Rachel Jankovic: You Who? Being a biblical woman, wife, and mother on the Dead Men Walking Podcast

There it is. You always have to wait for that extra little riff at the end. Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of dead men walking podcast. This is a fun episode because I have someone in studio who has never been in studio before, actually two people, but one in studio with me, one on the line, uh, my lovely and beautiful wife, Samantha, how are you?

Good. So she's, she's going to sit in for Jason Hamlin today. He's out, uh, had some work stuff to do, and we have a very special guest and we wanted Samantha to sit in, uh, to get her perspective or maybe not.

Maybe she'll just sit here. We don't know. We'll see. This is her debut on the podcast. I love it. I, um, drug her in here against night. She's doing it willingly and with a gracious heart. So, um, but we're going to get right into it.

Introduction to Rachel Jankovic and the Book You Who

So we don't have any newsy news, uh, this episode, but we do have a very special guest. Um, and I'm going to let her introduce herself. I'm excited to have her on. It is Rachel Jenkiewicz. Rachel, how are you?

I am doing well. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. Hey, can you tell, before we get into what we want to talk about, can you tell everyone a little bit about yourself? Maybe just give us a one or two minute bio and tell us what's going on with you.

Well, that's probably the hardest question. Uh, I have been married to my husband, Luke for 18 years. We have seven children, uh, one going into college one in first grade. Uh, and I have written a number of books.

I'm an accidental author. I wrote a few books that I was asked to write on mothering, uh, early on because we had five kids very, pretty quickly. And so my first book, uh, loving the little years was a book that I wrote that I never meant to write, that I was asked to write about the chaos of those early years with a bunch of little kids together.

Uh, and later I wrote another book fit to burst. And then the book you have on the table there, you, who is about Christian identity. Yeah. And we're going to talk about you, who here very shortly. I do a podcast with my sister, Becca called what have you.

Uh, and otherwise I really am a full-time mother and wife. This is what I do. And I write sometimes and I podcast sometimes, but mostly I'm at home working on stuff at home. So very busy. It sounds like, yes.

Well, track meets and everything that being a full-time mom means all the things we go to. Well, that's one of the reasons why I wanted Samantha here too. So I'm not speaking out of turn because she's also a full-time homeschooling mother, uh, and, um, lovely wife, obviously, but I wanted your perspective if you wanted to jump in because I'm very excited to have you here, Rachel, because first of all, um, you're so biblical, which we absolutely love on this podcast.

First and foremost, I know Samantha has, uh, watched some of your content, listened to it. I think you've read some of it and we're just very appreciative for, uh, what you stand for. Um, you know, we, we are, uh, not to get into theology right off the top, but we've noticed that we get some pushback when we tell people we're complementarian and that we believe in biblical roles and things like that.

And to have a female voice like yours that talks so plainly about it. And honestly, uh, probably one of my favorite parts is you're kind of snarky, which is right up my alley. Uh, I love, I love someone that can put a little snark on a good point.

Uh, we're excited to have you on, but I want to jump right into it with this book because, um, I was looking at over and it's such, first of all, it's a great title. You who nice little kind of play on words there.

You matter deal with it. And I love that this is deal with it. Sam knows me. I love the deal with it. Tough. You got to get through it. And, uh, the title is awesome. But what I noticed, um, before we get into the subject, I wanted to kind of ask you, why did you write this book?

What, what was the overview in your head when putting this together? I mentioned right at the beginning, I, my first writing was for young mothers. And if you were interested in finding the world's neediest group that you could write to, it is Christian mothers of young children.

That is an incredibly needy group of people. That was, uh, it was a little bit of a struggle for me at the beginning is that, you know, all of the messages people would send you of their problems and their troubles in there, whatever.

Mostly I just didn't engage with them because I was like, I, I actually have to be faithful in my own life, not wading into everybody else's problems. Uh, but one thing, so I wrote my senior thesis in college on the philosophical problem of the self.

And because I had already spent time thinking about that philosophy. And then later coming around to write about practical, I would say applied Christian mothering. Like, what does it mean? You have a principle, how do you actually apply what you believe God says about mothering?

So in all the feedback and questions that I would get from mothers, a lot of the time, I just kept noticing the problem here is not your two year old. The problem is that you don't know what it means to be you and to be a Christian and to be a person.

Uh, this is actually a problem of the self, not a problem with this trial in your life. Uh, it's very common. So you, who is not just to mothers, but it's very common in, um, Christian mothering circles.

Like people saying, I don't even know who I am anymore. I lost myself in this. I, you know, I don't recognize myself and that is all a philosophical problem. And it's not actually, um, it's not actually a problem with your schedule, with your kids, with your home.

It's a problem with what you believe you are. Uh, and if you don't know how to process that, then you'll just be in a bad, I mean, it is a bad drifting place to be for a Christian. Yeah. You know, I was really impressed with it too.

When I started reading through it, um, you know, when I'm in a bookstore or maybe in a, in a section, uh, you know, Christian reading or something else, I might flip through some books geared towards mothers or women.

And honestly, sometimes they're just so fluffy and they almost seem condescending. Like they're, they're, they're writing to the lowest common denominator. Uh, and then, you know, we, we go through some of Samantha's books that she likes and I go, man, these are weighty, heavy books, uh, including yours.

And when I went through the first couple of chapters, I go, Oh my gosh, she's given me a philosophy lesson. And you just get right into it. You're like laying that foundation of like the history of self and philosophy and all these things.

And I was so appreciative of that because it's not the lowest common denominator. It's like, let's get into it. Let's really discuss the issue. And I see that in the first few chapters. So you do that very well, but you have a, you have a term in there where you said, uh, the, the role of women and even mothers and their identity in Christ have been muddled in the current culture.

Well, and you discuss it a little bit in the book, but can you talk to that? Why do you think that is? Why do you think we have a issue with what true motherhood and womanhood is in this culture? Well, I would say that if you are, if your identity is some kind of curated thing that you think I, well, for my own example, it'd be, if you want to think, Oh, I am a high energy person that loves to be around other people.

And I, um, you know, I had, when we, my husband and I had a shop when we first were married, we opened a floral shop, food, all this stuff. And I had two kids quickly and then twins. So we had four young kids.

We need to close the shop. Yeah. Who I was and what I was doing was totally different than who I would have ever thought I was and what I was doing. Right. So just the basic descriptors of yourself, like the way that you would describe what you like to do, what you are about.

Um, now in that, if you listen to the world, if you have a problem like that, and you're like, tell me, what should I do? Everyone's going to try to give you counsel about how to get back to your truth self, somehow that you need, you need to get back to that old version of you, uh, for the Christian, we just have a way.

I mean, the Christian faith answers the problem of the self in an unbelievably elegant way. There's all these philosophical questions that for unbelievers, they don't even know what, what is the actual self?

And you think, well, well, you're a Christian, you have a soul, like you're made in the image of God. I mean, it's really a very simple, like, yeah, you're not self-created in that we, we are, uh, the more that we just honor God and reflect, like the more that we do what we're supposed to do, the more we become what we were made to be.

So obedience and changes in your life and things happening does in no way detract from who you really are. It is you following Christ through those things, uh, is obviously you aren't the point of it, but you are much more you through that obedience.

And I think it's muddled because nobody believes that, right? Nobody on the street believes, oh, your husband is handicapped. This is, this will be better for you, you know, like, or, oh, this happened to you.

Uh, that's because you're becoming more what you were meant to be. Yeah, no, that's good. I know Samantha and I have talked about this quite often too. And this goes for men and women. I feel that we just allow the culture to, to sway us in who we're supposed to be in our identity, instead of letting the Bible be the mirror that reflects our identity.

Uh, I know Samantha, we, we talk about, you know, things like personality tests and Enneagram and yoga and all these weird things to try to find self and find, and we do it in the name of relaxation or, you know, uh, finding out more about myself.

And yet we just kind of put the Bible aside and say, ah, that's, that's secondary. Let's kind of do, what's that? That could never help. No, no. But I feel like that's, that's the trend. Did you, did you have something you were looking like you wanted to say?

Yeah, it's just, um, you know, it's so simple if we just look to scripture, yeah. All of these other resources that distract us and try to pull us in these other way, this other direction, and it actually just robs us of who we really are.

Yeah, absolutely. So if you look at the world, they're not coming up with any solutions because it's a huge industry and no one's ever at peace. Like it's always, it's always a journey. There is actually no just at peace.

Right. Yeah. So this is kind of along the same lines, but, um, you know, I've seen this even within the church, both men and women. So we're not going to pick on just women today, but we do have someone on the line with us that, uh, is a woman and does, uh, minister to women and knows how to speak their language and very biblical about it.

Uh, but even within the church, I see the men abdicating their role in the women, their created role, and just going, we can do what culture does, or we kind of can do whatever we want to do. And Samantha and I get really frustrated with that because we find such beauty in the created order, like the being, you know, help me to each other.

Uh, and, and sometimes we've talked about it on the podcast. I feel like sometimes you go, geez, I don't know if I want to be the head of the household. I have to stand before God because I'm going to be judged for how I managed my, my household and my children and, and my wife, and I'm supposed to lay down my life for her.

That's a heck of a calling. And, but in the today's culture, even within Christianity, we feel like, well, that's archaic or that's, you know, that's the pastor that's not right. We, we need to reverse roles or switch roles or try to do a little bit of both.

Biblical Roles, Complementarianism, and Reading the Bible

How, have you noticed that as well within church communities? And I would say mainstream evangelicalism and how do we overcome that? What do you do when you come across a woman who might, or a man who have, have advocated those created order roles?

Okay. So, uh, this is going to seem like a sidetrack. One of the things that I'm very involved in is the Bible reading challenge. This is something that we have been doing for the last maybe five years fish, uh, which is just a real effort to get people to read the Bible oftentimes for the first time.

So in the summer we do just the new Testament and, and then in the school year we do the entire Bible. So it's the new Testament twice, the whole, you know, uh, the whole Bible once. So, or the old Testament, once the new Testament twice.

So as we have pushed to do this, and a big part of this is us trying to get professing believers, people who have been in the church forever, people who are listening to churchy things and reading churchy books and, uh, professing believers who just actually don't know what the Bible even says.

So it's not like they're choosing to be unbiblical all the time. So there are teachers who are choosing to be unbiblical. And then there are untaught sheep who don't know because they're not reading the word and because they're not reading the word, they don't actually even know the places that they're compromising.

And this is a huge one. Relationships would be a huge one. Uh, we have a huge Facebook group of women who are reading the Bible. And every time it just is such a funny blessing to me, we get to some passage, you know, about, uh, marriage, whatever Ephesians five, someone will post in that group.

Like, wow, this seems to be saying, I'm supposed to submit to my husband. Like what do you guys think? Should I do it? I mean, it's like a very funny, very funny, like, and actually this is a good point for a number of reasons.

There's over 30 ,000 women in this group. And we have zero restrictions on you coming into the group. Like, well, we do not, we try to not let robots in, but you know what I mean? If you want to read the word, you are welcome to be in this group.

And there have been multiple open threads about submission. When we read some passage like that without anyone going haywire, like it actually is a really bizarre thing to see that women who are prioritizing reading the word actually have sensible things to say.

And like, you can actually see the Holy spirit in their responses when they say, you know what, this is exactly how I felt. God has blessed my obedience so much, you know, and like trust him and do in a ton of wonderful counsel, just because they're women who actually know that this is God's word and they're not.

Um, and that's a, that is just a wonderful thing. So I would say I'm always wanting to push away from the arguments. Like we don't need to argue about this. You need to see Jesus in his word. You need to read the word.

Um, some other, some of my favorite comments also usually is someone will say like, I've never read the Bible. They've been a Christian for 15 years and they've never read the Bible. And they will say things like, wow, Jesus is seeming really rude here or something.

And you realize that they, they didn't know Jesus as he has revealed himself. Like they didn't know that. And so it's, as far as my interest in compliment, I'm not, I wouldn't even say I'm complimentary.

And I would say I'm patriarchal. I would just say, I don't even care about the bad rap that that word has. I'm like, you know, God, the father is the center of the universe. And I am fine with that. More than fine.

I'm thankful for it. So, uh, I would say my emphasis is not going to ever be on arguing role relationships, but on saying, you call yourself a Christian. Let's read the Bible, like read it because God, the spirit is in the word.

And when people read it, they are convicted, not by me or not by what I said, but by him. And that's so much more effective. It's just, and plus I can, I can do a lot of dumb things to try to get people to read the Bible, but you can't do dumb tricks to try to change their mind, you know?

Right? No, that's so true. I would say the first thing is we've had a lot of people who work in ministry on the podcast, and that seems to be the running theme that we have a lot of people who sit in pews and seats every Sunday for very long time.

And they don't know much about who God is or much about the Bible outside of just maybe those five or six kind of doctrinal talking points that they've been giving. I know we've talked about it on the podcast before too.

And I talked to someone who I'd known for 35 years and we brought up a subject and he goes, I don't know what that is. And it was pretty basic thing, but it's outside of the core couple talking points.

And I just went, wow, that is, that is, we have Tom Askew was on a few months ago. And he said that he goes just in my, in ministry, it's just, I meet so many people that are professed to be a Christian, but know so little and don't read the word and don't dig into it.

And I think the point you're making there is such a beautiful one of, yeah, I'm not going to sit here and argue with you. I'll let, I'll let the word speak its truth. We just, you just need to get into it.

You know, you need to actually start reading it. And I would say a wonderful thing about the Bible reading challenges that you don't have the, you're not compromising to say to a friend who's like pro-gay marriage, you know, say someone's like, you're not compromising to say, let's read the together where you would be, if you weren't taking them to the word and you were like, let's just pretend we don't have this huge difference.

Let's just, let's just be friends and hang out all the time. And I'm not going to talk about that. That would be some kind of compromise, but not when you're saying, join us reading the word, like join us talking about this.

You don't need to argue about those things because there's no, you're not compromising in any way to say, I would be so glad to share this with you. Like, let's do this together. Yeah. Uh, you kind of have that theme.

That's why we really appreciate what you do because there was a video and I think it's probably in the millions of views now across social media that you made. And like I said, you were being a little snarky in it talking about women preachers, but you said, look at it.

Somehow I knew that was going to be the one. I just love it. I just, but I can't even share it. I'm like, I'm just going to get, it's just going to start a fight with all my friends. I don't want to do that.

Uh, well, no, I did share it. I'm lying. Uh, but I mean, I want to share it once like, or twice a day. Uh, I feel like sometimes just because you know, it hits a nerve, but it's, it's truth. And you're just saying, read through the Bible.

And I, I wish I had that same one for men too, on how men are supposed to lead their family. We need to get a guy to say exactly what you said in that kind of way of going, look at, it's not me trying to convince you just read, read the Bible.

And this is what it says. And I, you know, you won't find that, uh, whatever it is, whatever the thing is we're talking about. And, and, and I absolutely love it because it does. You're just always pushing directly back to the Bible.

And that kind of, you know, that kind of settles a lot of arguments and debates. It's like, you're either going, you know, Jesus just stated the truth. He never got in an argument really. Yeah. You know?

Oh, I'm sorry. I was going to say that the, I mentioned at the beginning when I, the neediest audience in the world is Christian mothers, but like, I really do think that as neediest, most desperate group of people.

And, uh, when I, I didn't like that for a long time until we, until I started the Bible reading challenge, I really disliked the, in my inboxes or what was coming to me all the time, because I do have a few, my husband and I had this thing.

I will never apologize for not having, when I used to blog, I would never say, I'm so sorry. I haven't blogged or when people are saying, could you please, please write something I'm so discouraged. Could you just, you know, it's always like, but that's wrong.

Like you don't need me to do that for you. Like why? And I don't ever want to act like you need me to do that. Um, and it wasn't until we started the Bible reading challenge that all of a sudden I felt like, oh, okay, now I actually know how to, I know how to handle this.

And I'm glad to get those messages because every time I think the image I've used, I think I used it in a desiring God article is that we're all invited to the table with the table is laid with all of this food.

And the temptation for women, especially who are around Christians or on the internet is to just eat crumbs that are falling from good eaters. You know, there are people who are eating well and a lot's falling and people gather under the table, you know, to get the, to get the leftovers.

It's like, but that's so disrespectful of the host who laid a place for you. Like there is, there is a place here, get out from under the table and sit here and eat with us. Like, let us enjoy table fellowship together.

But the other temptation is if you are a woman, like I got accidentally into this situation where there were a lot of women under the table around you, you know, saying, I'm having a hard time. I'm having like, help me help me.

And I think it's a huge temptation for women to be like, oh, I better start throwing biscuits under the table. You know, I better start constantly feeding them down there and constantly and making myself be this.

And when I have no right to be in that position either, I ought to be saying, get out from under there, you know, like come up here and sit at the table with me. And, and I'm not going to feed you under there.

You know, I'm not going to do this. And that was such a relief to me because it answered way more problems than I thought just having an open invitation to people to read the Bible with us could ever answer.

It was all of a sudden, like, someone messages me their horrible situation. And I say, are you reading the Bible? Like, join us over here. Like, would you please? And then I'll see them pop up in this group and say, hi, I'm new.

And then all these Christian women saying, we're so glad you're here to eat with us. We're so glad you're here. And it is so much better than me being some kind of cul-de-sac for needy people. Like, oh, I have to answer all of this as I'm like, just jump on in and read the Bible with us.

And it's a huge, huge solution in my life for many problems. Yeah. It's a, it's a beautiful thing. Did you have anything, Samantha? No. Okay. So let's put some, let's put some bookends on this before we do fresh 10.

Identity in Christ and the Call to Obedience

So for you, who you matter, deal with it. Who are we going for on this? Who, if they're listening right now, look in the megaphone, it says why you matter and how to deal with it. Oh, why, why you matter and how to deal with it.

Here we go. Why you matter and how to deal with it. What did you want me to say about it? That's why we, that's why I have these glasses and I still couldn't see it. I'm so sorry. I don't, I don't care at all.

So, so, so, so if someone's listening right now, give them the 32nd elevator pitch. What, what is this going to help resolve for if you're a woman and you're listening and they're going, I think I should pick this up and read through it.

What, what is this going to help them resolve or get through or what, what is, what is it going to bring to them? My hope is that it would reveal to you where you have taken on unbelieving philosophies, where you have exchanged really, uh, the glorious, like glorious riches that we have in the gospel of who we are, what we're for, what we're doing, uh, the confidence that we can have in Christ and, and living without questioning everything all the time about what you're doing and, uh, what does it mean and what am I for?

So I think, I think the world has taken much from us. So if you're a Christian woman, you have in Christ confidence, you have hope, you have security, you, you have all of those things. Uh, but if you're trying, if you've taken on a lot of unbelieving thought without knowing it from your gym, inspirational posters, from movies, you've been watching from dumb things, friends have told you, or as I've said, you, women are really under attack on this kind of thing.

If you look up a blueberry muffin recipe, it will intro it with, let me tell you about, you know, what you need to do with toxic people in your life and what really matters. And it's like all the time, there's just these lies coming towards us.

So I would say if you are insecure in any way, or, um, feeling like I just, I think most Christian women need to reflect on this. So really it's about wanting you to understand that and wanting women to understand practically how you apply that confidence in your life.

And when are there those moments where you say, Oh, this is where I'm thinking something that's totally unbiblical instead of, um, instead of what I have really been given in Christ and why I should not be on this feudal little feudal path.

Awesome. I love it. So you want to stick around for a few more minutes and do fresh 10, where we get to know you, our guests are, we get to know the guests a little bit better with 10 quick questions.

What do you think? That's fine. All right, here we go. Let's do some fresh 10. All right, here we go. Fresh 10 questions for Rachel. Number one, what city and state did you grow up in and how did that affect your childhood?

If at all? I live in Moscow, Idaho. I was born in Moscow, Idaho. And I think I probably lived the furthest I've ever lived away from where I was born right now, which is like five miles away from where I was born.

It affected me a lot. You probably want faster answers to this. My grandfather moved here as a principled evangelistic move. He had written a book called principles of war, which is applying Sun Tzu's philosophy of war to evangelism.

And he ended up choosing this area because there's two state universities, eight miles apart, Washington State and University of Idaho. So it's small towns with a ton of, like there's, they're not stagnant.

There's a lot of people coming and leaving, but in small towns and my entire life has been built here in an effort towards evangelism. And then my father, Christian education things. So I would say where I live has been a huge part of why I care so much about what I care about.

Fresh 10: Personal Preferences and Influences

Love it. All right. Question number two, when playing Monopoly, what is your favorite property to own and why? Oh, I hate Monopoly. I do not have any love of board games or card games. Whenever I have made myself play them, I forget all the rules immediately afterwards and don't think about it anymore.

Fair enough. I've got nothing for you on that. Fair enough. Yeah. We asked that to another guest and he said the same thing. He said, I hate board games. I go, I probably should change that question. We're just a board game family.

So I found something out about me though. So there you go. There you go. Question number three, stripes, polka dots, or floral patterns. All of the above. Oh, I liked that one. Probably polka dots them least, but okay.

So who is your favorite actor dead or alive? Question four. Oh man. Um, no clue. Okay. Actually care very much about movies. What can I say? I love it. Question number five, uh, top three bands or music albums that have influenced your life the most.

You can give me one, two, or three up to three. If you just have one or if you have none. Okay. Um, I would say my dad had a band when we were little, the mountain angel band that's in. I love that name.

Yeah, it was, that was good fun. My dad always played a lot, um, played his guitar and sang and write songs and things. Uh, so I'll put the mountain angel band in there. Uh, we listened, grew up listening to probably Eagle CCR, very classic rock type.

Okay. But now I don't like, I listened to quieter things like, um, what are they? The Waylon Jenny's or more folk music type thing. Sure. All right. Question number six, moving right along. We're learning a lot today.

Uh, favorite thing to do when you just want to relax. What's your go-to? I have to, I have a loom. I have, I weave, I knit, I bake a lot. I do lots of, yeah, I have a lot of things that I go to if I'm sitting down.

Love it. All right. Just a couple more. What do people misunderstand about you the most? I don't know that it's about me. I think there's a dedicated group of people who believe that if you tell women to obey that you're endorsing works righteousness.

Uh, I don't think they're misunderstanding that about me. I think they just have a allergy to obedience. I don't know. We're stealing that. We're stealing allergy to obedience. That's the best thing to freak out about it.

You know, if you say Christian women must obey, they freak out about it. And I have never really understood like, you know, and they will say, you believe in works righteousness. And I was like, no, I clearly do not believe in that.

And they, they say you believe in it subconsciously or you would never, it's implicit care. Yeah. Jesus doesn't care about that. And I always think it's, it's a shock. We have the new Testament. If Jesus does not care about Christian obedience anyway.

Okay. If you could sit, if you could sit question eight, if you could sit down, uh, with, for a cup of coffee with any historical figure, who would it be? Any historical figure, man, I think Katie Luther.

I think, I think she's a woman who got an incredible amount of things done. Um, but was, I don't know. I think she'd be interesting. All right. All right. Two more. At what time of the day are you most creative?

Early afternoon, evening. When's your creative time? Um, I threw the years all different times, I suppose is when I would be creative. Um, I don't know. I would say I'm an around the person. If I'm awake, I like to do things.

All right. All right. Last question. What book outside of your own and the Bible, of course, should everyone at least take a look at or read? Oh man. Uh, I would say there's too many in that category.

I would say Lewis's space trilogy, the, the, um, that hideous strength. Wonderful. Very applicable to our time. Awesome. I love it. Well, that was it. Well, there was fresh 10 with Rachel. Uh, Rachel, why don't you give everyone a shout out of where they can find you on social media?

Anything you want to plug here as we wrap up the show? Um, I am on, uh, Instagram, Facebook. I don't really, you can find me a lot of stuff that I do is on the Canon plus app now. So if you go there, webinars and things from the past will be posted there.

Um, a plug come to grace agenda in Moscow in August, it's going to be marriage bootcamp this year. Um, Moscow is kind of, I would say where we are here, where it's a Christian community built on practical application of being a Christian, what it means in family life, in personal holiness, et cetera, and a marriage bootcamp will be a great, great time.

Awesome. Rachel, thank you so much, uh, for everyone listening, especially women go out there, purchase the book, you who, why you matter and how to deal with it took the whole episode, but I said the title of the book correctly.

Um, go check it out, Rachel, we thank you so much for being on. Uh, we do appreciate your time and, uh, we appreciate you being a friend of the podcast. You're welcome back anytime you want. And guys, as always, thank you so much for listening to another episode of dead men walking podcast.

As always, you can find us at dmwpodcast .com. And we're on all social media accounts at dead men, walking podcast. We don't grow without you sharing with a friend, leaving comments, giving us constructive criticism, and we do it all for the glory of God.

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