Women’s Ministry with Susan Heck

Welcome to The Rap Report with your host, Andrew Rappaport, where we provide biblical interpretation and application.

This is a ministry of Striving for Eternity and the Christian Podcast Community. For more content or to request a speaker for your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.

All right, well welcome to another edition of The Rap Report. I'm your host, Andrew Rappaport, and I have a special guest today.

We're going to talk about, well, women's ministries and discipling women and materials. But I have with us today

Susan Hecht. She is with withthemaster .org. Now one of the things is that we have a mutual friend, and that's how we got to know each other, and that's

Justin Peters. And I should say that as of now, as of the time of this recording, tomorrow will be our

Snatch Them From the Flames Home Edition Conference that Justin and I are doing. But by the time you're listening to this,

I think we had a wonderful time. Justin just knocked it out of the park. He did an excellent job, even though it didn't happen yet.

But well, it's Justin. I already know that he did an excellent job, or will. But if you haven't watched the

Snatch Them From the Flames Home Edition, it will still be available where we recorded it, unless of course there's technical issues and I'm speaking in the future as if it's the past.

But it will be recorded, and it will remain on strivingforeternity .org slash online -events, or just go to strivingforeternity .org

and click the online events. You can see everything there. And so Susan, welcome to The Wrap Report.

Thank you, Andrew. Thanks for having me. Now, you and I got to meet at the Truth Matters Conference, and I had heard quite a bit about you because Justin really, not to embarrass you at all, but Justin praises your work very, very highly.

And to get a praise from Justin is kind of hard. And so when he praises somebody,

I pay attention. So I was glad to get to meet you and your husband at Truth Matters.

So tell us a little bit about yourself. Well, I was brought up in a

Baptist minister's home, so I grew up knowing about the gospel and God. And I got saved and baptized three times, but my life never changed.

And went off to Moody Bible Institute where I met my husband. Phil Johnson was his roommate, and Phil Johnson went to my dad's church.

My dad baptized Phil, and Phil said to Doug, my husband, my pastor's daughter is coming here, and you need to date her because she tends to get in with the wrong crowd.

So anyway, Phil introduced us, and the rest is history. But still thinking

I was a believer, but I was not. So basically, the first ten years of our marriage,

I really tore my house down brick by brick, so to speak. And at the age of thirty,

God arrested my heart. I don't need to go into all the details, but the

Lord saved me. I repented of my sin. First time I saw myself as a sinner, and my life really, really changed.

And that was thirty -four years ago. And then after that, I just started hungering for the word like I never had before.

I read my Bible every day. I thought that's what Christians did, but it never had any meaning or didn't mean anything to me other than words on a page.

And so my life transformed, began to put off sin, and became under submission to my husband and just wanted to know the

Bible. So I started memorizing scripture. My husband had most of the New Testament memorized when

I met him. And so I started that journey myself and actually just completed that this year, completed the

New Testament. So I have a passion to help women to be strong in the word and to know and love

God through scripture. And that is my passion and desire. So that's kind of a nutshell. That's the short version.

So you've got a couple of pastors in your family there, dad, husband, sons.

I know. My son, my son -in -law. Yeah, we do. We're so blessed. So thankful.

And my dad was a godly man. He really was. And he exposited scripture. But unfortunately, he was of the vein of decisional regeneration, walk an aisle, pray a prayer.

So as a child, I didn't want to go to hell. My dad preached on hell. And so I didn't want to go there.

So most of my decisions as a teenager and a child were emotional. I really didn't understand the gospel.

I really didn't understand repentance. I didn't think I was a sinner. I had nothing to be forgiven of until God just, he really, literally slapped me down and humbled me.

And I wept and mourned over my sin first time in my life. And so God, I'm so thankful.

And I have a passion for people brought up in the church that know all the religious lingo but don't know Christ. They don't have, they don't know

Christ. So. No, that doesn't happen. Oh, yeah. More than you think.

Oh, way more. Their ears are full of them. Yes. You know, one of the things that you said, which maybe people heard and went, wait, what?

To memorize even a book of a Bible is something that people think is impossible to do.

But, and I'm going to ask you this question because I've done this myself, not the whole New Testament, but I would memorize book by book, though my problem is

I wouldn't keep up with it. So when you don't keep up with it, you end up forgetting it. But here's what

I found in memorizing books of the Bible was, and working at that memorization of it, is even say the book of Titus, James, Philemon, Philippians, you know, the books,

I didn't work at memorizing the Gospels, maybe I should. But what

I ended up doing in my own head was developing an outline for that memory. So I may not be able to tell you specifically what verse in Titus speaks about the older men with younger men and the older women with younger women, but I know it's there and I know what it says, right?

So I know it's somewhere in the middle of the book, roughly, like chapter two -ish probably.

But I'd have to look, right? Because I didn't memorize verse numbers.

I didn't either. Yeah, because that'd be even harder. But did you find, as I did, that memorizing a book of the

Bible actually helps you to get an outline and to get the context of that book? Oh yes, very much so.

I don't teach a book of the Bible until I have it memorized because it's so insightful and helpful.

And yes, I do find that. And I'm like you. I don't do one, one, one, two, one, three, but I can tell you, if someone says, where's the chapter in James about the tongue?

You know, I could tell you what chapter it is or where's the chapter about wisdom or, you know, the rich men or, you know, trials or whatever.

So I see that because I've memorized it and I can tell you approximately what verse, you know, it is, but not exactly.

So because chapters and verses were added later, they weren't really, not everyone knows that.

Yeah. Paul wrote a letter. He wrote a letter. So yeah, it's been a joy.

With the smaller books, what I used to do is I would, I'd just print off the book. I had

Emeritus, because that's a smaller book, and I had it printed on back, two -sided sheet of paper that I would fold up and stick into my pocket.

And everywhere I walked, I would pull it out of my pocket. Now I mean, now you have apps.

I have an app on the phone that helps me to memorize. And so you could just, you know, it has like games you can play to help with the memorization.

It's called Versus. And it's helpful. But the thing that I really was, it was funny with the book of Titus is

I could still remember which parts were right on a line, because I'd fold it in thirds and then in thirds again and slip it in my pocket.

And kind of that third, top third, middle third, and bottom third, I'd memorized kind of in those blocks.

Oh, funny. And so I could actually see it on that paper. Oh, that's good.

But it was taking, it was really utilizing the time that's typically, you know, if someone's in an office and they're walking to go get a cup of coffee at the cafeteria, it's a great time to sit and as you're walking, don't trip, but pull out a piece of paper, pull out your phone.

And I mean, people are on their phone anyway, instead of texting, memorize, right? So that's right.

So let's talk about women's ministry. There's never any problems at all in any church's women's ministry, right?

No, I don't think so. Oh boy, it's a mess,

I'll tell you. It is. It is a mess. So, I mean, there are many popular women's teachers, people that will write material for women's

Bible studies. And I remember, this is many years ago, my wife, we went to church and they started doing a

Bible study and they were using Beth Moore. And she's even worse now than she was,

I mean, this is like 20 years ago, 25 years ago. And my wife is sitting in this

Bible study and she's going because, you know, we're members of the church, we want to support the events that go on.

And my wife is going, gets to know some of the ladies and talk with them, disciple them.

And she's sitting in this study and she's just, my wife's a naturally quiet person. And she's listening to this and she's coming home and she's like, you know, this book is talking this and this and this and they're discussing this and it's just, like, should

I be correcting them? I'm like, well, that's what is wrong, so yeah, she's like, all right. So she goes back and corrects them and says, look, this is what

Beth Moore's saying, but this is what the Bible's saying. After like three weeks of that, she just looks at me and says,

I'm not doing this anymore. She goes, if they want to do this book study, I'll wait till they're done with it and do something else with the ladies.

I said, why? She goes, first off, I'd rather go to pastor conferences with you than this stuff.

It's just fluff. There's no content. And when there is content, you can't trust it. It's wrong.

So she just said, I'm done with it. That was my introduction to Beth Moore and women's studies.

And what I found is there are some, Beth Moore would be one, that she is a very divisive person.

Now what I mean by that is there are people that if you dare say what

I just said, that she's full of fluff and has no content or actually says things that are wrong or even worse now, that she says things that are unbiblical, like that she's having dreams of Jesus brushing her hair, it will divide me.

People will actually—I knew of a pastor that just stopped talking to me when I found out that he, in his sermon, had promoted

Beth Moore, and I said, are you familiar with her? She claims to have dreams from God and dreams that turn out to be untrue.

He stopped talking to me over that, and I'm like, wait, what? You see, she has become almost this divisive issue where if you don't speak highly of her, people will cut you off.

Of course, the thing that always gets me puzzled is they say that they're tolerant. Yeah. Well, you know, actually,

Andrew, Beth Moore is the reason I'm doing what I'm doing today. Other than, I mean, God is sovereign and he's the one that's given me—I never intended to do what

I'm doing, but about 25 years ago, a friend of mine asked me if I would listen to a video of hers.

She said, do you know Beth Moore? I said, no, I don't, never heard of her. So I took the video, and at that time,

I had just started writing studies for the ladies in my church. So I put it in. It was a VHS, so that tells you how long ago.

I put it in the TV, and my husband watched 15 minutes. He said, I'm going to bed. And I said, well, I'm going to watch the whole thing because I want to give my friend an adequate review of what

I think. So I watched the whole thing, and this is really true what happened. I turned off the television, and I said,

Lord, if you want to use me for your glory, I will do it. This is disgusting.

And she was—that was 25 years ago. And she was saying, the problem with Christians is they have attention -spiritual -deficit disorder, and the solution is sit still and know he's

God. And I thought, what? What is she talking about? And so it was honestly,

Andrew, through that—I mean, I already had a passion for women and was teaching women, but I never wanted a public forum.

I never planned to be an author, a speaker, but I did. I told the Lord, I will go wherever you want me to go.

I will do what you want me to do to help women. This is disgusting. And if she's the one that women are listening to today, like she even said, if I'm America's Bible teacher,

America is in trouble. And we are in trouble. Women that listen to her and follow her—and it's divided, me too, at places

I go, but I cannot stand by and not say anything when I'm asked what

I think of her. I tell them that she's a false teacher, and there's so much out there now.

And you're right. You're exactly right. She has just become loony. I mean, I don't even know what she's saying anymore.

And it's grievous to me. It's very grievous to me. And so I'm with you on that one.

And that's what people gravitate to. That's what women gravitate to, unfortunately. I'm a woman.

It's puzzling to me that she's gotten the platform she has with not any content.

And this is why I think we are hurting in churches so much, because the women in churches, it's like, in my opinion, many churches, what they do is, it's like, okay, the pastor's wife or some other woman teaches a study.

And I know that when I was pastor, there was this expectation my wife would lead a women's

Bible study, and my wife's not a teacher. And I think what often happens is churches put the pastor's wife in that position.

They don't want to teach, so they get some material. Beth Moore's popular. Okay, we'll get that.

But you're not doing the ladies in the church a spiritual service by giving them material and saying, we're going to read this, and let's not dig in deeply to the

Word of God. I mean, what Beth Moore should have answered with that was not to sit still, but to study to show yourself approved.

Yeah, exactly. Her hermeneutics are despicable. Wait, wait, she has her hermeneutics?

I didn't know she had her hermeneutics. She doesn't. She doesn't.

You know, I've told, well, Kathy Peters, Justin's wife, I've told her because my daughter lives in Houston, and I know where Beth lives.

And I really would, honestly, Andrew, I would love to go to her house with the

Bible and sit down and talk to her. She probably wouldn't let me in her door, but just to talk to her face to face, and I just,

I'm grieved. And I, you know, the blind lead the blind, they both fall in the ditch, and she's making those women two fold more of a child of hell than she is, and that's what scares me.

And her followers are becoming just like her. And I know because I've dealt with some of them. They're vicious, they're mean, and it's, it's grievous.

It's just grievous to me. Oh, yeah. I don't get, I don't seem to get as much hate mail until I do something about Beth Moore.

You know, then I hear a lot of it, but that, that's really the thing, you nailed it.

Her followers are very, very, just like her. Yeah. You know, by their fruit, you will know them by their, you know, when that thing came out with John MacArthur, you were there when he told her to go home.

That's when you and I met. Yeah. You know, she has continued, I don't have social, you know, media,

I don't do Instagram or any of that stuff, but, but Kathy keeps me abreast of all this, but she's really just mocked.

She's been mocking him since then. And, you know, that's one of the signs of a false teacher. According to Jude, they're mockers.

And even if I was confronted by a man I don't agree with, I would not be out mocking him in a public forum like that.

It is so grievous. Well, mocking, but taking him out of context and doing it.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. You know, she's not, she's not dealing with what he actually said and the context of it.

And she's definitely not addressing the context of the day because just earlier that day at that conference,

Justin did a whole thing on hearing the voice of God and showing how, you know, people like Beth Moore are looking for some extra biblical information, dreams, which again,

I, you know, I'll deal with when I go through in this Snatch Them From The Flame seminar, I go through the entire book of Jude on how to identify false teachers.

And you know, and yeah, we'll have a clip of Beth in there. But the thing is that when you see this, you just mentioned something that I think is really important for folks is, you know, being able to go to her house, like, you're right.

If we went to her house, she wouldn't see you or I. But I want, yeah, I know.

But she should. I mean, look, I've had the privilege, as I'm sure you have, to get to know people that many of us would look up to in Christian circles, names that are big names.

But I have some of those people, and I'm not going to name the names here, but I know of some people who

I've called up on the phone and had to say, look, you know, you said something,

I want to get more clarification because I think what you said was wrong. And you know, there's one individual where I remember calling him up recently, this is someone who's known around the world.

And I could call him up and say, hey, you know, I think, you know, there's an issue here.

And he apologized and was like, you know what? Yeah, let me let me explain that. I didn't word that well.

And it gave you the wrong impression. So please forgive me for that. And this is someone who's got a busier speaking schedule than you, which you have a pretty busy speaking schedule.

You're almost as busy as Justin when I looked at it. Well, not right now. It's all been shut down.

It was becoming very busy. But yeah, you know, but the thing with this virus is

I don't know if you've been doing this. I've been speaking around the world right from my house. I mean, I've preached in India.

I've preached in the Philippines. This weekend I'm preaching in Oregon and I don't leave the house.

I'm actually kind of liking that aspect, but it's not the same feeling as when you're with people, getting to meet them and getting to know them.

I miss it. I miss it a lot. But I am starting back in July. I'm going to Florida. So at least at least

I have one out. Wait, you're going to Florida in July. You're supposed to plan those in the winter months.

I know. So we'll see. I'm hoping to resume my schedule soon, but it's in the

Lord's hands and he has given not a lot of other ways to minister. So an online conference,

I'm going to be a part of one of those next month. So we'll just see what the Lord has.

Yeah, well, I mean, that is the reason we did this Snatch Them by the Flames. Justin and I had our schedule freed up and we're like, well, let's plan something.

Let's do something. And we actually thought, gee, May 30th may be too late.

Everyone might be out of the house by then. But it turned out well because everyone else started doing conferences after we started planning it.

But let's talk about what would good women's ministry in a church look like?

Because I think that, you know, we could look at some of these women and say,

OK, this is problematic. And there's some who I do think that there's some that start off with good intentions, but once publishing companies get involved, it becomes this thing where, well, we got to soften it so that it appeals to more people.

I know I have one book that went through a publisher. It's Sharing the Good News with Mormons.

There was 24 authors. We all wrote a chapter. It's a very thick book. But I was frustrated with the publishers because I have a phrase that I've been saying for, you know, going on 30 years, which is that I do open -air evangelism.

I share the gospel in the open, you know, for two reasons. One, to clearly communicate the gospel message.

Two, to get one professing atheist to tell another professing atheist to shut up. In other words,

I want to conduct my behavior in such a way that even someone who hates the message respects the way that I present the message.

And so that's why I call it ambassador evangelism. I need to be a good ambassador. Man, I was fighting with the publisher.

Like, look, this is the way I've said it for years. And they're like, I think they worded it like to have one unbeliever ask another unbeliever to be quiet.

And like, it doesn't have the same effect. But publishers do that because they want to sell.

And I think that that happens. I also think that what ends up happening is pride.

I think that pride is a very deceptive. I really became aware of pride in the

Christian circles. I don't know if you know the name Mark Cahill. He's an evangelist. He was a well -known evangelist, and he and I used to be friends.

And so we went to this conference. It was called the Deeper Conference. He was speaking, and there was a line of people out and around the corner to see him, just to talk to him.

And he wanted me to give him something when we got to the thing. So I waited. I was kind of off in the hover position, as people call it, like off to the side, waiting for him to finish speaking to someone.

And then I just walked up to give him this set of DVDs that he wanted. And, you know,

I was just like, you know, I just said, here, you know, give this to you. And he thanked me and he wanted to ask some questions.

I'm like, dude, just you got the long line of people. I'll talk to you later. Just give me a call next week when we get back home.

He goes, all right, I'll call you. As I'm walking away, he said, I'll call you. Well, as he said that, I had three people come right alongside me.

And I'm talking to him, and I realized something at that moment. They really didn't care about me. They cared that Mark knew who

I was. And they wanted to get to know me to get to know Mark. Now, I did something that was wrong.

I lied. I actually told the guy, because I actually felt that pride, like, oh, look, these people want to know me.

And then, like, realized they really didn't. And so I ended up lying and saying I had to go meet someone when

I really didn't, just to get away from the guy, because I didn't know how to deal with it. Now, since then, I've learned how to deal with it. It's one of the reasons when

I go preaching with Ray Comfort, I don't do it the Sunday, or sorry, the Saturday after Shepard's Conference.

I'll go out a week before so I could do it when no one from Shepard's Conference is there. So no one, like, there's just some believers there.

There's no believers who are going, oh, you know Ray Comfort, you know? So I think those things happen.

But could you explain what we should look for with good women's ministry in church?

What should that look like? Yeah, I can. You know, I believe, first of all, it should come under the umbrella of the pastor and elders, depending on the church government.

So everything needs to be approved by them. And in our church, our elders have asked that we just study the

Bible. And so I write my own Bible studies. I've written 13 to date.

Most of them, six have been published. The others are on their way to being published. But so I write expository studies for women.

And they're verse by verse, application, illustration for women. And so we study the

Bible. And if I'm not teaching other women that do teach, it's mainly good, sound, theological material.

So that's the first thing. It has to come under the authority of the elders. And then if we do other books, like during the summer, they also have to be approved by the elder board.

And so that's just for our protection. And so I think a good, solid women's ministry would be founded on Scripture.

And we have small groups. We have leaders that are approved that know how to facilitate a discussion, that know how to confront error if it's brought up.

And so I teach and then we have discussion time and fellowship. And then we also have a very active

Titus 2 ministry where old women get together with younger women and disciple them in the areas of, you know, domestic things.

Just the sevenfold curriculum in Titus 2 teach them how to be sober minded, love their husbands, their children, be pure keepers at home and good and obedient to their husbands.

So we have I think that's a healthy women's ministry where they're being taught the Bible, but also being discipled.

And so in our church, we probably have 90, 95 percent of our women that are either discipling or being discipled.

And again, it's all under the umbrella and protection of, you know, the elder board.

And so we're just very, very thankful for that. But definitely, I would not gravitate to women's materials that is, you know, based on feelings or psychology or I never ask a question like, well, how does this make you feel?

It doesn't really matter how it makes you feel. It matters what God says. And so I try to we stay away from all that kind of material.

So you stay away from S -Y -I Bible studies, huh?

You know what that stands for? No, I do not know what that stands for. Show your ignorance. That's where everyone sits around in a

Bible study having not studied at all and just go, what does this mean to you? Yeah.

Yeah. No, we don't do that. No. So and, you know,

I am thankful. I think there are women out there. I've met them on my traveling excursions.

There are women out there that really want to know the Bible and they really want to be instructed in truth.

But there are far more other women, I think, who gravitate towards the

Beth Moore type studies, unfortunately. But again, I think it goes back to leadership.

And if your elder board and your pastor is not sound theologically and biblically, then you're going to have women that are weak and and they're not going to be instructed in things that they should be.

So I'm thankful for the protection of that. Again, I think that, you know, we're just seeing a weakness in the churches all around.

It's not just it's not just women's ministry. My husband has often said from the pulpit, pastors are politicians and cowards.

And until they can stop being politicians and cowards, the church is not going to be strong in its foundation.

So I wish your husband would say what he really thinks. Yeah, he does. Do you think that it could be just because it's easy to do a study that you just pull off the shelf?

You don't have to prepare much. Do you think that's why it's become so popular?

Because it's just it's easy. It's probably because I did the same thing you do.

And I first started looking to, you know, to be published because someone said I needed to do it.

And I, you know, I would present my stuff to Moody or, you know, other publishers and they want me to cut half of it out.

I go, how can you do that? It's a Bible study. You can't cut out half of it. So through the

Lord's gracious, providential kindness, Focus Publishing sought me out and and they started publishing and I have a contract with them.

So they published it in its entirety and will the Lord willing. So I'm thankful that you're right.

They people they just want the bottom. Give me the bottom line. Give me the bottom line. And I'm sorry, you know, you've got to study to show yourself approved, you know, a workman that needs not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the truth.

So, I mean, I spend 15 to 30 hours for every message I write. And, you know, to study it properly,

I do my own outlines. I, you know, like I said, I memorize it before I even teach it.

And my husband goes through all my books before they're published to make sure they're theologically correct.

And so that's just for protection, you know, and to offer something out there that women can sink their teeth into, hopefully.

You know, now, you said, son, that I want to highlight, because when I do our

Bible Interpretation Made Easy seminar, we teach people how to interpret the Bible in churches.

We come in for a weekend and do this. And one of the things I do at the end is to say,

OK, look, this sounds like a lot of work when you lay out all that is required, all that you should be doing to do study of God's word.

It sounds like a lot of work. And if you have a faithful pastor, this is what your pastor is doing every week.

So if it sounds like a lot, then you should be praying for your pastor a lot more, because this is what a pastor should be at least doing week in, week out.

I know it blows people away when I would say that for me, a sermon is an average.

It used to be about 30 hours, 30 to 40. Now I'd say it's 20 to 30. I think it's reduced because the more you study and the more you preach, there is some that you retain.

Yes. And you learn how to do things quicker. I've learned how to work with my PC study software better, and I've just learned how to know more scripture now.

I have a better understanding. So it goes a little faster. But it's a lot of work. I love it. It's a lot of work.

Well, in my case, with my Logos, that definitely saved me time not having to pull books and open them because I can one click and get it.

But I have learned how to not go on all the rabbit trails of, oh, let's go and research this now.

Let's look at this. This is of interest. So I've had to learn to do that.

But for people who hear what you just said, that seems like a lot, 15 to 30 hours. But I think this is the problem that we have in church.

I'll even say with Sunday school, a lot of people are familiar with the Answers in Genesis survey that was done where they talked about the reason people were leaving the church was they left when they were in Sunday school because in Sunday school we teach facts as if it's story and then they go to school and they get evolution as if it's a fact.

And I think that's partially true. But the other part that I think is true is the fact that who teaches

Sunday school? Any warm body, you know, anyone who's willing and they don't study.

Okay, here's your material. Here's the material you have to teach for tomorrow.

They read it maybe the night before. They come in. It's a bunch of, here's some crafts we're going to do with the kids.

Here's some things we're going to do. Here's a little story. They haven't studied it out. I mean, when I was a pastor in different churches,

I've always kind of had it where we wrote our own material. As a leadership, we provided an outline, but it required about 10 hours of study.

Mm hmm. Yeah, it's a lot of work. It's a lot of work, but it's worth it.

And I've got to answer, as Justin often says, I have one to answer to, and that's God. So I better have it downright.

Yeah, you know, I try to say the difference of where it's just my opinion and where Scripture says.

Yeah, yeah. So I want to go ahead. No, go ahead. No, I was just going to say, I want to be accurately dividing the word of truth.

And I've seen the changes in our women. They're growing spiritually, and it shows up in their home life and their marriage.

And I'm just so thankful. I go to other churches, and honestly,

Andrew, it's grievous. Some of these women, they don't know where the simplest things are in the

Bible. And they're struggling with all kinds of issues in their home, but they're just not equipped in Scripture.

And so I'm very thankful for, you know, the opportunity in my own church and to be able to help women, you know, in other areas, too.

So anyway. So what I want to do after this break is

I would like to go through some of the resources that you have, because my hope is that people will go to WithTheMaster .org

and check these resources out and start ordering them for their church or having you come out and speak, which would be a good thing.

Although I did take a look at the website, and I see you did dodge a bullet. I see that May 15th and 16th, thanks to Corona, it looks like you dodged a bullet.

And you don't have to be out there with Jim Osmond at Kootenai Community Church there. So very good, you dodged that bullet.

For folks who don't know, Jim is someone who's been a co -host with me on this show in episodes in the past, and I have speaking at his church several times.

But he's a good friend, and he used to be our mutual friend, Justin Peters, pastor.

So, but after this break, I want to go through some of the resources, what makes your resources different than other resources, and what people can expect to learn from them.

So let's talk about that after this break. The good news is Striving for Eternity would love to come to your church to spend two days with your folks, teaching them biblical hermeneutics.

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So we're back with Susan Heck. And again, the website is withthemaster .org.

Now, as we've been talking, there is a lot of resources, Susan, for women's ministries.

You have produced a number of them. And what I'd like to do is kind of just go through so that if there's people who are saying, you know,

I did go to a church where we had Beth Moore and we want to get some solid stuff. They want to reach out to get some of your resources in.

Could you give us an overview of how your resources are organized, what people can expect with them, what kind of sets them different from a

Beth Moore? And then what are some of the topics and things that people can learn?

Thank you. Yeah, I have written 13 Bible studies to this day.

Just finished a study in Second Timothy and six of them have been published in book form.

And the next one was getting ready to be published when COVID -19 came. So the goal is to have them all published.

And I do hope to keep writing. So they're all I've written study on James, Colossians, First Peter, First Thessalonians, First and Second Timothy, the

Upper Room Discourse and on and on. But so my studies are written in an expository fashion.

I'm sure your audience knows what that means. Verse by verse through books of the Bible. And I have study questions at the end of every chapter.

And so it's digging deeper. I have application questions and usually scripture memory, one verse based on the text.

And so they they are media studies, but they are written in a fashion that I believe even the the newest believer could understand my my

Bible studies. They're also on DVD and then also on YouTube.

We now have a YouTube channel and a lot of my teaching can be found on YouTube. So ladies could go through a

Bible study on YouTube and then get the homework from my website. They can download it.

And so they could come to church or their home and watch one of my teachings and then do the homework.

And so there's there's a lot of you know, there's a lot of ways that they can do that.

And I do have churches that do go through my studies. And I'm just very thankful for that, that God is using them.

And then I've written other books, you know, helping women put off life dominating sins. I've written a book on 20 tests for God's little children out of first John called the discipleship called a scripture memory.

Another book that was getting ready to be published when COVID -19 came was speaking the truth in love in a post -truth world.

But they can find that book that right now on YouTube. We just recorded that at my church so they can get it in audio form and video form.

But it's not in the book yet. Speaking the truth in a post -truth world, because I think we've lost the art of speaking truth.

And so there's other things like that resources that, you know, they can use.

Those are more, you know, those other ones are more like booklets, more than, you know, big Bible studies.

So anyway, there's a lot of different ways they can do it. Audio, video, get on my website.

They can listen to teaching that way or YouTube. So or purchase a book off Amazon or through me or through Focus Publishing.

So. And for folks to know if they go to your website with themestor .org, the

YouTube channel is at the bottom of the page is a little link on the lower right to get to your

YouTube channel. So, I mean, this is you have a lot of material.

But, you know, when we think about this, I think about the way most people try to teach, which, as we said earlier, is just they want to just read something and then facilitate a discussion about what people think about whatever was read.

It doesn't sound like your studies are really designed for that. It sounds like your studies are designed for actually doing some homework.

You actually have a tab on your website with lists of homework. Yeah. And it's more like what we were talking about, rules of interpretation.

And so I'll have my, you know, sometimes I'll say, man, you have a street through the whole Bible. I don't. But I want them to be able to find those nuggets of truth for themselves.

And so I'll I'll ask them to compare and contrast. I'll ask them to look for things that are repeated in scripture.

And why does Paul repeat this or why does Peter repeat this verse or this phrase or this idea?

And so I want them to be thinking on their own. So I don't it's not just a fill in the blank Bible study.

It's not just busy work. It's it's work where I really want them to be to be thinking. And then at the end, you know what?

How is this going to change your life? What are you going to do about what you've just been taught? You know, so it's one thing to be peers or studiers, but we need to be doers of the word.

And and that's why we have the small group so they can pray for one another, hold one another accountable for the things that they know they need to change with God's help and his spirit.

So, yeah, they're they're not they're not for fluffy people. So if they're looking for fluff, well, you head over to Beth Moore's website, but not mine.

But I really want to help women. I tell you, it's been a joy because I've been doing this now for 30 years and I just have a joy.

I've met women all over the U .S. and even now in other countries that some I disciple through Skype.

And I tell you, it's just a joy to see these women, you know, getting hold of truth and growing and learning and then discipling other women.

And I've lived long enough to see that passing on, passing on. And it's a joy.

And just I just want to keep keep doing what I do till I can't do it anymore until the Lord takes me home, whichever comes first.

So, well, not too soon, we hope for sure. But, you know, you also have another resource that if I didn't hear you mention, which is you have a podcast that you do and you you obviously

I could see why you and Justin Peters get along so well. Justin's ministry is called the way let me think about the name.

It's hard for me to remember. Oh, that's right. Justin Peters Ministries website of JustinPeters .org.

I see why you and he get along so well, because your podcast is named Susan Heck Podcast.

Actually, some guy is doing that for me. I don't know. He's the one that started taking all my stuff and doing it because his wife wanted to listen to me while she was going about her day.

And he said, do you care if I take all your teaching and do a podcast? I don't care. So I really have nothing to do with that.

And even the YouTube channel, I don't I don't really do anything. I have someone in my church that wanted she's retired now.

And she said, you know, we really need to get your teachings online. So she's the one that she'll video me on when

I teach. And then she puts it up there and puts all the bells and whistles on it. So if it can help somebody,

I'm thankful, you know, to have it available anyway. Well, I mean, this is using the technology to to get the truth out.

And it is sad that we have to battle against so much error. You know, it's it's a frustrating thing.

It is. And it's getting worse and worse. It really is. And as just as Christ said, it'll become worse and worse.

And false Christ, false prophets will arise. And if possible, deceive the elect. They won't be able to.

But I'll tell you, they're trying to do a good job of it. So, yeah, yeah. You know, it's always amazing to see how people think that we can in church get along with the world and not have the world affect us.

That, you know, we could play nice with them, take on their belief system and somehow convince them that the truth is in Christ.

Like, why would they when you've already given up Christ for the world? You know, what do you what do you think would is the the greatest danger in women's ministry in churches?

The greatest danger that I see is the lack of biblical knowledge.

And they don't there's no desire for the pure milk of the word.

And therefore, they're not growing. And along with that would be an addiction to social media.

I just heard a sermon by Pastor MacArthur that he did two weeks ago. And he was talking about the importance of fellowship with one another.

And he was talking about the danger of cell phone social media.

And I'm just really disturbed when I will talk to women as I travel and speak who are biblically illiterate.

But then when you kind of probe a little bit and ask personal questions, they'll spend two to four hours a day on Facebook or Instagram or just meaningless, trivial stuff, searching recipes online, you know, searching an hour for some recipe that's going to be eaten in 10 minutes and wasting time.

And so I think we're just that's what I see. It's women that are

I was talking to a gal the other day that I disciple in New Jersey. And she said, I just can't

I can't find any women that are older and godly and that I want to emulate. And I said, that's an indictment on our church.

And that shouldn't be that way. There should be a plethora of older women in every church that young women can say, yeah,

I want to I want to follow her. She follows Christ. But they're just not there because they'd rather, you know, be involved in trivial drippings of the day and they're wasting their life.

So that's that's what I see. You asked me, so I just told you. Well, do you do you think

I mean, you brought up a point, though, is do you think that with remember, if you remember back in the 80s, the worship wars were based on the style of music that you wanted to hear in church, they started dividing the church into a traditional and contemporary and the traditional was for the older congregation and the contemporary for the younger congregation.

And which ended up really being that they just split off churches where you had more traditional churches and contemporary churches so that those those groups didn't even get to know each other within one church.

But now they're in totally separate churches. Do you think that that divide in generation had a had a play in all this in the fact that you were not seeing that Titus model of older men to older to younger men, older women to younger women played out?

Yeah, I would. I would I would say, yes, it has had a big I believe that has has a big whatever the word

I'm looking for impact on it, because I remember after my husband graduated from seminary and we moved back to Oklahoma, I was just all of a sudden just struck with the fact that I didn't see that happening in churches.

There was not this discipling going on. And I wondered why that was so neglected.

And and I do believe there is a big divide. And so we haven't raised up a generation of men and women that see the importance of biblical discipleship or training, you know, one another in in how to study the

Bible and how to learn the Bible. And, you know, we think, you know, popcorn called the

God and and one verse a day is going to get us through our, you know, the spiritual battle of life every day.

We're crazy. It's not going to work. And so but unfortunately, that's what's being modeled in the churches today.

I mean, I even see this with like the way the church, some churches will do Sunday schools or something. It's it's as if everyone's kind of broken.

If you're older, you have no children, you you can hang out together.

Then if you're younger, you have children, you hang out together. If you're the college and career, the singles, you hang out, you know, and it's all divided.

We were in one church that what my wife and I would do once a month is have a dinner, and we would take a different couple or individuals from each of those kind of groups because we saw everyone segregating that way and just would have them over for dinner to get to know one another.

And people start realizing they had so much they can learn from each other. And it was very healthy for the church.

But I don't see that being done often. I think, as you said, that the Titus model just is is something not being done in churches.

And I think that adds to why we're so anemic as a church.

Yeah. Well, we don't realize that with age comes wisdom. And so we put old people on a shelf and we think they have nothing to offer when in fact they have.

I mean, I have two women that disciple me, one's 86 and one's 76. They've been working with me for 30 years, and I still,

I'm 64, but I still value my time with them and being mentored by them and learning from what they've learned through life's experiences and growing and things like that.

And we just don't value older people. And we stick them in nursing homes. And, you know, it's sad.

And yet there's a lot of benefit there. And I am thankful we do have a lot of different ages in our church.

And I do see that there is not that divide. But I do think you're right. And I think, you know,

I don't want to pick on the millennials, but I think there's an issue there. And they would rather learn from each other, their peers, which is what got

Rehoboam in trouble, than to listen to the older saints, you know, who've gone through trials and struggles and they've walked with God for, you know, 20, 30 years and can pass on such help if they would just, you know, seek it.

So that's my two cents. You know, because this is the thing, how

God has structured it. And we're so ignoring that.

I mean, I remember when I was pastor at the Chinese church, and maybe it had more to do with the Chinese culture, but when we would get together, all the children,

I noticed, were kind of always together. Not by age. It was just anyone under 18.

And so the older children naturally looked out and cared for and watched the younger children.

And I was able to watch as those younger children matured, they took on that responsibility of taking care of the younger kids.

And they matured better. They learned how to serve in church better.

And I think that is something that we've so divided all the age groups in a church.

We started with the children, and now we're doing it to the adults. And I think it ruins the discipleship that God has designed.

You know? Yeah, I would agree. I would agree. So whatever we can do to reclaim that biblical model is good.

And I am thankful that God is using me to at least get the message out there. I did two sessions on discipleship, and it's on my

YouTube channel. And I'm hoping that God will use that to stir up some people.

Well, you know, it has been such a blessing to have you on and to be able to discuss this, because quite frankly, women's ministry is, unfortunately for many pastors, something that they just hand off to some woman in the church, their wife or someone else, and try to forget about.

And I think your charge, your counsel of saying that the pastors of the church should be involved, should be active, should be knowing what's taught.

I think the materials that you're providing are necessary for people. Again, I just want to encourage people, go to withthemaster .org,

check out the materials there. Check out where Susan is going to be speaking. She's speaking all over the place, so she's probably speaking somewhere near you.

If she's not, then here's my suggestion. Go talk to your pastor and say, hey, can we get

Susan to speak at our church? Here's how you do it. You just go to her page, you click on speaker schedule, and there's a link at the bottom of how to get a hold of her to have her speak.

It's quite simple, actually. And you should do that and have her at your church, especially with the fact that, you know, for people who do what we do, it's kind of hard when all of a sudden all speaking events stop.

And so help her out by booking her in your church to make up for the events that she had to cancel.

Except for that one at Kootenai Community Church with Jim Osmond. Yeah, skip that one.

You dodged a bullet there, you're safe. I mean, even Justin left that church. I know he wants to be near the grandchildren, but you know.

Yeah, I've been to that church four or five times, so it was sad that we had to cancel, but it is what it is.

Yeah. So listen, I want to play a game with you that I do with my guests. And just so you know, there's no pressure on you, all the pressure is on me.

So we're going to play a game. It's time now to start the Spiritual Transition Game.

Now, I know that you listen to this podcast religiously, so you know what this is, but I'm going to explain it to everyone else who doesn't.

So here's the way we play this game, Susan. You're going to give me something, an object or a topic, whatever it is, and my job is to get to the gospel.

Now, I don't edit this part, so if you stump me, you stump me, and you know, it's happened before, but the goal of this is to train ourselves to be able to transition from the natural to the spiritual.

In other words, the thing with evangelism that people find so hard is, how do I start that conversation?

Well, the reason it's hard is because people don't practice that, and this is a way of practicing. We turned it into a game.

You could play it in your small group Bible study, you know, when you're at church with just having people over for dinner.

Just throw out a topic and say, can you turn that into a spiritual conversation? Can you get this to the gospel?

So Susan's going to give me something, and while she's thinking about that, that's the whole reason I give the explanation to delay and give her time to think about something, and she's going to give me something, and I have the job of transitioning from whatever she gives me to the gospel as quickly, and not just quickly, but as tactfully as I can so it's a smooth transition.

Remember, this is as if you're having a conversation with somebody, and you want to be able to go from whatever they're talking about to the gospel.

So Susan, what am I going to transition to today? Why do you think that COVID -19 came into our world?

That seems to be a popular one these days, is COVID -19. It's like it might be on people's mind. Why would

COVID -19 come into the world? Well, I think there's a couple reasons. I think we could look at what scientists are doing in trying to push science to its extreme, because I don't believe it came from bats in nature, and just the reason is for the chemicals to change the way they did, it would take about 800 years of change to be able to occur that much from the

SARS and whatnot. So I think that it just comes from people trying to push the limits of what they could do, see how far they could go.

And that can be helpful, but it could be dangerous, because when we say that we want to see what we could do without having ethics, without having some way of saying, is this right?

Science can do lots of things, but the question is, should science do some of those things?

Well, one reason why I would say science shouldn't do some things like this, for example, is experimenting with these things can cause problems, such as you infect a bat with a virus and you perfect that, but then someone decides, well, we got to get rid of these bats, we'll sell them on the market.

Bad idea, right? And it spreads. So we need to ask sometimes the questions, should we do this?

Not, can we do this? And we see this in a lot of different areas. There's lots of things in our culture that people say, well,

I can do this. I can love someone of the same sex as me.

But the question is, should we do that? And where can we get that standard from?

Well, ultimately, where coronavirus came from is the fact that we live in a cursed world and where we get the ethics from, if it's going to be a proper ethic, it has to have an absolute universal standard.

And the only way you have that is in the nature of God alone, the one that created the universe.

He gives us that standard of ethics to say whether what's right and wrong and whether we should do something or not.

And that sin entered the world and that just all the diseases is the curse on the entire universe is cursed because of what

Adam and Eve had done. And when we look at that, we end up seeing that all of us, if we're going to be honest, you and I, we break

God's law. We lie and we steal. We covet. We break the commandments that God says we shouldn't do.

God's written his law in our hearts so we know that guilty conscience we have when we do something we know is wrong.

That's telling us we need to get right with God. And the way to get right with God is to turn from trusting ourself as a good person, turn from trusting our good works, and turn to Jesus Christ alone as the payment of sin.

Why him alone? Because he's truly God and truly man. Being truly man, he could pay a fine for other men, but being truly

God, he can pay an eternal fine for more than one person. And that is what makes him unique and what makes

Christianity unique. So my encouragement would be to not worry about coronavirus, but worry about what happens a second after you die.

Get right with God today. Turn from trusting yourself or your good works or your genealogy.

Well, I was raised Catholic. I'll die Catholic. Turn from those things and trust in Jesus Christ alone.

So that's how I would go from wise coronaviruses in the world to the gospel. Cool. Well, I want to give you some time to wrap up with anything else you want to share, anything else you have coming up other than us waiting for publishers to start publishing your books again.

Yeah, that's my hope. But in the meantime, I'm doing writing and doing online conference and memorizing

Ecclesiastes now. So doing that since I finished the New Testament. So it's been a great book during this time, a time for everything, a time to embrace, a time to refrain from embracing.

I thought, well, that's social distancing. When did you start memorizing that book? Probably about March of this year.

So I'm in chapter three. Did you start that because of this whole pandemic or were you just by God's providence you started?

I was going to start in Genesis and I thought, well, that's a long book. I think I've always wanted to memorize

Ecclesiastes. I think it's such a great book. And so I thought, I'll start there and then go to Genesis.

So it's been a joy. But yeah, I don't really, you know, I just would like to encourage your audience, especially the, well, the men too, but the females to really, you know, just make sure that what they're reading and listening to is sound doctrine and to not gravitate towards the fluffy, puffy stuff that is out there.

And, you know, they want to be strong in their faith and that's not going to cut it, you know, listening to that other stuff.

So whether it's me or somebody else or, you know, get some of the men's stuff, get some John MacArthur stuff or some solid biblical men, you know, to listen to and spend their time wisely.

Well, I appreciate you coming on. I appreciate the wisdom that you provided. And let me ask just one last question before we go.

When you've memorized this stuff, do you go back and re -memorize it or do you memorize and then move on or do you kind of?

No, I review everything. This morning I was reviewing all of Luke. That was my last

New Testament book to memorize. So I do try to read. I try to review everything

I've memorized within a couple weeks period of time. So I'm always reviewing and so I don't lose it.

And then when I notice that there's some rough places in certain chapters, I'll try to put those on the fast track.

And I try to do first thing in the morning. Otherwise, as the day goes on, it's kind of harder to make yourself be still and do that stuff because I'm pretty active.

But yeah, I do. I'm always reviewing. And when I have time, I do.

I review. I try to get it done in two to four weeks. I try to review the whole New Testament somehow. And a lot of the books

I've known, like when I met my husband, I was only 18 and he encouraged me to memorize Colossians back then.

So I've had that memorized for, we'll be married 45 years this year. So I can quote

Colossians backwards and forwards almost because I've had it memorized for so long. So the more you review it, the more it just rolls off your tongue.

And that's what I have found. So I try to keep a good review system going because I don't want to lose it.

I want to be able to use it when I teach and disciple. I'm also a biblical counselor.

So I counsel and I like to be able to be able just to have it in my head to be able to help people.

Yeah. And I think that's where my loss was is I would memorize as you. I'd memorize books as I went through preaching them.

But I didn't go back and review and I would lose it. But I still keep kind of the outline in my mind. Yeah. Which is good.

Yeah. So folks, go to withthemaster .org. Check out all the resources

Susan has. Book her to come speak at your church. And again, Striving for Eternity Moving Sale.

It's on until July 15th of 2020. So just order whatever books, whatever syllabuses you want.

You'll get 50 % off by using the coupon code MOVE, M -O -V -E in the discount code.

And so until next week, remember to strive to make today an eternal day for the glory of God. And that's a wrap.

This podcast is part of the Striving for Eternity ministry. For more content or to request a speaker or seminar to your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.