Everyone has influence, which is the basis of leadership. BOW's bi-weekly episodes are purposed to prepare and empower Christian women for leadership and life. They feature our ministry team and women guests who share from their professional ministry experience. Whatever your calling - influencing your neighbors, coworkers, family, friends, leading small groups - this podcast is for you. For additional resources or to watch videos of these podcasts, please visit beyondordinarywomen.org.
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Everyone has influence, which is the basis of leadership. BOW's bi-weekly episodes are purposed to prepare and empower Christian women for leadership and life. They feature our ministry team and women guests who share from their professional ministry experience. Whatever your calling - influencing your neighbors, coworkers, family, friends, leading small groups - this podcast is for you. For additional resources or to watch videos of these podcasts, please visit beyondordinarywomen.org.
Dr. Nijay Gupta, author of Tell Her Story, joins BOW Team Member Kelley Mathews in this fascinating discussion of persecuted women in the early church.
What can we learn from their stories? How do their stories encourage our faith and our own courage? What can we learn from them? What do we miss when we fail to study them?
These women's stories provide models for us today to stand up for Christ, to know that he is better than anything that comes into our lives, and to be willing to cling to him no matter what happens to us or our country in the future.
Recommended resources
By Dr. Gupta Tell Her Story: How Women Led, Taught, and Ministered in the Early Church
Redeeming Eden: How Women in the Bible Advance the Story of Salvation by Ingrid Faro and Joyce Koo Dalrymple
nijaykgupta.substack.com
Christianity Today article by Dr. Gupta, "Junia, the Female Apostle Imprisoned for the Gospel"
This episode is available on video if you prefer watching.
Timestamps:
00:22 Introductions
01:40 Junia (Romans 16:7) and the conditions in Roman prisons, especially for women
13:25 What egregious activities would put a woman in prison?
17:17 Perpetua, whose diary provides great information about imprisonment, and Felicity, her slave girl
28:31 Blandina's story
29:30 Physical suffering in the Scriptures
37:26 Other resources
TranscriptKelley >> Welcome to the Beyond Ordinary Women Podcast. I'm your host Kelley Mathews. And today I have with me Dr. Nijay Gupta. He is a professor at Northern Seminary and a prolific author. Welcome, Nijay.
Dr. Gupta >> Hi, Kelley. Looking forward to our conversation.
Kelley >> So this is going to be fun, I think. I mean, well, fun. That's relative, I guess. But it'll be intriguing I think.
Nijay has written a lot of books. He's been a professor for a while. A lot of his books have to do with Paul and the New Testament letters that he wrote. But he's also written one particular book that is specific to our topic today, and it is called Tell Her Story came out a couple of years ago, and it basically tells about the women in the New Testament who were really involved in leading and participating in the mission of the church.
So it has become quite popular, from what I understand. I certainly enjoyed it.
Dr. Gupta >> Yes, thank you.
Yeah, it's funny. I, you know, just had an idea to write this book, and I sent it to an editor friend of mine, Anna Gissing, and she was so excited. And then it just sort of took off from there. So a big thank you to Intervarsity Press for publishing it.
Kelley >> Oh, they're great.
So one of the women in that book we're going to start with. Our topic today is specific, not that broad of women involved in the church, but specifically ones who were imprisoned for their faith. And one of the women you cover in the book does hold that honor, I suppose. And we're also going to talk about one who is post biblical days who are still in the early church and maybe will hit a third one.
So, Nijay, tell us who Junia is and why we need to know about her.
Dr. Gupta >> Yeah. A lot of my work on this subject owes a debt to Romans 16, which is the last chapter of Paul's big letter to the Romans. And I used to think of Romans 16 as a bunch of kind of hellos that Paul gives at the end of the letter, almost like end credits in a movie. And you sort of get up, you don't pay attention.
You leave the movie theater. And so I had a friend in seminary who actually memorized the whole book of Romans, and he asked me, how should I memorize Roman 16? And I said, You're at the end. Just finish it off.
Beyond Ordinary Women Podcast
Everyone has influence, which is the basis of leadership. BOW's bi-weekly episodes are purposed to prepare and empower Christian women for leadership and life. They feature our ministry team and women guests who share from their professional ministry experience. Whatever your calling - influencing your neighbors, coworkers, family, friends, leading small groups - this podcast is for you. For additional resources or to watch videos of these podcasts, please visit beyondordinarywomen.org.
