Women in Ministry: Preston Sprinkle on What the Bible Actually Says

The art of leadership network. - I was never really impressed with the egalitarian argument side see just the ones that kind of came across and passed into like, well, very magnally. And you know, she preached a resurrection and she's the apostle to the apostles. And I'm like, well, I don't know a single complimentary in who says, no, women can't talk about the resurrection in front of men. Like, I don't think that's what they were saying. And well, you know, Jesus really valued women. And I'm like, of course, non-leaders are valued too. You know, that doesn't mean they should be ordained or whatever. But when I look deeper into it. (upbeat music) - Welcome to the Keri New Hospital Leadership Podcast. I'm so glad you joined us today. We're gonna have a conversation that I think is meaningful on two levels. First of all, we are gonna talk about women in leadership. This is something you ask for. We identified it as a trend that women are leaving the church. And so we wanna talk about women in leadership. And I've got a guest today who actually changed his mind on the subject. He grew up complimentary and but really studied the scripture and said, maybe I was wrong. Now, he did the same thing for sexuality and concluded that a historic understanding of sexuality and gender is something that the Bible teaches. So, you know, this is not somebody who's just going left or turning woke or anything like that. Dr. Preston Sprinkle is gonna be a really fascinating host. But the second thing, and probably the deeper reason I'm even more excited to bring you this conversation is because his project on women in leadership really shows openness. And I think that's lacking in the church dialogue today. I think more and more people are just like, here's what I believe, I'm gonna find all the evidence I possibly can to support my belief. And Preston Sprinkle is willing to be wrong. And not wrong because culture says something but wrong because perhaps his understanding of scripture was incorrect, which I think is a Christian is really important. So, I am excited to bring you that conversation. For those reasons and more, and I would encourage you to listen to the end before you drop a comment. Don't just take your preconceived views, either pro women in leadership or a complimentary in view and drop them into the comments without listening to this conversation. Deal? Okay, that sounds good. Well, Preston Sprinkle is a biblical scholar, a speaker, a podcaster, New York Times best-selling author, and the co-founder and president of the Center for Faith, the Sexuality and Gender. He is also the president of Theology and the Raw and hosts the popular theology in the Raw podcast. So, I think you're really gonna enjoy this. Let's go into my conversation with Dr. Preston Sprinkle. Well, Preston, I'm glad we finally connected. Thanks for coming on the podcast. Thanks for having me on, Kerry. I'm honored to be here. I've been a fan for a long time, so excited to be with you. Well, I'm glad we've connected. And you really surprised me. I got your book and on women in leadership. And I thought, wow, an actual inductive journey. Like you don't really find today in the intellectual circles in the church. I mean, you do an academic work, but in more popularly consumed work. And so I'd love you to back up the story a little bit. Tell us how you're raised, because one of the big debates or discussions in the church is complementarian versus a egalitarian leadership. Right? Do men and women complement each other? Are they equal in the sense that either can fulfill any office or role, et cetera, et cetera? And it's still an issue that we talk about on this podcast from time to time. But it's really impressed with your work. Wanted to have this conversation. So let's back up the bus to your childhood. How are you raised? Are you raised with a particular viewpoint around that? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I was raised in a really strong complementarian context. Someone went to John MacArthur's college in seminary. And-- So that's about-- Yep, that's about as complementarian as you can get. And that view made perfect sense to me. To me, it was just that's what the Bible says. And I'd read First Timothy, too. And it seemed to say that another passage is in 12 male apostles. And that was the environment I grew up in. And that was the length which I read scripture. And it made sense to me. But as I got older and over the years in ministry and teaching in colleges, I'm getting to know other scholars who also love the Bible. And I also love Jesus and didn't hold to that view. I'm like, well, they're offered faithful interpretations of the text on other issues. Like, what have they-- What have they seen that I haven't been told yet? And so every time I wanted to dig into the issue, I just got overwhelmed with the pile of literature that's been written on it. I said, oh, I need to wait until I have some time to really weigh through this issue as thoroughly as I can before I can say for myself, years what I think the Bible says. So I kind of pled the fifth. I just said, I don't know what I think up until last few years when I got some time to dig in and devote a substantial amount of time to researching it. And so the book begins with that journey. I begin-- I don't begin with a conclusion because I didn't have one. I didn't know where I was going to live. I was in real time. This has sort of come with me as I try to figure this out. And I didn't have a leaning one way or another. I'm very centered on the Bible. Like if God said, only men can be leaders in God's Senate. And I believe in that settles it as my grandma said. Or if these passages have not been interpreted correctly in terms of the so-called traditional view, then go with what the text says. So that's the spirit which I started. Yeah, it's interesting to me because I want to dig a little bit deeper because we live in an age where people tend not to be open-minded. Or open-mindedness is a sign of unfaithfulness. As soon as your child starts to rethink things or read from a different stream, a lot of parents panic. It's like this is what we taught you. And it's almost a badge of honor as in, this is where I sit on the ideological, theological spectrum. And I'm not budging. And now all of my evidence supports my current view. What are the problems with that, as you see it? I think it's profoundly unbiblical. And it goes against the spirit of the reformers who were not just reformed, but as the saying goes, always reforming. We, because the text is central, and because we are fallible, we need to consistently be bringing our previously held views back to the text of scripture to see if these things are so. So yeah, people that are, I mean, yeah, being open-minded doesn't mean just believe whatever latest thing you hear. It means, because I believe in an authority of scripture, I'm going to keep testing, keep testing, keep bringing my views back to the text of scripture. So I think that's the way Christians should go about being biblically centered. - Although, I've probably called myself a year, like put yourself on a spectrum, I would be on the conservative side. Just that's probably where I fall. Some people might disagree with that, because they have a particular understanding of conservatism or whatever. But I find as a conservative, generally, on most issues, that sometimes there can almost be a fear of opening your mind. In other words, we're conservative because we're conserving the past, we're conserving what we believe, we're conserving orthodoxy, we're conserving all the things that are important to us. And anybody who challenges that status quo is a threat. Did you, particularly growing up in MacArthur's world, was that ever a factor for you? Or you just wired differently? Or did you see that? I'm curious. - That's funny, that's a good question. That environment, like any environment, there's probably-- - Yeah, I mean, you could switch the name out. - Okay, there's a lot. - No, it's not picking on MacArthur. I'm just saying, he's a good example. - But I'll speak honestly about my journey. I mean, yeah, there was that kind of fear that the conclusions that that environment came to, those are the biblical conclusions. And if you don't hold to those conclusions, you're not being biblical. But I was so, the reason why I wanted to study in that environment was because I believe so strongly in the authority of the scriptures. If the God breathes stars into existence, breed that as word, then I want to orient my life around the Bible. And so I, it's because they built in me this passion for the authority of scripture that I was excited to go with the text leads. And when I found myself, you know, a green, some things that they were teaching me and maybe started to disagree with some things they were teaching me, it was all because of the text of scripture. So I took the spirit, the core of what they built into me. But I ended up not, you know, landing on all the issues that they said I should land on. But so yeah, I didn't, because I, didn't bother me. I don't think it did. And maybe I'm wired differently. I've just, I'm gonna stand before God, not man at the end of the day and say, you know, were you faithful? Did you rightly divide my word? Not did you adhere to all the traditional or whatever viewpoints that you were told when you were 19 years old? Like God's not gonna ask me that question. So I just, I don't mind departing from tradition if I'm convinced that the Bible says it, you know. - Well, you know, I'm glad we're going there. I wasn't planning on talking about this with you, but you know, the older I've gotten, I've read the Bible through in a year for the most part, for the last 28 years, they're about started in the late 90s. And as you get older, I mean, I find parts of it more shocking than I ever did. And so where I'm at, like I'm now in the, ooh, I don't know that I land on the right side of scripture. Like if I'm in these stories, am I a religious leader or am I the sinner looking for repentance? I'm very worried I might land on the wrong side of history. And then you get to Peter and the birth of the early church and you get to him having the vision on the roof that the gospel is also for the Gentiles. And he sees these things, that he has been raised in, that he has not allowed to touch or even think of or see or enter his house, all this unclean food, these unclean animals. And he gets this vision at three o'clock in the afternoon. And God says, no, it's clean. You can touch and eat. And he wakes up and he obeys. I would be like, I think that's a bad dream. I know. I'm raised in this. Like, do you know what the Old Testament says? And of course, New Testament hasn't written yet. And then, and then he knows immediately it's not about food, it's about the Gentiles. Yes. How does he know that? And then it gets confirmed by Cornelius, but Cornelius, he's never let a Gentile into his house before. Now he lets a Gentile into his house and I'm like, I don't know that I would be that open mind. Like I think I would have been just on the wrong side of history. I don't know. It's just really interesting because we think of like I'm holding to the view as our understanding of orthodoxy when Jesus completely upended what orthodoxy was, the people who were out were in and I know we preached that stuff. But when you actually look at it, it's like, ooh, I'm like, I don't know. Any thoughts on that? What's funny about that story is Peter ended up getting a lot of flak from his conservative Jewish brothers who wanted to maintain tradition. And he capitulated and Paul had to confront him on it, right? In Galatians 2, I said. He's like, hey. You see, you with Gentiles, no, you're not. And he says, you're not walking in step with the truth of the gospel. So it's maintaining traditions that God wasn't wanting him to maintain. Was it the parts of the gospel? Yeah. So it's really interesting, you know, open-mindedness as a cardinal sin. I don't think that's a great framing. And we live, I don't know whether you've seen this or not, but we've both been around leadership for a little while. Perhaps in the church, we feel a little more close-minded now in this season than we were 20 years ago. Does that seem right to you or not? Yeah, it feels that way to me. It's hard to measure it, but I think the tribalism within the broad stream of Christianity seems to have gotten stronger. The walls around each tribe seem to have gotten thicker and conversations across different tribes. Again, within Orthodox Christianity, do seem to be not being had as much, these healthy, curious conversations, even across differences. I don't know. Maybe we can blame it all on social media, the internet, politics is a big play. I don't know if they go root cause, but it certainly feels that way. And I don't know, I just have never operated that way. Like, I love talking to people at different viewpoints and learning and finding blind spots in my own viewpoints. You only do that if you get outside your echo chamber and curiously engage other people. Doesn't mean you agree with it. It just means you can't really refute somebody unless you truly understand what they're trying to say. Yeah, it's not so much fidelity to what I know or what I've known. It's fidelity to the gospel. I think you frame that really well, not fidelity to what I once thought or once believed. Okay. So, you know, back to where you decided to pick up this journey, you're more recent book, your recent book before this was on biblical sexuality. And you really wanted to explore that. Now on that one, you came out with a historic understanding of human sexuality that is not affirming, correct? Exactly. Yeah. And that one, I approached that one like any topic, I want to be open to what the text says. And I knew what I believed, but I didn't know why I believed it, you know, growing up, homosexuality is a sin, blah, blah, blah. But I didn't really, I wouldn't be able to defend that from scripture. I didn't even know where the Bible says it, you know? So I did a thorough study of the text. And as a Bible say about marriage, what does it say about same-sex relationships? And I concluded that, yeah, here, I think tradition got it, I got it right. Like marriage is between a man and a woman. The sex difference is an intrinsic part of what marriage is. It's built into the fabric of creation. It's part of the storyline of scripture as marriage as a metaphor participates in God's covenant love for us. And sex difference is necessary for that metaphor to work. Whatever same-sex relationships or sexual relationships are mentioned, they're always prohibited. So I did, I tried to understand the affirming view, the best I could and say, if it's biblical, then that's a go with it. But I just didn't see it in the scripture. So yeah, I landed on, not just landed, but I think this is a very important doctrine that marriages between a man and a woman. And so I've been, yeah, I've written a few books defending that. Where some people maybe got thrown off, as I said, and also we should embody the radical kindness of God that leads to repentance toward LGBTQ people. And that's where some people, they're like, we're on border with the theology, but this kindness and love and understanding, we're not so sure, but I'm like, it's come from Jesus, you know that right? Yeah. Well, and some people would react to the kindness and love, some people would react to the repentance. No need to repent, right? Right. Welcome to the era that we're in. But what's interesting about that to me, and this is why I really wanted to have this conversation, if it was just based on, well, I'm got some really smart people and they changed their mind on this issue, they hold a different view. There are some very smart people who have changed their views or hold a different view, an affirming view of sexuality. I know some of them, I haven't changed my mind on that either. I'm not affirming at this point, but I want to show the kindness and etc., etc., I just can't get away from the scripture on that issue. But usually what would happen is you would come out affirming and then come out egalitarian and then, you know, etc. But what I find really interesting is your biblical study on sexuality led you to affirm the historic understanding of man and woman, etc., and sexuality, but your biblical understanding on women and leadership led you to embrace a different position from where you had started. Right. People, yeah, people try to throw out the slippery slope thing like if you affirm women and leadership, then you're going to be affirming of same sexual relationships. And I'm like, we're dealing with two different issues. And I make it really clear in my book that we shouldn't diminish sex differences, male female differences in order to achieve a view where women can be leaders in a church. The question isn't are men and women different, of course they're different. The question is, do those differences determine who can be in a position of leadership or not? So we're really dealing with different things. And yes, anecdotally, every affirming person I know is also egalitarian in terms of, you know, those who confess Jesus. But the slippery slope has two sides too. I want to remind people, you know, what's the other side of slippery slope? Well, I mean, if, if, yeah, if you think just defending like a complimentary view, if it's not the best interpretation of scripture, like slippery slope is your, you're not, you're not allowing half of the kingdom, the opportunity to be in positions of leadership in God, maybe calling them to leadership. And not that this is true about complimentary context, but you could, it could foster a kind of like misogyny or devaluing a women. I've been in complimentary churches that don't do that. And I've seen some to do, you know, so just because you maintain tradition and maintain your conservatism doesn't mean you could also, that you're, that you're immune from not aligning with, with scripture in the other direction. This episode is brought to you by the art of leadership live. If you're leading a church and you know there's more in you and more ahead for your team, I want to personally invite you to something special. September 21st through 23rd, I'm hosting the Art of Leadership Live in Nashville, Tennessee. Now, don't think of this as a conference where you sit in a chair for eight hours, take notes and hope something sticks. 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So let's go on this inductive journey because I found it really interesting. And I think it's a, you know, whether whether you want to chase down this issue or not, it's a very interesting book because I spent way too much time in university, but a good academic inquiry does exactly what you did in this book. You start open-minded, you actually investigate the issue, you let the evidence take you somewhere, you don't take the evidence somewhere, and you go from there. So you start like the introduction, were you on a plane or was that the conclusion? That was the conclusion, yeah. Conclusion, you're on a plane. But at the beginning, you're starting out and you really don't know and you normally, you know, you write a book after you've figured it all out. This is like, let's go for the ride. So you start in Genesis. What did you learn about men and women? One of my mentors early on in ministry, he said everything I need to know about God in life, I learned in Genesis 1 through 3. And the more I think about that, the more I'm like, yeah, there's a lot there. What did you learn in Genesis 1 through 3? It's true. I mean, this passage is really important for the debate. Some people say the entire debate rests on Genesis 1 to 3. I think that's a little too far, but clearly it's an important text and especially in my, you know, in my complimentary and upbringing, you know, I often heard of the arguments, you know, Adam was born first. Therefore, he is in authority over Eve. Eve is his helper. Therefore, Adam has priority and Eve exists to help her husband, but he's really kind of doing the main work, you know, and this is a paradigm for all future male, female relations. And there's other arguments that people draw out of Genesis 1 to 3. And so I kind of went back to the text scripture and I just wanted to really see what are the arguments for the different views here and do they hold a genital way. And so I kind of considered a lot of the main ones, you know, like Adam being born first. I looked into that. A lot of people will point out that there's a principle in the ancient world called prima genitor where the first born son would take over leadership of the family when the father dies. Like so he is kind of in authority over the rest of his siblings, you know, the rest of the household. And I'm like, okay, well, it's on the 19th century in caste societies and maybe he's still active in some cultures today, prima genitor. Sure. And inherited the lion's share of everything. Right. And you see that as a, you see that in ancient Israelite culture for sure. But then you know, I started looking at the situation of Adam and Eve. And I like, well, Adam and Eve are spouses, not siblings. She is not his younger brother. And there's the father, there's no father who has died to pass on the inheritance. So yeah, he's created first, but to just say, oh, this is a prima genitor. It's like, well, is it though? Like it doesn't seem to match up. But most importantly, and this is something that, you know, I kind of knew intuitively, but I, you know, just read through, you know, all the passages and it's like, man, God often overturns prima genitor throughout scripture. You say that's Joseph. That's like that's Jacob and he saw, right? Like there is an as a David and his brothers. I mean, you can go on and on. This seems to be something that yes, it was a cultural norm, but God often challenges this culminating in Jesus's mantra that he said so often. You know, the last will be first. The first will be last. The last Adam is better than the first that. You know, so it's just to say like simply because Adam is born first, this is a prima, prima genitor. He has priority over the woman. Therefore, women shouldn't be in church leadership. And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, that there's several theological leaps and assumptions going on there that just aren't there clearly in Genesis. So yeah, well, and there's a blame game too, right? It was Eve who was deceived. I've heard that one. What did you make of that? That would, that would be what I did talk about that. That was one of the weaker arguments. You know, it's like, you know, I even point out I'm like, you know, it took the most craftiest being in the universe to deceive the woman. And she sinned. What did it take for Adam to sin? His wife offered him some fruit. Yeah, the dumb silent type. Like, okay, looks good to me. I'm hungry. If we're going to say this is like a knock on someone's intellect and it could go, we can get all off the rails and saying Adam was, you know, you know, way dumber than Eve, whatever. You know, so I just like, I don't, I don't think again, I'm asking a question. Is the text trying to tell us something intentional about authority structure and leadership in the way the retailing story of Adam and Eve? And that's where with all these arguments, I just said, I mean, maybe I just don't see the biblical author really trying to promote that. Another one is, you know, Adam names his wife, you know, in Genesis 2.23, you shall be called woman for you are taken out of man. And, and you do have in the ancient world, when somebody names somebody else or changes the name of somebody else, like Nebuchadnezzar was changing the names. Shadrach, Misha, I could have been to go. Is that right? Yeah. No, it's, oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And like, okay, yeah, you see that in scripture. But then you see cases where the person doing the naming isn't demonstrating authority over the person being named, like in the case of Heygar, who names God in Genesis 16 or, or there's a, there's a story in Genesis, I believe it's 26 where the naming, giving a name to the place where the well was dug is actually a way of kind of relinquishing authority. It's kind of an odd passage, but it's like, okay, so, and he doesn't really name, he doesn't name her Eve there. He does that at the end of chapter three, but that's in the context of the fall in 223. He just calls her woman. Is that a naming? Is he naming her? Well, it's not too clear. And just because he names her, it's not always a case. That's a demonstration of authority. So, again, with all these arguments, it's like, okay, you know, it's kind of like maybe, but there's problems with that argument. And other arguments were like, I don't think this really holds weight at all. So, you know, I just say, I don't, I don't think there's a clear intention from the biblical author trying to promote kind of male authority over woman in Genesis 1 to 3. So the Old Testament, you continue, right? Like, if it was clear in there, you're trying to do exegesis rather than isegesis, right? You're trying to draw meaning out of the text rather than import your own perspective into the text, which you can easily do with any passage and preachers have done it for years. But you move on to the Old Testament. What else did you discover? So I just, you know, I really wanted to get to the New Testament because that's really the heart of the debate. But I'm like, and you got two thirds of the Bible here and the Old Testament was the early church's Bible. The New Testament wasn't written yet. So what did it say about women? Well, that's a big question. So, you know, I wanted to just see what are some ways in which women appear in the Old Testament story. As, you know, as an important out by many people and if you just read the Old Testament once, you would get this impression that men outnumber women by far in the biblical story, right? I mean, and statistically, it's actually for every one woman that's named ten men are named. So men outnumber one. Ten to one. Yeah. And you got, you know, all the, you know, all the patriarchs and Moses and Aaron and, you know, David and all the kings and, you know, so it's like, yeah, it's, it seems like a drama between God and men and it largely is. But when women do come on the scene, they often model the radical faithfulness and sacrifice and courage that Yahweh demands sometimes, oftentimes in contrast to the men around them. My favorite is the early chapters of Exodus. This is something I didn't see for years. But the early chapters of Exodus, you know, this, this major turning point in redemptive history where God's going to go redeem His people. And we always think, yeah, I need to use Moses and Aaron to go down and do that. Like, yeah, but let's revisit the early chapters. Exodus, one to four. It is all women who are carrying out God's plan of redemption. got the two Hebrew midwives in chapter one who with, you know, thumb their noses at the King's Edech, you know, risking their lives. And then chapter two, you have, uh, it's Moses's mom and then Moses's sister and then Pharaoh's daughter. And then in chapter four, you have my favorite story of the Bible, Zipporah, Moses's wife, you know, God's going to kill Moses because they forgot the circumcises son. So Zipporah busts out her Flint rock, circumcises her. And throws throws it at Moses's feet and the author needs to tell us to end it touched his feet. You know, so, so it's, but that's think about it. This is written. This is the essential part of the storyline of scripture is written into profoundly patriarchal context. And the authors are highlighted all of these courageous women who are carrying out God's plan redemption. And where's Moses? Well, he's kind of fumbling and stumbling. He's scared. He's reluctant. He God does end up using him. And Moses goes on to do great things. But it's like, man, the women here are just, you know, they're the star of the show at early on in Exodus. And you see this all throughout the Old Testament, Abigail and, and, and Ruth and Rayhab and other, and, you know, some female prophets, Deborah and Holda and others. So, so, uh, quantity isn't the same as quality while men outnumber women by far. Gosh, God's giving us a glimpse of women just being rock stars for the kingdom, even early on in, in the Old Testament. Right. So that's the Old Testament. And, in your mind, if it was just an Old Testament story, where did that leave you? In, in, well, it's one thing for women to demonstrate faithfulness, you know, I mean, all Christians should be faithful leaders are non-leaders. So just because you're being a really awesome Yahweh follower, it doesn't mean, doesn't necessarily mean, therefore you should occupy a formal role of leadership. So I did, and this is how, this is really the spirit of how my whole book lays out. I'm not drawing, I'm typically not drawing a one-to-one correlation between this passage and therefore women should be leaders. It's, it's just kind of a unfolding, cumulative case that's building. So, um, but there are two, well, at least two people, the Old Testament that do contribute to this conversation. Of course, Deborah and Holda, who, you know, Deborah is a prophet and a judge and is, you know, I considered all the counterarguments people try to get around. But man, she is, occupying a formal leadership role in Israel at that time. Holda, same thing. There's no, the author makes no, he just kind of mentions her like, of course, yeah, they went to holda. And, you know, Josiah sent a elite delegation to go to holda to seek the Lord. And what's interesting is Jeremiah is in Jerusalem at that time. He's just going to holda. He goes to hold a. And she's like, here's the word of the Lord. And they move on. And, you know, big revolution happened. So, um, and yeah, and Deborah too. And people say, well, they're not teachers. You know, the priests were the teachers. And that's true. Priests were the commission, commission teachers of the law. But prophets held the most authority in ancient Israel, which was kind of very countercultural. I mean, you know, the famous scene in Second Samuel 12 when Nathan comes and rebukes the king. There's no other ancient nary sculpture with a, with a king would receive a rebuke from anybody, you know, but here the prophets were king makers and king breakers. And so the fact that you have two female prophets and the biblical author doesn't ho and ham or, you know, they just kind of mentioned them that that's again, I don't want to end a discussion. Women can be elders, whatever, but like that's like, well, if God had etched into creation, only man should hold authority over women. Even these few clear exceptions are like, well, either, either this is sinful, Deborah and hold it, or maybe God didn't lay this out in creation to be upheld for every, every place in the whole time. This episode is brought to you by victory beyond the cup. So church leaders this summer, as you may know, the world cup kicks off. And that's when more than five billion people are paying attention to the same moment. And that happens. It's not just a sports event. It's a leadership opportunity. And Heather, ready from crew is here. So Heather, what's victory beyond the cup? 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It's really about making it simple for people to live out their faith in this incredible moment where people are already gathering. Well, that's good news for churches. And if you're ready to help your people step into really what truly is a global moment with intention and purpose, here's what you can do. Visit victory beyond the cup.com and download the free kits that is victory beyond the cup.com. So then we get to the New Testament because almost everybody who listens to this would be New Testament Christians or at least their Christian background, that kind of thing. And that really did change the conversation. I think what did you discover? Do you want to where do you want to start the New Testament with Jesus' ministry or? Yeah, yeah, briefly with Jesus. I mean, by the time I got to the gospels, I was still like, man, I'm saying things here that I didn't see before. And I'm kind of like, hmm, this is interesting. But I wasn't. I still was like, I'm still not sure where I'm going to land. The Ministry of Jesus. I've never, I've been told my study. I was never really impressed with the egalitarian arguments I'd see just the ones that kind of came across and passed into like, well, very magnally. And I'm like, well, I don't know a single complementary in who says, no, women can't talk about the resurrection in front of men. Like I don't think that's what they were saying. And well, with Jesus, really valued women. And like, of course, non leaders are valued too. But when I look deeper into it, there's some interesting things going on in the gospels, the way the gospel writers retail, Jesus is interaction with women. You know, kind of like the Old Testament, oftentimes women are modeling the radical courage, sacrifice, faithfulness that Jesus demands the rigorous cruciform way of Jesus. Women are, again, that don't appear as often. But when they do, they're, they're, they're modern modeling it. Oftentimes in contrast to the 12 who are doing not that, you know, don't get it wrong. It's like, I didn't need to cut off the ear, but I got so mad. You know? So I, you know, again, I don't want to draw a straight line between that and leadership. But it's like, wow, okay, this is still part of this unfolding, redemptive story. But there is one place that really caught my attention. The one place where Jesus comes as close as it comes to talking directly about leadership as in Mark 10 and the parallels where James and John want to occupy positions of leadership in God's kingdom. And, and, and then so Jesus gives him his kind of kingdom perspective on authority. And he says, you know, the Gentiles lord it over you, but that's not going to be this way. Am I kingdom? It's going to be the servant. The one who serves is greater than the one who is served. It's like, okay, so Jesus sees serving as a key component of, of, of leadership. Who's serving in the gospels? And here's what I did. I've never seen this before. And, and, um, there's a couple of articles that kind of pointed out and passing. But the only two followers of Jesus who serve in, in Mark's gospel are, are occur at both ends of the gospels. Peter's mother-in-law is healed, served Jesus. And at the very end, Mark 15, you have the Galilean women who follow Jesus and served him. That word deacanea, deacanel is only used in describing people other than Jesus, only used in these two places. And both times they're describing women, book ending the entire gospel. And at the heart of this gospel is Mark 10, Jesus, overturning the kind of hierarchical structure in the Greco-Roman society. So, so that's where I'm like, okay, that, does he call the melders? No. Does that determine the, does that, do we end the discussion? No. But women were there, therefore, according to Jesus' definition of leadership, the only ones modeling leadership, great type qualities in, in the gospels. So that got me, that got the wheels turning. But for me, it was really chapter four, chapter five, where I talk about leadership in the early church, and then Roman 16, where I talk about Phoebe, Priscilla, and Junia. I'm like, I think, I think there's a woman doing some leadership stuff in the church. Well, let's go there. Let's talk about the early church. So, I mean, I think anybody would say Jesus honored and elevated women. I mean, from the Smarritan woman to Mary Magdalene, and then there's that little verse in Luke that says it was the women who supported him financially. The whole patronage thing, and then you can move into the New Testament church, and Lydia was probably a patron of the Apostle Paul, et cetera. So, where does that go in the early church? Yeah. So, this was a chapter I didn't plan on writing, and it might be the most important chapter in my book, at least more significant to my argument. It's one that I don't often see explored as often in the conversation. So, I wrote a whole chapter. I wanted to dive into what was the early church like, the first century house churches? What was leadership like? You know, I just assumed that Paul had an iron out structure of the senior pastor, elders, and the weekends. And you read First Timothy, Titus, and it seems, you know, here's the leadership structure that Paul's working with. But what I found was it was way more fluid and messy and not so ironed out. Paul only mentions overseers and elders in three of his 13 letters. I never even knew that. Philippians, Titus, and Timothy, First Timothy. But he identifies and describes leaders all throughout his letters. He'll use other terms like those who manage or care for their church, the Greek word, price, they me. He talks about co-workers. He talks about those who work hard in the gospel, which seems, so that's just a, there's one guy they work hard. But in almost every case, it may be every case, when he identifies somebody is working hard in the gospel, when we collaborate evidence, like we look at that person elsewhere, they're all leaders, you know? And four places in Roman 16, he identifies women who are also working hard in the gospel. If he's not describing leaders there, it's the only place where this phrase isn't describing a leader. Or Paul's favorite leadership term that he uses most often of himself and other apostles are, is the word servant, which makes sense. Mark 10 is the one who served. So this is where I think if we come, and this is, and this is where I even change the questions I was asking, if we come to this issue saying, well, show me where women are elders. I'm like, that's a question, but elder is one of many leadership terms Paul uses, and you don't have a hierarchical structure of senior pastor elders and the deacons. We have that in second century, Ignatius and others. So I, you know, it's just not, I earned out like that in the first century. So, so then I said, okay, we have a wider vocabulary of leadership we can work with. And then when we bring that wide vocabulary to the text, we're like, oh, yeah, Paul is identifying women with leadership terminology in various places throughout the New Testament. So there were three in particular, and hope I got this right, Phoebe Priscilla and Junia, that were, I mean, you even put Junia in the cover of your book, the title of your book. What was in particular about those three women, Phoebe, because a lot of the arguments are Mary Magdalene and, you know, so on and so forth. So what was it about those three or even Chloe, et cetera? What was interesting about Phoebe Priscilla and Junia? Yeah. So these are three of, I think there's 10 women that are named in Roman 16 in a list of so many greetings. And, hey, I mean, I had somebody recently tell me on social media, well, Roman 16 is insignificant. And Paul is just greeting a bunch of people. I'm like, yeah, you don't understand ancient letter writing. The end of a letter in the first century where you greet people is one of those crucial parts of a letter. It captures the theological themes of the letter. It's really significant. So, so this is not just a friend, appendix to Paul's mighty Roman letter. You know, it's like, this is, this is really crucial to his how he sees ministry. And, yeah, he names a bunch of women, three in particular. He gives some pretty interesting descriptions. And here's where I just look at the, what's the terminology Paul's using when he's describing Phoebe and in Priscilla and Junia? My conclusion is, and I try to be, Carrie, I try to be so like, okay, what about this? What about that? Like, way everything. And at the end of the day, if you take the cumulative case of these three women, I think all three, we're doing leadership things in the church, you know? Phoebe. So Phoebe, she's called a, a patron or benefactor. She's a wealthy woman. She's called a servant of the church in Cancria. And so, again, servant could mean somebody, Paul likes to use that as leadership term. The word itself doesn't mean leadership, so we're not, we're not sure here. But as a wealthy, high status woman who's also the servant of the church, man, that, that, you know, I'm like, okay, I'm still trying to push back in myself. I'm like, okay, she, Phoebe would have been seen as a leader in her Greco-Roman world, because if you had high status, you're wealthy, she owns a home, you know? She's funding other people like, she would have been viewed as a, as a leader. What should have been viewed that way in the church? The fact of Paul calls her not just a wealthy, high status woman, but she's a servant of the church. She's not just holding her authority over people, you know? It's like, am I servant? Is that dulyse? Is that what Paul call himself? That's the word. Deaconos. Deaconos. Deaconos. Yeah, yeah. It's the way it's the word he often uses, yeah, to describe himself who described Jesus, you know? And again, the word itself, servant, doesn't always mean leader. He just likes to refer to leaders by that term. But then the big one for me too is like, Phoebe was the letter carrier. She's the one that carried the letter to the Roman church, and that's nobody disputes that. But then I did a whole deep dive on what was it like to carry a letter in the first century. And there's a bit of a lot written on this. This road talks about a lot. The letter carrier would have not only carried the letter, not only I've read the letter, but scholars in this area like to talk about performing the letter, embodying the letter, hand gestures, intonation. You are responsible for embodying the message of the one who wrote the letter. And as this road talks about, he talks a lot about letter carriers in the first century. They would be put, they, it was not uncommon for the letter carrier to be called upon to explain things. They would ask questions. What about this? What about that? So they had to really be familiar with the letter. And this letter is crucial to Paul's ministry. If we take history seriously, I mean, he probably sat down. They probably went over it over it. She probably knew it inside and out. Because she's going to have to not just monotone, you know, read the letter. She's going to have to perform the letter to the church and possibly be called upon to answer questions and offer an interpretation. Did she answer questions? Did she offer an interpretation? The text doesn't say what we do know is that Paul had no problem putting this woman in a position where she very well could have been called upon to ask to answer and interpret the letter. Paul was very much against women interpreting the Romans in a public setting. He wouldn't have put her in that position. So all that to say, and I'd be in a little long way, I get it. I'll sum it up. You know, you can't take all these cumulative things with Phoebe. And it's like, I just the weight of evidence suggests that she would have been viewed as a leader in the church and same thing with Priscilla and of course, Julia, who he calls an apostle. So that was just the same word he would use for the other apostles. He called her apostle. It's the same word for a apostle. There's two major debates. There used to be three debates. One of one of the first debates was whether Junia is even a woman. That's been pretty much settled now. I don't know. There's like one scholar I found that doesn't think she was a woman. The two debates are whether he says that she is an apostle or highly esteemed in the eyes of the male apostles. And I work through the Greek grammar there. There's been a lot written on this and I kind of went back and forth, back and forth. But the more I looked at how this phrase is used throughout Greek literature, the weight of evidence points to Paul identifying her as an apostle. In fact, I'm not fluent in Greek. You're not fluent in Greek. Probably nobody is listening. Well, they can. They're you know, coin a Greek is not their native tongue. Okay. Exactly. Exactly. So it's not a classical Greek. So I weren't trying to analyze the same things. But then, you know, you look at some early fathers like Chris Estum, who was a native Greek speaker. And he comes across Roman 1670. He's like, blown away. He's like, gosh, Paul is just praising Junia. And she's not only, you know, an apostle, but she's highly esteemed as an apostle. She, a native Greek speaker, read this as, yeah, Paul, that's what it means. Right. And Chris Estum and probably most church fathers, they would have no problem saying, yeah, this woman is on a puzzle. It's like they were, you were okay with that. You know, they were kind of shocked by it. You know, so. Yeah. So I, and then some people say, well, yeah, a possible just, you know, she's not one of the 12. Like, well, obviously, neither is Paul. Neither is a Paulist, but they're still apostles. Well, maybe she's just like a missionary or a messenger. I'm like, there's two passages. Paul refers to messengers from a church with the word Apostleus, but he says she's highly esteemed among the apostles, as Midi Scholars point out. She seems like she's identifying her as part of this group, not some generic reference to messengers of a church. So yeah, I think, you know, it's a, I think we had to wrestle with that passage for sure. I think the weight of evidence says, he's identifying her as an apostle. - So what I appreciate is, you know, what does the text do, which I think often gets overlooked because we focus on what the text says, if that makes sense. So in the early church, here's how it was functioning. This is what they were doing. I'd never thought about until this conversation that maybe the first time the letter of Romans was read aloud was through the lips of a woman. - No, a woman. - A woman read that for the first time. That is a new thought for me. But, and of course, everyone's waiting for this moment. It is shameful even for a woman to speak in church, must have her head covered, you know, submit to your husbands, all of those passages that get quoted again and again. So what is your take on those passages? And those have been well debated over the years. - So there's three passages you mentioned them. First Corinthians 11, first Corinthians 14 and first Timothy 2. The first one we can cover quickly because first Corinthians 11, the whole head covering's passage. It actually doesn't really speak directly to women in leadership because the only two ministries mention prayer and prophecy, Paul assumes women and men are doing that. He doesn't have any problem with that. The old, where the passage gets tricky is, there's a debate about whether the head covering represents the husband's authority over his wife. So the most what we can say is that Paul is advocating for women, praying and prophesying, doing ministry and church while still being under the authority of their husbands. - Not under the authority of elders 'cause some of my soft, complimentary and friends will say, yeah, see, you have male elders and women can teach and preach under that. And that may or may not be true, but this passage, there's no elders anywhere. So at most what we would say is, it's still recognizing a husband's authority over his wife. But I actually, the passage is far more complex than that versus, and here I'll just reference people and we can go onto another one 'cause I spent a lot of time in my church on this chapter. But he says all this early on head coverings, man came from, or woman came from man, not man from woman. But then he turns around in verse 11 and says, however in the Lord, just like, you know, man is, women is not independent from man, man's not independent from woman, for just as woman came from man, all men come from women. So he kinda like, almost sounds like he disagreed. Yeah, he flips it or at least he bounces it out or gives another perspective. But he, he, those first few words, however in the Lord, it's like, well, wait. So there's something that you have just been saying all along Paul that's not in the Lord. What does that mean? Long story short, I think Paul is advocating that women should adhere to a social custom that does symbolize male authority. But then he turns around and gives kind of a new creation perspective. However in the Lord, we're, you know, there is either male, nor female, and we're all in Christ. Yeah. So a little bit maybe like his marriage argument. It's like, look, I wish you were all single and then we'd have population zero. But, you know, for those of you who are burning up with desire, go ahead and get married. Just be careful. Yeah, right. So that leaves us. So that passage really doesn't, it doesn't speak directly to the women and leadership question. First Timothy, or sorry, first Corinthians 14, women be silent. Clearly Paul can't be saying women can't utter a peeping church because he just said they're praying to prophesied. So some people say Paul didn't even write these verses. I don't, I don't think that's the best approach. When I looked into that passage, this is first Corinthians 14 verses 34 to 35. Some of the key words there that cause people to, you know, stumble or get upset, you know, the, you know, women be silent. You need to submit, sit down and learn. If you want to learn, go ask your husbands, you know, I kind of just looked at all those kind of key words, silent and submit and learn. And it's interesting. Paul's been using these words all along at first Corinthians 14. And so if we just use our standard hermeneutic that we learned in first year Bible college, like what does this mean? Word mean by the same author, hopefully in the same context. Like all throughout first Corinthians 14, he's been addressing disruptive speech, speaking in tongues without an interpreter present or interrupting the prophet, let, you know, sit down and wait your turn and let people prophesy one by one. And then he uses all these same words to speak directly to the women. So I think, and this is one where I think, to me, this interpretation was pretty clear. The first Corinthians 111, that one's hard. We need to like, man, we need to land softly on what we think about first Corinthians 11. This one just really made a lot of sense to me that based on how Paul's been using these words, Paul is addressing, he's not telling women, don't utter a p, he say, don't interrupt, don't speak while another prophet is speaking because that's gonna prevent learning from happening. I mean, just look at the few verses before, this is exactly what has been saying on a general level. And here, he's probably addressing a situation where there was a group of women in particular that were, you know, interrupting prophets when they're a prophesying. So, and that's what was shameful. Yeah, because in that culture, it's, you know, post-sensitive to his social context. All throughout his letters, he's, he's, you know, even at first Corinthians 14 in that chapter, he's like, what if an unbeliever comes in and sees, like he's concerned about how? He'll a lot of my ministry is like, hey, church, we gotta pay attention. There's non-believers in the room. Like, come on. Yeah. Don't be the crazy people, okay? Like, that, that feels so much of my ministry over the years. So, in the first century, and I actually read, there's Plutarch, a first century writer as a whole letter addressed to listening etiquette. And it was shameful for anybody to interrupt anybody giving a public address, but it would have been hyper shameful for a woman to cut off or interrupt a man in that social context. So, yeah, that would have brought a lot of stain on the church. They would have, people would have assumed that women are being, you know, just ruling over their husbands and husbands are not being good leaders or whatever. Like, it would have really been missionally poor on the church to have that happening. So, yeah, I think it would have been extra shameful for women to be doing this. And Paul's sensitive to his cultural context. And that's, I think that's why, you know, he was singling him out. Yeah, and culture shows up. I mean, I might be mixing my old testament stories here. This one is an entirely fresh, but I think it was King David who went in and they had their clothes torn off and their buttocks were exposed. And it's like, that was bad. But we actually had to let them sit out in the wilderness until their beards grew back in because it's just so shameful for men to show up without a beard. It's like, well, I guess I'm in pretty bad shape then as a Christian. So are you pressing all the, you got some, some, some, some stubble there. You got some stubble there, you know. But, and I mean, we do see this in, in, in scripture throughout the old New Testament that there are cultural practices that just impact that. Okay. So that's that. And then there was, what was the other one? It was in the-- - At first I think too. The famous first Timothy II, Paul says, I am not, I don't permit a woman to teach or exercise authority of a man. Because Adam was created first, you know. So there you do have this appeal. - But there it settles it, right? - You got it in a complimentary in. - Case closed. What I point, I devote, it's my longest chapter. I devote like 50 pages just to first Timothy II and chapter three. So yeah, if my take here is brief, my treatment in the book is not. One thing I want to remind people is, we don't start with first Timothy II. Like we have to kind of take the canonical progress. So, you know, what's been happening so far throughout scripture up until the first Timothy II. So yeah, I think people start with first Timothy II, they read it quickly and then they say, okay, now we know when we can't teach or preach. Now let's go look at all the other passages and it's like, well, let's look at all the other passages and come to this one and see what Paul's saying here. So textually, the one thing, the one big thing for me is there's a well-known debate about the Greek word translated authority here, authentic. And it's a super rare word. It's not used anywhere else in the Bible, the New Testament, it's not used anywhere else, the Greek Old Testament, not used anywhere else. And it's actually very rare in Greek literature outside the Bible, it's only used less than a dozen times in a couple hundred years on either side of Paul. So it's like, gosh, all right, what does this word mean? It's translated different ways. And so what I did, I just, I said, you know what? I'm going to look at every single time this past, this word is used. I'm going to study the context and see if we can figure out based on other usage, what does this word mean? And found it. and I lay this all out in the book really clearly. This is probably the most tedious part of the book is five pages of looking like Greek papyri and looking at the context. But I'm like, what people to see? I go with the text, don't go with me. I want you to show you why I'm arriving at my view. Every single time this Greek word occurs, it's in the context of a master exercising masterlike authority over his slave or somebody of a high social status kind of dominating somebody of a low social status. It feels very much like the thing Jesus denounced in Mark 10. It's the Gentiles who lorded over you. That's a different word. So kind of I don't permit women to lord over or dominate men in the Churches. Would be the sense of it. Based on the available linguistic evidence we have, I think that is the best way to translate that word. And then if you look into the social context, women did have a, there was an unusually high number of women in Ephesus and in an Asia Minor who had a lot of wealth and status and power and even occupied positions of leadership. And so it would make sense socially that in this situation at Ephesus, there would be a situation where women were maybe doing that kind of exercising more dominating authority over men, which was common in that culture with people of high social status and women of high social status in that culture. So women would culturally dominate over men if they had high social status, you're saying? It was unusual, but it was not, I mean, that's just what queens would do in medieval times. Yeah, I would say it was just what authority meant in the Greco-Roman culture. If you had high social status, like you don't serve one that has low social status, you'd boss them around and tell them what to do. Like you kind of, you don't, you know, if you want to study hierarchy, study for century Greco-Roman culture. Yeah, it's real complex. Yeah, yeah. So people often say like, well, women didn't have high status men did. I'm like, well, generally speaking that's true, but if a wealthy female had a male slave, oh, she had high status and she would be free to treat him however she wanted to, you know? So, yeah, so, so right there, that kind of changes the meaning of the passage. If Paul is prohibiting women from, and I take teach an exercise authority as kind of a expressing a single idea, which is a common way the Greek phrase works, you know? I do not permit women to teach in a dominating way over man. And then the tricky part is he goes to creation. And this man, I spent a lot of pages looking at how to, interpret this, I used to think that Paul is clearly saying, the reason why women shouldn't be doing this is because Adam, because Adam was created first. And if I'm right out there where authority, then it's like, great, yeah, women should never dominate men in that un-Christian fashion. That doesn't mean they can't exercise godly authority or teach in a godly way. It just means they shouldn't exercise ungodly kinds of authority and dominating teaching. But the Greek word translated because there, it could also mean for instance, like it could be given an illustration. Paul could be going back to creation, not to say, you know, this is going against the creation created order, but it could be saying, for instance, you know, in the case of Abani, this happened. And we see Paul appeal to like the deception of Eve and second Corinthians as an illustration, not as kind of like a creation, a departure from a creational norm. So I'll not just say, I say, you know what? I could totally see where complementarians, I could totally see where they read this passage. Like it's like, you know what, that's not an outlandish way to read the passage. But I point out, I'm like, this passage number one is more complex than some people make it out to be. And actually, I think the complementarian reading isn't what I say is, I don't think it's the best way. I think it actually creates more problems in the text itself than it solves. Is it possible? I think it's possible. Like I don't browbeat complementary. How could you dare? You know, it's like, yeah, I mean, it's a complex passage, but I do think there's better ways to interpret it. And especially in light of everything we've said so far about women, I always say rather clearly, doing leadership type things in the church. - So, you know, and I appreciate how you hold your conclusion. You said, this isn't a first principles thing, like the resurrection or the deity of Jesus or anything like that. But in the process, you went from being raised complementary and to saying, perhaps the better biblical view based on all my studying and this journey would be in a egalitarian where women are equal. Do you see, I'm just curious. Do you see any limits like female lead pastors or teaching but not preaching or any of the things that you can be a director but not a pastor? All the workarounds that the church is doing these days. How would you speak into that? - I don't, I don't see that. I respect, I would say a lot of people that I'm in sort of ministry with or churches I speak at would have that kind of view where women could do many things but not all the things, you know. My main push back to that and this goes back to my chapter on leadership in the first century. I think it assumes kind of rigid modern leadership categories that the new testament wasn't working with, you know. The word pastor is only used once in the entire New Testament in reference to a church leadership position and it used to be 411, pastor teacher. There is no, I don't see the idea of a senior pastor anywhere. The closest we can come is it's possible that the overseer in first Timothy 3 and Titus 1 was kind of a leader of a house church and the elders were sort of a group, kind of a broader group who were leaders but the overseer was kind of the single leader of a house church. That's why it's really debated, that's possible. But a senior pastor, then group of elders and deacons under them, again, that was crystallized in the second century. I just can't see it. So I are now in the new testament. - I can't believe this hasn't come up in all of my years in Christian leadership and being a pastor, even in seminary, but my view of the early house church was kind of like, oh yeah, we just opened our door and you're welcome and we just meet here. And it was a little more organized than that, but it's sort of almost like we would see small group, you know, mid-sized group, but very, very decentralized. And the letter would make its way around Galatian, Ephesus, et cetera, et cetera. So this is interesting. So you're the view that there are solid reasons biblically for having a complementarian where, you know, women can't teach or preach or lead. And also legitimate views, legitimate viewpoints in the scripture. This is one of those issues where perhaps faithful Christians can conclude either way, unlike in your view sexuality. - Right, 100%. - Yeah, 100%. Yeah, I, yeah. Now you did hint at this earlier, it's no excuse for misogyny, no matter where you stand. Right. - 100%. Yeah. And I, you know, so I, yeah, I, I land egalitarian in the book. I don't like that term actually. I say, I use it all throughout, not the conclusion. I'm like, you know, I actually don't love this term. What would you call it? I don't know, you know, some people are saying mutualist. I don't think there is. - mutualist. - I don't know. I feel like you're trying to sell me a financial instrument. - Also. - I don't, I've not yet found a term that I actually, I absolutely love, but, you know, at the end of the day, okay, if people, I know people will say, you know what, I don't quite agree with your conclusion. Hopefully they'll still appreciate my approach. But at the end of the day, there's a lot in the book that just celebrates the influence and the wisdom and the courage of women. And if you're in a complimentary church and you're not doing that, I don't think that's a healthy complimentary church. Like, yeah, I think we can be empowering and celebrating and learning from women, even if you say certain roles or, you know, reserve for men. So. - What do you think is that stake for the church as we wrestle with this issue? - Well, both sides will say something different. - Yes. - You get egalitarians. Here's me being diplomatic. I should run for office. - Yeah, certainly that was a great way to go ahead. I'd love that. I'm not on the file, I'm also promised. - I'm not on the file. - Okay. - You got egalitarians will say, well, you're preventing half of the kingdom of God from at least the possibility of fulfilling their God given call to be in leadership. Position, if God is calling them to that. And complimentarians will say, well, you're kind of destroying God's created design. You're messing with the very fabric of creation when you mess with or you abolished distinctions between men and women in the church. And so I think, hopefully you can hear it by tone. I think both of those are little, maybe over reactive. For me, you know, there's something to both of those sides as one who is landed egalitarian. Yeah, I'm very sympathetic with, man, there's, I think a lot of, I believe, that but I believe there are women who are gifted and called to the church. leadership that have not been able to use those gifts. And I think both men, both women and men miss out when that's the case. So, um, and yeah, I very much resonate with the concern of the co-opinarians. You know, you know, you're messing with the creational differences, whatever, I'm actually not. Like, I'm not, I think men and women are different, absolutely. And we should celebrate that. I just don't, I no longer think that those differences preclude one part of the population from being in leadership. So, yeah. Well, I'll tell you what I appreciate it most. We're not trying to change anyone's mind. I think we're trying to open people's mind here just to like, there is a thoughtful way to have the conversation. And I got to tell you, it's a great model, I think, for how we should think because you've, you know, taken different issues on and been like, well, no, I'm more traditional on this one. I think that's the best reading of scripture, but oh, on this one, I changed my mind, best reading of scripture. So, I hope we can do more and more of that. Preston, thank you. I hope this is in our last conversation. The book is called from Genesis to junior. It's available everywhere. And where is the best place to find you online? Uh, theologinraw.com is my, one of my websites, um, the one I'm probably most active on. I also have a podcast twice a week, theologinraw. That's where you can find me in real time is my podcast, uh, theologinraw. Well, it's been a lot of fun. Thank you so much. Thanks, Gary. Appreciate it. Well, I told you that was important for two reasons, right? First of all, I think the issue of women in leadership is important. And we promised to drill down on that because you asked us to. That was one of my church trends for 2026 women leaving the church. And a lot of you messaged me, messaged my team and said, Hey, some of this has to do with our view of women in leadership. So there's a perspective, I think is helpful. And we have numerous other episodes that address the issue as well. But I want to tackle it head on with Preston's sprinkle. So, hopefully that was helpful. And you may come to a different conclusion. But I think, you know, the kindness, the honoring of women is very, very important. And I think it's really interesting to hear from somebody who has one view of sexuality, but you know, has changed his mind when it comes to women and ministry. Also coming up, we have got Eric Reese from the lean startup Dave Ferguson, Rich Veloidus Nicole Martin, Joel Mottemolle. And if you want show notes from this or any other episode, the best place to get them is inside the Art of Leadership Academy. So you can go to the Art of Leadership Academy.com. And you can sign up for a free membership. We opened it up like 10 months ago and we've had 20,000 leaders rush in. They've moved from the audience to the core, right? From the crowd to the core. We'd love for you to do the same. That's where you'll find the show notes and some really intelligent non-inflamed debate. The kind we try to have on this podcast inside the Academy. So if you're looking for other leaders to run with, that's where you're going to find them. Art of Leadership Academy. The Art of Leadership Academy.com. And also, you can just click the link in the description of this episode. That'll take you there. Welcome to all of you who are listening for the first time. If you haven't given us a follow or a subscribe, please do so. And maybe if this conversation was helpful, text the link to a friend, email it to your elderboard, share it with your staff, and just have a meaningful discussion. And maybe you change your mind, maybe you don't, maybe you just have a better understanding of the issues. And hopefully, you're more open to being corrected by scripture. That's what I want to be in this life. Because I think that leads to greater faithfulness. So thank you so much for listening, and I hope our time together today has helped you thrive in life and leadership.