Theology in the Raw - S2 Ep1000: #1000 - On Going Home: My 1,000th Podcast Episode with Beth Moore

Episode Date: August 18, 2022

What’s there to say? It’s Beth Moore, folks. The Queen of Evangelicalism. Let’s close in prayer… –––––– PROMOS Save 10% on courses with Kairos Classroom using code TITR at kairosclassroom.com! –––––– Sign up with Faithful Counseling today to save 10% off of your first month at the link:  faithfulcounseling.com/theology –––––– Save 30% at SeminaryNow.com by using code TITR –––––– Support Preston Support Preston by going to patreon.com Venmo: @Preston-Sprinkle-1 Connect with Preston Twitter | @PrestonSprinkle Instagram | @preston.sprinkle Youtube | Preston Sprinkle Check out Dr. Sprinkle’s website prestonsprinkle.com Stay Up to Date with the Podcast Twitter | @RawTheology Instagram | @TheologyintheRaw If you enjoy the podcast, be sure to leave a review. www.theologyintheraw.com

Oh, my word. This is episode number 1,000 for Theology in a Raw. I have loads of stuff that I would love to say, reminisce, walk down memory lane of Theology in a Raw, but we have Beth Moore on the show today. And she kind of lights it up pretty hard. This is like Beth Moore in the Raw. So I'm going to get out of the way. And I want you to sit at the feet of the queen of evangelicalism, the one and only Beth Moore. Beth, thank you so much for coming back on Theology in a Row. My guests might not even remember, but this is your second time on. You were on a few years ago, but man, I think it was like 2017. And I mean, I feel like it's been like three decades since 2017.

Really, honestly, my daughter said the other day, and I thought she was so right. She said, the pandemic has messed up time. It feels like there's no way to calculate how long has it been. But I remember, first of all, because I did not know you. I only knew you a little bit from Twitter. But I remember that so well because, number one, it was so fun. Number two, it was the first time that I had ever been on a podcast with someone that used the screens. In other words, it was just audio.

I don't think there was any. I don't think it was done. Video itself was published. But it made me know that it made all the difference in the world to see one another's faces. world to see one another's faces that you know when yeah when you're in an interview and you can't tell you're trying to read expressions as to whether or are they being funny are they being a little bit cheeky are they what how's it going and so i was spoiled after that it was always at at that point no forward i was like see each even if we don't leave it on video, even if it's just audio, can we see each other? Because it was really...

Well, I've been releasing stuff since then. Yeah. Because back then, I didn't even have a YouTube channel, I don't think. Or maybe I had one, but it wasn't really... But now, I always upload my videos, maybe like a month after to YouTube. So yeah, this will definitely be visual. My YouTube channel, it might get... Well, yours might get a lot more. But my typical YouTube video might get 1000 views, which is nothing. Whereas a podcast might get 20 to 30,000 listens.

So way more listeners than viewers. But yeah, I agree. I mean, I don't know. I'm the type of person that... You know when you're talking to somebody and they're stone cold, and you don't know if they're green? Like that really makes me insecure. So as a counter reaction, I always try to like nod and everything. But then sometimes my verbal affirmation interrupts. Like it's, I don't know, it just kind of messes things up. So I try to visually like acknowledge and laugh and stuff. Just naturally.

I don't know. I love it. You're very animated. And, you know, I'm not. So it brings that. I'm teasing. It just makes me feel more comfortable. So I love that you're very animated and you know, I, I'm not, so it brings that up. I'm teasing. It just makes me feel more comfortable. So I love it. I'm very, very glad to be on here. Let's jump in Beth. You, I mean, you've been very public about your journey. You've been on quite a

journey and I have so many questions. Um, let's just start. Can you, if I was an alien that just landed here and I said, Hey Beth, tell us about your last four years. What's that been like in church and ministry in particular? What is, how are around our home out in the country. Keith and I live out in the woods outside of Houston. And I was talking to the Lord and was just like, I don't know how often, Preston, you've been in a situation where there's almost nothing recognizable in your life. And it's an interesting thing because even though I'm in one piece and I'm so grateful to God for the way he's carried me, I can still feel emotion in my throat bringing this up because it was just such an unexpected time.

I'm a planner. I thought I knew how it was all going to go. But I was talking to the Lord out loud on a walk. And I said to him, I just looked up toward heaven and said, I hope you know where we're going, because I literally have no idea. I'm doing the best I know how to do to walk with you in the way that you have called me to. But for the life of me, I don't know where this goes. And I know that all of us would go, well, who knows the future? No, I was in relationships and had places of belonging that I expected to live out my life within. So of course I knew that there would be all sorts of circumstances.

But you do think that you know your people, Preston. They do think that these are my loves. These are the people I call my family of faith. And so, no, I have every expectation of living my life out here. And then just that being, that feeling of at first it felt like just free falling. But then after that, it just felt like sort of swimming out in the sea and thinking, Lord, is there a plank somewhere that I'm going to ride to shore? You remember in Acts 27, when Paul says it, I love it so much. Preston, I love, I have a theological crush on Paul that I have sustained. But he says, you know, he's have a theological crush on Paul that I have sustained.

But he says, you know, he's such a know-it-all about some things. And then there are other things, you know, that he's like, but I don't. So he says to them, don't have any fear. Everyone, of course, they're on the crashing boat. Our lives are going to be saved. However, we're going to run aground on some island. And I love it so much because he had heard from God very specifically that not a hair on their head was going to be heard. Every one of the lies were going to be, but isn't it just like the Lord to tell us this much, but not this, but some island,

who knows, who knows that is exactly, it was like, send a plank. And I guess, you know, I'm just going to ride in to some, I'm going to run aground somewhere. But so what I'm talking about, so someone will know my family was very, very active. And I grew up in the whole life of it. And what I'd like to say in a lot of ways, and so I pray that someone would be able to take my temperature somehow across the screen and across the audio and test and see that my words today about it are not driven by bitterness, because I believe that I enjoyed some of the best of it. And by that, I mean, Preston, I'm sure I told you this X amount of years ago when we did this before, I was raised in an extremely unstable home. I was abused within my home and my parents were extremely unhappy. And it just was a mess. But in our small Arkansas town, I was raised in a college town. And in that town,

Preston, I did not know the person that did not go to church. And I would have thought, wow, I wonder what they're like. And I don't mean that they had to go to our church, but everybody pulled out of a driveway on Sunday morning. I didn't know anybody that didn't, whether it was the Presbyterian church, the Methodist church, the Lutheran church, the church of Christ, where it was, somebody was pulling in to that church. And so my church was my harbor.

It was my safe place. My home was unsafe and my church was safe. OK, so this this I could not I've said over and over again, the Lord used it to save my life. And then, you know, I grew up, moved to Houston. And then in my church at First Baptist of Houston, that's where I cut my teeth as a teacher and a speaker. And I just I loved it so much. And I certainly was not blind to some of the issues, but I believed with all of my heart that there were and are very, very devoted followers and servants of Jesus with every

intention of discipling people in the scriptures and of sharing the gospel. So it was very, very fitted place for me. I was, I was very happy. You had a good, you had a good Baptist church. Do you, I might've said this to you, but I, I, do you know, I preached at your home church in Arkadelphia? Yeah. I preached there. No, no, it gets better. It gets better. I preached at your home church in Arkadelphia eight years ago, maybe. My best friend, Joey Dodson taught at Ouachita University and he was a pastor at First Baptist. He brought me out to preach. Not only did I preach... Oh, no. So I preached at the chapel. Okay. This was in the chapel at Ouachita. And I used a Beth Moore illustration, completely unaware that you grew up there. Not a clue.

And here, do you want to hear the illustration? It's a little PG-13. I love your eyes. It was on Hosea. And I talked about, you know, God telling Hosea to go marry. And I used the word whore because that was the translation I was using. In fact, they said it was the most time the word whore was used in the chapel service in the history of that chapel. And I kind of personified Hosea arguing with God saying, what do you mean marry a whore? You called me to ministry.

How's my wife going to lead Beth Moore studies when she's a whore? That could have been offensive. I't know it got mixed reviews um on online but somebody told me afterwards he's like you know beth moore grew up here i'm like oh my word i am so sorry if that was offensive it was kind of an off the cuff trying to be kind of funny but probably a little too far anyway let me say that they no one no one saw a bigger mess of Beth Moore than Arkadelphia, Arkansas. Let me say that. Let me just say my path has been messy and fraught and rocky. but what I can tell you is that Jesus won me because I knew,

and I still know Preston, I don't think that he saved my life. I know that he did. And I know that in walking with him, even as wobbly as wobbly as I've done it. And even as messy as it's been, I, I absolutely know that he was the difference. I absolutely know that I should have been in a ditch. I do.

I do. And so all of those things are so precious to me. That's my heritage. That's where I was taught to love missions that I still love to this day. I have a group that is about to go through 31 days of prayer together. And one of the things that I'm trying to teach them to get in the habit of doing is praying for a different nation every day. Very, very mission minded, very evangelical in my thinking and in my beliefs. And I love the scriptures. And so good experience. I mean,

your long history in the South of Baptist, good experience. And like you talk about your family, you know, I wasn't without frustrations and things. You can't belong to a church for as long as, for instance, I belong to first Baptist and not have times that you're just like fed up,

but no, overall it was, it was a great experience. So what was it, what was it that started to change? I mean, what are some of the, yeah. In a nutshell, when my life began to take me outside the local area, which was pretty quickly, but I still was somewhat insulated. I still in, in, when I was in my later twenties and started really speaking and teaching a lot, I would still be in fairly insulated situations. And then I would be in small gatherings of women. We'd have a retreat. We do that kind of thing. Well, hit the thirties, Preston. And that's when I began teaching a weekday. So I'm teaching

Sunday school. I'm speaking at different events, but they're all insulated women's events within that world. The men aren't even there. The pastor is hardly ever even there. These were just those kinds of days. There was usually a, thank God this day is gone, but there'd be a fashion show before I went on. You have to even imagine it just was a totally different day, you know? And so then I get a weekday Bible study group that is willing to go further. So I've got my Sunday school class. I've got my Thursday morning class.

I've got them for a couple of hours. So we study hard. They start asking me to write homework. Long story short, I start doing it. All of a sudden, the ministry explodes. I mean, explodes. And this would have been in my, I would have been just right at 34 and 35. I get on a jet. And I'm just saying metaphorically, I'm on a jet that takes off in a way I could not have planned. I did not ask for. I did not want. One thing that God has given me that I am so, so grateful for, I'm super happy with what's in front of me. Like in the days when I taught aerobics, I loved, I loved teaching aerobics. When I taught my sixth grade girls in Sunday school, I loved my sixth grade girls in Sunday school. I love, I haven't, I haven't been one that's just constantly gone, give me the world, give me the world. I just, that is one of my thing. I'm real

happy with what I've gotten. When I was first talked to about video driven Bible studies, I was like, well, well, I won't even be with them. I mean, around men and I began't have people to look to, I don't know why it happened this way, but there were just a couple of us. And we weren't really connected with one another. Anne Graham Lotz, definitely Kay Arthur, several of us. thrown into situations where then I became very aware of being an outsider and that I wasn't academically trained. You know, I hadn't really, I'd studied so hard, but I'd studied messy, you know, Preston. I didn't, I didn't have a chance. It wouldn't have worked for my family to go. So this is when I first come into, uh-oh, uh-oh, I'm way over my head. And then it's just once you get out there, the criticism and the scrutiny. And let me tell you, Preston, I'm too messy to be able to, I mean, under scrutiny, oh, I'm like, I'm a mess.

Really? I'm a mess. Now, I pray that I could tell you not my character as far as I don't live a different life at home for whatever that is worth. I'm the same messy person at home as I am out here. So it's not that it's not that I, I live a carnal lifestyle away from the camera is that I, I'm, I'm a mess.

I'll say things that I wish I, we all are. You're probably just honest about, I mean, that's yeah, maybe. And then I'm quoted about it. Preston,

you're quoted about it. What do you mean? Well, I'm quoted. I say Preston. You're quoted about it. What do you mean? Well, I'm quoted. I say stupid things. Oh, yeah. You know, and or taken out of context. I'm so easy to make fun of because I'm so, so much.

And so it was I'm easy to ridicule. I'm easy to imitate. I'm all the things. And so then you come into that and start realizing, oh, and then you get to where you realize that you're in a situation and the men don't want you there. And certainly not all of them by any stretch, or I couldn't have stood it. I always had the approval of the ones that I needed to have to be able to deal. of the ones that I needed to have to be able to deal. But, oh, I got out there and it started being such a mess. And then I got so self-conscious and so afraid then. And so I became obsessed with, am I under-recovering? Oh my gosh. Is? Am I, am I submissive to my husband?

Am I, am I not, not supposed to be doing this? I, all those things. Oh, it's just been a mess. And so that, that I hear you explaining kind of when your ministry took off and in bigger, in broader context, and you're going through all this. I mean, that, that was a while ago. Have you built a good, healthy level of resilience? Because now that's been a couple of decades, at least, you know, like where, where were you then compared to where are you now in terms of

all the criticism and scrutiny and all that? Like what, what has that done for your character now? Here is the beautiful part. And I hope this is encouraging to everybody, Preston, because the one thing we'll all have in common by the grace of God is the chance to grow old. And so, you know, unless he takes us home early, it's going to be a common experience to all of us. So if we've got a listener of 25 or if we've got a listener of 55, I pray this is an encouragement. But one wonderful thing that happens over time is that you've walked long enough with God like, I'm in. I'm not going anywhere. It wouldn't matter who told me to go home. It doesn't matter because I've been with him. I've been with Jesus so long and he's been

so trustworthy and so faithful. I'm so positive of what he's called me to do, not necessarily how and where he's called me to do it. You know, I have to, I have to navigate that all the time. But as far as confidence in the fact that the Lord has me and has called me, I'm in with him to the death. So the resilience, yes. Like I don't think about when people will say the most curious thing to me, they'll say, Beth, thank you for not quitting. And my reaction is always the same. It never occurs to me to quit. And I say that to some people's extreme displeasure, but it never occurs to me. It occurs to me to leave the public eye, but it does, but not quit because Jesus is my whole life. I'm in with him. I live every day, every day to see that face that day. And I'm, I'm just not,

I got a one track mind, but I do want to say back to the story. It did you know i had to persevere but what got me let me just retry retread back to 16 because this was the big moment okay i had dealt with so much trash by then and it had put me under such so much it had made my life 10 times harder than it had to be because I was trying to do everything just right. And people make fun of this. I don't even mind. I want them to. I want them to see how ridiculous I was. But if I knew I wanted so much not to be threatening somehow to other people that were on the same platform, that if I knew I was going to be serving with a man who was short, I would wear flats.

Wow. It's like do everything you can to make them know, listen, I'm your girl here, Southern Baptist. I'm your girl. I'm your girl here, conservatives. Listen, I want to do this right. I want to stay with the system. And then when I watched what happened, when my eyes got opened. Here was my deal. I believed because I had to believe that the reason for the disparity between women in our real conservative world and men in our real conservative world and men was all about first Timothy two. And, you know, I've said over and over, I do not resent being taught first Timothy two. I resent only being taught first Timothy two. There's a lot of scripture there and it needs to be taken all together from Matthew to the end of Revelation.

This is what I've said. But I thought, OK, and this is why they won't talk to me. This is why they don't approve of me. This is why I get put through this scrutiny. This is why I have to work twice as hard to make sure I'm submissive to my husband. All of this stuff. And then all of a sudden, the best way I know to say, and God help me, God help me if I misinterpret. I'm just, you know, got to have a bare heart before the Lord.

But all of a sudden, that fog cleared and I saw the sexism and misogyny. And what I'm telling you, Preston, I would have given anything to have gathered the clouds back. See, I'm going to. People don't like to hear women get choked up. They like for men to, but they don't like for women to because it's what they fear worse about it. So I'm going to do my best not to get choked up. But this this is hard for me not to get choked up over. choked up. But this, this is hard for me not to get choked up over. I would have done anything to gather the fog back because as it was dispelling, then it was the next thing and the next thing and the next thing and everything became suspect. And then it was like, wait, I'm thinking this is about scripture. And it was so clearly, I'm not talking about for everyone, but it was so blatantly about power that,

and that we traded off everything we said that we stood for. And I thought it was all about scripture. And then suddenly, and so I spoke out and that was to be, it wasn't the first time. It wouldn't be the last time. It hasn't been the last time, but it was the end. And I just was a slow end. Oh my goodness. I got the Bible studies got pulled out of so many Baptist churches and certainly not all of them again. Yeah. You mentioned 2016. Was this a recognition of non-Christian forms of power in the church, was it tethered to the political season that we're in then? Absolutely. I could give you the exact date, but it was October of 2016. And it was with the Access Hollywood transcripts and all the, instead of widespread shock and awe among all those evangelicals that were gathered around him

there were just all these rationalizations and excuses and it was like oh no no no no, God, please. No, God, please. Because I had bet so much of my life in ministry. I, I taught it as I believed it. And then it was like, Oh dear God. Oh dear God. When you say it, when you say it, what's the, I believed the the motives. I had to, you know, I had to. I look back now because every now and then someone will say to me, well, could you look back and see having done it differently? Not in the world I was in. I wouldn't. The truth of it is, had I not been part, had I not cooperated with the system, I wouldn't have, I wouldn't have been allowed to serve the way that I did. But

I want to say this, this is very important to me to get a chance to say, because it's a very big piece of it. And it's one reason why I've continued to pound on the matter of women in their gifting and the New Testament being looked at as a whole and grappled with as a whole, trying to figure out what Paul did mean, since we also see in Philippians that he talks about the women who contended for the gospel at his side. That's let alone the last chapter of Romans. I'm not even getting into that. So we know he couldn't have meant that he didn't serve with women in the gospel. We know he did. He's blatant about it. So figuring out what does he mean? But what I was seeing at the same time, Preston, and I don't know,

I don't know how it looks from your point of view. What I'm telling you is that simultaneously what was happening is I was watching a severe pull to the far conservative, what I would say beyond conservatism into fundamentalism in a part of our denomination where I was beginning to watch state. This is so important. Please let me say this. I began to see, oh my word, women are not even going to be allowed to do what I did. My ministry was to women. I'm still going like, what was your, I have never ever pursued a pulpit. Never. I wouldn't have been a senior pastor of a Baptist church had it been handed to me with $10 million. I didn't want it. I wasn't trying to be. But what I began to see is that there was starting to be such a pull.

And it wasn't just the old. I know what people want to say is the old guard. Oh, I, au contraire, coming out of some of the Southern Baptist seminaries with such a hard line pull to the right that I thought, and so now we, in many of our churches, we don't have Sunday school. Where exactly do you want our women teachers to teach now? And then we get told, well, they've all gone outside the church. You have made no place for us. Right. And it just, to me, it was a train wreck. And it was like, you know what? I'm old. I'm old. I'm almost done. You can't now go take it all away from me because it's all done. But I will fight to the death for my little sisters to have a place to serve in the gospel witness. There is no possible

way that the Holy Spirit was poured out on sons and daughters to prophesy that women are not also gifted to proclaim the gospel. It is a lie to think otherwise. Can I ask you for clarity here? I don't even know exactly where you're at on the women in ministry question. And for, you probably don't know this, but I've been currently given a sabbatical to go figure it out college, master's seminary. I mean, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I am not that. I'm not sure I'm going to land fully egalitarian. There's some in-between kind of positions that I... So I'm just going to read about a thousand books, get away for a while, and just I really want to figure it out.

And I acknowledge there's some deep exegetical complexity here. That's the one thing I can say 100%. There is deep exegetical complexity here, historical, cultural complexity. Anyway, do you have a position now? I tell you, this is going to sound like a cop-out, and I don't mean it as one. I really do mean it. I really do mean it. I am so weary of the labels that have messed us up so badly, including complementarianism and talking about egalitarians. I'm so I'm so weary of it. But I will tell you, for instance, where I am right now. And I and I'll because I'm going to say this, I will leave off where I'm going to

church, but I'm comfortable where I am right now because where I am, the only thing that women can't do in my region and where I go to church is that they can't be the senior pastor or priest. Okay. But we have a couple of women deacons, and of course, we see that. We can look in the New Testament and see where we can get that and all. and it's not, I don't know how to say this exactly. There's just not a weird vibe. Sometimes one of the things that I would run into, not at my home church. So here's what I want you to hear. I always was very, I worked very well with my local church brothers and sisters. So that's one reason it's, it's how I stayed so long. And it's also, you know, how I stayed happy. You know, I didn't get it from there. I got it. I got it from the

outside. But one of the things that I ran into, the more I got out there is I thought, you know what? Some of these guys have served around women so little, they don't even know how to have a conversation with them. I would try to, I'd be talking to a very well-known figure and I'd try to get, you know, we were trying to have a conversation. I think he can't, he cannot look me in the eye. We can't just have a normal conversation. I'm in a community now where there's just not that weirdness. And there's not that weirdness in a lot of Southern Baptist churches. I had to, let me tell you, I had to leave the SBC because you are held responsible for the knowledge that you have. I was in such a place, like there are a lot of people going to church that do not know anything about the issues I'm talking about. Nothing, nothing. They go to a country church outside of such and such a town. They serve Jesus with everything

they've got. They love him. They hear the invitation every single Sunday. They rededicate their lives. They do VBS. I'm talking salt of the earth, salt of the earth people. I was in so far that I saw things that were so objectionable. And to me in regard, objectionable. And to me in regard, not only to sexism, but racism, which I believe almost always there that, that body and I just a physical body, the body that holds onto sexism. I mean, there's, we got two arms and two hands almost always the, in the other hand is racism because it's, it's power. It's power. That's the fist. That's the fist. And I have been in so far and seen so much that it to me was I no longer felt that I belonged. I no longer felt welcome. I no longer felt wanted. But I also it was an act also in some ways a protest of saying, no,

ways of protest of saying, no, no, I will not be part of this. And if bringing a lot of attention to it in a very public divorce, very public, very public, nasty divorce, if that somehow something to change the climate for the young women coming up behind us, then I promise you my pain will not be in vain. And I would have done it anyway. I did it as an act of obedience. The Lord said, I mean, it was go, go, now go. But I don't think it was because he was departing them. I think it was my place to do it, that it was just like, you are in a position that you need to make this act of protest public. Well, it doesn't sound like it had become, or maybe, I mean, it doesn't sound like it was the most fruitful environment for beth more to be beth more like it sounds like it just was would have been hindering the voice that god has given you are you allowed to say where you're at now or you'd rather not hold off where you're at now i mean so where i am is uh what i love about it is that I didn't have to compromise on any level with how Scripture is lifted as

authoritative for all things life and godliness. The Scriptures are taught, preached, read, and the cross, the gospel is preached, and Christ is as exalted as I've ever seen anywhere. I'm in a much smaller environment and that's been really good for me just to be one of about 150 people. so over crowds and I, I, I just, I still speak in large environments and I love it. I'll do anything that God tells me to, but I'm just so much of, I'm just no longer impressed with any of it. I just want to serve Jesus and then die and go to heaven. Okay. I got, I got a question I've been wanting to ask you for two years. And I know my entire audience is going to want me to ask this question. A couple years ago when John MacArthur was asked about Beth Moore and he said,

go home, response to that, how'd that make you feel? How did you, I don't even know how you react. I'm not online a lot. So I don't even know if you wrote some big thing or didn't say, I don't even know. I don't mind telling you this at all, because it is kind of an interesting story. For starters, I get a DM and he said, I am just, he said, I'm so disgusted. This was a friend of mine in the faith of a Southern Baptist pastor. He said, I'm so disgusted. I don't know what to do. And I said, I have no idea what you're talking about. Well, he said, you will. And I thought, you know, because you think sometimes you'll think something's going to go viral and you're like, oh, that's not a big deal. Well, boy, I mean, nothing could have prepared us for how

big that blew. But I'll tell you this, Preston, because it makes all the difference. Number one, I didn't have to react. It upset people so badly. And I mean, I know there are the people that were like, woohoo, but they've never been my people. I had always admired his faithfulness to preach, his dedication to the scriptures. But that world never was my world. I couldn't have even taught Sunday school. You know, I just wasn't I wasn't in I wasn't in the John MacArthur world. So it wasn't so personal to me. But even a lot of my critics didn't like it.

And so it just so blew up. I didn't really have to say anything, but I'll tell you this on a scale of one to 10, I mean, it was galling. What was really something was that every single thing still to this day, I will just tweet something about how my grapevines are growing. And some dude will say, go home. And I'll go, I am home. A ham sandwich in my kitchen. I am home. And so I hear it all the time. But on a scale of one to ten, it bothered me at about a three. But I want to now talk about what killed me, killed me in my own world. So somebody's going to be confused because they're going to say, Beth, I thought you were interdenominational. Absolutely. The ministry from the get-go, Living Proof Ministries is interdenominational.

I mean, we set that course and never varied from it. And it's been very interdenominational. But I was personally a part of a denomination and had no thought of ever being anything otherwise. This is where my voice is a lot more correct. So, but this one got me and I think you'll understand why. is a lot of crack. But this one got me, and I think you'll understand why. So I see it is the spring of 19. The Southern Baptist Convention is in the biggest sexual abuse crisis of its history. I mean, it's a mess. It's a mess. It's a mess. The Southern Baptist Convention is coming up. And it's just

before Mother's Day. And a friend of mine on there says something about this was just us having a conversation on Twitter, just being funny. She said something about, well, I'm going to be speaking at my church on Sunday for Mother's Day. And I said, so I said something like, I said, I am too, but let's not tell anyone. Well, obviously I knew I was telling everyone because, but I mean, it's like Mother's Day. I knew it would annoy some of the dudes, but they are the ones that I enjoy annoying. And I just thought that's as far as it's going to go is I'll get in the craw of people that I thoroughly enjoy getting in the craw. But no, that was not it. It landed like an atomic bomb. And suddenly, all the way to particularly one seminary president that, I mean, he whistled, he did it very, very,

what can I say? Like my name wasn't in it, but it was obvious. And I mean, there was, there was such, it was sort of like, I never thought I'd see the day. And it was like, I, that this is what's going to happen with women. This is what they're. And so suddenly it was like, I am the biggest threat to the Southern Baptist convention. And when I say they pounded me, it was Monday pounded me. Oh gosh.

And so see John MacArthur, he's not my world. This was my world. These were my people. It nearly put me in the bed because it was like, you know what, guys? Because it was

pastor after pastor after pastor. And then, like, okay, we're pulling these studies. And it was like, I have served your wives and your daughters for nearly 40 years. I never was after a men's ministry. I mean, I had men in my last Sunday school class, because I couldn't get rid of them, but it was, they knew better. That's what got me, Preston. They knew better. They knew it wasn't true. I do not believe, if I looked at that seminary president in the face and said to him, do you really believe I am after the pulpits of the Southern Convention? There is no way under heaven I believe he could have looked me in the eye and said, yes, I think you are. I just don't believe it. I think it was so overblown and it was over.

and it was over. When I made a phone call to Lifeway, who I loved like my own family, and said, you know, I'm out because it just was so offensive and it hurt. It broke my heart. Golly. It crushed my spirit.

On Mother's Day. That's insane. I didn't know. So you pulled out of Lifeway. I didn't know so you pulled out a life way i didn't know that yes which was let me explain this boy preston you have you have got me where my throat's so so tight with emotion because these are such real things to me somebody listening they need to hear that anyway they need to know that you might sit back and think, oh, well, Beth's been so sassy with everybody and hasn't she been strong? Well, I do. I have extremely strong conviction,

but I also have an extremely tender heart. So those things together is going to be painful. I'm going to do what I believe God's calling me to do, but I'm going to do it crying my eyes out. And so, OK, think of it this way. And I hope this may be an offense to somebody to call it, to put it in sort of like marital terms, but it's the best way I know to explain it, is that I was very married to the Southern Baptist Convention. And the basis of my marriage contract, if you'll just think in those ways. The basis of it was my contracts with Lifeway. That was the only way I was married to the SBC. Now, Lifeway, somebody's going like, what's the difference? Well, there's the SBC, the Southern Baptist Convention, and then Lifeway is

their publishing arm. So I was over here, and those are two different groups of people. I mean, they were conservative, just like they should have been over at Lifeway. They probably were. Well, no, not probably. In some ways, they believed some things. But in order to get out of the SBC, I absolutely had to. It was the, that was the basis of, so to speak, the marriage. And so I gave up something I dearly loved in order to walk away from what I was under strong conviction was no longer. Okay. Yeah. It's no longer my home. Yeah. So who do you publish with now?

Do you have a specific publisher? Are you like a free agent? We are for now publishing curriculum out of living proof. Oh, okay. And that's really exciting because the Lord, Preston has been so good. All of these things are so interesting. I tell the Lord all the time that I know I'm going to see him face to face and I'm going to be able to say, you did it

all exactly how it had to be done to get what you wanted. You know, now this side of it is just can be so chaotic and confusing. But the Galatians study, Now That Faith Has Come, is the first study we ever did. We published on our own at Living Proof. And it got an award just recently for best Bible study. It got that recent award from Evangelical Publishing. So that was such a kindness of the Lord. And then I published like the memoir that's coming out and like Chasing Vines. I love, love, love Tyndale.

They're wonderful people. And so it's not denominational. I don't think I would ever go back to a denominational publishing situation only because to protect my heart from the same kind of heartbreak. It just was, it just was so, it has been so painful. Yeah. We just have a couple more minutes, Beth. I want to honor your time. Do you think when going back to kind of like seeing the power structures in the church that foster sexism. And do you think that a complementarian structure can produce an environment where sexism does not exist, where male power is not abused? Like, as some people say, all those issues are intrinsic to a complementarian structure,

whereas other people would say, no, that's a complementarianism gone wrong. That's a non-biblical form of complementarianism. Do you think that, I mean, I would say maybe 30, 40% of people listening might be complementarian? Yeah. Do you think that they can truly honor and value women as co-workers in the gospel while still having male only elders and teachers? while still having male-only elders and teachers? I believe that it—see, again, the two labels. If you'd set aside the name and let me talk to the thing, which is can we biblically respond scripturally in our roles in and outside the church and inside and outside the home and both male and female flourish?

One hundred percent. It would all the will of God would only be it would only be for both men and women to flourish. If our paradigm is Christ, and isn't it? Because that's what we're being conformed to the image of Christ. That's what God is doing in us and what he is doing, refining the church to reflect her broom, if Christ is what everything is moving toward, and he gave dignity to women the way he did, then nothing else, nothing else that has been written can be, it can't be contradictory to that dignity. It can't be contradictory to Luke chapter eight, where we see that he had men followers and then the women were also among them. Acts chapter one, men and women in the upper room, men and women having the Holy Spirit poured out on them. So can it be done within the biblical framework? Do we have to depart from the biblical framework in order for both men and women to flourish? Men and women will flourish if we stay according to the word.

What we're doing is we are picking out, when we pick out that this is what we consider orthodoxy, but we dismiss like this is the last word on it. None of this matters because this is the last word on it. Everything, the household codes, they are, they're the last word on everything. They're the last word on everything. So they carry everything and then we dismiss everything else. But if we took it all together, grappled with it all, would both male and female flourish 100%? Oh, that's so good. That's so good. Again, wherever you land on this, you have to acknowledge some complexity. You have women prophesying in the church in 1 Corinthians 11, 5, and then women be silent in 14.

Like, well, something's going on here that we need to unearth because you can't have both silence and preaching. People won't study it because they're afraid they might learn something. We are very comfortable where we are. We have figured out what we want to believe. And so the way we do things and so much of the Bible study world or the Bible believing world, let me say that what we do is we find what we like and it will often suit. We will be drawn, magnetized to that, which is also fairly, you know, part of us. In other words, if you've got a really sexist man, he was raised that way as a boy in his home. Oh, he is going to be drawn. If he is a religious person, he's going to be drawn into a very patriarchal kind of environment

in his spiritual life. That's just the way it's going to go. But what we do, we figure out what we want to believe. And I would say this to anybody. I would say this from the extremes of fundamentalism all the way to progressivism, which is, you know, to the point where I would begin to go, OK, are the scriptures of any value whatsoever to you? Is the scripture preached at all? You know, there would be that. But what we do, we figure out what we want to believe. And then we set about reaffirming what we already believe and want to believe. And so we stay within our little camp. We're only taught by one another. Nobody else can tell us anything. And so therefore, and the thing that I begged them to see, And so therefore, the thing that I begged them to see, begged them to see is that there was a problem in many pockets. And it was tied to it that there were people that were taking that very thing.

I've been in women's ministry 40 solid years. I talk to these women. I know some of the things they put up with because they believe that it was part of being submissive to their husband. Who's going to say that is not what we meant. That is not. Who's going to explain? I ask questions like this. Hey, is unrelenting pornography grounds for divorce? Because I need to know that because I'm getting asked these kinds of questions. You understand what I'm saying, Preston? Because these women, it's like, no, no, it has to be this. What they're told. It has to be adultery with another woman.

All of these things. I'm just going, you know what? You are sitting up. And I told one of these guys that's in that far. And he was a friend of mine. And, you know, I love him. I love him. I love him in the Lord.

But I told him he sits up there in, you know, away from it all, believing in very, very separate and very specific and very, I mean, a wide gulf between this is what women are to do. This is what men are to do. Sits up there just like, I mean, just saying the same thing over and over again, having no idea, no idea how that's being taken and turned and twisted and perverted. I resent that. I resent that for women, that they're trying to be godly and they're getting abused and misused.

Do something about it. 30 seconds, Beth. Final word you want to say you can say to women or men or both? Like what's the because a lot of women are listening and they're I'm sure they're resonating with your journey, your story, the tensions. Here's what I want to say. I'll take these 30 seconds to say this. Listen, I'm a mess. I'm a mess. But I'm going to tell you, I want so much to walk with Jesus. I want so much to love like he loves and see things like he sees things. I'll tell you, I'm going to do my best to walk with him. And that's what I would say to anyone. He gives me joy and makes me happy, even in the midst of all of the storm and the wind and the waves. I'm still going to say at the end of the day, would I have chosen any other life but the one that was chosen for me?

Absolutely not. Beth, thanks so much for being on Theology in Iran. Thank you for your time. Many, many blessings on your ministry. And I want to echo what so many other people are going to echo. Yes, do not quit. Keep being Beth. Stay close to Jesus and never go home.

Thank you you Preston This show is part of the Converge Podcast Network.