Panelist: Thank you for tuning in to Humble Hermeneutic, a Jude three Project podcast. This podcast is sponsored by the Jude three Project and is made possible by generous supporters like you. If you would like to become a a monthly supporter of the Jude three Project or give a one time gift, you could do so at jude3project.org, or you could take our online courses or get our curriculum at jude3project.org as well, and we also have merch available. I hope you enjoy this episode with Yanna Connor and doctor Cynthia James, and I hope that you develop a humble hermeneutic.
Host: Y’all what’s good, y’all? Welcome to humble hermeneutics. So thankful, to have you all with us today. I am one third of the conversation, today. My name is Yana Janae Connor, and then we have doctor Cynthia James with us. Say hello to people, doctor Cynthia.
Panelist: Hello. Thank you.
Host: And then we have, founder and president of the Jude three project, Lisa Fields. And, Lisa, we are so thankful for, the opportunity that you’ve given us to host this podcast. And we are also just so thankful for all the things that you are doing for the kingdom, to ensure that people know that Christianity is not a white man’s religion, but that it is one, for all people, specifically, black people. And so I’m just so thankful, for you and the work that you’re doing and so glad to have you all with us today.
Panelist: Thank you for letting me be on y’all’s podcast. I appreciate it. Invitation.
Host: No. You know, it’s, you know, it’s it’s nothing. You know, really. It’s nothing to do that. But no. So, glad to have you with us today, Lisa, because doctor Cynthia James and I, wanted to have a conversation about judges 19. And this is probably one of the heaviest passages in scripture. So I just wanna let everybody know just right up front, this is gonna be a hard conversation, today. And if you have any sort of trauma in your background, you you may want to not listen, to this, but maybe you will, because I hope that in in our conversation that you would be able to see, how God can work in all things, even the bad things, even the evil things that happen in our lives to bring about a particular good, a greater good. And so, no, you would normally do this, but I’m I’m just gonna pray. I’m just gonna pray, open up our time with prayer, and then, we’ll we’ll jump into, God’s word. Father, thank you so much for your revealed word. Lord, we thank you, that this book isn’t just sunshine and rainbows, but what that it really gets to the nitty gritty of life, and that it it shows us, how, to engage with moments like these and how to still hold on to a firm view and understanding of you, even in the midst of of hard things. So we thank you. In Jesus’ name, I do pray. Amen. So we’re looking at the book of judges today. And, if you are familiar with this book, you may know that one of the phrases, that continues over and over in this book is that, the people did what they thought was right in their own eyes and that there was no king in Israel. And so we come to judges 19, and it starts off once again reminding us that there is no king in Israel. But there is this Levi. Right? And we know that Levites are of the the priestly heritage of of Israel. And there’s a Levi, and he’s staying in a remote place, in in in Ephraim, and he acquires a woman. Now I know we already are like, we don’t like the way that that sounds, but he he acquires a woman, and she becomes his concubine. Well, his concubine is unfaithful to him, and in that she leaves him and goes back to her father’s house. And then it says, you know, that he she was at her father’s house for about four months, and I guess that was enough time for this Levi to say, you know, I’m a go get my woman because I’ll miss her. And so he decides in his heart that he’s gonna go and and and speak kindly to her to win her back to to himself. So he goes to her father’s house, and he stays for about three days. And, he’s doing what he needs to do to get his woman back. And, then the father, you know, tries to get him to stay longer, by, you know, feeding them well and getting them drunk, you know, all this other kind of stuff. And the first time he’s able to get him to stay an extra night, but then eventually the Levi is like, yo, we gotta go home. We just gotta go home. So it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s approaching nighttime. And so his servant says to him, hey. I think that we, should should go and stay over into this town, this just just just was it city, and spend some time there. But the Levi says like, yo, I’m not staying in a foreign city. I’m not staying with some wicked people. You know, I I’m a stay with my own people. And so they decide to go to another place called, Jabez. And this is where the Benjamites, live. And so they go and they encounter this older man, and he says, hey, where are you guys from? And where are you going? And he says, well, why why don’t y’all come stay at my house, for the night? So they go and stay at his house. You know, this is wonderful hospitality. But then in verse 20, we see that this man invites them into his home, gives them everything that they need. He washes their feet, they eat and they drink, but then, the house becomes surrounded by wicked men. Wicked men surround the house. I mean, just think about your house being surrounded by a group of men trying to get into your home, banging on your windows, banging on your doors, you know, and so there’s there’s fear in the house. Right? And what these men want is for for the old man to give them the Levite so that they can have sex with him. And so, of course, the man is like, hey. This is a great injustice for you to do. This man is a Levi. He is of the priestly order. Why we can’t let you do that? But then he reasons in his mind that the best alternative is for him to offer over his virgin daughter, and then also this man’s concubine. Because in his mind, he’s like, hey, if you do this to this priest, that is an outrageous thing. But I guess he felt like it would it wouldn’t be so bad if they had sex with these women instead. But in verse 25, it says, but the men would not listen to him. So the man sees the concubine and took her outside to them. This is the the the I don’t well, I don’t know. This is the old man. And it says and they raped her and abused her all night until morning. At daybreak, they let her go. And early that morning, the woman made her way back, and it was getting light. She collapsed at the doorway of the man’s house where her master was. And when her master got up in the morning, opened the doors of the home, and went out to leave on his journey, there was the woman, his concubine, collapsed near the doorway, and he tells her to get up. How dare you, sir? He tells her to get up, and let’s go. But there was no response because she was indeed dead. And so this man puts her on his donkey, and then he goes home, and then he does this really peculiar and heinous thing. He picks up a knife. He takes his concubine, cuts her into 12 pieces limb by limb, and then sent her throughout the territory of Israel. And it says he does this so that, well, we know that he does this to kinda have some sort of judgment against the 12 tribes of Israel to to essentially say, like, look look how bad it’s gotten, among us that we’ve allowed something like this to happen. And in this story, in verse 30, it says, everyone who saw it said nothing like this has ever happened or has been seen since the day the Israelites came out of the land of Egypt up until now. And then it says, think about it, discuss it, and speak up. Alright. Oh, big breath. Right? What are some of the initial things that stand out to you about this chapter?
Panelist: Who who are you who are you, either
Host: one. Lisa, you are a guest, so we’ll let you go first.
Panelist: So this is one of my, I feel like this is one of the most interesting passages in the scripture, and I’ve wrestled with it quite a bit. And this is the pass one of the the path one of the passages is that Phyllis Phyllis Tribble caused the text of terror, one of the text of terror. And, one of the reasons it’s a terrible text is because what happens to the woman in this passage. But I loved how you mentioned that there’s this recurring phrase in the book of Judges that everyone did what was right in their own eyes. And I see the book of this book and this verse, this chapter as a culmination of everyone doing what’s right in their own eyes. That when we pursue, our own truths and our own, quote, unquote, righteousness outside of what God’s standard is and we try to find our own righteousness or right way or truth, that we end up pursuing a justice that is distorted. And I see that the Levite goes and says, you know, to the at the end, you know, cut cuts her up into 12 pieces and says, look what y’all have done as if he wasn’t a part of the problem. Mhmm. And I think one of the themes that comes out of this text for me is that when you pursue West Riding Your Own Eyes, that you can all, you can be a part of the problem, but excuse yourself from the problem or the consequences of the problem and impose those consequences on others without taking responsibility yourself. Him his his way of justice is is totally distorted. He cuts her up. First of all first of all, he throws her out, and then he cuts her up. And then he said, look what y’all done. And my thought is no. Look what you’ve done. Mhmm. And, so I think that’s one of the things. I’ll save, some of the others for later, but I think that’s the the first glaring thing that stands out, for me in that in that text.
Host: Yeah. That he doesn’t see his own his own wrong. And that’s so true. You know, we even see things happen around us that are unjust. It’s very easy for us to point fingers at other people and not consider how we we partner with those things. You know?
Panelist: Yeah. No. That’s good. That’s the American story, but though, isn’t it? That
Host: I show. That that was white.
Panelist: Where you’re describing for us that he is challenging them to say, look what you’ve done. Is that in, that’s why I was pulling my bible again because I missed so much in this text. Is that in his actions he’s saying that, or is there a phrasing, for he’s saying that? Yeah. Where is he tosses the responsibility to those around him?
Host: Yeah. And so that’s inferred through, like, his actions. And then as I’ve just consulted, like, other commentaries about this, That is, like, the leading interpretation that this is he’s doing this as an act of judgment, which is why he spreads it out amongst the 12. Mhmm. Tear or the 12 tribes, limb by limb throughout the territory of Israel. And we see in the people’s response, right, that they they get it. They understand what he’s trying to communicate. Like, yo, how did we get here to a point where a concubine would be raped all night long and then, like, literally, like, thrown away and left in the field? And it’s just something about that event that causes Israel to to sort of have a a prodigal son moment, you know, where it’s like, hey. How did we get so far from God? What what happened, to us? And so his his his tactics in a sense, work.
Panelist: We’re doing that. I see. It’s been a while since I looked at the, text of terror, but I I have utmost respect for that. So it wasn’t fresh on my mind what it, what that analysis is. Going back to your talking about people doing what’s right in their own eyes, and you analogized it to our own country, the one that we share, the others that might be viewing this from other places. But everywhere, there’s a necessity for rule of law. And so this is basically saying there is no rule of law. Mhmm. And we see constantly the attacks to overthrow what has been precedence, what has been legislated, what has been, institutionalized, kind of a free for all. And I think we find ourselves in a time where so much is up in the air. There’s not much we can do about the fact that’s already up in the air now. Things have destabilized, but I think it puts a real burden on us to take onus and responsibility of how things are gonna settle back down. When I think about rule of law, I think about again, we talked about we hinted at it as session. Formation where in spiritual formation, we say it’s imperative to have a rule of life. So not just as a communal rule of law, but as a personal and individual commitment to have a a a rule of life. What I’m challenged to do, and I’m hesitant now because I’ve not consulted what the scholars say, and I have great regard for what multiple minds arrive at and especially in this kind of a text. I I’m trying to see and I’ve it didn’t just start. I I’ve made one venture to try to write about this text and never touched it again. But, some say that often in scripture, women are given not just to speak broadly to what’s happening to women, but to the body of Christ. And we can certainly see where the body of Christ is severed, whether it’s in terms of denomination, things that are not the basic tenets of the faith, more more, I don’t wanna say fringe ideas because they’re still important, but where there’s severing among evangelicals, where there’s great political, division, where there’s arguments against what is public and private territory, what is sacred and secular. So I wonder to some extent, have we displayed to the world a severing of the faith, which should be a rally call to the Benjamites, to the least of the tribes, to the smallest of the tribes to say, listen. Let’s let’s consider it. Let’s talk about it. Let’s do something about it. Let’s take some responsibility. So I’m looking at it both in terms of, feminine issues as well as in terms of body of Christ issues. And as women, it it is a call to the to us as women as well. I don’t wanna go further than, Lisa’s taking us at this point, but but it does say something to us about the need for unity, the need for support. We see we we don’t hear from the women, but we see them as key characters. We see them as mercenaries. We see them as give and take exchange. We see them as being chattel, numbered right along with the two donkeys he takes and the concubine. So in that list of possessions, but I think there is some hope, and maybe we’ll get to that later on, despite all that. Mhmm.
Host: Yeah. I think there is some hope. And I I know for me, I, I had I had a friend, who, had a sister who experienced something similar to the concubine. And I remember when she called and shared with me what had happened, like, just complete and utter devastation. You know? It’s like in my mind, I was like, I don’t even have a category for for what you’re sharing, with me. And, like, literally just being, like, sick to my stomach and heaving and crying and just not just disoriented. You know? This is a very disorienting, thing. And even you know? And I’m not even in in close proximity to it as as she and her sister, were. But I remember being brought to this text, because for me, I’m always like, okay, lord. Like, help me. Like, I need you to give me something. You know? And where are where are these experiences in the bible, and how how do we how do we respond to them? You know? And so reading this text and being really grieved over what happened to the the concubine woman, but finding finding some hope in these last three these instructions that that that are given. One, to think think it over. Think about what just happened. You know? Discuss it, try to figure out, you know, why it happened. You know, have a conversation about it. And then thirdly, to speak up. You know? So this wasn’t just supposed to be something that had just happened, and everybody just kinda rushes it under the rug and goes on about their day, but there was this expectation that there would be a response. And we see in chapter 20 that there was a response. There was there was war against the Benjamites because they had allowed this to happen in their town. You know, this house wasn’t just, you know, like, it was in proximity to other homes. You know? Like and so not not only were those men, held accountable, but the whole community was being held accountable for what had happened. And so for me, it just to see that kind of accountability in the bible, right, to see justice enacted in the bible, gave me hope because it gives me a picture of the kind of god that we serve that he doesn’t just brush these incidents
Panelist: under the rug. You know? I stand corrected because I had the Benjamites in the wrong role. So thank you for getting me back into the text because I was saying that differently. I don’t I don’t wanna cut off the rest of your statement. I just wanna make sure I corrected what I was saying. It it’s in your face domestic violence. It’s in your face abuse. It’s in your face, in our faces, emotional, dismissal, and denigration. But it’s it’s more than it’s the physical, it’s the emotional, it’s the social, it’s the institutional, it’s beyond marginalization. It is a total dehumanization of, partially I I think we can’t ignore the gender issue, and then we can subsequently, so we don’t over spiritualize, see it as god’s bride as the church not having the voice. But I find hope in another place. I don’t know if this is the point. Miss Lisa, you want me to put that in or or someplace else? Go for it. No. You’re fine. My the hope I see is yes at the end, but also, you know, people we’ve heard whether it was slavery or individual, sex trafficking or whatever. We’ve heard people say, oh, they like it. They prefer this as though there’s a contentment with their condition. This woman seeks to exert some human agency. She leaves, and we didn’t see the insights of the home she left or the house she left, but she left. And given his personality, it couldn’t have been too good. The fact that she leaves or his his ways, his mannerisms, was an effort, I don’t think so much to get to daddy’s house, but to get away from what she so she doesn’t just accept it. I’m stuck here. I can’t do anything about it. From the little bit I do remember, this might have came from Phyllis Tribble. She was considered a secondary wife, a shiffle, which meant she had she was above a slave. She had some options. And many times in that culture, and correct my history again, the Schiflas weren’t expected to leave their father’s house in the beginning. So since everyone was doing what was right in their own eyes, she had left the place where we think automatically the wife is gonna go to be with the husband. But I I do recall there are some writings that suggest she was supposed to stay there, but he was allowed to take her away maybe because of his status or whatever. But she tries to get away from him. And when she gets there, then then there’s this this thing about no one ever says it’s not right to do this to her. It’s not right to do this to the Levi, which you brought out, miss Yana. He he’s not the one going out being subjected to gang rape. But somehow what happens to her is impacting his influence, his image, and his status with little or no regard to her human, her self agency. I think the fact that after all the abuse, we assume she suffered all night long, whether that’s ages, eons, decades, or whatever. She tries to make it back. She tries to get in out of the street. That is the most touching part to me on on top of the abuse that she has in my mind. She is in. She is crawled, scarred, beaten, broken, and she’s trying to get back. And somewhere in my mind, he’s getting ready to leave. You know? She’s not in the house. It doesn’t look like he’s going out to look for her. It’s like as he goes, she’s in she’s on the doorstep as a reminder that I’m the one you threw away. I picture, and I don’t know if it was in some translation I read a long time ago or what, but the image in my mind is that she’s there, reaching for the door, for the doorknob, that she’s stretched out. And there’s this play on words in this text between house and home. She leaves this house trying to get home. She is brought back to a house that’s not a home. He takes her and says, we won’t habitat here for the night. We’re gonna go there. Somebody says, come into my home. She’s put out of the home into the street, so she’s homeless. She tries to get back, and it’s looking for a place to land, a place to settle, a place of recognition, not even honor, not even privilege, but just a place. This is the ultimate of displaced physically. And I I see this happening on levels that we don’t call abuse, but women in ministry that can’t find an opening, can’t find a footing, women that have been divorced, that are somehow ostracized or stigmatized, women that are professional and not married and stigmatized for not being married. Any anyway, you have too many children. You don’t have enough children. You have too much education. You didn’t get any. It’s like, where where is that place where our efforts because she she’s trying to make it. The woman’s done what she can to to do so. So that’s enough, for me, but, aren’t break it break it out for us. No. These are great. These are great. Lay it down. These are great.
Host: These are great observations. I love that. When I think about,
Panelist: how the Levite and the, guy whose house they were staying at pushed her out, it makes me think of Noah. And when the, the angels came, and they tried to get, get the the two angels to come outside so they could basically gang rape them, that Noah is like, no. Take my daughters. And it seems that there is there is this, idea in the old testament that it’s okay to to rape a woman, but there’s a gross evil to rape a man. And so, the ways in which they kind of put one one, sin over, the other is, you know, what we deal with in our culture, where people sees this, this particular sin as greater than the other, and they’ll sacrifice other things, for that. I remember, Roland Martin talked about Ken Starr. Ken Starr was the prosecutor, in Bill Clinton’s trial for, when he was impeached. And he was really hard on, you know, Bill Clinton being immoral. Ken Starr also was big a big, proponent of, traditional marriage. However, when he went to Baylor, some years later, he covered up the fact that some football players were raping women were raping some of the women, the students. And, Roland Martin called out his hypocrisy because he’s like, you didn’t stand up and have the same energy, when when these young girls were being sexually assaulted by football players. You covered that up, but you had such a public proclamation, for these other things. And so we see that same inconsistency in the text, and I think we see that in just American culture in general. And I think that’s something that we have to wrestle with when we come to this text and when we go to the passage around Noah as well.
Host: Yeah. And, man, you saying that, Lisa, it just it it brings this thought to mind that, you know, that is a distorted understanding of humanity that is that is rooted in distorted understanding of, you know, you know, the doctrine of of model day, you know, that male and female are created in the image of god and that there has there has been this hierarchy. We keep coming back to this word. This hierarchy, that we create, that around people. Right? And because we create this hierarchy around people, it puts people in in danger. You know? Puts them at risk for oppression and puts them at risk to be gang raped. And this is so contra, like, how God intended the world to be. Like, this is not what he intended. Like, in the beginning, heaven and earth, male and female, created in the image of God, like, honor, respect, harmony, man and female standing before one another, unashamed, you know, like, and and so all of this, like, literally is rooted in the curse of of sin, the curse of of the fall. And I think when I come to text like this, it just it it helps me to understand what God meant when he said, you know, if you eat from the fruit of this tree, like, that, you will surely die, you know? And I even think about how the name of the tree is a tree of of of good and evil, right? God didn’t want us to eat from that tree because he didn’t want us to know what evilness was, you know, like like, but but because because Adam and Eve ate from that tree, now we know like the depths of evilness, you know, and we we experienced that in this text, we experienced this with George Floyd, like we experienced this with Brianna Taylor, We experienced this with people at the border. There are still people at the border. You know, there’s still Children in camps separated from their their families. Like it’s just it’s pervasive. And and it’s and it all comes back to us having a distorted view of humanity, a distorted view of what it means, to be human and creating these unnecessary hierarchies that that god never intended us to to live by. And so I don’t know. I just got real emotional and mad.
Panelist: Just got so mad. You we do feel like picking up a brick. Right? But Yeah. Or throwing some care kerosene or gasoline somewhere like that. But but we keep pointing to that hope that in this woman, after all she had undergone, there was still something in her trying to reach out and still trying to still trying to travel, still trying to make some movement, trying to make some progress. And we’ve seen that in our foreparents, our grandparents, our their grandparents. They made they it was inch by inch or foot by foot, but they they moved. They they had progress. They pressed their way, and there’s that that pressing. Who is it that calls, black women in particular the mule of the world? I have to think whose writing that was. And at first, that feels very adverse, but there is that, I’m a bear this burden and get somewhere with it. I’m I know what was done. Maybe I wasn’t born in the best circumstances, didn’t live in the but I’m but I’m I’m I’m a find a place. I’m a keep pressing. The the other thing that grieves me in this text, there’s so much that grieves me, is, the hierarchies exist, and there’s an imposed hierarchy on the women. There is this virgin woman as opposed to this other woman who’s out in the street. And, none of the not none of them have voice. But this one woman has had protection to this point. She’s been in the house to this point. She’s not been exposed. If she was deluded or had illusions that that protection would endure, that she’d stay there and always be safety, she saw how fragile and how thin the membrane was between her being in the house in any moment. She could be out of the house. And it reminds those, among us who may believe our pretenses of education or or economic status or whatever dimension that there’s a thin membrane. And while one moment, we think we’re in the house, it’s not our house. And at any moment, we may be the one that’s out of the house. So it keeps us from, settling back. I I feel comfortable using my old fashioned terms because we’ve said that part of this is to highlight the, you you I say intergenerational, you say multigenerational dialogue, but the old phrase of resting on our laurels. I haven’t figured out what laurels are yet unless it’s unless I have the big laurels. But, it challenges us not to find comfort and to think that we of all, like Esther, have found a place to stay because we can easily be called. When the sister’s out in the street getting gang rape, I’m out. Alright? So when she’s out there, I’m out there. And there there is a a a connection as demented and sick as it is in the mind of the men between the women. You know? You’re expendable and you’re expendable. But I I pray that we take a hint from that and recognize that there ought to be more than a connection, among the sisterhood, not one that’s rallying against maleness, but one that is proagency for women, the support women, in health care, single mothers, frail women, older women, abandoned women, even women who are seemingly successful. They have the support. I won’t go into one of my stories, but, I might later on. But so let’s let’s keep bringing the hope up to the surface because she is not entirely passive, and we must not assume passivity, on her part. Mhmm.
Host: Yeah. Lisa, I wanna I wanna, ask you a question because I know that we’ve talked about this, is that, you know, sometimes when people are reading the bible and they encounter a text like this, they they they throw the baby out with the bathwater. Right? Like, they, come to a place where, they, question, God, question, you know, his existence, question, like, how could he allow something like this to happen? How how do you respond, to folks like that? Because I know that you interacted with that question, quite a bit.
Panelist: Yeah. I think, one of the things is to for people when they think of this scripture, especially the old testament, is to think through what’s prescriptive and descriptive. And this is not God saying this is what my way is. It’s just this is what happens when people have their own way. And a part of being human is having free will, and the consequence of free will is is evil human actions. Mhmm. And so I think that’s one of the ways to think through it. But I think also doctor Joe Vitale talks about this, the fact that god doesn’t forget about what happens to the woman, that it was so important that people see, like, I’m not gonna cover this up. God is like, this is gonna be a part of the canon so people will know even if we don’t know the concubine’s name, we know the injustice that happened to her. Mhmm. And that is that should be encouraging to to people that god sees, even the most horrendous evils that happens to us, and he’s not trying to cover it up. Mhmm. But it’s that exposure in which we could be healed, to know that these are things that happen to us in the common experience. It doesn’t mean God, is is, commissioning them. It doesn’t mean that he desires them, but this is a part of the human experience. And the Bible is such a relatable book. We can find our human struggles in it that we don’t look at the Bible and see a fairy tale. And if we looked at the Bible and saw a fairy tale, as Joe Vitale says, we wouldn’t be able we wouldn’t we wouldn’t we wouldn’t be able to relate to it because none of our lives are a fairy tale. And we need to have a a book and a a scripture to guide us that looks at the complexities of life, the ugliness of life, and then points us to that hope that comes, and that we could be encouraged and that we could be comforted. And and with that comfort, we could, like Paul says, comfort others. So that’s a
Host: a little bit of my compliment. I love that. I love that. And you’re bringing us back to that hope, you know, of, god sees the concubine. He doesn’t forget the concubine. He sees her and makes makes sure that that her her story, the injustice that happened against her is recorded in his book. And so I love that. It reminds me of the story of Hagar, you know, where, she she proclaims God to be the God who sings. And so, you know, if if if trauma sexual trauma abuse is is a part of any of our listeners’ story, I pray that they would know, like, that that god god didn’t look away, you know, but that he he he sees them and that he remembers them and that justice will shine like the noonday sun. You know? It will. That’s that’s the word. And, we may not know when the noonday sun is coming, but it will but it will come. It will come. And so, we are you got something to say? Yeah. Go ahead, doctor Cynthia. Always.
Panelist: And and not only will god not look away, but we will not look away. Amen. There’s, this this severing limb to limb, this dismemberment, this fragmentation of the body. I don’t know. For fun, do either of you have vocal abilities? No. I don’t. Okay. Go ahead. Well, then I everybody knows I don’t. So in your mind, remember, whether it may have been in some Baptist congregations or maybe some holiness sets, but where they would sing that remember me. Do you can you hear that moan in your in that re you know, just I don’t wanna try to do it because that would just tear up the podcast. But but but it’s a long dragged out. You remember that? And so I’ve heard the analogy, and and I’ve used it in pulpits. It was coming back to me as you were both talking. That that’s not just we god won’t look away and we won’t look away. We will cognitively remember. But our prayer is that as each that each member of the body be remembered, that we will be put back together. In other words, the lost arm be brought back to the body. The lost kneecap be remembered. Something that is, the opposite. The antithesis of dismemberment would be rememberment. I know there’s no such word, but I think you get the concept. Amen. And so the prayer that comes out of this is a prayer to be remembered. Mhmm. Whether it’s the the, African diaspora, what whether whatever the dimension is, remember us. Whether it is, my ancestors’ wisdom and knowledge and fortitude that I’ve lost, remember me. Re remember. Put all the pieces that go into who I am, the divine investments, the historical investments, the gender investments, all the pieces that go into who I am, put it back together. Remember me, lest I be fragmented and pieces of me be scattered. And this one lays claim to my mind, and this one lays claims to my this, and this one lays claim to that aspect. But I am a creation of god, whole and entire and unified, and that sense I’m sitting up taller in my chair. That sense of coming together, of of being prime and primary and predominant on the in the heart and the mind of god. So the prayer, I think, is one of remember me.
Host: Mhmm. Amen. Amen. Amen. I’ll never sing that song the same again. Thank you for that. That was great. You do sing. You could’ve sang that for us. Well, you know, I just I decided to keep that as a one second because I knew what was coming. It was something. You were gonna have me out here.
Panelist: Yeah.
Host: Yeah. Man, Lisa, thank you so much, for being with us today. It really means a lot to have you on, the podcast. You know me. You know how hard you know how I feel about you. You’re a real one. You I know you don’t like this, but you are the the p ditty of of of kingdom work. Visionary, and I’m just so thankful to the Lord. Not not only just for the partnership that we’ve been able to share, in the gospel, but really for the friendship, you know, that that you call and check on me and, make sure I’m doing well, and that you spurred me on. You know? And so thank you so much, just for being with us today and, just for being obedient to what the Lord has called you, to do.
Panelist: Thank you. Thank you for having me. It’s been a joy.
Host: Yeah. Yeah. Doctor Cindy, do you have any closing words for us?
Panelist: I do, and I wanna say that it’s been a privilege to sit with both of you. I may not have the a familiar exchange that the two of you have an ongoing basis. Let me say about, miss Yana that I found her to be astute, to be, things that I don’t that we assume are there, but I wanna underscore her articulateness. But most of all, her searching, in terms of her mind searching of the text and her openness, to sit with me and to include me in her generational voice. I wanted to underscore what many know who follow, this project, the Jude three project, and that is miss Lisa Fields, is not only a promoter and a producer, but she has created a platform. Many of us speak, but she has created a platform for others, which goes beyond the normal expectation. And it’s and when one does that, one takes both the kudos and the applause, but also the hits and the knocks that are not always visible because we don’t see her scars if she has any. But I know that in this, competitive world, it means that inviting comment means one invites positive and criticism. And I’ve seen her handle that with tremendous grace and still keep going. It means that, and and to my amazement and no doubt probably the amazement of others, she’s been able to garner different voices of different opinions and bring them to her table, and it’s nice to see a woman with the table, and and not always agree when they leave. And some possibly feeling like they didn’t have the seat they should have had at the table, but it is her table, and God gave it to her. And so I’m delighted, to be, among those who are in the folds of your skirts. And, I applaud you for being a woman of God, a woman who, is inebriated with scripture, and a woman who has arms big enough to embrace multiple generations. Thank you. Thank you so much, doctor James. I appreciate it.
Host: Yeah. Oh, that was great. That was so great. And, doctor Cynthia James, I have loved getting to know you. It has been such a treat.
Panelist: Let’s make it the beginning.
Host: Yeah. It’s been such a treat. I know, I just, you know, have admired you from afar, and it’s always so sweet and beautiful when you can get up close to people and to see that they’re really made of the stuff that you thought they were made of. And so, thank you for just being, a woman of humility and grace and of truth and sass and fun. Yeah. I really wish people could see some of the the the off camera stuff that that we no. No. No. No. No. We won’t. Thank you. But it’s That’s enough. Thank you. Joy.
Panelist: Thank you for listening to Humble Hermeneutic, a Jude three Project podcast with doctor Cynthia James and Yana Connor. Remember to rate and subscribe on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts, and also remember that you could become a monthly partner or a one time giver of the Jude three Project at jude3project.org. Every gift helps equip and helps us produce more content like this. In addition, if you would like like to get merch, take an online course, or get our curriculum, you could do so at jude3project.org. Remember, here at the Jude three Project, we’re helping you to know what you believe and why you believe it. God bless.