Podcast: 5 Stories of Forgotten Women in the Bible (Colleen Searcy)

This article is part of the The Crossway Podcast series.

The Confusing, Forgotten, and Overlooked Stories of Women in the Bible

In this episode, Colleen Searcy discusses 7 women in 5 different stories of the Bible who exemplify faithfulness and teach us how to live in accordance with God’s word. These stories are sometimes confusing, forgotten, or even gruesome, but each one uniquely teaches us more about who God is.

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Topics Addressed in This Interview:

• Why Study the Stories of Women in the Bible?
• Hagar
• Shiphrah and Puah
• Deborah and Jael
• Anna and Tabitha
• An Accessible Five-Step Method for Studying Scripture

0:40 - Why Study the Stories of Women in the Bible?

Matt Tully
Colleen Searcy is a Bible teacher, a speaker, and the creator of the Meet Me in the Bible study series. She currently serves on staff at The Village Church in Flower Mound, Texas, and leads Bible workshops for churches around the country. Colleen, thanks so much for joining me today on The Crossway Podcast.

Colleen Searcy
I am so happy to be here. Thanks for the invitation.

Matt Tully
Today we’re going to talk a little bit about the stories of some key women in the Bible. And as we all know, the Bible has lots of female characters in it; some of them are very well known, but there are a number that are less well known. Maybe their characters that we just haven’t spent a ton of time focused on or paying attention to. And so we’re going to dig into a few of those characters that you actually highlight in a new Bible study that you’ve written with Crossway. But before we even get to that, I’m going to ask a kind of obvious question, but I’d just love to hear your thoughts on this, having done this deep study of some of these women. Why is it worth studying, specifically, the stories of women in the Bible?

Colleen Searcy
Thank you for that question. I do think it’s an important one. There are several layers to that answer. I think it’s important to study stories of women because women are God’s image bearers. And so to repeat language that sounds kind of obvious but it’s worth stating: God, in his infinite wisdom, chose to create two genders to image him. And so we need to know about the stories of women because they show us something about what God is like. I think we need to study stories of women because, Ruth and Esther aside, we don’t hear a lot about other inspirational narratives in the Bible about women. But they’re not absent; we just don’t hear about them often. And I would say the third reason we need to study these stories is in my Bible study, it’s straight Scripture. I take these big, ole’ chapters with narratives about women, and so these stories are God-breathed, and they’re profitable for teaching and correction and reproof just like the stories of David and Moses and Joshua. We just don’t hear them as often, and so I think that that was the motivator behind compiling some of these stories. And there’s just so much conversation right now about this. It’s a hot topic. What are the roles of women, particularly in the church? And so it just felt like an opportune time to go straight to the Scripture for answers. What picture does the Bible paint about women?

3:23 - Hagar

Matt Tully
That’s such a helpful nuance there and a helpful comment just because you’re so right. There is, in our broader culture—both the broader secular culture that we live in and even then the broader church culture in which we live—where there can be a lot of different opinions, a lot of confusion, a lot of contention around women and their roles in the church and society and the home. And I think it seems so wise for Christians to go back to the source, back to see what God’s word has to say. As you mentioned, there are a few women in the Bible that are probably very well known and very often studied. There are probably lots of Bible studies on Ruth or on Esther. There are books of the Bible named after them, so that’s probably part of the explanation for that. But there are plenty of other women in the Bible who are lesser known and less discussed. So let’s get into a few of the women that you highlight in this new study that you’ve released with Crossway. We’re not going to cover all of the women that you cover there, but I picked out a few that I thought may fall into that category of a little lesser known, perhaps, than some of the others. And the first one I wanted to talk about was Hagar. So Hagar is, obviously, in this story with Abraham and Sarah. And I think oftentimes when we think of that story, we think primarily in terms of Abraham and Sarah. And there’s probably even good reasons for that, that the main lineage of the people of Israel goes through Sarah and Abraham. But let’s take a moment to talk about Hagar a little bit. So I wonder if you could start us off by just reminding us who was Hagar and how does she fit into that story?

Colleen Searcy
I pronounce her name Hagar. Who knows? But I’m going to have to say it that way because I’m used to it that way. I may be wrong. Her story fascinates me because Hagar’s is a story of a woman that just didn’t have a choice. She was Pharaoh’s slave, and then she was given to Abraham and Sarah when they exited Egypt, and she then became Abraham and Sarah’s slave. And when Sarah, in her latter years, started getting panicked about not having an heir, she gave Hagar to Abraham so that she could have a son, because that’s how it worked back then. And then Hagar gets pregnant, and Sarah despises her for being pregnant. And it’s such a messy story. These two women, both with really difficult circumstances. Sarah has shouldered the pain and probably the reproach of infertility her whole life. She’s married to a man whose name means "father of nations," and they have no child and she’s old, at the point that she hands over Hagar. So you can feel her pain and you can feel Hagar’s pain. And what’s so interesting is that God doesn’t pick a favorite. He pursues Sarah and he pursues Hagar. And one of my favorite passages of Scripture is that when Sarah casts out Hagar and makes her go into the wilderness, and Hagar is expecting a child and pregnant and in the wilderness, the verses in the Scriptures say that the angel of the Lord "followed her into the desert." What a picture! That’s so intentional that God followed Hagar into the desert, and he speaks to her, and she says, "You are the God who sees me." It’s such a tender story. So amid all of the mess, God pursues and blesses Sarah and Hagar. It’s very personal the way he sees each of these women separately. And so that’s who Hagar is.

Matt Tully
I think it’s pretty common for us to read that story—or even just as we recall it or have heard it retold many times over our lives as Christians—we can think of Isaac, who is the child of Abraham and Sarah that was promised by God; this is the promised child—we can kind of think that’s the good side of the story. And Hagar and the child that comes from that relationship, Ishmael, is not chosen by God and is not the child of promise, so to speak. We can almost then view Hagar in that negative light, where she’s almost the villain of the story perhaps. So how would you characterize her character in this story? What role is she playing?

Colleen Searcy
I love how you just said that. When I started studying Hagar’s story, I realized how different, when you really get into it, how different the Bible portrays her than how we have traditionally portrayed her. Like you said, we’ve even seen her as almost like a villain or the competition.

Matt Tully
She’s there to spoil the promise that God gave to Abraham and Sarah.

Colleen Searcy
Yeah. And we forget she had no choice. Like we have to put ourselves in her shoes. That’s why I think historical context is so key to interpreting the Scriptures is when we put ourselves, as best we can, in the shoes of the people of that time, we would better understand that Hagar had no voice in any of this. She was owned by Pharaoh and then owned by Abraham and Sarah. I think it’s interesting, too, because if you go back in Abraham’s story a little bit more and you go back to Abraham going to Egypt because of a famine, he’s scared that Pharaoh’s going to kill him because Sarah is so beautiful—which I think is hilarious because she’s probably in her 60s. But Abraham hands his wife over to Pharaoh’s harem, and so Sarah is given no choice. She is handed over to Pharaoh for Abraham’s purposes. And then later we see Sarah treat Hagar the same way, where she hands Hagar over to Abraham. And so Sarah and Abraham both kind of have this "going to Egypt" moment to solve their problems, if you will. And Hagar, bless her heart, just doesn’t have a whole lot of choice, and so I think it’s such a helpful reminder that God loved Hagar too. And an interesting part about Hagar and Ishmael that I just learned fairly recently is we read "your son will be a donkey of a man" when God’s talking to Hagar. God says, "You’re going to bear a son, and his name will be Ishmael." Interestingly, that name means "God hears," and then she calls him the" God who sees." And so he’s seeing her, he’s hearing her. And again, if we go back to the historical context, donkeys at that time were seen as a sign of freedom. Kinda like we would picture like a wild stallion galloping in Montana, donkeys were a picture of freedom. And so I think how that would’ve landed on Hagar’s ears was "My son will live as a free man, unlike me." And so there are just so many nuances to this story that, like you said, we just didn’t grow up hearing all of the context behind it. And so there’s just so much to learn about God through the way he treats Hagar. And what’s also incredible is that Abraham and Sarah never call her by her name, but God does. He’s the one who calls her Hagar. And so there’s so much to learn about God as we learn about Hagar.

Matt Tully
I’m just struck by, and this is what you’re doing in this study, there’s so much to learn as we carefully approach the text. We open our eyes and look very carefully about what is being said, understand the historical context, look for those repeated words, those unique words. And as we really pay attention to the text, we might start to find that some of our assumptions about the story, or things that we’ve even been told, aren’t always the case.

Colleen Searcy
Yeah.

11:25 - Shiphrah and Puah

Matt Tully
Another category, this isn’t just one woman, but another category of women that you have a whole chapter on in this study are women in the book of Exodus. And in particular, in the early chapters of Exodus (Exodus 1–2), a lot of this story is all related to Moses and his early days and Pharaoh’s attempts to essentially kill him. So speak a little bit to who some of these women were and why you wanted to dig in.

Colleen Searcy
Yes. Thank you that I get to do that. Early in the story of Exodus are two mid midwives named Shiphrah and Puah. I think we should bring those names back. You just don’t hear those anymore. They were commanded by Pharaoh to kill all male babies. And they just didn’t. At the risk of their own lives, they saved male babies. And we see Shiphrah and Puah, and then we see Moses’s mom then, and Moses survives because of Shiphrah and Puah. And then Moses’s mom makes the courageous decision to put him in a basket and send him in the river, hoping that he’ll live. And then we see Pharaoh’s daughter make a courageous decision to take this baby that she finds in the river and raise him as a foster mom. And so there are so many layers of courage that we’re seeing through women just in the first two chapters of the book of Exodus. And in a way, I love how Moses the deliverer is delivered, in a sense, by these women. Their role in God’s story, and all of the courage exhibited by all of these women early on in the book of Exodus, I just find all of them very inspiring.

13:13 - Deborah and Jael

Matt Tully
Let’s talk about another couple of women, this time in the book of judges—Deborah and Jael. Deborah might be a little more well known. Maybe both of these are slightly more known and talked about at times. For those who may have forgotten, just remind us of these two women—where they fall in the story of the Bible and even how they relate to each other.

Colleen Searcy
Deborah and Jael are women in the book of Judges. Deborah was a judge, which is, again, so interesting. This is going to age me, and that’s okay. I embrace my age. But when I was really little, I can remember felt boards in Sunday school.

Matt Tully
Oh, I remember those.

Colleen Searcy
I’m in my early 50s, so I remember felt boards. And I could tell you about Gideon and I could tell you about Samson. They were judges, and I could tell you their story. But now on this side, I only knew very tiny parts of Gideon’s story and Samson’s story. But I didn’t grow up knowing that Deborah was a judge, and she was a really good one. I’m on staff at The Village Church, and we just finished, in women’s Bible study and in men’s Bible study (we both do the same thing), we just finished the book of Judges. God raised up Deborah as a judge in Israel. She didn’t judge in exactly the same way as those who preceded her. They were more warriors, and when we read about Deborah, she was a judge who dispensed wisdom in Israel. And the warrior, his name is Barak, he looked to Deborah for wisdom. The Bible tells us she’s a prophetess, and so God spoke through Deborah. Barak went into battle and battled for Israel because God told him to through Deborah. And so it’s such an interesting story. So that’s Deborah, and then Jael is a part of that story too. The Canaanite general at the time, his name was General Sisera, was so evil. You can read this story in Judges 4–5, but he is really terrible, raping Israelite women.

Matt Tully
In Deborah’s song, there’s this idea of his mom singing a song, praising him for all the women that he’s going to collect in battle.

Colleen Searcy
Yeah. She says, "a womb or two for every man." And so also what’s interesting in the song of Deborah is you see this juxtaposition between Deborah, the mother of Israel, and Sisera’s mom, and just how evil the Canaanite culture was, that the mom of Sisera was celebrating this womb or two for every man. And so Jael is a tent dweller, which is such a mundane job. She’s been pitching tents her whole life.

Matt Tully
And is she an Israelite?

Colleen Searcy
We don’t know. It doesn’t actually say. Her husband is not, but she’s probably not. She’s probably not an Israelite, but we don’t 100 percent know. We just know her husband isn’t.

Matt Tully
And that would be fitting, even if we don’t know for sure, as you said. But the thought that she might not be would even fit with some of the other stories of some key women in the rest of the Bible. There seems to be this recurring motif of women who are not Israelite—and I think of Ruth as a great example—not an Israelite who yet, nevertheless, display a level of faith or a level of association with God’s people in a way that’s really amazing.

Colleen Searcy
I love that. I think of Rahab too—another non-Israelite who shows a lot of courage. So Jael uses her skill of driving tent pegs into dry ground, and her strong arms that have developed over the years, and she uses that strength to put a stop to Sisera’s raping of women. And she drives a tent peg into his skull. And it’s a gruesome story, but it was a gruesome time. God gave Sisera into her hands, and she saved a lot of women and put an end to an evil general through doing something she’s done every day of her life, or a lot of days of her life, by driving tent pegs onto the ground. And so you’ve got these two female heroes in Judges 4–5. Barak is a hero too. I see them as this trio that God used to save Israel at the time. But yeah, that’s Deborah and Jael.

17:45 - Anna and Tabitha

Matt Tully
Let’s speed ahead to the New Testament, where we have the story of Anna and Tabitha. Anna is in the early chapters of Luke, and I’d love to hear a little bit more about her. And then Tabitha is later in the story; we find her in Acts 9. First, speak a little bit to Anna, and then tell us a little bit more about Tabitha.

Colleen Searcy
Anna’s one of my favorite characters in the Bible. She has just a few verses, but a couple of highlights on Anna. Anna spent most of her life as a widow. I have a tender spot for widows because the Bible speaks about widows a lot. God has a tender spot for widows. They really matter to him.

Matt Tully
Why do you think that is?

Colleen Searcy
I think because God cares for the vulnerable. The widows we see all through the Bible, he wants to make sure his people are taken care of and have their needs met. People are to be the hands and feet of Jesus and carry out his will, and so he often commands his people, "Take care of those whose needs aren’t going to naturally be met." And as a widow, in the Old Testament and in the New Testament, women really couldn’t go and get a job and support themselves if they were not married. They went without provision, except for the nation of Israel, because it was part of their law to take care of widows. So I think that’s why we hear about them so often in the Bible.

Matt Tully
Tell us a little bit more about Anna and what she was doing.

Colleen Searcy
I love her because we hear that she was a widow most of her life, but she spent every day at the temple praying and fasting. And then she gets to actually see the Christ child. She is there at the temple—of course she is because she’s there every day praying and fasting.
And so she is there on the day that Mary and Joseph bring baby Jesus to be circumcised, because they’re devout Jews. And so these two elderly people, Simeon and Anna, get to see the Christ child. I love that. Anna embraced a future that she did not expect. She did not expect to be a widow for most of her life.

Matt Tully
The text says that she was married for maybe seven years, and then her husband dies. And how old is she when she meets Jesus for the first time?

Colleen Searcy
I would need to go back and look. For some reason, eighty-four is coming to mind, so I hope I’m right. But I think she’s in her 80s. That’s a long, slow faithfulness. She was expecting to be married, expecting to have children, and she just stewards the gift of singleness so beautifully. She is fruitful. She is praying. She is fasting for her people. There’s no telling how many people she met at the temple while she was praying and fasting daily. And I wish we could have more of a peek into her ministry as she was at the temple daily. So she fascinates me in that way. The author is really careful to tell us that she’s of the tribe of Asher. And I find that interesting because when you go back and look who Asher was, Asher was considered the least of the tribes because of Jacob. Jacob was married to Rachel and Leah, and that’s a whole thing. And Asher is not the son of the beloved wife, Rachel, and Asher’s not the son of the hated wife, Leah. Asher is the youngest son of Leah’s servant. And so he’s considered the least of Israel. And so I wonder if there’s some connection there. I wonder if that’s why Luke wanted us to know she was of the tribe of Asher. But she’s a widow, and she just embraced a future she didn’t expect, and she made it a fruitful one. And she was faithful in a hard way, and God honors her, probably toward the end of her life, by going, "Here’s who you’ve been praying and fasting for all these years. Here’s the Messiah." And she gets to see him. That’s so incredible!

Matt Tully
I love how you even just picked up on that detail of her being from the tribe of Asher. I’m looking at it right now. It’s verse 36 of Luke 2. It’s probably something that many of us would just read past, not give it a moment’s thought, and just find that to be an odd little detail to include. But I just think that’s one of the things I love about your study and how you’re teaching people to read the word, which is to really recognize that every word is from God. Every word has meaning and significance. And when the biblical authors give us a detail like "of the tribe of Asher," there could be something really significant there that would be worth us pausing for a minute, maybe pulling out a commentary, look at our cross references, pull out a study Bible, and just see what might be going on here. Why is the author telling us this? Speak a little bit more to that—the discipline of looking at the details when it comes to studying the Bible.

Colleen Searcy
Just to piggyback on what you just said, there’s so much behind the words. And so even when we think of what would feel to us like tedious books, like Leviticus, or tribe names or genealogies, because all of those details are God breathed, to enter into daily Bible reading of a genealogy with this posture of, God, you breathed these words out for a reason. Will you open my eyes to see what you want me to see in these details? And I also think, too, about the different literary styles that God gives us in the Bible. It could have all been historical narrative. I feel like that’s the one of the way he loves us is he gives us poetry, and wisdom literature, and history, and genealogies—all the numbers. Matt, one of my favorite stories was we had a woman in Bible study who was not a Christian. In fact, she came to a Bible study just to kind of gather ammo. She wanted more arguments against the Bible and why it was so silly. And she was saved listening to Matthew’s genealogy in Matthew 1. She’s an engineer, and listening to all of the numbers, the Lord used that orderliness to grant her faith in him.

Matt Tully
It’s so interesting that you emphasize the diversity of the Scriptures, even the different genres, as something that makes it so wonderful. Because I think for many of us, that’s maybe part of what makes it feel so intimidating is they wish that everything read like a Gospel. It’s a story, there are characters, there’s a plot almost. And they get to something like Proverbs or some of the books of the law or even some of the Old Testament narrative, and there are places I don’t know, there are unfamiliar names, things happen that just feel weird and not explained. So what would be your encouragement to someone who wants to feel the way that you feel about those books, but they would have to be honest and say that just feels intimidating and overwhelming?

Colleen Searcy
I would say because all of these different genres, intimidating or not, because they are all God breathed, they’re God’s words to us. There’s something in them. He’s showing us a facet of himself. Just push in, even though it feels intimidating. I used to say it this way to my kids: there’s some layer of life where you love and embrace mystery, where you love and embrace the hard work it’s going to take to figure something out. For my boys, it’s music. They’re both musicians. They do not get that from me. It’s so crazy. They both have perfect pitch, and I can’t sing my way out of a wet paper bag. But they love mystery in music. When you listen to music, you kind of want there to be a part of the music where there’s some dissonance, whether that’s through the lyrics or the written musical notes. So everybody has a layer of life they’re willing to—and even like some challenge—to get to the other side. And so for those that would say the Bible is not that for me, but I want it to be, could you maybe approach it that way? A great movie or a great musical score or an athletic event where without some push through and some hard work and some perseverance, there’s something on the other side of the perseverance that’s golden for you. That is certainly true of the Bible. It’s so true that if maybe you could lean into what layer of life that you’re willing to persevere, and then layer that on top of Bible reading, that there’s something about God I’m going to learn on the other side of this discipline that I’m going to need in my life to help me live, maybe that would help.

Matt Tully
That’s so good. Going back to the very beginning of your answer, underlying all of that for the Christian is just this deep, theological conviction that this is God’s word and, ultimately, God is on the other side of that hard work. God is on the other side of the uncomfortable confusion for a while or just not understanding fully that we can have a confidence that if we continue to press in, through the power of the Spirit and our own hard work, God will reveal himself to us. That’s so good. Let’s look at one last woman in the Bible, and then I had a couple others, but we just don’t have time. So let’s talk about Tabitha from Acts 9. What do we know about her?

Colleen Searcy
Tabitha is probably a single woman because no husband or children are mentioned in her story. I put her story alongside Anna’s because Tabitha’s ministry is to widows, and so that’s the way she images the Lord. Her ministry is she does care specifically for widows, and it’s such a tender ministry: she makes them new clothes. She doesn’t gather old clothes from other people; she makes them clothes, which is so dignifying. I just see that as such a tender ministry. And in this story Tabitha dies, and we see the widows mourning for her. All of it’s tender. Her whole story is tender in the book of Acts. But Luke wrote the book of Acts, and Luke calls her a disciple. So I think that feels really important to women to see a woman be named as a disciple. I think it’s important to single women to see this beautiful picture of Tabitha being fruitful and multiplying and stewarding her gift of singleness well. When the widows come to Peter in their mourning and they show Peter the clothes that Tabitha made for them—

Matt Tully
That’s just such a beautiful picture in that scene.

Colleen Searcy
Oh, it brings tears to my eyes. I can hardly talk about Anna and Tabitha without getting emotional, because they’re really tender, beautiful stories about women who took God very seriously and who spent their lives very, very well. And outside of this, we hear a lot in the church about being a wife and a mother. And it’s okay that we hear a lot in the church about being a wife and a mother, but I wish we would talk more about what it looks like to be a faithful single woman. And we see that in the lives of Anna and Tabitha, as well as Martha and Mary of Bethany, which is a different story.

Matt Tully
And just to put a bow on Tabitha’s story, it doesn’t end with her death. Speak a little bit to what happens, in case someone’s forgotten. And just by virtue of what happens, I think it’s worth talking about.

Colleen Searcy
Peter prays over her, and she is raised from the dead, which is incredible. And again, I’m always hesitant to add my speculation because I feel the right weight of handling the Scriptures accurately. But I’ll carefully say here that I wonder if this is God loving widows, by going, I’m not only going to demonstrate my power and my authority over death—which he certainly does that—I’m also going to demonstrate my kindness by giving this faithful, diligent disciple of Jesus who cares for you, I’m going to raise her from the dead, and she’s going to continue her ministry. There’s just so much we learn about God through his attention to Tabitha. There is so much displayed about him here. Yes, his power; yes, his authority over death; but also just his tenderness and kindness by doing so.

Matt Tully
And it is just amazing thinking about the way that she’s described early in this passage. She was full of good works and acts of charity, and she was beloved, obviously, because the people were mourning her death. And then it’s interesting to see the end, in verse 42, where after Peter’s raised her from the dead, "it became known that she had come back from the dead throughout all of Joppa, and many believed in the Lord." So through this miracle, God was glorified and people were drawn to him, even through the death of this beautiful saint.

Colleen Searcy
And just you reading the end of her story reminds me, and I’m not going to go all into it because I know we’re running out of time, but it’s so similar to the Samaritan woman’s story that through her testimony, many believed. And then so we see through the Samaritan woman’s testimony, many came to know Jesus. And then we see through Tabitha’s resurrection, many came to know Jesus. And again, just going back to why study the stories of women is how pivotal their role is in the kingdom of God, whether it’s the book of Exodus or in the New Testament. It’s so exciting.

Matt Tully
Yeah. That’s amazing. Maybe just a last couple quick questions before we go here. This is an eight-week study, and so if you had a ninth week to add to this study, which biblical woman would you want to include and why?

Colleen Searcy
Oh, that’s a tough one. If I had a ninth week.

Matt Tully
And maybe this can be a bonus because as we’ll get into with my next question, there are ways people could continue on and do another week with this woman that you’re about to tell us about with the method that you’ve described here. So go ahead.

Colleen Searcy
Oh man. Okay. Probably Lydia. I originally had Lydia in with Anna and Tabitha. Lydia is a business woman, so I thought she would be super interesting to add in there. We see her story in the book of Acts also, so it would just be easy to continue with Lydia.

Matt Tully
She was a major supporter of Paul and the apostles, right? She was helping to fund his ministry.

Colleen Searcy
Yes. In fact, if I remember correctly, that’s how the Philippian church started, with the jailer. The jailer goes back and tells his family about what happened in the jail, and his whole household is saved. And Lydia comes to faith, and her whole household is saved. And I think that’s the beginnings of the Philippian church. And you are right. Bible scholars believe she was the financial support for that church plant. And so I’d probably put her as the ninth week. I’d love to eventually do another volume. With the women I chose for this study, I chose pairs or groups of women so I could have as many as possible. And I also thought it would be super interesting to see relationships, whether it was sisters or cousins, like Elizabeth and Mary. I thought that would be interesting. But if I do another one, I would for sure want to add Rahab. David’s wives would be interesting—Abigail, Michael, Bathsheba. Those would be interesting women. Mary of Magdalene. So I think there’s a whole other study. Ruth and Esther, like you said, they’re their own books, so those are their own studies.

33:43 - An Accessible Five-Step Method for Studying Scripture

Matt Tully
Maybe just as a last question, speak a little bit more to this Bible study series in particular that you’ve created. What is it about this study series that’s a little bit distinct and maybe sets it apart from other Bible studies that men or women might have done in the past?

Colleen Searcy
Meet me in the Bible birthed out of a question. I’ve been speaking and teaching in churches for about fifteen years now, and I’ve been teaching the Bible for a long time. I’ve also been a classroom teacher. I started out as a biology teacher, and so a lot of the fuel behind this came out of the classroom too. But as I spoke at all these different churches, I kept getting the same question from the church leaders: How do we keep people studying their Bible when the corporate Bible study at the end of spring or at the end of fall is finished? And they would kind of close their workbooks, put them on the shelf, and go, "What are we studying in the fall?" And I got that question everywhere I went. And I also observed that although thousands of women do Bible studies, few feel confident opening their Bible and reading it on their own. And I just wanted to help solve that problem. And so Meet Me in the Bible is a little bit different than a traditional Bible study that you do corporately in churches. It’s not a fill in the blank. And I think those are helpful. I’ve done them too. And I’ve helped write some of them. So I’m not saying those aren’t good, because they are. I wanted to offer something different that helped men and women grow in their confidence of reading the Bible on their own. And so Meet Me in the Bible is this doable five-step framework. It’s time tested. I didn’t come up with it. It’s observation, interpretation, and application. But it’s just five steps. Meet Me in the Bible framework is five steps that move you through those three stages of Bible reading. And every study comes with a bookmark with prompts that move you through observation, interpretation, and application. And so when you’re finished with Meet Me in the Bible, The Stories of Women, you can take your bookmark and you can keep studying the book of Acts using the exact same prompts. And then you could go back and study the book of Luke using those exact same prompts. And so Meet Me in the Bible is a framework that helps you study any book of the Bible. And I’ve seen that happen now with the churches that have used this framework is if they study, for instance, I have Abraham and Jacob. I have the story of Abraham and the story of Jacob. I don’t have the story of Joseph out yet, and so I can’t tell you how many churches went, "We couldn’t stop with Jacob!" And they just used their bookmark and the framework that they had learned, and they got their ESV Scripture journals, and they used the Meet Me in the Bible bookmark, and they kept going through Joseph. And so that’s the hope behind it is just to help men and women grow in confidence that God wants to meet with me in my study of the Bible. God wants to meet with me in my study of the Bible, and he’s delighted to help open my eyes to understand his Scriptures. The hope is that they’ll feel confident to open the Bible and read it on their own or with the group. It’s a very flexible framework. It works in church auditoriums and it works across your kitchen table. I’ve done both, and it works. So that’s the heart behind it.

Matt Tully
Wonderful. Colleen, thank you so much for telling us a little bit about this Bible study framework, as you said. It is such a simple, accessible, doable thing, but it really does help us to take that step forward in our Bible study to really understand what God is trying to tell us through his word. And thank you for giving us this little preview of some of the stories of women in the Bible that you’ve actually explored in one of these studies. We appreciate it.

Colleen Searcy
Well, thanks for having me on. This was super fun.

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