Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: Welcome to the Love justice podcast, where we hear from different voices who are.
[00:00:06] Speaker B: Joining us in the fight against modern day slavery.
[00:00:09] Speaker A: Please welcome today's guest, Christy McClellan.
[00:00:16] Speaker B: In today's episode, we are honored to welcome Christine McLellan, a renowned Bible teacher, speaker and author who has dedicated her life to helping others understand the Bible through its original middle eastern context. Christy is the creator of the Jesus and Women Bible study, a transformative journey that re examines the stories of women in scripture and reveals how Jesus interaction with them offer profound insights into justice and righteousness. Today, she joins us to explore the intersection of faith, biblical teachings, and the fight against human trafficking, sharing her journey as a biblical culturalist and the impact her work has had in lives around the world. Christy, welcome to the Love justice podcast.
[00:01:02] Speaker A: Hey, Hannah, it's so good to see you. I'm so excited for this conversation. What else would we be doing today?
[00:01:09] Speaker B: Well, you are playing in a pickleball tournament. That is what else you're doing today.
[00:01:13] Speaker A: That is what else I'm doing today. But I'm really glad for the time with you. It's good to see you again.
It's good to see you looking well. So I'm excited. I'm ready.
[00:01:24] Speaker B: Thanks, Christy. We'll have to give our listeners a little bit of context later on as to how we have gotten connected because it's a really, really fun story. But to start us off, share with our listeners. Who is Christy?
[00:01:39] Speaker A: You know what? Who is Christy? Wow.
You know, I'm a girl from rural Mississippi who grew up loving the Bible and didn't know that it would be okay as a woman to teach scripture. So it's been a long journey there.
And in 2007, you know, after three years of seminary here in the US, I had the chance to go study the Bible in Egypt and Israel.
And so Christy went and did that, and that changed Christie's life forever. I tell people all the time.
[00:02:14] Speaker B: You.
[00:02:14] Speaker A: Know, studying the Bible in its incarnational world, understanding Jesus in his incarnational world, it wrecked me. And it's been almost 20 years at this point, and I'm sort of over trying to recover from it. So now I'm just sort of settled into the saddle of it and just have a passion for taking people to Israel to experience the scriptures in their world, to teach the Bible wherever, highlighting it in its historical, cultural, linguistic, and geographic context.
Culture matters greatly in all understanding of language and relationships. And so I think it really gives us a heightened sense of this great story that the living God is giving us in this thing we call the Bible?
[00:03:04] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. It's funny. Like, you were the first teacher that I listened to that explored scripture through the middle eastern context, and it wrecked the way that I listened to other sermons. Like, I think because it's like, man, there has to be more. Like Christy said there was more, and it just made me so hungry for context, so hungry for biblical context. And then, you know, hearing different pastors speak on the scriptures that you highlight in not just you're Jesus and women's study, you're the author of many studies now. And being like, they've got it wrong, they've got it wrong. They don't know about this. They don't know.
And, like, not trying to be, you know, aggressive by any means, but just the excitement that comes from man. There's so much more here that I think, you know, what was so special about Jesus and women for me was that was my first experience and got a small taste of what you're talking about.
Can you briefly share just your journey and what inspired you to become a biblical culturalist?
[00:04:14] Speaker A: You know what? It wasn't an aspiration. I really went to study in Egypt and Israel. You know, I've been teaching Bible at Williamson College here in middle Tennessee. So it was a professional development decision for me at that time. So it was nothing that I went looking for.
It was just an adventure that found me along the way. And I think some of the best adventures in life, they're not the ones we create. They are the ones that find us. We get invited into something at times that we didn't even know existed, or we didn't know it existed in the way it exists. And so that was Israel for me. It was such an awakening and a reckoning all at one time. And so it's been fun just trying to help people add to their understanding. That's sort of the language that I always use. I liken it to, you know, one of my best friends. She's from Jamaica, and I knew her for many, many years here in the US. And, you know, I call her on the phone and it's never hello, it's. Yeah, man. You know, like, that's who she is. But a couple of summers ago, I had the chance to go to Jamaica with her.
[00:05:24] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:05:24] Speaker A: And to. I mean, it's an understatement to say all of a sudden in that ten days spent with her, in her world, in her culture, with her people.
I understand my friend much better now. And that's what I would like in Jesus and Israel and the Bible, too. I felt like I went home with Jesus and I got to know him in his world. And it'd be an understatement to say that it has changed my relationship with the living God. I feel like it moved it from black and white to color in every single way and still is every time I take teams to Israel. This is an ongoing awakening and reckoning, you know?
[00:06:07] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:06:09] Speaker A: The way of Jesus and inviting me to follow him and to walk it in this world.
[00:06:14] Speaker B: Yeah, that's powerful. And you weren't planning on authoring the Jesus and women Bible study, which was the first one that you did, right. It was more of like, these were the truths that I needed to hear. Tell us a little bit more about just the formation of that first study of yours.
[00:06:35] Speaker A: Yeah. When I came home in 2008, after studying there, I just needed. I needed expressions. I felt pregnant with it, and I just needed to get out, just verbally processing. And I'm a Bible nerd, so sometimes that for me, just looks like study and research and writing curriculum and writing courses at the college. And so, you know, over time, I just really wrote Jesus and women. For me, it was really just so many of these things that I learned along the way that I really wanted to make sure I didn't forget that. I captured that. I synthesized and taught it, I believe, for the first time at the college in the winter semester of, I guess it would have been 2016, 2017.
And we had about 60 women from here in Franklin, Tennessee, where I live, that came to it and watching them process it, watching them take it in. And then they started saying, you know, Christine, women everywhere and people everywhere around the world, they need this. So you've got to keep going and you fast forward for probably the next two years. I was just teaching the Jesus and women course at various churches around town. And we probably had about 2000 women go through it.
And then I got connected with lifeway, and they were like, would you like to publish this? And I'd never done anything with lifeway, so that was a new partnership and a new adventure for me. And, you know, now we're seeing it translated into multiple languages and finding its way into the cracks and crevices of the world and the beautiful spaces, the spaces where Jesus would hang out if he were still here incarnationally, where he is hanging out in the spirit.
And so it's just been a wild ride. And, you know, I take such confidence in it, to be totally blunt, because none of it was my idea. You know, I think every once in a while it feels like something is happening to you, and your only obedience is to let it happen to you and to let it do its work. And so Jesus and women very much feels like a thing that has its hands on me. It's not so much a thing. I felt like I have my hands on it, and I feel like it's one of the ways the Lord has his hands on. It was very much like this faithful journey of just trying to let this thing lay hold of me, for me to be willing to be an emissary and an ambassador in that way of who Jesus is and what he's like and what it's going to mean for us to walk with him and what it's going to mean for the world when a people walk with him.
[00:09:21] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
For those listeners who might not be familiar with Jesus and women but are hearing us talk about it for the first time, what would be your short and sweet? This is what Jesus and women is about. If you can. I know that's like.
[00:09:38] Speaker A: I've had lots of practice. Hannah. Yeah.
You know, there's a verse in psalm 89 that talks about that God's throne has a foundation. So, wow. God has a throne and it has a foundation. And that psalm goes on to say that the foundation of God's throne is justice and righteousness. In Hebrew, that's mishpot and Zedekah. And that psalm just sort of arrested me. Because if you think about it in metaphor, however, God has a throne from which all authority and from which his personhood gets up and moves throughout the world. And of all the things that that foundation could be made of, truth and grace, law and mercy, I mean, we could go on and on and on. The Bible says that justice and righteousness are the foundation of his throne. So in Jesus and women, I talk about how throughout the four gospels, in every interaction that Jesus had with a woman that we have in holy writ, he's doing two things in her life. What are they to? He's bringing justice and righteousness to her. He is verbing mishpat and zedekah to her. He is meeting her in her shame, lifting her out of her shame, restoring her honor, and sending her forward in shalom. And that's the essence of Jesus in women. We unpack these famous stories, but in their historical, cultural, first century, jewish, mediterranean, middle eastern world.
And it just. I love it. I absolutely love talking about it. And of course, you know, just to say it, God's mishpot and zedekah is for everybody. It is for everybody everywhere, for all time. But obviously, being a woman. These stories of Jesus with women and the plight of women in the world and around the world, there are some semblances for sure that were there that. That felt ready and immediate for me to be able to address and talk about through Jesus and women.
[00:11:47] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So you have, like, this Bible study. Fast forward to Covid. I don't know when the. When was the study first? You did that? When?
[00:11:58] Speaker A: Remind me what year it launched. The first week of March in 2020. Right. When Covid hit, it launched, nobody could go anywhere, and everybody was home, and people were just Bible studies because they can't go anywhere.
So the timing was wild, you know? Again, that's part of what I mean when I say, it just feels like something happening to me.
[00:12:21] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's when Jesus and women found me, because through our mutual friend Bree Rapp, who was working with love justice at the time, said, hey, there's this incredible study. I mean, she honestly was, like, going on and on and on about it, and I was like, okay, bri, sounds good. Um, let's do it. And then what started off as a three person Bible study turned into a ten person Bible study in Nepal that was a mix of both expat missionaries as well as local nepali Christians. And what we realized in that study is there's so much that our nepali friends could resonate with because of the Middle eastern context being very similar to just a lot of the developing world and a lot of those relationship based cultures. And, yeah, it was just amazing to see how this study transcended different cultures, even. And I think that's what. So that's what I love about Jesus. That's what I love about scripture is that it doesn't matter, you know, where you're from or where you find yourselves. Like, those truths just hit so profoundly for every single woman in that room. And it was. Yeah, the cultural context, I think, was the biggest.
Like, I don't know. Like, I don't know what the word is, but, like, the biggest advantage, maybe studying in the scripture in that way. And that's. That wasn't my, you know, primary, like, background in studying scripture. So based off that, like, you know, short, kind of, and sweet description of Jesus and women, what really, also, I think, will be a draw to our listeners, and this community will be the justice element.
[00:14:23] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:14:24] Speaker B: Just being connected with love justice, and wanting to fight the world's greatest injustices. I'm curious, Christy, how you see the teachings of Jesus, particularly his interactions with women, as a model for addressing injustices. In our world today.
[00:14:42] Speaker A: You know, biblical faith is a verb.
It's not a noun.
Faith is less what we believe.
It's more how we live.
For the Jews, faith is a matter of halaching. It's the hebrew word for to walk. To walk the path. To walk. What is the path? It's the way of shalom. It's the way of light, it's the way of goodness. It's the way things were meant to be.
And so when you think about this mishpot and Zedekah, there is this deep invitation for us in it, because it is not just for us to receive the justice and righteousness of Jesus in our lives, but as we do, we become the agency of it for others. We stream by which the very thing that we are receiving, by the mercy of God, we become faithful agents of it in the world. Prayer for the jewish people, it is very subjective. It's very active. It's not passive. Jewish prayer does not sound like, oh, I hope it works out. No, for the Jews, what you pray, you are telling the living God that you are willing to get in that thing with him, to actively partner with him and bringing it to pass. So for all of us who ascribe to be followers of Jesus, Jesus gave us a prayer. It's the Lord's prayer. And that line, thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. We are not just praying, Lord, let it be. We are saying, Lord, we want to partner with you. We want our faith to be a verb in this world. And if mishpat and Zedekah, if justice and righteousness is the way of the throne of God, then these are some of the fundamental things. We don't even have to ask if we are meant to be recipients of it and then agency of it unto the ends of the earth. So I think when it comes to women, you know, I think of a verse like Isaiah 3018. I love Isaiah. He's one of my favorite prophets. He probably is my favorite prophet in this era of my life. But Isaiah 3018 talks about that. The Lord longs to be gracious to us. He rises up to show us compassion. That's the first part of it. And so when we think of compassion, we think of any motion. But biblically, compassion is a location.
Compassion is a mixture of two words, come, which means with, and pathos, which means pain. So to show someone compassion, it's not to just feel. It's not to just empathize. It's to locate yourself with them in their pain.
It's to be near. It's to be proximate. It's to be imminent.
And so we see the living God again getting off of his throne. Why?
To show us compassion, to locate himself with us in our pain. And then Isaiah 3018, it ends by saying, for the Lord is a God of justice. It says that. So God is getting off of his throne in the spirit of compassion to locate himself with us in our pain, because justice runs through the center of his heart. And so again, as we are recipients of that justice, we are learning how to halak, how to halak the halakah, how to walk away in ministry of Jesus, saying, Lord, we will be as faithfully as we can by the power of your holy spirit, informed by your word, your agency of justice in this world. We don't only just want to pray thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. We want to get in the mix, coach, put us in the game. Where are we going? What are we doing? You know, what is, how do we verb this ministry that Jesus was doing so profoundly in the lives of women and humanity 2000 years ago? And I say it all the time, we're the current living generations of the church. And so this idea of verbing our faith walking the path, and that path is deeply embedded in a compassionate heart of the living God that when he gets off of his throne, he's coming in a spirit of justice. This we see throughout the scriptures. But I feel like Isaiah has a particular lens for it.
[00:19:25] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And just even listening to that, that just stirs up such a confidence and faith that, like, why wouldn't you want to get involved or partner with Christ in this way?
[00:19:38] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:19:38] Speaker B: You know, that he's going to be victorious. And so then it just becomes like a fun ride of like, okay, lord, where are we going? What are we doing? How can you use us? How can we bring more people into the kingdom of heaven? I through the. Not just the love, but love in action. And we talk about that quite a bit at love, justice, that just sharing the love of Jesus Christ isn't like, enough. You have to be the hands and feet of Jesus, too, because love is not idle in the face of injustice.
[00:20:06] Speaker A: That's right. We are really glad Jesus did not spend his entire earthly life studying in a synagogue.
[00:20:12] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:20:13] Speaker A: We're really glad he left it.
[00:20:15] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:20:16] Speaker A: And went out stuff.
[00:20:18] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.
Christy, how can understanding the Middle eastern context particularly empower us in the fight against human trafficking as well as other injustices?
[00:20:34] Speaker A: You know, I think its story is very powerful. You know, ive got a friend whos a neuroscientist, and shes always talking to me about the human brain because thats just her passion. But she talks about how when we begin hearing a story, our brains light up. The living God created us as creatures of story. And so when we are reading the Bible, the better we can understand these stories in their world. In the end, they are not theological stories. They are very pragmatic, boots on the ground, getting your hands in the dirt, stories that are meant to move us to daily fidelity, daily walking, daily living, daily serving. And that's one of the things that studying in Israel really brought home for me. I think for a lot of us in the west, and I know you have listeners all over the world, but for a western individualistic culture that's very much more Greco roman, we are much more Athens and Rome than we are Jerusalem. We are much more the way of Alexander the great and the Caesars than we are Jesus and the Jews as a culture. And so for us, sometimes when we're individualists reading these collectivist stories, or when we are individualists reading honor, shame stories, or when we're individualists from a different geography in a different space in a different time. And part of what that's done, Hannah, is when I ask somebody here in the United States, usually, where is Goddesse? They look up.
You think about it. If somebody were to ask you, where is God? I don't know how you would answer that, but almost always, people look up like he's up there.
Because we have this sense, you think about it. The greco roman gods, they are up there, right? Like Zeus lives on Mount Olympus. But for the Jews, the way that the Bible reads, it's much more the imminence of God. Where is God? He's right here. He's right here. And so when you're in Israel and you're sitting in all of these places that Jesus sat and you're eating these foods that Jesus ate, this idea of incarnation of God taking on flesh and coming down, coming toward, coming close. And so for those of us who are followers of Jesus, I think there is a profound invitation for us to consider what our lives would look like if we really lived with an imminent God.
Jesus here?
[00:23:18] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:23:19] Speaker A: And then to ask if Jesus incarnationally were here right now, where would he go?
Who would he be interacting with?
Jesus is called a glutton and a drunkard because he is eating with tax collectors and sinners so much. How much are you eating and drinking that you get called a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.
And so when we talk about this whole justice concept, I would say that in many ways, and I really believe this, and it's a line that my own life, I feel like, gets measured on. The justice isn't an option for the Christian. It's not, will I be involved in the work of God's justice in the world? The question is just simply how? What is my tributary? What is the way? What is the place? So, I don't know if it's quite answering your question, but, you know, I think about the woman at the well in John, chapter four. I mean, the way she. The way he changes her story from the moment he meets her to her becoming archaeologist of her entire village. Jesus isn't. It's a low bar. I laugh even as I say this, because some people would be like, what? But I think. We think, oh, man, Jesus saved me. Like, that was the work. It's like, no, Jesus saved you to send you out.
[00:24:45] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:24:47] Speaker A: Like, the saving is the beginning of the journey. It's not the end of the journey. So the saving puts you on the path. Now, the invitation is to walk the path. And according to psalms, that path is a path of justice and righteousness.
[00:25:00] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think, Christy, that brings a good point, because you talk about in your study, like, who are you going to tell about this this next week? Like, at the end of each week, it's like, you know, you don't want to be stagnant. You want to be flowing water, flowing river water. And I think that particularly understanding the. The context in which Jesus entered the world, particularly the world of women, and how it's not just a woman at the well, it's a woman who had no friends, was publicly shamed. Like, just the volume of context just makes you love Jesus that much more. And when you recognize his profound, barrier breaking love, you can't help but say, like, I want more people to know about this, and I want the most broken, downtrodden, hopeless people to hear about how amazing Jesus is and what he thinks about them. And I think that. That, you know, in all facets of injustice work, and for particularly for christians, that becomes like a very.
I don't know, like, not inspiring, because that sounds almost like a christian platitude, but it becomes very driven and very focused and very Jesus centered of, like, no, I genuinely want you to know this incredible man, and not just at face value, but for all that he was in this time in history, you can't help but want to share it.
[00:26:39] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I think the word I would use is provoking. You know, that word here in the west is kind of a negative word, but in the Middle east, the scriptures are meant to provoke you. They are meant to stir and move you under righteousness. Because, again, faith is a verb. It's about walking. And so these stories of Jesus, they provoke us unto all righteousness. Parables are meant to poke you. They're meant to open you up. They're meant to move you to decision, again, to walking. And so that's why I'm saying this whole ministry of justice and Righteousness, it's half the conversation when we talk about that Jesus is seeking to do it for us. The second part of that conversation is he then seeks to do it through us.
[00:27:30] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I love how there's two parts of that. There's the recipient and then us being the recipient, and there's two pieces of that. And I think it just so deeply resonates with me in particular, because I don't know if I ever shared this with you, but when we were doing Jesus and women, I was going through a season of burnout in just our own, my own ministry and season in Nepal and feeling like, man, I don't know if I want to keep going. And we'll often talk about a quote that Gary Haugen, the founder of IJM, says that this fight against injustice is a long walk of obedience in the same direction. And I was at a point where I was really tired, and I didn't know. I didn't know what to do, and I didn't know how to get out of it. There's no follow a, B and C formula. Well, then, you know, Baree says, let's do this Bible study. And I think reading those scriptures and hearing who Jesus is at such a deeper level, it changed my life. It changed my relationship with Jesus. And particularly the story that personally resonated with me was the woman against the wall. And the idea, the scripture of, like, God collects all of our tears. He keeps everyone in his record and the cultural context of women holding tear jars up to their eyelids to catch the tears as a. As a remembrance of that scripture and how you kind of make the case or contend that the women against the wall at the feast who poured her alabaster jar also had another jar, which was her tear jar. And just this idea of, like, the sum of who she was, the collection of her tears being poured out at the feet of Jesus. And you saying, like, jesus can handle us. Losing it on him was. I don't. It's so even difficult for me to articulate how that changed things for me, but it did. And I walked out of that season of doing that Bible study feeling repositioned and not just going back into the fight with the same tools and the same mindset and the same, you know, but rather like it was like a recouping and a re strategizing and coming in this fight again at a different level that was just felt like holy ground, more so than it had in the past. And I think it was just. Yeah, it was just so encouraging, just those types of scriptures that just changed me personally. And then the byproduct of that, the fruit of that was being sustained to continue doing this work, but it wasn't, you know, the purpose to do the continued work. It was like, no, I need Jesus. I need Jesus right here, right now in my own life, and I need him to restore me. I need his justice and his righteousness in my own life. And then when he does that, it just overflows to a point that you can't help it overflowing, which is, I think, what's so amazing about just the impact of this study, which I'm sure you have many stories of people coming to you to say the impact of Jesus's word on their own life and how, you know, they are pouring it out into others.
[00:30:46] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. I mean, that provocation, you know, the way that. What you're just talking about, the way it moves you to movement. There's a fun story actually going on right now because I'm from Mississippi and there's a federal penitentiary there. And these two little women at a baptist church there do prison ministry. And I don't know the whole story yet. I'm actually getting ready to go there. But they've been working on the men's side of the prison, and they've just had 150 male prisoners go through Jesus and women, and they emailed to see if I could come. They were like, the men want to meet you, you know, would you.
[00:31:22] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh.
[00:31:24] Speaker A: And talk with them. And I got the email and I just started laughing because it's. It's just, this is what I mean, like the word of the Lord. Like, well, it's gonna go where it's gonna go. It's gonna do, it's gonna find. And, you know, I just think about, you know, they were sharing. I zoomed with these, these women and just hearing them talking about, you know, men weeping, men weeping.
[00:31:48] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:31:48] Speaker A: Prison is there watching these teaching videos, and it's not my teaching. It's Jesus. It's jazz in these stories, in his world. And I think even as men, in the fullness of their stories, in that moment, they got it. This isn't just for women. This is for you, too, you know, and so on and on and on. I'm going to the Nashville rescue mission here. I think in two Monday nights, they have several women that are going through Jesus and women, and I'm going for kind of a final q and a with them, with donuts and coffee. And, you know, I love it. There's, like, an unleashing. You know, it really feels like this unleashing of the goodness of God and the earth and just his love finding people. Finding people and setting them free and then sending them on. So.
[00:32:38] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.
Christy, this. This is, like, a little bit of a good segue into the next piece of the story, which you probably didn't expect, similar to how you probably didn't expect to be talking to a bunch of Mendez about Jesus and women.
You didn't expect the global expansion piece of the Jesus and women. And so I'm hoping that you could just share, maybe with some more of the global stuff in the background, too, of just stories, stories from participants of Jesus and women and highlighting just the impact that it's had on their life and also maybe their view of justice.
Some examples that come to mind are the conference in the Philippines, where, if I'm not mistaken, the team took it to the red light district.
[00:33:23] Speaker A: They did. They did.
[00:33:25] Speaker B: And then in Nepal, we had a room full of women receiving that truth. Some that were on our team that I. You know, I'm almost certain that. That there's an overflow there, even in crossover with our work. But I just would love to hear more from you about that, and you can just share that with our listeners.
[00:33:43] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, Bree and Killian and Kelly, they are like a God force in this world. I love them.
[00:33:52] Speaker B: They're like Jesus's angels instead of Charlie's.
[00:33:54] Speaker A: Angels, Jesus's angels, just ready to go out and bring justice to the world. But I love the three of them, and I love the three of them together, this synergy. I think of them often when Jesus would send his disciples out two by two, you know, in the gospels and how they're like this three corded braid, and I love that they're all women, you know, who were just ready to travel, ready to go. Fearless, courageous. Lovers of Jesus, lovers of one another, lovers of humanity. And so, you know, I didn't get to go on any of their international trips, so I've only heard the stories myself. But, you know, I can remember dropping Kelly and Killian off at the airport for one of the trips. And one of them, I can't remember, had forgotten her passport. So she's like, at the airport, am I going to be able to get on this plane? And it was a big hullabaloo. It's a roommate had to bring a passport. And I just thought, the Lord is up in heaven laughing, because, like, this is it, man. It's just us in this world. Like, you know, rag tag, hoping we get to the airport with our passport and being willing to take it. But just the glow on their faces, you know, when they get back, it's like, before they give words to it, you can feel what happened. You can feel the fact that. That God is still getting up off of his throne, you know, and that justice and righteousness moving through the world.
And so just seeing it, you know, translated into different languages and given for free because you mentioned it earlier, you know, outside of western culture, the rest of the world much more immediately understands the culture of the Middle east. They, too, tend to be collectivists. It's the we, not the me. They, too, tend to have an honor, shame, or something very similar to it type of a culture. So I often say, as Americans, from time to time in the west, we have to do more work of understanding the cultural nuances of the story. But women in Nepal or women in Iran or women in Central or South America America or women in Singapore, you know, would much more readily read and understand these stories in their world. And I think that's part of the impact on them. It's almost like God is bypassing an american witness to it. It's just that an American had something to do with the fact that it ever got packaged in such a way that it could reach them.
It reaches them very directly in a very way in their cultural worlds.
[00:36:40] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. So, Christy, you mentioned this earlier.
The phrase the adventure finds us, which I think is from Cs Lewis, which I know you've talked about as well, and just this idea that, like, we go on the adventures that find us.
[00:36:55] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:36:55] Speaker B: And for some of our listeners, this conversation might be stirring them or prompting them or provoking them, like you said I, to be a part of this adventure that is fighting the world's greatest injustices.
Or maybe they've been feeling provoked and they're wondering what the next step is. And I'm just curious, what is a word of encouragement that you would like to leave with our listeners who are either in the midst of the adventure, at the start of the adventure, maybe they're at the end of their adventure, who knows? Or towards the sunset season of their adventure.
What would you encourage them with in terms of this intersection of faith, biblical teachings, particularly in the Middle eastern context, and the fight against the world's greatest injustices?
[00:37:48] Speaker A: Man, it's a great question. I mean, I think about just anybody joining us today. And I would just say, first of all, don't be surprised when an adventure finds you.
You will be one of many in the biblical record and one of many in the 2000 year history of the church, in the 3000 plus history of the Jews. You know, one of the chapters that I talk about in Jesus and women are two women in the Bible that gave the most difficult yes to God and the most unusual yes to God. And I would say that, and I say it solemnly, but I feel like it needs to be said that sometimes these adventures of yes in our hearts, they are going to be costly. They are going to dig deep into us and that's the way it's supposed to be.
Justice is not clean work. It's very easy.
It took across for Jesus.
So I think that there's a, whether you're at the beginning of an adventure in an adventure, even when you said some society that's in the sunset of an adventure, it's that we as followers of Jesus, being a follower is different than being a believer.
Many saw him and believed, but some followed and that we are meant to verb our faith. So I would just say, don't be surprised when that adventure finds you. And you're like, no, not me, I'm already, I've been an accountant for twelve years.
I've got a two year old. Like, what are you talking about? Like God wants to use me as a justice warrior in the world.
Man, I'm 78, I'm a great grandparent. You know, I really just drive around my own small town. How am I going to be involved in this? Yes.
Just, yes, don't ask questions. There's a way for the one with the two year old, the 78 year old.
And I think that that's really the thing. It's, can we be curious enough? Can we be mischievous enough? Can we be provoked enough as the people of God that when the adventure comes, we agree to get in the river? We just said, lord, this makes no sense. I have no idea what you're doing. I don't even know. Know how to really, what's the first step? Because what I've learned, Hannah, in my own life, is the first step. The step that really kicks off the adventure is the moment you say yes to it.
[00:40:28] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:40:29] Speaker A: Moment you say yes to it, it opens it up. Obedience is the opener of eyes. Obedience is the opener of all things. And I really believe sometimes the Lord is just waiting for that yes in us because the further revelations can't come if we're still sitting down. So if you're listening today and whatever's been provoking you and your spirit, maybe you saw something on the news or you met somebody or you read something or, you know, somebody who's involved in justice work. And it just keeps sort of, I call it sticking in your ribs. You just can't quite get rid of it. It just keeps finding you. You know, you try to do the laundry and it's finding you. You're like, in the grocery store on aisle seven looking for toilet paper, and it's like coming up in spirit.
Just say yes, man. You will not know how powerful your yes is. I mean, I think about in the gospels, the two, the two sets of brothers on the sea of Galilee, Jesus just walking up to them, two of them are cleaning their nets. Come follow me. And it says they dropped their nets and followed him.
[00:41:37] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:41:39] Speaker A: I think it's so interesting. He didn't say believe in me. He said, follow me.
[00:41:44] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:41:44] Speaker A: Immediately they dropped their nets and followed him. So that's really the thing that just comes up in my spirit right now, Hannah, is just say yes. Say yes without knowing anything at all. Say yes without the next step. Say yes without any sense of what it's going to look like. And when it gets costly and when it gets hard and when it gets difficult, understand, it's normal. This is the way it has always been. Sometimes we, we have taught a first world version of the gospel that with Jesus, things will be easier.
[00:42:25] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:42:26] Speaker A: And I do not read the Bible. I don't see that in the story of the Bible. I think with Jesus, we have hope in all things as he is restoring all things and making all things new.
[00:42:38] Speaker B: And it makes me think of the scripture. When you think about the hard and, like, when it gets hard, like, it's normal. I think of the psalm, what you sow in tears, you reap with songs of joy.
[00:42:49] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:42:49] Speaker B: And it's interesting. I love how you use, like, that's what I. You use the language. That's just what I'm feeling. My spirit and I feel like the other piece of that could be, Christina. Like, there might be someone who just needs to hear that your verbing, your working it out is not going to look the same as someone who's not in the same season of life as you. Verbing for the 78 year old compared to the one with the two year old are going to be completely different. But it doesn't matter.
[00:43:18] Speaker A: That's right.
The walk will look different, but the point is to walk.
[00:43:25] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's like, it's almost like measured in your yes. Like it's a yes or no, not how much. What did it look like? It's more about the heart of obedience.
[00:43:35] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:43:35] Speaker B: And, like, and just the stewardship of that obedience. And so I think that can be tricky. Like, in today's world with all sorts of social media and things just being very out there, I think comparison can really keep us distracted from that yes that you're talking about.
And so whoever needs to hear that, too. Yeah. I just encourage our listeners, like, just do the yes that's in front of you and don't look to the left or to the right.
[00:44:07] Speaker A: Just keep running. That's exactly.
[00:44:12] Speaker B: Christy. I am. It's like 830 here at night, and I'm so pumped up. I don't know how I'm going to go to bed. First of all, you probably won't.
[00:44:18] Speaker A: I mean, Jesus is amazing. Just go ahead and make yourself a cup of hot tea. It's just going to be an 11:00 or midnight night. Night. Because now we're. Now we're ready to go walk. We're ready.
[00:44:28] Speaker B: Yeah. You're gonna go play pickleball? You're gonna kill it. I'm just like, I'm so pumped up by these types of conversations and they're just so stirring and so, yeah, like you said, provoking. But before we wrap up, I would love for you to just share with our listeners about how they can get connected more with you and your incredible work. How can they engage more deeply with the teachings that you share?
What are you working on right now? Like, would just love for you to give them a little bit of a connection point. If people are like, hey, this study sounds amazing. What do I do next?
[00:45:07] Speaker A: Thank you. It's a great question. People can just go to our website, christymclellen.com dot. You can subscribe for free. And we just send out if I'm going to be teaching somewhere, all of our Israel trips, they're open to anybody, anywhere. So if you want to go study the Bible in its world. You're welcome to come do that with us. I just this month released my brand new Bible study with lifeway. It's called Luke in the land. And we filmed all of the teachings in Israel last September, 2 weeks before October 7 happened in 2023. So that's been a whole other story for another day.
But that study just released, and I'm so excited for it, because for almost 20 years, I've been taking people to Israel, and now in this new Bible study, I'm able to bring Israel here to people who may never get to the land of Israel to study for whatever reason. So filming it there meant so much to me, and now seeing it sort of released into the world. So it's the third gospel of Luke and the fifth gospel of the land of Israel. That's sort of the way that we framed it. There was a church father by the name of Jerome, and he talked about, there's four gospels that we read, and one that we walked the land is the fifth gospel. And, um, man, I've found that to be true. It's certainly been true in my life. So, yeah, so Luke in the land, it just released on August 1. So congrats.
[00:46:34] Speaker B: A new baby into the world. A new baby.
[00:46:36] Speaker A: A new baby thrust into the world with justice and righteousness moving here.
[00:46:45] Speaker B: That's so fun. And, of course, you have the running father, you have gospel on the ground, you have rediscovering Israel, which is kind of like a. Like, that was a. That was a thick baby if we're going to keep up with that language that was like a textbook. Like, textbook for just Israel, all things Israel. I actually loaned my copy out. Supposed to get it back. I'm like, hey, I'm getting to that point in my list where, like, I'm ready for it to a friend that really loves learning about Israel. So.
[00:47:14] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:47:15] Speaker B: Yeah, we'll make sure that we link that website into our show notes. So it's just very quick and easy for our listeners and. Yeah, Christy, thank you so much again for just, yeah. Taking the time to have this conversation with us. I'm really praying and just expect it that God is going to move through this conversation in ways that you and I are probably never going to know or hear about it, but we're just being obedient with the. Yes. That is having this conversation.
[00:47:43] Speaker A: Yeah, well, he said it. He said it. Revelation 21, he's making all things new. So we know that that's exactly what he's doing right now. And we get to be a part of it, so.
[00:47:54] Speaker B: Yeah.
Amen. Well, thanks, Christy.
[00:47:57] Speaker A: Thank you. Good to see you, Hannah. Many blessings to you.
[00:48:00] Speaker B: And to you.
[00:48:03] Speaker A: We are grateful for the, the generous support of the love justice community. Please consider joining our family of donors. Learn more at lovejustice NGo.
