“The Mary We Forgot” with Rev. Dr. Jennifer Powell McNutt

by on October 4, 2024

Just as it’s important to understand our own stories to make sense of our lives today, it’s also crucial to examine the stories within the church’s history to better understand how they are playing out in the present.

That’s why we’re excited to welcome back author, professor, and church historian The Rev. Dr. Jennifer Powell McNutt as she explores the life of a woman who played a significant role in the ministry, burial, and resurrection of Jesus: Mary Magdalene.

For too long, the church has misunderstood Mary Magdalene—her story has often been confused, scandalized, and undervalued. Yet, she was present at the resurrection. But why was this so important? Why was she chosen to witness and then commissioned to “go and tell,” becoming the first apostle?

This powerful story reminds us that God calls the ordinary, imperfect, and unexpected to uniquely reveal the gospel.

Listener Resources:

About Our Guest:

Jennifer Powell McNutt (PhD, St. Andrews University) is the Franklin S. Dyrness Chair of Biblical and Theological Studies at Wheaton College and professor of theology and history of Christianity. She is an award-winning author, a fellow in the Royal Historical Society, and an ordained teaching elder in the Presbyterian tradition. McNutt serves as a parish associate at her church and regularly speaks at universities, seminaries, and churches across the country. She and her husband co-founded McNuttshell Ministries, which serves as a bridge between the academy and the church, and live with their three children in Winfield, Illinois.

Episode Transcript:

Dan: Rachael, I don’t know if you remember, but we began a conversation moons ago about the fact that we live in a very solipsistic, sort of narcissistic era where we think what’s happening in our world is unique and has never occurred before. So one of the things we did was we began to talk about the fact that both of us would never call ourselves anything, I would never call myself anything but an amateur with regard to church history. But we began to say we need more church history. And again, to introduce our guest, we are beyond fortunate to have Jennifer McNutt, who is a, gosh, a remarkable presence with regard to both the intersection of history, biblical thought, and just life. So as a Wheaton professor and certainly a very prestigious chair, an ordained PCUSA, pastor plus an immensely powerful writer between Rachael and I, we’ve called you the Allender Center historian. Now again, you don’t have to take, that could be,

Jennifer: I love it.

Dan: a probation or it could be a curse, but we’ll just say for the moment that we are so grateful to have you interacting with us through this year particularly, but hopefully many years to come as sort of the voice. Again, bringing an awareness that oftentimes we don’t read the Bible with an awareness of church history or we don’t deal with the particularities of our own life and story in this era, knowing there are other eras that can actually inform. So Rachael, do you want to introduce this exquisite book we get to talk about today?

Rachael: Sure. Well, I also just want to say welcome back. It’s really good to have you back and looking forward to this, but, you have a book coming out in a few weeks called The Mary We Forgot: What the Apostle to the Apostles Teaches the Church Today. And just so looking forward to talking more about this because I already know that there are people going well, which Mary? There’s so many, so Marys and I have the privilege of having an advanced reader copy, and I just want to say I love the cover. And yeah, we’ll talk more about ways people could find it and check it out. But yeah, tell us a little bit more, which Mary, we are talking about.

Dan: And not only which Mary, but how did we’ll get to this, but how I want to hear how you came to write this.

Jennifer: Okay. Thank you so much for having me back. It’s such a delight to see you both and just to get to chat together. Appreciate your time reading the book and just already your feedback and encouragement is such a blessing to me. It’s such a big deal. So the book is about Mary Magdalene, and already there have been some people who have thought, oh, this must be the Virgin Mary, or probably there are other Marys that most people don’t even know about that are in the Bible. Mary Lappas, Mary the mother of James. So there are others that we could highlight. But this book in particular is about Mary Magdalene. And I think in understanding where I’m coming from in terms of my joy, excitement, curiosity about this topic is that I grew up in the mainline church, but in the evangelical side of the mainline church. And so knowing the women of the Bible, knowing their names, knowing some of the titles that were used for them, that was not a mystery to me. That wasn’t left out of my readings of scripture. That was part of my spiritual formation, my understanding of Jesus. And I had, have, a mother who is in ministry or is retired now. So I really learned about that. But with the exception I would say of Mary Magdalene and right and in my church, I think in my experience in my side of the Presbyterian tradition, it was just still really confusing and unclear what her name meant. If you use her name as an example, what did you intend by that? Who is she, exactly? And so in a way, she’s always been a bit taboo. I would say just again as a reference, a very ambiguous reference to use. So I’d rather had, would rather use someone like Phoebe or Lydia or some of these other women. They had clear examples. So there’s part of that curiosity. I share some of those stories in the book about going to see Jesus Christ Superstar and being confronted with this representation of her that I think is very common in our culture. And up until recently, I think it’s been very common in thinking about her more as a penitent prostitute who loves Jesus and certainly in that musical has kind of an inappropriate love for Jesus and longing for Jesus. And so again, it was like she’s off limits. I don’t know what to do with her. But you can’t escape her. You can’t escape her because she’s there at the resurrection. And so what do we do with that? I remember I wrote this, my statement of faith, my freshman year of college, I was a religious studies major. I was in my first theology class. I was asked to write the statement of faith. And I included that the women were there at the tomb and they witnessed the empty tomb. They witnessed the resurrected Christ. And my professor said, why does this matter? And he wrote that on my paper and I just thought, yeah, why does this matter? So I think I’ve been grappling with that question for so long. And as a woman with the call to ministry, I wanted to know Mary Magdalene want to understand how does she function in our salvation story. So those are some of the personal sides of it.

Dan: Well, quick aside, the only means by which we were able to be able to make connection with as prestigious a presence as you was due to the fact that you did go to Westmont. So would that professor have been Tremper Longman III or, because it doesn’t sound like what Tremper would’ve written.

Jennifer: No, no, it wasn’t Tremper. I’m not naming any names. And I don’t even think it was, I don’t think it was punitive. You know what I mean? I think it was thought provoking.

Dan: It’s very thought provoking. And Tremper can be very thought provoking.

Jennifer: Yes, he’s wonderful.

Dan: Shall we say more ironic than that comment would’ve been. But that’s a total aside back to the book. So as you began to ponder this, it’s obviously been, I mean the book is so rich, rich. The kind of reading that I found I couldn’t put down, but I couldn’t keep going. So when I would read 10 to 20 pages, it’d be like, wow, I got to digest. I almost have to walk and begin to let myself ponder what you’ve invited me, particularly through some of the historical sections, which we won’t have a chance to come into much conversation about, but they are very rich. So your unique scholarship, but back to, if you don’t mind me knocking on the personal door, what is it about her that has intrigued you? Sadly to say I just have not been intrigued by her.

Jennifer: Okay, well, so yeah, I think that one of the things I really am trying to do, so is bringing my background, my work in theology, bringing that with the history of biblical exegesis and then my calling to the church and the academy and bringing all three of those things together to actually draw her out of that muddle, out of the confusion, out of that ambiguity. And honestly also out of the over elevation that can happen in other circles because while I’m often connecting with Christians who don’t know much about her, but maybe know a lot about the Bible or other figures, there are some sectors of our culture and world where they would elevate her as the source of divine power. And so it’s also, I think the book can actually help us to retrieve Mary Magdalene for the church today as a faithful model of what it means to follow Christ. But actually seeing her is seeing Christ, it is about her because the gospels have invited us to know her name, to know a bit of her story and to see how prominent she is in our salvation story. But the point of her is to point to Christ. And so kind of bringing her back into the church as someone that we can reference, that we can look up to, that we can. But again, because want to follow Jesus. And so that’s my motivation and I’m really interested in that for lots of different women of the Bible. I mean, one of the projects that I did for Christianity today with Dr. Amy Peeler was writing these articles about the Virgin Mary, about Phoebe and then Mary Magdalene as well. And so this book is coming out of, I would say, lots of different parts of me and also just the work that I do.

Rachael: I just want to say side note, this is connected. And a side note. I grew up in a tradition that was very adamant women should not be prophesying, preaching, teaching any kind of leadership in the ministry. And you just mentioned Dr. Amy Peeler, and I just want to say she was a senior at Oklahoma Baptist University when I was a little freshman coming in, and she was a biblical studies major. She was one of the only women, and she won the preaching award and got to preach at chapel and I was actually a nursing major at the time and getting this call, I mean, I’d already had a call to ministry, but I was like, no, I’m called to church ministry. And I was like, no, I’m doing ministry in another way where I can make money and I don’t have to deal with these crazy people. And also like I can’t do church ministry, Jesus, figure it out. And there was something about witnessing her that actually gave me courage and imagination to switch from nursing to biblical studies. And in some ways, as I’ve read your book and we’ll get more into it, I actually feel really heartbroken that Mary Magdalene is not, I obviously know when you say Mary Magdalene, I know who that is, but I have certainly conflated her and not because I just have conflated her, but because we’ve been invited to conflate her through church history, which is I just am so grateful for the many stories and I hear in some ways that she could have been for me as a young person, another kind of woman exemplar who showcases what it is to be faithful to calling and to follow Jesus.

Jennifer: Yeah, absolutely.

Rachael: And I think we’ll get into this more, but I think so much of her story, especially for our listeners, is really good news for trauma survivors who have been in a healing journey and could see someone who got to be one of the first witnesses to the resurrection and is considered a tower of strength, as you have said, and considered an apostle of the apostles. So I’m just want to say thank you for this work because it’s drawn me back to all kinds of parts of my own story. But just thinking about the many women and men certainly who have come before us and will come behind us.

Jennifer: Yes, absolutely.

Dan: So who is this woman that you’ve been hanging out with?

Jennifer: Yeah, well, so we are invited in Luke chapter 8. That’s probably one of the most important passages for us to not skip over. I was noticing in many of our Bibles today that there’s a heading that highlights the parable of the sower is in that chapter, and it doesn’t always include reference to the women who ministered to Jesus and traveled with Jesus. So sometimes the headings can be very misleading. So, so we get to discover her as someone who has been healed by Jesus from demon possession. And we are told that she had seven demons. And Jesus does tell us in other parts in Matthew’s gospel that seven demons is really extreme and that there’s significance in that number. So we get to meet her when she’s already been healed. We get to meet her when she has been invited and included in Jesus’s ministry. And that matters too, because we can see other passages where the demon possessed man in Luke 8 actually in the same chapter and asked Jesus after he is healed, can I come with you? And Jesus says, no. And so, but Mary Magdalene was invited to be part of this. And so she travels with Jesus from Galilee to Jerusalem and then we’re going to see her. The gospels are very careful to show us that she is at the cross. She sees Jesus on the cross, she sees Jesus in tombed enter and then sealed in the tomb, the dead body. And then she also will see the empty tomb, and then she will witness the resurrected Christ as the first witness of the resurrected Christ according to John’s gospel and Matthew’s gospel. So anyway, so we see all of that. She’s not the only woman that is there. Luke 8 says that name’s also Susanna and Joanna. And then there are also many women who are traveling with Jesus. And so it completely changes the way that we think about Jesus’ traveling ministry and hopefully is a paradigm shift I think for a lot of people when they think about it. And actually I think The Chosen is helping us a lot in re-imagining traveling ministry by including women. They were there, they were in the room, they were receiving teaching, they were disciples, which means student. And so they’re receiving Jesus’s teaching. And then even at the resurrection moment, the angels say, remember what he told you, remember what I told you. So those are clues for us in putting together this story. And then I think the other significant thing is that she is introduced to us not as a woman who is the wife of someone or the mother of someone, but she is connected to the place of Magdala. And the church has for centuries thought about that in a layered way, has thought about that as not only her geographical location, but also a detail that scripture has selected for us to think about her as a tower of strength means tower. And so she is a tower of strength in regards to her faith. And so that is something that is not just part of the Roman Catholic tradition, but it’s also part of our Protestant tradition. I think a lot of Protestants wouldn’t know that.

Dan: Well, and given the reality that she’s not only named geographically, but that doesn’t occur a whole lot. So to say that the notion of Rachael from Philadelphia is not, it’s not how we introduce one another in the context of the podcast. So the fact that there really is a layered, in some sense, a geographic metaphor to describe her. How is it, and again, I know this is a vast question, but how have we conflated her with the Luke seven woman who is referred to as a known sinner? I mean, there’s just too many elements to which we lose her. And then I want to ask underneath it, how come?

Jennifer: Right, thank you. It’s such a good question. And I think that the challenge to answering that question first is that people aren’t doing a sermon on Mary Magdalene. So you have to search around in the early Christian archives or whatever, you have to search around for those passages where she appears. What did the earliest Christian leaders say about her when she’s part of the story? So I’m tracing this through multiple traditions, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Roman Catholic Church, and then the Protestant church to try and understand there’s actually, there’s a lot of continuity and there’s some important differences as well. Each branch has struggled to see her. So the problem of muddling Mary Magdalene is not just one side of the church’s issue. It’s been all different sides at different moments. So there hasn’t always been a consistency in how she’s been understood. But consistently in each of the branches, there is a recognition that she is an apostle even in the Protestant tradition. So again, pulling that part of the tradition out I think is really valuable. But the muddle is clear. I mean it has to do with really two main issues from what I could track. And that is that there are four accounts of Jesus being anointed by a woman. And in each of the gospels there’s an account of Jesus being anointed by a woman. They are complex. There’s similarities and differences, and there’s a lot of debate about how to understand these different stories, but only one of them names a woman. The other three examples, the woman is unnamed. And so what happens in the early church is that the three women who are unnamed get conflated with the one woman who is named, and that’s Mary of Bethany, who is Lazarus’s sister in John’s gospel. But when Mary of Bethany is conflated with all of those accounts, she’s conflated with the woman in Luke 7 which I think is the one that most people know. They know that particular story. And the complexity with that particular story is that the woman in Luke s7 is described as a sinner woman. And in the history of the church, when a woman is sinful, it has been seen as a euphemism for sexual sin. And so she has been cast as a prostitute, even though she’s not necessarily a prostitute. And there’s very good arguments that would say, she isn’t a prostitute, so we don’t know what her sin is.

Rachael: Or even if she is, there are structures, oppressive structures in place, there’s human trafficking, there’s all kinds of layers of just the way we read into the text that we might not be seeing even if that were the case. And Jesus welcomes the sinful woman.

Jennifer: Exactly. No, it’s so true. So when I think I need the disclaimer to say that just because I’m saying that Mary Magdalene is not a prostitute and I want to get her story right, ’cause I think it matters for how we see Jesus. It doesn’t mean that the Bible has ever taught that prostitutes are not welcome and saved by Christ in the kingdom of God. And so there’s kind of both things to note. Thank you for bringing that up.

Dan: The conflation still, it’s like, are we just not good readers to the Bible? And that’s as simple of an answer, which I don’t think is true. I think there are other factors, but I’m curious as to what you think is engaged in us obscuring this tower of presence who’s an apostle.

Jennifer: Yeah, well, I think that’s the first kind of step that seems to take place. And then the next is that there are just so many Marys in the Bible. It’s the most popular name for Palestinian women at the time. And so I, mention in the book, I sympathize. I’m a Jennifer from the late seventies, so I get it. How do we distinguish each other? But so that’s kind of the next layer. And in my, I always want to be as understanding as I possibly can. And one thing to recognize that is just to kind of appreciate what the medieval church is doing. As I think about the Western story at least, is that a lot of times people would see that if you were named after someone else or after a saint or whatever, that sometimes they would talk about all of you together. And they didn’t just do that about women. They also did that for male names as well. And so it’s a way to remember multiple people over time. And I think you can see it in, you can really see it in Roman Catholic churches today. When you go, even if a church is dedicated to one saint, sometimes there are other saints by that name who are remembered and referenced in that place. And that’s what the medieval church was often doing. And so we can see that dynamic at work and at play. So in the Western Church it becomes that Mary Bethany is actually Mary Magdalene, and so Mary Magdalene is the sister of Lazarus and the sister of Martha. But on the eastern side, Martha is really elevated and there is some confusion over Martha and Mary Magdalene and some of the distinctions between the two of them. So I think that scripture is inviting us actually to know multiple women who’ve been faithful, and that does actually a pretty good job of distinguishing different women from each other for us, if we can pay attention.

Dan: Well, one of the factors, and we’ll get to whether or not I’m in the ballpark or not, but your description in one chapter, I wrote you this, that I just read the chapter and wept, and it’s Mary who’s called to hear and to go, it’s just a rich and powerful chapter, that rich book. But particularly for me, that chapter captured some of the reality of how disruptive it would have been in Jesus’s culture to have the very first witness of the resurrection be a woman. And she is the one who informs all the other disciples. So in some sense, he has given her in terms of eternity, a powerful place that nobody else has to be the very first. So I’d love for you to begin to put words to what’s involved in that, that she is the first person and she’s a woman. And in that culture that would not have been expected.

Jennifer: Thank you. Yeah, I think we have to draw attention to it, not out of some chronological snobbery or whatever, but actually because it is totally unexpected is so baffling and so surprising. And when you read the history of the church as they’re trying to grapple with this, there are lots of reasons they try to give and maybe downplay her or say like, oh, maybe Jesus really intended to do this instead of that, so let’s sit with the text. I think the first thing that’s really helpful when we read her encounter with Jesus in the Garden is to stop looking at her as this penitent prostitute. The encounter that she has with Jesus in the garden is as a woman who had been possessed by demons and was healed from that. And so now I think the encounter is completely different. What her tears mean and how Jesus commissions her, it’s really transformed when we come to understand her better and then understand what Jesus is doing. But when he calls her by name and when she recognizes it, and then he sends her with the commission to carry his words to the disciples, and as a witness, he is validating her voice. And there’s a few different things in the text. The text doesn’t shy away from sharing with us, and that is that she is weeping, that she weeps a lot. And we probably know from our own culture that the world doesn’t know what to do with women’s tears often. And it was the same back then. I mean, one of the first accusations against Christianity is made by Celsus, a Greek philosopher in the second century who calls her the frantic woman and says, don’t believe in Christianity because it’s based on the testimony of this frantic woman. And so we can already see that it was a problem then, and I think it continues to be a complexity. And so we have to appreciate that they kept this in and they kept this in. And I think when you read that whole passage of John 20, when you get to the end and John says that, I could have written so much more. I could have told you so much more, but everything that I told you is to point to the fact that Jesus is the Messiah. So Mary Magdalene’s story, knowing it rightly, and reading rightly helps us to see that Jesus is the Messiah, and that’s why it can’t be hidden. It can’t be lost. And actually her voice is elevated as a valid witness. And I think you can see that actually in the epistles. The gospels are written after the epistles. So we want to think about that as well, so.

Dan: A whole nother conversation. But yes, to start with this, look, he could have revealed himself to any of the disciples. And the major figure writing about her in that regard is John, and we know John is, I mean… It’s one of the conversations I wish to have maybe 200,000 years after being in the presence of God to just go, Hey, John, can I just ask, what was it like to name yourself as the disciple whom Jesus loved? Do you remember back in the 20th, 21st century, we used the word narcissism maybe too much, but tell me a little bit about your way of referring to yourself. So the fact is he is giving her, an immense, shall we say, platform. And in that the church has been very ambivalent about her role. So how has the church worked to obscure that?

Jennifer: Yeah, I think that sometimes it has served the church to have women be encouraged to proclaim, to preach, and sometimes it has been seen as a danger. And I trace some of that in the history of the church because one of her legacies, so this is really interesting too, is that she is not just seen as telling the disciples, the remaining disciples, and then the other followers telling them what she has seen. But each branch of the church has then an understanding that she continues and missions that she’s an evangelist, she’s a preacher. So there is a remembrance of that in each of the branches of the church. But sometimes it is more controversial than other times. But one of the ways that it has functioned when it has been a value added to the life of the church is when they want to claim apostolicity, for example, for France in the history of France, that church in France is seeking Apostolicity through Mary Magdalene. The way that I understand this, as I read the New Testament it has to do with 1John 1, 1 John 1 says that what we have received is based upon those that have seen and heard and touched Jesus. And so there is that direct exchange that happens. And so Mary Magdalene becomes this way, this avenue for claiming apostolicity for the church in different locations. And then in the Protestant reformation for the women reformers, Mary Magdalene becomes the reason why they should be permitted to preach and to proclaim.

Rachael: I have to say that for me was one of the moments of reading your book. I was genuinely like, what? And part of that is because my faith tradition, or at least one church I was a part of that was a part of the Southern Baptist denomination, but had its own unique interpretation of Calvin, maybe some of the Neo-Calvinist movement definitely were like, women are not authorized. So when you were the women of the Reformation were saying, Hey, my authority actually can be traced to Mary Magdalene and her authority given by Jesus. It was shocking to me. I actually almost threw the book across the room. I’m like, what? It’s wild.

Jennifer: It’s wonderful but the history of women’s reading of the Bible is lost to us. We do not know that story. And so what is happening is we’re on this loop. It’s like Groundhog Day, we’re on this loop. We are rereading the next generation’s rereading. Oh wait, there’s Mary Magdalene. Oh wait, there’s Mary Magdalene. It’s like keeps repeat, but we’re not telling each other over time that these people had thought that before.

Rachael: And there’s active forces trying to go, oh, let’s just forget. We knew that troubled the waters. So let’s just…

Jennifer: Put that aside. Yes, exactly. Yeah. And I think in that vacuum then you see a lot of attention to other texts like the Gospel of Mary and this other kind of movement of a feminist movement that seeks to elevate her outside of what the Christian faith, the boundaries of what the Christian faith provides to make her more than what really weird to remember her as pointing to Jesus.

Dan: Well, as you come to a very, to me very poignant moment, can I read it? You say, in John’s gospel, she is initially the only follower to discover the empty tomb and the first to encounter the risen Lord. The fact alone is remarkable and should lead the church to pause and reflect what could Mary Magdalene’s presence at the empty tomb mean for the church today? And I remember as I read that, again, I can’t read a book without making my own marks, and it’s circled in a kind of frenzy. This wasn’t just nota bene. It’s like, oh, this is a really important category, and we’re doing that already, but I just want to make sure that you have room to be able to say, how does this strike down? And again, this might be… how does this strike down the particularly arrogant portions of a kind of patriarchy that has, in one sense eviscerated the life of a woman in the interpretation, the reading, the speaking, the preaching, the teaching. I mean, we’ve been in a long season and at least my lifetime of women being almost guilty to actually follow into the life of proclamation.

Jennifer: Yeah, thank you so much. Yeah, it was such a powerful moment for me too, because I think there is behind that my own desire really for the church to grapple with this. And I appreciate that I speak to lots of different, I have students from all different traditions and coming from all different circumstances in their church, but too often I think this is set aside as like, oh, that’s peculiar or curious when it is actually the moment that is of first importance is what Paul says. And in 1 Corinthians he says, the resurrection moment is of first importance. This is the message. And so I just want to invite the church to see a wall between life and death. That tomb represents that wall that come through, broken down, pulled down, all those things, and it’s just to see her peek in to the tomb and to sort of cross that threshold. That’s how I wanted to think about it. And then I think there is a priestly calling that is happening with Mary Magdalene that she is being called by name, that she is given a mission, and as this woman who is a witness to the coming of the kingdom of God, and by that witness is pointing to Jesus, not only as Savior and as Messiah, but as Lord, as King, and then calling and sending her, and she runs to go tell the disciples. And because you have to put yourself in that time. And I think I appreciate that scripture doesn’t hide the fact that the disciples were not sure at first that it was okay to receive what she said. And so it matters that Jesus then appears in the flesh to confirm her testimony that’s what’s going on. And so as a result of that, there is an opening up the very next segment. If we go from Luke’s gospel into Acts, we see the women in the upper room in Acts chapter one, and then it’s Pentecost, and there is the proclamation of the fulfillment of the Joel 2 prophecy that men and women will prophesy and point to Christ. And so the church should be changed. It should be transformed by that moment. Should read those two things together.

Rachael: It’s when I was reading this book and it took me back to actually, and I just feel really grateful because it took me back to when I got licensed as a pastor, which for me was profound because I actually went to grad school to be a professor because I was trying to find a way to be faithful to my calling that would be allowed and and I had to do an internship, and I did it with the Vineyard Community, which was also like, what’s this charismatic stuff? But I loved it. And so they licensed me. Obviously they do ordain, but it’s just a very different process. And so licensing was just, you can do weddings and you can do funerals, and we are affirming your pastoral call in this community. But they gave me a Bible and they wrote in the entrance, a woman was the first witness to the risen Christ and the coming kingdom of God, you, Rachael, will be a powerful witness to the risen Christ. He made no mistake when he created and called you to proclaim, embody, and demonstrate the good news of Jesus. We bless you.

Jennifer: Praise God, praise God.

Rachael: And I was like, oh. Because for me, that actually I was 27 was the first time I ever realized, even though I had been reading the Bible, that someone called out so clearly a woman was the first witness to the resurrection, and that means something. So back to your professor’s question, it means, it means something means, but I think it’s interesting. This is not a knock on my pastors that they didn’t say a woman named Mary Magdalene was the first one. It was just like a woman. I think that that’s part of the gratitude I have. It’s not that, like you said, it’s not that then. I mean, she is elevated above all else, just like I don’t think Paul or Peter or John or Matthew or Mark or any of the people who bear a name, but her name means something. It locates her as an actual real person in time and place who witnessed Jesus in time and place. And it was very sweet to be taken back to that memory and to be kind of invited back to a deeper curiosity of like, oh, if this has been obscured, what other things have been obscured that I might need to spend time recovering or learning anew about who Jesus calls and empowers and invites to be a part of his followers.

Jennifer: I’m so blessed by your story, and I just say, praise the Lord. That’s so incredible. Thank you.

Dan: It is so sweet. So sweet. And to say holy tears. Holy, holy tears and tears…

Rachael: I don’t like crying on the podcast, but happens.

Jennifer: I’ve cried at the pulpit so many times. See, it’s just Mary Magdalene tears. There you go.

Rachael: Hysterical women.

Dan: We love this book so much that again, we’re in that realm of look, you can pre-order it, and it’s a big deal to pre-order. And if you go to Rachael, I don’t know what I’m talking about, but there’s something about Allender 50.

Rachael: Yeah, if you are, because the book is coming out October 16th, is that correct? 15th, October 15th. And if you go to bakerbookhouse.com and place a pre-order there and use the discount code Allender 50, you can get a 50% off discount and free shipping. So I would definitely encourage you to go do that today.

Dan: And if you buy 50,000 copies, Rachael and I will show up and cook carbonera for you. That’s awesome. I’ll do that. Would that be great? You, as long as you pay for the flights.

Jennifer: Can I come too?

Dan: Absolutely. 50,000. You better show up.

Jennifer: I know, right?

Dan: Oh, thank you. There’s so much more. But again, I hope we have wetted the appetite and thirst for in some sense, the simple, glorious, good news of how Jesus disrupts every person, every culture, but invites us into a level of surprise. Not for the sake of shock, but surprise for the sake of delight. So this has been a sweet delight to be with you and to read this lovely book.