January 21, 2025 • 64 mins
This episode dives into God's heart for women, juxtaposing traditional views of homemaking with modern perspectives drawn from cultural variances and biblical teachings. Discussing the Proverbs 31 woman, the hosts emphasize the significance of collaboration, community, and the recognition of women's roles not limited to homemaking alone.
• Exploring historical and cultural contexts around homemaking
• Survey results reveal women's feelings of inadequacy and guilt
• Misconceptions about the Proverbs 31 woman as a checklist
• The collaboration of women in ancient cultural homemaking
• Addressing patriarchal pressures on women's roles today
• Advocating for women's economic agency
• Highlighting the importance of community in women's lives
• A call to redefine womanhood without guilt or limits
May God bless your pursuits as you engage with these topics and the conversations they inspire!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jessica LM Jenkins (00:01):
Welcome back to the we who Thirst podcast.
I took a few weeks off frompodcasting over the Christmas
break and I am so excited to beback with you Today.
We are jumping right back intoour Proverbs 31 series that we
had to pause back in September.
So if you're just tuning intothe podcast now, you may want to
go back and listen to episodesfive through seven of the
(00:23):
podcast, where we laid thegroundwork for how to read and
understand Proverbs 31 and whothe woman of valor is.
Today we are going to bespecifically talking about God's
heart for women, the woman ofvalor in her home, and how that
relates to the modern idea ofhomemaker or trad wife.
With me today is my dear friend, elise Kilko.
She is a stay-at-home mom oftwo beautiful kids who also
(00:46):
volunteers at a Bible school,helping behind the scenes with
childcare and reception.
She's also a foreign worker whohas lived in three different
countries for extended periodsof time, interfacing with a
variety of cultures.
Elise, our topic today is aboutthe woman of valor and her home
.
Whenever we talk about the home, the topic of homemaking and
(01:07):
evangelical complementarianexpectations for women comes up.
What is your experience withteachings on homemaking?
Elice Kilko (01:15):
Oh, that's such a good question.
I think, having been in so manydifferent cultures.
I grew up in Brazil and they'rereally, unless you're quite,
you know, upper middle class,you will probably have a job
outside the home.
(01:35):
And if you are upper middleclass, that means you had the
means to get an education and soyou might still work outside
the home.
Frequent professions for womenare dentists, lawyers, really
(01:55):
anything but teachers.
You know some of the same onesthat often women gravitate to
here in the States as well.
But I think growing up Iunderstood that the woman might
need to be you know she'sworking at home.
(02:17):
Her value is to be helping athome and kind of be in charge of
who's doing what at home, butthat she might still be outside
working a profession outside thehome as well, because it just
it needs to happen if the billsare going to get paid.
Jessica LM Jenkins (02:52):
And so then, coming to college in the
Midwest in the United States andgetting into all the very
complementarian, very Baptistteaching, you went to a
fundamentalist adjacent college,yeah, yes, very much so.
Elice Kilko (02:57):
Then having kind of to like rewire, like weights,
but like what if you have towork outside the home, like it
was almost like a culture shock,um and so um, I just I think
I've seen a lot of differentperspectives, um, of what
homemaking could be.
I'm thankful that I've seen somany perspectives.
Jessica LM Jenkins (03:19):
Yeah, I think what you you bring up with
the different cultures, isreally important and we're not
going to get into that realdeeply this episode, though I
would like to on an episode atsome point, but I've heard, like
I know, jasmine Holmes talksabout this as well just the
different cultures, even withininside the United States.
Like, historically, black womenhave had to work outside the
home for many of the samereasons that Brazilian women
(03:42):
have to work outside the home,many of the same reasons that
Brazilian women have to workoutside the home and how.
So much of the homemaking as awoman's role.
Culture really is white,fundamentalist, adjacent
fundamentalist, evangelicalculture.
It is very middle class, it isvery white.
This expectation, but for thoseof us who have engaged that
(04:04):
culture or who come out of thatculture, this expectation that
women be a homemaker is like thestatus quo in the church.
Yeah, that makes sense.
In preparation for this episodethe last couple days, I did some
informal polling on my socialmedia platforms, so the results
(04:25):
are very much.
Whoever was on yesterday,whoever either follows me on
Instagram or randomly cameacross the posts on threads, so,
but the results were reallyinteresting 50 to 61% of the
women who were polled weretaught in their churches that a
(04:45):
woman's role, as ordained by God, is to be a homemaker.
So 50% or more women have beentaught that a woman's role is to
be the homemaker.
I believe about 13%.
10 to 13%.
Their church didn't even talkabout it at all what a woman's
role was.
So you either have you're to bea homemaker, or silence is kind
(05:08):
of, and then about 30% no,that's not her role.
Interestingly, though, eventhough the churches are teaching
seemingly overwhelmingly that awoman's role is to be a
homemaker, very little specificinstruction was given on how to
be a homemaker in the church.
The majority of women were justleft to figure that out on
(05:32):
their own or talk amongstthemselves or read books, blogs,
etc.
The church itself didn't givethem help on how to do that.
They were just left to figureit out or told that they needed
to focus on their husband andkids.
A theme that I know I wastaught, and I was hearing from
women who were DMing me oranswering my polls, was that
(05:54):
they were taught their job is tomake their husband a success,
and they can only do anythingoutside of making him a success
or taking care of their house ifthey have accomplished, making
him a success and taking perfectcare of their house.
Only then can they follow anyof their own interests or
(06:14):
passions or callings.
That's so much pressure.
Elice Kilko (06:18):
Yeah, so much pressure.
Jessica LM Jenkins (06:22):
Yeah, oh, wow, and so they didn't get a
lot of specifics.
It's kind of vague, but they'retold to focus relentlessly here
but not really told how Did you, what was?
Have you experienced any ofthese kind of firm but vague
teachings?
Elice Kilko (06:37):
Yes, yeah for sure, growing up, our kind of niche
Baptist group had a women'smeeting every year, and so there
would often be breakoutsessions and sometimes those
breakout sessions would be a lotmore practical.
(06:57):
So kind of some of these howcan you get an actual thing done
?
But a lot of times they werevery vague, it was a mixed bag,
you know, a mixed bag of likethis is what you need to do,
without any concrete steps.
But I do remember sometimeshaving very concrete, you know,
(07:19):
breakout sessions of like here'show you could do a specific
thing.
But then here in the States, Imean, I was a biblical
counseling major 10.
So that gave me a whole bunchto think about and baggage that
(07:54):
I'm now trying to sort through,I guess.
Jessica LM Jenkins (07:59):
I find it really interesting how the local
churches didn't do a whole,whole lot of direct teaching,
especially from like the pulpit,but women were encouraged to go
into all of these books andblogs and side teachings,
typically from other women.
That often ended up being veryunhealthy and I think sometimes
(08:22):
from conversations I've had withlike my dad who's a pastor, or
other pastors, they're not evenaware fully of what some of
these women are being taughtbecause it's outside.
The pastors aren't reallypaying attention to what the
women are doing, and that's awhole side conversation that
we're not going to get into.
But back to the poll.
Unsurprisingly, the majority ofthe women I polled struggled in
(08:45):
their homemaking.
About a quarter of those saidthey didn't feel like they did
well or felt well as a homemaker.
A majority of women felt likethey did not live up to the
expectations that theircommunities and churches had for
them as homemakers, leavingover half the women feeling like
a failure or perpetually guiltyfor their performance that they
(09:07):
just weren't measuring up.
It's like this rat race wherethey could never do good enough.
A very small percentage, like14%, felt like they thrived as
homemakers.
About a quarter of the womendidn't even try to be homemakers
, but the rest of them eitherstruggled but did okay, or just
(09:29):
did not feel like they did wellas homemakers at all.
And what I found mostinteresting is that even women
who no longer believe that Godcommands women to be homemakers
because that's a strong teachingyou have to be a homemaker.
This is God's will for yourlife Even women who do not
believe that God commands themto be homemakers still feel
(09:49):
either high to extremely highlevels of guilt about their
homemaking.
Oh yeah.
Elice Kilko (09:57):
Yeah, the shame we carry from the things that we
were taught or we picked up.
Yeah, your polling sounds Imean it, just really it's.
I can definitely see that in myown life and in those of my
friends.
Homemaking in the, you know,white, American evangelical
(10:18):
fundamental framework is veryisolating.
It can be really hard unlessyou are one of the few that
thrives on, you know, making allthe lists and being the one
that's writing the blog andteaching other people how to do
it.
And even those people I imagineif you had an honest
(10:39):
conversation with them, notevery day would be rosy.
So that's so.
It's really hard, just thepressure that we feel to live up
to this expectation withoutclear directions.
You have this huge expectationwith no clear direction on how
to meet the standard, which isso, so hard, and then you read
(11:02):
Proverbs 31 and you are taughtthat it's a checklist and you're
just destined to like fail.
You're just you're going tofail, yeah.
Jessica LM Jenkins (11:12):
Yeah, and it's so like, and even when you
are given a checklist, thosechecklists don't necessarily fit
your family or your familydynamics, and then you're again
back to the idea that you haveto be totally consumed with your
family.
Dorothy Patterson, who was thewife of the president of the
(11:36):
seminary I attended, told meonce that a married woman has to
be a stay-at-home homemaker,trying to have children Even if
she can't.
That needs to be her goal, andif she is working outside the
home, it is because she and herhusband have a lack of faith.
So basically, if a woman who ismarried of childbearing age is
(12:01):
working outside the home.
She is in sin and has a lack offaith.
Elice Kilko (12:07):
Where does that leave all the single women, all
the women who struggle withinfertility or any kind of
health issue, those women?
Jessica LM Jenkins (12:16):
get a pass because they don't have kids.
I was recently married.
At the time expected to startpopping out babies, but you're
allowed to work if you don'thave kids.
But if you are fertile and ableto have children, you better
get to it.
Elice Kilko (12:31):
Oh, so hard.
Jessica LM Jenkins (12:32):
But the other women are still expected
single women, women without kidsthey're still expected to be
homemakers while they're workinga job.
They're now expected to do bothsimultaneously and they would
often frame homemaking a lotaround hospitality, especially
for the working women like thesingle women and those without
(12:53):
children, like Dorothy wasworking because her children
were all grown.
But for me, as I think aboutthat, when you start making
homemaking about hospitality,why don't we just call it
hospitality that both men andwomen are responsible for?
But there was just thisexpectation.
Let me read to you what DorothyPatterson wrote in Recovering
(13:13):
Biblical Manhood and Womanhood,because I think this kind of
encapsulates some of theteaching many women have
received.
She says these characteristicsdescribe God's ideal woman in
Proverbs 31.
She is a committed homemaker, achaste helpmate, upright and
God-fearing woman of strength.
There is no hint in the passagethat this woman has any other
(13:36):
purpose than to meet the needsof her family in the best
possible way.
Okay.
Elice Kilko (13:42):
So I'm just a baby-making machine who is a
servant.
Jessica LM Jenkins (13:47):
For your family, and that is not to
denigrate homemaking or takingcare of your family.
Every woman I know, whethershe's working in or outside the
home, is trying to take care ofher family in the best possible
way.
There's this.
(14:07):
The homemaking discussions inthe white, evangelical,
fundamentalist fundamentalistadjacent circles centers on the
woman only and primarily doinghomemaking and they root that in
passages like Proverbs 31 andTitus 2, so that authors like
Debbie Pearl say young women areto be keepers of the home.
This is the sixth of eightmandates for young women in
(14:29):
Titus 2.
It is not a suggestion, it isGod's will for wives, she says.
She says in her book Created toBe to Help Me, and so you have
extreme pressure that you haveto do this.
God created you in the womb.
If you have the privilege ofmarriage to be a homemaker,
there is no other option.
(14:50):
And this is a theme that comesup in all sorts of books for
women, which are the primaryteaching women are getting on.
This topic is from books.
I've seen themes like thisechoed in Rebecca Merkel's Even
Exile.
I saw even the Kostenbergersalluded to some of this in their
book on men and women.
(15:10):
I don't want to focus on allthose teachings.
But I do want to lay aframework for our discussion
that a lot of us are coming outof circles that emphasized those
teachings very strongly.
Elice Kilko (15:24):
Yeah, it definitely sets us up for failure and for
a lot of pressure to be put onus, which then, in turn, gives
us shame when we can't attainthe standard that's been set.
Jessica LM Jenkins (15:36):
Yeah, and a lot of the standard that's been
set also revolves around thepeople in your life, and your
children have to behave acertain way.
Your husband has to view you acertain way.
So for many and I'm not goingto say all, and this is not
taught explicitly as much asimplicitly, but for many
(15:58):
homemakers they can only feellike a success when the people
around them in their home arehappy, well-behaved and
fulfilled, leaving homemakerswith an intrinsic need to
control all the people in theirlives, because their success
depends on everybody around them.
(16:19):
Looking just so, yeah, yeah,that's so hard.
And then when you're dealingwith families that have trauma,
neurodivergence, all medicalyeah, yeah, that's so hard.
(16:41):
Neurodivergent women or womenwith neurodivergent kids and
when you start dealing withthese extra things medical
neurodivergence, trauma, all ofthat you suddenly the ideal of
children who obey the very firsttime and husbands who lead and
are happy to see you and all ofthis it starts kind of
(17:02):
splintering.
But you're supposed to be thehomemaker, You're to make the
home, and that includes thepeople being happy, and you
can't do that.
And so that's why I think mypolls reveal such immense levels
of guilt.
These women just carry all thetime.
Yeah, yeah.
Elice Kilko (17:21):
That makes total sense, oh that's so hard sense.
Jessica LM Jenkins (17:33):
Oh, that's so hard, yeah, it really is.
So there are some teachers andKostenbergers fall under this
that do give some leeway forwomen to work outside the home.
Not every teacher in thesecircles says women have to work
completely inside the home.
Some say they can work outsidethe home, but it's kind of a
she's supposed to work insidethe home but if she has to she
can work outside the home.
But it's kind of this muddyposition Like at what point am I
(17:55):
okay to work outside the home,or I need to, or what point not?
Have you run across thatposition?
How have you processed it?
Elice Kilko (18:04):
Yeah, it's like, okay, do I stay at home and take
care of my family and go onfood stamps, or do I get a job
outside the house?
You know, like I know, for alot of people that was like a
decision they had to make andthen you put in.
You know, if you're in aspecific group of people who are
going to look down on peoplewho have to go on food stamps,
(18:27):
then all of a sudden you'retrying to keep that a secret.
You know, um, and that addsmore shame to the system, um.
So yeah, I definitely saw itwas like working outside the
home was like this loophole ifyou need it for finances, but at
what point is it a need and atwhat time is it a want?
(18:48):
So definitely, and differentpeople measure that at a
different way.
Jessica LM Jenkins (18:55):
I got a DM from one woman who had a very
interesting insight.
She said that in her church, ifa woman wasn't a homemaker,
that opened up her life to bescrutinized.
And now everybody's likenitpicking her life, either to
justify her needing to work outthe home oh, her husband just
doesn't have a very good job orhe's disabled.
So now they're nitpicking herhusband or they're scrutinizing
(19:19):
her family for being too worldlyin their spending habits oh,
they just want to.
She wants to work outside thehome because they have cars.
They don't need two cars thatare that nice.
They could have less nice carsand she could stay home.
And so the whole homemakingthing leads to a lot of scrutiny
, not around things like thefruits of the spirit in a first
(19:39):
Corinthians 13 love, but aroundlike just nitpicky life things
where people are judging.
I think that can become,unfortunately, a huge part of
this culture of nitpickingwomen's choices and trying to
judge motives, which also addsto all that guilt and shame.
(20:02):
Part of what I really want to doin this series, though, is lift
some of that guilt and shameoff.
I want to look at how God viewswomen and what God is calling
women to do and to be lookingspecifically at the passages
that in some ways have been usedto bludgeon women in the past.
We are focusing on Proverbs 31in this series.
(20:25):
I will probably at some pointdo an episode or two on Titus 2.
So we're going to leave Titus 2for another time, but I do want
to talk in detail aboutProverbs 31, this woman and her
home.
So for today, we need to backup a little bit before we get
into Proverbs 31 proper and talkabout a woman's role in the Old
(20:47):
Testament For a full, hugediscussion on that.
I have a lecture on gender rolesand patricentric heterarchy on
my YouTube channel.
You can search for we whoThirst podcast on YouTube.
You can watch that That'll withpictures and diagrams and the
whole nine yard walk you throughand it's so good, it's so
helpful Feeling socialstructures in the Bible, not
(21:10):
just the Old Testament, butwe'll summarize that here today.
So, Elise, what were you taughtabout the family structures and
roles of women in the OldTestament growing up?
Elice Kilko (21:25):
That's such a good question.
I was thinking about it, uh,earlier today I was actually
talking with my sister, becausehow we were taught about it as
kids and then, um, changingcountries and um, uh, and then
how you view it as an adult isso different.
Um, and I think, growing up, uh, my dad has six sisters.
(21:48):
He's the only boy and then hegot married and had four
daughters and, praise the Lord,he values women.
We wouldn't really really be ina bad place if he didn't.
But I definitely think thatthat carried over into how he
taught us about women in theBible, because it was important
(22:09):
to him that we were valued andthat we saw our place in God's
story and that definitely camethrough growing up.
So growing up, I didn't justlearn about, you know, the meek
and timid women of the Bible.
I learned about the warriors,you know.
I learned about JL and DeborahAbigail, who saved her whole
(22:33):
household from slaughter, andthose were my heroines.
Like I learned about the valueof a woman's place who could
make judgment calls and go tobattle and be strong and follow
God, not just because herhusband was going to the temple
(22:55):
and making sacrifices, butbecause she in her own home, was
welcoming in angels and makingmeals for them and all of that,
and so I'm so thankful that Icaught that vision very early
from my parents, and I realizenow as an adult just how unusual
(23:16):
that was.
Jessica LM Jenkins (23:17):
Yeah, because some of those women
you're rattling off women, and Iremember teachings about them
from a very firmlycomplementarian space, where the
wife is to submit to thehusband, he is the boss, he is
the military commander.
When he says jump, she says howhigh A wife is only as obedient
to God as she is as obedient toher husband.
Those are the types of thingsthat we're taught, and so women
(23:40):
like Abigail, who went aroundher husband to feed, give David
the food, was actually kind oflooked down on.
She wasn't a heroine.
We're all like how could she bethat disobedient?
And so it's beautiful that youwere taught the beauty of these
strong women, but it doesn'tsound like you were taught a lot
specifically about how thesewomen functioned in family
(24:01):
structures and roles.
Elice Kilko (24:03):
No, not necessarily roles.
No, not necessarily.
No, not as you teach it fromhistorical context.
Jessica LM Jenkins (24:19):
And this is kind of a side note, but I think
a lot of what you were taughtis kind of the Jewish
perspective.
They have a slightly different.
The Jewish perspective of womenis very different than the
complementarian perspective ofwomen.
And so I think you were able toabsorb more of the Jewish
perspective looking up at andhonoring these women than the
complementarian.
She needs to submit and obeyher husband period, end of the
(24:40):
road.
If the lights get turned off inthe house because he's not
paying the bills, she just needsto pray and let God handle it
and submit.
So social structure in the OldTestament.
One thing I want to talk aboutthat I think we deal with when
we're talking about homemakingspecifically, is the idea of
(25:02):
public versus private space andwhat space women occupy, and a
lot of this comes down to howthe ancient people viewed public
versus private space and themodern ideas of public and
private space.
When you think about public andprivate space, Elise, what
aspects of life would you put ineach today for modern sake?
Elice Kilko (25:25):
Today.
Yeah, for most modern families,jobs would be outside the house
and cooking, cleaning, laundrywould be inside the house.
If you're on a committee orvolunteering or you do some sort
of job, that would be outside,whereas if you're, you know,
(25:48):
doing other things, that wouldbe inside the house.
Jessica LM Jenkins (25:51):
So really public private spaces, private
spaces inside your personaldomicile, your house.
Public space is everything outthere, Outside.
Elice Kilko (25:59):
Yeah, yeah, which is?
Not how it was Not how it was.
Can you break that down for us?
How it's different then?
Jessica LM Jenkins (26:07):
So in the ancient world religion was kind
of considered both public andprivate.
Certain parts of the religiousin Israel were certain.
Part of the religiousobservance were public, like
going to the temple, those sortsof things.
A lot of religious observancewere private and they were
actually things that women didin the home.
So religion is kind of both andwhich is really important to
(26:30):
understand when we get totalking about the New Testament,
which we're not doing today.
So I will not digress, I willstay on topic.
So religion is both public andprivate.
But really for the ancientpeoples, and especially the Old
Testament, the only things thatwere considered public space
were politics and the judiciary.
Everything else was consideredprivate space.
(26:53):
So politics, who the king is,the leader of the tribe, all of
that that's kind of public space.
Think the meeting at the gate.
We hear in the Old Testamentthey would meet at the gate.
That is like public space.
The political judgment areas,judiciary that's public space.
Private space is everythingelse commerce, production,
(27:16):
markets, economy, socialrelationships.
That is considered privatespace.
In the Old Testament the homewas the economic center.
So our modern idea of aseparation of you immediately
said work, going to your job, isoutside the home.
That's public space.
In the ancient world there's noseparation between your home
(27:40):
and your vocation, your work.
So your vocation, yourproduction, your economy, you
earning they didn't necessarily,especially in the Old Testament
, worry about like earning moneyper se.
They were less of a money-basedsociety and more of a good
trading type society, but youreconomy is all centered in the
(28:00):
home.
There is no separation of oh,she works outside the home
public space versus working inthe home private space.
Work is private space in theancient mindset.
So our idea of a homemaker as aadult human who limits
themselves primarily, thoughthey do obviously venture out
(28:22):
into public space, but theylimit themselves and their focus
primarily to private space,which is the house itself.
In the ancient world, a womanthough most women did function
in private space.
Their private space was muchlarger.
Elice Kilko (28:38):
Yeah, and you can kind of see this throughout
history, I mean basically upuntil the Industrial Revolution,
exactly.
You know, if your family werefarmers, you were farmers.
If you were shopkeepers, yourhouse was above the shop or very
close by.
If your family was shoemakers,you were shoemakers.
So it's not so.
I mean it's still there, not sofar back.
Jessica LM Jenkins (28:58):
It's not that far back, but in the
homemaking circles that reallypush this idea of homemaking,
they had this huge split.
They're very much the man isthe provider.
His God has called him toprovide and he has called the
woman to be the homemaker, whichis splitting the economic and
the homeward function in a waythat the ancient peoples in
(29:21):
either the New Testament or theOld Testament, they would have
been like.
What are you talking about?
These are like.
Everybody in the family doesboth.
We take care of the house, thehousehold, all of that stuff,
and the economy.
Women didn't frequent publicspaces that often.
(29:42):
Most rulers and judges were men, but we do have examples of
women in the Old Testament, likeDeborah and Jezebel, and there
was other queens as well, whosenames I'm forgetting Bathsheba.
They also were in public spaces.
So there was a time and placefor women to be in the public
spaces, though most of theirdaily life, especially when
you're just dealing with theaverage woman was in the private
(30:05):
space.
And when we talk about theaverage person, most of the
average men are functioningcompletely in private spaces as
well, because they didn'tnecessarily have ruling or
judicial functions in theircommunity.
Elice Kilko (30:20):
They might be representing their family, but
they didn't have those high uppositions representing their
family, but they didn't havethose high up positions, unless
they're going to go get theirexchange of land switched
through the chamber of commerce,quote, unquote.
You know things like that, mostof them are outside as well.
Jessica LM Jenkins (30:43):
Yeah, that's so interesting.
And so this is what I findsuper interesting about modern
complementarian writings abouthomemaking, because, as I've
read Debbie Pearl, rebeccaMerkel, these sorts of authors
they really consider homemakingto be a position that chiefly
occupies the modern idea ofprivate space and they are very
strong in their expectations fora homemaker to primarily stay
(31:06):
in the home itself, which is, aswe talked about briefly earlier
, extremely isolating.
The women women are encouraged.
Authors like Merkel and Pearlstrongly discourage women from
socializing with other women orbeing on their phones or joining
community causes or anythingthat takes them away from
(31:26):
focusing purely on their nuclearfamilies.
It is you, your husband andyour kids that is to be 100% of
your focus and a lot of thesecomplementarian teachings.
When in the Old Testament wesee, women had a much broader
focus.
Unlike what Dorothy Pattersonsaid, the Proverbs 31 woman
(31:47):
wasn't only concerned about theneeds of her nuclear family.
Elice Kilko (31:54):
So bring us back to Proverbs 31.
What does that have to do withthe homemaker, the woman of
valor as a homemaker?
Jessica LM Jenkins (32:03):
Yes.
Well, when we get into Proverbs31 itself just to review for
those who are just tuning intothe series and haven't had a
chance to go back and listen toepisode five yet we are reading
in this series on Proverbs 31,the passage to see various
things that God delights in inwomen.
We are not reading Proverbs 31as a checklist for the ideal
(32:26):
women.
I got several comments that Iwas always taught Proverbs 31 as
a checklist, a list of to-dosfor the modern homemaker.
That is not how God designedProverbs 31.
This proverb was probablywritten by a mother as advice
for her son on what to look forin a queen.
Her son was a king.
This is what you look for inyour wife.
(32:47):
So the activities shown inProverbs 31 are not the average
day-to-day activities for thenormal peasant woman.
That's really important tounderstand, super important, yes
.
This is not what the averageJane was doing every day.
This passage describes the life, and it's more, whole life, not
like her day-to-day but like aholistic look of 30 to 80 years
(33:12):
of living, to describe the lifeof a godly, wealthy woman with
incredible privilege.
She is a privileged woman.
This passage praises the goodqualities of the woman of valor,
the Proverbs 31 woman, and thatpraise reveals some of the
aspects God delights in in women, but it is not an exhaustive
(33:34):
list.
Elice Kilko (33:35):
Which is so important and takes so much
pressure off.
Jessica LM Jenkins (33:40):
It does, because it's not a to-do list.
These aren't things we have toemulate.
It's saying in this culture.
These are things this type ofwoman did.
A wealthy, aristocratic,privileged woman did these sorts
of things, and those show ussome things that God delights in
.
It's not an exhaustive list,though, but let's look at some
(34:02):
of the things this wealthy,aristocratic, privileged woman
did in Proverbs 31.
Elise, would you read verse 27for us?
Elice Kilko (34:11):
Yes, she watches over the activities of her
household and is never idle.
Jessica LM Jenkins (34:18):
Okay, what translation is that?
Csb, csb, perfect.
So the question here is whatdoes it mean to examine or watch
over the activities of herhousehold?
How have you heard this verseinterpreted, elise?
Elice Kilko (34:34):
Again it goes back to where I was when I was being
taught this verse, I think as akid I was very much taught that
it was like an overseer, so kindof the one that's making sure
(34:59):
that all the balls stay in theair and kind of directing the
activities, whereas then as astudent under complementarian
teaching, it was very much.
She takes whatever her husbandgives her and then is
responsible for those littlemoving pieces, but only under
the direction of her husband.
Jessica LM Jenkins (35:15):
Okay.
And household, especially withthe complementarian teaching was
focused on, like the nuclearfamily, yes, husband, wife,
laundry, that's it.
So this verse forcomplementarians was often
interpreted she's examining theactivities of her household.
She is up on her dusting andher laundry and her cooking and
(35:42):
her homemade bread and herbabies and homeschooling and all
of those nuclear familyhousehold caretaking things.
In the ancient world, since thehome was the economic center,
it is business and house andliving space all intertwined.
There was zero business outsidethe household.
So the woman of valor's rolehere is that of chief operating
officer, kind of like you weretaught as a kid.
She is looking over the affairsof those working in her domain.
(36:06):
So in my lecture on YouTube Ibreak this down in more detail.
But the patriarch of the familywould be over the men in the
family and that could be sons,that could be maybe some
unmarried brothers, that couldbe servants.
He would be over the mendirecting what they do and then
the matriarch would be over thewomen.
So as the woman of valor isexamining the activities of her
(36:30):
household, she's payingattention to her domain.
There were gendered activities.
The men typically did a certaintype of work and the women
typically did a certain type ofwork and each of them would kind
of watch over the people intheir gender category to help
make sure.
So she's not necessarily doingall of the labor herself.
She's watching and making sureeverything's running smoothly
(36:53):
like a business manager.
Because a house was a household, was business.
You can't separate it.
My household is not a business,it is a house.
It is a place of safety andleisure and eating.
Their household was business.
So the woman of valor's role isto watch over and make sure
(37:15):
everybody's doing what they needto do and some of what her
specific categories that a womanwould often be in charge of in
a household in the Old Testament, and she had authority over
these.
It was not delegated to her byher husband.
The culture said the matriarchhas authority over these things,
even against her husbandsometimes.
(37:36):
If there was a disagreement,her word was often law on any of
these areas, and so those areasare food.
She could even decide whetherher husband got seconds or
thirds at a meal If she saidthat is the rations for today,
even if he wanted more.
Tough luck, dude, she's incharge.
So she had authority over foodlight when they lit the lamps at
(37:58):
night.
Imagine, elise, that you get todecide every time somebody in
your house flips a light switchon or off, or what time we turn
off all the lights at night, andthat's just it.
The lights are off, now we'renot turning them back on.
So she has authority over food,light, medicine, reproduction
and textiles, clothes everythingpeople wear.
Those are her areas.
(38:18):
So this passage of examiningthe activities of her household
is not talking about justrunning your kids to soccer
practice or dusting or vacuuming.
The view here is not managing ahome like we think of it.
It's overseeing herresponsibilities in the family
business, which is intertwinedwith day-to-day living which
(38:41):
changes the view so much.
Elice Kilko (38:44):
I mean it just.
It opens it up to so much more.
Jessica LM Jenkins (38:47):
Yeah, and many of the tasks we associate
with homemaking, such ascleaning, child care and
homeschooling, were notnecessarily divided down gender
lines in the Old Testament,Unless the child was nursing,
(39:17):
which obviously only its mothercould do, which obviously only
its mother could do, then olderkids were, with their gendered
parent, learning A lot of thethings that we say.
This is what a homemaker doescleaning, childcare, homeschool,
education was actually splitbetween the genders in the
ancient world.
Elice Kilko (39:48):
Yeah, and we can totally see that in verse 14 and
15 of Proverbs, 31 and verse 21.
I'll read those.
I'll do 14 and 15.
She is like the merchant shipsbringing her food from far away.
She rises while it is stillnight and provides food for her
household and portions for herfemale servants.
And then verse 21, she saysshe's not afraid for her
household when it snows, for allin her household are doubly
clothed.
Jessica LM Jenkins (40:10):
So the woman of valor is making sure
everyone in the household hadwhat they need.
After studying the lives of theaverage peasant Old Testament
woman, what I find reallyinteresting in this passage is
that she does not participate infood production at all.
The Proverbs 31 woman.
(40:30):
The average peasant woman wouldspend I forget the exact figure
, but it's like two to fourhours a day grinding grain.
Elice Kilko (40:40):
This is crazy.
I know this is crazy.
Jessica LM Jenkins (40:44):
I know that's.
I mean two to four hours a daygrinding grain.
The Proverbs 31 woman isn'tdoing that.
She is sourcing her breadexternally.
This is like a huge flag oflike privilege, massive wealth
and privilege here.
She may be overseeing some ofthe food preparation, but she is
(41:07):
not personally participating init.
She sources and manages thefood to make sure the people in
her household have food and thatit's being proportioned and
everything appropriately, butshe's not doing the labor.
She's managing and she'soverseeing the other women and
servants doing these tasks.
(41:29):
So it's not a mom with fivelittle elementary school age
kids.
She is a grown woman and by thetime this was written we might
be thinking an elderly womanoverseeing her daughters, her
daughters-in-law and herservants to do the food
production of the house, to dothe storage, to do the
(41:49):
maintenance of the food and allof those things.
Elice Kilko (41:52):
Mm-hmm, yeah, and for peasant women they would be
doing this as a community often,so you wouldn't be grinding
your wheat by yourself with yourkids going crazy.
You might be able to go grindyour wheat with your friend and
take turns and be buildingcommunity, or with your sister,
(42:14):
even within your home, you knowbecause they lived in larger
home things.
So you might be working withyour sister or sister-in-law to
get this stuff done, so youryoungest sister might be
watching the kids while you doall of this together.
Which goes back to howparenting and being a
(42:35):
stay-at-home mom is isolatingyour informal polls.
Can you remind us of that?
Jessica LM Jenkins (42:40):
Yes, a while back this is quite a while back
I did a poll about whetherwomen feel like being a
stay-at-home mom was isolating.
63% of the participants votedthat they found being a
stay-at-home mom today in modernsociety extremely isolating.
20% said they felt like theyactually had more community as a
stay-at-home mom, which makessense because there's some
(43:01):
homeschooling groups and whatnot.
Makes sense because there'ssome like homeschooling groups
and whatnot.
12% were pretty sure that ifthey were a stay-at-home mom,
they weren't, but if they were,that it would be isolating,
which is one thing that reallystruck me as I studied women of
the Old Testament, because I hadheard so many voices like
Patterson and Merkel and Pearlsaying a woman needs to be in
her home.
Beware of other women.
(43:22):
You don't want to be gossiping.
You don't want to be hangingout with other women.
Don't go join those liberalcommunity feminist groups Like
you need to be at home with yourkids.
That is your job.
That is what God designed foryou to do.
To be home alone with multiplechildren all day, every day.
That is God's plan for yourlife.
Oh, my goodness, that's whatthese women are teaching.
(43:43):
Yeah, for your life.
Oh, my goodness, that's whatthese women are teaching, yeah,
and to study through Proverbs 31and the life of Old Testament
women and realize these womenwere never doing any of this
alone by themselves, never bythemselves.
They were constantly grindinggrain together, baking bread
together, doing weaving oranything related to yarn
(44:05):
production.
Together they were constantlybuilding community and the
Proverbs 31 woman is overseeingand helping and creating
beautiful communities.
Carol Meyer in her book, in herchapter in the book Biblical
World of Gender, talks about therelationships these women would
(44:25):
build during work and howsignificant they are.
A lot of the women's books thatI have read recently from
complementarian perspectivereally downplay women in
communities.
They say women are just gossips, that they can't be trusted
with each other or that theywill be tempted into liberal
feminist causes.
But in the ancient world womenbeing together was exceptionally
(44:46):
important.
Carol Myler says theserelationships among women at
work were hardly casual orfrivolous.
Women's familiarity with eachother builds solidarity.
Women who work togethertypically rally to each other's
assistance.
They formed what we might callmutual aid societies.
Their work together served animportant social function in
(45:09):
ancient Israel by contributingto the well-being and survival
of their communities as well astheir families.
And she talks further.
I don't know if it's in thatbook or one of her plethora of
other writings about how justimportant the women's community
building in the ancient worldwas.
Because a lot of the tasks thatmen did were isolated.
(45:32):
They would be out in the fieldfixing a fence or taking care of
the sheep or going out bythemselves.
Because they're men, they're alittle safer to do that in a
culture where you have no police, no standing army.
Raiders can come through at anypoint.
You need your women to stayphysically safe.
The men are a little safer togo by themselves.
Some hotshot teenager isn'tgoing to come upon you by
(45:55):
yourself and do something youdon't want them to do.
But women stay together.
So in the ancient world menoften would go off by themselves
to do their work.
Women would work in groups.
So it was the women's socialrelationships that were really
in many ways the bedrock of thecommunities.
Because it was the women's whoknew that the Smiths their crops
(46:18):
weren't doing well and theywere going to need some extra
help.
Or that the Thompsons thehusband, is sick and so our
teenage boy can go over and helpthem.
And it's the women who kepttabs on all of this.
Elice Kilko (46:31):
And now it's almost flipped my husband the network
work that allowed all thesetransactions that needed to
happen happen.
Jessica LM Jenkins (46:41):
And I just found it interesting as I was
analyzing culture.
Now my husband has all of thesesocial relationships at work.
He's really well known, he'sreally well liked people.
You know he has all of theserelationships at work.
And then me, as a stay at homemom, it was me and the kids all
day and I would try to gettogether with friends, but that
(47:01):
wouldn't always work.
And you're trying to talk andall of the, and even if you're
trying to talk, there's no oneto watch the kids.
So you're having to like watchthe kids the whole time.
And I've just found the shiftthat with the industrialism
shift to nuclear families, thatto be very interesting.
How it used to be, the womenbuilt these solid social
(47:22):
relationships that were thebedrock of the community.
The Proverbs 31 woman.
We see, and we'll talk about itmore in a later episode she's
really creating theserelationships and helping and
all of the tasks that the womenunder her watch, that she is
examining the activities of herhousehold, includes watching,
(47:44):
facilitating, make sure thewomen in her community and in
her household are able to usethe communal oven, grind grain
together, use the looms.
Who needs what she's managing,potentially working with other
women to manage multi-householdusage of.
It's like if three housescommunity resources like three.
(48:07):
How, like my mom or my grandma,talk about a time where, like,
if you wanted to use the phoneyou had to go down the hallway
in your apartment building tothe phone, that, like 50
apartments all used the samephone.
Or in an like when I was incollege, we had one washing
machine for the entire dorm.
Or there was like four, but wehad one washing room for the
(48:28):
entire dorm and everybody.
So you had communal resources.
And so the woman of valorexamining the activities of her
household is helping to managethese communal resources for her
household and other households,to build these communities of
women working together with eachother's children to create this
(48:48):
beautiful mutual aid societywhere they are not alone, they
are not trying to just figureout their own house and their
own kids by themselves.
Elice Kilko (49:10):
So it talks about.
Proverbs 31 talks about feedingand clothing people and
sometimes, as a stay at home mom, it feels like that's all I do.
I can never catch up on laundry.
I am always having to thinkabout what the next meal is.
What are some ways that aresimilar and ways that are
(49:31):
different to the woman of valorin Proverbs 31?
Jessica LM Jenkins (49:35):
So you are right, a lot of in the old
ancient world, a woman was stilldoing clothes and food Like.
It seems like women have alwaysbeen clothes and food, but
there's a couple big difference,one of the biggest differences.
It's not about the tasks thatthe women are doing themselves,
it's about how those tasks areviewed.
In the ancient world, thewoman's tasks are necessary for
(49:58):
survival and for wealth building.
Today, a stay-at-home mom'stasks can be helpful for money
management, but they lack thescope and necessity that the
ancient women's did.
And the ancient women then hadmore agency and power because
their tasks were necessary.
Where today, the scope of whata stay-at-home mom does is a lot
(50:22):
less, in some ways More narrow.
For sure, we've outsourced alot of the things.
Like now, food, like, yes,home-cooked scratch meals are
fantastic and healthier, and allthe things Not knocking that at
all.
I cook those meals every day.
You do too.
Every day, you do too.
(50:49):
But if I were to pass awaytomorrow, my family would still
be fed.
There's grocery stores, there'sfast food.
Today, if somebody can't feedthemselves, it's either a lack
of money, but it's not a lack ofskill.
In the ancient world, foodproduction and textile
production, clothing these werevery skilled, technologically
advanced, proprietarytechnologies that the women knew
(51:13):
.
Um, they were.
It's like, the women knew howto bake the bread, the women
knew how to make the clothes.
The men didn't necessarily.
So you have this proprietaryknowledge around these things
that gave them honor, that gavethem prestige in their community
, because it was necessary andit was highly skilled labor.
(51:35):
Today, food production,clothing production is largely
outsourced and considered lessskilled labor, so it's devalued.
Um, in the ancient world, awoman was the doctor for her
family.
Today, you take your kids tothe doctor, um, and light?
(51:57):
We just take light for granted,we don't have to worry about do
I have enough oil to burn thelamp?
As long as I need to?
We just flip on a light switch.
And our husband, actually, ifhe's the provider for the
homemaking and you're at home,he manages all of that with the
money.
So, though women are doing manyof the same things, the
necessity and the valuing,culture-wise, is a lot lower for
(52:22):
the women today.
Wise um is a lot lower for thewomen today.
And even in the complimentarycomplementarian trad wife
circles where they try to buildup the woman like yay, being a
mom is the most important job inthe world.
Even then she's supposed to dothis job without intrinsic
authority because her husband incomplementarian circles and
(52:44):
hierarchical complementariancircles he Mm-hmm power and so
where her work is meaningful andimportant, there's just some
major differences on how itfunctions.
(53:09):
One thing I also think of is,today a stay-at-home mom doing
the homemaking, stay-at-homewife-mom thing is completely
dependent on her husband'seconomic function.
In the Old Testament thehusband was as dependent on the
wife as she is on him.
And sure, today husbands reallyappreciate having their laundry
(53:30):
done and food done and theydepend on their wives for those
things.
But there's also fast food andlaundromat or and dry cleaners
and you can pay somebody to dothat task very easily.
But in the ancient world if hedidn't have her, he's scrounging
like how do I even make breadand vice versa.
Elice Kilko (53:51):
Yeah, they were dependent on each other which
gives the woman some powersmaybe the wrong word, but it
gives her value as a person forwhat she can do, because he
needs her just as much as sheneeds him, Whereas nowadays it
(54:14):
can put women in a veryprecarious position and we see
that a lot with abuse andwhatnot, because a lot of women
stay in abusive situationsbecause they don't know where
else to go and they don't haveany financial resources.
Jessica LM Jenkins (54:28):
In the ancient world, things like
dowries, if the wife left or wasdivorced, she would often take
that with her and her economicfunction gave her value in the
home.
And so there's this mutualdependence.
And I think it was Carol Myersagain, or a similar author who
(54:48):
talked about how in a lot ofearly societies because women
would take raw materials andturn them into something that
you could actually use a sheepinto a coat, that's amazing they
can turn these hard grains intobread.
(55:09):
This is incredible like it wasviewed, really like whoa.
This is a great, whereas todaywe're like yawn big whoop, you
cooked a meal, where's my next?
you know, because food is soreadily available, we just
devalue it.
Elice Kilko (55:29):
So what can we learn then from Proverbs 31
about woman's role in the homeand the workplace?
If you could kind ofconcentrate it down, what can we
learn for us today?
Jessica LM Jenkins (55:42):
We can learn that it is scriptural for a
woman to have an economicfunction.
We see in the Bible womenhaving economic functions in
their homes all the time.
There is no shame, zero shame,in a woman making money and
having a job of some kind.
The idea that the man is to bethe breadwinner and the woman
(56:04):
should not be a provider iscompletely inaccurate both to
the text and the ancientcultures.
Both men and women wereeconomic agents in the ancient
culture.
The idea that man is to be theprovider does not match the
Bible, does not match theancient cultures.
The woman was as much aprovider as the man was.
(56:26):
They both were providers,working together and so to have
homes and families and marriageswhere both the husband and wife
provide.
However you decide to structure, that is fine.
God is not giving us a decree onwhat somebody should or should
not do.
Is not giving us a decree onwhat somebody should or should
not do.
Complementarians say the Biblesays a woman should not be the
(56:52):
primary breadwinner, earningmoney.
She needs to be in the housedoing housework.
That isn't actually whatscripture says A woman having an
economic function, working as ateam with her husband, whether
she earns 5%, 0.1%, 0%, 30%, 80%of their finances.
Percentages don't necessarilymatter, but they're to work
together as a team for the goodof their household.
(57:13):
And if she chooses, they choosethat she's going to stay home
and he's going to earn all themoney.
That's fine.
I've done that for years.
It's a totally acceptable wayto do that if that's what works
best for the family.
But it is not a decree by God.
So if the husband and wife feellike, hey, she should go out and
(57:34):
she should earn most of themoney because she has the skills
for that and he'll stay home,that's okay too.
Or if they both go out and earnabout the same amount, or
however you do percentages.
The scripture's focus for menand women is unity, them working
(57:55):
together for the good of thefamily, and so we are allowed to
be creative according to theneeds of our family and the
gifts and desires of the husbandand wife in a married family,
to be creative in how they dothat and when you're dealing
with widows or single women,there is no shame in being a
widow or a single woman who'sworking.
A woman having a job andworking is not shameful.
(58:17):
Women had economic functions upuntil I would have to look at
all the history.
Up until I would have to lookat all the history, but until
sometimes in the 1900s, whensuddenly they wanted women out
of the factories so that, Ibelieve, men coming home from
World War I or II could takethose jobs.
So they created this wholehousewife idea and tried to get
women out of the factories somen could work.
(58:39):
And until then women hadeconomic functions, unless
you're very, very rich and we'renot talking about them.
Elice Kilko (58:46):
Yeah, that's so good.
And then, my favorite part ofevery podcast what does this
text show us, or reveal to usabout God's heart?
What can we learn?
Jessica LM Jenkins (58:58):
I feel like there's just so much.
I feel like there's just somuch.
God has created women to bebeautiful, creative women who
can use their gifts in so manyways to benefit their world and
their community outside of theirhome.
Do we benefit our homesAbsolutely?
(59:19):
Should we work at benefitingour homes Absolutely?
Does that mean we can only bein our house?
only benefiting our nuclearfamily.
No, I was thinking recentlyabout how much my family needs
working women.
If complementarian ideal thatwomen be stay-at-home moms
(59:42):
suddenly was national and allthe women that I know, law and
all the women I know aresuddenly stay-at-home moms, my
children would have no teachers.
They'd have no occupationaltherapists, they would have no
therapists.
They would have no speechtherapists.
They would have no pediatrician.
They would have no dentist.
Everybody taking care doctors,dentists, therapists, all of it,
(01:00:04):
it's all women.
Care doctors, dentists,therapists, all of it.
It's all women.
And these are incrediblynecessary roles and God delights
in women using their interestsand gifts for the good of their
community, not just their home.
And for those of us who wereraised, especially those of us
who grew up as little girlsbeing told some more blatantly
(01:00:27):
than others your brother can bewhatever he wants to be when he
grows up within moral boundaries.
He can be a doctor, he can be alawyer, he could be president.
You only have one option youget to be a mom.
Well, I'm not interested inkids and I don't want to be a
mom Too bad.
It's God's will for your lifethat you were a mom, and if you
don't want to be a mom.
You better pray about thatbecause you are in sin.
(01:00:48):
And I just want, for those whogrew up kind of with that idea,
that as a woman, you are limitedto homemaker and that is your
box and you don't have a choice.
And you don't have a choicethat in our modern society, god
(01:01:10):
is not giving men freedom tofollow their gifts, abilities
and interests and limiting women.
He is saying both men.
He is calling both men andwomen to creatively,
cooperatively see how theirgifts, abilities and interests
can be used first for thekingdom of God, secondly for
their family and thirdly fortheir communities to benefit and
(01:01:30):
serve the people around them.
None of us are to be out therewith all the ambition just
looking to make ourselves great.
We're here to serve God andothers, but we can do that in so
many varieties of ways and weare free to do that while loving
our families.
Well, if we have families and ifwe don't have families, if we
(01:01:53):
are single, that is not shameful, because God did not design you
.
He did not call all women to behomemakers', moms, so that if
you're not a homemaker mom,you're a failure.
God called you to be a daughter, to be a son, a legal heir, son
of God.
(01:02:14):
That is what we are.
We are children of God.
That is what we are called tobe, whether we get to be a mom,
whether we get to be a wife,whether we are single, whether
we have a job, whether we are ahomemaker, that is lesser.
We are called to be daughtersof God and we have freedom to
(01:02:35):
live the rest of our lifetowards that end, with
creativity and passion and joy,not cooped up in little boxes or
feeling like we're absolutefailures because we haven't
reached a list of extra biblicalchecklists on what we're
supposed to be doing.
Elice Kilko (01:02:54):
I love that that's so encouraging.
Jessica LM Jenkins (01:02:59):
Well, thank you so much for tuning in and
listening to this episode on thewoman of valor's home.
Next episode we were going totalk about her businesses, so
we're going to talk about herwork in more detail and the fact
that she had three businessesshe was doing.
This is a very industriouswoman in a multitude of ways.
(01:03:20):
We will be back to talk aboutthat in a couple weeks.
Can't wait to discuss that withyou more.
May God bless.
Welcome back to the we who Thirst podcast.
I took a few weeks off frompodcasting over the Christmas
break and I am so excited to beback with you Today.
We are jumping right back intoour Proverbs 31 series that we
had to pause back in September.
So if you're just tuning intothe podcast now, you may want to
go back and listen to episodesfive through seven of the
(00:23):
podcast, where we laid thegroundwork for how to read and
understand Proverbs 31 and whothe woman of valor is.
Today we are going to bespecifically talking about God's
heart for women, the woman ofvalor in her home, and how that
relates to the modern idea ofhomemaker or trad wife.
With me today is my dear friend, elise Kilko.
She is a stay-at-home mom oftwo beautiful kids who also
(00:46):
volunteers at a Bible school,helping behind the scenes with
childcare and reception.
She's also a foreign worker whohas lived in three different
countries for extended periodsof time, interfacing with a
variety of cultures.
Elise, our topic today is aboutthe woman of valor and her home
.
Whenever we talk about the home, the topic of homemaking and
(01:07):
evangelical complementarianexpectations for women comes up.
What is your experience withteachings on homemaking?
Elice Kilko (01:15):
Oh, that's such a good question.
I think, having been in so manydifferent cultures.
I grew up in Brazil and they'rereally, unless you're quite,
you know, upper middle class,you will probably have a job
outside the home.
(01:35):
And if you are upper middleclass, that means you had the
means to get an education and soyou might still work outside
the home.
Frequent professions for womenare dentists, lawyers, really
(01:55):
anything but teachers.
You know some of the same onesthat often women gravitate to
here in the States as well.
But I think growing up Iunderstood that the woman might
need to be you know she'sworking at home.
(02:17):
Her value is to be helping athome and kind of be in charge of
who's doing what at home, butthat she might still be outside
working a profession outside thehome as well, because it just
it needs to happen if the billsare going to get paid.
Jessica LM Jenkins (02:52):
And so then, coming to college in the
Midwest in the United States andgetting into all the very
complementarian, very Baptistteaching, you went to a
fundamentalist adjacent college,yeah, yes, very much so.
Elice Kilko (02:57):
Then having kind of to like rewire, like weights,
but like what if you have towork outside the home, like it
was almost like a culture shock,um and so um, I just I think
I've seen a lot of differentperspectives, um, of what
homemaking could be.
I'm thankful that I've seen somany perspectives.
Jessica LM Jenkins (03:19):
Yeah, I think what you you bring up with
the different cultures, isreally important and we're not
going to get into that realdeeply this episode, though I
would like to on an episode atsome point, but I've heard, like
I know, jasmine Holmes talksabout this as well just the
different cultures, even withininside the United States.
Like, historically, black womenhave had to work outside the
home for many of the samereasons that Brazilian women
(03:42):
have to work outside the home,many of the same reasons that
Brazilian women have to workoutside the home and how.
So much of the homemaking as awoman's role.
Culture really is white,fundamentalist, adjacent
fundamentalist, evangelicalculture.
It is very middle class, it isvery white.
This expectation, but for thoseof us who have engaged that
(04:04):
culture or who come out of thatculture, this expectation that
women be a homemaker is like thestatus quo in the church.
Yeah, that makes sense.
In preparation for this episodethe last couple days, I did some
informal polling on my socialmedia platforms, so the results
(04:25):
are very much.
Whoever was on yesterday,whoever either follows me on
Instagram or randomly cameacross the posts on threads, so,
but the results were reallyinteresting 50 to 61% of the
women who were polled weretaught in their churches that a
(04:45):
woman's role, as ordained by God, is to be a homemaker.
So 50% or more women have beentaught that a woman's role is to
be the homemaker.
I believe about 13%.
10 to 13%.
Their church didn't even talkabout it at all what a woman's
role was.
So you either have you're to bea homemaker, or silence is kind
(05:08):
of, and then about 30% no,that's not her role.
Interestingly, though, eventhough the churches are teaching
seemingly overwhelmingly that awoman's role is to be a
homemaker, very little specificinstruction was given on how to
be a homemaker in the church.
The majority of women were justleft to figure that out on
(05:32):
their own or talk amongstthemselves or read books, blogs,
etc.
The church itself didn't givethem help on how to do that.
They were just left to figureit out or told that they needed
to focus on their husband andkids.
A theme that I know I wastaught, and I was hearing from
women who were DMing me oranswering my polls, was that
(05:54):
they were taught their job is tomake their husband a success,
and they can only do anythingoutside of making him a success
or taking care of their house ifthey have accomplished, making
him a success and taking perfectcare of their house.
Only then can they follow anyof their own interests or
(06:14):
passions or callings.
That's so much pressure.
Elice Kilko (06:18):
Yeah, so much pressure.
Jessica LM Jenkins (06:22):
Yeah, oh, wow, and so they didn't get a
lot of specifics.
It's kind of vague, but they'retold to focus relentlessly here
but not really told how Did you, what was?
Have you experienced any ofthese kind of firm but vague
teachings?
Elice Kilko (06:37):
Yes, yeah for sure, growing up, our kind of niche
Baptist group had a women'smeeting every year, and so there
would often be breakoutsessions and sometimes those
breakout sessions would be a lotmore practical.
(06:57):
So kind of some of these howcan you get an actual thing done
?
But a lot of times they werevery vague, it was a mixed bag,
you know, a mixed bag of likethis is what you need to do,
without any concrete steps.
But I do remember sometimeshaving very concrete, you know,
(07:19):
breakout sessions of like here'show you could do a specific
thing.
But then here in the States, Imean, I was a biblical
counseling major 10.
So that gave me a whole bunchto think about and baggage that
(07:54):
I'm now trying to sort through,I guess.
Jessica LM Jenkins (07:59):
I find it really interesting how the local
churches didn't do a whole,whole lot of direct teaching,
especially from like the pulpit,but women were encouraged to go
into all of these books andblogs and side teachings,
typically from other women.
That often ended up being veryunhealthy and I think sometimes
(08:22):
from conversations I've had withlike my dad who's a pastor, or
other pastors, they're not evenaware fully of what some of
these women are being taughtbecause it's outside.
The pastors aren't reallypaying attention to what the
women are doing, and that's awhole side conversation that
we're not going to get into.
But back to the poll.
Unsurprisingly, the majority ofthe women I polled struggled in
(08:45):
their homemaking.
About a quarter of those saidthey didn't feel like they did
well or felt well as a homemaker.
A majority of women felt likethey did not live up to the
expectations that theircommunities and churches had for
them as homemakers, leavingover half the women feeling like
a failure or perpetually guiltyfor their performance that they
(09:07):
just weren't measuring up.
It's like this rat race wherethey could never do good enough.
A very small percentage, like14%, felt like they thrived as
homemakers.
About a quarter of the womendidn't even try to be homemakers
, but the rest of them eitherstruggled but did okay, or just
(09:29):
did not feel like they did wellas homemakers at all.
And what I found mostinteresting is that even women
who no longer believe that Godcommands women to be homemakers
because that's a strong teachingyou have to be a homemaker.
This is God's will for yourlife Even women who do not
believe that God commands themto be homemakers still feel
(09:49):
either high to extremely highlevels of guilt about their
homemaking.
Oh yeah.
Elice Kilko (09:57):
Yeah, the shame we carry from the things that we
were taught or we picked up.
Yeah, your polling sounds Imean it, just really it's.
I can definitely see that in myown life and in those of my
friends.
Homemaking in the, you know,white, American evangelical
(10:18):
fundamental framework is veryisolating.
It can be really hard unlessyou are one of the few that
thrives on, you know, making allthe lists and being the one
that's writing the blog andteaching other people how to do
it.
And even those people I imagineif you had an honest
(10:39):
conversation with them, notevery day would be rosy.
So that's so.
It's really hard, just thepressure that we feel to live up
to this expectation withoutclear directions.
You have this huge expectationwith no clear direction on how
to meet the standard, which isso, so hard, and then you read
(11:02):
Proverbs 31 and you are taughtthat it's a checklist and you're
just destined to like fail.
You're just you're going tofail, yeah.
Jessica LM Jenkins (11:12):
Yeah, and it's so like, and even when you
are given a checklist, thosechecklists don't necessarily fit
your family or your familydynamics, and then you're again
back to the idea that you haveto be totally consumed with your
family.
Dorothy Patterson, who was thewife of the president of the
(11:36):
seminary I attended, told meonce that a married woman has to
be a stay-at-home homemaker,trying to have children Even if
she can't.
That needs to be her goal, andif she is working outside the
home, it is because she and herhusband have a lack of faith.
So basically, if a woman who ismarried of childbearing age is
(12:01):
working outside the home.
She is in sin and has a lack offaith.
Elice Kilko (12:07):
Where does that leave all the single women, all
the women who struggle withinfertility or any kind of
health issue, those women?
Jessica LM Jenkins (12:16):
get a pass because they don't have kids.
I was recently married.
At the time expected to startpopping out babies, but you're
allowed to work if you don'thave kids.
But if you are fertile and ableto have children, you better
get to it.
Elice Kilko (12:31):
Oh, so hard.
Jessica LM Jenkins (12:32):
But the other women are still expected
single women, women without kidsthey're still expected to be
homemakers while they're workinga job.
They're now expected to do bothsimultaneously and they would
often frame homemaking a lotaround hospitality, especially
for the working women like thesingle women and those without
(12:53):
children, like Dorothy wasworking because her children
were all grown.
But for me, as I think aboutthat, when you start making
homemaking about hospitality,why don't we just call it
hospitality that both men andwomen are responsible for?
But there was just thisexpectation.
Let me read to you what DorothyPatterson wrote in Recovering
(13:13):
Biblical Manhood and Womanhood,because I think this kind of
encapsulates some of theteaching many women have
received.
She says these characteristicsdescribe God's ideal woman in
Proverbs 31.
She is a committed homemaker, achaste helpmate, upright and
God-fearing woman of strength.
There is no hint in the passagethat this woman has any other
(13:36):
purpose than to meet the needsof her family in the best
possible way.
Okay.
Elice Kilko (13:42):
So I'm just a baby-making machine who is a
servant.
Jessica LM Jenkins (13:47):
For your family, and that is not to
denigrate homemaking or takingcare of your family.
Every woman I know, whethershe's working in or outside the
home, is trying to take care ofher family in the best possible
way.
There's this.
(14:07):
The homemaking discussions inthe white, evangelical,
fundamentalist fundamentalistadjacent circles centers on the
woman only and primarily doinghomemaking and they root that in
passages like Proverbs 31 andTitus 2, so that authors like
Debbie Pearl say young women areto be keepers of the home.
This is the sixth of eightmandates for young women in
(14:29):
Titus 2.
It is not a suggestion, it isGod's will for wives, she says.
She says in her book Created toBe to Help Me, and so you have
extreme pressure that you haveto do this.
God created you in the womb.
If you have the privilege ofmarriage to be a homemaker,
there is no other option.
(14:50):
And this is a theme that comesup in all sorts of books for
women, which are the primaryteaching women are getting on.
This topic is from books.
I've seen themes like thisechoed in Rebecca Merkel's Even
Exile.
I saw even the Kostenbergersalluded to some of this in their
book on men and women.
(15:10):
I don't want to focus on allthose teachings.
But I do want to lay aframework for our discussion
that a lot of us are coming outof circles that emphasized those
teachings very strongly.
Elice Kilko (15:24):
Yeah, it definitely sets us up for failure and for
a lot of pressure to be put onus, which then, in turn, gives
us shame when we can't attainthe standard that's been set.
Jessica LM Jenkins (15:36):
Yeah, and a lot of the standard that's been
set also revolves around thepeople in your life, and your
children have to behave acertain way.
Your husband has to view you acertain way.
So for many and I'm not goingto say all, and this is not
taught explicitly as much asimplicitly, but for many
(15:58):
homemakers they can only feellike a success when the people
around them in their home arehappy, well-behaved and
fulfilled, leaving homemakerswith an intrinsic need to
control all the people in theirlives, because their success
depends on everybody around them.
(16:19):
Looking just so, yeah, yeah,that's so hard.
And then when you're dealingwith families that have trauma,
neurodivergence, all medicalyeah, yeah, that's so hard.
(16:41):
Neurodivergent women or womenwith neurodivergent kids and
when you start dealing withthese extra things medical
neurodivergence, trauma, all ofthat you suddenly the ideal of
children who obey the very firsttime and husbands who lead and
are happy to see you and all ofthis it starts kind of
(17:02):
splintering.
But you're supposed to be thehomemaker, You're to make the
home, and that includes thepeople being happy, and you
can't do that.
And so that's why I think mypolls reveal such immense levels
of guilt.
These women just carry all thetime.
Yeah, yeah.
Elice Kilko (17:21):
That makes total sense, oh that's so hard sense.
Jessica LM Jenkins (17:33):
Oh, that's so hard, yeah, it really is.
So there are some teachers andKostenbergers fall under this
that do give some leeway forwomen to work outside the home.
Not every teacher in thesecircles says women have to work
completely inside the home.
Some say they can work outsidethe home, but it's kind of a
she's supposed to work insidethe home but if she has to she
can work outside the home.
But it's kind of this muddyposition Like at what point am I
(17:55):
okay to work outside the home,or I need to, or what point not?
Have you run across thatposition?
How have you processed it?
Elice Kilko (18:04):
Yeah, it's like, okay, do I stay at home and take
care of my family and go onfood stamps, or do I get a job
outside the house?
You know, like I know, for alot of people that was like a
decision they had to make andthen you put in.
You know, if you're in aspecific group of people who are
going to look down on peoplewho have to go on food stamps,
(18:27):
then all of a sudden you'retrying to keep that a secret.
You know, um, and that addsmore shame to the system, um.
So yeah, I definitely saw itwas like working outside the
home was like this loophole ifyou need it for finances, but at
what point is it a need and atwhat time is it a want?
(18:48):
So definitely, and differentpeople measure that at a
different way.
Jessica LM Jenkins (18:55):
I got a DM from one woman who had a very
interesting insight.
She said that in her church, ifa woman wasn't a homemaker,
that opened up her life to bescrutinized.
And now everybody's likenitpicking her life, either to
justify her needing to work outthe home oh, her husband just
doesn't have a very good job orhe's disabled.
So now they're nitpicking herhusband or they're scrutinizing
(19:19):
her family for being too worldlyin their spending habits oh,
they just want to.
She wants to work outside thehome because they have cars.
They don't need two cars thatare that nice.
They could have less nice carsand she could stay home.
And so the whole homemakingthing leads to a lot of scrutiny
, not around things like thefruits of the spirit in a first
(19:39):
Corinthians 13 love, but aroundlike just nitpicky life things
where people are judging.
I think that can become,unfortunately, a huge part of
this culture of nitpickingwomen's choices and trying to
judge motives, which also addsto all that guilt and shame.
(20:02):
Part of what I really want to doin this series, though, is lift
some of that guilt and shameoff.
I want to look at how God viewswomen and what God is calling
women to do and to be lookingspecifically at the passages
that in some ways have been usedto bludgeon women in the past.
We are focusing on Proverbs 31in this series.
(20:25):
I will probably at some pointdo an episode or two on Titus 2.
So we're going to leave Titus 2for another time, but I do want
to talk in detail aboutProverbs 31, this woman and her
home.
So for today, we need to backup a little bit before we get
into Proverbs 31 proper and talkabout a woman's role in the Old
(20:47):
Testament For a full, hugediscussion on that.
I have a lecture on gender rolesand patricentric heterarchy on
my YouTube channel.
You can search for we whoThirst podcast on YouTube.
You can watch that That'll withpictures and diagrams and the
whole nine yard walk you throughand it's so good, it's so
helpful Feeling socialstructures in the Bible, not
(21:10):
just the Old Testament, butwe'll summarize that here today.
So, Elise, what were you taughtabout the family structures and
roles of women in the OldTestament growing up?
Elice Kilko (21:25):
That's such a good question.
I was thinking about it, uh,earlier today I was actually
talking with my sister, becausehow we were taught about it as
kids and then, um, changingcountries and um, uh, and then
how you view it as an adult isso different.
Um, and I think, growing up, uh, my dad has six sisters.
(21:48):
He's the only boy and then hegot married and had four
daughters and, praise the Lord,he values women.
We wouldn't really really be ina bad place if he didn't.
But I definitely think thatthat carried over into how he
taught us about women in theBible, because it was important
(22:09):
to him that we were valued andthat we saw our place in God's
story and that definitely camethrough growing up.
So growing up, I didn't justlearn about, you know, the meek
and timid women of the Bible.
I learned about the warriors,you know.
I learned about JL and DeborahAbigail, who saved her whole
(22:33):
household from slaughter, andthose were my heroines.
Like I learned about the valueof a woman's place who could
make judgment calls and go tobattle and be strong and follow
God, not just because herhusband was going to the temple
(22:55):
and making sacrifices, butbecause she in her own home, was
welcoming in angels and makingmeals for them and all of that,
and so I'm so thankful that Icaught that vision very early
from my parents, and I realizenow as an adult just how unusual
(23:16):
that was.
Jessica LM Jenkins (23:17):
Yeah, because some of those women
you're rattling off women, and Iremember teachings about them
from a very firmlycomplementarian space, where the
wife is to submit to thehusband, he is the boss, he is
the military commander.
When he says jump, she says howhigh A wife is only as obedient
to God as she is as obedient toher husband.
Those are the types of thingsthat we're taught, and so women
(23:40):
like Abigail, who went aroundher husband to feed, give David
the food, was actually kind oflooked down on.
She wasn't a heroine.
We're all like how could she bethat disobedient?
And so it's beautiful that youwere taught the beauty of these
strong women, but it doesn'tsound like you were taught a lot
specifically about how thesewomen functioned in family
(24:01):
structures and roles.
Elice Kilko (24:03):
No, not necessarily roles.
No, not necessarily.
No, not as you teach it fromhistorical context.
Jessica LM Jenkins (24:19):
And this is kind of a side note, but I think
a lot of what you were taughtis kind of the Jewish
perspective.
They have a slightly different.
The Jewish perspective of womenis very different than the
complementarian perspective ofwomen.
And so I think you were able toabsorb more of the Jewish
perspective looking up at andhonoring these women than the
complementarian.
She needs to submit and obeyher husband period, end of the
(24:40):
road.
If the lights get turned off inthe house because he's not
paying the bills, she just needsto pray and let God handle it
and submit.
So social structure in the OldTestament.
One thing I want to talk aboutthat I think we deal with when
we're talking about homemakingspecifically, is the idea of
(25:02):
public versus private space andwhat space women occupy, and a
lot of this comes down to howthe ancient people viewed public
versus private space and themodern ideas of public and
private space.
When you think about public andprivate space, Elise, what
aspects of life would you put ineach today for modern sake?
Elice Kilko (25:25):
Today.
Yeah, for most modern families,jobs would be outside the house
and cooking, cleaning, laundrywould be inside the house.
If you're on a committee orvolunteering or you do some sort
of job, that would be outside,whereas if you're, you know,
(25:48):
doing other things, that wouldbe inside the house.
Jessica LM Jenkins (25:51):
So really public private spaces, private
spaces inside your personaldomicile, your house.
Public space is everything outthere, Outside.
Elice Kilko (25:59):
Yeah, yeah, which is?
Not how it was Not how it was.
Can you break that down for us?
How it's different then?
Jessica LM Jenkins (26:07):
So in the ancient world religion was kind
of considered both public andprivate.
Certain parts of the religiousin Israel were certain.
Part of the religiousobservance were public, like
going to the temple, those sortsof things.
A lot of religious observancewere private and they were
actually things that women didin the home.
So religion is kind of both andwhich is really important to
(26:30):
understand when we get totalking about the New Testament,
which we're not doing today.
So I will not digress, I willstay on topic.
So religion is both public andprivate.
But really for the ancientpeoples, and especially the Old
Testament, the only things thatwere considered public space
were politics and the judiciary.
Everything else was consideredprivate space.
(26:53):
So politics, who the king is,the leader of the tribe, all of
that that's kind of public space.
Think the meeting at the gate.
We hear in the Old Testamentthey would meet at the gate.
That is like public space.
The political judgment areas,judiciary that's public space.
Private space is everythingelse commerce, production,
(27:16):
markets, economy, socialrelationships.
That is considered privatespace.
In the Old Testament the homewas the economic center.
So our modern idea of aseparation of you immediately
said work, going to your job, isoutside the home.
That's public space.
In the ancient world there's noseparation between your home
(27:40):
and your vocation, your work.
So your vocation, yourproduction, your economy, you
earning they didn't necessarily,especially in the Old Testament
, worry about like earning moneyper se.
They were less of a money-basedsociety and more of a good
trading type society, but youreconomy is all centered in the
(28:00):
home.
There is no separation of oh,she works outside the home
public space versus working inthe home private space.
Work is private space in theancient mindset.
So our idea of a homemaker as aadult human who limits
themselves primarily, thoughthey do obviously venture out
(28:22):
into public space, but theylimit themselves and their focus
primarily to private space,which is the house itself.
In the ancient world, a womanthough most women did function
in private space.
Their private space was muchlarger.
Elice Kilko (28:38):
Yeah, and you can kind of see this throughout
history, I mean basically upuntil the Industrial Revolution,
exactly.
You know, if your family werefarmers, you were farmers.
If you were shopkeepers, yourhouse was above the shop or very
close by.
If your family was shoemakers,you were shoemakers.
So it's not so.
I mean it's still there, not sofar back.
Jessica LM Jenkins (28:58):
It's not that far back, but in the
homemaking circles that reallypush this idea of homemaking,
they had this huge split.
They're very much the man isthe provider.
His God has called him toprovide and he has called the
woman to be the homemaker, whichis splitting the economic and
the homeward function in a waythat the ancient peoples in
(29:21):
either the New Testament or theOld Testament, they would have
been like.
What are you talking about?
These are like.
Everybody in the family doesboth.
We take care of the house, thehousehold, all of that stuff,
and the economy.
Women didn't frequent publicspaces that often.
(29:42):
Most rulers and judges were men, but we do have examples of
women in the Old Testament, likeDeborah and Jezebel, and there
was other queens as well, whosenames I'm forgetting Bathsheba.
They also were in public spaces.
So there was a time and placefor women to be in the public
spaces, though most of theirdaily life, especially when
you're just dealing with theaverage woman was in the private
(30:05):
space.
And when we talk about theaverage person, most of the
average men are functioningcompletely in private spaces as
well, because they didn'tnecessarily have ruling or
judicial functions in theircommunity.
Elice Kilko (30:20):
They might be representing their family, but
they didn't have those high uppositions representing their
family, but they didn't havethose high up positions, unless
they're going to go get theirexchange of land switched
through the chamber of commerce,quote, unquote.
You know things like that, mostof them are outside as well.
Jessica LM Jenkins (30:43):
Yeah, that's so interesting.
And so this is what I findsuper interesting about modern
complementarian writings abouthomemaking, because, as I've
read Debbie Pearl, rebeccaMerkel, these sorts of authors
they really consider homemakingto be a position that chiefly
occupies the modern idea ofprivate space and they are very
strong in their expectations fora homemaker to primarily stay
(31:06):
in the home itself, which is, aswe talked about briefly earlier
, extremely isolating.
The women women are encouraged.
Authors like Merkel and Pearlstrongly discourage women from
socializing with other women orbeing on their phones or joining
community causes or anythingthat takes them away from
(31:26):
focusing purely on their nuclearfamilies.
It is you, your husband andyour kids that is to be 100% of
your focus and a lot of thesecomplementarian teachings.
When in the Old Testament wesee, women had a much broader
focus.
Unlike what Dorothy Pattersonsaid, the Proverbs 31 woman
(31:47):
wasn't only concerned about theneeds of her nuclear family.
Elice Kilko (31:54):
So bring us back to Proverbs 31.
What does that have to do withthe homemaker, the woman of
valor as a homemaker?
Jessica LM Jenkins (32:03):
Yes.
Well, when we get into Proverbs31 itself just to review for
those who are just tuning intothe series and haven't had a
chance to go back and listen toepisode five yet we are reading
in this series on Proverbs 31,the passage to see various
things that God delights in inwomen.
We are not reading Proverbs 31as a checklist for the ideal
(32:26):
women.
I got several comments that Iwas always taught Proverbs 31 as
a checklist, a list of to-dosfor the modern homemaker.
That is not how God designedProverbs 31.
This proverb was probablywritten by a mother as advice
for her son on what to look forin a queen.
Her son was a king.
This is what you look for inyour wife.
(32:47):
So the activities shown inProverbs 31 are not the average
day-to-day activities for thenormal peasant woman.
That's really important tounderstand, super important, yes
.
This is not what the averageJane was doing every day.
This passage describes the life, and it's more, whole life, not
like her day-to-day but like aholistic look of 30 to 80 years
(33:12):
of living, to describe the lifeof a godly, wealthy woman with
incredible privilege.
She is a privileged woman.
This passage praises the goodqualities of the woman of valor,
the Proverbs 31 woman, and thatpraise reveals some of the
aspects God delights in in women, but it is not an exhaustive
(33:34):
list.
Elice Kilko (33:35):
Which is so important and takes so much
pressure off.
Jessica LM Jenkins (33:40):
It does, because it's not a to-do list.
These aren't things we have toemulate.
It's saying in this culture.
These are things this type ofwoman did.
A wealthy, aristocratic,privileged woman did these sorts
of things, and those show ussome things that God delights in
.
It's not an exhaustive list,though, but let's look at some
(34:02):
of the things this wealthy,aristocratic, privileged woman
did in Proverbs 31.
Elise, would you read verse 27for us?
Elice Kilko (34:11):
Yes, she watches over the activities of her
household and is never idle.
Jessica LM Jenkins (34:18):
Okay, what translation is that?
Csb, csb, perfect.
So the question here is whatdoes it mean to examine or watch
over the activities of herhousehold?
How have you heard this verseinterpreted, elise?
Elice Kilko (34:34):
Again it goes back to where I was when I was being
taught this verse, I think as akid I was very much taught that
it was like an overseer, so kindof the one that's making sure
(34:59):
that all the balls stay in theair and kind of directing the
activities, whereas then as astudent under complementarian
teaching, it was very much.
She takes whatever her husbandgives her and then is
responsible for those littlemoving pieces, but only under
the direction of her husband.
Jessica LM Jenkins (35:15):
Okay.
And household, especially withthe complementarian teaching was
focused on, like the nuclearfamily, yes, husband, wife,
laundry, that's it.
So this verse forcomplementarians was often
interpreted she's examining theactivities of her household.
She is up on her dusting andher laundry and her cooking and
(35:42):
her homemade bread and herbabies and homeschooling and all
of those nuclear familyhousehold caretaking things.
In the ancient world, since thehome was the economic center,
it is business and house andliving space all intertwined.
There was zero business outsidethe household.
So the woman of valor's rolehere is that of chief operating
officer, kind of like you weretaught as a kid.
She is looking over the affairsof those working in her domain.
(36:06):
So in my lecture on YouTube Ibreak this down in more detail.
But the patriarch of the familywould be over the men in the
family and that could be sons,that could be maybe some
unmarried brothers, that couldbe servants.
He would be over the mendirecting what they do and then
the matriarch would be over thewomen.
So as the woman of valor isexamining the activities of her
(36:30):
household, she's payingattention to her domain.
There were gendered activities.
The men typically did a certaintype of work and the women
typically did a certain type ofwork and each of them would kind
of watch over the people intheir gender category to help
make sure.
So she's not necessarily doingall of the labor herself.
She's watching and making sureeverything's running smoothly
(36:53):
like a business manager.
Because a house was a household, was business.
You can't separate it.
My household is not a business,it is a house.
It is a place of safety andleisure and eating.
Their household was business.
So the woman of valor's role isto watch over and make sure
(37:15):
everybody's doing what they needto do and some of what her
specific categories that a womanwould often be in charge of in
a household in the Old Testament, and she had authority over
these.
It was not delegated to her byher husband.
The culture said the matriarchhas authority over these things,
even against her husbandsometimes.
(37:36):
If there was a disagreement,her word was often law on any of
these areas, and so those areasare food.
She could even decide whetherher husband got seconds or
thirds at a meal If she saidthat is the rations for today,
even if he wanted more.
Tough luck, dude, she's incharge.
So she had authority over foodlight when they lit the lamps at
(37:58):
night.
Imagine, elise, that you get todecide every time somebody in
your house flips a light switchon or off, or what time we turn
off all the lights at night, andthat's just it.
The lights are off, now we'renot turning them back on.
So she has authority over food,light, medicine, reproduction
and textiles, clothes everythingpeople wear.
Those are her areas.
(38:18):
So this passage of examiningthe activities of her household
is not talking about justrunning your kids to soccer
practice or dusting or vacuuming.
The view here is not managing ahome like we think of it.
It's overseeing herresponsibilities in the family
business, which is intertwinedwith day-to-day living which
(38:41):
changes the view so much.
Elice Kilko (38:44):
I mean it just.
It opens it up to so much more.
Jessica LM Jenkins (38:47):
Yeah, and many of the tasks we associate
with homemaking, such ascleaning, child care and
homeschooling, were notnecessarily divided down gender
lines in the Old Testament,Unless the child was nursing,
(39:17):
which obviously only its mothercould do, which obviously only
its mother could do, then olderkids were, with their gendered
parent, learning A lot of thethings that we say.
This is what a homemaker doescleaning, childcare, homeschool,
education was actually splitbetween the genders in the
ancient world.
Elice Kilko (39:48):
Yeah, and we can totally see that in verse 14 and
15 of Proverbs, 31 and verse 21.
I'll read those.
I'll do 14 and 15.
She is like the merchant shipsbringing her food from far away.
She rises while it is stillnight and provides food for her
household and portions for herfemale servants.
And then verse 21, she saysshe's not afraid for her
household when it snows, for allin her household are doubly
clothed.
Jessica LM Jenkins (40:10):
So the woman of valor is making sure
everyone in the household hadwhat they need.
After studying the lives of theaverage peasant Old Testament
woman, what I find reallyinteresting in this passage is
that she does not participate infood production at all.
The Proverbs 31 woman.
(40:30):
The average peasant woman wouldspend I forget the exact figure
, but it's like two to fourhours a day grinding grain.
Elice Kilko (40:40):
This is crazy.
I know this is crazy.
Jessica LM Jenkins (40:44):
I know that's.
I mean two to four hours a daygrinding grain.
The Proverbs 31 woman isn'tdoing that.
She is sourcing her breadexternally.
This is like a huge flag oflike privilege, massive wealth
and privilege here.
She may be overseeing some ofthe food preparation, but she is
(41:07):
not personally participating init.
She sources and manages thefood to make sure the people in
her household have food and thatit's being proportioned and
everything appropriately, butshe's not doing the labor.
She's managing and she'soverseeing the other women and
servants doing these tasks.
(41:29):
So it's not a mom with fivelittle elementary school age
kids.
She is a grown woman and by thetime this was written we might
be thinking an elderly womanoverseeing her daughters, her
daughters-in-law and herservants to do the food
production of the house, to dothe storage, to do the
(41:49):
maintenance of the food and allof those things.
Elice Kilko (41:52):
Mm-hmm, yeah, and for peasant women they would be
doing this as a community often,so you wouldn't be grinding
your wheat by yourself with yourkids going crazy.
You might be able to go grindyour wheat with your friend and
take turns and be buildingcommunity, or with your sister,
(42:14):
even within your home, you knowbecause they lived in larger
home things.
So you might be working withyour sister or sister-in-law to
get this stuff done, so youryoungest sister might be
watching the kids while you doall of this together.
Which goes back to howparenting and being a
(42:35):
stay-at-home mom is isolatingyour informal polls.
Can you remind us of that?
Jessica LM Jenkins (42:40):
Yes, a while back this is quite a while back
I did a poll about whetherwomen feel like being a
stay-at-home mom was isolating.
63% of the participants votedthat they found being a
stay-at-home mom today in modernsociety extremely isolating.
20% said they felt like theyactually had more community as a
stay-at-home mom, which makessense because there's some
(43:01):
homeschooling groups and whatnot.
Makes sense because there'ssome like homeschooling groups
and whatnot.
12% were pretty sure that ifthey were a stay-at-home mom,
they weren't, but if they were,that it would be isolating,
which is one thing that reallystruck me as I studied women of
the Old Testament, because I hadheard so many voices like
Patterson and Merkel and Pearlsaying a woman needs to be in
her home.
Beware of other women.
(43:22):
You don't want to be gossiping.
You don't want to be hangingout with other women.
Don't go join those liberalcommunity feminist groups Like
you need to be at home with yourkids.
That is your job.
That is what God designed foryou to do.
To be home alone with multiplechildren all day, every day.
That is God's plan for yourlife.
Oh, my goodness, that's whatthese women are teaching.
(43:43):
Yeah, for your life.
Oh, my goodness, that's whatthese women are teaching, yeah,
and to study through Proverbs 31and the life of Old Testament
women and realize these womenwere never doing any of this
alone by themselves, never bythemselves.
They were constantly grindinggrain together, baking bread
together, doing weaving oranything related to yarn
(44:05):
production.
Together they were constantlybuilding community and the
Proverbs 31 woman is overseeingand helping and creating
beautiful communities.
Carol Meyer in her book, in herchapter in the book Biblical
World of Gender, talks about therelationships these women would
(44:25):
build during work and howsignificant they are.
A lot of the women's books thatI have read recently from
complementarian perspectivereally downplay women in
communities.
They say women are just gossips, that they can't be trusted
with each other or that theywill be tempted into liberal
feminist causes.
But in the ancient world womenbeing together was exceptionally
(44:46):
important.
Carol Myler says theserelationships among women at
work were hardly casual orfrivolous.
Women's familiarity with eachother builds solidarity.
Women who work togethertypically rally to each other's
assistance.
They formed what we might callmutual aid societies.
Their work together served animportant social function in
(45:09):
ancient Israel by contributingto the well-being and survival
of their communities as well astheir families.
And she talks further.
I don't know if it's in thatbook or one of her plethora of
other writings about how justimportant the women's community
building in the ancient worldwas.
Because a lot of the tasks thatmen did were isolated.
(45:32):
They would be out in the fieldfixing a fence or taking care of
the sheep or going out bythemselves.
Because they're men, they're alittle safer to do that in a
culture where you have no police, no standing army.
Raiders can come through at anypoint.
You need your women to stayphysically safe.
The men are a little safer togo by themselves.
Some hotshot teenager isn'tgoing to come upon you by
(45:55):
yourself and do something youdon't want them to do.
But women stay together.
So in the ancient world menoften would go off by themselves
to do their work.
Women would work in groups.
So it was the women's socialrelationships that were really
in many ways the bedrock of thecommunities.
Because it was the women's whoknew that the Smiths their crops
(46:18):
weren't doing well and theywere going to need some extra
help.
Or that the Thompsons thehusband, is sick and so our
teenage boy can go over and helpthem.
And it's the women who kepttabs on all of this.
Elice Kilko (46:31):
And now it's almost flipped my husband the network
work that allowed all thesetransactions that needed to
happen happen.
Jessica LM Jenkins (46:41):
And I just found it interesting as I was
analyzing culture.
Now my husband has all of thesesocial relationships at work.
He's really well known, he'sreally well liked people.
You know he has all of theserelationships at work.
And then me, as a stay at homemom, it was me and the kids all
day and I would try to gettogether with friends, but that
(47:01):
wouldn't always work.
And you're trying to talk andall of the, and even if you're
trying to talk, there's no oneto watch the kids.
So you're having to like watchthe kids the whole time.
And I've just found the shiftthat with the industrialism
shift to nuclear families, thatto be very interesting.
How it used to be, the womenbuilt these solid social
(47:22):
relationships that were thebedrock of the community.
The Proverbs 31 woman.
We see, and we'll talk about itmore in a later episode she's
really creating theserelationships and helping and
all of the tasks that the womenunder her watch, that she is
examining the activities of herhousehold, includes watching,
(47:44):
facilitating, make sure thewomen in her community and in
her household are able to usethe communal oven, grind grain
together, use the looms.
Who needs what she's managing,potentially working with other
women to manage multi-householdusage of.
It's like if three housescommunity resources like three.
(48:07):
How, like my mom or my grandma,talk about a time where, like,
if you wanted to use the phoneyou had to go down the hallway
in your apartment building tothe phone, that, like 50
apartments all used the samephone.
Or in an like when I was incollege, we had one washing
machine for the entire dorm.
Or there was like four, but wehad one washing room for the
(48:28):
entire dorm and everybody.
So you had communal resources.
And so the woman of valorexamining the activities of her
household is helping to managethese communal resources for her
household and other households,to build these communities of
women working together with eachother's children to create this
(48:48):
beautiful mutual aid societywhere they are not alone, they
are not trying to just figureout their own house and their
own kids by themselves.
Elice Kilko (49:10):
So it talks about.
Proverbs 31 talks about feedingand clothing people and
sometimes, as a stay at home mom, it feels like that's all I do.
I can never catch up on laundry.
I am always having to thinkabout what the next meal is.
What are some ways that aresimilar and ways that are
(49:31):
different to the woman of valorin Proverbs 31?
Jessica LM Jenkins (49:35):
So you are right, a lot of in the old
ancient world, a woman was stilldoing clothes and food Like.
It seems like women have alwaysbeen clothes and food, but
there's a couple big difference,one of the biggest differences.
It's not about the tasks thatthe women are doing themselves,
it's about how those tasks areviewed.
In the ancient world, thewoman's tasks are necessary for
(49:58):
survival and for wealth building.
Today, a stay-at-home mom'stasks can be helpful for money
management, but they lack thescope and necessity that the
ancient women's did.
And the ancient women then hadmore agency and power because
their tasks were necessary.
Where today, the scope of whata stay-at-home mom does is a lot
(50:22):
less, in some ways More narrow.
For sure, we've outsourced alot of the things.
Like now, food, like, yes,home-cooked scratch meals are
fantastic and healthier, and allthe things Not knocking that at
all.
I cook those meals every day.
You do too.
Every day, you do too.
(50:49):
But if I were to pass awaytomorrow, my family would still
be fed.
There's grocery stores, there'sfast food.
Today, if somebody can't feedthemselves, it's either a lack
of money, but it's not a lack ofskill.
In the ancient world, foodproduction and textile
production, clothing these werevery skilled, technologically
advanced, proprietarytechnologies that the women knew
(51:13):
.
Um, they were.
It's like, the women knew howto bake the bread, the women
knew how to make the clothes.
The men didn't necessarily.
So you have this proprietaryknowledge around these things
that gave them honor, that gavethem prestige in their community
, because it was necessary andit was highly skilled labor.
(51:35):
Today, food production,clothing production is largely
outsourced and considered lessskilled labor, so it's devalued.
Um, in the ancient world, awoman was the doctor for her
family.
Today, you take your kids tothe doctor, um, and light?
(51:57):
We just take light for granted,we don't have to worry about do
I have enough oil to burn thelamp?
As long as I need to?
We just flip on a light switch.
And our husband, actually, ifhe's the provider for the
homemaking and you're at home,he manages all of that with the
money.
So, though women are doing manyof the same things, the
necessity and the valuing,culture-wise, is a lot lower for
(52:22):
the women today.
Wise um is a lot lower for thewomen today.
And even in the complimentarycomplementarian trad wife
circles where they try to buildup the woman like yay, being a
mom is the most important job inthe world.
Even then she's supposed to dothis job without intrinsic
authority because her husband incomplementarian circles and
(52:44):
hierarchical complementariancircles he Mm-hmm power and so
where her work is meaningful andimportant, there's just some
major differences on how itfunctions.
(53:09):
One thing I also think of is,today a stay-at-home mom doing
the homemaking, stay-at-homewife-mom thing is completely
dependent on her husband'seconomic function.
In the Old Testament thehusband was as dependent on the
wife as she is on him.
And sure, today husbands reallyappreciate having their laundry
(53:30):
done and food done and theydepend on their wives for those
things.
But there's also fast food andlaundromat or and dry cleaners
and you can pay somebody to dothat task very easily.
But in the ancient world if hedidn't have her, he's scrounging
like how do I even make breadand vice versa.
Elice Kilko (53:51):
Yeah, they were dependent on each other which
gives the woman some powersmaybe the wrong word, but it
gives her value as a person forwhat she can do, because he
needs her just as much as sheneeds him, Whereas nowadays it
(54:14):
can put women in a veryprecarious position and we see
that a lot with abuse andwhatnot, because a lot of women
stay in abusive situationsbecause they don't know where
else to go and they don't haveany financial resources.
Jessica LM Jenkins (54:28):
In the ancient world, things like
dowries, if the wife left or wasdivorced, she would often take
that with her and her economicfunction gave her value in the
home.
And so there's this mutualdependence.
And I think it was Carol Myersagain, or a similar author who
(54:48):
talked about how in a lot ofearly societies because women
would take raw materials andturn them into something that
you could actually use a sheepinto a coat, that's amazing they
can turn these hard grains intobread.
(55:09):
This is incredible like it wasviewed, really like whoa.
This is a great, whereas todaywe're like yawn big whoop, you
cooked a meal, where's my next?
you know, because food is soreadily available, we just
devalue it.
Elice Kilko (55:29):
So what can we learn then from Proverbs 31
about woman's role in the homeand the workplace?
If you could kind ofconcentrate it down, what can we
learn for us today?
Jessica LM Jenkins (55:42):
We can learn that it is scriptural for a
woman to have an economicfunction.
We see in the Bible womenhaving economic functions in
their homes all the time.
There is no shame, zero shame,in a woman making money and
having a job of some kind.
The idea that the man is to bethe breadwinner and the woman
(56:04):
should not be a provider iscompletely inaccurate both to
the text and the ancientcultures.
Both men and women wereeconomic agents in the ancient
culture.
The idea that man is to be theprovider does not match the
Bible, does not match theancient cultures.
The woman was as much aprovider as the man was.
(56:26):
They both were providers,working together and so to have
homes and families and marriageswhere both the husband and wife
provide.
However you decide to structure, that is fine.
God is not giving us a decree onwhat somebody should or should
not do.
Is not giving us a decree onwhat somebody should or should
not do.
Complementarians say the Biblesays a woman should not be the
(56:52):
primary breadwinner, earningmoney.
She needs to be in the housedoing housework.
That isn't actually whatscripture says A woman having an
economic function, working as ateam with her husband, whether
she earns 5%, 0.1%, 0%, 30%, 80%of their finances.
Percentages don't necessarilymatter, but they're to work
together as a team for the goodof their household.
(57:13):
And if she chooses, they choosethat she's going to stay home
and he's going to earn all themoney.
That's fine.
I've done that for years.
It's a totally acceptable wayto do that if that's what works
best for the family.
But it is not a decree by God.
So if the husband and wife feellike, hey, she should go out and
(57:34):
she should earn most of themoney because she has the skills
for that and he'll stay home,that's okay too.
Or if they both go out and earnabout the same amount, or
however you do percentages.
The scripture's focus for menand women is unity, them working
(57:55):
together for the good of thefamily, and so we are allowed to
be creative according to theneeds of our family and the
gifts and desires of the husbandand wife in a married family,
to be creative in how they dothat and when you're dealing
with widows or single women,there is no shame in being a
widow or a single woman who'sworking.
A woman having a job andworking is not shameful.
(58:17):
Women had economic functions upuntil I would have to look at
all the history.
Up until I would have to lookat all the history, but until
sometimes in the 1900s, whensuddenly they wanted women out
of the factories so that, Ibelieve, men coming home from
World War I or II could takethose jobs.
So they created this wholehousewife idea and tried to get
women out of the factories somen could work.
(58:39):
And until then women hadeconomic functions, unless
you're very, very rich and we'renot talking about them.
Elice Kilko (58:46):
Yeah, that's so good.
And then, my favorite part ofevery podcast what does this
text show us, or reveal to usabout God's heart?
What can we learn?
Jessica LM Jenkins (58:58):
I feel like there's just so much.
I feel like there's just somuch.
God has created women to bebeautiful, creative women who
can use their gifts in so manyways to benefit their world and
their community outside of theirhome.
Do we benefit our homesAbsolutely?
(59:19):
Should we work at benefitingour homes Absolutely?
Does that mean we can only bein our house?
only benefiting our nuclearfamily.
No, I was thinking recentlyabout how much my family needs
working women.
If complementarian ideal thatwomen be stay-at-home moms
(59:42):
suddenly was national and allthe women that I know, law and
all the women I know aresuddenly stay-at-home moms, my
children would have no teachers.
They'd have no occupationaltherapists, they would have no
therapists.
They would have no speechtherapists.
They would have no pediatrician.
They would have no dentist.
Everybody taking care doctors,dentists, therapists, all of it,
(01:00:04):
it's all women.
Care doctors, dentists,therapists, all of it.
It's all women.
And these are incrediblynecessary roles and God delights
in women using their interestsand gifts for the good of their
community, not just their home.
And for those of us who wereraised, especially those of us
who grew up as little girlsbeing told some more blatantly
(01:00:27):
than others your brother can bewhatever he wants to be when he
grows up within moral boundaries.
He can be a doctor, he can be alawyer, he could be president.
You only have one option youget to be a mom.
Well, I'm not interested inkids and I don't want to be a
mom Too bad.
It's God's will for your lifethat you were a mom, and if you
don't want to be a mom.
You better pray about thatbecause you are in sin.
(01:00:48):
And I just want, for those whogrew up kind of with that idea,
that as a woman, you are limitedto homemaker and that is your
box and you don't have a choice.
And you don't have a choicethat in our modern society, god
(01:01:10):
is not giving men freedom tofollow their gifts, abilities
and interests and limiting women.
He is saying both men.
He is calling both men andwomen to creatively,
cooperatively see how theirgifts, abilities and interests
can be used first for thekingdom of God, secondly for
their family and thirdly fortheir communities to benefit and
(01:01:30):
serve the people around them.
None of us are to be out therewith all the ambition just
looking to make ourselves great.
We're here to serve God andothers, but we can do that in so
many varieties of ways and weare free to do that while loving
our families.
Well, if we have families and ifwe don't have families, if we
(01:01:53):
are single, that is not shameful, because God did not design you
.
He did not call all women to behomemakers', moms, so that if
you're not a homemaker mom,you're a failure.
God called you to be a daughter, to be a son, a legal heir, son
of God.
(01:02:14):
That is what we are.
We are children of God.
That is what we are called tobe, whether we get to be a mom,
whether we get to be a wife,whether we are single, whether
we have a job, whether we are ahomemaker, that is lesser.
We are called to be daughtersof God and we have freedom to
(01:02:35):
live the rest of our lifetowards that end, with
creativity and passion and joy,not cooped up in little boxes or
feeling like we're absolutefailures because we haven't
reached a list of extra biblicalchecklists on what we're
supposed to be doing.
Elice Kilko (01:02:54):
I love that that's so encouraging.
Jessica LM Jenkins (01:02:59):
Well, thank you so much for tuning in and
listening to this episode on thewoman of valor's home.
Next episode we were going totalk about her businesses, so
we're going to talk about herwork in more detail and the fact
that she had three businessesshe was doing.
This is a very industriouswoman in a multitude of ways.
(01:03:20):
We will be back to talk aboutthat in a couple weeks.
Can't wait to discuss that withyou more.
May God bless.
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Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
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If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.