Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 225 ｜ Most Misused： Psalm 46

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Monday. For those of you who have missed Theology Monday,

00:00:07.060 today we are going to do that. We are going to talk about a most misused verse. If you are new

00:00:14.160 to the podcast, you might not know that this is a series that I do. I do it every few weeks or so.

00:00:21.160 We have talked about Philippians 4.13. I think that we have talked about Jeremiah 29.11. If we

00:00:27.980 haven't talked about that yet, we will. We've talked about a variety of passages that are

00:00:33.680 used a lot in the Christian community or even in the pseudo-Christian community online, whatever,

00:00:41.260 in a way that is decontextualized and therefore is not accurate and therefore is not actually as

00:00:47.620 encouraging as the decontextualizer would like the verse to be. And we always talk about why the

00:00:53.820 actual meaning of a verse is so much better than our perceived and comfortable meaning of a verse

00:01:00.160 that we use to build ourselves up. When verses are used to glorify God rather than to just make

00:01:06.780 ourselves feel better about ourselves or our efforts or whatever, the result is always much

00:01:12.820 better, obviously, because God is more glorified, but it's also better for us. Before we get into this

00:01:19.660 particular verse that we're talking about today, well, I'll tell you, it's Psalm 46.5. God is within

00:01:24.680 her. She will not fall. I know you as a woman have heard about this before and have seen this shared,

00:01:30.540 but okay, let's talk about Psalm 46.5. This verse that you have seen all across Pinterest, you've seen

00:01:37.680 it in influencers, Instagram bios, you've seen it shared on Instagram, something that is very

00:01:45.000 motivating and very encouraging for a lot of women, but unfortunately is very often misused. The great

00:01:51.660 thing is it is a comforting and encouraging verse, but not for the reasons that a lot of people that

00:01:56.640 use it think. And then if we have time after this explanation, I'm going to answer some of the

00:02:00.980 questions that you guys sent me via Instagram. So here's the NIV version that you have seen a million

00:02:07.220 times. God is within her. She will not fall. Some versions say she will not fail. ESV is the version

00:02:14.740 that I use and it is God is in the midst of her. She will not be moved. Maybe you've seen that version

00:02:21.100 shared or posted on Instagram as well. Like I said, women love this verse. We see a female pronoun and

00:02:26.700 we're like, yes, finally, this verse is about me. This Bible verse speaks into my life. It's talking about

00:02:32.180 me personally. It's specifically intended for me and my situation. I can't wait to take it out of

00:02:38.180 context and to post it on my profile to make sure that people know that I am clinging to the word of

00:02:43.580 God and sell a product on Etsy that has this decontextualized verse on it. I see this verse typically

00:02:50.640 used across social media in a way that is supposed to make the woman who is posting it or maybe the

00:02:57.760 women who are reading it feel fierce and strong and steadfast and determined because God is within

00:03:05.140 them. And I get the feeling that sometimes, maybe most of the time, when this verse is used in that

00:03:11.920 way, it's being used in a way that is much less about pointing to the strength and the power and

00:03:17.240 the goodness and the awesomeness of God and more about pointing to the strength and the awesomeness

00:03:22.720 of the woman who is posting it. And as we always say on this podcast, if your interpretation of any

00:03:30.320 verse or of scripture as a whole is centered on you, if you read scripture as if you are playing the

00:03:38.000 starring role, if you study the Bible and constantly look to insert yourself into each passage or turn

00:03:44.500 every single passage into a metaphor for your life or see yourself in every Bible character, you are

00:03:52.020 reading the Bible incorrectly and your theology because of that will suffer. And theology is not

00:03:58.140 some like esoteric thing that only professors need to think about. It is incredibly practical.

00:04:05.380 It affects how you live, how I live our daily lives, how we deal with pain and sorrow and tribulation

00:04:13.180 and persecution and loss. And I want to back up before we get into this specific verse and what it really

00:04:19.480 means. I want to back up and make sure that I explain where I'm coming from in this and why it's so

00:04:26.880 important to have the mentality that I'm about to explain before we actually read scripture and when

00:04:33.120 we try to understand what scripture actually means. So if you perceive yourself to be the starring role

00:04:40.980 in the biblical narrative, that puts God in the supporting role. That makes God the guy who does stuff for

00:04:47.700 you. And that God is your genie. He is your wizard. That makes you the one who is being served by God.

00:04:54.660 You the one who is being worshipped by God, which then gives you the feeling that you are entitled

00:05:00.640 to the things that you think you need from God. And when God doesn't give you those things,

00:05:05.940 when you go through a tragedy or disappointment or whatever it is, your entire faith crumbles.

00:05:11.580 For example, if you read the story of David and Goliath and you make yourself the David in the

00:05:18.440 story and Goliath, all your problems and God, the one who is promising to make sure you take down your

00:05:24.020 proverbial giants, you are going to be really disappointed when the problems that you are

00:05:29.420 facing don't go away how or when you expect them to. In this disappointment, sadly, so often we see this

00:05:37.140 over and over again. It leads to faithlessness. At the very least, it leads to a wishy-washy kind of

00:05:45.140 faith that is based on people's feelings rather than based on the steadfast joy that Christ gives.

00:05:52.400 This is why theology matters. But if you read the story, if you read the story of David and Goliath,

00:06:00.280 and instead of looking for yourself, you look for the strength and the power and the glory of God,

00:06:06.480 then you see this passage rightly. Then you really have something to cling to. Then you really have

00:06:12.560 an anchor. Then we are moved to worship of the God of the universe. And we can say as Jeremiah did

00:06:18.860 in Jeremiah 32, 17, nothing is too hard for you. We can take our eyes off of our feeble selves and

00:06:27.460 onto God who proves that he doesn't need our human strength to do what he wants to get done. We can see

00:06:34.420 his faithfulness, his power, how he sometimes makes sure that all odds are stacked against him or

00:06:40.140 seemingly stacked against his people before blowing people's minds. And we can read the story and we can

00:06:46.540 say, wow, God, you are so good. Instead of, wow, God, when are you going to do that for me? When are you

00:06:53.260 going to give me my pebbles and my sling so I can slay my giants? Why haven't you done that for me yet?

00:07:00.120 Instead of being entitled, we can be grateful for the character of God that we see in this passage.

00:07:07.240 And we can move deeper into this passage and we can realize something even more glorious,

00:07:12.040 that David in the passage of David and Goliath is not us. He is a picture of Jesus.

00:07:18.320 Sinclair Ferguson says this in his book, Preaching the Gospel from the New Testament,

00:07:22.340 or I think it's actually from the Old Testament. Jesus is the true and better David, whose victory

00:07:30.060 becomes his people's victory, though they never lifted a stone to accomplish it themselves. So let

00:07:35.580 me repeat that. Jesus is the true and better David, whose victory becomes his people's victory,

00:07:43.180 though they never lifted a stone to accomplish it themselves. Now that is good news. That is way

00:07:50.640 better news than us being David. Compare that to this quote, a quote that I found by some pastor

00:07:57.440 that apparently people know on Pinterest, but I never heard of. His quote says this,

00:08:02.280 sometimes God will put a Goliath in your life for you to find the David within you. The reality is,

00:08:08.520 is that you and I are not David. We're not David. David is David. And in another sense is Jesus,

00:08:14.800 in a much deeper and a better sense. Uh, this story isn't about our strength. It's about God's

00:08:22.100 strength. It's not about our ability to save ourselves, but God's salvation of his people

00:08:27.580 through Christ who defeated the giant of sin and death by dying on the cross and rising again

00:08:32.520 three days later. What better news is that? Uh, how much more satisfying is that, that, that the truth,

00:08:39.600 uh, how much better is, is the truth, uh, that Jesus is the true and better David than the idea

00:08:47.000 that we have to pick up our stones and fight our own battles. Uh, the me centered interpretation of

00:08:52.220 this passage, any passage will lead to disappointment when we realize God has not promised to give us the

00:08:58.400 things that we want. Uh, but the Christ centered interpretation of this passage and any passage,

00:09:03.520 will buoy us through the most tumultuous storms. Uh, because while our strength wavers, his never

00:09:11.640 does. While our successes come and go, his success, uh, in saving us endures forever. It is fixed. It is

00:09:20.040 eternal. It is sure. It is worth clinging to. We should always remember and rejoice that God is a much

00:09:26.680 better God than we are, that we are really bad gods. Uh, as we continually say on this podcast,

00:09:34.460 our theology should be centered on God's glory, not our deservedness. If we are constantly recentering

00:09:41.860 every passage on how it glorifies God rather than ourselves, we are in really good territory

00:09:47.940 theologically. And a lot of our questions can be answered just by redirecting the glory to its

00:09:53.160 rightful owner, which is the God of the universe. Now, does that mean that scripture does not apply

00:09:57.960 to us? Of course, that doesn't mean that of course, scripture gloriously and graciously applies to us

00:10:03.840 graciously. We are affected by God's glory because graciously we have been included in God's glorious

00:10:10.680 plan of redemption through Christ graciously in Christ. We have become God's children, his heirs,

00:10:16.980 his ambassadors, his cheerful fellow workers, which means that his character, uh, affects how we live

00:10:25.260 our lives, our ability to endure our joy, his character and his will affect all of these things

00:10:32.200 in a very tangible way. So when we read scripture, of course, we ask, what does this mean for my life?

00:10:39.160 Uh, in the sense that how can this glorious truth of God that I read in this particular passage,

00:10:45.360 in whatever passage align my thoughts, my words, and my life better to who he is and how he has called

00:10:52.840 his people to live. And yes, we find comfort. We find strength. We find conviction. These are wonderful

00:10:59.120 and merciful byproducts of God's glory being the center of both the Bible and our lives. And this is

00:11:06.360 one reason why, again, as we've said so many times, the prosperity gospel fails. The prosperity gospel is

00:11:12.800 about your glory and not God's. Uh, but God does not serve us. He is not our genie. He is not playing

00:11:21.460 the supporting role in the biblical narrative or the narrative of our lives or the narrative of

00:11:26.560 eternity. He is the director. He is the producer. He is the casting director. He is the star. He never

00:11:32.880 moves from center stage. Now, what does all of that mean for this particular passage? Psalm 46, 5.

00:11:40.440 God is within her. She will not fall. So it means, first of all, that instead of looking primarily

00:11:48.520 for what this verse says about me, what it says about us and how this verse makes me feel,

00:11:55.060 we ask the question, what does this say about God? And in order to know that we always need context,

00:12:01.820 always. Another thing that we say on this show a lot is that you cannot know God intimately without

00:12:07.460 knowing God accurately. And in an effort towards accuracy, we have to know context. Uh, this psalm

00:12:14.060 is a psalm of the sons of Korah. You can read that right in your Bible. And here are verses one

00:12:18.460 through seven. It so helps just to read surrounding verses for us to remember, or for us to know what

00:12:24.600 a verse actually means. And the question we ask is not, what does this verse mean to me, but what does

00:12:28.920 it actually mean? And in order to know that we dive deeper into scripture, not deeper into our

00:12:34.160 feelings. So here are verses one through seven of this chapter. God is our refuge and strength, a very

00:12:40.480 present help in trouble. Now I just have to pause for a second because I posted on Instagram the other

00:12:46.440 day that I always have Bible songs stuck in my head that I play. We play every night. Um, this little

00:12:53.520 CD that came with this cute storybook Bible that we have. And one of the songs is God is our refuge and

00:12:59.160 strength, a very present help in trouble. And then it just repeats that a million times. I know I'm

00:13:04.140 an amazing singer. I should probably, that should probably be what I do. I should probably go into

00:13:09.080 recording kids' albums. Just kidding. I'll spare you. But that's the first thing that came into my

00:13:13.020 head. And I just had to sing that for you. And all of the moms out there who listen to the same CD

00:13:17.860 every single day, you know exactly what I'm talking about. That's why this podcast is called

00:13:21.800 relatable. Okay. Well, let me start over. God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in

00:13:26.780 trouble. Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved

00:13:31.580 into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its

00:13:36.440 swelling. There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the most high

00:13:42.880 God is in the midst of her. She shall not be moved. Or as the NIV says, God is within her. She will

00:13:51.620 not fall. God will help her when the morning dawns. The nations rage. The kingdoms totter. He utters

00:13:59.180 his voice. The earth melts. The Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our fortress. Now we

00:14:05.340 could spend hours upon hours. And frankly, we could listen to people much smarter than all of us talk

00:14:11.480 about this passage and how magnificent it is, how comforting it is, all of the different historical

00:14:17.060 intricacies that weave into this particular passage. But we don't even have to do that just to get a

00:14:25.120 better understanding of this passage and of this particular verse than the one that we are given from

00:14:31.100 Pinterest. So reading just these verses that surround that verse that we see shared so often, we see that

00:14:37.780 it's not talking about us as individuals. Like it's not talking about a particular woman. It's not talking

00:14:45.640 about me, Ali Stuckey. It is talking about the church. It's talking about God's people. And that

00:14:51.320 is such a more comforting reality, especially right now when an epidemic has broken loose and when

00:14:58.240 things seem so unsure, when it seems like the economy is doing a downturn, we don't know what's

00:15:03.440 going to happen in the election. This verse that says the nations rage, the kingdoms totter, but God,

00:15:09.660 he utters his voice. The earth melts. The Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our fortress.

00:15:15.420 So when we take a step back and we stop thinking, what does this particular verse mean to me and my

00:15:20.700 feeling and my life and my multi-level marketing business and my side hustle and my Instagram

00:15:26.340 following and my feelings for today and my entrepreneurial endeavor, and we realize that

00:15:31.580 this means that the God of the universe, the alpha, the omega, the great I am has promised to be

00:15:37.240 with his people that he has called to himself, that he has redeemed and reconciled through Christ,

00:15:41.800 that no matter what happens, that no matter what comes, that no matter what persecution comes our

00:15:47.400 way, that he is going to be with us, that he is going to strengthen us, that he is sovereign,

00:15:51.780 that nothing pushes him off his throne, that nothing surprises him, that his will is going to

00:15:56.500 be accomplished no matter what. What an amazing comfort that is to know that that is the God that

00:16:01.860 we serve, that that is the God that deserves all the glory and all the worship and all the praise.

00:16:07.440 What I am afraid of is that a lot of times, even though I'm sure there are a lot of people that

00:16:13.100 accurately use the particular verse that we're talking about for righteous comfort, for justified

00:16:18.760 comfort, because there is comfort in this verse, what I'm afraid of is that it is really a very

00:16:24.500 superficial and a very self-centered application of the verse that doesn't offer you the same

00:16:31.320 satisfaction and the same comfort and the same encouragement that this verse is supposed to give

00:16:37.160 you by saying that the God that we worship is so big and so steadfast and so amazing and so

00:16:43.880 outside of all of the goods and the bads that are in our life, where he's transcended over those things,

00:16:50.760 he is sovereign and supreme over those things, and he deserves all of our worship and our trust

00:16:56.600 and our faith. That is much better news than this verse, meaning God is with her, that says God is

00:17:03.840 within her, she will not fall, meaning that you are going to accomplish something at work. That's not

00:17:11.280 what this verse means. This verse means something so much better than that. And yes, we do take comfort

00:17:16.580 from it. Of course we do. We can read this at night and we can post this on our Instagram. We can post it

00:17:22.280 on Pinterest and we can take true comfort for it as long as we remember what it actually means, that he is

00:17:29.020 talking about his church. He is talking about his people. And yes, if you're a Christian, that does

00:17:33.760 mean you individually as well. But let's remember the bigness of God, the bigness of his plan, how all

00:17:41.800 encompassing his plan of redemption is. And really, as always, how much better, how much better it is when

00:17:50.480 we read his word in the context of the rest of his word, rather than extricating it and applying

00:17:56.780 some superficial meaning, some selfish meaning onto it to make it mean something that it doesn't

00:18:02.620 actually mean. So let's read verses four and five again. There is a river whose streams make glad the

00:18:09.300 city of God, the holy habitation of the most high. God is in the midst of her. She shall not be moved.

00:18:16.820 God will keep her when morning dawns. God will not fail his people. He will not fail his followers.

00:18:24.240 He will not fail his children. He will not fail his heirs. He will not fail his ambassadors.

00:18:29.500 And when everything is going on, we understand that God is the God of justice, that he will pay

00:18:34.160 back evil and that we don't have to worry. We don't have to worry about everything that's going on. We

00:18:40.060 don't have to be anxious about it. We don't have to fear. We don't have to believe that everything in

00:18:44.780 life is writing on the 2020 election. It's important. And I think that we have civic duties, but we don't have

00:18:50.560 to pretend like who is sitting in the white house is going to determine the future. God determines the

00:18:55.480 future. Like we don't have to worry about Corona virus ending the world. We already know what the

00:19:01.540 end of the world is going to look like. The Bible tells us, and God is going to bring it about in

00:19:05.840 the way that he tells us that he is going to in his word. Same thing with climate change. We don't have

00:19:11.180 to worry. We can be good stewards of the earth and we should be, but we don't have to worry about climate

00:19:15.560 change, a taking down the entire universe. That is not what the Bible says is going to precipitate

00:19:21.340 the quote end of the world. What we know for sure is that God is going to one day rule in perfect

00:19:28.180 peace, that a Satan is going to be bound, destroyed forever, and that we won't have any sorrow. We won't

00:19:34.540 have any anxiety. We won't have any fear. We won't have any cancer. We won't have any sickness. We won't

00:19:39.560 have any Corona virus. We won't have any political debates. We won't have any partisanship. We won't have

00:19:44.000 anything to worry about because the God that is spoken about in this chapter is going to follow

00:19:49.780 through on his plan to have ultimate and eternal victory. And that is why we rejoice. That is the

00:19:56.060 reason for the comfort coming from this verse. It is not superficial. It is not self-centered. It is

00:20:01.100 about God and his glory. And we are graciously beneficiaries of that glory. That's what this

00:20:06.900 passage is about. And as always, that is so much better than any kind of pithy Pinterest verse

00:20:13.740 that is decontextualized and used for some narcissistic reason. Again, I don't want to say

00:20:20.540 that everyone who uses this verse uses it in a narcissistic way. It's still a verse in the Bible.

00:20:25.700 It's still biblical, but we have to make sure that we are applying it to the glory of God and not to

00:20:30.360 the glory of ourselves. It's so much better that way. Okay. We've got a few more minutes and I do

00:20:35.320 want to answer some of the questions that you guys sent me on Instagram. And let me just say,

00:20:39.600 so I guess, well, maybe it's pointless to even say this on Instagram because well, you'll see why

00:20:45.420 it's pointless. So I get a lot of questions about to ask me to talk about things I've talked about

00:20:50.600 before, which is total, you know, that's fine because maybe you just started listening last

00:20:55.260 week. And so you don't realize that I talked about something a few months ago. No problem.

00:20:59.320 You know, people suggesting things that I've talked about in the past. I usually just direct them to

00:21:03.240 the episode in which I talked about that. Now it is like, if I just talked about something two days

00:21:08.580 ago, when I get a question on Instagram saying, why don't you ever talk about this? It can be like

00:21:12.560 a little bit irking, but I try to, you know, realize that obviously not everyone keeps up with

00:21:17.920 this every single day and there are people behind it. That's totally fine. But sometimes the questions

00:21:22.580 are accusatory. Like you never talked about this or you've never talked about this. Well, actually we

00:21:27.200 have, and you can go back and you can Google or you can search whatever app that you listen to this

00:21:32.900 podcast in. And sometimes you can find those. For example, I had two episodes on vaccines where I

00:21:38.280 talked to two different sides of that. We are going to dive into that subject again, by the way,

00:21:41.980 because there's a lot to talk about there. So the accusations of people who claim that I never

00:21:48.000 talk about something who haven't actually done their research, that can be kind of frustrating.

00:21:51.880 It's also obvious that some of the people that send me questions just don't listen to my podcast

00:21:57.000 at all because it's, they suggest something that I've talked about like so many times that I talk about

00:22:01.660 in every episode. So I guess this doesn't apply. This doesn't apply. I would encourage people who

00:22:07.940 do not listen to the podcast to not send me questions that are specifically for the podcast,

00:22:14.140 but you're listening to the podcast. So it doesn't matter any way. Someone asked me, for example,

00:22:20.260 about birth control. Just talked about that on Monday. I've talked about vaccines. Well,

00:22:27.780 I haven't talked about this particular subject, so I will give you a pass on that. Someone asked,

00:22:34.320 what is prayer for? I actually talked about that a little bit on Wednesday. If you are someone who

00:22:40.720 believes in absolute sovereignty of God and that nothing escapes his sovereign will, obviously

00:22:45.220 people would disobey his moral will, but nothing escapes his sovereign will. The Bible says not even

00:22:49.560 a sparrow falls from the sky apart from the will of the father. Nothing is outside of God's sovereign

00:22:54.760 will. Difficult for us to understand, but very obvious throughout scripture. You can listen

00:22:58.600 to my podcast episode titled Predestination. One of the questions that we have when it comes to the

00:23:04.240 sovereignty of God is why do we even pray if God has already preordained everything? There is this

00:23:10.940 thing called concurrence in theology where two different things are happening at the same time

00:23:14.860 that seem contradictory, and yet according to the Bible, it is so. And one of those things is the

00:23:19.400 absolute sovereignty of God and man's responsibility. So for example, in the story of Moses and Pharaoh,

00:23:24.580 where God says, I'm going to harden Pharaoh's heart, and I am going to basically cause him to

00:23:31.700 not let my people go, he still holds Pharaoh responsible. He still punishes Pharaoh. And in

00:23:37.360 the same way, like we can read in Romans 9, that this concurrence that God through Paul is trying,

00:23:44.120 or Paul, the apostle Paul is trying to explain this concurrence, this idea of God's sovereignty and

00:23:51.800 man's role and his responsibility and all of this. And basically, Paul just answers, look,

00:23:56.440 God is sovereign, who is the clay to say to the potter, why did you make me this way?

00:24:01.240 One of the questions that we deal with in talking about this theological topic of concurrence,

00:24:07.720 God's sovereignty and man's responsibility is prayer. The reason that we pray, if we believe that

00:24:13.760 God is fully sovereign and that nothing happens outside of his will, no matter what, which is true,

00:24:18.740 the reason why we pray is because God has also preordained prayer. He has preordained prayer as

00:24:26.620 the vessel by which, as the means by which his will is often accomplished. And so that is why we pray.

00:24:36.180 God has commanded us to pray and prayer has power. The Bible says the prayer of a righteous person has

00:24:42.440 great power. So it actually does something. Now, can we fully explain how that works? Because we know

00:24:49.440 that God is not limited by our time. So he's not waiting there. He's not like, Ooh, are they going

00:24:54.640 to pray? I don't know if I'm going to do my will or not. God is completely in control. He's even

00:24:59.300 completely in control of our prayers. And that is even a part of his sovereign will. So prayer is the

00:25:07.840 preordained means by which we request God to do things. And he will always act in accordance to

00:25:18.180 his will. Next question, how to discern music. Okay. To listen to and sing at church, also secular

00:25:25.740 music. So how to discern music. Okay. To listen to and sing at church. It's kind of like what we

00:25:29.600 talked about today. Is this song about me or about God? Is it about God's glory and us being beneficiaries

00:25:35.840 of God's character? Of course, that's fine. There's going to be songs that include us like

00:25:40.700 amazing grace is about God's grace, but it talks about us that saved a wretch like me. So there's

00:25:45.660 going to be applications to us. And I think that's totally fine, but we have to look at who this song

00:25:52.020 is actually about. And even more importantly, is it an accurate rendering according to the Bible of who

00:25:57.980 God is? For example, does the Bible say that God is reckless? The Bible doesn't say that God is

00:26:03.240 reckless. Now, sometimes I think that maybe we can think too hard about these things, but we do need

00:26:09.780 to make sure that the songs that we are singing are aligned with the Bible, not aligned with our

00:26:14.740 own feelings, not aligned with some fantastical view of who we think the genie in the sky is, but who the

00:26:20.620 Bible says that he is. We have ample resources in scripture to create magnificent and wonderful and

00:26:27.960 God glorifying songs. As far as secular music goes, I mean, the Bible says whatever is lovely, whatever

00:26:35.480 is pure. I don't think that all music, all so-called secular music is off the table, but I think that we

00:26:45.220 know that we shouldn't be listening to things that are corrupted and that we know represent or glorify

00:26:52.140 sin in any way. And I'm totally guilty of that. Totally guilty of that, by the way. But for the

00:26:57.660 Christian, that is the standard. Like we shouldn't be listening to things that we know glorify sin or

00:27:01.960 normalize sin, make it seem less important than it actually is. One thing every college student should

00:27:09.400 experience. Interesting. So I definitely didn't have like the perfect college experience. One thing I did

00:27:15.460 is I studied abroad and I went to Scotland. Probably wouldn't encourage you to study abroad right now,

00:27:20.840 especially if you're looking at some kind of like, I don't know, Asia trip, Iran study abroad program.

00:27:26.580 If you got one of those at your college, probably wouldn't do that right this second, maybe in the

00:27:30.820 future, not right now. For obvious reasons, I really liked our study abroad program to Scotland.

00:27:37.980 I learned a lot about the world, learned a lot about independence, learned a lot about mass transit,

00:27:44.160 things like that, you know, growing up in the suburbs that I didn't really have experience. And we also had

00:27:48.700 internships in this particular program. And I think that helped a lot with just growth and maturing,

00:27:55.760 learning, learning how to work under a boss in actual, like, you know, like a corporate type

00:28:01.700 setting, not just at a restaurant or something like that. And I think it helped. I think it really

00:28:07.800 grew me up in a lot of ways. And it was just an amazing experience to see different parts of the

00:28:13.120 world. I mean, Europe really is in so many ways, an amazing place with amazing history. Went to

00:28:18.220 Barcelona, went to Rome, saw Pompeii, went to Paris. I never went to Ireland, which was really

00:28:25.500 odd and sad that I never ended up doing that, but saw a variety of places in Scotland and London. And

00:28:33.680 I just went to a lot of amazing places. And if you can afford it, if you can do that,

00:28:39.420 if you have the opportunities to do that, great. If you don't, like college is going to be,

00:28:43.640 you know, just as, just as well that you, that you didn't go. It's perfectly fine. I would,

00:28:49.560 if you can get a job, I would say find Christian friends, stick with those Christian friends.

00:28:55.380 My encouragement to you would be to not get into the drinking and the party crowd that you think is

00:29:00.400 worth it. It's never worth it. Never worth it. Um, let's see any more questions. Would you adopt

00:29:08.620 children? Yes, we would. Uh, any more we're about out of time. Let's see. Jen. Oh, I did want to

00:29:20.380 answer this one. Uh, gender gap. Is there really one? So I've talked about this many times on the

00:29:26.440 podcast before too. So this person might not listen to the podcast. And if so, you won't hear your

00:29:31.400 question answered, which is sad, but there is a control uncontrolled gender wage gap. So there's

00:29:38.680 a controlled gender wage gap, but an uncontrolled gender wage gap is what it's called. So a controlled

00:29:43.460 gender wage gap means that if you're looking at what a woman makes versus what a man makes a

00:29:49.060 controlled gender gap looks at all of the factors. So you're looking at, if you're looking at two people,

00:29:55.820 a man and a woman, those are the only two genders, by the way, um, you are looking at education. You're

00:30:01.940 looking at job title. You're looking at experience. You're looking at number of hours worked. If all

00:30:07.860 factors are the same between a man and a woman, there is no gender wage gap, no gender wage gap

00:30:13.120 whatsoever. They make a dollar to a dollar. So the controlled gender wage gap, when you are looking at

00:30:18.580 all different factors doesn't exist. Now the uncontrolled gender wage gap, so that doesn't look at any

00:30:24.400 factors whatsoever. You're just looking at one random man and one random woman who happened to work. They

00:30:29.440 work at two different places. They got different education. They got different experience. They got

00:30:33.800 different job titles. The number of hours that they work, the number of, you know, the overtime shifts

00:30:38.140 that they have completely different doesn't factor for any of those things. Just the average man and the

00:30:42.300 average woman makes the woman makes 79 cents to every dollar that a man makes. But those, the government

00:30:49.620 has no role in this. This isn't sexism. These are the choices in many cases that women are making.

00:30:57.140 They don't work as many overtime shifts. They don't work as long of hours. They don't usually have a

00:31:04.640 major that leads to the kind of job that makes more money. So there aren't as many women who are

00:31:10.200 engineering or mathematics or even business majors. There are plenty, but there aren't as many. Most of the

00:31:16.540 time women major in social studies or they major in sociology, I mean, or they major in English or

00:31:23.180 they major in history, those kind of language, arts, communications, for example. And those don't

00:31:28.680 always, at least not as often, they don't lead to high paying jobs or as high as jobs in engineering

00:31:39.440 and things like that. That's a choice. That's not because the government is sexist. That's not

00:31:46.420 because of the patriarchy. What the people who propagate this gender wage gap myth want you to

00:31:51.980 think is that the patriarchy is oppressing this woman, that they're not choosing these jobs, has

00:31:56.820 nothing to do with female choices whatsoever, has nothing to do with female propensities that a woman

00:32:02.680 would never choose. They should never choose to stay home with her kids. She would never choose to be a

00:32:07.600 caretaker. She would never choose a job that pays less. She would never choose to work fewer hours.

00:32:13.460 She would never choose to be an English major that happens to only lead to a job that makes,

00:32:19.220 you know, not very much every year. She would never choose that. People are forcing that on her.

00:32:23.780 These are male standards that are being forced on her. Well, go back and you should listen to my

00:32:28.440 episode, Why Feminism Will Fail You, and you can listen to why one of the reasons why that's a myth.

00:32:34.060 But the fact of the matter is men and women are different. There's been so much money,

00:32:38.580 so many efforts pumped into getting more women in STEM, more women in science. And from what I've

00:32:45.840 read, the gap hasn't really been changed at all. The gender gap hasn't really been changed at all

00:32:52.040 because of those efforts. There are plenty of female scientists, awesome female doctors, female

00:32:57.580 engineers. Wonderful. But the funny thing is, the funny thing is, if you look at a list of jobs,

00:33:04.360 like so the Bureau Labor of Statistics, you can, I don't, I didn't say that right, but you know what

00:33:11.960 I'm talking about. You can look at a variety of jobs. So you can look at refrigerator repair people.

00:33:18.720 You can look at fishermen or fisher people. You can look at all of these hands-on blue-collar jobs,

00:33:25.480 and you see that they are taken up at 99% of these blue-collar hands-on jobs are taken on by men.

00:33:34.720 Whereas if you look at roles that have to do with communication, have to do with people, have to do

00:33:39.620 with networking, the vast majority of these jobs that have to do with the more artistic and the more

00:33:45.060 open and the more flowing and the more interconnected part of the brain are taken up by women. But feminists

00:33:50.660 don't talk about the gender gap in plumbing. They don't talk about the gender gap in the electrician

00:33:58.160 industry. They only talk about the gender gap in things like STEM, the gender gap in CEOs or lawyers

00:34:06.000 or things like that. But they say that has to do with sexism. But they would never say that the gender

00:34:12.740 gap in the plumbing industry has to do with sexism. So which is it? The fact of the matter is, most of the

00:34:17.740 time it has to do with female choices. But feminists don't want to believe that men and women are

00:34:21.960 inherently different. And that's why feminism is stupid. Okay, that's all I have time for today.

00:34:27.180 And I will see you back here on Wednesday.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - March 16, 2020

Ep 225 ｜ Most Misused： Psalm 46_5

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