Welcome back to season five of Enter the Bible, a podcast in which we share "Everything You Wanted to Know about the Bible...but were afraid to ask."

At the conclusion of our season, co-hosts Katie Langston and Kathryn Schifferdecker are joined by Love Sechrest. Love L. Sechrest is Dean of the Faculty and Vice President for Academic Affairs at Columbia Theological Seminary and was previously an associate professor of the New Testament at Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California.

Today our theologians will be answering the listener-submitted question, "What Did Jesus Have to Say about Race/Ethnicity? (Part 2)"

Do you have Bible questions you would like answered? Go to our website at https://enterthebible.org/about to get started.

Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/ix4K0hAYREU .

Mentioned in this episode:

Stepping Up to Supervision

Katie Langston: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Enter the Bible podcast, where you can get answers, or at least reflections on everything you wanted to know about the Bible but were afraid to ask. I'm Katie Langston.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: And I'm Kathryn Schifferdecker. And today we have as our special guest, Dr. Love Sechrest, who is the Associate Provost and Professor of Theology at Mount Saint Mary's University in Maryland. This is the second of a two part series that we are talking with Love, with Dr. Sechrest about. And I should just remind you again, as I did in the first session, that Dr. Sechrest's recent book is called "Race and Rhyme: Rereading the New Testament," published in 2022 from Eerdmans Publishers. So Love, thank you so much for joining us again for this important topic.

Love Sechrest: It is so good to be with you. Thanks for inviting me.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: So the question that we're addressing and again, this is part two of a two part series. So if you haven't had a chance to listen to part one, you might want to do that. But the question that we got from a reader is this what does sorry, not from a reader, from a listener. What does Jesus say about race and ethnicity? So let's maybe start Love, if you wouldn't mind just recapping just a little bit of what you said in part one for those who haven't had a chance to listen to it.

Love Sechrest: Yeah, thanks for thanks. It's such an important question. I think what I talked about in the first podcast was the fact that while race does not appear in the New Testament in exactly the same ways as we're accustomed to thinking about it today, there are analogous concepts that did exist in the ancient world and in the Bible. For instance, one of the one of the most common words in the New Testament is is the word, the Greek word ethnos, which is translated most often in our Bibles as Gentiles. Right now, ethnos is really the word, the Greek word from which we derive the English, Modern English ethnicity. Right. So right there you can see there's a touch. There's another word in the, in the Greek genos, which is one common translation is race. Sort of the basic idea. And that is a kind of people, a kind of people group. And so using that, you can look at the New Testament and find that there's all kinds of places where the New Testament is talking about conflict between people groups, Jews and Gentiles, Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians and Pharisees and Sadducees and and so it becomes a way of seeing analogs between contemporary life and, and the life during the time of Jesus. And that's, that is the is has been a dominant lens for me in terms of rereading the New Testament, to think about, to see what the New Testament might have to say about racial and ethnic conflict today, by reading it, by looking at the group conflict and to see what we can, what we can find that might be helpful for thinking about today.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Yeah, that's really helpful. So it's part of human nature, it seems, both in the ancient world and today, to have the kind of, to separate into groups right, like, yes, the us and them kind of we and them. Yeah. And and unfortunately that often leads to conflict or is part of conflict.

Love Sechrest: That's right. That's right. One of the things that I introduce in the book is that as strong as the analogies may be, right, as we've kind of just recently talked about, it's also important to examine the differences. Right? Because we might end up, we might end up overlooking important dynamics in the contemporary world that aren't addressed in the Bible. And I think we need to try to cultivate a biblical imagination to first identify those differences, and then to to try to figure out, well, are there other places in the Bible that might talk about that might talk about the gap that we may see, right? Because they are very, very different contexts. Likewise, there may be issues in the biblical text that aren't strictly, you know, sort of addressed in the in the contemporary world. So it's it's as important to think about the differences as it is to think about the similarities. And I actually see some tensions in the Gospel of Matthew, which is I think what we're going to talk about today, there are actually some times in the Gospel of Matthew where Jesus, Jesus says things that are really quite narrow, right, like "go nowhere among the Gentiles," right? When he's sending the. Yeah, when he's sending the disciples out in Matthew chapter ten, it's called the missionary discourse, right? Like he says, don't, go nowhere among the Gentiles. So that's one part. But then on the opposite pole, you have Matthew 28, the Great Commission, right? Go to all nations, teaching them everything that I've commanded you. So it's one of the reasons why I was really especially drawn to the Gospel of Matthew. Because it's you see, really a complexity in terms of some of the group interactions. And, and I think that that complexity is helpful for thinking about the problems that beset us today.

Katie Langston: Yeah. before we dive into the Gospel of Matthew, I was curious by you were talking about some of the differences. We talked, it sounds like, and forgive me that I wasn't there on the first on the first call. I'm so excited, excited and happy to be able to be here today that there were, you know, that we talked about the similarities and and so on, but that there are some important differences. And I'd love if we could tease that out a little bit. What for example, what kinds of differences.

Love Sechrest: Yeah. Thanks for that question. It is important to reiterate that here. Um, so while the the major constructs do separate do identity particular people groups and to talk about what they have in common. And that is very similar to group identity you know, today. One of the major differences is that among the Greco-Roman world, the primary way of differentiating people groups had to do with homeland, place of origin. And in some ways this is this is like a similarity with today, right? African Americans. Right. Like Anglo-Americans coming from coming from England, right, or Italian Americans or German Americans, et cetera. And so, so this idea of associating sort of a group identity with a homeland or nationality finds similarity in the ancient Greek world. Jews, on the other hand, while they had, you know, some of that, the thing that emerges as the major concern for them was religion, right? The the biggest division among the Jewish people in the Israelite people, that of the early Christian period is who you worship. Do you worship the God of Abraham, or are you worshiping some other God? That becomes the dominant way of othering, right? Of understanding who we are over and against who the other is? Thanks for asking was such an important question.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Yeah, one other difference that I think is probably worth noting that you mentioned in the first session it has to do with skin color. Can you say a bit more about that difference?

Katie Langston: Yeah, yeah.

Love Sechrest: Yeah, so the dominant way of thinking about race today is with reference to skin color, right. That I think the in the US context, the differences between white and black and how other people groups get sorted, you know, in that dichotomy has been I think really the, the besetting problem in, in the US, and it's cut across like, like ethnicity even, because, right, people from African nations are constructed as black, even though they have very different social contexts from African and likewise Caribbean people who are dark skinned from the Caribbean, they get they get sort of they get sucked in, even against their will, into the dichotomies of, of black and white in the, in the US. And I don't want to oversimplify. I mean, there are lots of other people groups, Asian American, which is a group that none of them really recognizes as defining their group. They think of themselves as Chinese Americans or Japanese Americans, Korean Americans, et cetera.

Katie Langston: Asia's a big continent it turns out, right.

Love Sechrest: Exactly.

Katie Langston: It's not a monoculture. Same with Africa and all the cultures, but right.

Love Sechrest: Yeah, exactly. And so many of those people groups would like to resist sort of a simple dichotomy between black and white. And I think there it's important to it's important to understand. But think what I would say is that today we racialize lots of different people groups, right? That they are. And the ways that they are racialized differ. Now, they they may be set over and against white. Right? Is is something that they have in common, but their individual experiences as people is, is very different from African Americans or Latinx Americans et cetera. I would even say that white people are also racialized in the United States, right? Like they have lost their particularity as Italian immigrants or Jewish people or German immigrants, et cetera. And they get sort of collapsed into a racial category of white people and things that, quote, white people do. Right? Right. Yeah. So that is a that's a that's a very different context for thinking about racial and ethnic belonging here than that was true in the ancient world. Now, they had other complexities that I think one I was just reading about recently. I'm reading a wonderful book that talks about how language plays a important part of constructing identity in the ancient world and today. And so there are lots of different ways that the groups have thought about themselves and thought about what makes them distinctive. But those are some of the similarities and differences between the time of Jesus and today.

Katie Langston: Cool. That's really helpful.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Thanks. Yeah, that is really helpful. Thank you. Well, let's let's dive into the book of Matthew since we want to focus on particular texts. So where would you like to, where would you like to start the conversation? Yeah.

Love Sechrest: I think I want to start with Matthew 15 and then compare it with Matthew eight. These are two stories that are really similar, but let's take the let's start with the the one where Jesus encounters a Canaanite woman in in Matthew 15:21. And it's a you know, when reading this story against the backdrop of our sort of contemporary fraught, our ethnic and racial relations, it can be really troubling, right?

Katie Langston: Yeah. For sure.

Love Sechrest: Really, really troubling.

Katie Langston: This is one is I struggle with. Yeah.

Love Sechrest: Yeah it is, it's it's a it's a terrible one. Jesus. And a woman comes out and son of Lord, son of David. My daughter is tormented by a demon. He first he ignores her, then he, then his disciples say, send her away. She's bothering us. And then he says, this is one of those. This is very similar to another moment of the gospel we just talked about in the missionary discourse. He says, I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, right? Oh my gosh, how exclusive does that seem? And it's one of these moments that I say shows that there's some ambiguity in the in the Gospel of Matthew, and I do have some thoughts on that. If you're interested in more on that, please read my book. We talk about teaser, a teaser. It's a little teaser, right? But still, this is really difficult. And then she continues to beg him, right? She drops at his feet, Lord help me. But he says, verse 26, it's not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs.

Katie Langston: Ouch!

Love Sechrest: Oh my goodness. Yes, effectively calling her a dog. Now our commentaries struggle with this, with this part of the text, I mean, some have said, oh well, he uses a diminutive word, so it's really like calling her a puppy versus calling her dog. And I say, yeah, not helpful.

Katie Langston: Yeah.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Don't know that that.

Katie Langston: That's not better. I mean, puppies are really cute, but we don't call people it is. Right.

Love Sechrest: It's like.

Katie Langston: By definition, yes

Love Sechrest: It is dehumanizing. I think I as I have scoured sort of the Gospel of Matthew, there's another there's another part of Matthew. Let me see if I can get to a real quick. It's in the it's a line in the the sermon on the Mount, chapter seven, verse six, do not give what is holy to dogs.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Oh, right.

Love Sechrest: "Do not throw your pearls before swine, or they will trample them underfoot and turn and maul you," and as I looked at the sort of dog imagery and swine or pig imagery and New Testament and other early Jewish writings, really those are images for Gentiles. Right? And so it's kind of interesting. This becomes, read in that light, this becomes an echo of what Jesus has said to this Canaanite. Right. I'm only sent to the lost sheep of the house of of Israel. Like I'm not going to give what's holy to Gentiles. I'm not going to throw my pearls in front of unclean right the unclean people like Gentiles. So so I think that that's what's going on. In other words, this text has a lot of ethnic tension in it, and it has it's concerning the sort of the dominant, um, tension that that Jesus as a Jewish person, really Matthew the Evangelist, because we have all we have is, you know, what he's recorded of Jesus' words. And frankly, I have to tell you, I have over the years in trying to engage this text over and over, and one of the most helpful things for me has been to separate Jesus from Matthew, right? To say, yeah, well, Jesus, I mean, Matthew certainly didn't have had some difficulties with with Gentiles. But the Jesus tradition shows that in being faithful to what Jesus taught and preached, the disciples ended up taking the gospel to the Gentiles. Right? So there is something, some difference.

Katie Langston: Something was in there, right? That's right. The leaven in the loaf. Yeah.

Love Sechrest: There's something there. That's right. Exactly. It bore fruit. It bore fruit later. But nevertheless, the the text in Matthew 15:21 is really difficult. And then she agrees. "Yes, Lord. But even dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table." And then Jesus says, "woman, great is your faith. Let it be done for you as you wish." And so and her daughter was healed instantly. So. He recognizes that she has, you know, first she has acknowledged his status as Messiah, Lord, Son of David. It's kind of interesting. And she's a Canaanite, right? Um, so there's there's some there's there's some reward given to her because she has sort of identified her willingness to self-identify in the premier category for ancient Jews, which is worship of the God of Abraham, which or the or the or God's Messiah, right, or God's Messiah. So that's sort of how she comes in to the group through, in this interaction. But there's, you know, you know, some of the some of the differences that we could explore in this text that, you know, sort of bear in thinking about. And that is sort of like Jesus calls or Matthew calls the woman a Canaanite from the beginning. Whereas a similar story in the gospel of Mark identifies her as Syrophoenician. Right. Which and don't know if you if you were to be, which do you think would be better to be in biblical times, the Syro Phoenician or a Canaanite? Which one do you think would register more friendly, say?

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Well, Canaanite always is a negative, right, in the Old Testament. And it's not it's not a common term. Is it mean? Does it occur anywhere else in this gospel?

Love Sechrest: I never that's a great question. I don't think I've ever looked at it, but certainly you're right. It's it is freighted. It sort of brings back all of the old wars.

Katie Langston: Right? right

Love Sechrest: All of the old fighting, the all of that intergroup hostility and conflict that happened for centuries leading up to this point in time. So it's really interesting that he talks about her that way. And I think in, in my essay on this chapter, it it shows, it shows to me that sort of what this encounter represents is an encounter across long standing, very troubled intergroup relationships. Yeah, really kind of like the 400 years of slavery on the part of African Americans in the United States, followed by another 100 years of, of legal discrimination and segregation, right, like long standing, fraught relationships. And so it sort of demonstrates a kind of similarity. Now, before I talk more about, I want to kind of switch and compare this episode to a really similar one in Matthew chapter eight. And this is the encounter between Jesus and the centurion. And what's really interesting about this is that in both cases, you have one person encountering Jesus, begging him for healing on the part of a young, a child that is associated with them closely. So the woman, it's her young daughter. And for the centurion he's called my servant, my male servant. And a lot of questions in the scholarly literature about what the best way is of understanding this relationship. But clearly, someone the centurion cares about quite a lot. Um, they're both gentiles. These are. There are two. There are three encounters between Jesus and Gentiles in the Gospel of Matthew. So these are two out of those three. And as a matter of fact, the third one is further on in Matthew chapter eight. But so both in both cases, Jesus is encountering a Gentile who is asking him for healing on the part, on behalf of someone else, someone who's sort of off stage, um, and, and in both cases, the way that Jesus encounters them is. So I guess it's not the same as the the wide welcome to all, all of the Jewish people that you see elsewhere in, in the gospel. Um, but in both cases, the, the petitioner really humbles themselves quite a lot. Right. To Jesus. The centurion says in verse eight, Lord, I'm not worthy to have you come under my roof. Only speak the word, and my servant will be healed. For I'm a man under authority with soldiers under me. And I say to one, go, and he goes, and to another come and he comes and to my slave do this, and the slave does it. And then Jesus, when he hears him, he's amazed and said, I tell you, in no one in Israel have I found such faith. I'll tell you, many will come from east and west, and will eat with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. In the kingdom of heaven. So like in both cases, they are complimented for the nature of their faith as outsiders. But I think it's interesting to kind of look at the differences between these two stories. There are a lot of similarities, but there's some pretty striking differences. The gender one is an obvious one.

Katie Langston: Yeah, right, sure.

Love Sechrest: Another one is a difference between like sort of the nationalities on the one, a Canaanite, where there's just a fraught relationship back and forth forever. W ho's on top? Well, it varies like depends on what sort of what decade you want to put your pen down and the timeline. But in the in the when it comes to the Gospel of Matthew, it was written as the smoke was still going up with over the in the aftermath of the war with Rome. So, so Israel had just been defeated militarily by Romans.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: And the Temple destroyed.

Katie Langston: And the Temple destroyed. Right.

Love Sechrest: Yeah. So here we have a very recent, but still a hot conflict right between Jesus and the other. Um, but in both cases, yeah. So so that I think is a is a very interesting, interesting contrast with the woman in the, the Canaanite woman. And as I reflect on, on these differences, it occurs to me that that Jesus is modeling or what can emerge from this and from thinking about how the Gospel of Matthew talks about the other and engages the other, is it sort of becomes a theology of allyship, right? In the contemporary world, we are really striving to find ways to create coalitions for justice, coalitions for peace, coalitions for love. So people gathered under the name of Christ who who ocate for the best for the other, as well as for their own self-interest. Right, right. And it seems to me that like thinking about how Jesus varied and his different comportment with a more recent kind of enemy, as in the centurion, he's much more respectful, right? The hostility doesn't come out quite as quickly. Right. Um, and the comportment with this Canaanite woman, right where the hostilities are very long standing. It's some it's I think there's some, some theological reflection we can do in terms of understanding some of the dynamics of allyships and, and kind of can manage our expectations about the difficulties of creating alliances with people groups who are different from ourselves. Anyway, I've been talking a lot and I but this, these are, this is why I think that the contrast between these two episodes and thinking about the racial dynamics and the complexities that we have today. Right. It's not just alliances between blacks and whites, but how do other how do the how do other people groups connect? And I, I kind of think you know of the centurion is representing he is speaking with Jesus and he's trying to he's trying to help someone not like himself. Right. Like he we don't know what this, this, this child was at probably not his, his offspring. Right. But advocating for someone else off stage. Right. Like that's an interesting thing to reflect on building a theology of allyship, but but humble, being humble in terms of regarding the other. And so Jesus Himself is not the is not the dominant people group in this time frame. Right? The Jews were defeated, right? So he does not represent a conqueror himself. Jesus is another, is minoritized, right? He has a minoritized kind of identity in, in both and in the whole Gospel of Matthew and all of these gospels, really, and to one extent or another. So, so like the humility of not wanting to speak for someone else, someone else, another people group. But I'm trying to enter into and hear from, you know, what their experience is and to, you know, call a call out what's remarkable. Oh, wow. This is not like what I've encountered at home. This is very different. And there's something really special about what I'm seeing in front of me.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: So can I let me ask a clarifying question if and I love where you're going with this, right. This idea of allyship and the complexity of it. Right. It's really complex. In these two stories is, is that is it the Gentiles that are the allies or vice versa? Is Jesus that or is it or is it different for both?

Love Sechrest: Yeah. I think what I'm trying to say is that all of the people with perhaps the exception of the. So if you're saying I'm a white person and I understand sort of where I stand in contemporary race relations, right, I, I couldn't I know what assets I have at my, at my fingertips and I know that others don't have them. Right. So if I'm, if I want to read myself into the story, where should I read myself? I think that that's a question that I use to engage with my students all the time, because I think most of us I so I used to I used to say this to my, to my students in reading the story of the Canaanite woman, with whom do you identify in this? In this picture. Right. And white students, pretty much Jesus, right? Like he is the and many oppressed students from oppressed communities would really bristle at the treatment of the woman because they could kind of read themselves into that, that kind of posture. Um, but that I think is troubling. Yeah. So because historically, Jesus himself was a conquered people.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Yeah. Right. Right.

Katie Langston: He wasn't he didn't have a lot of power. He wasn't a super powerful.

Love Sechrest: He was killed by the Romans. Hello. Right.

Katie Langston: Right, right.

Love Sechrest: Because he was he was executed, taken into custody and executed by the Romans. Yeah. Now, am I saying that white people are like Romans? Well, there are similarities, but they're differences. So it's not it's it's. Let's not be too quick to overidentify any one of these people groups with contemporary people groups because they're going to be similarities and differences all the way around. But what I am trying to show is that this is these two texts present a rich multiplicity of people groups. We have a Jew interacting with a Roman interacting with a Canaanite. Um, and, and I just thought that the complexities in all of those are worth reflecting on and, and and as Jesus is set up as the hero in all of these stories, he models for us, right? Like the the way that love for the other is, is shown. So one thing I think, for instance, there's a real difference between how Jesus encounters, he's much more respectful and deferential to the Roman than to the to the Canaanite right. And I and I kind of go back to that little saying from the sermon on the Mount, you know, how does it go again? Let me see if I

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Don't cast holy things before the well

Love Sechrest: Totally before the to to dogs. Don't throw your pearls before swine or they will trample them underfoot and turn and maul you, right? It's that wariness about being trampled. Yeah that that I see going on with the Roman. Right as that was awareness about being trampled. So Jesus keeps his dignity. But he's not going to he's not you know, he's not going to jump into a relationship quite until the other has humbled himself and said, yeah, this, this Roman says, you know, I have all the power here, but I'm going to take that off and show that, humble myself to Jesus, who is the other defeated, the defeated other in my, you know, context. So so that's those are the kinds of reflection that I want to try to, to understand by, you know, as we put ourselves in into the stories against some of the complexity. So, so for instance, when Jesus and the and then when Jesus and the Canaanite interact.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Yeah,

Love Sechrest: we have two minoritized groups, right, right. Interacting with each other and, and, and I wonder if there isn't something that minoritized groups, as they seek to build alliances for justice across some differences they may have had as well, that there may be something in terms of constructing a theology of allyship from there as well, that it's just it's hard to go across long standing differences, and it really does take a patience and a willingness to not disengage at the first sign of difficulty. Yeah, yeah.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: The woman the woman shows tenacity, right? And thank you for answering my two simplistic question with the to complexify that was really helpful. Yeah. I mean it takes humility. I've heard that word a lot. And in both stories it takes tenacity. And I wonder. I've heard a lot of interpreters say, well, the Canaanite woman teaches Jesus something, right? Yeah. Maybe it takes it takes an openness to having one's mind changed as well. Yeah.

Love Sechrest: That's right. To being taught right? To be as, yeah, even as a messiah, God's Messiah. Right. That Jesus learns from this encounter and demonstrates a greater openness to, to the other sort of in the back half of the of the gospel, all the way to the climax of, of the Great Commission. I do want to say, though, that even the Great Commission is interesting, because in no case does Jesus abandon his ethnic identity. Right? Right. What is the what is the Great Commission say?

Kathryn Schifferdecker: All right. So I've got it. Matthew 28 now the 11 disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshiped him. But some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the father, and of the son, and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always to the end of the age.

Love Sechrest: Yeah. So some scholars have seen that this this can be seen as analogous to a colonialism, a colonial impulse. Right? Like to take to take my teaching and and impose it on all nations. Right . That can be and and I think here's what I want to say. Well, I don't know if that mean, like Jesus was the conquered, not the conqueror. And so I don't know that from within the world created by the Gospel of Matthew, that the conquest idea makes sense. But certainly conquerors since then have used it.

Katie Langston: Used it in that way, right, right, right.

Love Sechrest: And misused this text and, and created all kinds of havoc with other people groups in the name of, in the name of, in the name of Christ in horrible ways. Conquest. So that's one, one similarity and difference, right? That we are, that we can see. But the other thing is that I don't know that a lot of people pay attention to, and that is the teaching them to obey all that I've commanded you part. Right? Jesus especially. It's the most Jewish gospel. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus talks about Torah and how not 1 jot or tittle of Torah will pass away. So literally he he's he's saying, you know, teach the nations Jewish particularity a Jewish way of being religious. Right? So so I'm not I'm disavowing any colonial sort of impulse that may come from that, for sure. I think that's important. It's an important difference that we need to a complication that's happened since these words were first put down. And we need to recognize and account for in our teaching. No, no, no conquest back conquest.

Katie Langston: Let's let's not do that.

Love Sechrest: Let's not do that at all. Conquest bad. Well, on the other hand, like there's an impulse. Not so much anymore. I don't think it's so much anymore. But there's. Do you sometimes get it, if quite honestly, in Christian circles, why can't we all just be the same? Why can't we don't want to see you as black. I don't want to see you as you know, in your particularity, I kind of want to see you as human. And that's not what's going on here, right? Right. Jesus is actually saying, no, no, my Jewish particularity is still what I'm out there teaching and I'm not there, you know, sort of talking about and showing the winsome ness of it when I talked to the other. So that that teaches me for someone who is often sort of the price of entering white spaces sometimes is trying to be less black, right? Like that's sort of what the assimilationist ideal has been, the melting pot ideal in in US culture. I mean, that is enormously empowering to me is to say, no, no, no, God does not require that of me. I am to be in all of my historical complexity and particularity and take the values of the sermon on the Mount and the Gospel of Matthew, and engage those through my own particular history and social, you know, social, social life.

Katie Langston: Wow. That's beautiful.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: That really is, I love that.

Katie Langston: Yeah, yeah. Thank you. Thank you so much. I'm sure that we could do another part or 2 or 3 on this. It's just an enormous topic, but just thank you so much for the wisdom and the insight into into these texts and and into the question. Just really appreciate you being here, Love.

Love Sechrest: Oh, yeah. Thank you for having me.

Katie Langston: Yeah, yeah. So much. And to those of you who are with us, either watching on YouTube or who are listening on your favorite podcast app, thank you for being here as well. You can get more resources, reflections, podcast episodes, videos, commentaries, courses, all kinds of things at enter the bible.org and of course rate and review us on your favorite podcast app or like and subscribe on the YouTubes. Share with a friend. It really does help us get the word out about this program. We appreciate you so much. Until next time.