Know Your Mothers

03/29/2022

https://religionnews.com/2022/03/28/christians-cara-quinn-wants-you-to-know-your-mothers/

(RNS) — Her curiosity about the women of the Bible and early Christian history led Quinn to launch a series of icons, then an app and — coming Easter Sunday — a church.

11/29/2021

Advent Day 2️⃣

✨Amma Syncletica: Teaching on the skill of discernment

Syncletica was one of four children. Her two brothers died young and her sister who she supported, was born blind.

After the death of their parents, Syncletica and her sister sold their possessions and gave away their significant wealth to the poor. Which she saw as a distraction from connecting to God.

Although she was somewhat privileged as an upper class Christian from Alexandria, she was well acquainted with grief and loss.

Known for her beauty, and likely stressed by society's expectations of her, she cut her hair as a mark of her dedication to a spiritual way of life. For women at this time this was an outward expression of the rejection of beauty standards, gender roles, and the expectations from society, especially for the wealthy.

Syncletica and her sister found shelter in the family’s tomb outside Alexandria and they took a vow of monasticism, officially beginning their lives as ascetics.

Amma Syncletica taught the importance of growing in self-awareness for spiritual and emotional maturity.

She would say that we must know our passions and desires. That by knowing ourselves we can have ownership over our emotions and cultivate the ability to redirect our hearts toward God.

To Amma Syncletica, this work was the journey of the “inner life”.

The “Inner life” directs the health of the heart and the soul.

Amma Syncletica knew that it was important to avoid a crowded and busy life that would burden one with too many choices and distractions.

The skill of discernment involves the development of the capacity to choose well and reject excess.

🙏Prayer:
We thank you Jesus, that in this advent season we can be reminded that simple is good. Thank you for Amma Syncletica’s words that excess and cultural distractions have always existed. Shield us from the burdens that can come at this time of year, and remind those of us in times of sorrow and grief that we are not alone. Encourage us today to see the beauty in discernment and in simplicity. Show us how to apply this in our lives today. Amen.

[Pic: quote reading: “We must direct our souls with discernment” - Amma Syncletica]

11/29/2021

✨Hello and happy first Sunday of Advent!

I have been totally MIA lately, however, I have been super busy behind the scenes.

My short update:
In August of 2021 I began a full time job as the executive pastor of a church in Santa Monica, CA called Pacific City Church. I’ve really needed to focus on this job transition for both me and for our family of 6 to get us all adjusted to a new city, home and schools.

I also have been busy working on new content for Know Your Mothers to kick off this Advent season!

For the month of Advent, I’ll be posting reflections (most days) on four impactful and fascinating Christian Women who lived during the 4th century who were desert ascetics.

They all belong to a group of women who have come to be known as the “desert mothers”.

The desert mothers teach us a lot about how to seek inner peace and stay rooted in our identities in God’s presence.

They teach us a lot about how to stay in step with God and community even in times of chaos.

I couldn’t think of a better time to introduce you all to their wisdom than right now in this advent season.

Meet Amma Syncletica.

The mother of mindfulness.

I’ll be posting on her wisdom and insights about the Christian life over the next week.

Amma Syncletica was a desert mother from Alexandria, Egypt. She was born into a wealthy family. We know of Syncletica from recordings about her life from the early church that have survived to this day. Her words are recorded in the “Sayings of the Desert Fathers”, but also her story survives through a work entitled “The Life and Regimen of the Blessed and Holy Teacher Syncletica” written in the 5th century.

We have 28 sayings that are attributed to her.

Her desire was to live a life in silence and in prayer, wholly dedicated to spiritual things.

However, word of her wisdom and leadership traveled and spiritual seekers, men, women, bishops and pilgrims sought her out for guidance.

The Lord began calling Syncletica to teach.

Surprised and somewhat reluctant, she agreed to become a spiritual mentor, and trained seekers in the disciplines of the “inner life”.

Stay tuned this week for more to come about her story, teachings and sayings!

04/19/2021

🐚 Lydia: Businesswoman & Church Leader 🐚

📖We are first introduced to Lydia in Acts 16: 11-15.

We quickly learn she was a business woman, a merchant of cloth dyed with tyrian purple, a pigment that is created by boiling marine snails that create a dark reddish-purple hue. Lydia’s clients would have been the wealthy elite of the area, the only ones who would have been able to afford this expensive textile for their clothing and upholstery.

When Paul and his companions first arrived in Philippi, he sought out the city’s synagogue as he always did, however there was no formal synagogue so instead he went to a “proseuchēs”, a place of prayer usually placed next to a body of water for ritual washings. It is here he met Lydia.

Lydia was a foreign women originally from the town of Thyatira, she was not a Jew, but a “God-worshiper"--someone who worshiped with the Jewish community but had not fully converted.

Lydia was open to the Gospel and the Holy Spirit filled her. She generously offered to host Paul and his companions, where they stayed for some time.

Lydia was a disciple under Paul, learning what she could to carry out his ministry of teaching and preaching after he and his companions moved on.

Lydia was unmarried and financially independent, solely responsible for her own household. She was wealthy enough to have the resources to host Paul and his companions in her home, alongside the household she managed.

Lydia would have had a wide socio-economic reach of clients and business partners providing diversity for her evangelization efforts. She was likely well known both among her elite clients as well as the purple dyers she did business with with.

This week we will learn more about how this intelligent and independent business woman used her generosity and ingenuity, thanks to Paul’s discipleship and the gifts of the Spirit, to become the leader and planter of the church in Philippi.

Download the app to follow the entire study this week!

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/know-your-mothers/id1541510036

04/19/2021

✨Tabitha/Dorcas✨

📖 Acts 9:36-43

Tabitha as she is known in Aramaic, Dorcas in Greek, was a woman whose story has a lot to teach us about leadership, generosity and impact. She was a deeply loved and central figure to her community in the Mediterranean city of Joppa.

Tabitha was an artist and well known for her skills of making and giving away her beautiful clothing to the poor and the widows. No matter their social status, Tabitha sought out relationships and gave her time and skills to those in need. She saw the value in the marginalized and honored individuals by providing not just basic necessities, but beautiful works of art that reminded them of their value in the eyes of God.

Her story is one of servant leadership and is a beautiful picture of how the early church thrived by caring for one another.

When Tabitha died, her friends sent for Peter to come quickly. He happened to be only about 9 miles away in Lydda. He came to attend her funeral, as she had been washed and placed in an upper room where her many friends weeped over her. When Peter arrived, he raised her from the dead.

Tabitha was a woman who had been a significant support and “rock” for her community in the way Peter was also called the “rock” by Jesus.

Peter prayed and took Tabitha’s hand as he saw Jesus do when he raised Jarius’ daughter in Mark 5:41, and said: “Tabitha, get up!”.

The faith of both Peter and Tabitha led them into ministries that strengthened the church for its mission in the world.

Have you heard of Tabitha before? What have you been taught about her?

Why do you think Tabitha was raised from the dead?

Download the app to learn more about Tabitha/Dorcas and follow along as we uncover more of her story and significance in the early church:

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/know-your-mothers/id1541510036

04/06/2021

✨Salome✨

This season of Easter, (which is 50 days long in the western church calendar), we are celebrating women who have shaped and led the early church, from Jesus’ disciples that were at the resurrection, through the desert mothers, to the medieval church leaders. By summer we will be studying some of the more modern female saints that helped form the church in the past two centuries.

📲 Access these studies anytime in the Know Your Mothers Daily app (link below).

Today we are remembering Salome, one of Jesus’ disciples who was alongside Mary Magdalene at the resurrection.

Salome is only mentioned in the Gospel of Mark, however in extra canonical works and early Christian literature, Salome is named extensively.

Salome was the second most common name of women in Jewish Palestine alongside Mary.

Both names together made up nearly half the names of all the women at the time.

The early church believed Salome was one of the many people Jesus visited and spoke to after the resurrection and we have various early writings that record their discussions.

Salome was a church planter. She is mentioned as a “tower builder” in Psalm 16 of the Gospel of Thomas. This is thought to be in reference to her apostolic nature as a church builder and planter.

The Gospel of Thomas is an extra canonical gospel written between 60 and 140 AD. It was discovered in 1945 near Nag Hammadi, Egypt. Although we don’t consider the Gospel of Thomas canonical scripture, we can appreciate that at least two thirds of it is in line with the other gospels in the Bible and the historical mention of Salome is validation of her prominence.

“Salome built a tower upon the rock of truth and mercy. The builders that built it are righteous, the masons that hew stones for it are the angels... That they go into it rejoice, that they come out of it, —their heart seeks after gladness. She built it and gave it a roof, Salome gave a par**et to the tower.”
- Psalms of Thomas, 16.

Download the app here: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/know-your-mothers/id1541510036

04/06/2021

In this season of Easter we are going to celebrate women who have shaped and led the early church, from Jesus’ disciples through the desert mothers to medieval church leaders. By summer we will be studying some of the more modern female saints that helped form the church in the past two centuries.

Today we begin by remembering Mary Magdalene and her significance as one of the earliest leaders of Christianity and a woman of the resurrection.

Mary was the first Christian. She was the first to believe in the resurrected Jesus and the first to teach about it.

It is believed by the Orthodox tradition that she traveled to Ephesus and worked as an evangelist alongside John. At a dinner with the emperor Tiberius Caesar, Mary was teaching on Jesus’ resurrection and Caesar mocked her, saying no sooner would the egg in her hand turn red than could Jesus have risen from the grave. Legend has it that the egg immediately turned red in her hand and this is how the tradition of dying easter eggs began.

The Gospel of Mary surfaced in 1896, a papyrus text that gives us a glimpse into early Christianity and the role of Mary Magdalene as a disciple.

In the Gospel of Mary, Jesus teaches after the resurrection on the nature of sin and life and the need to find the child of true humanity within. Jesus commissions the disciples to go and spread the Gospel. However, unlike in Matthew when the disciples go out joyfully, in the Gospel of Mary they are divided. Mary steps in as the leader and teaches them, sharing a vision she had. She is challenged by Andrew and Peter and Levi comes to her defense. There is clear division over a woman understanding things that some of the men did not.

Although not canonical scripture, the Gospel of Mary is a legitimate historical source written in the earliest stages of church communities when letters such as Paul’s were also being recorded and circulating. It gives us a glimpse into the legitimacy of women’s leadership among the first Christian communities.

Poem by Elizabeth Staszak

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📲 Download the iPhone app to get the wallpapers and follow along to learn about these women!

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/know-your-mothers/id1541510036

04/04/2021

He is Risen!

Thank you Jesus that you have changed everything, for all of us, forever!

Today we celebrate Jesus’ victory over death and remember what it means that we have been raised to a new life with him.

The story of Jesus’ resurrection has profound implications for women today that we must take time to remember.

Women were the first to the tomb and the first to proclaim Jesus’ resurrection to the rest of the disciples. They were also the only witnesses to the tomb where Jesus’ body had been laid two days before so they were the only ones able to validate that Jesus’ tomb was empty. Additionally, in two of the Gospels, women were the first to meet the resurrected Jesus.

Since women’s testimonies were considered skeptical and women were regarded as unreliable in court, it is noteworthy that the Gospel writers were compelled to keep women at the center of the news of the resurrection.

Theologian Richard Bauckman argues that because of the negative view of women at the time in Jewish Palestine, the recorded Easter events involving women are a significant confirmation that shows the legitimacy of women as disciples and leaders.*

For the next few days we are going to take time to celebrate the women of the resurrection and recognize the beautiful impact these women had after the resurrection and in the earliest days of the church as some of the very first apostles and movement leaders.

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*Reference: Richard Bauckham, 2002. Gospel Women : Studies of the Named Women in the Gospels. Grand Rapids, Mich.: W.B. Eerdmans, (p. 257).

03/31/2021

✨ This week, the last week of Lent & the western church’s Holy Week, we are wrapping up our study about Jesus’ heart for women who experienced abuse in the Old Testament with the story of Susanna and the Elders.

The narrative of Susanna and the Elders is included at the end of the book of Daniel in the Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox church. It is considered an apocryphal book in Protestant Christianity.

To not know the stories of women in the Apocrypha is to miss out on a rich tradition of some of the bravest and most faithful women in Christian history.

Susanna is a model of faithfulness and courage.

Her story also introduces the faithful Daniel (pre-lions den).

Susanna was a woman who was forced to make a life or death decision when she was trapped by two elders who desired to have s*x with her.

She courageously stood against them by screaming out, ignoring their threat to accuse her of adultery if she didn’t comply.

She was put on trial and accused of s*xual immorality, and just when it looked like God’s silence had condemned her to death, the Holy Spirit prompts the young Daniel to speak up on her behalf and prove the guilt of the elders, saving her life.

THIS WEEK:

We will be looking at how Susanna’s story is unfortunately a very familiar one too many women today when men of influence are believed over women without power.

We will reflect on some of these questions:


How do we choose who we believe in situations of abuse?

Whose needs do we prioritize?


Who is sought after for discernment and wisdom when there is conflict?

Who is going to speak up?

📲 You can access these studies anytime in the Know Your Mothers Daily app: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/know-your-mothers/id1541510036

03/31/2021

Bathsheba is the 5th in a series of 6 women we are covering during Lent that suffered from abuse, mistreatment and malignment in the Old Testament.

Although the Bible never blames Bathsheba for David’s sin, the church throughout history has found ways to blame her anyway.

While David has been upheld as a glorified figure of faithful manhood who made mistakes, Bathsheba has been labeled as a seductress, and as a woman who manipulated her situation to become queen.

She has been blamed as bathing within David's sight, intentionally seeking him out for an affair, and working the system. There is no support for this judgement in the Bible.

It is important we realize how Bathsheba’s story has been altered in some Christian traditions because women today often suffer as scapegoats for men’s s*xual desires in similar ways.

By not calling out and discussing this sin of David’s misuse of power directly, and honoring his story while ignoring Bathsheba’s, we allow room for continued silencing of women who have been manipulated, coerced and even r***d by powerful men.

How can we tell Bathshseba’s story better to support women who fear not being believed or are afraid of the consequences of reporting abuse?

How can we hold men in power more accountable?

03/24/2021

🌟Bathsheba: Victim not Vixen🌟

This week we are taking a look at the story of Bathsheba and correcting some misunderstandings.

Commentators over the course of history have often overlooked details about Batheshaba’s experience and as a result assumptions have been made and blame has been placed on Bathsheba unjustly.

Scholar Sara Bowler, in the Book “Vindicating the Vixens: Revisiting Sexualized, Vilified, and Marginalized Women of the Bible”, has highlighted the most common incorrect assumptions the church has historically made about Bathsheba.

This has profound implications for how we see her. We will look more closely at these assumptions this week:

ASSUMPTION 1️⃣: Bathsheba bathed on a rooftop:
REALITY: It was most likely an enclosed courtyard

ASSUMPTION 2️⃣: Bathsheba was bathing naked
REALITY: The Hebrew word for “bathe” does not suggest nakedness. She could have been washing any part of her body.

ASSUMPTION 3️⃣: Bathsheba’s indecency made King David stumble
REALITY: David was a vo**ur

ASSUMPTION 4️⃣: Bathsheba went to the palace willingly
REALITY: The text says David sent his messengers and they “took” her

ASSUMPTION 5️⃣: Bathsheba had an affair with David
REALITY: David r***d Bathsheba

How we interpret scripture directly impacts how we view current events today.

Our language and our ability to discern is important. For example, it has significant impact if we call a s*xual abuse case a “r**e” or an “affair” when it involves an underaged woman. When a woman has been s*x trafficked, it has significant implications to our response to her needs if she is called a “s*x worker”, (which implies choice), over “slave”, which is more accurate.

Correcting misunderstandings in Bathsheba’s story will help us to take one step closer in our awareness of how we see victims today and how we can hold perpetrators accountable.

📲 Download the app to follow along this week!
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/know-your-mothers/id1541510036

03/18/2021

As I’ve been praying and reflecting this week… I’ve caught myself feeling like I owe everyone an apology for how hard this daily study is this week.

But then I remember why this story is here about the Levite’s concubine.

And I remember that it is Lent, and this is a time where God is reminding us to push into the discomfort that comes with these stories.

God is not afraid to offend us. God wants us paying attention.

We are being challenged to see what is going on in the world around us. This story is a reminder that violence continues, murder against women continues, hate crimes continue and we must address it.

God is not looking away from the murder of 8 Asians (6 women), killed yesterday in hate crimes in Georgia. God does not look away from the murders of women like Sarah Everard in London just two weeks ago, attacked on her way home.

Femicides have skyrocketed globally since the beginning of the pandemic. In some counties in the US, numbers are showing that male murder of wives and girlfriends has nearly doubled in the last year.

Jesus did not turn from difficult situations. He confronted them. Just like Jesus didn’t reject those terrorized, traumatized and abused, we mustn’t either.

We are asked to embrace the pain of the world as Jesus did, and become Holy-Spirit-empowered-liberators of injustice.

We must call out dehumanization, challenge abusive language, hold people accountable for abusive ideas and challenge biases that lead to violence.

But first we must be willing to look. We must learn. We must pay attention. We must lament. We must find solidarity with those who suffer from s*xual abuse, violence, r**e and assault. And we must act when God opens a door for us to act. The first step is always to just pay attention.

Judges 19-21 Jumps off the pages and points us toward addressing violence against women our world today.

How are we going to respond?