin of Guadalupe relating to Mary. You know the Virgin Mother. Same backstory but a very different manifestation.
Speaker 1:Oh, I think that word's key manifestation yes manifestation.
Speaker 2:yeah, so if you were to walk into the temple of Artemis in Ephesus, you would see both statues of both. You would see the short skirt flanked with deer or hounds, but then you would see this bizarre-looking, I don't know, bee-like creature with mummy-looking legs and she's got a crown on her head. That is the city walls to show what she protects or is the savior of. She has bees on her legs, which the bee was the sort of image mascot kind of Ephesus. It was certainly the visual image you had of the city. And so Artemis of the Ephesians is not just worshipped in Ephesus, she is worshipped all over the empire. I saw one of those bizarre bulbous appendage. You know manifestations of her in Jordan. In Jordan, I mean, it was all over and people would come from all over the empire to worship her, bring gifts to her, or, if you were super rich, you would bring your money to be guarded in her temple, because there's no such thing as a central bank system and you know your money's at risk of being stolen.
Speaker 2:So the city's wealthy. Her temple's amazing when you're sailing into the city. Back in the time of Paul you would have seen it for miles away glistening. Today that water is all silted in and you have to take a tour bus to.
Speaker 2:You know to get into the interior, but at the time it would have just taken your breath away. It's like four times the size of, you know, the Acropolis, parthenon in Athens, like it was just enormous. So back to Acts 19. We know two major, major influences there spiritually, but as it turns out they morph. The first is the magicians in the city have a big hold on Ephesus and because of Paul's gospel work they have the first bonfire of the vanities and they come and bring all their very expensive magic gear. And we're not talking magician-like magic tricks, we're talking the occult.
Speaker 1:We're talking potions, very serious.
Speaker 2:We're talking curses yes, and they become Christians and they trash it all and burn it.
Speaker 1:When I reread that this morning, I was just like gosh this makes. Why have I never heard this? This is where I'm always here and it's like why this is why I do this podcast because it's like why have I never heard this? I've been walking in my faith forever, you know, and it just adds such clarity and relevance even to today.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:So they're burning, they're burning, they're coming they're finding Jesus. Yes, and Jesus changes lives they're finding Jesus. Yes, and Jesus changes lives, changes cultures, radically.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So the other thing we see is this brouhaha over Artemis. So basically you have all these silver workers and it's a huge pilgrimage tourist business, but the gospel starts cutting into the financial trade and that really ticks off the silver workers and, interestingly enough, when they all gather, they they chant for two hours. You know, paul wants to run in there and his friends are like no way, don't even tear you to shreds, and so they keep him out. But the city clerk comes in and he says basically, look, these people have not blasphemed the goddess, which is very interesting, because some have said to me how can you say that Artemis is the background of First Timothy if Paul doesn't ever say her name? Well, paul doesn't mention the names of gods and goddesses, he calls them things made with hands. Right, that's right, as opposed to, you know, jesus, who's manifested the flesh? You do the math. He's very. He's casting shade on Artemis all the time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I know that now. I know that now.
Speaker 2:But he doesn't get himself arrested or torn to shreds because of saying Wise and shrewd to me. It is incredibly, so incredible. Exactly, but also, you know, paul is no-transcript, he's in athens and he has the, the temple of athena behind him and again and Zeus right below him. But he says I see that you're religious. You're like no jive headline right there. But again, he doesn't mention their names and he's very careful to not offend their religious sensibilities. Instead of saying your God sucks he presents Jesus is better.
Speaker 2:It's the God who's nearer. It's the God who's near.
Speaker 1:It's the God who, well, he is proclaiming the truth and not giving credence to the lie. Is that fair? Exactly, that's completely fair, boy. That is something we can make very relevant today. Heartlifters lean into that. Listen with wisdom here. This is such wisdom. I'm learning so much Okay.
Speaker 2:So you have Jerome, a church father in the fourth century who reads this, removed from the events. He has seen the manifestation of the statue with bulbous appendages all over her chest and he thinks they're breasts. They're in sort of the statue with bulbous appendages all over her chest and he thinks they're breasts. They're in sort of the right place for breasts, although they are very low on. You know, it's more like your stomach, but also she has. If you look closely at the neckline on some of the statues, it's the same exact shaped form. It's just much tinier and so more likely maybe more like a breastplate. We also see some statues where her face is ebony, her hands are ebony, her toes are ebony, but everything else is marble, which suggests it's something she puts on rather than her skin.
Speaker 2:So there are a couple, you know, and it's also missing some, shall we say, you know, essential detail for breasts. So for all these reasons it's very unlikely that these are breasts. But that's where the logic came from. If something has many breasts and in the West today we particularly associate breasts with mothering and nurturing, For sure, Therefore she must be a fertility goddess, she must be a nurturing fertility goddess, Right when there's absolutely no evidence in the backgrounds, in the inscriptions, in really anything other than later commentary looking back that assigns that to her. Now, jumping forward, our best guess today is that we know that there was a huge Hittite influence and most Westerners are not that familiar with the Hittites and their culture.
Speaker 2:Right, we're much more familiar with the Roman culture, so that's what we assign to Artemis. It's in the Roman Empire, but this is Anatolia. Much more likely there was a Hittite influence and we think that those are probably magic sacks she is wearing on her chest or investment. And then you start saying, oh, we thought the the magic and the artemis were disconnected, but they're in the same chapter of acts 19 and I found an inscription that did link them and so it's entirely possible it's all part of the same soup. Yeah, so what does that have to do with that pastor who told you you couldn't teach Ezekiel?
Speaker 2:Well, if you read Paul's instruction to Timothy, where he says I left you in Ephesus teach certain people, not to teach false doctrine. First of all, a lot of translations have translated that to teach certain men, but it's the word for people. So then we've assumed that nobody who's teaching is a female to begin with, but women just don't teach. He also refers elsewhere to those going house to house, and some translate it, you know, spreading gossip and old wives tale, which is kind of a misogynistic translation, honestly.
Speaker 1:Very much so.
Speaker 2:First, of all, can you think of a time in the New Testament where people went house to house? Well, yeah, that's how the church met. True, that's how they met. So we tend to read these women are going house to house and think you know, patio to patio, back door to back door. But it's very possible. Paul is saying from house church to house church.
Speaker 1:Yes, I think of Lydia, yeah.
Speaker 2:And the word that is related to teaching nonsense is what we call a cognate. It's a form of the word for magic. So you have all these little hints that maybe Paul has something other than hierarchy as the solution in mind and he talks about as a corrective.
Speaker 2:he says for Adam was first. Well, in Adam's, in the, you know, in the Genesis creation story, the man is first. But in the creation story in Ephesus, who's first? Artemis? And Paul's next line is and the woman was the one deceived. Well, we have tended to read that. Well, therefore, all women are.
Speaker 1:Are deceived. Deception, but Paul says to, or to leading and guiding, yeah, exactly, and to temptation.
Speaker 2:Yes, they're cunning and deception, right? Well, you say it this way. Hold on, I got to find yeah, yes, they're cunning and deception, right? Well, you say it this way.
Speaker 1:Hold on, I got to find. Okay, yeah, quote me, although I agree with me. It's actually in the book. Let me just Okay. I had come to believe. This is you writing, thanks to Aristotle, by way of Aquinas, that a female is an undercooked male. An undercooked male, what?
Speaker 2:did you mean by that? Well, aristotle taught that men were dry and women were moist, and it's not that different from what you think of as a chocolate chip cookie. Now, I like my cookies kind of moist, but a lot of people don't, and so Apollo, I'm sorry, a lot of people don't, and so Apollo, I'm sorry, aristotle, too many A's. Aristotle is basically saying a woman is a not fully created man, and Aquinas picks up on that, as you know, more given to deception. Now, some women, in Aquinas's view, can rise above their gender, and I'm putting this in in our terminology.
Speaker 2:He would not correct gender, but we can rise above our gender, and then he would say they were like men. He wouldn't call them mature christian women. Um, so, like you could, you could by. You know, choosing celibacy by the early church has a whole lot of single, whole lot of singles, and actually I think that might be part of what's happening in chapter five of 1 Timothy. You have the combination of Artemis, who is confirmed virgin, and a church that has a whole lot of without a man, without a man, woman, women.
Speaker 1:Yes yeah.
Speaker 2:And why does the church in Ephesus have so many single women? And why does Paul instruct his protege in Ephesus? You know, have younger women, I want them to marry and have kids. But over in Corinth he said I want you to think about staying single. He does always tensions.
Speaker 2:All these tensions. Well, why would Paul give? Would he give contradictory advice? I don't think so. I think Paul is looking at two completely different cities with different spiritual forces and saying the gospel is countercultural. How do we correct error? I suspect, given what I have learned about Artemis, that it's not that there's an anti-male mentality. There were lots of men who loved Artemis. In the same way lots of men, you know, are crazy about the Virgin Mary. It was not an anti-man view, but it was definitely connected with the upper classes. If you have in your city sort of the junior league the young girls that come up as part of the wealthy.
Speaker 2:Their names are on the inscriptions and it's sort of and their mothers and their grandmothers.
Speaker 1:They are the deputants right.
Speaker 2:That's right. That's right. And you don't see their dads mentioned anywhere, which is really unusual in the ancient world. You don't see their brothers or their uncles, unless they're a senator or somebody right of enormous power. Then they might show up in the inscriptions. But in general, this is the girls club, the wealthy girls club.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And you just don't see the married as part of that cult.
Speaker 1:Right, the married or the mothering, you know, or mothers.
Speaker 2:So oh, you took a breath, so I did take a breath. Yeah, let me add, because I'm glad you mentioned mothers, yes, artemis, so you're like what would that then? Why would that connect with midwifery? Well, because of her history with her own mother, artemis in Ephesus is constantly referred to as a midwife, or in connection with midwifery. Here's an example Her first temple burned to the ground at approximately the same time that Alexander the Great was born, so by the time of the earliest Christians.
Speaker 2:The question of well, why didn't she protect her temple? Is she powerless? The answer to that was oh well, she can't be two places at once because their gods weren't and she had to be helping with the delivery of Alexander the Great. So this is how, like, she goes to the important births and makes sure they make it okay, and there is a lot of evidence that her arrows could be euthanizing. So, if you think about the number one cause of death for women at the time, is childbirth, so they would go to her temple and they would pray deliver me safely or kill me quickly and painlessly.
Speaker 2:Don't let me die because I, you know, expired trying to push a baby out it was terrifying. It was terrifying. I suspect that Paul, being a good pastor and shepherd, is concerned that the number one fear of a Gentile woman becoming a Christ follower is are you kidding me Like I'm putting my life on the line by hacking her off? This better be true. I won't be protected, right?
Speaker 1:I think what I'm really getting from only this intro that you are bringing to us. It's just hitting me really, really hard. Is okay you correct me if I'm wrong how we maybe have been blind to, still are blind to, the power of these ingrained cultural narratives. Okay, like gods and goddesses in early Ephesus, we, we and we either overemphasize the role of the occult, maybe like okay, I'm just going to call it out, because I was a charismatic for 25 years, so every other word out of my mouth was Satan. Or then, when I become a reformed Presbyter one, I'm informing myself, I'm educating myself. You give us such an education on a theological background of the early days, the early church, and that is so relevant to me with what I feel like I'm living today. Is that safe?
Speaker 2:to say, yes, that is a completely safe thing to say. And here's a misunderstanding. People hear me talk about these things and they say well, that means I can't understand the Bible unless I know all the backgrounds in Ephesus. No, no, no, you can get a lot about 1 Timothy by reading Acts 19. That's where I started. I just wanted to know more about who she was. But you can still get a sense of hey, this is the false doctrine that has a grip on the city had a grip on the city.
Speaker 1:I talked over you, the false doctrine that had a grip on the city, on the culture, on the minds, on the hearts. That's what I think is relevant.
Speaker 2:And it's in and outside the church right. It's not just that.
Speaker 1:Yes, no, absolutely. And Paul was in and outside the church. I mean, that was the beauty of the early church. Right, they were in it but not of it. They were infiltrated, they were out with the people, they weren't sequestered, but they would come home at night and they would meet their group and they would build each other back up and then they would go back out. Right, yeah, yes.
Speaker 2:I mean he's a tent maker. He's interacting probably. I mean he's probably an awning maker. It's very possible that he is working with a lot of elite folks. They don't have air conditioning, but you want a nice, you know, fabric shade, fabric shade, I love it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, can I continue to read that little passage? Because I just I have it highlighted and underlined. This is right in the beginning of Nobody's Mother, when you're sharing your own story, your own journey Grappling I'd say, wrestling with the ideology Is that the right word Of I get married, I become a wife, I become a mother, I'm a homemaker. Like your mom said, I'm a homemaker, you tell your story, your journey. We're both about the same age and so we were saying, before we hit record the influences that came upon us at that stage of Christian culture, which fascinating womanhood 1990, 1990, and then the total woman, 1975. Oh my gosh. And it wasn't really until last year, when I started digging into the subject of mothering myself, that I realized how influential those two books had been total woman selling over 500 000 copies 1975. So that's a huge amount of books. That's no internet, nothing. 1990, beginning a little bit of internet, a little bit of that, yeah, and that's sold over 2 million copies. Fascinating womanhood. So your journey was well. Now what do I do with-.
Speaker 2:Because I hit the brick wall of infertility.
Speaker 1:Tell us, please share.
Speaker 2:So yeah. So imagine this. I mean, I'm the fourth of five kids. My mom, if you've seen Sound of Music like she's like Maria von Trapp. We are singing, we are picnicking, we are having a blast, we're making clothing out of curtains. Okay, maybe not that, but she made her own everything. She made my wedding dress. She designed and made my wedding dress. She was like the ultimate P31 woman and she was fabulous and I wanted to be just like her, and so when my husband and I hit the brick wall of infertility.
Speaker 2:It was shocking Because I, if anything, I'm the fourth and people would say to me you know they could prevent that. I wanted to say I'm standing right here, thanks a lot. But at the same time, you get this idea that it's easy to have kids. You're going to have more than you want, as opposed to ever having it crossed my mind.
Speaker 1:There's still a barren woman stigma. I mean that would have been when you were trying to have children. Would have been what year? What years? So starting 86-ish? Yeah, so I had my first 86.
Speaker 2:So I understand, I mean infertility wasn't.
Speaker 1:I live here in Norfolk, virginia where the Jones Institute is, so I mean that's where that's the first IVF baby.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Very first, and my daughter roomed with one of the very first at her college, and so I think that it was not a subject for Far more of a stigma, yes, than it is today. There were no blogs on it. There was no one talking about it. I remember them telling me oh, you're in need to go on Chlamydion or whatever that was, and you know so. I mean it was. There were no options. There weren't a lot of options. There were not.
Speaker 2:Okay, and the shame that went with it. Shame, that's the word, it was assumed. Oh, she is really into her career and you know, we know, what God says about that.
Speaker 1:Or you have sin. I was told that yeah okay, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 2:I was in that circle, you know it's not funny, it's really not because it was damaging as heck.
Speaker 2:It was very damaging. And not only that. I was being affirmed as having the gift of teaching, and I have grown up to be a teacher. I adore teaching, I love teaching, and so I was taught that. Paul taught that the only legit avenue for that was in the nuclear family, with my children at home, and so that sent me into a moral, ethical, spiritual, marital crisis, primarily a spiritual crisis of who is woman, what was she made for and why in the world? If I want to adhere to the will of God, would he slam the door? That just didn't make sense.
Speaker 1:It's an identity crisis.
Speaker 2:It was an identity crisis.
Speaker 1:It sure was it's not only shame and all of these other things, but you are, and I mean you have to look back. I would only guess that's the wisdom of our age. Yeah and go. Well, I guess I had to live it. I really had to live it. I don't think God's cruel. I'm not saying God placed that agony on you. No, I'm not saying that at all, please. He certainly redeemed it. I don't think God's cruel. I'm not saying God placed that agony on you. No, I'm not saying that at all, please.
Speaker 1:He certainly redeemed it, he redeemed it, and it's now, it's not being lost. And yet your husband at that time, and your mother too, but your husband and then this other beautiful woman, elizabeth, in your life at that point, were all affirming and encouraging you, your husband, I love the story of your husband. Got a seminary.
Speaker 2:I love it and you're like why? Yeah, he was the one who had much broader views about what a woman could do. Thank God, I was. Thank God is right, but no, I was, I didn't even. Oh, I laugh. No, I teach at a seminary. I didn't even believe women should go to seminary.
Speaker 1:Not at any seminary either. You teach at Dallas Theological. That's pretty, pretty profound, it's lovely, it's amazing, it's like it's a pretty big character arc for me, but part of it was I.
Speaker 2:Honestly, I don't care if I have to watch. If God, if God tells me you got to walk on crutches for the rest of your life, even if you're not injured, Okay, I'll obey as long as I'm clear.
Speaker 1:That's what he wants me to do. I just got to know. Who am I really supposed to? Be, what am I supposed to be? Yes, please help us, Sandra. That's the question. What is God's view of woman? What is God's view of me? I'm 65. And I'm still there.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I mean obviously, first of all, she's not a woman, is not a half baked cookie. She is. She images God Like it's not that men image God more than women. We image God and men, women image God, and together there's a synergy in that imaging. So the first thing I am is an image bearer. The second thing is I was made to multiply.
Speaker 2:But if I look at the New Testament and even whispers in the Old Testament with the eunuchs in Isaiah 56, god is making beautiful promises to those who love and follow him, even if they don't reproduce and we do. What's the goal of reproduction? Well, it looks like to fill the earth with worshipers, that the earth will be filled with the glory of God, and you see sort of a shift in emphasis. At least Jesus, paul, john the Baptist none of them are married and the command to be fruitful and multiply is not repeated anywhere in the New Testament. But what you are supposed to multiply is Christ followers. We're supposed to make disciples. So we were made to multiply, but that doesn't mean that has to be birthed. Certainly that's a big part of it for a lot of people, but it's not God's end all and be all for everyone, and that now makes sense why Paul would say some should stay single, which would not make sense if there's only one kind of reproduction that a woman is made for. We were made to multiply.
Speaker 2:We're made for more than simply made to mother we were made to mother.
Speaker 1:We're made to mother and you write that one sentence you know, I didn't give birth, right, you didn't I? I never did but you have a daughter over the world. I do have a daughter so.
Speaker 2:So our story was we had three years of no success, followed by seven pregnancy losses, followed by three failed adoptions. Then we finally had a successful adoption of our daughter, and then I had an ectopic pregnancy, and so all of that literally spanned a decade to the week of it all starting. And so I mean there are other things woman is. Woman is made to rule. She isn't just made to multiply, right, be fruitful and multiply and rule. And we tend to say women are made to multiply, men are made to rule. No, no, no, no, no. God gave both man and woman as partners, those responsibilities.
Speaker 2:So that means, yeah, the mandate, and so it's not that men were made to lead and women are not made to lead. And then you fast forward into the kingdom and we are women are priests too. That's not just for guys, right, we are in fact, that's not even in, just you know, in the future. We are priests now. We're all priests to our God.
Speaker 1:What does a priest?
Speaker 2:do. Well, a priest leads others to God, leads others in worship, teaches, teaches. Yes, teaches the people. So all of that.
Speaker 1:I mean that's where Lydia is, you know, in Acts 16. When we meet her, I mean she's on the riverside teaching women. That's what she's doing. And then Paul shows up, right through so many providential moves, and voila, the church at Philippi is born and she is leading a house church.
Speaker 2:When he writes back to them he talks about their partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. You go oh, who was there on the first day? The book of Acts tells us a lot of the backgrounds, a lot of these books. He's talking about Lydia and the gals and the gals, the influencers, the real influencers, I call them, and they apparently have continued to support his gospel work, which kind of makes sense. You know Lydia is a dealer in purple If she has children. They're never mentioned, Never If Aquila and Priscilla have children, they're never mentioned.
Speaker 2:If Phoebe has children, they're never mentioned.
Speaker 1:So this was the other thing. I go way back to Deborah, yeah, oh yeah, mother to Israel, right, mother I arose, deborah arose. I have a necklace that says it because it's the premise of my whole studies on mothering. You know, am I going to arise, a mother to preach? Put my community in Right? Am I, janelle, going to arise, regardless of what is said to me, over me, through me, by male voices and honestly there were female voices, not just that were just as hurtful and put me? You know, stay in your place.
Speaker 2:I was. I was among them, sister. I repent, I'm sorry. Yeah, that's so true the way that yes, I don't know.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, I definitely was always wrestling with it. You know, when you feel that that vocational calling inside and you talk about that, you know teaching being the calling that it was, you know. So I had this question just to take an aside for a moment. Oh, Heartlifter, I hate to leave you hanging there. It's a cliffhanger today, but I'm saving part three for tomorrow. So much in part two, so much I want to really hone in on this thought.
Speaker 1:Dr Sandra said we were made to multiply. Never in the New Testament do we ever again hear the Genesis mandate of go forth and multiply, bring forth children and multiply. In the New Testament we don't read that, but we are told to go ye. Go forth, therefore, and make disciples teach. It says actually in the King James Version. Make disciples teach. It says actually in the King James Version, and that word teach means to be a disciple, a learner, a student, a pupil, and the go ye means just keep moving forward. So when we read Matthew 28, it is informing us. Matthew 28, it is informing us. It is the challenge to go forth, keep moving forward and keep being a pupil, a learner, a disciple, and make multiply. Make implies to keep increasing to make many, many, many, many many. When you take that down into its transliterative state, it really just says to make many, many, many, many. Well, I am challenged, deeply challenged.
Speaker 1:Today, after listening and being exhorted by Dr Sandra and being a recipient of all the years of her struggle, her agony, and then her research and her study, I just feel so blessed today, this week of Mother's Day here in the States and in North America, to consider how am I then, how was I made to be a multiplier? What does that look like in my life? What gifts and talents right have I been given? Have you been given that? Maybe we are minimizing, even, Maybe we are, I don't know, but I feel very compelled to ask this question what am I being invited into? After listening to this wise teacher that God has allowed us to be in company with Dr Sandra, what are we being invited? To? Multiply, to make many, many, many of, to make many, many, many of. How can I help advance the kingdom of God, like Lydia did? How can I help make many, many more people see God, hear his teachings, sit with him? How can I do that? We were made to mother, made to rule, made to multiply. What a mandate and what a mission.
Speaker 1:So, once again, thank you for being here, Thank you for coming to the table and thank you for meeting me over in our community, at Heart Lift Central, on Substack and also on Instagram. These are our places where we can meet. We cannot meet by a river right now, although I'm looking for a place for us to gather but we can meet in these places and even on our Facebook group, Today's Heart Lift, with Janelle. Okay, I feel like something's being birthed through this time with Dr Sandra, and I just want to pray for us as we close. Father God, it is Mother's Day in North America and I am praying, Lord, God, that you will just make a spirit of rising happen. Like Deborah said, I arose a mother to Israel. Wherever you're sitting right now, heartlifter, open your hands, open your heart, your mind, your soul, your body, your being, your hands, open your heart, your mind, your soul, your body, your being, and say, if you're ready, God, I arise a mother too. And you fill in the blank Amen. Stay tuned for tomorrow, part three. I will meet you there.
