Lisa Fields: Hello. Welcome to the Jude three Project podcast. I’m your host, Lisa Fields. I’m the founder of the Jude three Project. Well, thank you for watching another episode of the G three Project podcast. As always, I’m your host, Lisa Fields, the founder of the G three Project. And today, I’m joined by another special guest,
Dr. Amy Peeler: doctor Amy Peeler. Welcome, doctor Peeler. Oh, thank you so much for having me, Lisa. I’ve been looking forward to this conversation.
Lisa Fields: Yes. I was, listening to your book on the way here. I like to listen to audiobooks on two x speed. So I was hearing you go super
Dr. Amy Peeler: super fast through through the chapters. That’s amazing. I do I do the same thing. I I just don’t have the patience for normal speed. Yeah.
Lisa Fields: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So tell our audience a little bit about yourself.
Dr. Amy Peeler: Yeah. So I, have several different jobs, which I love. I am a professor. I am at Wheaton College. I teach undergrads and grad students. So I have a whole spectrum all the way from freshman to PhD. I’ve been here this is my fourteenth school year, and the students are so committed to their faith. They’re very bright. It is a wonderful place to work, and I have great colleagues. And I also have the great, gift of serving in the church. So I’ve been ordained for about ten years, and I’m the associate rector of a local parish in the area. And I’ve been there for the same amount of time. I came to the church at the same time I came to Wheaton, so fourteen years. Lots of, different experiences, but it is a joy to be in ministry. And then I’m a mom and a wife, and I have a wonderful family. I have three kids. One is senior in high school, a daughter. So we’re very much in the college decision, and then boys who are freshmen in sixth grade. My husband also serves at our church. He’s the organist and choir director. And then I get a chance to write and travel and speak. So these are kind of the four parts of my life, and I love all of them. And by God’s grace, they can work together. So that’s a beautiful thing.
Lisa Fields: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We’re gonna talk about, your book on the gender of God. I think I’m getting the title wrong. It Wunder and the Gender Gender of God. And, really, this came up because, there’s been a there was, some online comments about God being a woman and, kinda filtering through, like, what do we mean when we’re we’re gendering God. And so, it’s already commended you as a a good, reference point because of your book. And so I’m excited to have you on the podcast. And I was reading I was listening to your book, like I said, on the way here. And what really struck me, was you talking about, like, how, other religions and talk about talk about gods, coming upon, like, having sexual relationships with with women to produce, these other godlike, creations. And so what was really connecting for me this week, I did an interfaith dialogue. And so the week this week, I’ve been this week and last week, I’ve been immersed in other religions. So Islam, Buddhism, and, something, Islam Buddhism, Judaism, and the Catholic faith. And so I’ve been immersed because those were the other panelists on the on the interfaith panel. So I was just trying to make sure I was getting a refresher of every faith. And I was thinking I was listening, to a lecture on Buddhism and one of the, the, the traditions, of how Buddha came to be was like a divine horse coming to the side of a woman. And it made me think of of what you were saying when I was listening to your book. I hope that makes sense. I feel like I was rambling a little bit. But it just reminded me of how many, like, kind of divine conception stories there are in in pagan religion and how you set the Christian story apart from those as I was reading your book listening to your book. So explain all that for the people because I’m I’m saying it as if they have listened to your book or read your book. Explain what I’m trying to communicate in a in a better way.
Dr. Amy Peeler: Well, maybe an entry point there is just reflecting on God’s providence for the stories that we have of the life of Jesus. So if you think about the four gospels, if we focused on Mark and John, we have no beginning, no birth story of Jesus. Right? Mark is kind of begins with John the Baptist, the ministry of Jesus. John, of course, starts with all of creation and this beautiful, the word was made flesh, but then also moves to John the Baptist. So maybe a punchy way of saying this is if we only had Mark and John, we might not have the celebration of Christmas. Right? We wouldn’t have the shepherds and the angels and the wise men. And so that tells us that the evangelists, Matthew and Luke, made a decision. They, I believe, knew this story. Mary is part of the early Christian community. I think she begins to tell this story, you know, as the ministry of Jesus unfolds, maybe even after the cross and resurrection. And Matthew and Luke decided this was a story worth including. What I wanna emphasize is that that decision is quite bold because in the ancient world, especially among the Greek and Roman pantheon, Zeus and Hera and Apollos, all these gods maybe that we might have studied in school or we read Percy Jackson or whatever, we know there there’s there’s several stories of gods forcing themselves upon women. And so you have a meeting between God and a young woman, and you have a pregnancy that sometimes she’s deceived or, you know, forced, as I said. These are well known. And so when Matthew and Luke, and in particular Luke, because Luke is more immersed in the Gentile context in the religion of of Greece and Rome, I have to imagine that Luke knew. If I tell this story of Mary, who’s a very young woman who’s approached by a messenger of God, an angelic being, invited to have a child, that people are going to think of these stories of the other gods. I’m opening up a can of worms here. Right? If you don’t tell this story, nobody asks any questions. And actually, we knew we know that in the second generation of Christianity, some critics of Christianity were like, oh, virginal conception. Really? That can’t happen. And they were, casting, you know, critiques and aspersion and kind of saying, oh, that can’t be true. Something else probably bad happened. So for Luke and Matthew to tell this story is risky, but I think they decided to do so because not only does it reveal who Jesus is, that he truly is the son of God, It reveals Mary’s faith that she heard this invitation and accepted it. But it also reveals who God is. That, yes, God invited a young woman to be pregnant so that salvation could happen, so that the son of God could come. But the character of God, the real God, the only God, is such that that was not forced or compelled or demanded. Mary was given agency to decide, and and it was also not a sexualized event. We don’t understand the mystery of it, but somehow she is, conceives Jesus, but she’s not, hurt in that event. There’s no there’s no sexual activity. And I recognize I’m speaking with very delicate language here. Right? Some listeners might be, what in the world? Why are we even talking about this? But as I’ve talked to non Christians, this comes up pretty often. I remember one gentleman saying, wait. The story of your faith is that God impregnated a 14 year old? Right? For us to kind of get the radical nature of what we’re confessing is really important. And that our scriptures give us a good answer that no, God is not like those gods. God respected her. God invited her. She wanted to accept this. And then the mystery of her conception was not sexualized. That’s good news. Maybe we don’t need to talk about it, you know, on a Sunday morning with the five year olds present, but it gives us an answer to those who might wanna critique or question Christianity.
Lisa Fields: Yeah. I love that the not sexualized part, because like you said, Mary is a young woman, and also to sexualize it would strip her of her virginity. So it is it is it is it to hold for the story to hold up, it can’t be a sexualized conception. And so it it it’s it’s interesting too because it made me think of the the story of the Nephilim, like, depending depending on how we read it, like the,
Dr. Amy Peeler: what is it the sons of man came? The sons of God I mean they’re called sons of God which is a term for angels yeah. Yeah sons of God came
Lisa Fields: on had sex with women and had these Nephilim giants, however you want to describe. And so it is a very interesting way to frame it if we’re I think inherently we think God is a man, Mary is a woman, impregnation, and we’re not thinking the implications of what we’re saying. So as I was reading I was thinking about the fact or listening I was thinking about the fact that if we sexualize it, we forget, like, God formed Adam out of the dust of the ground. There was no, X or Y chromosome meeting together to form him. Same with Eve. He formed her from a rib, not an x y chromosome. But when we think of the, incarnation of Jesus, because of how we see male and female, God being man I mean, Mary being woman, we have kind of subconsciously sexualized it without even thinking about it.
Dr. Amy Peeler: No. That is so wise. And that’s a great comparison that, Adam and Eve are fully human, yet they don’t become human through the normal process. Right? That’s creation. And so too with Jesus, although there is a distinction, and I love that actually some of the earliest Christians write about this, That with Jesus, you’re precisely right. It is not, you know, God’s DNA and Mary’s DNA. And yet the church was very persistent in believing that it is Mary’s DNA. And yet the holy spirit cultivates, overshadows her, draws from her body, flesh, DNA, blood to make Jesus. Four, if Jesus and some of them discuss, well, is Jesus kind of like Adam? Did he did God just kind of create the body of Jesus out of nothing and then kind of implant it in Mary? And the early theologian said absolutely not. For if Jesus was this freshly created human, then he really couldn’t redeem us. He would have no connection to humanity, which should become under the power of sin and death. He had to have a connection to us as humans, and that connection by God’s decision was Mary. But God is not a man that is entering into this account. And that’s the other important piece. Like, all of Christian theology has affirmed, we call God father, but that’s a relational term. That’s because God has invited us into the family and God provides for us, but that does not mean that God is male. God is God. God is creator, not a creature. And so I knew that was true in Christian theology, and I thought, what if we turn to the annunciation scene, the incarnation, which is a pregnancy. Like, what what more sexualized event is there? And how does God reveal the divine nature to be not male in this very event? And that was amazing to discover the ways that God continues to make clear, God is creator, not creation. God is not male even in this event of a pregnancy.
Lisa Fields: Yeah. So essentially, you’re arguing, God is not male or female. God is spirit.
Dr. Amy Peeler: That’s right. And Jesus says it, right, to the Samaritan woman. Right? That’s just gonna like a one verse. God is spirit and is looking for those to worship him in spirit and truth. But notice even my language there. Right? I’ve said him. And this is the trick with English and other gendered languages. We have to use pronouns when we talk of persons, and God is a person. Right? A divine person. And so I think all of the father and Lord and he and him language automatically. This is not like we’re dumb or we’re being willful. We just automatically imagine God as male. And so Christian theology, really, and Jewish theology as well, from the very beginning, we’ve had to be quite careful that even though God has allowed us to speak of him personally, we have to be careful that we don’t bring God down and imagine God is just like us. For God is infinitely different than us as creator and so as spirit non embodied. That’s what makes the incarnation so exciting. God never had a body before this moment, and the son working out the divine will of father, son, and holy spirit chose to take on a body, but that had never happened before. God is not embodied, and therefore, God can’t be sexed or gendered.
Lisa Fields: Mhmm. Yeah. I love that framing because it’s saying it’s like you’re not saying that is anything wrong with using him. Right. But you are saying don’t let the use of the word him
Dr. Amy Peeler: make you diminish who God is. Yes. Oh, that’s beautifully said. Yeah. And I respect, you know, there are Christians who, for God the father, choose not to use masculine pronouns or try to control their language that’s they don’t. I try not to overuse it, but I also don’t wanna lose the personal dimension of God. So there’s a variety of ways to do that faithfully, and you just have to kinda struggle. I mean, we’re humans trying to talk about God. That’s hard. And so it’s okay if it’s difficult at times to feel if we’re wondering if we’re getting it right. But I have continued to use masculine pronouns for God sparingly. And as my book as I talk about in the book, using father for God is really important to me because when I hear God is father, I know who’s God’s son? Jesus. How did he come into the world? Through Mary. The whole story is incorporated in that term father. So I use that with joy, not embarrassment.
Lisa Fields: Mhmm. What I also wanna touch in because these are things that maybe the everyday Christians don’t wrestle with, but we deal with a lot of college students, right, and college students. I remember hearing things like this in undergrad because I took religion at a secular university. I didn’t take it as a so my my undergrad is in, communications and religious studies, but in religious studies from a secular, not a Christian college background. So I’ve been hearing stuff like this since I was in college. Undergrad philosophy, religion and philosophy, it’s a whole different vantage point. So if we wanna prepare the next generation well to be be able to wrestle with these ideas, we need to present them and even know them so we won’t dismiss them because they’re actually grappling with this. Particularly one of the points you hit on is I think people don’t think about this because being immersed in Christian culture sometimes we lose, the the way in which we talk about it is strange. Like so I remember Will Smith saying on, Extra. He was doing an interview on Extra, like, an entertainment show. And he was his critique on Christians was I guess he was exploring Scientology. And Christians were saying, that’s weird. And he was like, but you don’t realize that you’re saying you want me to accept the religion of somebody being born of a virgin? That’s not weird. And again, I’m not advocating for anybody to go into Scientology or explore that. What I’m saying is sometimes we lose the we we’re disconnected because it’s our faith what we’re asking people to accept. Like, the disconnect that is like, oh, that’s weird. That’s, like, you know, that’s different. And so one of the parts that I really wanna pull lean into because I think this is an argument that people make, particularly in secular religious spaces, is the argument you brought up is if we’re saying that God impregnated Mary and we don’t, take the sexual part out of it, we’re we’re we’re kind of alluding to some people make the argument that is God committing sexual violence towards Mary who is underage what what we would deem, they had different ages that back then. But is he robbing the innocence of a young woman is a point you brought out in which is something that, professors will bring out in in a in a a religion course, you know, in a secular institution. So you have to grapple with that and be able to give a response to that. But if you’ve never thought about it and you think, oh, this is a ridiculous claim, you won’t understand where this is coming from. The like you said, the other religions in that day had similar stories to that. So I’ll let you
Dr. Amy Peeler: No. I think that’s so wise. And I really feel like there are two benefits of thinking about this seriously. One, as you’re mentioning, people who don’t grow up in Christianity or who maybe are predisposed to be antagonistic toward it, they’re asking this question. And I too I grew up in the church. I went to Christian school. Like, I’ve lived a very sheltered life, and so it was just shocking to me when I started reading that, oh my goodness. Why would you think that? But it’s fairly common. And so if we as believers really think through, we look at our scriptures, we ask hard questions, and I believe they stand up to the hard questions, then we will have an answer. We’ll be able to say to that friend or colleague who asks, yeah, that’s not a crazy question. I hear you. Here’s how I’ve thought about it. The other benefit is that I think we are reacquainted with the power of our own story. Again, where I grew up so used to Christmas. I love Christmas, baby Jesus, Mary, it all becomes quite, like, cute. But to remember, like, God didn’t have to save us. God didn’t have to become one of us, but chose to go through the process of being vulnerable and being born, and God chose to do that with a woman. I I wanna come back to something you said a moment ago because I think it’s really important and I hopefully it’s beneficial in this conversation. You know, it’s important to think about Jewish ideas of birth as well because, of course, Christian authors are attentive to the Greco Roman world and they’re writing within the Jewish world as well. But Jews were firmly committed to the idea that every child, yes, was the combination of a mother and a father, but God was present in that birth because who opens the womb? Right? Pregnancies are dangerous. Who gives the blessing of that child coming all the way to birth? God. So they saw God involved in every pregnancy in that kind of providential, directive, providing way. So Mary’s conception for a Jewish believer is different only in the sense that God is still present and you still have a mom, but God has just decided in this instance that not to have a dad. And so it’s not like God replaces the father. God is always present and just chooses in this instance to remove the father. So that might help us as well have a framework with which we don’t kind of automatically assume that God is playing the role that Joseph didn’t play in this story.
Lisa Fields: Mhmm. It also to me can be, a remarkably, healing to people who have a absent parent, that God comes, overshadows, Mary with his spirit. And on earth, while Jesus has Joseph to act in that role on earth, there’s still a role present of the lack of a actually earthly father in which you come. And so I can see that being healing that, like, the father in heaven is there even when you don’t have the one that blood, runs through your veins. Right? That Jesus has divine blood because I if I’m right, the blood comes from the father.
Dr. Amy Peeler: Well, it’s it’s a mix. I mean, that’s a such a great observation. Well, first, I wanna say how beautiful it is that and that’s why I don’t wanna lose father language for god. Right? Because if we have family situations that are either absent or broken or difficult, god can be the kind of father that maybe we didn’t have, and that’s that’s beautiful. And that was true. He was Jesus’s father in a way that Joseph never could be. But oh, you’re asking such a fun question. You know, there was a variety of understandings of conception in the ancient world. A dominant one, maybe the most prominent one, is that, the woman contributed, like, the material stuff, but the man was really the one that, like, made the child come alive. Like, that was where the energy and the soul and that’s what mattered. There was a minority group in the ancient world who kind of knew, like, you look at a kid, kind of looks like the mom, kind of looks like the dad. They they could figure out that each parent contributed something. And that’s what we know to be true now. Right? The DNA is equally from the mother and the father. So they’re biologically we realize what they only were guessing at, that there is a complete equal contribution. And so this is the mystery of the incarnation, and there’s some fun theologians who have done kind of like science and theology, what might have been going on here. We can’t, at the end of the day, fully know. But all that we do know is that Jesus’ humanity is Mary’s, so he would have looked like her. His body and blood and flesh comes from her, and yet she couldn’t have provided everything. Right? She only has half of those chromosomes. So somehow the Holy Spirit, cultivated her body such that it could do beyond what was possible. So she’s Jesus is all her, and he he is a full human male because the Holy Spirit has miraculously allowed it. So maybe going back to Adam and Eve, that’s a miracle. You take dust, you take the side of Adam, you get two humans. There’s a miracle here as well. You take Mary’s DNA, and then you get Jesus, and the Holy Spirit has done that work.
Lisa Fields: Yeah. Yeah. I I in my newest book, I have this, I have this I’m I’m thinking through what it means to be human. And so much of time we it’s called When Heroes Fall, but I think we talk about humanity in a very negative light, and which, really one of the things that, like, had me thinking about this when I took systematic theology in seminary, We had to read Christian theology. I’m sure you remember Miller Eckerson’s book. And in that he has a quote, from Leon Morris who talks about, like, the divinity I mean, the humanity of Jesus. And if we make humanity because when when we say somebody fail, we say it’s because they’re human. And he’s challenging that concept because he’s saying that Jesus was human. So if we tie failure to humanity, we don’t actually understand who Jesus is. Jesus was what humanity we’re fallen humans. That’s when we can say if we’re saying fallen humans, we can tie humanity we can use that. But if we use humanity synonymous with brokenness or sinfulness, we misunderstand humanity.
Dr. Amy Peeler: Exactly. Yes. No. Jesus is the human that God intended all of us to be, that we will be when we’re resurrected. Right? We will be perfect as he always has been. And in that way, I so, I mean, that’s true in Christianity, and that’s beautiful. And that really does help us, like, not to kind of beat ourselves up, but to remember, we bear the image of god. Right? Like, yeah. We fail, but there is an, it’s impossible to fully diminish or corrupt or remove the fact that we bear God’s image. The fact that the son of God became a human and we will be like him as we mature and as we are resurrected. But I the thinking about the virginal conception has made it really interesting for me because Jesus is this perfect human. He is the our picture, and he is male. Right? And so sometimes there are questions for us as women, like, well, the savior is male. Can I really identify with him? Like, how does he understand my life? For me, reflecting on this point that we’ve just discussed, the virginal conception, is really powerful because, yes, I know Jesus is my savior. He represents me. I’m spiritually connected to him. But even his body, intriguingly, is connected to women’s bodies because Mary alone provided his body, blood, flesh, DNA. There is an incorporation of femaleness in his very body. And so that has helped me see my, incorporation, my proximity to Christ in a really deep and powerful way that I didn’t imagine, I didn’t think about before I started studying the life of Mary. Because Christianity is not just about, like, our souls and our spirits. It’s about our bodies. Right? God created our bodies. We’re gonna be resurrected in bodies. And so that Jesus’s body is male, but that he gets that body from a woman alone. There is a beautiful affirmation of both men and women in the very body of Jesus. And that has power for our for our relationship with him for our spiritual life.
Lisa Fields: Yeah. I love that. I think it’s it’s so powerful. I love the way the Jesus affirms women, like, in in that what you communicated also his his, how God comes through a woman. Affirmation, I love when Jesus appears to the women first, and they take the gospel to, the mid the good news that Jesus has risen. It’s like a a reversing, I always say. Eve took the the fruit to the man. Mary and the other women took the good news to the men. So it’s almost like a divine flip. So you can’t say women are responsible for this in a negative way when they share the gospel. Yeah. So I think God is always throughout the throughout scripture kind of flipping the narrative. Like you’re not gonna see women as less than. Exactly. It consistently.
Dr. Amy Peeler: And it’s really right there at the beginning. Right? God creates men and women to bear the image of God, to steward creation. I think God’s design has always been that we work together. And when the serpent came and tempted Eve, and when the curses fell upon creation and the consequences fell upon Adam and Eve, that male female relationship got broken. And it’s always been broken. And because, men’s bodies tend to be stronger and men have more social power, women have suffered. But in God’s kingdom, this is not how it should be. God always wants both men and women to be valued, to work together. And I believe that’s how it will be in the eschaton, in the kingdom. So we as Christians, why don’t we practice this now? This is good news. And I think our secular world, the kind of tensions and questions and confusions about gender and men and women and who are we, my goodness, Christians have an answer for this. And it’s a good answer. And if we can proclaim that and live that, I think that’s very attractive to the Christian story.
Lisa Fields: Yeah. It’s very compelling. I I I, going back to what you said earlier when it comes to like the image of God, right? When we think of the image of God sometimes we think male only because of Jesus. I was, I’m, diving into Michael Hyrester’s work on The Unseen Realm. I don’t know if you’re familiar with Doctor. Hyrester. I’ve heard of it, but I’ve not read it myself. Okay. I should move it up in my list. He was thinking about, what does it mean to be in God’s image? And so there’s so many definitions of that that I think bear fleshing out for our audience. When you think of being made in God’s image, what do you think? Because he has this interesting thing of the sons of God. So you were talking about that when we talk about the Nephilim, the sons of God, he says, are the image of God in heaven and that the, humans are the image of God on earth. So he has a fascinating thing about the sons of God not being human, not being angels, but this other creation. Right? So that’s that’s fascinating. I’m still trying to wrap my mind around the that. But he’s he’s saying that we’re God’s to be made in in the image is to be God’s representative. It’s not like a a mirror. Does that make sense? Because people, when you see if I say in the image of God, I see mirror, then I see Jesus, I see man. And then he says the characteristics of us of Satan in God’s image, some of the characteristics we’re saying are not, like, explicitly human. So so
Dr. Amy Peeler: in your definition, how would you define being man and god’s savior? Oh, I love that question. And you know, right, like the literature on this is vast and lots of faithful, very thoughtful people have had different expressions. But doing this work has confirmed for me this idea in Christian theology that Jesus is the ultimate image of God. So I’m I’m gonna I’m gonna get to an answer that’s fulsome, but I’m gonna start there. You know, there are several times in the New Testament that that said of Jesus, and that means two different things. That means that, yes, when we look at Jesus, we see what is true about God. Now that doesn’t mean I like your mirror. We’re like, we’re not talking mirror. That doesn’t mean that God as God, God the father, God the spirit, have eyes and hair and arms and right? That’s it’s not that. But as Jesus acts in the world, the way that he saves us, that’s truly who God is. That is a trustworthy representation of God. But it’s also the case that Jesus truly reflects humanity. And so I think if I when I was younger and you asked me what’s the image of God, I would have immediately gone to Genesis one, one twenty six and twenty seven. You know, Adam and Eve, male and female, made in the image of God. And that’s like the bedrock for Jewish and Christian ethics. Right? We treat all humans with value because we’re made in the image of God. I think my work thinking more about Jesus, about his birth, has shifted that to say, actually, even when God created Adam and Eve, God knew, and this is talked about in places like Ephesians. God knew that Jesus would become incarnate, that he would become human and be the perfect human and the image. So it’s not that when Jesus comes, he’s like Adam and Eve. It’s the converse. When God creates Adam and Eve, God already knows that Jesus is going to come. And here’s a really fun thing. Think about the male female dynamic. Right? I’ve already spoken to in this mysterious, interesting, but true way, Jesus is male and yet gets his body, his humanity from Mary alone. So there’s some kind of inclusion of female flesh in his body. Right? Mystery. And and some people have wondered, am I saying, like, Jesus is intersex. No. No. That’s not what I’m saying. Jesus is male. There’s no questions about that. And yet, he gets his body from Mary alone by God’s choice. Right? It’s not Joseph and Mary. It’s only Mary. Think about Adam. Right? Adam is created. He’s male. Right? Genesis two is very clear about that. But then God and it’s actually, the Hebrew there is not rib. That’s that’s a little too small. It’s selam. It’s it means side. It’s almost like God cleaved Adam in half. And so took half of Adam and used that flesh to create Eve. And so within Adam, the male, there was the material that God used to create a female. So also with Adam, there’s this kind of he’s male but has the mysterious inclusion of female flesh within him. So it’s almost forms of chiasm. Right? So Adam is first, and from his flesh, Eve is created. Mary and then from her flesh, Jesus. So you’ve got male, female, female, male. That’s the story of creation and new creation. So I think when God creates Adam and Eve and says, they as male and female bear the image of God. The reason why God says that is that God already knows God is going to become incarnate in the person of the sun via virginal conception, a male from female flesh alone. And so in order to preview that reality of the savior, you have creation happen in this way. A male being somehow with female flesh that’s been differentiated. It’s a coherent and beautiful story. And I think this is right because Paul himself reflects on these dynamics of creation and new creation several times in the New Testament. Fascinatingly, in the places where he’s talking about how men and women should relate with each other in the church. Places like first Corinthians eleven and first Timothy two. And many of the early theologians saw these parallels as well, Adam Christ, Eve Mary. This is a very beautiful story, and God was telling us from the beginning, here’s what’s going to happen.
Lisa Fields: Yeah. So in that, it still seems like you’re kinda communicating a little what Heizer is getting at. Our our our identity as image bearers has to do with our our mission not so much the actual image,
Dr. Amy Peeler: right? Oh yes, that’s beautifully said.
Lisa Fields: Yes. Yeah. So it’s not like I look like God. No, exactly. Exactly. That’s I think that’s where the when we say image because of our twenty first century mind, we’re solely thinking about mirror picture. I look like God in my decisions. I look like God in my choices. I look like God in how I treat people. And He has chosen to make humans the people to mirror how He acts or how He shows mercy or how He shows up. That to me helps when we’re thinking about Jesus being the exact image of God and helps to strip the gender from the language in a sense. So we’re not saying we can’t use him. What I’m saying is we’re it makes us remember that God is Spirit and we are not. So if I’m looking at a mirror and I’m saying God is Spirit, if I’m thinking God is a a mirror to me, I might be thinking he looks like me. Yes. It’s the reminder that God is Spirit is is what I’m trying to communicate. That’s exactly right. Yes.
Dr. Amy Peeler: No. That is correct. How we live. How God has said steward creation, like, care for it. He God rules all the universe and then has allowed humans to rule the earth, and we should do it, well and benevolently. And and that’s what, we failed at. But in the redeemed creation, by the power of the spirit, we can do. It is how we live. That’s exactly right. And yet, I I don’t want to ignore the commitment to embodiment in Christianity and therefore these interesting dynamics in the body of Jesus and Adam and Eve, are not in disagreement with how we act in the world, but another piece that we can consider. But Yeah. You’re right. God is not a big human. Just God is not. God is spirit and is creator distinct from us, and yet graciously has chosen to be involved with us when that’s not necessary, but it is an act of grace.
Lisa Fields: Yeah. That’s that’s so good, because he could have sent angels to be his representatives on earth. He could have and Hebrews delineates between, like, angels and him and all of that thing all of those. And so he could have sent, you know, the seraphims or cherubims to be his representatives, but he chose us. So that she gives us the value. He didn’t choose animals. And so I think that’s a way we can that helps because I think people are getting lost in language. No, totally. Yeah. Yeah. So kinda to bridge that language so they could keep kind of a coherent story, is I think helpful. So I thank you for helping us do that. Is there anything you wanna share about this that we have not already discussed?
Dr. Amy Peeler: Well, if if someone is intrigued by this conversation and they pick up the book, audio or print, the other thing they’re gonna find in the book is a lot of discussion of Mary, and I think that was the great joy in writing this. I mean, there’s there’s kind of three chapters that are like this really hard theology stuff. How do we talk about God? How do we talk about gender? That’s intense. But then there’s these other sections that are, let’s look at the bible. Let’s look at the life of Mary. Like, I had never really thought about her. And when I started studying her, she’s amazing. She’s thoughtful. She’s strong. She’s, you know, empower she, like, shapes Jesus. So the stories throughout the gospels that we get of her, and then to act, she’s at Pentecost, are just unending in the blessings that they might unfold. So that would be my other encouragement that in this whole conversation, like, if you’ve ever felt, you know, does God really preference men over women? I believe that Mary is the absolute best example. Not only does God use her body by her free choice. Right? She says yes to this, but it’s the whole of herself, her emotions, her mind, her will, her voice. All of those she gets to give for the sake of the kingdom. It’s her whole self. And if God so honored her, and she’s, you know, at the very center of our Christian story as Jesus’s mother, then I think that’s the best example for how God wants to use all women. And so we have nothing to be afraid of in Christianity or to feel, like you said, we’re not second, we’re not less than. And her story is a beautiful way of seeing that.
Lisa Fields: Yeah. Something as you were communicating that just hit me. Throughout scripture, going back to, like, how people have sexualized the conception, There’s throughout scripture God comes upon people for a variety of things and when you said, she was at Pentecost it made me think about the fact that the Spirit of the Lord came up. So she has like these two spaces where the Spirit of the Lord comes upon her. The Spirit of the Lord comes upon her at Pentecost and in that case she doesn’t give birth to another person, she speaks in unknown tongues, right? And she’s able to communicate. I think about like I have this in my book, the spirit of the Lord comes on Saul when he’s chasing David. And it’s a really interesting thing because he’s already rejected by God. And the spirit of the Lord comes on him to save David. And so there’s a number of times in the Bible where the Spirit of the Lord comes upon people and we don’t sexualize those encounters. But in this we’ve it’s it’s like the spirit of the Lord comes upon Saul actually changes his nature because he’s already rejected. He’s already living in rebellion. He’s on his way to murder somebody, and he begins to prophesy. Usually, that doesn’t happen because the onlookers are like, is Saul a prophet? And it’s like no he’s not a prophet but in that moment God changes who He is for the salvation of others. In this moment God changes Mary’s capability so she can actually help with the salvation of humanity. So I think we don’t realize that God comes upon people for the salvation of people and we don’t sexualize those experiences. So that just made me think about that as you talked about Mary being at Pentecost because I knew Mary was at Pentecost but I’d never thought about it in this way until you said that. Yeah. No, that’s a great, great observation.
Dr. Amy Peeler: Excellent. Yeah.
Lisa Fields: How can people get your book?
Dr. Amy Peeler: Yeah. So, it’s published by Eerdmans, so you could go there, but it’s really available anywhere, Amazon or bookstores. If it’s not in your bookstore, you could ask to order it. I love supporting local businesses, but Erdman’s is a major publisher. They’re really fast. And then the audiobook is available, and I got to read it. So if you wanna get to know me as an author, you can hear the ten hours that it took me to narrate the book. And I like that because they’re I mean, this really I’ve described this book as, like, my heart on the page. This is my life’s work. It took me eleven years to work on, and so I’m very passionate about women knowing they’re valued by God, and that’s good for our brothers. This is not just about women, for when when we’re healthy, then our brothers flourish as well. So it’s good news for men too. So anywhere where good books are sold, you can find women in the gender of God. Yeah. And you have other books too. I do. So I spend a lot of my time in the book of Hebrews that you’ve already mentioned, Angels and Jesus. So I have a commentary that came out just a few years ago on that. I think that’s a powerful book. And then I just, I, with Esau, have New Testament in color that we’ve edited, which is a variety of ethnic perspectives on the New Testament. And then I just had a book come out on ordinary time. I’m, both Esau and I are part of the Anglican communion and the church calendar and different seasons, and I wrote the book on this kind of long season in the summer that we call ordinary time. Where does God show up on the normal days? That’s the question of the book. And it’s little, and it doesn’t have many footnotes, so it’s easy to read. So that just came out, in January.
Lisa Fields: Awesome. You you mentioned Hebrews. I didn’t realize you had a commentary on Hebrews. I, like, have a, like, a piece of a chapter dedicated to Hebrews in my book, Heroes Fall, and it’s Hebrews 13. I think it’s, like, the third verse. I may be getting it wrong. But he says how we essentially care for the people that have been harmed and we care for the people who are doing the harming. So he talks about the prisoners, how we treat those who are in prison to care for them. So we don’t necessarily, when we think of visiting prisoners, we don’t remember they’re guilty people. Like, they’re guilty people and some people will argue as I was reading the commentaries, they’re talking about people that are unfairly prison because of their faith. But I was like, if you look back at the gospels, Jesus is not limiting to people who are visiting, caring for those who are in prison, to people who are just there because they’re sharing their faith. He’s talking about people. So it’s like it gives you to me the perfect way to hand to live in this tension of caring for fallen leaders to, like, care for the victims and the villains so that God wants us to look that doesn’t mean he’s not advocating for getting people out of prison that need to be there to spend their time. So it’s still, like, holding you accountable, but still having mercy to care for you while you’re in the process of being held accountable and getting you to a reconciliation and restoration place. But it’s also caring for those who have been harmed as if it happened to you, holding it as if you feel it in your own body. Oh, amazing.
Dr. Amy Peeler: I want to read that. That sounds awesome.
Lisa Fields: So when you mentioned Hebrews, it made me think of that because it’s to me as I was like the book was hard for me to write, but to me Hebrews was the perfect tension of how we are to care for who’s doing the harming and for those who’ve been harmed. And the gospel lives in detention of holding people accountable but still hoping for their redemption and helping administering to the to the hurting, so they can experience the healing
Dr. Amy Peeler: that God offers. That’s right. Oh, that’s powerful. Yeah. The gospel knows no limits. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. How how, how can people get in contact with you on social? Yeah. So, I’m on, most of the socials, Instagram, Facebook, threads, blue sky. So Amy Peeler, I’m pretty easy to find. I’ve got a website, amypeeler.com. So I, have had the great privilege of traveling and speaking, and I love that. I did I was, like, in acting when I was a kid, so, man, put put me in front of a crowd. I’m having lots of fun. And mostly, I just love the bible. Love telling new people about it. So that’s a good place to see upcoming events or if you’re interested in bringing me, yeah. Or I’m at Wheaton, Amy Peeler at Wheaton. I’m easy to find. And if you, like, wanna come study at Wheaton College, we’ve got amazing stuff all the way from undergrad, masters to PhD. So come spend a few years with myself and Esau. We’re having lots of fun. So
Lisa Fields: Thank you so much, Amy, for coming. It’s been a rich conversation. I’ve really enjoyed this. Remember to get Amy’s book, all of her books. I’m gonna get your commentary in Hebrews now. I’m very fascinated now. Also, my new book is coming out, When When Heroes Fall. We talked a little bit about, that, when we’re talking about Hebrews, Saul, all the things, and humanity. All of that, those nuggets are in the book. It comes out 06/16/2026, but it’s available for preorder now. So get that wherever books are sold. Remember, you can catch all our past episodes at ju3project.org or your YouTube channel wherever you stream your favorite podcast. We cannot do what we do without generous support from people like you, so consider being a monthly partner or a one time giver at jew3project.org. You can either mail in your gift, which the address is on the website, or, you can, give it virtually. Here at the Jew three Project, we’re helping you to know what you believe and why you believe it. Until next time, grace and peace and God bless.