During Women’s History Month we honor an incredible legacy of females that come before us. I love hearing lesser known quotes and stories about some of history’s great heroines—Harriet Tubman, Amelia Earhart, Amy Carmichael. But they always make me wonder, what would it have been like to call them “friend”?
Read MoreIn the book of Proverbs, Wisdom is personified as a woman. She speaks a powerful message full of rich imagery and timeless advice that colors our perspective on the book’s theme as a whole. My recent seminar at Cornerstone West LA walked through the text of Proverbs 8 and 9 to explore what Woman Wisdom can teach us about living wisely in our world today.
Read MoreThe problem with being in your 20s is that you have a lot to say (and some of it is quite good) but you haven't yet earned the spiritual street cred for people to listen. Now in my 30s, I probably do have a few nuggets to share, but the imposter syndrome can be debilitating. I expect that by my 40s, I'll have achieved the right seasoning.
Read MoreThis summer I culminated the last few years of research into a seminar for Cornerstone West LA that offers a framework for how to tackle stories in Biblical narrative, an area of Bible reading that I’ve often shied away from. I’m proud of the work it took to pull that hour and a half together, as well as the opportunity to teach the topic…
Read MoreIt is no secret that as a young girl, I was the poster child for traditional, American femininity. My barbies had divine romances that ended in marriage. My favorite dress up dramatization was wedding. I followed the narratives of Belle and Jasmine and Ariel with an unnatural hunger, concocting for myself imaginative, desperate situations that would always end in dramatic rescue. In high school, I framed Disney movie stills and artwork above my bed. I dreamed that one day my prince would come...
Read MoreSilence. It is an unfortunate reality of digging through the records of women past. As we try to shed our 21st century perspective to listen to and understand what it was like to be a woman in ancient Israel, Greece, or Rome, we are confronted with one of the great tragedies of patriarchy. There is but a small body of scripture devoted to the words and stories of women because for so many generations of our world's history, these voices were largely considered unimportant...
Read MoreMany Bible studies that focus on female characters in the Old or New Testament are centered around determining if she is an example to follow or a cautionary tale. But when we ask of our Dorothy, "Are you a good witch or a bad witch?", we miss the overarching theme of the story, which is always first about God and only secondarily (if at all) about the major players...
Read MoreAs I continue to dig into what Biblical womanhood really means, I am struck by some of the more subtle feminine images that are sprinkled throughout God's Word. While not typically the focus of our early Bible education, there is actually much to be gleaned about the identity of women from the stories of scripture...
Read MoreThis week we celebrated 500 years since the Protestant Reformation. As a nod to this particularly notable anniversary, a favorite (non-religious) podcast of mine, Stuff You Missed in History Class, shared an episode this week dedicated to three women who were influential in making the reformation happen.
Read MoreReposted from Cornerstone West LA. I thought a lot about the women of Cornerstone when I first read Half the Church by Carolyn Custis James. I thought about friends who set aside time to counsel other women, those who welcome foster children into their homes along with the schedule disruptions and paperwork and potential heartache, and women who study deeply the Word of God so that they may bring it to bear on our souls at conferences and events.
Read MoreI shared in my last post about my love for Sarah Bessey's Jesus Feminist. I get lost in how she weaves Biblical truth with personal narrative, how she feeds new life into stories I've skimmed before and gently questions social norms with the full, warm embrace of a crunchy granola mother hen. This far-off sister has impacted me greatly, so it's only fitting that the analogy in her book that compels me most is one of spiritual mamas and midwives.
Read MoreLast summer I had the opportunity to speak on the topic of Biblical Womanhood at Cornerstone. It's a subject I particularly enjoy, but one I hadn't really explored from all ends of the spectrum. And by that I mean, I was very familiar with complimentarian doctrine, but had little clue how the other camp tackled the topic. I wasn't sold on Piper and Grudem's definition of feminine identity—arguing that Eve's punishment in the Fall reveals essential traits about women (shouldn't we instead look at the design and pre-sin characteristics of Eve for God's intention for women?)—so I started hunting around for other perspectives.
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