Julia
Hi, Safe to Hope friends and welcome back! In the last episode, we heard from therapist Tabitha Westbrook about her book, Body & Soul, Healed & Whole. Today, Ann Maree and I are honored to welcome someone that many of you already know and love, Elyse Fitzpatrick.

Elyse is not only a best selling author, national speaker and ministry leader, she’s also a dear friend and ministry partner. Over the years, she’s authored more than 25 books, including Give Them Grace, Jesus and Gender, and Worthy. She also co hosts the Worthy podcast; a Christian podcast that celebrates the value of women in the church and in the world. Elyse holds a Master’s degree in biblical counseling from Trinity Theological Seminary. Has been married for more than 40 years, and loves to proclaim the good news of the gospel. Her newest book, Unloved, the Rejected Saints God Calls Beloved, invites us to see how God meets us in the places of rejection, misunderstanding and loss with tenderness, mercy and fierce love.

Elyse, a very, very warm welcome to you. We’re so glad you’re here.

Elyse
Thank you so much. I’m so glad to be with you.

Julia
Elyse, you and I have so much to talk. I have so many questions, so many thoughts. We need to have you back, because you have lived a very rich and experienced life in the world of ministry, and much of what your work has done overlaps and corresponds with Ann Maree’s work. So we will get to the book. But before we do that, I’d love to explore just a little bit more of your story, because, as I mentioned, you are a counselor, you’re a podcaster, you’re an author, and you are beloved, and so I’d love to hear a little bit more about your journey and allow our audience also to get to know you a little bit better.

Elyse
Thank you, Julia, that’s that’s very kind and kindly put.

I didn’t come to Christ until right before my 21st birthday. Was taken to church from time to time by my mother and grandmother. Was actually baptized and confirmed in the Lutheran church, but really didn’t have faith. Didn’t really understand. I’ve lived in Southern California my whole life, and so of course, I threw myself into the Southern California 1970s lifestyle, 60s lifestyle. And then in 1971 when you probably have seen pictures of Jesus, the Jesus Movement, and Jesus Freaks getting baptized in the ocean, I was one of them. And God just powerfully saved me then. And then, that was the summer.

And then in September, God, by his grace and providential power, moved me into Bible college. So I went from basically zero to 90 miles an hour for the Lord in Bible college, and I knew, I mean, really, and it’s… and my life has, has been transformed, but I knew my life is different. I have a faith that I didn’t have before. Now saying all that, and that was how many years ago, 54 years ago, something like that.

Julia
We’re not counting.

Elyse
Well, it’s, you know, at some point it becomes a badge of honor. I keep waiting. But anyway, yes, the Lord really did radically save me. However, I had all sorts of shame and all sorts of problems that obviously didn’t change right away, but went to Bible college. Within a few years, oh, and I will also say that I had already been married and divorced and had a child by the time I was saved.

Went to Bible College. Eventually there, met my sweet husband, Phil. And we’ve been married for more than 50 years now, which sort of proves there’s a God. And so then Phil and I have served the Lord, served the church as much as we could throughout the last five decades of our life.

Somewhere along in the late 1980s early 1990s I had people coming to me and asking for help, and I didn’t know what to say to them. So I was going to go get a degree in psychology. And my pastor at the time, had heard about CCEF when it was here in San Diego, and so he said, “Nah,” because at this point I had kids in the home. He said, “I don’t think you should do that. I think you should go and get training here at CCEF,” which I did. Eventually got a certificate in biblical counseling from CCEF, and then went to work for them, did counseling for them, for many years, for them, and also for the different churches I was in and started writing.

Writing was part of the counseling thing, because when I started writing, there were no biblical counseling books for women. There were none, and they were all written by like, let’s say, Jay Adams and Wayne Mack. And Jay’s advice to the woman who was depressed was, “do your ironing.” Oh, that’s a quote. It really is, yes. So if you feel depressed, ‘go do your ironing, and you’ll get over it.’ Ironing anyway. So I thought, this is a hole that needs to be filled. And so then I started writing. And honestly, Julia, I never thought of myself as a writer. I don’t think of myself, even now as a writer. I’m sort of more of a I don’t know, I get aggravated about stuff, and then I just want to tell everybody, and nobody will listen to me. So I write a book.

Julia
I love it.

Elyse
Oh, that’s like 25 or 26 books later.

And then along one more thing, and then I’ll be done along about 1998 nine, something like that. I made a turn to become more gospel centered. I didn’t see the gospel then, the way I see it now, which the gospel really is the linchpin upon which the Christian life rises or falls. And I, I think that somehow, coming from my the first church I was part of my Bible school, and then also from being part of the biblical counseling movement. Really there, when I was, when I joined what was then called the National Association Nouthetic Counselors. There was like four women, something like that, that were members. The training that I received in biblical counseling was so law-heavy, so heavy on “do this, do that,” that when I changed, and when the Lord changed me to actually see, no, it’s about Jesus and what he’s done, not about you and what you’ve done. That was a radical sort of rebirth to me.

And so then I’ve been writing from that place now for several decades, just about, no, actually, the point here is Jesus and what he’s done not what I’m supposed to do. And so then that’s where we are now.

Julia
Interesting that you say that you’re not an author, and yet just the words spill out of you, your experiences spill out of you, and I so appreciate your candor, your honesty, and also the courage. Courage that it takes to move into spaces where there’s massive gaps, and to begin the work of putting words to something in order to change something for the better. So that takes a vision. It takes courage. It certainly takes dependence on the Lord, and we’re so thankful for the work that you continue to do.

Elyse
Thank you, Julia, thank you. It’s very kind.

Ann Maree
Yeah, you’re like, a prophet. You’ve been a prophet calling in the wilderness. And we’ve been like, yeah, yeah, okay, no, we gotta go do this. Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. We gotta do our duty. And I’m constantly drawn back, you know, skimming the book again after having read it before. I’m like, oh yes, she’s been saying this for years. I’ve gotta start remembering someday. It’s not, what do you call… meritocracy. Yeah, but thank you for doing that. Thank you for calling us out.

Elyse
You know Ann Maree, I think that there is a whole generation of women, you are among them, who are speaking prophetically at our time. Tabi [Tabitha Westbrook] is one, of course, Diane is one, Langberg, Rachel Denhollander, I mean, you know Amy Byrd, all of our friends, Beth Moore, all our friends who have been, who have sought to speak prophetically to the church in these days and have paid the profits price, you know. So I do frequently find myself in situations, I’ll say that I feel like I’m sort of blazing a trail, and that’s not like I set out to do things. It’s like that. It’s that I feel like, oh, man, come on, look, you have to see this. And then I sort of end up, you know, stepping on people’s toes, if you will. I think there was a time where it wasn’t really, I really tried not to step on toes. Now I don’t care anymore. Because, listen, listen, in a couple months, I’m going to be 75 and you know what that means? That means I get to say what I want, and I don’t care anymore. Now, listen, that’s easy for me to say that I don’t care anymore, until I care, but as of right now, you know, listen, I’m 75 if you want to fuss with me, have at it. Get in line.

Julia
You are a warrior. You are.

Elyse
Thank you. Thank you. And

Julia
When a prophet speaks, there’s always a disproportionate reaction on the other side part of our ministry. We see that on a daily basis, whether it’s women who are in abusive situations within their church or with a coercively controlling man, or even just as staff members and board members of our ministry. And I think the more that we speak this truth to each other, that the truth needs to be out there, and also there will be some kind of retribution because of speaking the truth. The more it feels like a holy Alliance. Yes,

Elyse
Yes. Thank you for those words. Yes. It’s, thank you for that. It’s a holy alliance. And, you know, at some point, I don’t know, I think Ann Maree, you and I talked at one point about maybe even trying to put some together, some sort of a conference, or some sort of a thing where, you know, we all, we all got together. We could call it the Holy Alliance.

Julia
That would be a good one. Trade trade mark. Yes.

Elyse
Yes. Trade mark, exactly, yes, speaking truth to power. And you know, Jesus spoke truth to power, and they killed him. So we shouldn’t be surprised at the way we’re treated, although I, although we will say it’s difficult to be treated this way, the way that you have been treated, Ann Maree, I don’t know your story, Julia, but I’m sure both of you, it’s difficult to be treated that way by people who claim to love the same savior. That’s the difficulty. I’m not surprised if some person who doesn’t love Jesus thinks I’m insane. Okay, you know. But if, but if people who claim to love Jesus want to savage sisters who are seeking to speak truth, that’s very troubling to me. And I’m also quite sure I shouldn’t speak for the Lord, but I will. I’m quite sure it’s troubling to the Lord as well. Case in point when Mary is anointing Jesus for his burial before the crucifixion, and Judas wants to fuss with her, and Jesus says, “Leave her alone. She’s doing a good thing. Leave her alone. She’s done a good thing for me.” And I rather suppose, I rather suppose, I mean, of course, I could be self deceived, but I rather suppose that Jesus looks at the ways that you and some of our other friends are talked about, women friends, and just wants to send her from heaven, leave her alone.

Ann Maree
Sounds like a T shirt.

Elyse
I have a T shirt actually, that says, “Jesus said, ‘Leave her alone.’” You should see. You should see people’s faces when I wear it. It’s a good one.

Ann Maree
You’re right. I think, going back to your statement, you don’t care until you do. I think, in many ways, and you know, my experiences haven’t measured to the same as an Amy Byrd, but in many ways, we put up. We’ve gotten calloused to them until we’re not, right, until we right, we feel that pain again. You know that we’re joining with Jesus and his sufferings, almost, yes. And so this Holy Alliance idea of just being able to encourage one another, this is normal, and it’s not unusual. Yes, this is what you’re going to do. This is what’s going to happen. And you know, when I’m here with you, well, it’s going to happen. So yeah.

Elyse
Yes. And you know, who knows? Who knows if it’s ever going to make any difference? I have to say, well, whether it does or not, I’ve got to speak it. But you know God, if you know anything about church history, God certainly knows how to take care of situations like this, and I think we’re probably not far away from that.

Julia
What do you foresee?

Elyse
I think that there is a certain old guard that is trying to do church the way they did church decades ago that was basically power hungry, narcissistic and misogynist. So not nice words. I think those kinds of churches are going to are going to go away. How that happens? I don’t know. I think they’ll go away. And then I also think that there’s this massive number of women who are getting trained and who will take up Christ’s mantle. When a lot of these guys who really should not be in the pastorate go away, I think there will be a change. I also know that there is a real revival, sort of underground revival, going on in Europe. And I think that once America, the American Evangelical machine, starts throwing up, it becomes sickened by her desire for power and control. I think that there will be a revival here, but, but church won’t look the way it looks now. And this desire for big buildings and a big name and the big man, I think that’s going to go away, oh, maybe so, maybe.

Julia
Yeah, right. Maybe it’s so, yeah.

Ann Maree
Yeah, in our lifetime. Lord, yes.

Elyse
Yeah, you know what’s really lovely, um, gosh, we’re not on topic at all. But I’m just gonna…

Julia
No, we are on topic.

Elyse
When I was there 20 years ago, there were not a lot of women who were getting doctorates in theology or church history or any of those things, or in the biblical languages. But there are now and those women who have gotten doctorates and are getting them. And I’m not saying that everybody should do that, but I am saying that there is, there is this sort of ground swell of women who are trained and they will speak the truth they’ve had enough education to know how to parse certain passages and also how to understand church history. So they will, they will speak to that and this sort of idea that women aren’t educated and can’t, don’t have the voices that’s changing, that will change. And so when that happens, you know, who knows? Maybe in our lifetimes, I hope so, certainly in yours, women will start speaking, and they will speak with authority, the way Beth Barr speaks with authority, the way Kristen Du Mez speaks with authority. Because these are women with doctorates, and so you can’t say, “oh, you know, she just read some magazine.” These are, these are women who are quite trained. And also, along with that, there are numbers of men who are now speaking.

And I would say, see this younger generation of men. I mean, certainly there are some of them who love that old that old way of doing things. But there’s this younger generation of men who have grown up in a world that really was egalitarian. They’ve had loads of professors who were female, and they’re quite comfortable learning from a woman. Well, you’re not going to tell a guy like that. Oh, well, I guess you could, “be comfortable with the fact that all these women who around you, who are wise and skilled and have things to say, be comfortable with silencing them.” You’re not going to have that. So I think it’s generational. I think the education is changing. I think it’s generational. Women can you know, it used to be that X number of guys were the gatekeepers to all the publishing houses, but they’re not anymore. And who needs a publishing house when you can self publish and get it out yourself? So that’s you know, again, the gatekeepers are going away and the Internet has democratized the voices of all people. So we’ll see. I want to keep speaking and speak as part of the Holy Alliance. Julia, I’m writing that down now. You see, I have my pen the Holy Alliance. Let’s, let’s chase this down a little bit. Because you know why? There are loads of podcasts like what you are doing right now and what I do on Worthy. There are loads of podcasts of women who are saying it over and over and over again, and other women who listen and believe it, and they say, You know what, that way you treat me, that’s not going to happen anymore. That’s right.

Ann Maree
Yep, from your mouth to God’s ears, yeah, that’s right.

Julia
When did you start talking more and more about the value and worth of women?

Elyse
Thank you. You know, it’s interesting. I think I sort of have been pushing towards it for, you know, maybe 10 years or so. Okay, so time for transparency. There was a time when I really bought into the old school complementarian way of seeing things. And the reason I bought into it, I think I was convinced ish by Scripture, but I knew who, and I don’t think I had enough self awareness to know that this is what I was doing, but I was trying to find my place among the people who had the power to speak. And so I and so I bought into it. There were, there were places I was still pushing against, like, like, oh, hyper submission teaching and stuff like that. I was still, I was always pushing against that. But I really wanted to have a place at the table. I wanted to be in the in the room where it happened and so I tried, but honestly, I wasn’t aware that that’s what I was doing. Okay. Now, as I look back on it, I see okay, what I was trying to do was to buy a place in the room where it happened, so that I could use my voice. I was trying to do that.

But I began, I want to say, certainly. I mean, Worthy came out in 2020. Probably maybe 2018, 2000 some. No, take it back, 2016 there was a certain election that happened, and at that point I was in a space where I was sort of, I was becoming aware of things I had not been aware of before. I became aware of my white privilege. I became aware of it. And, listen, I live in Southern California, so I you know, if you would have said, “Is there racism here?” I would have said no, because Southern California, I mean, yeah, we’re not Georgia, for crying out loud, sorry for all the people who are in Georgia. So I began to see that, and then the city in which I live is like 80% Hispanic, and it never even dawned on me that I had white privilege here. And then I began to see the way women were talked about and treated in ways that I think I had not seen before. And then Eric Schumacher and I wrote Worthy and that book was not really earth-shaking. I mean, all we did was go through the Bible and talk about ways God had used women in redemptions narrative. All we did was look at what the Bible said about women. But what happened was we got this immense pushback, and that pushback showed me that it wasn’t just that they wanted me, women to agree with everything they said about everything, but particularly about women. It was that we couldn’t even say that women had value.

We couldn’t even say women had value. As soon as you say women have value, then there is a group of men and women who are doing what I was trying to do then, which was buy a place at the table, or show that I belong, or whatever, this group of men that then will say, “Well, if you say that women have value, then you are no longer orthodox.” And, I mean, I got canceled in all sorts of ways, books that I had written that were selling well, got jettison from a publisher. Yeah, it was just this sort of, you know, I got the side-eye from evangelicalism. You know, it’s like, how dare you say that women have value. And then we would say, No, no, no, listen, all we’re saying is, you know, women are created in the image of God, therefore they have value. And they would say, I remember one conference in particular, and Ann Maree would know what I’m talking about, what one conference in particular, where it was right after Worthy had come out, and so they were going to have us come and just, do you know, a series of workshops on the topic of worthy, and they, and the elder board said we couldn’t come because the book didn’t talk about submission.

Yeah, and I said, pardon me, there are 20 zillion books about submission. That’s not what this book is about. We’re not talking about ‘gender roles.’ What we’re talking about is the fact that women are created in the image of God, therefore have value and have been used powerfully by him. We’re not talking about any of that other stuff. And actually, at that time and in that book, we came out and said we were both complementarian, but it wasn’t enough, see, and that’s the thing, it’s not enough. And then I, then I realized, okay, it’s not going to be enough. And I’ve begun, I have been trying to push against that, trying to proclaim the value of women, not that men don’t have value. Why do I even have to say that? But I do. So women have value. And then and then over and over again, just to say, look Jesus loved women and used them. And then I began to read. And I want to say, I mean, I’ve got this stack of books over here. Of all the books I read about women’s roles, and I and I’m not there anymore. I mean, I’ve been convinced. I’ve read enough, there are enough women and men writing that I’m not where I was, and I’m not going to pretend I’m there anymore.

Ann Maree
Wow. And for the same reasons, I’m out, and as Julia so cleverly made her husband a t shirt, “For those reasons, I’m out too.”

Elyse
What t shirt?

Ann Maree
Just that, like on the Shark Tank, where the “Oh yeah, I’m out. For those reasons, I’m out, yeah.

Elyse
For all those reasons, I’m out. Exactly. It’s like, I’m out.

Julia
And what you’re describing is not pushback, it’s annihilation. That’s what I hear. And if there is any offense taken, the actual thing that they were offended by was the gospel. They were offended by the gospel truth that you were speaking, and have been speaking all of these years, because your work consistently brings it back to Scripture, to stories in the Bible, and that’s what we need. And this revival, restoration period in the church is a return to the Scriptures. Return to our historical roots of how things were in the early church, not how they are. Now, right?

Elyse
I agree. I mean, why? Why would you jettison somebody? Because you say God gives gifts to all his children, and we should value all his children and their gifts. Why would you jettison somebody for that? Why would you jettison somebody like the work you guys are doing? Why would you jettison people who are trying to protect the vulnerable. Is that what Jesus did. See, but you know, not to make this political, but I’m here in Southern California, and I have a and I have a border right here, and I and again, another one of those places where God did a thing in me that I wasn’t looking for, was I began to see the plight of the immigrant and the stranger. And you know, so World Relief has a has a series of like 40 verses that you can read every day about God’s love of a stranger. And so I posted them, you know, 1 a day on social media, sort of ending up in the book of Revelation, which is, if you, if you don’t like, if you don’t like, a society that has people who speak different languages and look different than you, then you’re going to hate heaven. But again, you see, it’s narcissistic man-childs who want to hold on to their supposed power and control and comfort, and that’s what we’re fighting against. Whether it’s trying to protect women in abusive marriages, or if I’m trying to protect, you know, my immigrant neighbor from ICE, same thing. And so I guess I would say, I’m not surprised that the man-childs hate it. I’m saddened that there aren’t a lot of churches that really see it.

Julia
I told you we had a lot to talk about. How do you feel about turning towards your book now?

Elyse
Sure!

Julia
Tell me a little bit about why this book. Why now?

Elyse
Yeah, okay, so I wrote Unloved, The Rejected Saints God Calls Beloved. And you know, as a writer, you always have to look and see how they subtitled it, because you never know. I never remember. So the rejected saints God calls Beloved. So I wanted to push against in always, that’s why I write, because I got some little bur my saddle. You know? I wanted to push against two things. I wanted to push against mommy bloggers and I want to be really careful in if, when, whenever I criticize women, I want to be really careful. But I want to, I want to push against mommy bloggers who say that if you, if you’re a traditional wife, if you just do these things, then you’ll have a great life, like the women of the Bible kind of thing. I wanted to push against that there’s this sort of feeling, and I think women have been told it, and women, a lot of times, have been told it by men, but also by other women, that if you are just pretty enough or disciplined enough or creative enough or faithful enough or submissive enough, if you’re just those things, then God will certainly give you a wonderful, loving husband and great kids who love Jesus, and you’ll have a wonderful life.

So I wanted to push against that and that, you know, as much as we would criticize the prosperity gospel, you know, send me, send me $1,000 and I’ll say a prayer for you, and you’ll get whatever, that kind of thinking is not that far from that. You see, I sort of call that meritocracy lite. All right, so what’s a meritocracy? Really quickly, a meritocracy is a place where you earn your way, so I can earn blessings from God. And so meritocracy heavy is like what we would call, you know, send $1,000 and God will give you a healing. Meritocracy lite is more like if you live a certain way, then you will be treated in the way you want to be treated by your husband or your children or in whatever. And that’s a meritocracy as well, and earning merit from God is not a Protestant construct. So this sort of thought that if I do all these things like some of the women in the Bible, then my life will be great. I mean, it’s absurd. So then what I wanted to do again was go back to Scripture and really try to understand the lives of a lot of the women and men in Scripture, because their lives, you know, be like Sarah. No, actually, I don’t know, however, the context in which Sarah lived, you know, we give her pretty much of a bad rap for what she did. But if you understand her context, giving her slave to the bed of her husband was not really that far outside of the bounds of what people normally did. It was normal. She needed a child and that Hagar would be the way she’d get it. So I wanted to look at the lives of those women and really try, in some ways, to retell the history of their lives. Their lives were not wonderful, but many of them were really faithful women trying to do what they could do. And so I wanted to look at the women, who a lot of times, were vilified; the Hagar, the woman at the well, Bathsheba, you know all these women who’ve been vilified, I wanted to look at their lives and say, “No, actually, that’s not what was going on.” and say, “but their lives, God loved them, even through the difficulties of their lives.” And I guess that would be the sort of bottom line is, God calls you Beloved, and it’s hard to believe, but God calls you beloved even when your life is blowing up.

Julia
Yes and Amen. I love that. In your book, you do talk about both men and women. So this is a book for anybody and everybody, and I think there’s something specific too about the women that you do name, because every woman in the Bible is under oppression, yes, which also makes their encounter with the Lord and their belovedness even more sacred. Yes, there’s so many, there’s so many women that we see in our ministry and the counseling room where they’re carrying the sense of shame. But then also even more painful is mischaracterization, being misunderstood and maligned. And I appreciate how in your book, you speak to that in these women’s lives, and for those of our listeners who have had those experience in their lives, to return back to Scripture again and see the pattern of the Lord restoring these women and renaming them and affirming them that are particular to their situation. And I would love to hear even more about both Hagar and Bathsheba, because those are two of my favorite stories. So it’s a little bit selfish of me to want to hone in on those, especially Bathsheba, because she’s slandered, one of the most mischaracterized women in the Bible, and Hagar, because she was an Egyptian slave.

Elyse
So brief backstory, Abraham and Sarah: Abraham pimps his wife out to Pharaoh in order to keep himself from being murdered. And so she spends time in Pharaoh’s harem. The Bible does not say she was protected from Pharaoh so she probably suffered sexual assault in that harem. And Pharaoh gives her back to Abraham. And along with that, Abraham gets a bunch of slaves and, you know, animals and different things. I can’t believe I just said that Abraham pimped his wife out. But, you know, listen, this is where we are, right?

So, so Hagar is a slave. She’s probably really young. She’s probably been sold by her father to Pharaoh, and then he gives her away. And so she is Sarah’s slave. Sarah knows that Abraham is promised, that she’s going to have a child, but she’s way past child bearing years or so she thought. So, she gets desperate, and she says, Well, okay, I’m not, this isn’t happening for me, and you have to understand that for Sarah, her whole goal in life is to produce male children, to keep the family going. That was her purpose in life, was to do that. And so she gives Hagar to Abraham, which, you know, by the way, he doesn’t say, “No, I won’t do that.” And she gets pregnant, and then Hagar was probably, who knows what she did, but she did something that aggravated Sarah, you know, kind of like maybe she thought she was going to take Sarah’s place. Who knows? Anyway? So Sarah sends her way, banishes her; pregnant, unwed, Egyptian, fatherless, protectionless, resourceless, pregnant woman into the wilderness, and she thinks she’s going to die, and so she sits down by a well, and somebody comes along and visits her. This might just so gorgeous, because here we are back again with Jesus. So of course, what we’re talking about is the pre-incarnate Son of God. But you know, the person we would call Jesus visits another woman at a well, and tells her that she’s going to have this child, and she will, in fact, be a matriarch of a nation. Gives her, gives her those words, and she is the first person to bestow a name upon God. She calls him, “the God who sees me,” which says something about this thought that people who name, are the ones in charge. We’ve heard that before.

Julia
Say more about that.

Elyse
Well, okay, so it’s generally taught in complementarian circles that Adam had authority over Eve because he named her. Well, doesn’t actually give her a name until after the Fall. Beforehand, he just, you know, says, okay, she’s human.

Ann Maree
Let me throw something in there too. God named her, I think it was three times before Adam, so male and female. He created them, was one. Man was one. The first one, she was named. And then there was a third one, right? Helper, yeah, she had three names before she had woman and Eve.

Elyse
Yeah. Thank you for that. Ann Maree, right. And that teaching, which seems like, Oh, whatever. That’s just a little, some sort of a little aside that doesn’t really you have to understand how important that little thing is in their whole teaching about male headship and women’s subordination, it’s because Adam named Eve, therefore Adam had authority. That’s actually false. Ah. So anyway, we are back at Hagar, and Hagar names God, just first person in Scripture who actually names him.

Julia
And she was not rebuked by the Lord for doing.

Elyse
No, no. He didn’t say, “Oh, your woman, don’t do that.” So she goes back, and then she lives another, man, I don’t know, 14 years or so, with Sarah and Abram. And then she gets sent away again, and he visits her again. You know, Jesus, is always has his eye out for that woman who feels like she’s utterly alone and destitute and completely unloved. That’s the person Jesus is looking for all the time. It’s the one he’s drawn to. So he tells her, she thinks again she’s going to die. He says, “No, actually, there’s a well there you’re going to be the matriarch of a whole society, whole nation.” so Hagar. Bathsheba,

Julia
Can I pause just for a second? One of the things that you say in the chapter on Hagar, you say that, “frequently the Lord comes to us in the place of our deepest wound.” You go on to say that “the Lord didn’t approach Hagar to assure her of her own righteousness. He didn’t assure her of her own power in her weakness. Instead, he assured her that she was known, she was heard and seen by the most important person in the universe, and her story mattered, not only then, but in the age to come.” And that was so powerful for me to read, and that’s true for so many of us, that the Lord meets us in a place of our deepest wound. If you are silenced, God will show you where your voice is. If you are powerless, he will strengthen you. If you are discarded, he will bring you a holy alliance, so just the reminder that the Lord sees, he knows the deepest wounds, and he knows the remedy, which ultimately is himself, but then also these beautiful gifts to sort of flip the narrative and counter what evil has stolen.

Elyse
Thank you for that. Thank you, Julia, thank you. That’s very helpful, and I forgot I wrote it.

Ann Maree
And she’s always I always hear her like translating it or expanding on it, because she’s going to counsel that to somebody. She’s going to use to myself.

Julia
To myself!

Ann Maree
Me please also, but yeah, I can just hear her like, this is how she’s processing it in her own, her own story, and this is how she’s going to be sharing it to others. It’s helpful to hear her do that.

Elyse
Oh yes, thank you. You know what? Here’s the deal. We don’t want places of brokenness. None of us want them, but in this world in which we live, there will be deep places of brokenness, and instead of hiding them in our shame and in our sorrow and in our fear, we need to welcome him in because he gets it. You know, he’s the one who was stripped naked and beaten and hung on a cross. He understands it.

Bathsheba, there’s this saying that the people with the power are the ones who get to tell the stories, and Bathsheba has been vilified and denigrated throughout church history. I mean, there were times when she was not but generally speaking, as I did, a search of all of these different people who wrote about her from the early church on, just like, wait, what?

So a couple of things we just want to say up front, Bathsheba was not on a roof bathing nude. Okay, that’s it. That is a wrong translation. Bathsheba was in her little walled garden area. David the voyeur was on the roof, looking around, observing his wealth. So he was watching her. She was not tempting him. She was not trying to get rid of her husband or somehow, you know, become queen or something. Listen, David is a guy who has how many wives, seven or eight or 10, something like that. And who knows how many concubines? If what David wants to do is have sex with a woman, he has plenty of them at his disposal. But this is not this is not a love story. This is a story of rape and coercion and power, and David calls her, doesn’t even know who she is, who is that calls her, she responds to him because he’s the king and he’s also the commander in chief of her husband’s army. So of course, she goes up and he rapes her, basically, and then she finds out she’s pregnant. So why is she bathing? So what we need, and the Bible is clear about this, and why nobody talks about it, I don’t know. She’s bathing after her menstrual cycle. So she’s finished menstruating, and she’s bathing, ritually, cleansing herself afterwards. And so then she gets called up and he rapes her. She goes home, then he tries to coerce her husband into sleeping with her so he can cover his sin. Obviously, that doesn’t happen. He ends up killing her husband, so it’s murder and rape and somehow she’s given the bad rap for that.

Julia
Yes, help me understand that?

Elyse
Do I need to help you understand? I quoted somebody. I quoted somebody who’s quite well known in the evangelical machine,

Particularly in reform circles. I quoted somebody who said, I hate to even say it. In a commentary, he must think that only men are going to read this, he said, “David had the power to do what every man wants to do, which is, if he sees a beautiful woman, he could just take her.”

I actually wrote to that person and said, you said this in a book X number of years ago. Here’s the quote. Do you want to rephrase that? Would you like to say, “No, you don’t think that anymore.”? And the person did not respond to me.

So when you read how Bathsheba has been talked about, and you know when Bathsheba’s story is told, it’s like, well, she was this really immoral woman, but, you know, God can still use really immoral woman, which is true, but that’s not the point of the story. The point of the story is, God, can, God did use a man who raped and murdered, I want to say one thing about David, though, because a lot of times people in ministry who have sinned in heinous ways say, “Well, you know David was restored.” And I’m like, “Yeah, but not to the pastorate!” He had a political office that people didn’t get to vote him in and out, and he wasn’t a pastor, and he didn’t have the kind of authority that American Evangelical pastors have. So anyway, um, I view Bathsheba as being sort of a, and really, yes, she was very beautiful, but also this kind of, if you will, almost naive woman who, because you know that later on in the story, she’s surprised that one of David’s sons is trying to take over the, was it Adonija? Maybe? Uh, was trying to take over the throne by sleeping with David’s concubine. And she’s like, wait what? Because, and Solomon, who’s the king, then, who is her son says, “No, actually, no, we’re not going to do that.” But also she’s pretty wise in that she made David promise her see, after all this happened, she made David promise her that her son would sit on the throne. And the reason she did that was because if she didn’t have that assurance, she knew what was going to happen to her. So she’s wise, and perhaps is the sort of beautiful woman who just thinks the best about everybody, and she’s certainly not the way she’s been painted, and actually really painted in art of this woman who’s like putting on this peep show for David. Come on. Now, if you would flip the story and make David a woman, and then wanting this man would be told a completely different way,

Ann Maree
And is told a different way, Joseph and Potiphar’s wife exactly.

Elyse
Exactly.

Julia
I was just going to say this. This story centers on David’s spin, and we see that when Nathan confronts David, that Bathsheba in the story is the blameless sheep.

Elyse
Yeah, she’s the sweet little lamb that is loved by her family and by her husband, and when she is spoken of in the New Testament, she’s called the wife of Uriah, that’s where her heart was.

So what we wanted to do in the book was to say, okay, okay, we’ve lost, we’ve lost the thread of the story. First of all, you don’t, you don’t earn anything from God. God gives us, by his grace, great love and mercy and blessing. It’s not a meritocracy. We are living in a land of grace, but that also we need to tell the stories as they really are, and not the way that they have been spun by those who held the power.

Julia
That’s right. And Elyse, we’ve already talked about how your voice in this space has been very prophetic. Looking at the story of David and Bathsheba, we would not have Psalm 51, we would not have repentance and restoration from David, without Nathan, without the prophets who are willing to step up call out sin. And no doubt, he was in a position where he thought he could have been killed. He just saw his king or not saw but observed an experience where he had another David, had another man killed, so he was risking so much of his life for the sake of righteousness and restoration. And so I just want to commend you in your courage to continue to speak truth. Even in the face of great costs, I know it has cost you dearly, your work in your ministry, but we champion you, and we want to advocate for you too in this space, because we need your voice.

Elyse
Thank you. Thank you. That’s so kind. And honestly, I am, I’m so thankful for the way that the Lord has so graciously chosen to use my voice and let his will be done.

Julia
So your dedication in your book I love and I just want to read it back to you. You say that, “This book is to all the women and men who have been crushed by the law, look at the problems in their lives and wonder whether they’re loved or not. You are free. You are beloved. Hang on.” I read that, and I also see decades of your work in your ministry attesting to that, and I also want to remind you of that truth. So thank you, Elyse.Thank you for what you’re doing, what you continue to do, the paths that you’re paving for the rest of us. May the Lord continue to bless you and your ministry, and may you know the fierce and rescuing love of the Lord more and more.

Elyse
Thank you. Thank you, my friends, thank you.

Ann Maree
And we’re going to look forward to even more use of your book in our circles. Definitely come in handy with the encouragement that we need to do on a daily basis for those who have been oppressed. So my great thanks. You have always the thing that has always struck me about you the most, Elyse is even when you’re the one getting the pushback, you’re looking out for the others who have been hurt and reaching out to find out how they are, which is something you’ve done for me and so that screams to me as servant’s heart, not somebody who’s just trying to have a platform for a platform sake, but using that platform for human flourishing and good, and especially for women.

Elyse
Thank you. Thank you, friends.