Preach it Girl
Join Auntie Lala for a SASSY retelling of stories from the Bible—a jaunt so lively you’ll think the scriptures were written just yesterday, not thousands of years ago.
On the Preach it Girl Podcast, you’ll feel encouraged and loved, but you’ll also laugh—hopefully out loud—at the quirky characters of the Bible. These beloved men and women falter, fail, and flop—just like us. And just like us, they’re altogether forgiven.
Now that’s the best news fit to preach!
Preach it Girl
Mary at the Tomb: A Holy Wake-Up Call
The resurrection story is far more radical than we often realize. While churches debate women in ministry, Jesus himself chose Mary Magdalene—a woman freed from seven demons—to be the first witness and announcer of his resurrection.
In this powerful Holy Week episode, we journey to the empty tomb through Mary's eyes. What must it have felt like to lose your dearest friend to a brutal execution, only to discover his tomb empty days later? Mary initially didn't recognize Jesus, mistaking him for the gardener. It was only when he spoke her name that revelation dawned. This intimate, personal moment transformed history as Jesus commissioned Mary to announce his resurrection to the waiting disciples.
The language Scripture uses for Mary's assignment is significant—the same Greek word later describes Peter's proclamation of salvation to Cornelius. Yet tragically, the disciples initially dismissed her testimony. Had they completely rejected her message, they would have missed receiving the Great Commission in Galilee.
This sequence reveals a profound truth: God often works through unexpected vessels, challenging human restrictions on who can share divine truth. We confront the handful of Pauline texts often weaponized against women in ministry, showing how they address specific cultural situations rather than contradicting Jesus's clear command for all believers to go and make disciples. When reading Scripture holistically, we discover a Savior who consistently empowered women in counter-cultural ways.
The question remains: are we missing God's voice by silencing those he has chosen to speak? Join us as we reclaim the radical inclusivity of Jesus's ministry and break free from human-made restrictions.
Welcome back to Preach it Girl podcast, where we're not just sitting around waiting for Jesus to return and Skinny Pop to make us skinny. No, ma'am, we are staking our claim on the territory the enemy stole and giving him a terrible, awful, very bad day. All right, it's Holy Week, y'all, and we are going with Mary to the tomb in Matthew 28. Now, mary is the one that had seven demons cast out of her. I don't know, I might have had seven demons in me when Jesus found me. All tore up from the floor, up, right, right. Mary is the one who never deserts Jesus, not on the cross, not ever. She saw it all and she never left him, wasn't she something Jesus said? Who loves the most? The one who is forgiven a little or the one who was forgiven a lot? He was her friend and he loved her. Okay, I'm going to read this passage Matthew 28.
Speaker 1:After the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb and behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. He was kind of making a show like I'm just going to sit here. His appearance was like lightning and his clothing white as snow, and the fear of him left the guards trembling. Trembling and fell like dead men. But the angel said to the women do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for he is risen. As he said, come see the place where he lay. He is not here. In another passage it says Mary clung to him. I don't know if it's Luke. It says Jesus talked to him and they didn't recognize him. She recognized him when he said her name. It's just too incredible to comprehend.
Speaker 1:I want you to close your eyes and imagine your best friend, your husband, your wife, a child has died a terrible, awful death. Maybe cancer? Maybe your child dies at the hand of a drunk driver, something so unfair, someone you could never imagine your life without. And then my mom has said that a couple of times about my dad. When he passed, she just couldn't imagine they were married since they were 18. But just as you've acknowledged, this awful thing really happened. They're truly gone. Something unheard of happens.
Speaker 1:Of course you don't believe it. You saw it happen, the goriest of deaths, and Mary didn't believe it. I mean at first, in the other telling it says that she asked the angel, like where did they take Jesus? Because I want to know where his body is so that they could anoint him, because they had brought spices and oils and stuff. I can see where. You just wouldn't believe it.
Speaker 1:But then you hear your name called by the one you love. Imagine hearing that person that you love so much that you've lost, hearing them say your name. That's the moment Mary knew it was Jesus talking to her, because she was just so like how could this be? She just assumed it was the gardener. Now Jesus tells her to go tell the disciples I'm coming to Galilee. Y'all wait there, I'm coming and I'm alive, just as he told him he would be. But I mean, you know who could believe it? Jesus tells Mary to announce his resurrection to the disciples and give them a message. That word report announce. That is the same word that described what Peter would do announce a message of salvation to Cornelius and his household when he went to tell them about Jesus. It was that same word.
Speaker 1:So look, the disciples. What do you think that they did when Mary came back and said Jesus is alive and he's told you to do this. What do you think they did? Well, it wasn't as bad as what the Baptist leaders did to Beth Moore when she stood to speak to them. I don't know if y'all heard of this, but there was a Baptist convention and Beth Moore, a very prominent female preacher, was there to speak and they turned their chairs around and refused to acknowledge her. And you know what those Baptist ministers and elders? They missed the word of the Lord from Jesus to them, given to Beth, and it's a dang shame, but the Lord gives you free will. So they missed out and she handled it graciously. She's a lot more gracious than I am. The disciples did not believe her. They thought she just lost her mind, I guess. But Peter ran to the tomb and looked inside because he was hoping. You know it did arouse hope in them and they did what Jesus told them to do. So guess what happened next? God forbid we miss the great commission. So right after Jesus is risen from the grave, he meets with them.
Speaker 1:The 11 disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had directed them through, mary. Jesus said to them all authority in heaven and on earth, let's just sit here. If they hadn't listened to Mary, they wouldn't have gotten the great commission. That is the mission statement for all us Christians and it is for everyone. And goodness, let's see that word, teaching. Actually we can look it up real quick. So teaching, the word is didasco, a form of a primary verb, to teach. It means to teach. I love how Jesus just makes it so simple. I said teach now. Go and teach. Who are we teaching? Make disciples of all nations. That means everybody.
Speaker 1:This Great Commission was given to everybody who follows Jesus, who has received Jesus in their heart and has received his salvation. And he tells us, every one of us, male, female, slave, free, poor, rich, sick, well, to go and teach what Jesus had told them, what Jesus commands his words. He said for us to go and do it. He did not say not to do it to some people. How do we know that? How do we know it wasn't just for the disciples? That just doesn't make sense. The Holy Spirit was given and his gifts are given to everyone, because the prophet Joel tells us that those Holy Spirit gifts are for everybody, that the Holy Spirit would be poured out on men and women. Everyone would be filled with the Holy Spirit when the Messiah came and they receive him. There's a lot of gifts that the Holy Spirit gives and there were no qualifiers as to who gets what. It went on everybody and the Lord decides who gets what. There's no qualifiers on the Great Commission.
Speaker 1:His words were come to me. I have something good for you. I'm going to love you so much that you're not going to want to live a life that only serves yourself anymore. It's going to feel empty. We get a new life, so he transforms us that we don't even want to do the stuff that we used to do.
Speaker 1:And then there's times that we get tricked. That devil, he's a liar and a tempter and he's a deceiver. So sometimes he does get in there and try and make you think that you want to do that stuff again. And then you realize I don't want any of that and I don't want to get trapped. And God says he'll always give you a way out if you just trust him. Come on now, trust Jesus, he's the one with the way out. I'm on to that new song. I'm not going to sing it for you because y'all don't want that, okay.
Speaker 1:So if Jesus tells you to do something, don't let anyone tell you not to do it. You know there's just as many women who think that women aren't supposed to preach. I want you to know you can, and not only can you, but you are told to by Jesus. So you better get out there doing it. Maybe your gift isn't teaching, but you still have the great commission where you are to tell people about Jesus and to share your testimony. What did he do for you? It's that simple. He changed my life and he changed who I was from the inside out. Nothing else can do that, nobody else can do that.
Speaker 1:So those few scriptures that Paul writes in the Bible that are about women teaching and leading or speaking in the church, they've been taken out of context. Because when we look at what Jesus said, how he commanded us and how he told us to do what he did, paul didn't contradict Jesus. Paul wrote specific restrictions about women in the church that were specific issues that had to do with tradition and culture in that singular instance. And church, not the whole church, not everybody, not all. My goodness, you'd have to be daft to conclude that, with all the evidence and words of Jesus, if you look at the Bible as a whole, you can't come to that conclusion, because you would be contradicting Jesus. Wake up, grow up. God is trying to get some work done up in here and some folks are tearing down the very thing Jesus is trying to build. So stop putting that dum-dum sauce on biscuits and calling it gravy. Okay, I love y'all so much I can't wait for you to return and listen again to the next. Preach it, girl.
