NIV Application Bible Podcast: Episode 22 (Luke 8)

• When he has has intersected your life and has liberated you from everything that oppresses you, you can’t help but say, “I’ve been with the risen Lord.” [Music] Welcome back to the NIV Application Bible podcast. We are so glad you’re here. We have loved doing this with you. Thank you for carving the time out to be with us.
• We have made it all the way to Luke’s gospel account. Don’t you love that? He’s the only known gentile author of Holy Rit. And he includes stories about misfits cuz I would guess there’s times he felt like a misfit in this culture cuz all of the other writers were were Jews. And here’s Luke, a physician, writing holy rit. I I love how he’s inclusive to people that some of the other gospel accounts ignore.
• And Luke includes more stories about women than any of the other gospel writers. Remember the first century during their earthly ministry of Jesus Christ, uh women were um well, they were definitely um lower on the social strata than men. One of the common rabbitical proverbs of this time was, “Thank you, Yahweh, for not making me a woman.
• ” Um, one of the other rabbitical uh ideas was that it was better for tra, what we would call part of the Old Testament now, to be burned than read by a woman. That sounds crazy, but it hasn’t been that long ago in my life when I was subjugated for being a woman in ministry. Um, I I worked in my 30s when I still had tight skin and high metabolism for uh an awesome ministry that had an abysmal dress code.
• Uh, at this ministry, if you were female, you had to wear clostoed shoes. We were not allowed to wear sandals or open toed shoes because someone in leadership said that the line between between a woman’s big toe and her second toe was reminiscent of cleavage. And so if I wore sandals for this ministry, I might cause a man to stumble.
• Now, I’ve never been the sharpest tool in the shed, but even then, as a relatively young woman, I thought if a brother is struggling with lust, I think my sandals are the least of his problems. What I got the the tacet message was there’s something wrong with you inherently because you’re female. So you’re lesser than in the family of God.
• That’s not biblically defensible. Christ himself in Luke’s gospel includes three women on his ministry leadership team. Top of chapter 8 talks about it. After this, Jesus traveled about from one town and village to another, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. The twel were with him and also some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases.
• Mary called Magdalene from whom seven demons had come out. Joanna, the wife of Chuza, the manager of Herod’s household, Susanna, and many others. These women were helping to support them out of their own means. In other words, these women aren’t just in some back room baking casserles for the disciples. These women have super important jobs.