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We Who Thirst
Delve into the captivating tales of women from the Bible, exploring their lives within ancient cultures and historical contexts. These narratives reveal not only their stories but also the profound love and beauty of the God we worship.
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We Who Thirst
007 Proverbs 31: Partnership, Marriage, and Trust
Can the wisdom of ancient cultures reshape our modern understanding of marriage roles? Join me and Elice Kilko, as we challenge conventional wisdom with insights from Proverbs 31. Elice opens up about her upbringing in a respectful complementarian household and how it contrasts with the rigid gender roles we were taught outside our homes. Together, we reveal our personal journeys towards a more egalitarian approach that emphasizes mutual submission and partnership.
By exploring the historical context of gender roles within marriage, we uncover a nuanced perspective that disrupts traditional views. Drawing from the ancient Near Eastern practices, we discuss how responsibilities within a household were shared and not strictly divided by gender. This segment also includes a critical analysis of teachings from figures like George Knight III and Dorothy Patterson, highlighting the significant authority matriarchs held in ancient households, particularly in areas like food management. Our conversation aims to provide a deeper, more balanced understanding of marital roles that challenge modern complementarianism.
In this episode, we also highlight the role and character of the husband in Proverbs 31, his social status, and how his partnership with the woman of valor enhances his reputation. We stress the importance of trust and praise for women within church communities, drawing from personal experiences and cultural practices such as the Eshet Chayil prayer. By fostering environments that uplift and honor women, we can create healthier, more respectful marriages. Finally, don't miss our excitement for the upcoming episode on homemaking, where we'll explore the intricate dynamics of creating a nurturing and organized household. Tune in for an enriching discussion that celebrates egalitarian partnerships and challenges traditional norms.
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Today we are continuing our Proverbs 31 series by looking at the relationship between the woman of valor, whose personality we discussed in the last episode, and her husband. With me today is my dear friend Elise Kilko, who has a degree in counseling. She has been married for nine years and in that time has confronted deep questions about the goodness of God around singleness and marriage. Deep questions about the goodness of God around singleness and marriage. Her heart is for women to know God's deep love for them and to walk in confidence in their marriages. Elise, we both grew up in middle to hard complementarian spaces. How would you describe the ideal relationship in those spaces between a husband and a wife?
Elice Kilko:That's a good question. I definitely grew up with parents who I like to say they were respectful complementarians. They were complementarians. My dad definitely saw himself as the head of the household. My mom definitely saw her place as one of submission, but they were very respectful and have been of each other's opinions and very loving. So I feel like, under the umbrella of complementarian-ness, I feel like I had a really good example and I would say, as I get older, I definitely see the relationship between a husband and a wife as one of partnership, working together to grow their household, love each other well and figure out what the division of labor in their household will be Absolutely Divided, not just on what our culture says this is what girls do, this is what boys do but rather each spouse's talents and abilities.
Jessica Jenkins:As I get older, I see the need for more nuance contrast kind of with the way a marriage relationship was described in the typical evangelical space, complementarian world you grew up in.
Elice Kilko:Well, I think it definitely. In our house, you know, my dad usually did most of the driving. My dad always told us growing up that he's the one that taught my mom to cook. But other than Sunday morning when he would braise the roast beef to go into the oven before church, we didn't see him cooking much. So it was still kind of expected that my mom would do most of the cooking, most of the you know laundry and things like that, most of the cooking, most of the you know laundry and things like that. So it was kind of that, you know, there was that love and thought for each other. But then there was still a very traditionally American division of labor, I guess would be the best way to say it.
Jessica Jenkins:Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I definitely experienced a lot of the same. My dad my mom had some disabilities growing up so he would step in and do some things just because her disabilities required it. And my parents, like yours, like it was a complimentary marriage, absolutely Like dad. My dad would always be like the buck stops here, but he was also a collaborative decision maker. My dad was not ever authoritarian in his marriage or like I'm the boss in his marriage. He's naturally a collaborative decision maker and he wanted my mom's opinion and input and even though they said like if there's a disagreement he gets to make the final call, I don't know that he would have been fully comfortable making the final call if she wasn't in agreement, because he just liked that collaboration. And so that's kind of the complementarian marriage I grew up under and with which was a very healthy relationship, dynamic, like it was a healthy, quality marriage.
Elice Kilko:But that wasn't necessarily when I especially when I moved out on my own the type of marriage that was described to me in some of the complementarian literature and work and culture that I was around with very respectful parents, parents who are respectful to each other, and yet in the greater, you know river that they were swimming in, things were so much more black and white than the homes that we grew up in.
Jessica Jenkins:Yeah, because I remember learning like oh, what's his name Bill Gothard's umbrella Like, and we would talk that would be referenced loosely in our household and it was in some of the books and stuff we had. But it was never hardcore, taught or held to. But when you move out of the house, where there's the way you practice at home, that became very much the overt thoughts and way things should be done outside of that where, like, the man is the boss period and that's just the way it is in some of the outside of my home growing up. Complementarian world.
Elice Kilko:Yeah, and that can get so dangerous so quickly.
Jessica Jenkins:Like one of the dorm moms at the Bible college, I went to even told like her girls, you don't disagree with your husband.
Elice Kilko:Wow, that's really yeah. And of the conservative schools, you didn't go to the most conservative either.
Jessica Jenkins:No, I didn't, but in comparison to other ones I see now it was pretty up there. It just wasn't as some. So authority and submission were supposed to be very kind and loving, and in our homes they absolutely were, but in the world outside it was a little more black and white, that the man is the boss and the woman is supposed to submit and she's not necessarily even supposed to question that sometimes necessarily even supposed to question that sometimes.
Elice Kilko:Yeah, some complementarian leaders claim that the husband has the ultimate say-so I definitely heard that but that he delegates responsibility to his wife. I heard that all the time growing up, did you?
Jessica Jenkins:Yes, yes, the wife is responsible for the home and she has decision-making power in the home, but only because the husband gave her that responsibility, because ultimately it's all his. He's the only one with power. Any power or responsibility she has is because he delegated and passed some of his off to her under his umbrella. And a good husband does that cheerfully, lovingly, and just gives that to her, but it's still ultimately his philosophically, in this mindset we were raised in.
Elice Kilko:Yeah, yeah, I definitely grew up with that. Is your view different now?
Jessica Jenkins:Oh, absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, I believe very much that a husband and wife need to work in partnership together and I would say I have a much more egalitarian view of marriage today. That mutual submission is the goal we need to have in our marriage reins. That shifts the dynamic some. It's not the same equality husbands and wives have, but the husband delegates everything to the wife. No, I definitely don't follow that, and learning about the historical culture of the Bible and especially around Proverbs 31, has really helped shift my mindset on that, away from that idea.
Jessica Jenkins:I think some of the view of marriage that we were raised in, that kind of that, that not necessarily what we saw exemplified for us in our parents because they had very healthy marriages and I have so much respect for both of their marriages. But the general current the view of marriage that goes along with that complementarian view of gender roles. A simple phrase used to describe that I've seen is men lead, women follow, and I try to say if they're, some of them try to be like well, it's husbands and wives. Some, like John Piper, are like no, that's everybody always kind of the general vibe you're supposed to be going for.
Elice Kilko:Women can't even give directions.
Jessica Jenkins:Right yeah, john. Piper straight up said a woman should not ever give a directive to a man, even if he asks her for driving directions. We won't get into that.
Jessica Jenkins:But how tightly people hold to that depends on how much freedom and agency they give their women. We saw our fathers didn't hold to that super tightly and gave our mothers quite a bit of freedom and agency and gave their daughters quite a bit of freedom and agency. But on paper, when you start reading the complementarian works like Rediscovering or Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, or those major works and writings on complementarianism, they remove a lot of that freedom and agency and power from women. Women are placed completely under the men and any power agency they have is delegated to them from the man.
Elice Kilko:Can you give me an example of where they do that?
Jessica Jenkins:George Knight tells us that the wife must recognize that her management of the home is to be conducted in submission to her husband's leadership. Who the husband is responsible for the overall management of the household. So the husband's responsible and she just conducts her sub-management under his management.
Elice Kilko:Wow. Any other examples?
Jessica Jenkins:Dorothy Patterson says Proverbs 31 contains a full-length portrait of a godly heroine, finished in minute detail. There's no mention of rights or pursuit of self-serving interests, neither is the husband assigned to domestic pursuits. There is no hint in the passage that she has any other purpose than to meet the needs of her family in the best possible way.
Elice Kilko:Oh boy.
Jessica Jenkins:Oh yeah. So this is the type of stuff, especially after I moved out of the house and my examples for marriage were no longer just my parents, where my father participated in so much of the household stuff, child care, all of it. I went to seminary under Dorothy Patterson. Dorothy Patterson told me that if a wife is working outside of the home, that constitutes a lack of faith, because the wife has to be the homemaker in the home and the husband has to be the breadwinner provider. And if there is any other arrangement, is it because they have a lack of faith?
Elice Kilko:Oh wow, that's a very big claim, it is.
Jessica Jenkins:Yes, and so that is a lot because you have this men lead, women follow idea. And then you have the men have to be the providers period. The woman is the housekeeper and baby maker, nurturer person period. That's it Like box, you don't move outside that and it's taken me years to work through that to be able to have a better idea and understanding. Old Testament culture has helped with that immeasurably.
Elice Kilko:So, as you study biblical context, what have you learned about how the wife and husband work together in their home?
Jessica Jenkins:That's a fantastic question and if you want more detail than I can give in this episode, see my lecture on YouTube on patricentrism and heterarchy. Search YouTube for we who Thirst podcasts and you'll be able to find that lecture with the full visuals there, but the short version is. In the ancient Near East they basically had three roles that people would have. There was protection, procreation and provision. So I'm going to contrast those three roles protection, procreation, provision with the kind of ideal roles we were raised with in complementarianism, which is the man leads and provides, the woman submits and takes care of the house. And so in the ancient world the man would do the protection, which complementarians would say that as well, he needs to protect. They also say he needs to provide, which in the ancient world was shared Everybody in the household husband, wife, children, adult children, grandparents, servants, brothers or sisters who are still living in the house. All of them are responsible for provision. It's not the man who is the breadwinner, it's the entire family working together. So that changed my mind on it dramatically.
Jessica Jenkins:The only two static gender roles in the ancient Near East that pretty much every culture had, these gender roles for men and women were protection and procreation, because men are stereotypically bigger and stronger and so better at protecting, and women were protection and procreation. Because men are stereotypically bigger and stronger and so better at protecting, and women are the only ones who can physically have babies, so that was their responsibility. Everything else, in many ways in the household level, was shared. Also, though, in a the households were not patriarchal. The way the complementarians we grew up with talked about hierarchy. Were you given at all Bill Gothard's umbrella diagram?
Elice Kilko:Yeah, so my dad didn't like Bill Gothard, but I am familiar with it and growing up I was familiar. It was something that I saw, you know, drawn on whiteboards in schools and churches. So, yeah, I was familiar with it growing up.
Jessica Jenkins:And for anybody who's not familiar?
Jessica Jenkins:it's basically the idea that it's umbrellas of protection. So you have God, who is over the man, who is then over the woman, who's over the children, and it's a very strong gender-based hierarchy man, woman, children. But in the ancient world, in Old Testament Israel, things were much more heterarchical, which means it wasn't a gender-based hierarchy. There was still hierarchy in the household, but it was by age, not gender. So any hierarchy in the Old Testament house in the Proverbs 31 woman's household was split by gender because the genders had different tasks that they would do, but it was any hierarchy was by age, if that makes sense.
Elice Kilko:Sure, so you have the older, you have the grandmother, because it was a multi-generation families living together in close proximity. So you're talking about the grandparents, the parents and children, exactly.
Jessica Jenkins:And so you'd have the patriarch and the matriarch of the household and they would be the father and the mother, we would say in our vernacular. They would be responsible for the men under the father, the women under the mother, for various household tasks. And what's interesting is sometimes the current patriarch and matriarch of the household may not be married, because with the grandparents maybe the grandpa died. So now the oldest son is the patriarch, but grandma's still alive. So she's still the matriarch of the household, so she's the mother of the household, he's the father of the household, but he's her son. So you have this status going on where the matriarch of the household in the Old Testament had a lot of authority. She had absolute say-so in her areas and could tell the men in the household what to do carte blanche if it had to do with her areas of authority.
Elice Kilko:What were some of the typical areas that women had say over?
Jessica Jenkins:So the matriarch would have power and authority over food. She was, she had complete in many ways complete control of the food. Um, that is, turning raw ingredients into edibles, like grain into bread, grain into beer, storage of the food, baking, creating ovens, deciding how we're going to use these ovens as a community because ovens were often shared between multiple houses in a village rationing out the food. There's even a little tale from Egypt talking about matriarchal authority, where the patriarch of the household wants more food at this meal and the matriarch tells him no and he gets mad and storms out of the house. And then the pagan god he's talking to because it's Egypt kind of looks at him and is like that's ridiculous, nobody.
Jessica Jenkins:When the matriarch says you get X amount of food and no more, nobody throws a fit on that. That is her power. You may be the patriarch but you don't get to buck that. That is matriarchal authority. Period, paragraph, end of discussion. She says you get this much food. You say yes, ma'am, thank you, I appreciate the food. That is all you get to say.
Elice Kilko:And so the women had that's interesting.
Jessica Jenkins:They had. So food, medicine, reproduction, which would be women's menses. It could often be initiating sex. That's why we have Leia renting Jacob from Rachel for the night, like I've hired our husband and you're with me and he's like, oh, okay, so they were in charge of all the various aspects around reproduction Light. So they were in charge of all the various aspects around reproduction light. It was the matriarch's job to determine when we light the lamps at night, and they wanted the lamps to run all night long. Only poor people did not have lamps lit all night and it's her job.
Jessica Jenkins:So imagine, in your household today, elise. You get to decide when every single light switch gets turned on or off and nobody else gets to touch the light switches unless you give them direct permission. That's a lot of power. That's very significant. The matriarch would be in charge of settling disputes in the household and sometimes in community, and she would be hugely influential in community ties. And she would be hugely influential in community ties, even inter-village community relationships, so knowing what's going on in your town and city and helping those relationships be strong. So, unlike the complementarian gender-based hierarchy, hierarchy in the Old Testament, cultures was based much more on in the New Testament in many ways as well, based much more on social status and age rather than gender. In many ways, the woman of the Old Testament, especially a matriarch, a mother well, we'll just say mother, a mother, a matriarch in the Old Testament had more power and agency than complementarians want to give women today.
Elice Kilko:That's incredible.
Jessica Jenkins:That blew my mind when I realized it and has very much transformed the way I view my marriage. I've been married for 11 years I think 11 or 12. It's transformed the way I view my marriage. It's transformed the way I view the Bible when you consider that some of the complementary not all, because obviously we had good examples of healthy marriage dynamics in our homes growing up, but what was on paper that I read from complementarians actually limited women in ways the ancient cultures 4,000 years ago didn't.
Elice Kilko:Which is just crazy to think.
Jessica Jenkins:In the ancient culture, the husband was not delegating his authority over the food to his wife. She had that because she is the matriarch. That was part of her status as matriarch. It's not.
Jessica Jenkins:Kevin, my husband delegates menu planning to me, so I do it in submission to him because he delegated me that job. No, in the Old Testament that's what she does, and if he doesn't like it too bad, yeah, wow. So how does it strike you that women in the Old Testament had more social power in their homes and we're not talking about external home rule governance, we're talking inside the home that women in the Old Testament had more social power in their homes than many complementarians will grant their women. How does that strike you?
Elice Kilko:I think it's empowering to know that God gave women this full range of responsibilities and you know we've talked about how Proverbs 31 isn't a checklist and it's all these things that a woman of valor can do. But it's empowering to think that in my context and in my culture I can take these examples that God gave and adapt them to where we are today, in the 21st century. I don't have servants who, you know, cook my food or grind my wheat or whatever, but I have a washer and I have a dryer and you know I buy flour that has already been milled at the store. Um, except for I don't cause I need to eat gluten free. But you know that that idea, I think contextualizing what God said and how that allows me to be more free in how I show up as a woman. It doesn't have to be a really narrow view. I can take that and be a full range of who God made me.
Jessica Jenkins:I love that. Yeah, and that really goes off of our last episode. If you haven't heard the one where we talk about the woman, of valor and her personality and how God delights in a full range of expressions of womanhood, you have to give that episode a listen. So let's talk about in Proverbs 31,. Let's talk about her husband. We're talking about her marriage and her husband. In this episode We've briefly discussed kind of the cultural framework of heterarchy and how tasks in the home would have functioned. But let's look at who her husband is. In verse 23, and I'm reading my own translation here, which you can get on my website at wewhothirstcom if you want my translation of Proverbs 31 from the Hebrew text. Verse 23 says known in the gates is her husband when he sits with the elders of the land. So, elise, what do we first notice about this man?
Elice Kilko:That he's known. At the gates he sits with the elders, so the gates were where judgments were often passed down, so it would be like the courtroom that's where business was dealt out. So he's like a man of stature in the community. This isn't just like any Joe Schmo, right.
Jessica Jenkins:And is this like the sitting at the gates? Is this like leisure activities? Is it equivalent to a man kicking back to watch sports ball after work while his wife cooks and takes care of the kids? Or showing up at the bar or coffee shop and everyone's like, hey, dude, it's so good to see you Like. Is that the vibe we have here?
Elice Kilko:No, it's definitely business. It's definitely business.
Jessica Jenkins:This is more, I would say, like the throne room, like we think medieval throne room. That's where a king would show up to do his ruling and the judgment. You'd go to see the king at the throne room, but that they didn't, especially in smaller contexts. The leader of a city didn't always have a throne room and so it was the city gate where the elders of the city would all get together for, as you said, the judgment and the ruling and business decisions.
Jessica Jenkins:And Proverbs 31, verse 1, says that Proverbs 31 is given as the sayings for King Lemuel from his mother, and so it's possible that this is describing a kind of a king in his courtroom, for lack of a better term. So the Proverbs 31 woman, proverbs 31 woman's husband is he's sitting at the gate, he's sitting with the elders, he is not known there because of her. He has this social status and position which I really want to bring out. Because, especially those who want to take Proverbs 31 as a checklist, I always want to look at them and say, okay, if Proverbs 31 is a checklist, when is your husband running for office? Is he running for mayor? Because if you're going to make Proverbs 31 a checklist, he needs to go get himself on a ballot so that he can go sit at our proverbial gates in town hall. Yeah, we're talking here about a couple in their marriage. They have serious social status and privilege. They're not just your average peasant family or average middle-class family in today's vernacular Right.
Elice Kilko:So how does the woman of valor influence her husband's position?
Jessica Jenkins:I don't know that she influences her husband's position directly, like helping him get that position, but she certainly helps with how people view him in that position. Ancient Near East women were seen as liabilities to a man's honor, because women could be preyed upon, they could be sexually assaulted, taken advantage of, so men were taught that they needed to guard. This is that protection piece. Men were taught they needed to guard their women carefully so as to protect the whole household's honor. The woman of valor who's extremely honorable and vivacious and doing good things for the community helps a leader lead well, because if he's attached to her, he has to be a pretty decent guy.
Elice Kilko:What else can we learn in these verses about the woman of valor's husband?
Jessica Jenkins:We see in verse 11 that he trusts in her. It says in her the heart of her husband trusts, and God likes it when men trust their wives. How have you usually heard this part of verse 11 taught?
Elice Kilko:So what verse is it? I'm just just gonna read it verse 11 um, yeah, I think it's funny because you see that word trust and you think, well, if the man trusts her, it should be, you know, a partnership, and yet in so many circles it was like the woman obeys her husband. You know, like that was even used to be in English vows a long time ago. Um, so I definitely didn't, um, my example growing up was just so different. But I think that a lot of times it's not taught in a respectful way that you know, a man should be able to trust his wife and oftentimes it wasn't something that was encouraged. You know the, the woman, you know the serpent deceived the woman because she was more gullible, or whatever. You know, how could a husband trust in his wife if she's gullible, sort?
Jessica Jenkins:of that women are foolish.
Elice Kilko:you know, how could a husband trust in his wife if she's gullible, sort of that? Women are foolish, you know. And to be clear, that's not how I grew up in my own and with my parents, but you know that was just kind of the understated kind of in a lot of the water that we were swimming. It's just heartbreaking, oh, it's so heartbreaking.
Jessica Jenkins:And you even have heartbreaking oh, it's so heartbreaking. And you even have, uh, preachers and pastors like doug wilson, trigger warning um, who even say, like a husband's job is to kind of stand between his nagging wife and the kids lest she nag them. And it's like, really, that's how men are supposed to view their wives.
Jessica Jenkins:Um, it's, it's not loving we respectful no, and it's certainly not trusting her. Of course, the whole Wilson camp views women as the ultimate problem with everything in society, so that's a whole other discussion. Often, when I've heard Proverbs 31, 11 taught that her husband trusts in her, the people immediately go to well, you need to be a trustworthy woman and that's how they do it. It's like you have to make sure you're trustworthy, which sure Okay, but I feel like the emphasis here it says he trusts in her and I really want to focus on God delights in it when men trust women. I don't know if you experienced this. I have Just the again the undercurrents in the culture we came from, where women weren't fully trusted. We were too emotional, we were easily deceived, we just weren't as smart. A few women might be able to rise above and earn trust, but as a whole we just weren't.
Elice Kilko:Yeah, yeah, I definitely saw that, and it's heartbreaking when you see that in Proverbs 31, the husband is trusting his wife. So not only is she trustworthy, but it's not just because she's trustworthy, it's because they're partners.
Jessica Jenkins:Yeah, and it's a man in power who's trusting a woman completely in every way. Yeah, and I've rarely seen men in power fully trust women. They might trust their individual wife, which great, that's awesome, but to trust women and this verse doesn't say he trusts all women, he trusts this one, but God delights in it when women are trustworthy and when men trust in them and when women are given the opportunity to earn that trust. I'm not saying trust should be just given carte blanche, but many women aren't even given the opportunity to earn trust or prove that they are trustworthy because they're a woman. So therefore, why is he?
Elice Kilko:There's so much wisdom that we lose when we don't trust in the godly women around us.
Jessica Jenkins:I mean in the book of Proverbs. What gender is wisdom described as? The entire book of Proverbs is about wisdom, and what gender is it described as?
Elice Kilko:A woman, a woman, lady, wisdom.
Jessica Jenkins:Lady wisdom. God expects and delights in it. When men, communities and churches trust in godly women, that's what God loves. So the Proverbs 31 woman, the woman of valor, and her husband. Their marriage functions with mutual respect and understanding. They are equal partners in their community. Both of them are looking out for the needs of their own household and communities and we'll get into all the nuances of all of that as we go through.
Jessica Jenkins:But he's not leaving her to do all the household work. Yes, he's in the gate, but he's not there all the time. He's probably taking care of his own lands and properties and managing household as well, and he's trusting her household as well. And he's trusting her. But it's not only does he trust her. It's likely that he's leveraging his influence and honor to help her succeed. And this isn't just helping her succeed. Like buying her a new vacuum to better clean the house or a new microwave to make him dinner. He is allowing her access to male spaces to participate in stereotypically male activities like the buying and selling of land. He is using his male privilege and power and influence in his community to lift up his wife and thereby all women in the community.
Elice Kilko:That would make a big difference.
Jessica Jenkins:How so.
Elice Kilko:Well, just in the circles that we've seen, you know, where women are seen as second class citizens and not having, you know, the agency to make decisions for themselves, I think that when we read these passages and we listen to the wisdom of you know, the the wise women that God has placed in our life, I mean proverb. This verse is specifically talking about a husband listening to her uh, a husband listening to his wife. But in churches and things when, when churches listen to the voices of the women, the godly women in their church, I think that that would really really steer churches differently and might cut down with a lot of the abuse that we see happening just to have more people at the table, more voices.
Jessica Jenkins:And how would things change if, when a woman stepped up and was like this is a dangerous situation, or he touched my kid or he touched me or I just get bad vibes like super creepy If men were like I trust you, I trust your gut, we're going to actually do what we say men do and protect, like how that I mean that's just on abuse and then think about wisdom and everything, like I think everything would change if the playing field for trust and I'm not for those of my complementarian listeners, I'm not even saying women should be preaching or having authority or anything what if we just leveled the playing field, that women had equal opportunity to be trusted across the board? And in some places they do? I don't remember women being not trusted in the specific church I grew up in with my parents, because my dad did trust women and he was a pastor. But once I moved out from there I immediately started noticing lack of trust. I noticed a pastor.
Jessica Jenkins:I was invited to a Sunday school teacher's thing. I'm a single woman at this point. He goes down the row, greets every single person, skips me. The only single woman in the room doesn't even acknowledge I'm there and keeps going greeting every single person Married women got greeted Once I was married. He would give me a big hug. Single women, not trustworthy. Don't even look at her. That's crazy. That's crazy. What would happen if we treated women or gave them the opportunity to earn trust rather than assuming distrust off the bat?
Elice Kilko:Makes such a big difference. So let's so what else? What else does Proverbs 31 have to say about the woman of valor's husband?
Jessica Jenkins:Verse 28, this goes off of the trust he her husband rises and then he praises her. Husband rises and then he praises her. So often this is taught be praiseworthy, he praises her. You better be worth it. But again, what if we had cultures and communities and I'm not just talking about husbands or men, because I don't want to bag on men, because women are just as guilty of the not trusting women as men are. Often they're worse. What if our cultures and communities and churches would praise godly women? What if our husbands would do that? What if men in power would praise or people in power would praise worthy people, men or women? What if that was the cultural framework of our communities and churches? How would that change everything?
Elice Kilko:I think it would just help everybody to want to be their best self. It really challenges you. If you're held to a more loving and high standard and you're praised for the good that you do, it makes you want to challenge yourself to be better. Yeah, it holds you to this higher standard that you want to attain, yeah, so.
Elice Kilko:So in Jewish custom, um on Sabbath, on Sabbath, many times, before the kiddush, the beginning prayer for Sabbath, oftentimes they'll give a special prayer for the women of the household and it's called the Eshet Chayil or the woman of valor, and it's this blessing that is spoken over the mother of the house and the daughters. You see a cultural reference to this in like Fiddler on the Roof in the Sabbath prayer song that they do. But this calling of may you be like Ruth and like Esther, may you be a woman of valor, may you attain, you know, these things. And it gives this example and it gives all these beautiful examples and it calls then the women to be this and it praises the women for doing so. So it's not just here's a checklist of all the things you need to do, it says it's blessing them to be that which I love.
Jessica Jenkins:It's part of the culture. You have this culture that weakly, praises and honors the women. It's part of the culture and that is really beautiful. As we look at Proverbs 31 through the lens of delight, these are things that make God happy. These are things God's heart delights in. He delights in it when husbands trust their wives. He delights in it when husbands praise their wives. Of course, we want to be women who are trustworthy and praiseworthy and all the things, but when we look at entire cultural frameworks.
Jessica Jenkins:I know more women who are working hard to be trustworthy and praiseworthy women than I see cultural structures and desires to praise them and trust them. Yeah, what would happen culturally if trusting and praising that would shift everything.
Elice Kilko:I think it would. It would make a big difference.
Jessica Jenkins:So, as we close today, I want to remind all of us that women who are trusted can flourish, or at least women who are given the opportunity to earn trust. I'm not saying we just pass it out on the street corner, but women need the opportunity to learn trust, and women held in suspicion will learn to distrust their own God-given intuition and wisdom, which will in turn make them more susceptible to abuse and susceptible to false teaching. I read an author recently saying that because women are nurturing and gentle, they shouldn't be pastors because they would be led astray by false teaching. So you're not trusting women, which will keep them from trusting themselves, so that they cannot trust that they're understanding theology and you will have a self-fulfilling prophecy. You are creating the women you're decrying by your very words.
Jessica Jenkins:And again, I am not arguing in this episode either way on whether women should be pastors or not. Whether his claim on that is, I'm not even going there but when you deny women trustworthiness as part of their essence that was Thomas Schreiner, by the way, who said that. He may have updated it and taken that out of a more recent copy of his work, which I do not have, but the fact that it was still published at all is an issue work which I do not have, but the fact that it was still published at all is an issue, because you have these authors who are creating, on purpose, mistrust of women across the board. That does not please God. This is a hill I will die on.
Elice Kilko:Yes, for sure it's an important one.
Jessica Jenkins:Yes, for sure. It's an important one. God delights in it when women are trusted and we see Jesus trust women. Who was it that got to tell about the resurrection? It was the person who could not hold testimony in a court of law because the men didn't trust women, but Jesus trusted. Women didn't trust women, but Jesus trusted women to carry the best news that ever there was that Jesus is alive. Jesus trusted women. Paul trusted women to bring the letters where they needed to go. God trusted Deborah. I mean, I could go on. Yes, there are so many examples.
Elice Kilko:I mean, I could go on. Yes, there are so many examples, but we have to take that seriously.
Jessica Jenkins:God delights in it when women are trusted, and that starts with us. It's easy to be like okay, pastors, you need to start trusting women. Okay, what about us? Are we willing to trust women? Because we carry internalized misogyny as well.
Elice Kilko:Yeah.
Jessica Jenkins:We've absorbed those, those thoughts I know I've I've struggled with. Well, I'm not like those women because I'm educated and have a stronger personality, so of course I'm able to understand, but they're not. You know, I I participate, I've drunk the water.
Elice Kilko:Yeah.
Jessica Jenkins:I've swallowed it into my lungs. I'm trying to spew it back out and be like no, this is not God's desire for women. This is not what he loves.
Elice Kilko:So what else do we need to know before we close this subject about the woman of valor and her husband? Close this subject about the woman of valor and her?
Jessica Jenkins:husband. A community in which women can thrive, or anybody can thrive, is a community built on trust and that goes across gender lines, across racial lines, across socioeconomic lines. God wants unity in his church. Unity is what he delights in and he wants that for us across all of the divides, and he wants us to trust him above all else. And though God rules all and sits with the angels in heaven, he sees women's faith. If you're a woman sitting there listening, he sees your faith, he sees your hard work, he sees your desire to know him and he honors that he loves us. He likes how he created women, each woman individually with her own strengths and passions. In each woman individually with her own strengths and passions.
Jessica Jenkins:God wants to showcase what he has done in you to the world. God trusts you as you walk in the spirit and let him guide you. He loves you and, as the Proverbs 31, woman's husband raises her and trusts her. Your heavenly father will lift you up and trust you and gift you what you need to be trustworthy and praiseworthy and full of fruits of the spirit and all the things, because he delights in you as his child. That's so good. Thank you, elise, for being with us. I cannot wait to talk about our next episode, which will be talking about the Proverbs 31 woman's home. We're going to get into the whole homemaking thing next episode. I love it. I'm so excited into the whole homemaking thing next episode.
Elice Kilko:So I love it.
Jessica Jenkins:I'm so excited, awesome, all right. Well, until then, may the Lord bless you and keep you. May he make his face shine upon you and give you peace. Have a good day.
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