WWUTT 1990 Q&A Six Day Creation, Were Jesus Miracles Natural, Women Teaching Men

Psalm 71 and Trusting God in Old Age

Were the miracles of Jesus, though supernatural, using natural processes? Can women teach in a mixed Sunday school group of men and women? Or can women lead discussion times? The answers when we understand the text.

This is When We Understand The Text, a daily Bible commentary to help encourage your time in the Word. Thank you for listening and please leave a five-star review to help others find our podcast. Here once again is Pastor Gade.

Thank you, Becky.

You're welcome. We come back again to Psalm 71, reading the next section, verses 7 to 11. I have become a marvel to many, for you are my strong refuge. My mouth is filled with your praise and with your beauty all day long.

Do not cast me off in the time of old age. Do not forsake me when my strength fails. For my enemies have spoken against me, and those who watch my life have counseled together, saying, God has forsaken him.

Pursue and seize him, for there is no one to deliver. So as we get older, the book of Ecclesiastes says even, this is chapter 12, verse 1, hold on to the Lord in the days of your youth, before the days come that will be difficult and in them you will say, I have no pleasure.

Ah, well, that's interesting because today's society thinks that youth is difficult, so. Yeah, right.

So hold on to the faithfulness of God. Fill yourself up. Fill your mind up with God's word while your mind is still sharp to receive those things. And then God's word continues to counsel you even in your old age.

Do not cast me off in the time of old age. Do not forsake me when my strength fails. For then my enemies come against me and say, look at this guy who used to be so valiant and so enthusiastic in the Lord, and now what has he become?

And God has forsaken him, so let's pursue and seize him, for there is no one to deliver. We hit those weak moments and it's easier for Satan to come at us. So continue to be filled up with God's word.

Notice that in the present, in the tense in which this is said, in verse 7, I have become a marvel to many, for you are my strong refuge. So people can see the testimony of God in my life. May that testimony continue to be strong.

My enthusiasm for Christ and what he has done for me, the gospel that has saved me, let me continue to have that delight in it even into my old years. Even when my years get hard, I still rejoice in God my Savior.

Amen.

Six-Day Creation, Death Before Sin, and the Burden of Proof

Speaking of getting older, somebody has a birthday today. Oh yeah. Today. Today is my birthday. Happy birthday to you. Thank you. Thanks for the French toast this morning. You're welcome.

And the sleeping in a little bit. And the sleeping in a little bit. Yeah. Yes. We apologize for the last couple of episodes being a little bit late. A little bit. We got back from Arizona and never caught back up to central time.

It's been tough for everybody. I think two of the kids yesterday, on Thursday, they slept in until afternoon, like literally afternoon and I finally had to go wake them up because they were just going to sleep the whole day.

Well, I know one of those was our teenager. Yep.

She's always sleeping though. The baby doesn't let Z sleep late. He's got to get up with the baby.

He's up. Yep. But then one of our daughters, I think she's going through a growth spurt because she was stubbing her toes left and right. Oh, she was. My goodness.

She just wouldn't quit. I was like, can you just walk like down the center of the hall so you're not banging your.

Your shoulders are wider than how you're walking right now. How do you not hit your shoulders, but you hit your feet, but whatever. Yep. Yep.

Yep. So coming back from AZ, which happens to be in the Pacific time zone, since Arizona does not recognize daylight saving time. So right now they are in the Pacific time. So we're two hours away from Arizona.

Coming back into Central time, we were fine getting there, but we sure have had trouble getting back into Central once we got here.

I was up at like 530 every day. We were up earlier.

Yeah, that's definitely true. I would wake up and I'd just lay there and I'm like, what could I be getting done right now? I know.

I was like, okay, so this is interesting. Maybe I can go back to sleep. No.

No, no. I'm up. So then after a couple of days of that, I'm just, okay, I'm just getting up. I'm getting up so I can work on writing, read my Bible, whatever, instead of just laying.

Here. I mean, it was nice to have a good start on the day rather than, you know, dragging myself out of bed. Yes. But at the same time, I was like, man, this is, this is odd.

Well, we were at Providence Reformed Baptist Church in Casa Grande or Casa Grande, depending on who you talk to, just this past weekend. So if you're looking for a good Reformed Baptist Church, that's the one that we would recommend.

This is the Friday edition of the broadcast and you can submit your questions to when we understand the text at gmail .com. First of all, I'm going to get to a poll here. So this poll is still going on.

I just started it last night and it still has a couple of hours before it wraps up, but I'm over 2 ,200 votes. Oh, well, you know. So the percentages aren't going to change much. Not much. In the next couple of hours.

Here's the poll question. If a pastor taught that Genesis 1 describes the creation of the universe in a period of time other than six literal days, would you continue to attend church there? Options are no, yes, maybe, and that is my pastor now.

So 63 say no. And within like the first 100 to 200 votes that I got, it hit about the 65 line and it's, it's stayed pretty consistent ever since. 14 say yes. They would continue to attend church there.

Okay. 21 say maybe. And only 2%, I was surprised actually by this number, only 2 said that is my pastor now. I would have thought maybe that would have been a little bit higher, but I guess like when you see the options of no and yes.

Yeah, you just kind of click that first.

Those whose pastors are already there are probably just, yeah, they're just going to click yes. Yeah. But overall in this poll, 63 say that they would not continue to attend church where a pastor is preaching a view other than a literal six day creation view.

Well, that's great. Because I would be the same way. Yeah. You know, and it's not that you're professing that all the people there are unsaved because they don't see six literal days in Genesis 1, but it is an important enough issue.

Because if they're off there. Yeah. Everything else is going to be. Yeah. There's going to be some other inconsistencies in their theology beyond that. Yeah. It is a pretty good test that you can tell where a person is theologically by whether they believe in a literal six day creation according to what Genesis 1 says.

Any other view has the burden of proof of trying to show how Genesis 1 could mean anything other than what it says. Yeah, true. But the biggest thing, the biggest problem with this, if they take, for example, a day age creation view or the old earth view or some sort of Darwinian process, just, you know, it's just summarized by the six day creation, but it didn't really happen that way.

It was actually millions and millions of years of time. The biggest problem you're going to have with that view is that you have to believe that death occurred before sin. Ah. But Romans 5 .12 says that death came in because of sin.

Sin is the reason we die. Right. That is the consequence for sin. Right. So, if creatures were dying in millions of years of time before Adam and Eve come into the garden and sin, then you've got a major theological difficulty there.

Yeah. Because really what is. That's awkward. What is then the big deal about death if it's not the consequence of sin? It also diminishes sin. There's other problems, too, but that's one of the big ones.

Yeah, definitely. There's going to be some theological inconsistencies if you don't see Genesis 1 as being literal. Mm-hmm. Now, I took this poll because I'm actually going to begin teaching on Genesis 1 in my Sunday school class this coming Sunday.

Oh, neat. And some of you have asked, hey, why haven't we heard the Sunday school classes in a while? Was finishing up 1 Corinthians, I was not teaching through August because I was visiting different Sunday school classes at our church.

Right. And observing. That's part of your job. Yeah, it's part of my job. Description, yeah. Since I'm the education and discipleship pastor. And there were a couple of teachers that were getting voted on at our upcoming members meeting to be approved as teachers that I had not listened to teach in front of a group yet.

Oh, okay. And so I had to go and listen to them first.

And it does make a difference when you're teaching to one person versus teaching to a class. A whole class. Yeah. Right.

So, yeah, just kind of part of my job, I went and did that. And that was why you've not heard any Sunday school lessons in over a month. Yeah. But this coming Sunday, I'm teaching on Genesis 1. So sometime after that class wraps up, I'll get it uploaded to the podcast and you'll have my Sunday school lessons, which are labeled sermons, but it's my Sunday school class I'm teaching in the sanctuary of the church between the two services.

So it might be labeled a sermon, but it's actually the Sunday school lesson for my class. But anyway, so where were we? Being the Friday edition, we take questions from the listeners. And this first question comes from, oh, hang on, I don't have my window up here.

Boop. Hit my app. That's the sound my apps make when you click on them. They go boop. Boop. Boop. Boop. Okay. It wasn't just boop. It was boop. Boop. Boop. You gotta have the right tone in there. Hey, Gabe.

This is from Matthew. Thank you for such a great podcast and congratulations on 2 ,000 episodes. That's in two weeks. Yeah. And by the way, G3 is in two weeks. It is. So we will be at G3 when we hit our 2 ,000th episode.

But we'll probably record ahead of time, right? Yeah. Well, yeah. And we need to get on that. Yeah.

Because we're going to be gone the whole week. Time is of the essence. You know, really, I'd actually like to take a recorder with me and then we'll just do it there.

Well, that would be awesome. But I remember one time it not working. That didn't... I remember that not working out. Yeah. There was one time that it did work out and then another time that it didn't.

So I don't know. Maybe have something on backup.

Let's give it a shot. Yeah. We'll record our episodes for that week. We're also going to have the kids. We will. This is the first time we're going to G3 as a whole family. A whole family. All of the kids are going to be there.

Bubba and all. Yep. Even the baby. The baby was the reason you couldn't go to the last one. Right. Two years ago. Yes.

It'll be a different dynamic for sure. We'll all be there. I hope my books are going to come in in time.

That's another... Oh, that would be awesome. Yeah. So anyway, Matthew says, thank you for such a great podcast. Oh, yeah. I read that line. I have not listened to every episode, but it's my first go-to on my podcast app.

Thank you for being committed to just teaching the Bible. This has really helped the way I study. I've been enjoying the study in Matthew immensely, and not just because my name is Matthew. My question is about some recent episodes where you have been talking about the miracles of Jesus.

I grew up in a couple of different churches where both pastors of these respective churches, I guess, like to come up with natural explanations for Jesus' miracles. Hmm. But it wasn't like that weird one in the New York Times where some guy said, Jesus didn't really walk on water, but on an ice flow in the Sea of Galilee.

Say what now? Yeah. I remember that story. That was a thing? Yeah. Yeah. I remember working. I was working in Christian radio at the time, and this story actually came across what we call the wire. Okay.

I don't know that they really call it that anymore, but it was the Associated Press wire. Any bulletins that came up, and they'd come out printed on the wire. Okay. Anyway, there was a story that actually made a wire headline.

It was one of my headline stories that day. This guy had published in the New York Times that he had figured out how Jesus was able to walk on the Sea of Galilee, and it wasn't some supernatural achievement.

It was because there was actually an ice flow in the Sea of Galilee. Uh-huh. My dad grabbed that story and got on the air with it, and he said, now tell me, which is more miraculous, that Jesus walked on water or that there was an ice flow in the Sea of Galilee?

Right. That's a great point. It was like just the absurdity of these guys to try to say Jesus didn't really do something supernatural. There was a natural explanation to it. So anyway, Matthew's saying that his pastors, they weren't that outlandish with their explanations.

Okay. My pastors instead would say things like, when Jesus turned the water into wine, it's not that something supernatural happened per se. It was still a natural process, but Jesus just sped it up. I've heard that before.

Or when Jesus calmed the storm, it wasn't as if he spoke and everything immediately stopped. The storm came to an end like any storm would, but Jesus just sped up the process. Or timed it well. He just spoke the words at the right time, and it just happened to stop.

You know, like when you're at a stoplight and you say, green, and it goes green. Yeah, but you know when it's going to do that.

My kids were always super impressed by that, and I was like, I was looking at the yellow light over there, but I didn't tell them that. How did you know? How did you know when it was going to turn green?

Oh, give it away. Or, Matthew goes on here, or when Jesus healed the blind men in Matthew 9, it wasn't as if he caused something to happen that wasn't there. He as the Lord of creation, who made even the tiniest molecules, was able to reattach nerves or realign rods and cones in their eyes just by placing his hands on these men.

My question is, is this an accurate take? It doesn't quite sound like liberalism, which denies that Jesus performed any true miracles, but it also feels a little too naturalistic. I don't know. It came back to my mind listening to Matthew 8 and 9, and I just wanted to know your take.

Thanks again for your ministry, Matthew. So when we read about Jesus calming the storm in Matthew 8, beginning in verse 23, when he got into the boat, his disciples followed him, and behold, there arose a great storm on the sea, so that the boat was being covered with the waves, but Jesus himself was sleeping.

And by the way, when I did this lesson last week, I had mentioned that a man's ability to sleep through anything is a Christ-like quality. For sure.

You have been blessed with that.

And I got some messages from a couple of men after that. They were like, hey, thank you for that. I've shared that with my wife. There was one fellow, I did not grab this email, I think because it was a DM on Twitter, but anyway, he had said, my wife will get upset that I'm not as worried as she is.

How could you sit there and sleep at a time like this? And he said, your podcast gave me the perfect excuse the next time she asked me that question. I'm just being Christ-like, sweetheart. So verse 25, they came to him and got him up saying, save us, Lord, we are perishing.

And he said to them, why are you so cowardly, you men of little faith? Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the sea, and it became perfectly calm. And the men marveled and said, what kind of man is this that even the winds and the sea obey him?

There's nothing here that indicates that things are kind of gradually calming down. Yeah, no, not at all. Or even that there was a process that Jesus just sped up. He spoke to the waves, to the wind and the sea, and it just became calm, perfectly calm.

There's an adverb that qualifies it there. And I think in Mark's account, it immediately becomes calm, because that's Mark's favorite word. He loves using that word immediately. So we have no reason to read something in here like, oh, it was just the usual natural process, but Jesus just sped it up.

That's not what we're meant to see. What we're meant to see is that when Jesus speaks, creation obeys him. Just like in Genesis 1, God spoke and things came to be. They come into existence simply by the speaking of his word.

And it's by his word that all things hold together, as we read in Hebrews 1 and Colossians 1. The same word that brought all things into existence is the same word that continues to govern all things, even us right now.

So we're seeing here in Matthew 8 that when Jesus speaks, creation that came into existence by his word obeys him. That's the point. Yeah. He's the creator, of course. Right. And however this happened.

Exactly. However this happened, it happened in such a way that the disciples are marveling at it. Yes.

And the sailors. Didn't it say the sailors, too, were marveling?

No, Jesus is only with his disciples. You might be thinking of Jonah.

No, no, no, no, no. Oh, was it the disciples that were doing, that were sailing?

Yeah. When he got into the boat, his disciples followed him. And behold, there arose a great storm on the sea so that the boat was being covered by the waves and Jesus himself was sleeping. Right. So it's Jesus with his disciples.

Who marveled. His disciples. It says his disciples. It doesn't say. I thought it said something else. And the men marveled and said. The men. Yeah. Yeah.

His disciples who were with him. Oh, okay. So it was the disciples who were throwing stuff overboard? No, that's Jonah. That's Jonah. Why am I combining these two? That's the story of Jonah.

Ugh. Okay. I gotta quit. Yeah. Remember, Jonah tells them. Separate. Mentally separate. He tells them that all of this is happening because I'm running from God. Oh, right. Remember they cast lots? Yeah.

The lot fell on Jonah. Right. But they said, we're not going to be guilty for this man's death. So they're trying to throw stuff overboard. Right. And Jonah finally convinces them. If you want to save yourselves.

See, I thought it was the same. Nevermind. But then when they tossed Jonah overboard, the storm became calm. Right. It became immediately calm. And they marveled and praised God.

Okay. So that's where the sailors marveled. Yes.

Now, I talked about that in one of my messages at Providence Reformed Baptist Church this past Sunday. Uh-huh. So that might be why. Might be why I'm meshing them together. Exactly. Right. Like, I heard you teach on this recently.

So you heard my account from Matthew 8 and you mashed it with what I had mentioned from the story of Jonah. Yeah. You know, sleep. Exactly. Things like that. I will try harder. And then changing time zones.

I will try harder. Yeah. But anyway. Okay. So it was the disciples who were sailing.

They're not really sailing. We don't. Oh, they're just on the boat? It's not saying that they're sailing. Oh, okay. They're just in the boat. Oh, okay. I mean, there probably was a sail. They're probably not rowing.

This was Jesus is going from Capernaum to the other side of the sea. Right. So he needs a big boat. Yeah. So where he ends up next is the Gadarenes. Yeah. Some of those fishing boats were pretty sizable.

Right.

So the people who were operating the boat. Which were the disciples. Were the disciples. Yes. Okay. That's what I'm clarifying for myself. Okay. Jesus is taking a nap. I know. Right? That's what I'm thinking.

And then a storm comes up. Yeah. Right. He's like. Yeah. That's right. I'm not. It's not that he's just Jesus. He's a carpenter. He's not a sailor. But he did. Some of the disciples were sailors as their occupation.

No. Not as their occupation. No? We don't know that for sure. Oh. They were fishermen. They were fishermen.

Oh. Okay. That's where I'm combining. Okay. Again? Again. Yeah. I'm just kind of combining it together. I've got to quit. We actually don't know the occupations of every single disciple. Oh. Okay. I mean, what we do know.

Is that why? Okay. I was always confused on why I didn't know everybody.

Andrew and Peter, James and John were fishermen. Okay. And that was how Jesus found them, called them to follow him. Right. And that's enough to operate a boat. Yeah. They know how to operate boats. Sure.

Probably not rowing. It probably is sailing. Uh-huh. But not as an occupation. Okay. Fair enough. They were sailors as an occupation. Yeah. Yeah. As sailing as an occupation, that wouldn't have been on the Sea of Galilee.

That would have been like in the Mediterranean Sea. True. Where you're shipping goods from one place to another. Yeah. That's true. Yeah. Okay. But anyway. Anyway. Sorry. Beyond that. So Matthew asking this whole concept of Jesus just speeding up the process, would that be accurate?

You know, maybe, maybe that when Jesus puts his hands on the blind men, maybe he is realigning rods and reattaching nerves or healing something in the brain. There is something physical that's happening there.

But whatever it is. But it's instant. But yeah. But whatever it is that's going on, it's a supernatural process. Right. Naturally, you never could have been able to do that. Right. Exactly. Jesus did what could not be done naturally.

It's obviously a miracle. So yeah. Because he is the Lord of creation, because he's made all of these things, he repairs whatever is broken in these men's heads. But it's still supernatural. I just think it's kind of distracting from the point.

If you try to come up with like, well, it was a natural process that happened, but Jesus just sped it up. It was supernatural.

Yeah. And the water to wine, that was instant. Yeah.

That was instant. And I don't understand how you take that story and say that Jesus sped up a process. Because water doesn't. Water doesn't turn to wine. Exactly. You need grapes. At least. And it doesn't say that Jesus mashes up some grapes and speeds up the fermentation process.

No. He turns water into wine. Literally. He makes something happen that could not have happened naturally. Right. And so, like is said in Romans 4, he calls into existence things that do not exist. He's created ex nihilo, as said in Hebrews 11.

All things that were made that we can see were made out of things that are not seen. Right. And so, God is able, Jesus is able to make these miracles happen by the speaking of word. He can bring things into existence that weren't there.

Him feeding the 5 ,000 with five loaves and two fish. Right. There was clearly something being materialized there that was out of nothing. Because even though he's breaking up five loaves and two fish, there's substance that people are gathering into their hands and eating that did not exist before he did that.

And there were leftovers. And there were 12 baskets left over. You know, I don't know that they're necessarily off. I just think they're distracting from the point. Yeah. They're adding something to the text that really isn't there.

It's just kind of speculative. Yeah. And it kind of feels like you are pandering to that naturalistic mindset, which is real easy for us to fall into.

Would it be considered adding to the Bible at that point? Or is it just trying to explain further a miracle?

Yeah, I think it's just over-explanation. Yeah. Exaggerating to a certain degree. Yeah.

But I think it's that. Well, I mean, the storm didn't dissipate. It just ended. It ended. Right. It became perfectly calm. I mean, like, dissipate as in, like, you know, slowly go away kind of thing.

And I'm not trying to say either that, like, boom, suddenly it was just a clear day. You know, I'm not saying that that was it either. I'm saying that however you're trying to explain the miracle coming about seems to be distracting from the point.

Right. Whatever happened and however it took place. You can't do it again. The disciples were clearly shocked. Yeah. Saying, who is this that the wind and the sea obey him? Right. This wasn't like the video that you see of the guy on the farm and a tornado is coming toward his farm and he's got his camera out there.

He's like, Lord, please let the tornado miss my farm. And then it kind of goes up in the air and then touches down on the other side. Have you ever seen that video? No. Okay. It wouldn't have been like that.

No. Because the storm is still there. Right. And the tornado still touches down over there. Right. You could still have explained that away as, like, being a coincidence. Right. This is something that, and I'm not saying that man did do something coincidental.

Maybe his prayer did cause the storm to skip his farm. It was an answer to prayer. You could certainly see it that way. But this was clearly something that happened supernaturally. So that the disciples marveled at it and wondered, how in the world could this have possibly happened?

Yeah. Who is this man? Right. It just proves that he's God. Yeah, exactly. That's the point. That's the point. He controls nature and he even has power over supernatural things. Because the next story is Jesus saving the men from the demons.

Oh, yeah. On the other side of the Sea of Galilee, which they were traveling across the sea. The lake. It's the sea. Sea of Galilee. It's called the Sea of Galilee. It is technically a lake. I made this point on, I think it was Wednesday.

Big lake. Yeah. It's a big lake. The sea was really the Mediterranean Sea. Yes. But we wouldn't look at the Sea of Galilee and go, oh, what a big sea. It's a lake. It's true. This next question comes from Brad.

Women Teaching Men, Sunday School, and the Limits of Authority

Pastor Gabe, I hope you and your family had a great Labor Day weekend. Aw. Wonderful time in Arizona. Thank you, Brad. I have heard the conversation come up several times lately on the podcast regarding women pastors and teachers.

While it is clear that women are not to be pastors, the question I have wrestled with is, can women teach Bible study classes with men in attendance? I have attached a response. I received regarding this and thought you might find this interesting.

He is taking the position that women teaching men not in corporate worship would be in line with the biblical model in both the Old and New Testaments. His response is somewhat lengthy, so don't feel any need to respond.

I just thought you might find this position interesting as I believe you view it a bit different. All right. So this response that he got, there's no name on it. Okay. I don't have a name attached to it, so I'm just going to respond to this person as the responder.

Okay. But the next two questions, or rather these two questions, so this one from Brad and then the next question I got coming up from, I got to scroll all the way down here, LJ, both kind of deal with the same thing.

So I'm going to read through this statement and then responding to LJ's question will go a little bit faster. Okay. So this responder to Brad, who's asking the same question to the responder, says, I've written this down so that you can look at it and bounce it off a few other reform statements.

While there are others who disagree, I came to this position because I believed it was most consistent with all of the scriptures. Is it biblical for women to teach in mixed adult Sunday school classes?

There seem to be three basic arguments against it. Number one, the Bible demonstrates predominantly male leadership in both the Old Testament and New Testament. Number two, the Apostle Paul writing to Timothy that women are to learn in silence, not usurping authority over men, 1 Timothy 2, 11 to 15.

And I would say with that summarization of the statement, he's already kind of missed the point. But I'll come back to that here in a moment. And then number three, Paul's instructions to the Corinthian church that women are to remain silent in the church, 1 Corinthians 14, 34 to 35.

Based on these primary arguments, some draw the conclusion that women have no role in the local church regarding the teaching of mixed adult Sunday school classes. Women are permitted to teach children and other women, according to Titus 2, but they must depend on their husbands to help them understand what is taught in the church.

For a woman to teach, she is stepping out of her submissive role and violating the standards laid down in scripture. The question is, does this position adequately interpret the Bible's teaching regarding the role of women among God's children?

I would contend, he says, it does not. Now I'm going to give his reasons here, but then I'm going to come back to 1 Timothy 2, which I don't think he summarized properly. And I think that'll clear some things up here.

So first of all, he says, it ignores the female leaders God set aside for a teaching ministry in both the Old Testament and New Testament. In the Old Testament, we have Miriam. Now here's the references he gives, Exodus 15, 20 and Micah 6, 4.

Deborah, Judges 4, 4. Huldah, 2 Kings 22, 14. Noah-Diah in Nehemiah 6, 14. An unnamed prophetess in Isaiah 8, 3 was actually Isaiah's wife. Clearly God directly spoke to these women who, in turn, gave that revelation to others, including men.

Okay, let me come back to Miriam. In Exodus 15, 20, it explicitly says she led the women. It explicitly says that. So she led the women in song and dancing and with tambourines. She did not have any kind of a teaching authority over men.

And in fact, later on, when she and Aaron claim that they have every bit as much right to the revelations of God as Moses has, she was afflicted with leprosy.

Yeah, that didn't go so well for her.

Exactly, because she would not submit to the man that God had put in authority over the Israelites.

There's nothing new under the sun.

Surprise, surprise. Now with Deborah, you cannot use Deborah. You can't use Deborah or Huldah in 2 Kings 22, because in both of those instances, what we see is an anomaly. Yes. Deborah is the only woman judge and really the only woman leader in Israel at all in the Old Testament.

Right. There is no other woman that leads Israel. Esther was not leading Israel. Nope. Esther was a voice on behalf of her people. She had no authority.

She could have gotten struck dead.

Yeah, even going into the presence. For what she did. Exactly. Even going into the presence of the king without being summoned, she could have been sentenced to death for that. Yep. So she had no authority.

But she fed him, so it's okay. Hey, it just gives proof to the adage, the way to a man's heart is through his stomach. Thank you once again for that French toast this morning. Anytime. And there was enough French toast left over for me to have a Monte Cristo for lunch.

Yes. So I love Monte Cristo sandwiches. Very yummy. So anyway, yeah, Deborah is an anomaly. She was a judgment on the people of Israel. And that whole story is about that because Barak would not obey God and listen to God and do what he had told him to do, which had been told to him through Deborah who was not only a judge, but a prophetess.